- PDF Aristotle was, for Gadamer, a major presence within the hermeneutical tradition. The distinctions Aristotle drew in his Nicomachean Ethics between different forms of reasoning were crucial.
- TRUTH AND METHOD feature of the original that is important to us, then we can do so only by playing down or entirely suppressing other features. But this is precisel y the activity that we call interpretation. Translation, like all interpretation, is a highlighting. A translator must understand that highlighting is part of his task.
About Truth and Method. Written in the 1960s, TRUTH AND METHOD is Gadamer's magnum opus. Looking behind the self-consciousness of science, he discusses the tense relationship between truth and methodology. In examining the different experiences of truth, he aims to 'present the hermeneutic phenomenon in its fullest extent.
Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.
Start by marking “Truth and Method” as Want to Read:
Rate this book
See a Problem?
We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Truth and Method by Hans-Georg Gadamer.
Not the book you’re looking for?Preview — Truth and Method by Hans-Georg Gadamer
Written in the 1960s, Truth and Method is Gadamer's magnum opus. An astonishing synthesis of literary criticism, philosophy, theology, the theory of law and classical scholarship, it is undoubtedly one of the most important texts in twentieth century philosophy. Looking behind the self-consciousness of science, he discusses the tense relationship between truth and methodol..more
Published December 7th 2004 by Bloomsbury Academic (first published January 1st 1960)
To see what your friends thought of this book,please sign up.
To ask other readers questions aboutTruth and Method,please sign up.
Be the first to ask a question about Truth and Method
Best World Philosophy Book 896 books — 1,346 voters
Knowledge 193 books — 150 voters
More lists with this book..
Rating details
|
Feb 27, 2012Nathan 'N.R.' Gaddis added it · review of another edition
Not to be recommended to the casual reader. By any stretch. Specialists only.
Here’s a few reasons why you’ll wanna pass ::
You want a text address’d to you in your average everydayness sitting at the lunch counter at the local Diner.
Do you know the names Schleiermacher or Dilthey? Those are the famous thinkers discussed.
You believe that the Method of (emperico-naturalistico-quantito) science is the very finest and last arbiter of Truth.
You don’t already know what the ‘hermeneutic circle’ is an..more
Here’s a few reasons why you’ll wanna pass ::
You want a text address’d to you in your average everydayness sitting at the lunch counter at the local Diner.
Do you know the names Schleiermacher or Dilthey? Those are the famous thinkers discussed.
You believe that the Method of (emperico-naturalistico-quantito) science is the very finest and last arbiter of Truth.
You don’t already know what the ‘hermeneutic circle’ is an..more
I find the idea of rating Truth and Method on a star system kind of offensive after Gadamer did so much to overturn the ontological prejudice that being is what can be quantified.
Reading this book was one of the joys of my life (I finished it July 4 three years ago, happy to ignore the jingoistic explosions all around me), and I honestly didn't find it all that difficult. I wouldn't lie about that: who would deny that continental philosophy is often EXTREMELY difficult? At times in my reading l..more
Reading this book was one of the joys of my life (I finished it July 4 three years ago, happy to ignore the jingoistic explosions all around me), and I honestly didn't find it all that difficult. I wouldn't lie about that: who would deny that continental philosophy is often EXTREMELY difficult? At times in my reading l..more
Wow, Gadamer really knocks it out of the park. It's a long, fairly dense book -- sorry -- but he's basically undermining the modern conception of 'objective truth.' Now, I don't mean that he's treating truth less seriously or holding out a vacuous 'anything goes' mentality; rather, he argues that we have built such an abstract conception of proof and objectivity that we've actually *lost* truth in the process. Instead he suggests we recover the fact that real human knowing and existing occurs in..more
Jun 16, 2015Jacob Aitken rated it it was amazing · review of another edition Shelves: triumph-of-the-german, beauty, continental-philosophy, philosophy, hermeneutics, phenomenology
This is one of those great moments where a great student follows his master (Heidegger) yet gives us a new product and not simply a repetition of his master. In short, for Gadamer language is the horizon of being. As Kant was wrong to seek a thing-in-itself, so we also should beware of a 'meaning-in-itself.'
Gadamer begins and ends his work on a strange note: the aesthetics and interpretation of art. It’s not that art determines how we interpret text, but art allows Gadamer to illustrate (no pun..more
One of the greatest philosophical writings of the twentieth century, and one of the few that actually matters. As the status of science rose in modernity Gadamer sets out to justify the relevance of the humanities and show the possibility and importance of non-scientific truth.
A long and technical book. Not to be read without a decent background in Continental philosophy and some serious patience.
A long and technical book. Not to be read without a decent background in Continental philosophy and some serious patience.
Dec 31, 2015David Withun rated it really liked it · review of another edition
-
May 30, 2009Steven Peterson rated it it was amazing
Hans-Georg Gadamer's 'Truth and Method' must be considered alongside the great works of Dilthey, Husserl, and Heidegger as a treatise on hermeneutics, defined by Gadamer as understanding and the correct interpretation of what has been understood. More commonly, people define hermeneutics as the study/theory of interpretation.
