Gadamer, Kant, and the Enlightenment
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Gadamer is prominent on the list of counter-enlightenment philosophers of the20th century. He is on this list for good reasons, reasons that I will briefly explore here. Gadamer borrows much from Heidegger’s critique of modernity and he adds to it. As we all know, Gadamer’s critique of the Enlightenment and modernity serves as an opening for a reappropriation of the Greeks, especially Plato and Aristotle. Gadamer is often taken, again with good reason, to be one of the leading voices revivifying the battle of ancients and moderns and urging, at least in some regards, the superiority of the ancients. Kant is without question the leading figure of the Enlightenment—at least within the German tradition, if not for the European Enlightenment in general. As such we should expect Gadamer to be strongly critical of Kant. And yet we find Gadamer’s relation to Kant displaying a deep ambivalence. It is this ambivalence that this paper examines.
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2
Hans-Georg Gadamer, “Reply to David Detmer,” Philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer, 287.
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Gadamer, “Science as an Instrument of the Enlightenment,” in Praise of Theory, trans. Chris Dawson (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 71–83; for the German: “Wissenschaft als Instrument der Aufklärung,” Lob der Theorie (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1983).
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Gadamer, Hermeneutische Entwürfe (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), 31.
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Gadamer, Kant, and the Enlightenment
In: Research in PhenomenologySearch for other papers by Robert Dostal in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Gadamer is prominent on the list of counter-enlightenment philosophers of the20th century. He is on this list for good reasons, reasons that I will briefly explore here. Gadamer borrows much from Heidegger’s critique of modernity and he adds to it. As we all know, Gadamer’s critique of the Enlightenment and modernity serves as an opening for a reappropriation of the Greeks, especially Plato and Aristotle. Gadamer is often taken, again with good reason, to be one of the leading voices revivifying the battle of ancients and moderns and urging, at least in some regards, the superiority of the ancients. Kant is without question the leading figure of the Enlightenment—at least within the German tradition, if not for the European Enlightenment in general. As such we should expect Gadamer to be strongly critical of Kant. And yet we find Gadamer’s relation to Kant displaying a deep ambivalence. It is this ambivalence that this paper examines.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 597 | 79 | 2 |
| Full Text Views | 246 | 6 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 152 | 16 | 0 |
