Great book, great translators, terrible reprint.

January 26, 2015

Truth and Method is one of the most important works of philosophy of the 20th century, and this revised
translation by Weinsheimer and Marshall is the authoritative translation. I give both the work and the translation a
5+ star rating. This edition, however, has mistakes all over the place; they obviously scanned the pages of the
Continuum edition and did little to no proof reading. (For example, key German terms are misspelled.) The font is
also horrible and the line spacing is weird; and there are no margins to write in. Spend the money and buy the
Continuum edition

A Lilfetime of Scholarship in One Book

March 24, 2012

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Gadamer's Truth and Method is a long, dense, and richly informative effort to find a solid and rational basis for
understanding in the human sciences or Geistenwissenschaften. Gadamer proceeds from the observation that
efforts to adapt experimental methods used in the natural sciences, as well as sophisticated statistical models
employed with less success but with just as much commitment to rigor in economics and related disciplines are, by
their very nature, ill-suited to his objective. Gadamer is, of course, correct, though he puts himself in a position
that die-hard proponents of quantitative techniques and the mathematical expression of lawfulness judge to be
hopelessly problematic. Nevertheless, Gadamer persists. Whether or not he succeeds is inevitably a judgment call,
but I'm inclined to view his efforts as fruitful, providing a persuasive methodological foundation for research in
disciplines wherein well-informed interpretation necessarily takes the place of model building and testing.

Gadamer's book, first published in 1960, represents a lifetime of scholarship, covering western philosophy from
the ancient Greeks to the time of Truth and Method's publication. Gadamer's mastery of material pertinent to his
task has rightly been characterized as encyclopedic, but it is also suitably focused, especially through application of
the hermeneutic method, broadly speaking. With regard to questions such as what does it mean to be a thinking,
feeling human being who actively interprets and contributes to creating the circumstances that give life meaning,
Gadamer proposes that we seek a thorough understanding of the tradition of which we, as socially created
entities, are manifestations.

Without trivializing Gadamer's conclusions or misinterpreting their methodological and substantive import, it
seems reasonable to conclude that he is referring to a process that is conspicuous in the social sciences, especially
as understood by ethnographers, namely socialization in linguistically rich environments. Each of us is born and
raised in an historically specific time and place that can reasonably be construed as having an interpretable shared
culture, an ensemble of prescriptions, prohibitions, commonplace explanations, ways of making inferences, and
modes of understanding to which consociates refer in making sense of what it means to be. Emile Durkheim's
concept of the collective conscience and George Herbert Mead's generalized other are products of socialization
into a specific socio-cultural milieu and can be construed as closely approximating tradition as Gadamer
understands that idea. In a more critical vein, a similar claim can be made for Antonio Gramsci's concept of cultural
hegemony. Thus, in Gadamer's view, "history does not belong to us; we belong to it. Long before we understand
ourselves through the process of self-examination, we understand ourselves in a self-evident way in the family,
society, and state in which we live" (Gadamer, 1998: 276). The language we use in understanding ourselves,
moreover, in not merely a tool that we use, language is constitutive of being human.

Research with reference to an identifiable tradition, a specific collective consciousness or generalized other is best
done interpretatively, through application of historical methods or qualitative anthropological techniques to
achieve hermeneutic understanding of the varying conditions of life as they are experienced and understood by
concrete human beings. Given this orientation to making sense of one's place in the world, growing interest in
historical and, especially, ethnographic applications and the consequences of their use has produced a good deal
of contemporary interest in Gadamer's work and in hermeneutics generally.

Gadamer has been challenged by Habermas and others as being insufficiently specific as to the meaning of
tradition. In this critical view, complex modern societies are not characterized by one stable and homogeneous
tradition shared by all. Instead, divisions such as class, race, ethnicity, native tongue, and religion assure a
multiplicity of different and changing traditions for any time and place.

While there is merit to this critique, I think it is often overdrawn, ignoring the fact that Gadamer's approach is
readily applicable to co-existing but varied socio-cultural configurations for any time and place. Were we to
completely discount Gadamer's approach for the reasons given by Habermas, we would also be obliged be reject
Max Weber's use of ideal-typical analysis of social systems; an unlikely event, indeed.

Truth and Method requires a substantial commitment of time and effort, and Gadamer devotes a lot of attention
to failed alternatives to his hermeneutic approach to establishing truth in the human sciences. In short, he does
not cut to the chase but gives a history of the varied philosophical routes that others have tried over the course of
millenia to find a compelling methodological basis for achieving understanding in the human sciences.
Nevertheless, the richness of the material makes reading it and thinking about it worthwhile. However, those of us
who lack a strong background in philosophy will gain less than better informed readers.

