Robert J. Dostal

The most convenient and accessible guide to Gadamer currently available.

The Cambridge Companion to Gadamer

In Gadamer’s Hermeneutics Robert J. Dostal provides a comprehensive and critical account of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutical philosophy, arguing that Gadamer’s enterprise is rooted in the thesis that “being that can be understood is language.” He defends Gadamer against charges of linguistic idealism and emphasizes language’s relationship to understanding, though he criticizes Gadamer for too often ignoring the role of the prelinguistic in our experience. Dostal goes on to explain the concept of the "inner word" for Gadamer’s account of language. The book situates Gadamer’s hermeneutics in three important ways: in relation to the contestability of the legacy of the Enlightenment project; in relation to the work of his mentor, Martin Heidegger; and in relation to Gadamer’s reading of Plato and Aristotle. Dostal explores both Gadamer’s claim on the Enlightenment and his ambivalence toward it. He considers Gadamer’s dependence on Heidegger’s accomplishment while pointing out the ways in which Gadamer charted his own course, rejecting his teacher’s reading of Plato and his antihumanism. Dostal points out notable differences in the philosophers’ politics as well. Finally, Dostal mediates between Gadamer’s hermeneutics and what might be called philological hermeneutics. His analysis defends the civic humanism that is the culmination of the philosopher’s hermeneutics, a humanism defined by moral education, common sense, judgment, and taste. Supporters and critics of Gadamer’s philosophy will learn much from this major achievement.

Between Phenomenology and Dialectic

Gadamer’s Hermeneutics

J.N. Mohanty

Lester Embree

J.J. Kockelmans

O.K. Wiegand

Joseph 1. Kockelmans Pennsylvania State University In July of 1999, Prof. Dr. Thomas M. Seebohm turned 65 years old, and thus en tered mandatory retirement. His friends, colleagues, and former students thought that it would be fitting to celebrate the event of his retirement with a volume of essays in his honor, in order to render homage to a great human being, an outstanding and dedicated teacher, a highly regarded philosopher and scholar, but above all a dear friend and colleague. When the editors thought about a unifying theme for the anthology, they finally settled on the research interests of Professor Seebohm; in their view the vast do main of his competence and interests would leave all participants the freedom to select a topic of their own choice that would nonetheless lie within this large realm as well as within the area of their own research interests. Professor Seebohm's research interests encompass work in Phenomenology, Hermeneutics, German Idealism (Kant in particular), History of Philosophy, Phi losophy of the formal sciences (of Logic in particular), Philosophy of History, Methodology and Philosophy of the Human Sciences, (including Psychology and Sociology), History of 19th Century British Empiricism (Mill), American Pragma tism, Analytic Philosophy, Philosophy of Law and Practical Philosophy, the devel opment of the history of philosophy in Eastern Europe, especially in the Middle Ages, but also in the nineteenth century.

Robert J. Dostal

About

Books

Join the club