Gadamer In Conversation: Reflections and Commentary

Yale Studies in Hermeneutics

by Hans-Georg Gadamer, Richard Palmer, Richard E. Palmer (Translator)

This volume presents six lively conversations with Hans-Georg Gadamer (born 1900), one of the twentieth century's master philosophers. Looking back over his life and thought, Gadamer takes up key issues in his philosophy, addresses points of controversy, and replies to his critics, including those who accuse him of having been in complicity with the Nazis. A genial and direct conversationalist, Gadamer is here captured at his best and most accessible. The interviews took place between 1989 and 1996, and all but one appear in English for the first time in this volume. The first three conversations, conducted by Heidelberg philosopher Carsten Dutt, deal with hermeneutics, aesthetics, and practical philosophy and the question of ethics. In a fourth conversation, with University of Heidelberg classics professor Glenn W. Most, Gadamer argues for the vital importance of the Greeks for our contemporary thinking. In the next, the philosopher reaffirms his connection with phenomenology and clarifies his relation to Husserl and Heidegger in a conversation with London philosopher Alfons Grieder. In the final interview, with German Nazi expert Dörte von Westernhagen, Gadamer describes his life as a struggling young professor in Germany in the 1930s and refutes accusations of his complicity with the Nazis. These conversations are a lucid introduction for readers new to the philosopher's thought, and for experts they present an invaluable commentary on Gadamer's most important themes.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction

176 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

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 life, and published several important works: Truth and Method is considered his magnum opus. In this work Heidegger's notion of hermeneutics is seen clearly: hermeneutics is not something abstract that one can pick up and leave at will, but rather is something that one does at all times. To both Heidegger and to Gadamer, hermeneutics is not restricted to texts but to everything encountered in one's life.

Gadamer is most well-known for the notion of a horizon of interpretation, which states that one does not simply interpret something, but that in the act of interpretation one becomes changed as well. In this way, he takes some of the notions from Heidegger's Being and Time, notably that which Heidegger had to say about prejudgements and their role in interpreting and he turns them into a more positive notion: Gadamer sees every act and experience (which is a hermeneutical experience to a Gadamerian) as a chance to call into question and to change those prejudgements, for in the horizon of interpretation those prejudgements are not forever fixed.

Gadamer is considered the most important writer on the nature and task of hermeneutics of the 20th century, which was still widely considered a niche within Biblical studies until Truth and Method was widely read and discussed.

He died at the age of 102 in Heidelberg (March, 2002).

Reviews

[Abdullah Başaran · Rating 4 out of 5]

No doubt that Conversation with Carsten Dutt, all three sections, is the most leading interview w/ Gadamer ever. As well as it reflects Gadamer's revelations and explications about his own way in philosophical hermeneutics, with Mr. Dutt's guiding questions Gadamer and Dutt can easily make a good dialogue and fuse their horizons.

As we except 'On Phenomenology', the other conversations in the book are [a little bit] redundant in the concept and the context of the book. Plus, Palmer's introduction he wrote is so unneeded for the Gadamer readers. This book is read by the readers who have already known who is Gadamer and what he argues.

It deserves 4-star though.

[Antony · Rating 4 out of 5]

good