If want to know that something is true, I need to first know what is truth. If I need to know what is true, I need to
find the truth. (Is there any other way to know about truth?) BUT If I want to find something, I need to know that
thing. and to know something I need to find it.

Corollary: Truth is impossible to find.

I am a newbie to logical thinking though I am a programmer.

It's the kind of reasoning which came up to my mind. How could I more precisely reason about this problem?

UPDATE 9/8/2017

From Politis Philosophy GuideBook to Aristotle and the Metaphysics I found this passage / Answer
"To search for an explanation is to search for the answer to a ‘Why?’ question (dia tí; ‘Why?’). But we can only ask
‘Why?’ questions if there is something that we already know or something that at least is already evident to us.
This means, Aristotle argues, that we can search for explanations only if, to begin with, there is something that we
know, or that is evident to us, directly and without this knowledge involving a search for explanations. And he
argues that such direct and non explanatory knowledge is, precisely, sense perception."

shouldn't it be:

If I want to know that something is true,

I need to first know what truth is.

If I need to know what truth is,

I need to find out how something is true.

It does not follow that:

If I need to know what is true,

I need to find the truth.

In short, "truth" is a noun, "true" an adjective. Truth is merely a condition of propositions. This condition is
satisfied when what is said is corresponds to (matches, fits...) what is (the world, the case, states of affairs...)
"True" is an adjective used to describe sentences (propositions, statements...) which satisfy the truth condition.
"False" (or "nil") is an adjective used to describe sentences which do not satisfy the truth condition. For example,
"Obama is President" is a true statement. This time next week, that same statement will be false.

If I want to find something,

I need to know that thing.

and to know something I need to find it.

It may be sufficient that you know a thing and are able to find it, but it is not necessary to know that thing to find
something (whether or not something is that thing).

Knowledge is empirical verification of what is - else how do you know what is? If you want to stretch "find" to
mean "empirically verify" you are, of course, free to do so.

Is truth something you "find" or is it the result of evaluating an expression (read: rationally assessing a truth
value)? You might enjoy chapter 9 in this book.

To know that something is true means to know that something is the case. For example if one makes the
statement p, ‘The sun rises in the east’, and you want to find out if p is true, you need to go out there and observe
the rising or not rising of the sun in the east. If the sun rises in the east, as has been the case for us humans for
thousands of years, then we say that p is true. This is called inductive reasoning, which has served us very well and
allowed us to make magnificent technological progress. You don’t need to know what ‘truth’ is. Truth is just
another way of saying that something is the case for a particular object or event in a specific time and place. In
other words, Truth is not a Platonic idea to which all things partake in order to obtain the property of trueness.
This means that truth is not absolute but relative to the perspective we take. Outside our specific perspective the
notion of truth does not make any sense. For example, if you live on a space station and make the statement p,
‘The sun rises in the east”, then p is meaningless. In space there are no cardinal points, or up, down, left, right. All
these orientations make sense and can have a true/false value only if we decide to adopt a point of reference, to
which these orientations will be relative. In addition, we assume that the laws of nature are true everywhere in the
universe. We make assumptions in order to work on our theories to build models that would explain the world.
And know very well that progress is made only when our models are falsified. In which case we are forced to
change our assumptions (what we held as true) about the world and proceed to build new models on the basis of
the newly acquired knowledge. To know that p means that we take p to be true, until evidence proves otherwise.
This is how knowledge progresses, by revising our beliefs or what we hold as true for a particular object or event.

shareimprove this answer

edited Jan 17 '17 at 19:45

answered Jan 17 '17 at 19:40

G. Trialonis

What do we get from finding the truth?

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7 Answers

Keith Randall

Keith Randall, works at U.S. Postal Service

Answered Jun 19 2018 · Author has 3.7k answers and 799.9k answer views

The path each of us has chosen to follow is like an entrance to a labyrinth? If you will, it is by the chosen that our
directions take the shape of the truths we hold. Have you ever been in a labyrinth? You enter, you wander in a
maze. Sometimes the way you take has to be…let’s just say you go so far and then have to seek another way,
because the path you’ve chosen is a dead end to getting out of the maze. Does that sound like the ups and downs
of life? Exhilarating as the trials of life may be, it is always when you find that new truth, when you grow beyond
what inhibits you, that is the empty space that is now filled with every part of you as you seek this new truth. Ups
and downs define your truth until you exit this labyrinth to find where it is you become the essence of the truth.
You enter as something and you exit as nothing. What do you get from finding the truth? That in the end you have
become part of the truth. At least that is my thoughts and hope. When you truly let go you become…you become
the truth.

