Amazon.com
This latest in a series on living philosophers in which one philosopher's lifetime work is analyzed, critiqued, and expounded by numerous contemporaries, allowing the philosopher to respond to each, is particularly appropriate in the case of Hans-Georg Gadamer. His influential Truth and Method propounded the idea of a fusion of horizons in which we collectively come to the truth through the interaction of conversation. This book is the perfect way, then, to a true interpretation of the champion of philosophical hermeneutics, a challenge to deconstructionism.
Customer Reviews:
A mighty work on interpretation.......2007-01-02
Hans-Georg Gadamer's Truth and Method must be considered alongside the great works of Dilthey, Husserl, and Heidegger as a major 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; (2) rejection of the view that the author's intent in writing a text has any special weight to it.
As to the first point, he argues that it is simply not possible for the interpreter to escape his present situation. He advances the concept of the "horizon." For Gadamer, the horizon is ". . .the range of vision that includes everything that can be seen from a particular vantage point." It is the grounding of the interpreter, including that person's language, that fixes the possibilities of what that person can see and understand. In Gadamer's words, it is
". . .the way in which thought is tied to its finite determination, and the nature of the law of the expansion of the range of vision. A person who has no horizon is a man who does not see far enough and hence over values what is nearest to him. Contrariwise, to have an horizon means not to be limited to what is nearest, but to be able to see beyond it. A person who has an horizon knows the relative significance of everything within this horizon, as near or far, great or small."
To interpret the words of the past, Gadamer says that:
"Just as in a conversation, when we have discovered the standpoint and horizon of the other person, his ideas become intelligible, without our necessarily having to agree with him, the person who thinks historically comes to understand the meaning of what has been handed down, without necessarily agreeing with it, or seeing himself in it."
In interpreting texts, two horizons are involved--one is the horizon of the interpreter and the other the particular historical horizon into which he or she places him or herself in trying to understand the text. Thus, the two horizons interact to produce understanding.
The historical horizon of the text is not fixed; it cannot take on a meaning that is unchanged for all times and places. Here, he gets to the heart of successful hermeneutic inquiry--the fusing of horizons. He says:
"Hence the horizon of the present cannot be formed with the past. There is no more an isolated horizon of the present than there are historical horizons. Understanding, rather, is always the fusion of these horizons which we imagine to exist by themselves. . .Every encounter with tradition that takes place within historical consciousness involves the experience of the tension between the text and the present."
But what of the intention of the original author of a text? That leads to another of Gadamer's major points, by now clearly implicit in his idea of fusion of horizons. In short, it is not particularly important in trying to interpret a text. Once a text is created by its author, it becomes, so to speak, freed from the creator and begins to take on its own meaning, based upon its historical horizon, continually evolving as circumstances change. It is the text's horizon that interacts with the interpreter's horizon.
So what? To the extent that "reality" is the subject of inquiry, our understanding of "reality" will change as the historical horizon of a particular claim about reality changes. We can, then, never come to a satisfactory conclusion about a transcendental reality, about an absolute truth. Is relativism the end product of the endeavor? The hermeneutist in the Gadamerian tradition would simply note that there is no way out.
This is one of the most historically important works available on interpretation. It is difficult and challenging as a work; however, the effort to learn from Gadamer is well worth it.
Prejudice as Philosophy (in Spanish).......2006-03-24
Para Gadamer, la temporalidad de la tradición es absolutamente necesaria para la hermenéutica y de esta manera, la superación de la tradición es vista como una transformación de la tradición: "En nuestro comportamiento respecto al pasado, que estamos confirmando constantemente, la actitud real no es la distancia ni la libertad respecto a lo transmitido. Por el contrario, nos encontramos siempre en tradiciones, y éste nuestro pensar dentro de ellas no es un comportamiento objetivador que pensara como extraño o ajeno lo que dice la tradición; ésta es siempre más bien algo propio, ejemplar o aborrecible, es un reconocerse en el que para nuestro juicio histórico posterior no se aprecia apenas conocimiento, sino un imperceptible ir transformándose al paso de la misma tradición."
