Summary Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics cannot fully be understood without the contour his project receives from his relation to Kant's third Critique of Judgmentand Hegel's absolute idealism. Although Gadamer's deepest ties are to Heidegger, his thought also remains shaped greatly by the Greeks, especially Plato and Aristotle, as well as figures and themes in the classical age of German philosophy from Kant to Hegel. This chapter discusses two crucial points of Gadamer's approach to German idealism. The first is the debt he owes to Kant's third Critique for his own elucidation of the hermeneutical experience of truth, and, second is the debt that he owes to aspects of Hegel's absolute idealism for his own notion of hermeneutical self-knowledge. The chapter shows that Gadamer, in his approach to both Kant's third Critique and Hegel's absolute idealism, focuses on themes that allow him to emphasize the forms of finitude he believes guide hermeneutical experience.
