 Taken together, phronesis and dialogue provide the essential starting point for the development of Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics. It is a starting point in which these two key elements, phronesis and dialogue, can be seen as together founded in, as well as being elaborative of, the idea of hermeneutical situation or situatedness—an idea that has a Heideggerian provenance, but which Gadamer also develops in his own terms. The idea of hermeneutical situation is basic to Gadamer’s approach and underpins many of his key concepts even though it often remains in the background. It is elaborated, sometimes implicitly, through notions of event and encounter, and in a way that increasingly draws attention to the role of the other (although the self-other relation figures throughout Gadamer’s thinking, see Dallmayr, 1993). It is an idea tied to Gadamer’s use of the notion of play as a key element in understanding and to the character of understanding as always embedded in an prior ‘horizon’ that is also fundamentally historical.Phronesis and dialogue are thus aspects of a hermeneutical situatedness that is complex, differentiated, and dynamic.