Summary

[Bruce]

This is Gadamer's Habilitationschrift, written in 1928 at the University of Marburg under the supervision of Martin Heidegger. It presumes a knowledge of both Plato and Heidegger, and that the reader has access to a copy of Plato's Philebus. It explores, from the perspective of Heidegger's ontology, the idea that Plato's dialectic is inherently ethical - that it aims at a practical knowledge of "the good." Plato's use of dialogues for his dialectical method - as opposed to Aristotle's apodictic and systematic approach - suggests that knowledge is gain through conversation and a critical examination of shared pre-understandings. Gadamer's work here later bore fruit in his magnum opus on hermeneutics, "Truth and Method" (1960).