Two major contentions that help frame his analysis are: (1) rejection of the view that proper understanding calls for eliminating the influence of the interpreter's context..more
Two major contentions that help frame his analysis are: (1) rejection of the view that proper understanding calls for eliminating the influence of the interpreter's context..more
Gadamer is in the line of thinkers devoted to hermeneutics, a field of thought that at one time desired to build a science of the interpretation of texts. Gadamer completely disputes the science, but acknowledges his part in the tradition that saught a true method in achieving communion with the text. In the modern, academic form of hermeneutics, these texts were often historical. Thus, the question of how one could open oneself to the necessarily foreign world of another historical situation be..more
Gadamer's erudition in the field of history of hermeneutics is impressive, but a less informed reader such as I am can often find himself in a difficult situation of having to interpret polemics with a thesis he doesn't know. All these obstacles are overweighted by the depth and clarity of author's insight when he starts to explore the problem itself. How can we understand historical tradition? Exposing inner contradictions of subjectivistic or relativistic historism he concludes that the hermen..more
Jul 04, 2016Gary Beauregard Bottomley rated it it was amazing
Heidegger's Being and Time is my favorite book. Matter of fact it's my first original source philosophy book I ever read. But, as I was reading it I had no idea why he would have long quotes from Dilthy and Count Yorck in the book, and I didn't realize what Husserl's Phenomenology really was, or what Aesthetics and Judgment really meant, or what was meant by Hermeneutics. This book lays the background for those items and more, and I wish I had read this book before I read Heidegger.
The pre-Socr..more
The pre-Socr..more
Feb 20, 2016Jessica rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Here is another book that may have killed me but I have endured and won the battle. This is a very fascinating book that is a translation of German philosophy regarding how we determine truth in the humanities. Some really beautiful moments, and lots of ideas that resonated with me. However, like Derrida, the text is often too dense and he seems to purposely be difficult. For that he does not get five stars! What else can a reader do??? Punish philosophers by withholding stars. That will do it...more
Sep 05, 2008Raully rated it it was amazing
How many thousand-page books are worth it?
Dec 07, 2016Matthew Stanley rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
In this text, Gadamer provides us with an account of understanding that he hopes will counter the Enlightenment project of 'objectivity' and rationalism. Gadamer begins his account of understanding, that is, coming to know something true about the world, by recovering art as a means of gaining knowledge. The enlightenment had effectively marginalized art as a means of knowing, reducing it to expression of psychological states and thus meaning becomes located in the subjective process of the act..more
Oct 19, 2013Feliks rated it liked it
A book of this erudition is like sending your brain to a mental bootcamp. It is a book of ideas (or rather the history of certain ideas) and where the author believes he has a new one to introduce. Gadamer painstaking outlines his contribution by tracing the faintest shadow where it has already been illuminated even slightly, in the works of other authors gone before him. Even if the authors are many centuries old. There are frequent references to Kant, Hegel, Aristotle, Pascal, Spinoza, Mill, H..more
Aug 08, 2009Foppe rated it it was amazing
Hermeneutics, properly done, is cool. Also, this book is about the most systematic and all-encompassing as you'll find on the topic, and, as Gadamer shows, it applies to every area of learning, as well as character formation and ethics.
Incredibly challenging to read, but the chapter on hermeneutics changed my life.
Dec 13, 2018Travis Timmons rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Finally!
Establishes what became the widespread interpretative frame of late 20th and early 21st century thought. So big stuff.
However, T&M requires lots of background reading (Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Heidegger, and the German idealists), so much so that the reading is really slow-going. Plus, Gadamer's prose, as rendered in translation is slippery -- not in an esoteric sense like Heidegger, but in a stilted academic sense.
Reading T&M led me directly to Richard Palmer's book Hermeneuti..more
Establishes what became the widespread interpretative frame of late 20th and early 21st century thought. So big stuff.
However, T&M requires lots of background reading (Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Heidegger, and the German idealists), so much so that the reading is really slow-going. Plus, Gadamer's prose, as rendered in translation is slippery -- not in an esoteric sense like Heidegger, but in a stilted academic sense.
Reading T&M led me directly to Richard Palmer's book Hermeneuti..more
Hans Georg Gadamer Truth And Method Pdf
Obviously very good and very important for anyone thinking about tradition, language, art, and knowledge. But, contrary to some silly reviews on here, it's actually quite accessible to anyone who has read about these questions before. You'll get the most out of this if you've already read some Kant, Hegel, and Heidegger, but Gadamer always rehearses the claims of his interlocutors generously. Several sections of the texts structurally enact Gadamer's own claim - which is to say, they establish t..more
Dec 24, 2015Boris rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
A brilliant introduction to the practice of hermeneutics (the art of understanding). Gadamer manages to clearly describe the conditions for understanding, revealing many great ideas also present in Derrida, Levinas and others. The advantage of Gadamer is that he explains these ideas with rigor and systematically. It is not an easy book, but due to Gadamer's skill in explaining, the ideas manage to get across quite well.
