JEAN GRONDIN, Hans-Georg Gadamer: A Biography. Transl. by Joel Weinsheimer. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003, xiv + 472 p.

Hermeneutics as a philosophy, concept, method and, most importantly, as a critique of the limitations of a strictly methodological approach to understanding, is indelibly associated with the name of Hans-Georg Gadamer. Before his magnum opus (Truth and Method) was published in 1960, the term hermeneutics was generally relegated to an older theological tradition or to an aspect of Heidegger's earlier philosophy that he left behind after his famous turn. When Gadamer "presented his ... thick manuscript ... bearing the title Foundations of a Philosophical Hermeneutics," he elicited the question from his publisher: "Hermeneutics ... what on earth is that?" The publisher then went on to suggest that this unknown word be "demoted to the subtitle." As Grondin (5) points out, "the fact that the word hermeneutics has since become familiar is due above all to Gadamer." An intellectual biography of Gadamer, such as this volume, must also therefore be a social and cultural history of the emergence of that idea into prominence.

If hermeneutics is the art of interpretation, then Grondin is engaged in displaying this very art in his biography. Yet hermeneutics has come to mean more than mere interpretation, insofar as it points to the irremediable influence of history, culture and community on knowledge and understanding. The complexity of the issues surrounding the idea of hermeneutics is compounded when we recognize that "human beings are creatures who must continually interpret their world" (3). The world we sociologists seek to understand is constituted by the actions and interpretations of historical agents who, by virtue of human finitude, are unaware of the shaping influence of history, culture and community. This, of course, places the hermeneutic tradition in the social constructionist school (along with symbolic interactionism, certain Marxist orientations, etc.). However, as Gadamer's work is at pains to emphasize, this influence also shapes the process and product of inquiry itself, meaning, at a fundamental level, that there is no "neutral" point outside of community or history as we go about adding to our understanding of the world.

It is precisely because of the complications of engaging this hermeneutic circle, alongside the apparent...