La "historia efectual" (wirkliche Historie) o los efectos del pasado en el presente más allá de lo sabido científicamente, es la transformación vital del sujeto histórico, pero desde el interior de la tradición: "La experiencia hermenéutica tiene que ver con la tradición. Es ésta la que tiene que acceder a la experiencia. Sin embargo, la tradición no es un simple acontecer que pudiera conocerse y dominarse por la experiencia, sino que es lenguaje..." . Aquí Gadamer hace referencia a que, precisamente, el medio de la experiencia hermenéutica es el lenguaje y por tanto interpretable, pero los límites de la interpretación que, de alguna manera, constituyen la ética de la investigación, es tomar en cuenta los prejuicios históricos y la autoridad de la tradición que en Gadamer quedan rehabilitados, es "la resolución entre oposición abstracta entre tradición e investigación histórica, entre historia y conocimiento de la misma". Es decir, la interpretación histórica se debe efectuar dentro de la tradición que no está fundada sobre una autoridad coercitiva sino de conocimiento: "Este sentido rectamente entendido de autoridad no tiene nada que ver con una obediencia ciega de comando. En realidad no tiene nada que ver con obediencia sino con conocimiento." Es decir, Gadamer implica que la autoridad de la tradición, lo mismo que el concepto de historia, se constituye no por la lucha entre diferentes discursos pasados sino por el conocimiento. Ahora bien, el problema es si el conocimiento dado por la tradición está in situ en el pasado o si no es algo construido en su poshistoria. Los contenidos de autoridad de la tradición son dados a posteriori y Gadamer, me parece, hace abstracción de las relaciones de poder que están inherentes a los prejuicios. La crítica que hace a la concepción de prejuicio a la Ilustración es que ésta separa absolutamente razón y tradición no viendo precisamente que la tradición y la autoridad también son racionales. La rehabilitación del prejuicio es que éste precisamente es el principio de comprensión del receptor: "La moderna investigación histórica tampoco es sólo investigación, sino en parte también mediación de la tradición."
Very difficult -- although admittedly a classic........2005-07-19
I hate to admit it...especially because all the other reviewers have raved about it...but I find Truth and Method to be a real slog. Yes -- there is some good stuff here. But be warned - you will really, really have to work to get through this book!
Now at this point you may be thinking "well, you are probably lazy or were unprepared." But the thing is - I was neither. I have read Being and Time (which I think is an easier - yes easier - book) and have done much prepatory work for T & M including Introduction to Philosophical Hermeneutics by Jean Grondin -- which I highly recommend).
This book is brilliant. But I think it is very interesting that all the reviewers have such high praise for a text that is so very difficult. Great ideas do not need to be inaccessible. Don't believe me? Look at Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche.....
Klassisch!.......2003-08-02
First, Truth and Method is a true classic. Basically, it sees Gadamer revitalise 'nonscientific' truth, i.e. the experience of truth inaccessible to method and irreducible to bare statement. The book itself does have a structure/setting that makes it difficult to get into initially (it is usefully read in tandem with a good commentary eg. Joel Weinsheimer's 'Gadamer's Hermeneutics'), but it is simply worth the effort.
Second, the review below is mistaken when it attributes to Gadamer the idea that the Old Testament should be read literally. Gadamer refers to Luther's position that "the Scripture has a univocal sense that can be derived from the text", but he does this as part of an historical overview of hermeneutics and, on the very next page, Luther gets refuted by 18thC historicism. Gadamer moves beyond both these positions to reveal how 'literalism' (and - more pressingly - 'historicism') is a projection of unproductive prejudices. It is an "obstruction", that gets in the way of the truth Gadamer seeks. Also, while T&M is relevant to theology, it should be made clear that Gadamer is writing of a philosophical-universal hermeneutics and not something regional.
Bold and Daring Christian-Judaic Thought.......2003-02-17
Gadamer's _Truth and Method_ is both very profound and very readable; it is a vast improvement over other more widely-read philosophical texts from the same region and time period (such as Heidegger's _Being and Time_ and Husserl's _Crisis of the European Sciences_). Unlike the aforementioned philosophers, Gadamer is actually willing to stick his neck out and reveal to us the true nature of his own personal spiritual beliefs. Believe it or not, Gadamer has the audacity to tell us that we "must take the Old Testament literally" (!) That's right, folks. Adam and Eve, Noah's Ark, Moses, Abraham-Isaac-Jacob-Joseph-ect. We have to take all of that literally. Now I've been to north-Georgia, backcountry, hillbilly Baptist churches where they didn't believe in that stuff anymore. And that is precisely what makes Gadamer's philosophy so revolutionary. The age of reason has quite literally come full circle. People were completely caught off guard by this shocking new assertion, that we must once again turn to the literal interpretation of the Old Testament in order to explain the dawn of temporal conciousness in man.
