I began re-reading Truth and Method and am reminded that I really like Gadamer and only dislike those who later used (abused) what he wrote. Great stuff.
I sometimes wonder if I’d like to read that. But what I find when I look at summaries is that I already agree with him, that there’s nothing surprising or weird enough to catch my attention.
This is obviously a superficial impression; I’d be interested in seeing what you like about it.
Well, his main points have been so thoroughly absorbed that they might indeed not be that surprising. I think the position he is taking on is still very much alive in some corners though, so it remains important. The journey is enjoyable as well, and there are a lot of undeveloped paths, like the relationship between formation and the human sciences, that are good food for thought, even if they don’t lead anywhere in the work itself. For me, since I think the answer Gadamer gives is inadequate, these less developed paths offer a set of ideas for fixing what is incomplete.
I think the key points have also been “corrupted” in a way though, in that they get turned towards a sort of relativism grounded in the idea that we can never “escape” interpretation, tradition, etc. So, in that respect, a return to the source itself is also nice. Although, to be fair, arguably Gadamer lacks the resources to escape this sort of reading, and falls into his own sort of dogmatism—but that only helps to highlight the shape of the problems. So for me, the interest is: “this is good, how can it be fixed?”
MacIntyre exhibits this same problem in his later work on traditions. It’s ironic, because getting hung up on the fear that saying anything about what is onticaly prior to all tradition requires “stepping outside” of any particular view point is itself to have failed to fully transcend the very Enlightenment presuppositions that are being critiqued (and indeed, to unwittingly keep asserting them as a global precondition on all rational thought and metaphysics). You need a particular metaphysics of appearances, language, culture, etc. for this to even become a concern in the first place.
I thought of a geometric analogy here. From the inside, the hermeneutic circle is going to look like an endlessly repeating straight line. Keep expanding it, and the line just looks more and more straight, and repetition becomes less common, giving the illusion of linear progress.
I am going to give Emily Watson’s translation of the Iliad a go.
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Thanks, that is quite interesting.
J.Young (2010) Friedrich Nietzscdhe - A Philosophical Biography, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK 683 p.
My current book is “Why The Allies Won” by Richard Overy. He asserts that allied victory was not at all certain even well into WWII. At the beginning of 1943 the future looked bleak for the UK, the US, and the USSR.
Stalingrad was the first ‘turn around’ battle. For once, Stalin had an excellent general in charge (Zhukov) and actually followed his advice. Winter certainly helped, but the next battle was Kursk (July, '43). Here industrial mobilization in the USSR, deep planning, and thorough preparation resulted in the huge Soviet victory.
German submarine warfare in the Atlantic took a huge toll on the US supply line to the UK. If a solution wasn’t found, a land invasion of continental Europe by the US and UK would not be possible. Technology (like 10 cm. radar) helped, but again it was organization, attention to detail, and systematic effort that resulted in minimizing of the U-Boat threat.
Very readable and insightful.
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R.Safranski (1998) Martin Heidegger - Between Good and Evil, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA 496 p.
The Physics of Sorrow by Georgi Gospodinov.