Beginning of Knowledge

The Beginning of Knowledge by Hans-Georg Gadamer, translated by Rod Coltman, 140 pages

Another adventure in hermeneutics in the same vein as The Beginning of Philosophy, in The Beginning of Knowledge Gadamer again connects the pre-Socratics to modern philosophy, especially Heraclitus to Hegel and Heidegger and Democritus to atomistic materialism.  In a series of lectures, Gadamer explores the intersection of logos and language and demonstrates again how the pre-Socratics used cosmogony to explore cosmology.  He holds out hope for an escape from exhausted scientism through a rediscovery of the distinction between the intelligible and the masterable.

The lectures, delivered to academics, are generally rather technical, though perhaps less so than those in The Beginning of Philosophy.  Some of Gadamer's philological arguments are incomprehensible without some knowledge of classical Greek.