Jean Grondin

The question of Nietzsche's place in hermeneutics raises many questions: can Nietzsche's thought itself be characterized as "hermeneutical" and to what extent, given that hermeneutics was only developed as such after him? Can and should hermeneutics, which until recently did not take his thought much into account, incorporate Nietzsche's thought as a whole? Whereas a mutual fecundation will always be fruitful, this paper argues that one should resist a simple integration of Nietzsche into hermeneutics in light of their different understandings of truth, interpretation and nihilism. It thus becomes possible to also resist the postmodern and nihilistic understanding of hermeneutics. Aware of their differences, hermeneutics and Nietzsche will perhaps have more to say to one another

Cet article se penche sur les conséquences éthiques et ontologiques de la conception heideggérienne de la finitude. Il tâchera de montrer dans quelle mesure l'ontologie de Heidegger peut être lue comme une reprise du projet kantien d'une critique de la raison pure. La philosophie de la Kehre sera présentée sous l'angle d'une radicalisation de la finitude, l'insistance sur l'être fini étant au centre du débat de Heidegger avec la métaphysique et son accomplissement technique. La question du divin et le mot « seul un dieu peut encore nous sauver » seront situés dans la perspective d'une éthique de la finitude. This article examines the ethical and ontological consequences of Heidegger's conception of finitude. It considers to what extent Heidegger's ontology can be seen as an attempted renewal of the Kantian project of a critique of pure reason. The philosophy of the Kehre will he presented as a radicalization of finitude, with the stress on finite being as central to Heidegger's debate with metaphysics and its technical realization. The question of divinity as well as the formula « only a god can still save us » will be seen in the perspective of an ethics of finitude.

Même si elle est emblématique de la pensée de Gadamer, la difficile notion d’une « fusion d’horizons » a été assez peu étudiée pour elle-même. Cet article se propose d’en faire ressortir le sens, la portée, mais aussi les difficultés. Il cherche surtout à montrer en quoi cette fusion d’horizons est l’œuvre du langage (lui-même pensé à partir de sa fusion avec l’être) et dans quelle mesure on peut y voir la version gadamérienne de l’adéquation entre l’être et la pensée, suivant la conception classique de la vérité, que Gadamer ne renie jamais.

We have many reasons to be grateful to Gianni Vattimo for his ongoing contribution to philosophy and public life. Undoubtedly, his most decisive philosophical impulses have come from the German philosophical tradition, and mostly from the Holy Trinity of Nietzsche, Heidegger and Gadamer, who was his teacher. Yet, he was not German, but a proud Italian, and, for some reason, more able than others to carry this tradition further. The issue I would like to discuss here is whether hermeneutics, and thus philosophy itself, must be seen as a form of nihilism. If nihilism only means a tolerance for the view of others to the extent that they do not violently limit the liberty of others, one can agree with Gianni Vattimo. But if one understands under “nihilism” the notion that there are no truths in the sense of adaequatio, one can challenge this view. Vattimo often faults Gadamer for not acknowledging fully the consequences of his own thought, i.e. the nihilistic consequences of his hermeneutic ontology. Yet one must ask: Why is it that Gadamer failed to proclaim a nihilistic hermeneutics? In other words, why did Gadamer resist the postmodernism of some of his followers?