Gadamer: A Philosophical Portrait

9 HERMENEUTICS AS PHILOSOPHY

176 hermeneutics as Philosophy Philosophy never really finds it necessary to justify its existence, since whoever would contest it is also engaging in the process of reflection that one calls philosophy. (IG 171/ GW7 223) I didn’t dare to use the pretentious word “philosophy” with respect to myself, and tried to apply it only attributively. (GW10 199) 1. Children and the Future of Philosophy What role does philosophy play today? What will be its future? Who is the philosopher in the age of technology? Gadamer was asked these questions more and more frequently , above all in his last years. This was because many saw him as the last philosopher, with whom a great century came to an end. he was conscious of the need to justify philosophy, and answered such questions in numerous essays and interviews. on these occasions he also made clear how hermeneutics should be understood as philosophy. in contrast to others, Gadamer never believed in the “end” of philosophy. of course it is undeniable that the scientific and technological age is deeply anti-philosophical . in the meantime it has become customary to ask what philosophy is good for. everywhere we can see that philosophy has fallen into disrepute. We live in an age that would as soon count philosophy among the theological relics of a bygone age or that suspects nothing so much of having a dependence upon secret or unconscious interests as the ideal of pure theory and of knowledge for the sake of knowledge alone. (RAS 139/VZW 110) The passion for philosophy seems only to be an “irresponsible flight into a world of fading dreams” (RAS 139/VZW 110). in an epoch marked by acceleration, do we still have time for leisurely and unproductive speculation about unsolvable problems? The old prejudices against philosophy have consolidated and intensified since, beginning with Galileo, experimental science based on mathematical methods imposed itself with unprecedented success. The new concept of science not only narrowed philosophy , which for the Greeks was the highest “science,” but undermined its identity and forced it into permanent “self-defense” (RAS 6/HE 15). The systematic philosophical constructions of the last centuries have become merely unsuccessful attempts to reconcile the inheritance of metaphysics with modern science. The “rapid demise of 9 Hermeneutics as Philosophy | 177 the hegelian empire of absolute Spirit” only confirms for Gadamer that metaphysics has exhausted itself and that science has moved to the center of human knowledge (RAS 111/VZW 140). The split between science and philosophy appears to have lead to mutual exclusion . But what becomes of philosophy then? Should it not adapt to the successful model of rigorous science and disguise itself as theory of science? “Philosophy or Theory of Science?”—Gadamer formulated this alternative in a 1974 essay.1 The question primarily concerns science. despite all of our expectations, science can offer us only an endless process of the investigation of nature, yet no orientation in the world—in a world that has become “ever more strange because it has been all too changed by ourselves” (RAS 20/VZW 25). The perception of this new alienation does not mean, of course, that philosophy should be relegated to a private sphere. The very limits of science prevent this. it is not only a matter of the will to control every area of life, without however being able to eliminate that strange phenomenon of death. The paradox lies rather in this: on the one hand the authority of science frees us from the responsibility of decision, which now appears objective; on the other hand science itself proves to be incapable of assuming responsibility, because it is unable to give an account of the importance it has gained for human life—it suffices here to think about genetic manipulation or global warming. in the moment when science must justify itself beyond its own procedures , it is already forced to go beyond itself; it is already philosophy (ibid. 162/138–139). as soon as science, in order to legitimize itself, switches from formalized terminology back to everyday language and its web of language games, science not only shows that it needs a foundation, but it also legitimizes philosophy and the flight into the logoi defended from Plato to hegel. Surely no one can hold the view the philosophy might regain the role it had in the past, and integrate all of our knowledge into a unified image. nevertheless Gadamer was convinced that philosophy should continue to intervene in the work...