By Alex Golub
(Please note that I am not a philosopher - my speciality if land tenure in Papua New Guinea. Also my German is not nearly what it once was. And finally, I didn't go through and find all of the various places where these texts were translated into English. So let the reader beware - this brief essay is hardly the last word. Suggestions from the more bibliographically inclined, or people familiar with German language sources (or German language gossip about this whole thing) would be greatly appreciated. Thanks)
The Gadamer-Habermas (or, depending on who you're rooting for, the Habermas-Gadamer debate) was a well-known and much discussed exchange of essays between Jurgen Habermas and Hans-Georg Gadamer. While frequently remarked on, it is a bit more difficult to actually find a description of what the essays in question are or where they can be found in English translation. My purpose here is to make this information freely available on the internet.
Gadamer and Habermas each draw on the other's work and discuss it and the issues it focuses on in many different places. But the debate proper took place something like this:
In 1967 Habermas published a lengthy review of Gadamer's Truth and Method in a special issue of Philosophische Rundschau. In 1971 this review was expanded in an article entitled Zu Gadamers "Warheit und Methode". This article appeared in a volume edited by Karl-Otto Apel entitled Hermeneutik un Ideologiekritik, which included essays on the subject of, well, hermeneutics and the critique of ideology by Gadamer, Habermas, Apel, von Bormann, Bubner, and Giegel.
It was in this volume that the Gadamer-Habermas debate was largely played out. Gadamer replied to Habermas's review in an article entitled Rhetorik, Hermeneutik und Ideologiekritik. Metakritische Eroerterungen zu "Wahrheit und Methode". A few pages later, Habermas's counter-critique, Der Universalitaetanspruch der Hermeneutik appears. The volume ends with a reply by Gadamer to all of the essays in the book, a reply that is german but not central to his exchange with Habermas.
So that is the Gadamer-Habermas debate in German. What translations of these pieces are available in English?
First, Habermas's review of Truth and Method has been translated and published in several places in English. In all translations, the original review in Philosophiche Rundschau and the expansion in Hermeneutik und Ideologiekritik are combined into a single, five section article. I got my copy out of Understanding and Social Inquiry, a collection edited by Dallmayr and McCarthy.
Gadamer's Rhetorik, Hermeneutik und Ideologiekritik is a bit more complicated story. Like the Habermas, it has been translated several times. On one occaision it actually has been translated as 'Rhetorics, Hermeneutics, and Ideology Critique' but it appears anthologized in English most frequently under the title On the Scope and Function of Hermeneutical Reflection - which is unintuive and kind of a pain.
Habermas's counter-critique has been repeatedly republished also, although under the less confusing title of The Hermeneutic Claim to Univerality.
Both pieces have been published together in Hermeneutics and Modern Philosophy, a volume edited by Brice Wachterhauser. So that is a convenient place to pick up both of them.
Gadamer's reply - if you are interested - has also been translated into English in the edited volume The Hermeneutic Tradition.
The material of the Gadamer-Habermas debate is thus widely available in English, although it is not all in one place. Depending on what books you have or what sort of library you have access to, you should be able to find the articles that comprise the Gadamer-Habermas debate one way or the other.
Review of Truth and Method. 1967. Philosophische Rundschau (issue "zur Logik der Sozialwissenschaften"). Tubingen: Suhrkamp. Pages 251-190.
Zu Gadamers "Wahrheit und Methode". 1971. In Hermeneutik und Ideologiekritik, Karl-Otto Apel, ed. Pages 45-56.
Appear in English as a single article: A Review of Gadamer's Truth and Method. In Understanding and Social Inquiry, ed. Fred R. Dallmayr and Thomas McCarthy. 1977. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. Pages 335-363.
Der Universalitatanspruch der Hermeneutik. 1971. In Hermeneutik und Ideologiekritik, Karl-Otto Apel, ed. Pages 45-56.
Rhetorik, Hermeneutik und Ideologiekritik. Metakritishce Erorterungen zu "Wahrheit und Methode". In Hermeneutik und Ideologiekritik, Karl-Otto Apel, ed. Pages 57-82.
Replik. In In Hermeneutik und Ideologiekritik, Karl-Otto Apel, ed. Pages 283-317.