The beginning of knowledge / Hans-Georg Gadamer ; translated by Rod Coltman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 1900-2002

Standardized Title:

Anfang des Wissens. English

Language:

English

German

Subjects (All):

Pre-Socratic philosophers.

Physical Description:

148 pages ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Continuum, 2002.

Language Note:

Translated from the German.

Summary:

The essays presented here function as a companion volume to Hans-Georg Gadamer's The Beginning of Philosophy (Continuum, 1998). Together, they represent the only two extended publications on the pre-Socratics in Gadamer's entire corpus. As the word 'knowledge' (Wissen) in the title suggests, here Gadamer is interested not so much in the origins of philosophy per se as in those of knowledge in general-everything, that is, that we call 'science' and the Germans call 'Wissenschaft.' Whereas The Beginning of Philosophy dealt with the inception of philosophical inquiry by focusing on the history of the reception and interpretation of Parmenides' didactic poem, The Beginning of Knowledge, which brings together nearly all of Gadamer's previously published (but never before translated) essays on the Presocratics, casts a wider net. Beginning with two hermeneutical and philological investigations of the Heraclitus fragments that are similar in scope to the previous analyses of Parmenides ("On the Tradition of Heraclitus," from 1974, and "Heraclitus Studies," from 1990), he then moves on to one of his earliest pieces, a discussion of the Greek atomists ("Ancient Atomic Theory," 1935) and a more recent treatment of the Presocratic cosmologists ("Plato and Presocratic Cosmology," 1964). In the last two essays, Gadamer puts the previous chapters in perspective by elaborating on the profound debt that modern scientific thought owes to the Greek philosophical tradition ("Greek Philosophy and Modern Thought," 1978, and "Natural Science and the Concept of Nature," 1994/95).

Contents:

1. On the Tradition of Heraclitus 21

2. Heraclitus Studies 33

3. Ancient Atomic Theory 82

4. Plato and Presocratic Cosmology 102

5. Greek Philosophy and Modern Thought 119

6. Natural Science and the Concept of Nature 127.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0826411959

OCLC:

47696494