Especially noteworthy is the unbelievable achievement of Gadamer to cross the..more
Especially noteworthy is the unbelievable achievement of Gadamer to cross the..more
The work of Gadamer has transformed my life on an individual and spiritual level. This work is dense and thorough. The application of the mode of thought discussed is all encompassing and difficult to employ as it can hardly be called a method. In many ways I am more lost than when I started studying hermeneutics. I feel like this is possible the most important philosophical text of our time and essential for anyone working in the humanities or social sciences. Too underrated and unknown for the..more
Jul 02, 2014Alex Obrigewitsch rated it really liked it
I completely respect this work for its place in the tradition of thought, and what it has done for tradition.
That being said, it is not an enjoyable read. I thoroughly enjoy reading Heidegger, and I felt that having read Heidegger made much of Gadamer's work somewhat superfluous and repetitive.
The thought on play was probably one of the most innovative sections of the work.
This is an important text for tradition, but I think that its place has been somewhat superseded and displaced.
That being said, it is not an enjoyable read. I thoroughly enjoy reading Heidegger, and I felt that having read Heidegger made much of Gadamer's work somewhat superfluous and repetitive.
The thought on play was probably one of the most innovative sections of the work.
This is an important text for tradition, but I think that its place has been somewhat superseded and displaced.
Gadamer's Truth and Method is treatise on his thoughts on hermeneutics. He examines hermeneutics through the lens of language and assesses the issues language brings to understanding. Gadamer's writing is difficult, therefore, it is important to get a worthy translation. The first two thirds of the book will make no sense unless the last thirds is read. I found it very helpful in developing a complete understanding of the field of hermeneutics, but it is not a book for everyone.
This is Gadamer's Magnum Opus. It's not a light read, but deeply enriching if you put the time into it. I consider it the definitive book of the twentieth century on Hermeneutics. If you are interested in interpretation, translation theory, and philosophies of experience, this is a must read. My own understanding of the Islamic tradition is greatly informed by many of the points made in this fairly hefty tome.
The Perils of Understanding
I once worked with a deaf female client by having her type what she wanted to say to me, and I typed to her. I didn’t know much sign language but was eager to show off what little I had. As she wrote about herself, I kept making the sign that I thought meant, “I understand”. She looked at me funny until she told me that the sign I kept on making was for “horny”.
Mistakes were made, by both of us.
The mistake she made was when she jumped to a conclusion, without thinking..more
I once worked with a deaf female client by having her type what she wanted to say to me, and I typed to her. I didn’t know much sign language but was eager to show off what little I had. As she wrote about herself, I kept making the sign that I thought meant, “I understand”. She looked at me funny until she told me that the sign I kept on making was for “horny”.
Mistakes were made, by both of us.
The mistake she made was when she jumped to a conclusion, without thinking..more
Gadamer is a pivotal figure in hermeneutics. He seeks to disarm the readers confidence in method as the source of truth in hermeneutics, rather the text is allowed to speak for itself..to ask its own questions, and to encounter the reader in their time through the tradition to which both the reader and the text belong.
Oct 23, 2007Jessica marked it as owned-for-years-but-still-not-read · review of another edition
Long story.
(Not really.)
Long book, though.
(Not really.)
Long book, though.
Feb 07, 2009Timothy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
I am a believer in hermeneutics. This book has shaped the way I look at and interpret the world to a great degree. It shapes how I write as well.
I am really only TRYING to read this book.
Jan 03, 2014 LunaBel rated it it was amazing · review of another edition Shelves: s-b-hermeneutics, s-b-dis, s-b-phenomenology, s-b-romanticism1798-1832, to-reread, s-b-philosophy, best-best-best, s-book, think-gadamer
One of the best books i've ever read. It invites you to speculate and to question things you may not have noticed before.
Feb 02, 2018Andrej Virdzek rated it really liked it
I think Ernst Tugendhat was more or less right, when he said:
'If you start wih Heidegger's conception of truth, but disregard his ontology and then replace both the existentialism of his earlier philosophy and the mysticism of his later writings with a profound sense for the humanist tradition, you get what Gadamer calls 'philosophical hermeneutics'.'
As for my ideas about the book - it is not a systematic presentation and it is quite easy to get lost in it, especially if you just want to go rea..more
'If you start wih Heidegger's conception of truth, but disregard his ontology and then replace both the existentialism of his earlier philosophy and the mysticism of his later writings with a profound sense for the humanist tradition, you get what Gadamer calls 'philosophical hermeneutics'.'
As for my ideas about the book - it is not a systematic presentation and it is quite easy to get lost in it, especially if you just want to go rea..more
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.Be the first to start one »
Hans Georg Gadamer
Recommend It | Stats | Recent Status Updates
See similar books…
See top shelves…
174followers
Hans-Georg Gadamer was born February 11, 1900 in Marburg, Germany.
(Arabic: هانز جورج غادامير)
Gadamer showed an early aptitude for studies in philosophy and after receiving his doctoral degree in 1922 he went on to work directly under Martin Heidegger for a period of five years. This had a profound and lasting effect on Gadamer's philosophical progression.
Gadamer was a teacher for most of his lif..more
(Arabic: هانز جورج غادامير)
Gadamer showed an early aptitude for studies in philosophy and after receiving his doctoral degree in 1922 he went on to work directly under Martin Heidegger for a period of five years. This had a profound and lasting effect on Gadamer's philosophical progression.
