Journal of the History of Philosophy

To be sure, Hans-Georg Gadamer's philosophy has received increased attention in recent philosophical debates. For although older confrontations, such as Gadamer's debate with Habermas, have receded in the background, scholars such as John McDowell, Cristina Lafont, Ruth Sonderegger, Albrecht Wellmer, and Günther Figal have revitalized some of Gadamer's main philosophical insights and demonstrated the importance of hermeneutics for contemporary philosophy. In addition, the newly-founded Society for Philosophical Hermeneutics has helped to give this recent attention a new academic forum for fresh and vibrant work on Gadamer.

Kristin Gjesdal's book fits neatly into this newly-discovered interest in Gadamer's philosophy, especially since it focuses on important, but less frequently discussed, historical sources of Gadamer's philosophy and their systematic impact on both hermeneutics in general and a theory of interpretation in particular. Gjesdal's book is lucidly written, paying much attention to the underlying arguments that are implied in Gadamer's critical and often reductive accounts of philosophers who belong to the tradition of "German Idealism." However, having said this, the title of her book is misleading: though the reader might expect an extensive discussion of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, the author focuses mainly on the sources of Gadamer's thinking in Kant and Schleiermacher, and only to a much smaller extent on Hegel. Moreover, Gjesdal's style is thoroughly critical, which is especially visible in the last part of the book, where she argues that Schleiermacher's version of hermeneutics is able to correct some of Gadamer's misgivings. [End Page 131]

The book is divided into six chapters, the first three of which deal mainly with Gadamer's appropriation of aesthetics and his philosophy of art as a paradigm for his theory of understanding. Chapter 4 deals with Gadamer's relationship to Hegel; chapters 5 and 6 with Schleiermacher. The last chapters offer a partly destructive critique of Gadamer, especially his understanding of Schleiermacher. Gjesdal argues that Gadamer's attempt to reduce "the standard of validity in interpretation to a quasi-Cartesian, formalist type of rationality" fails, and thus she rejects Gadamer's claim "that the reference to individuality is simply another configuration of aesthetic consciousness" (171). Accordingly, the author tries to correct Gadamer's hermeneutics by re-introducing a "critical-reflective attitude, appealing to standards of validity" (183). It is fascinating to see how the author "rediscovers" this point, previously made by Habermas and Apel in early debates with Gadamer, from the perspective of Schleiermacher's hermeneutics. In this way, she follows in the footsteps of Manfred Frank's work on Schleiermacher by offering a critical standpoint for a hermeneutic theory of interpretation attacking Gadamer's claim that hermeneutical experience is identical with historical self-transformation (185). Schleiermacher's hermeneutics is superior to Gadamer's theory, according to Gjesdal, because it enables us to see the "normativity in understanding" (199) and because it offers a standpoint from which the transgressive and rational nature of understanding can be understood. As a consequence, Gadamer's "aestheticising model of understanding" should be corrected, according to the author. This thesis makes her approach to Gadamer especially attractive to contemporary Anglo-American philosophy, particularly if it is open to European philosophy.

According to the author, because of his misappropriation of Romantic philosophy and Romantic aesthetics (though she never refers to early Romantic aesthetics in Schlegel and Hölderlin), Gadamer also fails to offer an understanding of modern art. Gjesdal argues for this claim by pointing to Gadamer's critique of the modern museum as art without a world and as alienated "aesthetic consciousness." As she argues, Gadamer's return to the unifying force of art as world disclosure, and his rejection of modern aesthetics, does not seem to offer much help in understanding the modernity of art (80). However, although she briefly points to Adorno's and Benjamin's aesthetics and gives a brief sketch of Gadamer's (mis)appropriation of Celan, her discussion of this important aspect ultimately...