Truth and Method by Hans-Georg Gadamer (original) (raw)

H.-G. Gadamer's Hermeneutics: Between «Truth» and «Method»

Neztekidou D. (2018). H.-G. Gadamer’s hermeneutics: Between «truth» and «method». Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy. Vol 30. pp. 43-49, 2018

We live, according to Gadamer, in dialogue with our history and only when we get over the useless obsession to conquer the supposed one and single true knowledge, can we become historically conscious. This idea is profoundly expressed in the dense poetic word of Friedrich Hölderlin who writes in ''The Root of all Evil'': "Being at one is god-like and good, but human, too human, the mania which insists there is only the One, one country, one truth, and one way.''

Hans-Georg Gadamer on Praxis and Hermeneutical Understanding

Comparative Literature: East & West

Hans-Georg Gadamer, who passed away at the age of 102 on March 13, 2002, devoted a scholarly lifetime to the exploration of human understanding and interpretation. Gadamer is best known for his work on philosophical hermeneutics, or the philosophy of understanding. Since the publication of Wahrheit und Methode (Truth and Method) in 1960 Gadamer's ideas about hermeneutics have had a profound influence on scholars of all stripes. According to Alasdair Macintyre (2002), Gadamer's magnum opus, Truth and Method, has attained the status of one of the great philosophical works of the last century. Jeff Malpas, Ulrich Arnswald, and Jens Kertscher (2002) remind us: Few, if any philosophers now living have had an involvement and influence in philosophy over the last century to compare with that ofHans-Georg Gadamer. He has been responsible 27

Concepts in gadamer's truth and method

2022

The fundamental premise of Hans-Georg Gadamer's 1960 book Reality and M ethod is that truth cannot be completely defined by scientific method, and that actual meaning of language transcends methodological interpretation. The term 'hermeneutics' has traditionally been used to refer to a group of questions centered on the interpretation of writings, particularly religious and legal texts. The issues of "reconstructing" past ages, epochs, and periods, as well as obtaining "objective" historical knowledge, became part of the overall hermeneutical dilemma with the advent of methodical historical scholarship in the nineteenth century. Gadamer claims that hermeneutics (the science of interpretation) is more than just a means for identifying truth; it is also an activity aimed at comprehending the conditions that allow truth to exist. According to Gadamer, the role of hermeneutics in the human sciences is not the same as the role of methods of research in the natural sciences. Hermeneutics is not merely a method of interpretation, but is an investigation of the nature of understanding, which transcends the concept of method. Truth is not something which may be defined by a particular technique or procedure of inquiry, but is something which may transcend the limits of methodological reasoning. The truth of spoken or written language may be revealed when we discover the conditions for understanding its meaning. The term 'hermeneutics' has traditionally referred to a group of problems centered on the interpretation of writings, particularly religious and legal texts. The issues of "reconstructing" past ages, epochs, and periods, as well as obtaining "objective" historical knowledge, became part of the overall hermeneutical dilemma with the advent of methodical historical scholarship in the nineteenth century. The purpose of this brief review is to emphasize the concept of Gadamer's work in terms of truth and techniques.

Beyond Method of my Hans-Georg Gadamer: The Hermeneutical Imagination

2012

Applying the method is what the person does who never finds out anything new, who never brings to light an interpretation that has revelatory power. (Gadamer, 2001, 42) I Introductory remarks: understanding and application Gadamer resolutely refuses to provide us with a rule book or anything approaching a method. There can, he insists, be no step-by-step procedures leading from understanding to application, since application and understanding comprise a single unified process. To understand is to apply whatever it is that I am seeking to understand to my own unique circumstances. This is a dizzying-and potentially anxiety-inducing-prospect. An initial response might well be: How, without the aid of any procedural rules, can I begin to set about this task of understanding? This is the kind of response we experience when, for example, we are confronted with a work of art or piece of music that defies our expectations-or a text such as Gadamer's Truth and Method that challenges our...

Gadamer's Truth and Method: A Polyphonic Commentary

Truth and Method: A Polyphonic Commentary, Rowman & Littlefield International, 2022

Hans-Georg Gadamer’s magnum opus, Truth and Method, was first published in German in 1960, translated into English in 1975, and is widely recognized as a ground-breaking text of philosophical hermeneutics. Unsurprisingly, this text has generated an extensive secondary literature, including a number of excellent studies and commentaries. The present volume brings to bear on this familiar text what might be considered an experimental interpretive approach--namely, a *polyphonic* commentary.

Gadamer’s Hidden Doctrine: On the Simplicity and Humility of Philosophy

Consequences of Hermeneutics, 2010

In a conversation with Riccardo Dottori conducted around the time of his hundredth year, Hans-Georg Gadamer speaks about many of the issues that over time have shaped his project of a philosophical hermeneutics. Surprisingly, there is little discussion of the specific issues developed in Truth and Method, the book published forty years earlier that established Gadamer once and for all as a philosopher for the twentieth century. Instead, we see once again how Gadamer relies on Greek sources to clarify issues such as the character of hermeneutic finitude, the ethical and the rhetorical dimensions of philosophical hermeneutics, and the nature of philosophy itself as it is practiced through hermeneutics. Of course, the content and the direction of the conversation was dictated by the initial framework for discussion, which was for Gadamer to consider "what remains valid within the philosophical and cultural tradition, or what is still to be salvaged from its highest invention-metaphysics-after the two attempts of dismantling it emanating from Heidegger and analytic philosophy." 1 In this context the opportunity to directly reflect upon the importance of Truth and Method did not present itself, but the ensuing conversation is telling nonetheless. From it we have added confirmation of what we read in other published interviews and in Gadamer's own self-critique published in his collected works: hermeneutics and Greek philosophy always remained the two foci of his work, and, regarding hermeneutics, the problem of understanding in the historical human sciences-a problem that appears to be the overriding concern of Truth and Method-was not in fact his only goal. 2 He