It seems as though modern phenomenolgy has uncovered far more new questions than it has answers. Hegel was one of the first to attempt an in-depth systemization on how and why the "spirit enters into time". Heidegger was one of the first with a specific answer, stating that the phenomenon of spirit is attributable to a type of "care" and "being-unto-death". Sarte countered that this phenomenology is in fact a result of "being-unto-other". But if we believe Gadamer's historical theory, we may have a concrete solution to all of these problems. Rather than be stuck with a narrow and one-dimensional theory of the phenomenon of soul (which could easily be diluted with other contingencies and unforeseen contributing factors) Gadamer brings us back to a very viable, believable, and comprehesive system of the historical birth of the spirit. Granted, it is impossible to empirically prove the historical accuracy of the Old Testament, but Gadamer points out this historic text's uncanny ability to account for and eliminate every possible obstacle to the coming-into-being of spirit. Once we understand Gadamer's system, we realize that not only is the Old Testament a sensible, fitting, and believable way to account for our existence, it is actually one of the most solid and inarguable existential theories out there. Yes, it does seem shocking and surprising at first, but the more you think about it, the more believable you will find the Old Testament to be. Apparently, the modern philosopher must go down every dead-end, back-alley historical theory known to man before he can finally come to terms with the wisdom of the ancients.
So the only question remaining is, should you buy this book? If you are open minded enough to at least consider the possibility of the historical theory described above, then you will probably find this book to be interesting and intellectually stimulating. If, on the other hand, you are horrified and appauled by what I just said, maybe you should instead ask your college professor for his latest recommendation.
Average customer rating:
|
Verdad y Metodo II
Hans-Georg Gadamer
Manufacturer: Sigueme
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 General
| Philosophy
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Spanish
| Foreign Language Nonfiction
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Filosofía
| No-Ficción
| Libros en español
| Formats
| Books
ASIN: 8430111808 |
Book Description
"This collection of probing and lucidly written essays shows Gadamer as the leading Continental philosopher after Heidegger...."
Customer Reviews:
better than jackie collins.......2002-10-05
put down your grisham and clancy and pick this bad boy up! just a great read. kept me up all night.
Book Description
Philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer has made major contributions to aesthetic theory, Plato and Hegel studies, humanistic studies, and the philosophy of history. A student of Martin Heidegger, Gadamer took up and developed a number of central Heideggerian insights. He also had productive public debates with contemporaries such as Emilio Betti and Jürgen Habermas. The shape of contemporary hermeneutics is due almost entirely to Gadamer's influence, and his magnum opus, Truth and Method, is considered one of the great philosophical works of the twentieth century.
This book is dedicated to Gadamer in honor of his hundredth birthday, in 2000. The essays provide a measure of the classical character of Gadamer's work by showing the breadth of engagement his ideas have provoked. As in Gadamer's own life and work, dialogue and conversation figure as important themes in all of the essays. While they encompass a diversity of philosophical perspectives, interests, and styles, the essays also suggest the ever-present possibility of dialogue across language and tradition and of the formation of new modes of discourse and philosophizing.
Book Description
This volume makes available for the first time in English the most important of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s extensive writings on art and literature. The principal text included is ‘The Relevance of the Beautiful’, Gadamer’s most sustained treatment of philosophical aesthetics. The eleven other essays focus particularly on the challenge issued by modern painting and literature to our customary ideas of art, and use that challenge to revitalize our understanding of it. Gadamer demonstrates the continuing importance of such concepts as imitation, truth, symbol, and play for our appreciation of contemporary art, and thereby establishes its continuity with the Western tradition. The essays here are not technical and are readily accessible to the beginning student and the general reader. The collection as a whole serves to illustrate the practice of hermeneutics and to introduce Gadamer’s thought. Robert Bernasconi provides an introduction clarifying the central aims of the essays and their relations to Gadamer’s major work, Truth and Method, and to the philosophy of art since Kant. A bibliography of Gadamer’s writings available in English is also included.