Gadamer was a teacher for most of his lif..more
“In truth history does not belong to us but rather we to it.” — 13 likes
“A cultured society that has fallen away from its religious traditions expects more from art than the aesthetic consciousness and the 'standpoint of art' can deliver. The Romantic desire for a new mythology.. gives the artist and his task in the world the consciousness of a new consecration. He is something like a 'secular saviour' for his creations are expected to achieve on a small scale the propitiation of disaster for which an unsaved world hopes.” — 13 likes
Gadamer Truth And Method Pdf Converter
More quotes…![Truth and method summary Truth and method summary](https://0.academia-photos.com/attachment_thumbnails/38798523/mini_magick20190224-28209-1edf6s1.png?1550997590)
Hans-Georg Gadamer, c. 2000 | |
Born | February 11, 1900 |
---|---|
Died | March 13, 2002 (aged 102) Heidelberg, Germany |
Education | University of Breslau University of Marburg (PhD, 1922) |
Era | 20th-century philosophy |
Region | Western philosophy |
School | Continental philosophy Hermeneutics Ontological hermeneutics[1] Hermeneutic phenomenology[2] |
Institutions | University of Marburg (1928–1938) Leipzig University (1938–1948) Goethe University Frankfurt (1948–1949) University of Heidelberg (1949–2002) |
Thesis | The Nature of Pleasure according to Plato’s dialogues(1922) |
Doctoral advisor | Paul Natorp |
|
Hans-Georg Gadamer (/ˈɡædəmər/; German: [ˈɡaːdamɐ]; February 11, 1900 – March 13, 2002) was a German philosopher of the continental tradition, best known for his 1960 magnum opusTruth and Method (Wahrheit und Methode) on hermeneutics.
- 2Work
- 2.1Philosophical hermeneutics and Truth and Method
Life[edit]
Gadamer was born in Marburg, Germany,[4] the son of Johannes Gadamer (1867–1928),[5] a pharmaceutical chemistry professor who later also served as the rector of the University of Marburg. He was raised a Protestant Christian.[6] Gadamer resisted his father's urging to take up the natural sciences and became more and more interested in the humanities. His mother, Emma Karoline Johanna Geiese (1869–1904) died of diabetes while Hans-Georg was four years old, and he later noted that this may have had an effect on his decision to not pursue scientific studies. Jean Grondin describes Gadamer as finding in his mother 'a poetic and almost religious counterpart to the iron fist of his father'.[7] Gadamer did not serve during World War I for reasons of ill health[8] and similarly was exempted from serving during World War II due to polio.[9]
He later studied classics and philosophy in the University of Breslau[10] under Richard Hönigswald, but soon moved back to the University of Marburg to study with the Neo-Kantian philosophers Paul Natorp (his doctoral thesis advisor) and Nicolai Hartmann. He defended his dissertationThe Essence of Pleasure in Plato's Dialogues (Das Wesen der Lust nach den Platonischen Dialogen) in 1922.[11]
Shortly thereafter, Gadamer moved to Freiburg University and began studying with Martin Heidegger, who was then a promising young scholar who had not yet received a professorship. He and Heidegger became close, and when Heidegger received a position at Marburg, Gadamer followed him there, where he became one of a group of students such as Leo Strauss, Karl Löwith, and Hannah Arendt. It was Heidegger's influence that gave Gadamer's thought its distinctive cast and led him away from the earlier neo-Kantian influences of Natorp and Hartmann. Gadamer studied Aristotle both under Edmund Husserl and under Heidegger.[12]
Gadamer habilitated in 1929 and spent most of the early 1930s lecturing in Marburg. Unlike Heidegger, who joined the Nazi Party in May 1933 and continued as a member until the party was dissolved following World War II, Gadamer was silent on Nazism, and he was not politically active during the Third Reich. Gadamer did not join the Nazis, and he did not serve in the army because of the polio he had contracted in 1922. He joined the National Socialist Teachers League in August 1933.[13]
In 1933 Gadamer signed the Loyalty Oath of German Professors to Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist State.
In April 1937 he became a temporary professor at Marburg,[14] then in 1938 he received a professorship at Leipzig University.[15] From an SS-point of view Gadamer was classified as neither supportive nor disapproving in the 'SD-Dossiers über Philosophie-Professoren' (i.e. SD-files concerning philosophy professors) that were set up by the SS-Security-Service (SD).[16] In 1946, he was found by the American occupation forces to be untainted by Nazism and named rector of the university.
