Hans-Georg Gadamer: biography of this German philosopher.

A journey through the intellectual development of this thinker linked to the study of hermeneutics.

Hermeneutics is an art or current dedicated to interpreting texts, especially sacred writings and philosophical and artistic texts. Hans-Georg Gadamer was a German philosopher who renewed this current with his contributions.

Gadamer was a disciple of Heidegger, another German thinker, considered the most influential of the twentieth century. In this article we will see a brief biography of Hans-Georg Gadamer and a summary of his contributions, especially in the fields of hermeneutics, philosophy and aesthetics.

Hans-Georg Gadamer: biography of this philosopher.

Hans-Georg Gadamer was a German philosopher, born in Marburg in 1900 and died in Heidelberg in 2002. He graduated with a doctoral thesis in philosophy in 1922. Subsequently, in 1933, he taught aesthetics and ethics in his hometown, in Kiel and again in Marburg.

In the latter city, Marburg, Gadamer was appointed extraordinary professor, in 1937, and two years later he got a professorship at the University of Leipzig. He then moved to the universities of Frankfurt and Heidelberg, where he took over from Karl Jaspers as professor of philosophy. In 1968 he became professor emeritus.

Hans-Georg Gadamer is known for his essays in three remarkable fields: the history of philosophy, the philosophy of history and aesthetics (he studies essence and perception). (he studies the essence and perception of beauty).

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Intellectual development

Truth and method. Elements of a philosophical hermeneutics. (1960) was his most important work, in which he. established the assumptions and objectives of the hermeneutics current (technique or method of text interpretation). This current affirms that there is no such thing as the world, but rather various historical meanings of the "world". However, although this current implies a great relativism, Hans-Georg Gadamer alludes in his work to a possible communication and expression of meaning.

In this work, the hermeneutic philosophy and the author's most relevant work are systematically presented. The influence of Heidegger's hermeneutics of being and Wilhelm Dilthey's philosophy is shown.

The history of truth as reconstructed by Hans-Georg Gadamer in his work is marked by the famous philosopher DescartesThis means that truth is in fact a method for achieving adequate correspondence between facts and propositions. Gadamer, however, opposes such a position and describes the real possibilities of the human experience of truth.

Hermeneutical principles

Hans-Georg Gadamer elaborates a series of hermeneutical principles that go beyond philosophy, and that can be applied to different disciplines such as literary criticism or sociology. can be applied to different disciplines such as literary criticism or sociology.. According to the author, the search for truth requires a redefinition of hermeneutics; according to him, this current goes beyond the interpretation of texts and encompasses a reflection that is essential for understanding the world.

Hans-Georg Gadamer founded the Hermeneutic School and affirms that the interpretation of a text must avoid arbitrariness and the limitations arising from mental habits, and that we must focus our gaze on the things themselves, on the texts themselves. According to Gadamer, whenever we approach a text, we do so on the basis of a project and with some prior idea of what is being done there.

Aesthetic Experience

Hans-Georg Gadamer also spoke of aesthetic experience, according to which from this "one can glimpse a circumstance of truth in which the person of experience itself is modified".

Thus Gadamer understands, unlike other philosophical theories where truth is identified with the knowledge of the positive sciences, that the truth of experiences arises as a result of people coming into contact with works of art, history or personal dialogue.. According to this philosopher, in the aesthetic experience there is a dissolution of the perceiving subject and the object (the work of art). This experience breaks the subject-object dichotomy.

On the other hand, the author affirms that the aesthetic experience is carried out through a back-and-forth movement in which the work of art and the subject who enjoys it move in the same direction. For example, in the contemplation of a work of art, the spectator is subjected to the vicissitudes of the plot, and is thereby introduced into the work itself, at the same time as the work "operates" on him or herself. This is defined by Hans-Georg Gadamer as a game.

Other works and relation to other authors

Hans-Georg Gadamer also wrote other works, such as for example The Problem of Historical Consciousness (1963), Small Writings (1967) y Dialogue and Dialectics (1980), a compendium of essays on Plato's dialogues.

On the other hand, throughout his life and professional career, he polemicized with thinkers such as Jacques Derrida and Jürgen Habermas.. Riccardo Dottori, an Italian philosopher, published his conversations with Gadamer in a work titled L'ultimo dio. Lezioni sul XX Secolo; the edition of this work was published in German in 2002, weeks before Hans-Georg Gadamer's forte.

Bibliographical references:

Hahn, L. and Drechsler, W. (1998). The philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer. Trames, 2(4), 338-351. Malpas, J. (2003). Hans-Georg Gadamer. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.