An untimely vocation

Gadamer’s ‘Wissenschaft als Beruf. Über den Ruf und Beruf der Wissenschaft in unserer Zeit’ (1943)

Bibliographic Data

ID11951618
AuthorsFacundo Bey (0000-0002-9449-0463, Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (DFBC-UNIVE) , Dorsoduro 3484/D, Calle Contarini, Venice , Italy, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume58
Issue1
Pages72-98
Publication date2024-01-16
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Philosophy of Education (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0309-8249 • E-ISSN: 1467-9752
PublisherOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/jopedu/qhae009
OpenAlexW4390911523
LanguageEN
References cited16

On 27 September 1943, Hans-Georg Gadamer published a brief but significant article in the conservative newspaper Leipziger Neueste Nachrichten und Handels-Zeitung, entitled ‘Wissenschaft als Beruf. Über den Ruf und Beruf der Wissenschaft in unserer Zeit’ (Science as Vocation: On the Calling and Profession of Science in Our Time). The article, which addressed the problem of the value and status of science and philosophy in the midst of the Second World War, was never reprinted in Gadamer’s work, neither in the ten volumes of his collected writings published by Mohr Siebeck, nor separately in books or journals. I offer here a critical introduction to the context and main contents of this text due to its philosophical, political, and historical relevance. In particular, the introduction analyses Gadamer’s confrontation with his own time through explicit and implicit references to Max Weber’s 1917 lecture, ‘Wissenschaft als Beruf’ (Science as Vocation), and traces echoes in Gadamer’s later works that bear on contemporary challenges. Following that, I present the first English translation of Gadamer’s original German text

Humanities · Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and Hegel · Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy · Philosophy and Historical Thought · Philosophy

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access