Hans-Georg Gadamer Quotes
Hans-Georg Gadamer was a German philosopher and the founder of philosophical hermeneutics. A student of Husserl and Heidegger, he taught at Leipzig, Frankfurt, and Heidelberg, where his Truth and Method, published when he was sixty, became one of the major works of twentieth-century continental philosophy. The quotes below are attributed to Hans-Georg Gadamer, organized by topic.
Browse Hans-Georg Gadamer by topic
Hans-Georg Gadamer on Death
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“Die Menschen können nicht ohne Hoffnung leben" (one of his last interviews), Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung (February 11, 2002)”
People cannot live without hope; this is one of the statements I can defend without any reservations.
Hans-Georg Gadamer on Justice
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“What man needs is not just the persistent posing of ultimate questions, but the sense of what is feasible, what is possible, what is correct, here and now. The philosopher, of all people, must, I think, be aware of the tension between what he claims to achieve and the reality in which he finds himself.”
Foreword to the Second Edition, p. xxiv.
Hans-Georg Gadamer on Knowledge
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Attributed to Hans-Georg Gadamer:
“All understanding is interpretation.”
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Attributed to Hans-Georg Gadamer:
“Language is the medium in which substantive understanding and agreement take place between two people.”
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“Man and Language (1966)”
The more language is a living operation, the less we are aware of it. Thus it follows that from the forgetfulness of language that its real being consists in what is said in it. What is said in it constitutes the common world in which we live. … The real being of language is that into which we are taken up when we hear it — what is said. -
“Man and Language (1966)”
Aristotle established the classical definition of man, according to which man is the living being who has logos . In the tradition of the West, this definition became canonical in a form which stated that man is the animal rationale , the rational being, distinguished from all other animals by his capacity for thought. Thus it rendered the Greek word logos as reason or thought. In truth, however, -
“Foreword to the Second Edition, p. xxiv.”
What man needs is not just the persistent posing of ultimate questions, but the sense of what is feasible, what is possible, what is correct, here and now. The philosopher, of all people, must, I think, be aware of the tension between what he claims to achieve and the reality in which he finds himself. -
“Understanding does not occur when we try to intercept what someone wants to say to us by claiming we already know it.”
Aesthetics and Hermeneutics (1964) | p. 102
Hans-Georg Gadamer on Life
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“People cannot live without hope; this is one of the statements I can defend without any reservations.”
Die Menschen können nicht ohne Hoffnung leben" (one of his last interviews), Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung (February 11, 2002)
Hans-Georg Gadamer on Mind
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Attributed to Hans-Georg Gadamer:
“It is not so much our judgments as our prejudices that constitute our being.”
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Attributed to Hans-Georg Gadamer:
“Understanding is always more than merely re-creating someone else's meaning.”
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“Aristotle established the classical definition of man, according to which man is the living being who has logos . In the tradition of the West, this definition became canonical in a form which stated that man is the animal rationale , the rational being, distinguished from all other animals by his capacity for thought. Thus it rendered the Greek word logos as reason or thought. In truth, however, the primary meaning of this word is language. ... The word logos means not only thought and language, but also concept and law.”
Man and Language (1966) -
“The hermeneutic consciousness, which must be awakened and kept awake, recognizes that in the age of science philosophy's claim of superiority has something chimerical and unreal about it. But though the will of man is more than ever intensifying its criticism of what has gone before to the point of becoming a utopian or eschatological consciousness, the hermeneutic consciousness seeks to confront that will with something of the truth of remembrance: with what is still and ever again real.”
Foreword to the Second Edition, p. xxiv
Hans-Georg Gadamer on Nature
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“[Although the natural sciences are indispensable to human survival,] this does not mean that people would be able to solve the problems that face us, peaceful coexistence of peoples and the preservation of the balance of nature, with science as such. It is obvious that not mathematics but the linguistic nature of people is the basis of human civilization.”
Ästhetik und Poetik I. Kunst als Aussage (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1993), p. 342; as quoted in Andrew Bowie , Adorno and the Ends of Philosophy (Cambridge: Polity, 2013), p. 15
Hans-Georg Gadamer on Truth
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Attributed to Hans-Georg Gadamer:
“Prejudices are not necessarily unjustified and erroneous, so that they inevitably distort the truth.”
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“The real being of language is what is said in it.”
Man and Language (1966)
Things actually not said by Hans-Georg Gadamer
A number of widely-shared lines are circulated as Hans-Georg Gadamer but are in fact from someone else. Did Hans-Georg Gadamer say these? No. Each entry below pairs the line with the person who actually wrote it.
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Did Hans-Georg Gadamer say this? No.
“Nothing exists except through language.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but the actual source is Terry Winograd and Fernando Flores. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Terry Winograd and Fernando Flores in Understanding Computers and Cognition : A New Foundation for Design (1986)