Abstract

Eight years after the publication of Philosophische Lehrjahre the English translation has appeared. The question that arises is whether the book deserved translation. What does Gadamer reward us with as we read through these biographical and autobiographical reflections? Obviously we should expect profound meditations on politics and intellectual life as Germany moved from Weimar to Hitler. At the conclusion of World War I, Ernst Troeltsch gave us his Spektator-Briefe, Karl Jaspers after World War II gave us his thoughts about guilt, politics, and philosophical responsibility, and when Gadamer in 1977 produced his book, we expected similar philosophical wisdom. Gadamer had become a deeply respected figure in American philosophical circles. We honored him for his hermeneutical studies, his books on Plato, Hegel, and his insights into the relationship between rhetoric and politics. We turned to Gadamer as the new “light” of Germany from which we were convinced great philosophical ideas naturally emerged and which demanded our immediate study and respect. In Gadamer we again found our link to the German universities which we so deeply honored in the past. Sadly, this book gives us very little to honor and even less to respect.