We publish here the letters between Gadamer and Ricoeur, as they are found in the Archives of the two philosophers. Starting from February 1964 and ending on October 2000, the thirty-five letters reproduced here cannot give a complete picture of their much richer correspondence and relations, because it seems that neither Ricoeur, nor Gadamer kept all the letters they received from one another. But altogether, they document their common concerns, their mutual respect, even their intellectual solidarity and finally the particular (...) context that brought them to write to one another, i.e. Ricoeur’s intention to publish a translation of Gadamer’s book, Truth and Method, in a new series he edited for the Seuil Publisher. This publishing and translation project will mark their entire correspondence. (shrink)

In this wide-ranging historical introduction to philosophical hermeneutics, Jean Grondin discusses the major figures from Philo to Habermas, analyzes conflicts between various interpretive schools, and provides a persuasive critique of Gadamer's view of hermeneutic history, though in other ways Gadamer's _Truth and Method_ serves as a model for Grondin's approach. Grondin begins with brief overviews of the pre-nineteenth-century thinkers Philo, Origen, Augustine, Luther, Flacius, Dannhauer, Chladenius, Meier, Rambach, Ast, and Schlegel. Next he provides more extensive treatments of such major nineteenth-century (...) figures as Schleiermacher, Böckh, Droysen, and Dilthey. There are full chapters devoted to Heidegger and Gadamer as well as shorter discussions of Betti, Habermas, and Derrida. Because he is the first to pay close attention to pre-Romantic figures, Grondin is able to show that the history of hermeneutics cannot be viewed as a gradual, steady progression in the direction of complete universalization. His book makes it clear that even in the early period, hermeneutic thinkers acknowledged a universal aspect in interpretation—that long before Schleiermacher, hermeneutics was philosophical and not merely practical. In revising and correcting the standard account, Grondin's book is not merely introductory but revisionary, suitable for beginners as well as advanced students in the field. (shrink)

Grondin situates Gadamer's concerns in the context of traditional philosophical issues, showing, for example, how Gadamer both continues and significantly modifies Descartes' approach to the philosophical problem of method and advances rather than simply follows Heidegger's treatment of the relationship of thinking to language. In doing this Grondin shows that the issues of philosophical hermeneutics are relevant to contemporary concerns in science and history.

Jean Grondin’s starting point in his impressive book is what Hans-Georg Gadamer refers to as the universal claim of hermeneutics. Gadamer is better known for the limits his hermeneutics seems to place on universal claims. Against the reliance the Enlightenment placed on the insights of a reason common to humanity, Gadamer stresses the prejudiced and partial character of attempts to understand meaning. And against more contemporary attempts to ground Enlightenment conceptions in universal human competencies, he stresses the historicity and finitude (...) of human knowledge. Our attempts to understand the meaning of texts, conversations, historical events, and social actions and practices are conditioned by the horizon of our language, our own historical experiences, and our assumptions and expectations. Still, Gadamer ends his Truth and Method by stressing not only the linguistic character of understanding but the infinite capacity of all languages to find and express new dimensions of meaning. “Language,” he writes, “forestalls any objection to its jurisdiction. Its universality keeps pace with the universality of reason.”. (shrink)

In later, retrospective texts where he explained his hermeneutical turn, Paul Ricoeur claimed that this turn was due to the impossibility of knowing oneself directly, through introspection, and the necessity to undertake the detour of interpretation with regard to knowledge of oneself. By going back to the first occurrences of this hermeneutical turn in his work of 1960, The Symbolism of Evil, this paper argues that other motives, which were later forgotten, were also at play and perhaps more instrumental, most (...) notably the intention of salvaging modernity against itself and of curing it of its forgetfulness of the sacred. (shrink)

Heidegger's Being and Time: Critical Essays provides a variety of recent studies of Heidegger's most important work. Twelve prominent scholars, representing diverse nationalities, generations, and interpretive approaches deal with general methodological and ontological questions, particular issues in Heidegger's text, and the relation between Being and Time and Heidegger's later thought. All of the essays presented in this volume were never before available in an English-language anthology. Two of the essays have never before been published in any language ; three of (...) the essays have never been published in English before , and two of the essays provide previews of works in progress by major scholars. (shrink)

This book provides an introduction to the historical sources of philosophical hermeneutics as it has come to fruition in the work of Heidegger and Gadamer.

This history of metaphysics respects both the analytic and Continental schools while also transcending the theoretical limitations of each. The book provides an overview restoring the value of metaphysics to contemporary audiences.

