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(2018) Human Studies 41 (1).
Although Hans Georg Gadamer was a highly influential philosopher of the twentieth century, there are very few book length treatments in English which specifically address the role of tradition in the overall framework of his hermeneutics. Anders Odenstedt’s Gadamer on Tradition: Historical Context and the Limits of Reflectionpurports to fill this gap. It is ostensibly about tradition and what about human thinking fundamentally owes to tradition. Odenstedt believes that Gadamer belongs to a set of thinkers, which includes the likes of Foucault, Kuhn and Derrida, who emphasize the ‘context-dependence’ of thought. By this the author means that Gadamer is the votary of the theory that ‘thought is influenced by historical context and responds to its influence’ (p. v). This might seem an over-argued thesis. Gadamer’s reputation is widely canvassed as a preeminent philosopher who initiated an ontological turn in the twentieth century hermeneutics, and thereby stressed that understanding is...
Publication details
DOI: 10.1007/s10746-018-9459-7
Full citation:
Kollipara, B. (2018). Review of A. Odenstedt, Gadamer on tradition. Human Studies 41 (1), pp. 157-164.
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