Context-Dependence: Its Nature and Depth

Abstract

Gadamer tends to argue that a historical context is cognitively homogeneous in an unreflected way, and that the context-dependence of presuppositions has been underestimated. By contrast, philosophers in the Enlightenment tradition argued (a) that the influence of the historical context on the individual is relatively weak and may in principle always be overcome, and (b) that historical contexts are basically similar because universal forms of thought and conduct occur in them. Gadamer denies (a) and (b), arguing that the unreflectiveness of context-dependence results from general kinds of presuppositions, which are implicit in more specific claims without being spelled out as such, and that the persistence of such presuppositions in a historical context is easily overlooked precisely because of their general character.