GADAMER WITHOUT TEARS

The chief feature of Gadamer's philosophy is his claim that the humani ties obey their own rules concerning reading texts and ensuring certit ude. The promise of certitude is illusory, however, and the discourses on interpretation by him and his leading disciples are too confused t o instruct the reader. His own sketch of his philosophy, published in his autobiographic Philosophical Apprenticeship, and its reflection in Gadamer and Hermeneutics (Hugh J. Silverman, ed.), shows this and rev eals him as still too insensitive to the national tragedy of the Third Reich, which he witnessed.