Hermeneutics between History and Philosophy - by Hans-Georg Gadamer (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Hermeneutics between History and Philosophy collects together Gadamer's remaining important untranslated writings on the problem of history and the major philosophical traditions of the 20th century from the standpoint of hermeneutics. In these writings, Gadamer examines important thinkers such as Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Bourdieu and Habermas and their ongoing legacies.

This volume includes a preface by the editors and translators, presenting the structure of the volume, and a substantial introduction situating Gadamer's particular project and examining the place of hermeneutics in relation to the disciplines of history and philosophy in the 20th century. The translation is followed by a glossary of German terms and Greek and Latin expressions, as well as a bibliography of all the works cited and alluded to by Gadamer. Together, the essays and critical apparatus provide an overarching account of Gadamer's understanding of human life as embedded within history.

Review Quotes

The translations in this volume are very readable and have a light touch about them, which also enhances access to Gadamer's thought. By including several essays published well after Truth and Method (1960), the volume promises to make visible the nuances in his later reflections and deepen our insight into the earlier work.
Phenomenological Reviews

This project is commendable, and although Gadamer develops many of the themes of this volume in books and essays already available in English, it constitutes an important contribution to our understanding of Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics, and more broadly, the overall nature, context, and development of German philosophy in the twentieth-century. This volume should therefore be of interest to readers of Gadamer, continental philosophy more generally, and indeed anyone concerned with the relation between philosophy and its history.

[...] The material on Bourdieu, Habermas, and Derrida is particularly illuminating as it presents Gadamer's responses to contemporaries, each of whom, in their own way, represent direct challenges to Gadamer's phenomenological, linguistic, and hermeneutical positions.

[...] This reader found especially helpful the editors' account of how Gadamer's philosophy of history relates to his philosophy of language.
Phenomenological Reviews

About the Author

Hans-Georg Gadamer was born on 11 February 1900 and died on 13 March 2002. He was the author, most notably, of Truth and Method, and, more recently, of The Beginning of Philosophy and The Beginning of Knowledge.

Pol Vandevelde is Professor of Philosophy at Marquette University, USA. His previous publications include Être et Discours: La Question du Langage dans L'itinéraire de Heidegger (1927-1938) (1994) The Task of the Interpreter: Text, Meaning, and Negotiation (2005) and Heidegger and the Romantics: the Literary Invention of Meaning (2012).

Arun Iyer is an instructor in Philosophy at Seattle University, USA. He is the author of Towards an Epistemology of Ruptures: The Case of Heidegger and Foucault (2014).