The level of Gadamer's involvement with the Nazis has been disputed in the works of Richard Wolin[17] and Teresa Orozco.[18] Orozco alleges, with reference to Gadamer's published works, that Gadamer had supported the Nazis more than scholars had supposed. Gadamer scholars have rejected these assertions: Jean Grondin has said that Orozco is engaged in a 'witch-hunt'[19] while Donatella Di Cesare said that 'the archival material on which Orozco bases her argument is actually quite negligible'.[20] Cesare and Grondin have argued that there is no trace of antisemitism in Gadamer's work, and that Gadamer maintained friendships with Jews and provided shelter for nearly two years for the philosopher Jacob Klein in 1933 and 1934.[21] Gadamer also reduced his contact with Heidegger during the Nazi era.[22]
Truth And Method Pdf
The communist DDR was no more to Gadamer's liking than the Third Reich, and he left for West Germany, accepting first a position in Goethe University Frankfurt and then the succession of Karl Jaspers in the University of Heidelberg in 1949. He remained in this position, as emeritus, until his death in 2002 at the age of 102.[23][24][25] He was also an Editorial Advisor of the journal Dionysius.[26] It was during this time that he completed his magnum opus, Truth and Method (1960), and engaged in his famous debate with Jürgen Habermas over the possibility of transcending history and culture in order to find a truly objective position from which to critique society. The debate was inconclusive, but marked the beginning of warm relations between the two men. It was Gadamer who secured Habermas's first professorship in the University of Heidelberg.
In 1968, Gadamer invited Tomonobu Imamichi for lectures at Heidelberg, but their relationship became very cool after Imamichi alleged that Heidegger had taken his concept of Dasein out of Okakura Kakuzo's concept of das in-der-Welt-sein (to be in the being in the world) expressed in The Book of Tea, which Imamichi's teacher had offered to Heidegger in 1919, after having followed lessons with him the year before.[27] Imamichi and Gadamer renewed contact four years later during an international congress.[27]
![Gadamer Truth And Method Pdf Gadamer Truth And Method Pdf](https://media.bloomsbury.com/rep/bj/9781474294478.jpg)
In 1981, Gadamer attempted to engage with Jacques Derrida at a conference in Paris but it proved less enlightening because the two thinkers had little in common. A last meeting between Gadamer and Derrida was held at the Stift of Heidelberg in July 2001, coordinated by Derrida's students Joseph Cohen and Raphael Zagury-Orly.[citation needed] This meeting marked, in many ways, a turn in their philosophical encounter. After Gadamer's death, Derrida called their failure to find common ground one of the worst debacles of his life and expressed, in the main obituary for Gadamer, his great personal and philosophical respect. Richard J. Bernstein said that '[a] genuine dialogue between Gadamer and Derrida has never taken place. This is a shame because there are crucial and consequential issues that arise between hermeneutics and deconstruction'.[28]
Gadamer received honorary doctorates from the University of Bamberg, the University of Wrocław, Boston College, Charles University in Prague, Hamilton College, the University of Leipzig, the University of Marburg (1999) the University of Ottawa, Saint Petersburg State University (2001), the University of Tübingen and University of Washington.[29]
On February 11, 2000, the University of Heidelberg celebrated Gadamer's one hundredth birthday with a ceremony and conference. Gadamer's last academic engagement was in the summer of 2001 at an annual symposium on hermeneutics that two of Gadamer's American students had organised. On March 13, 2002, Gadamer died at Heidelberg's University Clinic at the age of 102.[30] He is buried in the Köpfel cemetery in Ziegelhausen.[31]
Work[edit]
Philosophical hermeneutics and Truth and Method[edit]
Gadamer's philosophical project, as explained in Truth and Method, was to elaborate on the concept of 'philosophical hermeneutics', which Heidegger initiated but never dealt with at length. Gadamer's goal was to uncover the nature of human understanding. In Truth and Method, Gadamer argued that 'truth' and 'method' were at odds with one another. For Gadamer, 'the experience of art is exemplary in its provision of truths that are inaccessible by scientific methods, and this experience is projected to the whole domain of human sciences.'[32] He was critical of two approaches to the human sciences (Geisteswissenschaften). On the one hand, he was critical of modern approaches to humanities that modeled themselves on the natural sciences, which simply sought to “objectively” observe and analyze texts and art. On the other hand, he took issue with the traditional German approaches to the humanities, represented for instance by Friedrich Schleiermacher and Wilhelm Dilthey, who believed that meaning, as an object, could be found within a text through a particular process that allowed for a connection with the author's thoughts that led to the creation of a text (Schleiermacher),[33] or the situation that led to an expression of human inner life (Dilthey).[34]
However, Gadamer argued meaning and understanding are not objects to be found through certain methods, but are inevitable phenomena.[35] Hermeneutics is not a process in which an interpreter finds a particular meaning, but “a philosophical effort to account for understanding as an ontological—the ontological—process of man.”[35] Thus, Gadamer is not giving a prescriptive method on how to understand, but rather he is working to examine how understanding, whether of texts, artwork, or experience, is possible at all. Gadamer intended Truth and Method to be a description of what we always do when we interpret things (even if we do not know it): 'My real concern was and is philosophic: not what we do or what we ought to do, but what happens to us over and above our wanting and doing'.[36]
As a result of Martin Heidegger’s temporal analysis of human existence, Gadamer argued that people have a so-called historically-effected consciousness (wirkungsgeschichtliches Bewußtsein), and that they are embedded in the particular history and culture that shaped them. However the historical consciousness is not an object over and against our existence, but “a stream in which we move and participate, in every act of understanding.”[37] Therefore, people do not come to any given thing without some form of preunderstanding established by this historical stream. The tradition in which an interpreter stands establishes 'prejudices' that affect how he or she will make interpretations. For Gadamer, these prejudices are not something that hinders our ability to make interpretations, but are both integral to the reality of being, and “are the basis of our being able to understand history at all.”[38] Gadamer criticized Enlightenment thinkers for harboring a 'prejudice against prejudices'.[39]
For Gadamer, interpreting a text involves a fusion of horizons (Horizontverschmelzung). Both the text and the interpreter find themselves within a particular historical tradition, or “horizon.” Each horizon is expressed through the medium of language, and both text and interpreter belong to and participate in history and language. This “belongingness” to language is the common ground between interpreter and text that makes understanding possible. As an interpreter seeks to understand a text, a common horizon emerges. This fusion of horizons does not mean the interpreter now fully understands some kind of objective meaning, but is “an event in which a world opens itself to him.”[40] The result is a deeper understanding of the subject matter.