Customer Reviews:
Ars Critica.......2004-07-01
In The Relevance of the Beautiful, Gadamer hopes to justify the ways of art to modern man. He's answering Plato's banishment of the poets in The Republic, and every other such banishment, including Hegel's, who claimed that "art is a thing of the past" on the grounds that art re-establishes our sense of transcendence and order, that it "bridges the chasm between the ideal and the real," establishes our sense of "play," and otherwise enlarges our experience of life, communally, spiritually, culturally, and individually. It teaches us to go beyond ourselves. German philosopher, Hans-Georg Gadamer, famed student of Heidegger and author of the seminal Truth and Method, offers this phenomenological defense. As translated by Robert Bernasconi, Gadamer writes such a poetic and aphoristic prose that anyone with a moderate background in the arts can read it, as well as philosophers, artists, and critics. This essay is useful for a number of reasons: it gives articulate defenses-or condemnations-of translation, modern music (both pop and experimental), kitch, religious art, and historical painting. It is further particularly useful to me in that the grounds on which he makes many of his defenses mirror those of P.B. Shelley in "A Defense of Poetry."
Book Description
Catherine Zuckert examines the work of five key philosophical figures from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries through the lens of their own decidedly postmodern readings of Plato. She argues that Nietzsche, Heidegger, Gadamer, Strauss, and Derrida, convinced that modern rationalism had exhausted its possibilities, all turned to Plato in order to rediscover the original character of philosophy and to reconceive the Western tradition as a whole. Zuckert's artful juxtaposition of these seemingly disparate bodies of thought furnishes a synoptic view, not merely of these individual thinkers, but of the broad postmodern landscape as well. The result is a brilliantly conceived work that offers an innovative perspective on the relation between the Western philosophical tradition and the evolving postmodern enterprise.
Customer Reviews:
A very good summary of contemporary continental philosophy.......1997-11-30
When I first bought this book, I assumed the philosophers were called "postmodern Platos" solely due to their innovative thinking, and not because they had all been particularly influenced by Plato. Plato's philosophy, according to Nietzsche, was the beginning of Western metaphysics and gradually led to the practical transcendence of science. Parallel to this practical transcendence were theoretical delusions of God and other metaphysical distinctions, abstractions Nietzsche refered to as "decadence." Nietzsche hoped to overcome these delusions and find truth by inverting Plato's "true world" and "appearance" dualism. Heidegger, influenced by his study of the pre-Socratics, reinterpreted Plato until Plato seemed to contradict the Western world's and Nietzsche's conception of the man and his philosophy. This books offers different interpretations of Plato's texts and also reveals the innovative thought of some of the less well known, but no less brilliant, European philosophers: Gadamer and Strauss. It should definitely be read by anyone with an interest in modern philosophy.
Book Description
One of this century's most important philosophers here focuses on Plato's PROTAGORAS, PHAEDO, REPUBLIC, and PHILEBUS and on Aristotle's three moral treatises to show the essential continuity of Platonic and Aristotelian reflection on the nature of the good. In so doing Gadamer not only succeeds in giving us an incisive example of his interpretive art but also gives us a clearer picture of the ethical dimension of his own philosophy and the practical implications of hermeneutical theory.
Books:
- The Primacy of Perception: And Other Essays on Phenomenological Psychology, the Philosophy of Art, History and Politics (SPEP)
- The Prince (Bantam Classics)
- The Science of Success: How to Attract Prosperity and Create Harmonic Wealth Through Proven Principles
- The Sermon on the Mount: The Key to Success in Life
- The Telephone Patent Conspiracy of 1876: The Elisha Gray-Alexander Bell Controversy and Its Many Players
- The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying: The Spiritual Classic & International Bestseller; Revised and Updated Edition
- The Working American Bulldog
- Turkey's Modernization: Refugees from Nazism and Ataturk's Vision
- What Shall We Do Without Us; The Voice and Vision of Kenneth Patchen
- What's Your Angle, Pythagoras? A Math Adventure
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- California Real Estate Principles, 5E
- The Edison Trait: Saving the Spirit of Your Free-Thinking Child in a Conforming World
- Loss Within Loss: Artists in the Age of AIDS
- How the Irish Saved Civilization
- Shut Up & Sing: How Elites from Hollywood, Politics, and the U.N. are Subverting America
- The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
- Story Line: Exploring the Literature of the Appalachian Trail
- Dictionary of Occupational Terms: A Guide to the Special Language & Jargon of Hundreds of Career
- Occupational Projections And Training Data 2004-2005
- Sleight of Mouth: The Magic of Conversational Belief Change
