Gadamer In Conversation

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 Dorte von Westernhagen, Gadamer describes his life

Gadamer's Hermeneutics and the Art of Conversation covers the nature of dialogue and understanding in Hans-Georg Gadamer's lingually oriented hermeneutics and its relevance for contemporary philosophy. This timely collection of essays stresses the fundamental significance of the other for a further development of Heidegger's analytics of Dasein. By recognizing the priority of the other over oneself, Gadamerian hermeneutics founds a culture of dialogue sorely needed in our multi-cultural globalized community. The essays solicited for this volume are presented in three thematic blocks: "Hermeneutic Conversation," "Hermeneutics, Aesthetics, and Transcendence," "Hermeneutic Ethics, Education, and Politics." The volume proposes a dynamic understanding of hermeneutics as putting into practice the art of conversation.

A philosophical and historical testament to the twentieth century, this volume consists of a wide-ranging series of interviews conducted in 1999/2000 between the then centenarian and his former assistant and associate of over thirty years, Riccardo Dottori. These ten dialogues distill and situate Gadamer's philosophy in the context of what has arguably been the bloodiest century in human history. In the course of the interviews, Gadamer addresses-often critically-the work of a wide variety of philosophers, including Heidegger, Nietzsche, Jaspers, Popper, Vico, Habermas, Rorty, and Derrida. He also elaborates on German philosophy during the Nazi period; and, in one of the more fascinating conversations, we are treated to a glimpse of Gadamer's personal perspective on the question of Heidegger's Nazism, including a discussion of the political influence that great philosopher's wife, Elfirde, had on him that tends to contradict most other published accounts. With the possible exception of his autobiography 1985, A Century of Philosophy is perhaps the most accessible expression of Gadamer's life and work in English today.

Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002), one of the towering figures of contemporary Continental philosophy, is best known for Truth and Method, where he elaborated the concept of "philosophical hermeneutics," a programmatic way to get to what we do when we engage in interpretation. Donatella Di Cesare highlights the central place of Greek philosophy, particularly Plato, in Gadamer's work, brings out differences between his thought and that of Heidegger, and connects him with discussions and debates in pragmatism. This is a sensitive and thoroughly readable philosophical portrait of one of the 20th century's most powerful thinkers.

Fifteen essays examine the work of German philosopher Hans Georg Gadamer to provide feminist interpretations of his views on science, language, history, literature, and other topics.

In this book, internationally recognized scholars in philosophical hermeneutics discuss various aspects of language and linguisticality. The translations of Hans-Georg Gadamer's two recent essays provoke a preliminary discussion on the philosopher's polemic claim in Truth and Method--"Being that can be understood is language." Topics addressed by the contributors include the relationship of rituals to tradition and the immemorial; the unity of the word; conversation; translation and conceptuality; and the interrelationship between the art of writing and linguisticality. This work is of critical importance to anyone interested in Gadamer's claims regarding the boundaries of language, the transition from the prelinguistic to linguistic realms, and the role of rituals in this transition.

Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur were two of the most important hermeneutical philosophers of the twentieth century. Gadamer single-handedly revived hermeneutics as a philosophical field with his many essays and his masterpiece, Truth and Method. Ricoeur famously mediated the Gadamer-Habermas debate and advanced his own hermeneutical philosophy through a number of books addressing social theory, religion, psychoanalysis and political philosophy. This book brings Gadamer and Ricoeur into a hermeneutical conversation with each other through some of their most important commentators. Twelve leading scholars deliver contemporary assessments of the history and promise of hermeneutical philosophy, providing focused discussion on the work of these two key hermeneutical thinkers. The book shows how the horizons of their thought at once support and question each other and how, in many ways, the work of these two pioneering philosophers defines the issues and agendas for the new century.

The most convenient and accessible guide to Gadamer currently available.