Gadamer further explains the hermeneutical experience as a dialogue. To justify this, he uses Plato's dialogues as a model for how we are to engage with written texts. To be in conversation, one must take seriously “the truth claim of the person with whom one is conversing.”[41] Further, each participant in the conversation relates to one another insofar as they belong to the common goal of understanding one another.[42] Ultimately, for Gadamer, the most important dynamic of conversation as a model for the interpretation of a text is “the give-and-take of question and answer.”[42] In other words, the interpretation of agiven text will change depending on the questions the interpreter asks of thetext. The 'meaning' emerges not as an object that lies in the text or in the interpreter, but rather an event that results from the interaction of the two.
Truth and Method was published twice in English, and the revised edition is now considered authoritative. The German-language edition of Gadamer's Collected Works includes a volume in which Gadamer elaborates his argument and discusses the critical response to the book. Finally, Gadamer's essay on Celan (entitled 'Who Am I and Who Are You?') has been considered by many—including Heidegger and Gadamer himself—as a 'second volume' or continuation of the argument in Truth and Method.
Contributions to communication ethics[edit]
Gadamer's Truth and Method has become an authoritative work in the communication ethics field, spawning several prominent ethics theories and guidelines. The most profound of these is the formulation of the dialogic coordinates, a standard set of prerequisite communication elements necessary for inciting dialogue. Adhering to Gadamer's theories regarding bias, communicators can better initiate dialogic transaction, allowing biases to merge and promote mutual understanding and learning.[43]
Other works[edit]
Gadamer also added philosophical substance to the notion of human health. In The Enigma of Health, Gadamer explored what it means to heal, as a patient and a provider. In this work the practice and art of medicine are thoroughly examined, as is the inevitability of any cure.[44]
In addition to his work in hermeneutics, Gadamer is also well known for a long list of publications on Greek philosophy. Indeed, while Truth and Method became central to his later career, much of Gadamer's early life centered around studying Greek thinkers, Plato and Aristotle specifically. In the Italian introduction to Truth and Method, Gadamer said that his work on Greek philosophy was 'the best and most original part' of his career.[45] His book Plato's Dialectical Ethics looks at the Philebus dialogue through the lens of phenomenology and the philosophy of Martin Heidegger.[44]
Prizes and awards[edit]
- 1971: Pour le Mérite and the Reuchlin Prize
- 1972: Great Cross of Merit with Star of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
- 1979: Sigmund Freud Award for scientific prose and Hegel Prize
- 1986: Jaspers Prize
- 1990: Great Cross of Merit with Star and Sash of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
- 1993: Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
- 12 January 1996: appointed an honorary member of the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig
- Honorary doctorates
- 1995: University of Wrocław
- 1996: University of Leipzig
- 1999: Philipps-University Marburg
Bibliography[edit]
- Primary
- Dialogue and Dialectic: Eight Hermeneutical Studies on Plato. Trans. and ed. by P. Christopher Smith. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1980.
- The Enigma of Health: The Art of Healing in a Scientific Age. Trans. John Gaiger and Richard Walker. Oxford: Polity Press, 1996.
- Gadamer on Celan: ‘Who Am I and Who Are You?’ and Other Essays. By Hans-Georg Gadamer. Trans. and ed. Richard Heinemann and Bruce Krajewski. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1997.
- The Gadamer Reader: A Bouquet of the Later Writings. Ed. by Richard E. Palmer. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2007.
- Hegel's Dialectic: Five Hermeneutical Studies. Trans. P. Christopher Smith. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1976.
- Heidegger's Ways. Trans. John W. Stanley. New York: SUNY Press, 1994.
- The Idea of the Good in Platonic-Aristotelian Philosophy. Trans. P. Christopher Smith. New Haven, CT: 1986.
- Literature and Philosophy in Dialogue: Essays in German Literary Theory. Trans. Robert H. Paslick. New York: SUNY Press, 1993.
- Philosophical Apprenticeships. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1985 (Gadamer's memoirs.)
- Philosophical Hermeneutics. Trans. and ed. by David Linge. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976.
- Plato's 'Parmenides' and Its Influence. Dionysius, Volume VII (1983): 3-16[46]
- Reason in the Age of Science. Trans. by Frederick Lawrence. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1981.