La phénoménologie a connu trop peu de sommets créateurs depuis Husserl et Heidegger pour qu’il soit possible d’ignorer le dernier ouvrage de Jean-Luc Marion, aussi superbement écrit qu’il est ambitieux. Certes, de très exhaustives encyclopédies conçues par nos collègues américains, pour lesquels le terme de phénoménologie sert un peu d’équivalent à celui de philosophie continentale, recenseront des légions de phénoménologues depuis Husserl et Heidegger, mais aucun n’aura eu d’impact vraiment déterminant sur la conception même de la discipline. Ces listes comprendront (...) de redoutables penseurs comme Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Emmanuel Levinas et Paul Ricœur, où l’on reconnaîtra les plus illustres représentants de la tradition de la phénoménologie française. (shrink)

The question of Nietzsche's place in hermeneutics raises many questions: can Nietzsche's thought itself be characterized as "hermeneutical" and to what extent, given that hermeneutics was only developed as such after him? Can and should hermeneutics, which until recently did not take his thought much into account, incorporate Nietzsche's thought as a whole? Whereas a mutual fecundation will always be fruitful, this paper argues that one should resist a simple integration of Nietzsche into hermeneutics in light of their different understandings (...) of truth, interpretation and nihilism. It thus becomes possible to also resist the postmodern and nihilistic understanding of hermeneutics. Aware of their differences, hermeneutics and Nietzsche will perhaps have more to say to one another. (shrink)

III. PROLÉGOMÈNES A L'INTELLIGENCE DU TOURNANT Tout le monde attend toujours la deuxième partie de Sein und Zeit. C'est qu'ils ne connaissent pas le livre sur Kant. Martin Heidegger 1 Une interprétation philosophique du tournant ...

We have many reasons to be grateful to Gianni Vattimo for his ongoing contribution to philosophy and public life. Undoubtedly, his most decisive philosophical impulses have come from the German philosophical tradition, and mostly from the Holy Trinity of Nietzsche, Heidegger and Gadamer, who was his teacher. Yet, he was not German, but a proud Italian, and, for some reason, more able than others to carry this tradition further. The issue I would like to discuss here is whether hermeneutics, and (...) thus philosophy itself, must be seen as a form of nihilism. If nihilism only means a tolerance for the view of others to the extent that they do not violently limit the liberty of others, one can agree with Gianni Vattimo. But if one understands under “nihilism” the notion that there are no truths in the sense of adaequatio, one can challenge this view. Vattimo often faults Gadamer for not acknowledging fully the consequences of his own thought, i.e. the nihilistic consequences of his hermeneutic ontology. Yet one must ask: Why is it that Gadamer failed to proclaim a nihilistic hermeneutics? In other words, why did Gadamer resist the postmodernism of some of his followers? (shrink)

“Der Begriff, den Kant in den synthetischen Urteilen a priori aufgestellt hat,—der Begriff von Unterschiedenem, das ebenso untrennbar ist, einem Identischen, das an ihm selbst ungetrennt Unterschied ist, gehört zu dem Grossen und Unsterblichen seiner Philosophie.”.

La pregunta por la vida, es un preguntar por y desde el sentido de lo que es y porta la vida. Interesa destacar la pregunta socrática o filosófica por el "sentido de la vida", en términos de existencia y realidad. La existencia del sentido la porta la vida; sin embargo, la dirección, la reflexión, l..

The idea of God is one from which contemporary philosophy, to say nothing of Western society at large, seems to have turned away from or replaced by other quests. There is however no greater and more vital subject than the idea of God. It is essential because it is difficult to see how life can have an overriding meaning if there is no God. Or, as Ivan Karamazov puts it in Dostoyevsky’s novel, if there is no God, all hell breaks (...) loose. For philosophers and inquiring minds, God also happens to be one of the most cogent answers to the question as to why there is Being and not nothing. There is little to be gained by looking down on such an answer, which was revered as the highest Good in all cultures and epochs. (shrink)

L’herméneutique de la compréhension développée dans Être et temps, et plus particulièrement dans ses §§ 31-32, est l’un des chapitres les plus importants et les plus marquants de la philosophie de Heidegger. Elle est importante par la perspective inouïe qu’elle développe sur le phénomène du comprendre, mais aussi parce que tout le projet de Heidegger est lui-même centré sur la compréhension de l’être 0Seinsverständnis), que son ouvrage propose d’élucider en un effort d’interprétation-explicitation dont le § 32 de Sein und Zeit (...) consacré à Y Auslegung présentera la théorie. Si ces analyses sont célèbres, c’est parce qu’elles ont connu un écho retentissant, notamment dans la réflexion théologique de Rudolf Bultmann, qui en a tiré l’inspiration de son exégèse existentiale du Nouveau Testament et la philosophie herméneutique défendue par Hans- Georg Gadamer et Paul Ricoeur. On peut dire que sans l’herméneutique du comprendre de Heidegger, cette philosophie herméneutique n’aurait probablement jamais vu le jour. (shrink)