[The modernist left: Habermas;s critique of Gadamer I - Background to the debate. Points of agreement. Points of disagreement. The modernist left: Habermas;s critique of Gadamer II - Habermas's criticisms of Gadamer: tradition and hermeneutical reflection. Gadamer's rehabilitation of the concept of tradition. A defense against the charge of subjectivism: Gadamer's model of dialogue. The postmodern critique: Vattimo's reading of Gadamer - Vattiom's reading of Gadamer: the Soziales Einverständnis. Soziales Einverständnis and the linguisticality of understanding. The importance of practical judgment. Heidegger and the critique of traditional concept of language - Metaphysics and the question of being: the early critique. The turn to language: the position of poetry. Gadamer's appropriation of Heidegger: language and the achievement of continuity - Language as experience of the World. Language as medium. Gadamer's distance from Heidegger: Language as self-presentation and the dialectical concept of continuity against language on the Model of Poetry: Language as self-presentation. Gadamer's dialectical conception of continuity]

Bibliography - p.: 171-181; Index - p.: 183-188.