Gadamer as a Leibnizian Philosopher. Hermeneutics, Synthesis, and the Fusion of Horizons

In this paper, I compare Leibniz with the twentieth-century German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer and make a case for reading Gadamer as representing a model of a contemporary, post-Idealist, Leibnizian philosopher. By drawing attention to remarks made by Gadamer indicating an affinity between his philosophical hermeneutics and Leibniz’s project of a global philosophical synthesis, I argue that they share an understanding of the truth as distributed between multiple divergent viewpoints. Correspondingly, both develop approaches to philosophy that require engaging in constructive dialogue with others. However, where Gadamer saw Leibniz’s philosophy as aiming to produce a synthesis of finite perspectives converging in a central point of view, Gadamer himself understood philosophy as consisting in an ongoing and open-ended fusion of finite human horizons. By thus eliminating any central organizing perspective, Gadamer’s approach realizes the conciliatory and synthetic spirit of Leibniz’s philosophy in the absence of an infinite mind or perspective