Table Of ContentContributions To Phenomenology 90
Anders Odenstedt
Gadamer on
Tradition -
Historical Context
and the Limits of
Reflection
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Anders Odenstedt
Gadamer on Tradition -
Historical Context and the
Limits of Reflection
Anders Odenstedt
Department of Business Administration,
Technology and Social Sciences
Luleå University of Technology
Luleå, Sweden
ISSN 0923-9545 ISSN 2215-1915 (electronic)
Contributions To Phenomenology
ISBN 978-3-319-59556-6 ISBN 978-3-319-59558-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-59558-0
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Preface
Since Hans-Georg Gadamer’s Wahrheit und Methode was first published in 1960, it
has become something of a contemporary classic. Its appeal is perhaps at least
partly the result of the wide range of topics that it covers. It contains interpretations
of several figures in the history of philosophy, as well as discussions of truth, lan-
guage, the human sciences, art, and aesthetic experience.
But Gadamer in Wahrheit und Methode also proposes a theory of the way in
which thought is influenced by its historical context and responds to this influence.
I refer to this theory as Gadamer’s theory of context-dependence. Among the ques-
tions that this theory tries to answer are the following: to what extent and in what
way is thought influenced by and thus dependent on its historical context? To what
extent is the individual able to become reflectively aware of and resist this influ-
ence? And, conversely, how may the individual appropriate contextual influences
and thereby contribute to the development of what Gadamer refers to as “tradition”
(die Überlieferung)?
This study offers an interpretation and assessment of Gadamer’s theory of
context- dependence. It should be mentioned, however, that Gadamer does not him-
self use the terms ‘context-dependence’ or ‘historical context.’ But he does refer to
the “dependence” (Abhängigkeit) of thought on historical factors.1 Gadamer argues
that these factors are formed by tradition, which involves and transmits a set of
“presuppositions” or “prejudices” (Vorurteile): this is how thought is “dependent
[angewiesen] on the given [historical] circumstances [Gegebenheiten] in which it
operates.”2
I will have something to say about Gadamer’s discussions of other issues (pri-
marily his discussions of the human sciences, art, and aesthetic experience) insofar
as they contribute to an understanding of his theory of context-dependence. But this
book is nevertheless largely thematic because it focuses on this theory. I do not
attempt an examination of Gadamer’s philosophy as a whole even when he explic-
itly draws conclusions in, for instance, the philosophy of language from his theory
of context-dependence, or (conversely) when he infers elements of this theory in
discussing other issues. Rather, I focus on the theory of context-dependence and
attempt to place it in a somewhat larger thematic perspective.
v
vi Preface
However, it might be argued that it is precisely through Gadamer’s theory of
language that his theory of context-dependence is ultimately clarified, insofar as
Gadamer holds that it is in language that the transmission of history and tradition
occurs.3 This is undoubtedly true. But Gadamer often transfers certain key ideas and
expressions from his theory of context-dependence to his theory of language and
vice versa. For this reason it seems to me doubtful that either of these theories is
fundamentally clarified by this transferal. Thus, Gadamer often argues that context- -
dependence is in some sense unreflected. He says: “the consciousness of being
affected by history [das wirkungsgeschichtliche Bewußtsein] is inescapably more
[unreflective] being [Sein] than [reflective] consciousness [Bewußtsein] and being is
never fully manifest.”4 And Gadamer makes similar claims on language: “No indi-
vidual has a real consciousness of his speaking when he speaks. Only in exceptional
circumstances does one become conscious of the language in which he is speak-
ing.”5 Similarly, “The more language is a living operation [lebendiger Vollzug] the
less we are aware of it. Thus it follows from the self-forgetfulness [Selbstvergessenheit]
of language that its real being consists in what is said in it.”6
Instead of simply noting the passages where Gadamer asserts that language and
context-dependence are both forms of unreflective “being” rather than reflective
“consciousness” and so forth, I have tried to pose and, to some extent at least,
answer the question what the very concepts of unreflective “being” and reflective
“consciousness” might mean in cases of this kind. It seems to me that such ques-
tions may be posed before one begins to trace Gadamer’s transferal of these con-
cepts from one part of his philosophy to another. Gadamer’s theory of
context-dependence is not, or so it seems to me, fundamentally clarified by his
theory of language because both theories are expressed in the same general terms.
Thus, Gadamer seems to use the concepts of unreflective “being” and reflective
“consciousness” in largely the same way and in the same general and quite unspe-
cific sense in all the three passages just quoted.
Let me provide a few more examples of the close correspondence between
the way in which Gadamer phrases his theory of language and the way in which
he phrases his theory of context-dependence. According to Gadamer, “the most
primordial [ursprüngliche] way in which the [historical] past is present is not
remembering but forgetting.”7 This “forgetting” is an analogue of the “self-
forgetfulness” that Gadamer sees as a feature of language. The question thus
arises what the very concepts of “forgetting” and “self-forgetfulness” mean in
both contexts.
