The Hermeneutic Value of 'Pierre Menard, Autor del Quijote'

Given the examination of the literary performance of philosophy and the philosophical performance of literature, this article addresses the question of the hermeneutic value of Borges’ work, titled Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote. This question is approached from the perspective of
Gadamerian hermeneutics in dialogue with the concept of experience in Aristóteles and Hegel.
The points of connection facilitating this dialogue are the problem of historicism and hermeneutic experience. This dialogue is necessary as Hegelian dialectic, being inherently teleological, implies the death of hermeneutic endeavor. Indeed, the goal of experience is the totality of knowledge present in a presumed “ultimate interpretation” of an absolute Quijote. The aim of
this article, therefore, is to demonstrate how Gadamer liberates the concept of experience from the tyranny of Hegelian dialectic, thereby redefining hermeneutic experience and ensuring the enduring validity of interpretive exercise. The article concludes with the exposition of redefined
hermeneutic experience: its essentially novel character allows for an interpretive endeavor ad infinitum, wherein the tradition of the interpreter and the tradition of the interpreted belong to the same inexhaustible universal historicity.