In this interview with Jean Grondin, Gadamer discusses the meaning ‘linguisticality’ and acknowledges his intellectual debt to Heidegger, Augustine, Vico and classical Greek philosophy. Heidegger’s influence on Gadamer can be seen in Gadamer’s awareness of pernicious ontological effects of the Latinization of European language, his awareness of the centrality of technology to the understanding of contemporary philosophical problems and the idea that ‘language speaks’. From Augustine, Gadamer derived his theory of the word as that which cannot be known and brought (...) under control; from Vico the idea that language is rhetorical; and from classical philosophy the Aristotelian idea of phronesis and the Platonic idea that the idea of beauty is inseparable from the idea of the good. Gadamer concludes the interview with a discussion of the need for humanity to overcome its present fascination with technology. (shrink)

Hans-Georg Gadamer, the major proponent of philosophical hermeneutics, reveals himself here as a highly sensitive reader and critic of the German literary tradition. This is not the work of a specialist as narrowly defined in the typical literary study. Although he is a master of the techniques of criticism, Gadamer always sees the study of literature as a fundamentally human activity where human beings, generation after generation, pose their questions to an encroaching darkness that threatens to rob them of their (...) confidence in the meaning of life and death. Never pedantic or antiquarian, these studies show such literary giants of the German past as Goethe and Hölderlin as our contemporaries. Gadamer demonstrates his ability to achieve the creative interplay of literature and philosophy which, in isolation, easily degenerate into sterile academic games. Typical of this dialogue are essays on Rainer Maria Rilke, including an examination of a problem of punctuation in one of his poems. What would be, in less capable hands, one more solution to a literary problem, turns out to be one of Gadamer’s creative approaches to the mystery of man’s relation to time and death. (shrink)

Toda comprensión de la evolución de la idea de una filosofía práctica entre los griegos depende de reconocer que, aquí, ellos nos legaron dos tipos fundamentalmente diferentes, en relación con la clase de textos filosóficos en Platón y en Aristóteles. Por un lado, diálogos muy logrados que evocan a Sócrates o a uno semejante a él como si estuvieran presentes y, por el otro lado, renglones escritos sin arte de un espíritu que se articula, a través de un trabajo de (...) pensamiento y palabras de enseñanza. Uno es literatura en el alto sentido de la palabra. El otro es un material que es difícil de descifrar y que todavía debe ser despertado a una vida de ideas. Pero frente a ambos es el mismo ejercicio. Las dos clases de texto, como dos formas de hablar, se nos presentan como el mismo esfuerzo de rendir cuentas y, con ello, conducir la pregunta socrática a su verdad. (shrink)