Realist Hermeneutics: Pareyson’s Challenge to New Realism

Maurizio Ferraris’ “new realism” rejects postmodern constructionism and insists on the unamendable independence of reality. Yet his dismissal of interpretation-friendly ontological accounts as inherently anti-realist overlooks richer possibilities within the hermeneutic tradition. I argue that Luigi Pareyson’s hermeneutic ontology provides the missing ground for Ferraris’ strong realist insights. Through a triadic analysis in which I pair Ferraris’ concepts of unamendability , positivity , and documentality with Pareyson’s treatment of inexhaustibility , congeniality , and testimoniality , respectively, I demonstrate that to interpret is to participate in the active constitution and disclosure of the real. Pareyson’s theory of “ontological personalism” effectively shows that the resistance of reality derives from its relational excess, not abstract independence. Synthesizing their views yields a realist hermeneutics capable of affirming truth’s binding character while recognizing the situated and plural nature of all knowledge claims. Against naïve objectivism and subjective relativism alike, Pareyson carves a fruitful path for contemporary debates about the nature of reality, scientific objectivity, and the politics of truth.