Synopses & Reviews
Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002) was one of the greatest philosophers of our era. He was also at the center of some of the century's darkest, most complex historical events, for he chose to remain in his native Germany in the 1930s, neither supporting Hitler nor actively opposing him, but negotiating instead an "unpolitical" position that allowed him to continue his philosophical work. In this magisterial book, Jean Grondin appraises Gadamer's life and achievement. Drawing on countless interviews with Gadamer and his contemporaries, Gadamer's personal correspondence, and extensive archival research, Grondin traces Gadamer's life as an academician and the development of his ideas, placing them in the context of his times. He sheds light on the genesis and accomplishment of Gadamer's major opus, Truth and Method, the bible of modern-day hermeneutics. And he addresses the question of Gadamer's attitude and actions amid the catastrophe of Nazi Germany, painting a balanced portrait of a scholar who tried to preserve German culture and tradition in the face of an invasive menace.
Review
"This book will probably eventuate in damage to Gadamer's reputation, precisely because it tries to preempt any and all charges against him. It smells of whitewash. The basic story, undisputed by Grondin, is that Gadamer is a German philosopher who worked away at his studies through the Nazi years and then the early years of the Soviet occupation with slow but steady success in each situation. Clearly someone who can work well with the Nazis and Stalinists, though certainly not a member of either party (albeit decidedly cooler towards the Stalinists), is ripe for a character study, and possibly for an investigation into the captive mind, philosophy under tyranny, or even the nature of German culture before 1950. Grondin, who is self-confessedly a Gadamer partisan, will have none of it. Instead we have a badly done biography, in which major events in Gadamer's life—his divorce from his first wife and his marriage to his second, for example—are simply passed over in silence, while a good bit of time is spent in showing that, in effect, 'hey, if Gadamer is a Nazi sympathizer, then so is Kierkegaard.' The real questions—of Gadamer's escapism, moral cowardice, and ability to work smoothly with whatever bureaucrats were in power, traits so common in his class then (and perhaps today)— are ignored while the cheapest accusations against Gadamer are set up and knocked down in short order. One of the main lessons of Gadamer's work has been that understanding is an importantly moral enterprise; here Grondin, one of Gadamer's ablest exegetes, demonstrates that he has missed that lesson altogether. How much of that lesson did Gadamer himself miss? It's hard to tell from this biography, but from the few evasive comments, it seems he never came to a reckoning with his actions, or inaction. Admittedly such a reckoning involves real moral courage, which Gadamer never demonstrated (or, as Grondin puts it, he 'lacked the will to martyrdom,' but that makes him pretty much like the rest of us), and so the book fails to offer any insight into a condition, the condition of moral somnolescence, which we share with him as well. It's safe to say that this book will be the
main biography of Gadamer for some time, and more's the pity." Reviewed by Andrew Witmer, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)
Synopsis
Includes bibliographical references (p. [381]-472) and index.