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CHAPTER III DISCOURSE ON TRANSLATION IN HERMENEUTICS
Hans-Georg Gadamer was born in 1900 A.D. in Marburg, and then studied philosophy there. In 1922 A.D., he received his Ph.D. and became an instructor
Privatdozent in Marburg. From 1938 A.D. until 1947 A.D., he taught in Leipzig, and from 1947 A.D. to 1949 A.D. in Frankfurt. In 1949 A.D., he moved to the
University of Heidelberg to teach until his retirement in 1968 A.D. Gadamer became a disciple of Heidegger. In his works, he combines his interest in the Greek thought
and civilization with the German tradition. His works on hermeneutics are heavily based upon his historical and philosophical studies in addition to his understanding of
literature and poetry, both in the classical and modern styles.
1
Gadamer’s magnum opus is Wahrheit und Methode [in English; Truth and
Method]. In this work, he criticizes the objectivism established in both the Enlightenment and Romanticism, suggesting that we need to adjust the meaning of
1
This brief biography of Gadamer is taken from Kurt Mueller-Vollmer, The Hermeneutics
Reader: Texts of the German tradition from the Enlightenment to the Present, New York: Continuum, 2002, p. 256. To know more about Gadamer’s life and carier, he wrote autobiography. See Hans-
Georg Gadamer, Intellectual Autobiography of Hans-Georg Gadamer, translated by Richard E.
Palmer, in Lewis Edwin Hahn, ed., The Philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer, Chicago Illinois:
Open, 1997, p. 1-64.
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prejudices in all academic activities. Gadamer’s thought on hermeneutics is appropriately called the “new hermeneutics.” In his
Truth and Method, Gadamer also develops a critical analysis by giving the readers deep understanding of classical
hermeneutics in its various forms. The concept of the historicity of understanding, which draws heavily on Heideggers
Being and Time, is the core of his argument. Nevertheless, he is also indebted to the methodological studies by Dilthey in
humanities. Yet, as opposed to Dilthey, he does address his analysis in favor of the methodologies of the humanities sciences. Gadamer thus prefers to focus on the
disclosure and criticism of hermeneutical principles by which the humanities are developed in their actual history and manifestation in the present.
2
3.1. Gadamer’s Theory of Interpretation
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