Philosophical Apprenticeships (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought) Book

These autobiographical reflections by a major contemporary philosopher offer an enjoyable and enlightening tour not only of his own intellectual development but of the rich and fruitful collaboration of minds during a rich period in German cultural history. Hans-Georg Gadamer, the author of Truth and Method, traces his "philosophical apprenticeships" with some of the most important thinkers of the 20th century Gadamer is a sharp observer of individuals and of communities, and his characterizations are rich in insight. From his birthplace in Breslau, his intellectual odyssey covers many of the major centers of German academics: Marburg, Leipzig, Frankfurt, and Heidelberg. The people he describes, along with their work, include the neo-Kantian Paul Natorp, Max Scheler ("completely unbelievable," yet hardly known today), Martin Heidegger (marked by "well-integrated spiritual energy laced together with such a plain power of verbal expression and such a radical simplicity of questions"; also an adept at skiing and handball), Rudolf Bultmann ("The organization of his intellectual life was one of unprecedented discipline and the utmost will to frugality"), Gerhard Krüger, Richard Kroner, Hans Lipps, Karl Reinhardt, Karl Jaspers ("As glittering fire beams forth from a thousand facets of a pure stone, so the fine-grained brightness of experience, insight, and existential movement also shines out from the sentences of Jaspers's philosophy"), and Karl Löwith. Gadamer concludes with a chapter "On the Development of My Thinking." Perhaps more than anyone else, Hans-Georg Gadamer is the doyen of German philosophy and the recognized chief theorist of hermeneutics. His book Reason in the Age of Science (MIT Press paperback) is an ideal introduction to his thought and to the problems of hermeneutics more generally. Philosophical Apprenticeships is included in the series Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought, edited by Thomas McCarthy.Read More