- The Relevance of the Beautiful and Other Essays. Trans. N. Walker. ed. R. Bernasconi, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
- Praise of Theory. Trans. Chris Dawson. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998.
- Truth and Method. 2nd rev. edition. Trans. J. Weinsheimer and D. G. Marshall. New York: Crossroad, 2004. ISBN978-0-8264-7697-5excerpt
- Secondary
- Arthos, John. The Inner Word in Gadamer's Hermeneutics. South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2009.
- Cercel, Larisa (ed.), Übersetzung und Hermeneutik / Traduction et herméneutique, Bucharest, Zeta Books, 2009, ISBN978-973-199-706-3.
- Davey, Nicholas. Unquiet Understanding: Gadamer's Philosophical Hermeneutics. New York: SUNY Press, 2007, ISBN978-0791468425.
- Davey, Nicholas. Unfinished Worlds. Hermeneutics, Aesthetics, and Gadamer. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013, ISBN978-0748686223.
- Dostal, Robert L. ed. The Cambridge Companion to Gadamer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
- Drechsler, Wolfgang. Gadamer in Marburg. Marburg: Blaues Schloss, 2013.
- Code, Lorraine. ed. Feminist Interpretations of Hans-Georg Gadamer. University Park: Penn State Press, 2003.
- Coltman, Robert. The Language of Hermeneutics: Gadamer and Heidegger in Dialogue. Albany: State University Press, 1998.
- Grondin, Jean. The Philosophy of Gadamer. trans. Kathryn Plant. New York: McGill-Queens University Press, 2002.
- Grondin, Jean. Hans-Georg Gadamer: A Biography trans. Joel Weinsheimer. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004.
- Kögler, Hans-Herbert. The Power of Dialogue: Critical Hermeneutics after Gadamer and Foucault trans. Paul Hendrickson. MIT Press, 1996.
- Krajewski, Bruce (ed.), Gadamer's Repercussions: Reconsidering Philosophical Hermeneutics. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.
- Lawn, Chris. Gadamer : a guide for the perplexed. (Guides for the perplexed) London: Continuum, c2006. ISBN978-0-8264-8461-1
- Malpas, Jeff, and Santiago Zabala (eds),Consequences of Hermeneutics: Fifty Years after Truth and Method, (Northwestern University Press, 2010).
- Malpas, Jeff, Ulrich Arnswald and Jens Kertscher (eds.). Gadamer's Century: Essays in Honour of Hans-Georg Gadamer. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2002.
- Risser, James. Hermeneutics and the Voice of the other: Re-reading Gadamer's Philosophical Hermeneutics. Albany: SUNY Press, 1997.
- Warnke, Georgia. 'Gadamer: Hermeneutics, Tradition and Reason'. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987.
- Weinsheimer, Joel. Gadamer's Hermeneutics: A Reading of 'Truth and Method'. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985.
- Wierciński, Andrzej. Gadamer’s Hermeneutics and the Art of Conversation Germany, Münster: LIT Verlag, 2011.
- Wright, Kathleen ed. Festivals of Interpretation: Essays on Hans-Georg Gadamer's Work. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1990.
- P. Della Pelle, La dimensione ontologica dell'etica in Hans-Georg Gadamer, FrancoAngeli, Milano 2013.
- P. Della Pelle, La filosofia di Platone nell'interpretazione di Hans-Georg Gadamer, Vita e Pensiero, Milano 2014.
See also[edit]
Notes[edit]
- ^Jeff Malpas, Hans-Helmuth Gande (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Hermeneutics, Routledge, 2014, p. 259.
- ^Hans-Georg Gadamer, 'Towards a phenomenology of ritual and language', in Lawrence Kennedy Schmidt (ed.), Language and Linguisticality in Gadamer's Hermeneutics, Lexington Books, 2000, p. 30; James Hans, 'Hans-Georg Gadamer and Hermeneutic Phenomenology,' Philosophy Today 22 (1978), 3–19.
- ^'Hans-Georg Gadamer', Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- ^Grondin 2003, p. 12.
- ^Grondin 2003, pp. 26, 33.
- ^Gadamer, Hans-Georg (1986). The Relevance of the Beautiful and Other Essays(PDF). Cambridge University Press. p. 35. ISBN9780521339537. Retrieved 16 January 2018.
As a Protestant, I have always found especially significant the controversy over the Last Supper, which raged in the Protestant Church, particularly between Luther and Zwingli.
- ^Grondin 2003, p. 21.
- ^Grondin 2003, p. 45.
- ^Grondin 2003, p. 46.
- ^Grondin 2003, p. 37.
- ^Cesare 2007, p. 5–7.
- ^Cesare 2007, p. 7–8.
- ^Ideologische Mächte im deutschen Faschismus Band 5: Heidegger im Kontext: Gesamtüberblick zum NS-Engagement der Universitätsphilosophen, George Leaman, Rainer Alisch, Thomas Laugstien, Verlag: Argument Hamburg, 1993, p. 105, ISBN3886192059
- ^De Cesare, Donatella (2013). Gadamer: A Philosophical Portrait. Indiana University Press. p. 17. ISBN0253007631.
