Gadamer, Polanyi and Ways of Being Closed1

² Hans-Georg Gadamer's Truth and Method isnotoriously difficult. I gladly acknowledge the enlightenment found in Thiselton, A. C.: The Two Horizons (Paternoster, Exeter, 1980) and Warnke, Georgia: Gadamer: Hermeneutics, Tradition and Reason (Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1987). In references which follow, I shall refer to the pagination of the second English edition (Truth and Method, Sheed and Ward, London, 1979 [abbreviated to TM]), and the second German edition (Wahrheit und Methode, Mohr, J. C. B., Tübingen, 1965 [abbreviated to WM]).

³ TM p. 95; WM p. 102.

⁴ TM p. 96; WM p. 102.

⁵ TM p. 96; WM p. 102.

⁶ TM p. 97; WM p. 102.

⁷ My italics. TM p. 97; WM p. 103. As Gadamer says: ‘The closed world of play lets down, as it were, one of its walls’ (TM p. 97; WM p. 103).

⁸ My italics. TM p. 98; WM p. 104: ‘Das Offensein zum Zuschauer hin macht vielmehr die Geschlossenheit des Spieles mit aus’.

⁹ TM p. 99; Verwandlung ins Gebilde (WM p. 105).

¹⁰ TM p. 99; WM p. 105.

¹¹ TM p. 100; WM p. 107.

¹² My italics. TM p. 101; WM p. 107.

¹³ TM p. 102f; WM p. 108f.

¹⁴ TM p. 103; WM p. 109.

¹⁵ TM p. 103; WM p. 109.

¹⁶ TM p. 107; WM p. 114.

¹⁷ TM p. 107; WM p. 114.

¹⁸ TM p. 107; WM p. 114.

¹⁹ TW p. 104; WM p. 111.

²⁰ TM p. 105; WM p. 112.

²¹ TM p. 107; WM p. 114.

²² Warnke, op. cit. p. 64.

²³ His classic discussion is chapter 4 of Personal Knowledge (Routledge and Kcgan Paul, London, 1958), pp. 49–65.

²⁴ Cf. Meaning by Polanyi, Michael and Prosch, Harry (University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1975), p. 97.

²⁵ The Tacit Dimension (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1966), p. 25.

²⁶ The Tacit Dimension, op. cit., p. 18.

²⁷ ibid. p. 85.

²⁸ ibid. p. 85.

²⁹ ibid. p. 86.

³⁰ ibid. p. 102.

³¹ ibid. p. 102.

³² Cf. TM p. 107; WM p. 114.

³³ Cf. TM p. 107; WM p. 114.

³⁴ Cf. Meaning, op. cit., p. 104.

¹ This paper was read at the conference on ‘New Directions for Biblical Studies’ at King's College, London, in April 1992.I am grateful to Rosalind Papaphilippopoulos and David Parker, with whom I discussed some of the ideas.