The Beginning of Knowledge by Hans-Georg Gadamer (PDF)

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In The Beginning of Knowledge, Gadamer reminds us that philosophy for the Greeks was not just a question of metaphysics and epistemology but encompassed cosmology, physics, mathematics, medicine, and the entire reach of theoretical curiosity and intellectual mastery. Whereas his book The Beginning of Philosophy dealt with the inception of philosophical inquiry, this new book brings together nearly all of GadamerÆs previously published but never translated essays on the Presocratics. Beginning with a hermeneutical and philological investigation of the Heraclitus fragments (1974 and 1990), he then moves on to a discussion of the Greek Atomists (1935) and the Presocratic cosmologists (1964). In the last two essays (1978 and 1994/95), Gadamer elaborates on the profound debt that modern scientific thinking owes to the Greek philosophical tradition.

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Editorial Reviews: Review “…his [Gadamer’s] views on the ancient Greeks provide a powerful reply to Heidegger’s enormously creative, but less than accurate interpretations…Whether or not one finds Gadamer’s Platonic route to the pre-Socratics to be successful, he produces stimulating insights into their views and challenges one to rearticulate why Gadamer might be wrong, if he is wrong. Such challenges are always welcome.” –Philosophy in Review, 12/03 (David Vessey, Grand Valley State University) About the Author Hans-Georg Gadamer was born on 11 February 1900 and died on 13 March 2002. He was the author, most notably, of Truth and Method, and, more recently, of The Beginning of Philosophy and The Beginning of Knowledge.

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⭐This book, The Beginning of Knowledge, by the great German philosopher Hans Georg Gadamer is a companion text to his The Beginning of Philosophy, with this difference: While the latter book is composed of a series of lectures given to a university audience (in Italian), this book is a collection of essays published in various journals over a period of decades (Gadamer was intellectually active into his 90s and died in 2002 in his hundred and second year on earth). Both books deal with the evolution of human thinking and knowledge as it occurs in and rises out of language in Ancient Greece.If you think you understand what knowledge is and how our ancient Greek ancestors developed it, think again. Think again if you believe that knowledge is simply the memory of something that meets the eye or any of the five senses. Yes, you are partially correct if you believe that touching a hot stove teaches the child–and other animals as well–that pain and misery awaits the next encounter. But this is simply biological awareness, something every species needs if it is to survive. Indeed, humans undergo millions of such experiences without ever becoming wise, i.e., knowledgeable. Knowledge is something special, it occurs when thought reflects upon itself.So what then is the beginning of knowledge? Gadamer shows in this book that the Pre-Socratic philosophers were–as far as we know–the first humans to “strike a light in the night entirely from out of [them]selves.” Knowledge, “real” knowledge knows only itself, it is thought reflecting on thought. Knowledge begins with a question–the Greek questions were, for example: What does it mean to say something is? What was in the beginning? What is the unity in that which changes itself?–such questions create a perspective of the world and life. Human knowledge, in other words is an idea, a mental view about the world and how it works.Examples: Sure, from Hericlitus: You cannot step into the same river twice, i.e., nature is constant change but it is a whole (Is this not the true experience we have of life once we can recognize it in thought?); or: The One is all that is differentiated; or: The universe is an invisible reality of swarming atoms; or: An object at rest or in motion continues in rest or in motion unless acted upon by an external force.Knowledge results from thinking. Thinking is not a fact of biology but of humans considering reality rationally within language. Thinking precipitates perspective. If you want more perspective read this book.

⭐A lightning strike steers all. Heraclitus means by this instead of a steady hand in history we have a sharp, sudden movement. Though he is known as the philosopher of flux, he doesn’t reject unity. Rather, if Hegel is to be believed, within Heraclitus’s unity is a coincidence of opposites. The One holds in tension the unity of opposites. Psyche = life = the total that unfolds itself (Gadamer 79).What is nature? What is it that is permanent in this continual flux of things that grants rules and order and reliability (88)? The atomists thought their view necessary because “unlimited divisibility would let the corporeal pass away into the void” (93-94).Gadamer suggests the term “object” helps explain both Greek and modern philosophy (121). The problem is there are a host of terms that are not easily explained by the concept of “object/objectivity.” Terms like “freedom” for example. Or take “language.” Is language a mere instrument or is it a horizon? The Greeks had words for “tongue” and “logos,” but not so much language.Conclusion:Gadamer’s Truth and Method is a masterpiece of hermeneutics and is one of the great books of the 20th century. This book, sadly, is not. Gadamer’s material is interesting, but when one reads the chapters one is not entirely sure of the point.

⭐German philosopher Gadamer is famous for his work on the theory of interpretation. In his work ‘The beginning of knowledge”, he discusses presocratic philosophers such as Anaximander, Heraclitus and Parmenides. There are six essays in this book which describe how modern science has been shaped by Greek philosophers.

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