Similarly, Gadamer asserts that “the hermeneutic phenomenon proves to be a
special case of the general relationship between thinking and speaking, whose enig-
matic intimacy [rätselhafte Innigkeit] conceals the role of language in thought.”8
Gadamer also says: “When a person lives in a language, he is filled with the sense
of the unsurpassable appropriateness [unübertrefflichen Angemessenheit] of the
word he uses for the subject matter he is talking about.”9 And Gadamer argues that
a similar “intimate” and “concealed” role is played by unreflected and context- -
dependent “presuppositions” in thought in such a way that they seem self-evidently
“appropriate” to their subject matter. Once again, the question arises what concepts
Preface vii
such as “intimacy,” “concealment,” and unreflected “appropriateness” might mean
in cases of this kind. It is such questions as these that I pose in this book.
I also discuss some of the historical sources of Gadamer’s theory of context- -
dependence. Hegel is one of the most important of these sources. I thus discuss
quite extensively Hegel’s account of the relationship between the individual’s think-
ing, which Hegel calls “subjective Spirit,” and the surrounding historical context
with its traditions, norms, and customs, which he calls “objective Spirit.” Gadamer
often (but not quite consistently) stresses the epistemic cohesion of historical con-
texts. This cohesion is, he thereby argues, formed by shared presuppositions which
are not questioned by individuals situated in a historical context, and which to some
extent are not reflectively or even consciously entertained by them (at least not in
normal circumstances). Hegel makes somewhat similar claims in his account of
objective Spirit, describing it as the unreflected basis of subjective Spirit. As we shall
see, however, there are also crucial differences between Hegel’s and Gadamer’s
views in this respect.
Hegel is the most important representative of a tendency that began to emerge at
the end of the eighteenth century to perceive cultural and historical factors as crucial
to an understanding of thought. Previously such factors were traditionally described,
insofar as the issue was discussed at all, as an external milieu in which thought more
or less contingently happens to occur and which can only superficially enable or
obstruct it. Hegel, by contrast, argues that objective Spirit plays a more fundamental
role. Objective Spirit is not an external milieu of thought serving as an ancillary aid
or obstacle to it. Objective Spirit forms part of the very constitution of thought. I try
to spell out Hegel’s claim that contextual factors play a constitutive role in this
regard in somewhat more detail in Chaps. 6 and 7, but we may note already at this
stage that Gadamer describes these factors as constitutive in a similar way, and this
is one of the reasons why Hegel is considered at some length in what follows.
There was a stress on the context-dependence of thought and on the alleged mul-
tiplicity of historical contexts in connection with the rise of the historical sciences
as academic and institutionalized pursuits in the nineteenth century. The new sci-
ence of history took pride in having abandoned what it saw as a previous naïve
tendency to assume that all historical contexts are basically similar, that they exer-
cise only a superficial influence on thought and conduct, and that, for this reason,
they can be understood by the historian in a relatively simple fashion. Wilhelm
Dilthey was one of the leading figures of the new historical sciences and nineteenth--
century hermeneutics, and he criticized previous history writing for having been
insensitive to the influence of historical contexts. But Gadamer holds that Dilthey
himself failed to understand the scope and strength of this influence. In what follows
I also discuss this issue at some length.
Now, there is an emphasis on context-dependence in several branches of contem-
porary philosophy, such as poststructuralism (Foucault), deconstruction (Derrida),
Marxism, certain forms of feminist philosophy, and the philosophy of science.
Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions has been a seminal work in
this regard, with its stress on the importance of the historical context (tradition and
paradigm) even for research in the natural sciences. Kuhn refers to his “discovery of
viii Preface
hermeneutics.” This discovery, he says, “did more than make history seem conse-
quential. Its most immediate and decisive effect was instead on my view of sci-
ence.”10 And Gadamer refers to Kuhn’s views with approval and sees them as
lending support to his own position.11
Accordingly, this book is not restricted to a discussion of the philosopher who is
often seen as the most important contemporary representative of hermeneutics: it
addresses an issue that has wider repercussions. To be sure, several of the schools of
thought just mentioned are implicitly or even explicitly opposed to Gadamer’s view
that context-dependence is ultimately formed by presuppositions. For instance,
Marxists stress the role of forms of production as they occur in a historical context
in determining the presuppositions and modes of thought of this context. And Jürgen
Habermas has argued that the claim that context-dependent presuppositions are the
ultimate ground of belief is superficial and even misleading insofar as communica-
tion and thought may be distorted by forms of social and economic domination.