- ^Dostal, Robert (2002). The Cambridge Companion to Gadamer. Cambridge University Press. p. 20. ISBN0521000416.
- ^Leaman, Georg / Simon, Gerd: Deutsche Philosophen aus der Sicht des Sicherheitsdienstes des Reichsführers SS. Jahrbuch für Soziologie-Geschichte 1992, pages 261-292
- ^Richard Wolin, ‚Nazism and the complicities of Hans-Georg Gadamer. Untruth and Method‘, The New Republic, 15 May 2000, pp. 36–45
- ^Orozco 1995.
- ^Grondin 2003, p. 165.
- ^Cesare 2007, p. 30.
- ^Grondin 2003, pp. 153–154.
- ^Cesare 2007, pp. 14–15.
- ^'Hans-Georg Gadamer Dies; Noted German Philosopher'. Washington Post. March 16, 2002. Retrieved March 25, 2011.
- ^Roberts, Julian (March 18, 2002). 'Hans-Georg Gadamer'. The Guardian. Retrieved March 25, 2011.
- ^'Hans-Georg Gadamer'. The Independent. March 26, 2002. Retrieved March 25, 2011.
- ^'Department of Classics'. Dalhousie University.
- ^ abImamichi, Tomonobu; Fagot-Largeault, Anne (2004). 'In Search of Wisdom. One Philosopher's Journey'(PDF). Le Devenir Impensable. Tokyo, International House of Japan: Collège de France. Archived from the original(PDF) on 28 December 2010. Retrieved 7 December 2006.
- ^Richard J. Bernstein (2002). 'Hermeneutics, Critical Theory and Deconstruction'. The Cambridge Companion to Gadamer. Cambridge University Press. ISBN0521801931.
- ^Cesare 2007, p. 27.
- ^Marucio, Fernando. 'Hans-Georg Gadamer, 1900-2002'. Geocities (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 18 October 2009. Retrieved 21 May 2018.
- ^Cesare 2007, pp. 27–28.
- ^Skorin-Kapov, Jadranka (2016), 'The Intertwining of Aesthetics and Ethics: Exceeding of Expectations, Ecstasy, Sublimity,' Lexington Books, ISBN978-1498524568
- ^Schleiermacher, Friedrich D. E. 'The Hermeneutics: Outline of the 1819 Lectures,' New Literary History, Vol. 10, No. 1, Literary Hermeneutics (Autumn, 1978), 5;10.
- ^Palmer, Richard (1969). Hermeneutics: Interpretation Theory in Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. p. 98. ISBN9780810104594.
- ^ abPalmer, Richard (1969). Hermeneutics: Interpretation Theory in Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. p. 163. ISBN9780810104594.
- ^Truth and Method 2nd ed. Sheed and Ward, London 1989 XXVIII
- ^Palmer, Richard (1969). Hermeneutics: Interpretation Theory in Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. p. 117. ISBN9780810104594.
- ^Palmer, Richard (1969). Hermeneutics: Interpretation Theory in Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. p. 182. ISBN9780810104594.
- ^Gonzalez, Francisco J, “Dialectic and Dialogue in the Hermeneutics of Paul Ricouer and H.G. Gadamer,” Continental Philosophy Review, 39 (2006), 328.
- ^Palmer, Richard (1969). Hermeneutics: Interpretation Theory in Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. p. 209. ISBN9780810104594.
- ^Gonzalez, Francisco J, “Dialectic and Dialogue in the Hermeneutics of Paul Ricouer and H.G. Gadamer,” Continental Philosophy Review, 39 (2006), 322-323.
- ^ abGonzalez, Francisco J, “Dialectic and Dialogue in the Hermeneutics of Paul Ricouer and H.G. Gadamer,” Continental Philosophy Review, 39 (2006), 323.
- ^Communication Ethics Literacy: Dialogue and Difference Arnett, Harden Fritz & Bell, Los Angeles 2009
- ^ abRobert J. Dostal (2002). 'Introduction'. The Cambridge Companion to Gadamer. Cambridge University Press. ISBN0521801931.
- ^Donatella Di Cesare. Gadamer: A Philosophical Portrait. Niall Keane (trans.). Indiana University Press. p. 1. ISBN9780253007636.
- ^'Department of Classics'. Dalhousie University.
References[edit]
- Grondin, Jean (2003). Hans-Georg Gadamer: A Biography.
- Cesare, Donatella Di (2007). Gadamer: A Philosophical Portrait. Niall Keane (trans.). Indiana University Press. ISBN9780253007636.
- Orozco, Teresa (1995). Platonische Gewalt: Gadamers politische Hermeneutik der NS-Zeit.
External links[edit]
Gadamer Truth And Method Summary
Wikiquote has quotations related to: Hans-Georg Gadamer |
Gadamer Hermeneutics
- Works by or about Hans-Georg Gadamer at Internet Archive
- Gadamer's Hermeneutics (introductory lecture by Henk de Berg, 2015)
- Miguel Ángel Quintana Paz: 'On Hermeneutical Ethics and Education', a paper on the relevance of Gadamer's Hermeneutics for our understanding of music, ethics and education in both.
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hans-Georg_Gadamer&oldid=913460193'