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Truth and Method
Wahrheit und Methode
Hans-Georg Gadamer · 1960 · Long (over 350 pages)
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What it is
The founding work of philosophical hermeneutics. Gadamer argues that the truth we meet in art, history and texts cannot be captured by the method of the natural sciences. Part One starts from art: against a detached aesthetic consciousness, he uses the idea of play to show that a work of art draws its viewer in and is truly encountered only in being performed and understood. Part Two extends this to the human sciences. After a history of hermeneutics from Schleiermacher to Dilthey and Heidegger, Gadamer rehabilitates prejudice, authority and tradition: all understanding begins from fore-understandings that cannot be shed. Understanding happens within the history of a text's effects, and succeeds through a fusion of horizons between reader and text. Application, modelled on legal interpretation and Aristotle's practical wisdom, belongs to understanding itself. Part Three turns to language as the medium in which understanding takes place. Habermas objected that this trust in tradition leaves too little room for criticising ideology.
Why read it
It changed how philosophers, lawyers, theologians and literary critics think about interpretation, and it makes a strong case that understanding others is always a dialogue shaped by history.
Where to start
Start with Part Two, especially the sections on prejudice, historically effected consciousness and the fusion of horizons; the revised translation by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall is standard.