Modern Age - Spring 2016 - 79

THE POVERTY OF ANTIHISTORICISM

plete. In this letter, Gadamer principally denies the imputation
that he accepts the Heideggerian "world night," with its implication that we have become entirely severed from the bond of
our tradition. Rather than succumbing to any modern despair of
our being between two worlds and bound to nothing, Gadamer
claims, "I remember, instead of this, the one world which I alone
know, and which in all decay has lost far less of its evidence and
cohesion than it talks itself into" (10).
Although this reply to Strauss with respect to the charge of
relativism is rather truncated,6 Gadamer nonetheless anticipates
his more developed position on this question articulated in his
later work. Elsewhere in Gadamer's writing, he reveals-contra Strauss-that he does indeed take seriously the issues that
Wirkungsgeschichte raises for moral judgment. He shows that
our historical affectedness, however, far from being problematic
in this regard, is in fact the essential precondition for our having knowledge of the good in the form in which it is available to
human beings.

T

he beginning of Gadamer's more developed response to
Strauss can be seen at the end of supplement 1 to Truth and
Method, which is entitled "Hermeneutics and Historicism," and
which Gadamer appends to the text in 1965 (Truth and Method,
507-37). Not only are several additional concerns of Strauss
regarding relativism addressed in this piece, together with specific references to Strauss and his work, but Gadamer later admits
in an interview with one of Strauss's former students that he was
intending to lure Strauss back into a dialogue after their personal
correspondence had concluded.7
To this end, Gadamer responds at greater length-albeit still
moder nagejour nal .com

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Modern Age - Spring 2016

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