Somewhat similarly, Foucault develops his account of “discursive practises” in
opposition to what he sees as a misplaced stress in hermeneutics on mentalities and
forms of thought. What Foucault tries to uncover is not a “structure of thought that
the men of a particular period cannot escape” but “processes of a historical
practice.”12
Of course, I do not pretend to have even sketched Foucault’s theory of discursive
practices and its opposition to hermeneutics here, nor shall I address it in what fol-
lows. This constraint also applies to Derrida’s “deconstructive” critique of herme-
neutics.13 I mention Foucault and Derrida here to illustrate that there is a quite
common stress on context-dependence in contemporary philosophy, although there
are important differences between the accounts of this dependence in the respective
cases. Derrida and feminist philosophers inspired by him see distinctions of the
Western philosophical tradition such as those between the mental and the physical
and between masculinity and femininity as permeating everyday language and
thought. And Derrida tries to undermine distinctions of this kind. By contrast,
Gadamer often questions both the possibility and desirability of such undermining
of our context-dependence. However, Gadamer and Derrida share a stress on the
allegedly fundamental role of theory and presuppositions in the formation of
context- dependence and thereby differ from Foucault and Habermas.
The question of context-dependence is not only of academic interest. For
instance, in discussions of matters of principle between liberals and conservatives,
the latter tend to stress the role of the historical context (custom, tradition, and prec-
edent) in determining the preferences and beliefs of the individual, whereas the
former conversely stress the individual’s autonomy in relation to such contextual
factors. In what follows, some philosophical forms of this discussion are explored.
I thus offer an analysis of Habermas’ critique of Gadamer and Gadamer’s response
to it. I also discuss Gadamer’s critical remarks on Karl Popper and describe some of
the differences between their respective views. Popper and Habermas represent, one
might say, a liberal position in this regard. By contrast, Gadamer’s position often,
but not consistently, involves a conservative stress on the inescapability of tradition
and of the historical context. I say “not consistently” here to emphasize that
Preface ix
Gadamer’s position in this respect is quite complex and cannot straightforwardly be
described as conservative, although there is certainly support in Gadamer’s writings
for such a description. I devote large portions of this book to an exploration of this
and related complexities in Gadamer’s thought.
Several writers see a tension in Gadamer between a commitment to reflection on
context-dependence, on the one hand, and his claim that this dependence is unre-
flected, on the other hand. In what follows I examine possible reasons for and
against ascribing such a tension to Gadamer’s thought. I also discuss if we are actu-
ally involved with a tension and with incompatible views in this regard, or if
Gadamer’s very stress on unreflected context-dependence follows quite naturally
from a certain form of reflection on the contextual circumstances under which we
live.
Parts of this book have been published in earlier versions in the following forms.
Chapter 2 is based on “Art and history in Gadamer’s hermeneutics”
(Phänomenologische Forschungen 2007). Chapter 3 is based on “Tradition and
truth. Dilthey and Gadamer on the history of philosophy” (Lychnos 2006), and on
“History as conversation versus history as science. Gadamer and Dilthey” (in
Hermeneutics and the Art of Conversation, ed. Andrzej Wiercinski. Berlin: LIT
Verlag 2011). Chapters 4 and 5 incorporate “Gadamer on the limits of reflection”
(The Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 36: 2005),14 and “Gadamer
on context-dependence” (The Review of Metaphysics 57: 2003). Chapter 6 is based
on “Hegel and Gadamer on Bildung” (The Southern Journal of Philosophy 46:
2008),15 and Chap. 7 is an extended version of “Being a child of one’s time: Hegel
on thought and cultural context” (International Philosophical Quarterly 52: 2012).
I wish to thank the publishers for their kind permission to use this material here.
During the preparation of this book I have incurred many debts of gratitude. The
late Professor Stanley Rosen promptly and perceptively read and commented on
parts of the manuscript. I also thank Professors Sören Stenlund, Ingvar Johansson,
Sharon Rider, and Jeff Malpas, who read earlier versions of parts of the manuscript
and made many valuable and helpful remarks. Ingvar supervised the writing of my
dissertation, on which this study largely builds. Parts of the text were presented and
discussed at seminars at the universities of Uppsala and Umeå. I extend my thanks
to all the participants concerned. I am also grateful for comments and questions by
students over the years at Umeå University, Luleå University of Technology, and the
Academy of Fine Arts in Umeå. I also thank an anonymous reviewer of the manu-
script for many valuable remarks. Thanks also to my editors at Springer, Dr. Cristina
dos Santos, Anita Rachmat, and Magesh Kaarthick for much good advice of a more
practical nature. Last but not least, I thank my late parents Birgitta and Bengt, my
sister Christina, my brother Fredrik, Mojgan Sanaei, and my son Oscar for their
support and encouragement.
Luleå, Sweden Anders Odenstedt