10 Ways to Find the Truth

by HARWELL on SEPTEMBER 30, 2009

in CAREERS, LEADERSHIP, MANAGEMENT

In my previous post I talked about the problem of determining the truth in current events (and in other areas)
when we’re faced with conflicting views from thousands of media and Internet sources. In this post I’ll offer some
advice for dealing with the problem:

1. Become more conscious of the assumptions that you’ve been making about truth. Most of us bury our truth
assumptions so deep in our subconscious that we don’t even realize what we’re assuming. We accept things as the
truth because people around us believe them or because we were “brought up that way.” That doesn’t mean
those things are really true. They might be true, but it’s important for us to decide for ourselves.

2. Accept the fact that different people will have different views on many subjects. Those different views aren’t
necessarily right or wrong — they’re just different. Everyone is entitled to their own view, even if they disagree
with you. Try to be open-minded and understand where the other views are coming from.

3. Don’t commit yourself prematurely to a particular point of view. It’s perfectly OK — even a good thing — for
you to see and understand the different sides of an issue and to understand how different people can believe
different things. As F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed
ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”

4. To understand a view that’s different from your own, try to focus on similarities rather than differences. What
are you both agreeing on? What assumptions are you both making? Are you starting out with some of the same
objectives but then differing in your methods? Are you considering the same methods but disagreeing on how you
assign importance to different decision factors? Once you sort out similarities and differences then the other view
becomes more logical. You may still disagree, but at least you’ll understand the basis for your disagreement.

5. Remember that language and emphasis are at the root of many disagreements. Often you may find yourself
“in violent agreement” with someone. You may use different words, or you may use the same words with different
meanings. But if you really clarify what you’re both saying, you may find that you’re trying to say the same thing.

6. For important issues, ask yourself these questions about the views of the speaker or writer:

Does this make sense? Is it likely? The more unlikely something is, the more skeptical you should be. People make
outrageous statements because that kind of statement gets them attention or gets them in the news. Outrageous
statements are also more likely to be repeated to others — without validation of course.

Is it hurtful to others? If so, then you owe it to those people — even if you don’t know them — to verify the
statement before you repeat it to others.

Is the statement based on facts? How do you know? What is the source of the alleged facts? Is the source
trustworthy? Where did the source get the information? Trace the facts back to their origin to confirm their
validity.

If the statement isn’t based on facts, then the speaker or writer is asking you to trust them. Should you? Do you
have a basis for that trust? Is there any reason the speaker/writer might want to deceive you or to “spin” the facts
in a self-serving way?
Watch for loaded words (e.g., racist, terrorist, meltdown, bailout, etc.) that add emotional meaning to an alleged
factual statement. Replace the loaded words with unemotional words and see if the statement still makes sense.

Look for exaggerations that distort the importance of something that’s otherwise commonplace (e.g., “A recent
study shows that half of the people in the world are below average.”)

Don’t let statistics fool you. Adding numbers to something that’s not true shouldn’t make it more credible,
especially if the numbers are made up or if the numbers come from a biased survey or study. Verify the source of
the statistics, and if the statistics are based on a survey then make sure that the survey questions aren’t misleading
(a common way to bias an answer) and that the sample used for the survey fairly represents the relevant
population.

Watch out for confusion between correlation and cause/effect. Just because some factor (e.g., poverty) is
correlated with another factor (e.g., obesity) doesn’t mean that the first factor causes the second factor, or that
the second factor causes the first factor. Both factors may be caused by something else. But advocates of a
particular point of view may use statistics to make it appear that there is a cause/effect relationship between two
things when in fact there is only a correlation.

7. Build a base of sources you trust, and make sure it’s a solid base. For media, political and religious sources,
look at how other people view your potential source. If a large number of people view your source as extreme,
then reconsider whether the source really ought to be in your base.

8. Use your base of sources as a “norm,” and evaluate other sources of information based on their variation
from your norm. Any source of information that varies a great deal from your norm ought to be subjected to
additional scrutiny before you accept that new source as credible.

9. Don’t be too volatile in your views. If a news story suddenly goes off in a crazy direction (e.g., a massive
conspiracy theory), then question it. Let your response be incremental, in stages, changing your view slowly as
you get more and more information to verify the news. Don’t overreact.

10. Be an extremist only if you want to be. If your base of sources is considered to be extreme, then you’ll be an
extremist. But recognize that extremist views are quite different from the norm, that those views are considered
by many to be inappropriate, and that extremist views are seen by most people as lacking credibility. You might
want to consider getting some of your news and information from more moderate sources so you’ll understand
mainstream views better.

Conclusion

Everyone has beliefs. The beliefs may be different from your own, but that doesn’t make those people wrong, and
it certainly doesn’t make those people bad for having those beliefs. It just makes them individuals. If the
individuals aren’t interfering in the lives of others, and if the beliefs aren’t leading to hurtful or unlawful actions,
then let people believe what they want. Respect the beliefs of others, and maybe they’ll respect your beliefs as
well.