Continental Philosophy Review (2023) 56:535–548

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-023-09614-2

Jacques Derrida and Hans‑Georg Gadamer, correspondence

(1977–2000) Jacques Derrida, How right he was: Gadamer,
my Cicerone (2002)

Antoine Pageau‑St‑Hilaire1

Accepted: 4 June 2023 / Published online: 21 July 2023

© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2023

Abstract
What follows is an English translation of two documents pertaining to the Derrida-
Gadamer encounter. The first one is the short correspondence between Jacques Der-
rida and Hans-Georg Gadamer that lasted from March 1977 to July 2000. The cor-
respondence was written in German and French. The second one is the homage that
Derrida wrote in honor of Gadamer in the wake of his passing in 2002. These two
documents are now available in English for the first time.

Keywords Hermeneutics · Deconstruction · Gadamer · Derrida · Language ·

Writing · Dialogue

1 Translator’s introduction

What follows is an English translation of two documents pertaining to the Derrida-

Gadamer encounter. The first one is the short correspondence between Jacques Der-
rida and Hans-Georg Gadamer that lasted from March 1977 to July 2000. The cor-
respondence was written in German and French. It was translated into French and
published by Jean Grondin in 2012 in Les Temps Modernes. The second one is the
homage that Derrida wrote in honor of Gadamer in the wake of his passing in 2002.
This In Memoriam was first published in German in the Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitung, but the original version of the text in French was found among Derrida’s
papers after he passed away in 2006 and was then published in Contre-Jour. Cahiers
littéraires. These two documents are now available in English for the first time. I
do not think it is my role as a translator to provide an interpretation of these docu-
ments or a new reading of the Derrida-Gadamer debate in light of them: the read-
ers will judge by themselves. Perhaps it is worth, however, explaining briefly why

* Antoine Pageau‑St‑Hilaire
apsthilaire@uchicago.edu
1
The John U. Nef Committee on Social Thought, University of Chicago, 1130 East 59Th Street,
Chicago, IL 60637, USA

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 536 A. Pageau‑St‑Hilaire

I think these documents are relevant and ought to be made available in the English
language.
The English documentation of the Derrida-Gadamer encounter is mostly found
in the 1989 volume edited by Diane P. Michelfelder and Richard E. Palmer enti-
tled Dialogue & Deconstruction.1 This volume is based on the 1981 Paris encounter
organized by Philippe Forget, which was aptly characterized by Fred Dallmayr as a
“non-dialogue,” a characterization endorsed by Gadamer himself.2 Those who sum
up the Derrida-Gadamer encounter to this public debate will have to revise their
interpretations in light of the much friendlier and livelier epistolary exchanges that
compose their correspondence, as well as of Derrida’s passionate tribute to Gadam-
er’s life-affirming, “philosophical radiance.” It should also be said that the 1989 vol-
ume as a whole gives the impression that the non-dialogue that took place in Paris
testified to the brilliance of Derrida’s recognition of the impossibility of any genuine
dialogue in the Gadamerian sense. This impression is largely corroborated by the 15
commentaries that follow the texts by Gadamer and Derrida; Philippe Forget’s 1984
German volume documenting the Paris encounter, Text und Interpretation, on the
other hand, had only 4 commentaries by authors who were overall more sympathetic
to hermeneutics than the contributors in the English volume. The documents trans-
lated here provide us, I think, with a more nuanced picture. Gadamer and Derrida
persisted in their attempt to understand each other, and some of the eleven letters of
their correspondence might shed new light on their Auseinandersetzung concerning
the interpretation of Nietzsche, Heidegger, language, writing, and conceptuality. In
1985, between the publication of the two volumes, Gadamer wrote a letter to Der-
rida in French concerning the Paris debate, and concludes it thusly: “The translation
of your texts in the German publication is excellent, but without a French translation
of the volume, the exchange is unfair.”3 Derrida’s response is striking: “the initiative
that you took in writing to me, in coming back to the dialogue that was interrupted
or that never took place (which would not prevent it from being ‘revived’), this very
initiative, yours, is for me a precious testimony and I am infinitely grateful to you
for it. It would by itself prove that you may be right.”4 Although hypothetical, this
concession by Derrida will likely appear astonishing to many readers in the Anglo-
phone world. In his 2002 In Memoriam, Derrida will shift from the hypothetical to
the affirmative. This is certainly not to deny the many difficulties and obstacles that
characterize the Derrida-Gadamer encounters but to suggest that they were more

1
Michelfelder and Palmer (1989a).
2
See Michelfelder and Palmer (1989b, 5).
3
Letter from Gadamer to Derrida, September 24, 1985. There was a publication in the Revue Interna-
tionale de Philosophie in 1984 but it does not include all the materials that are found in the German,
so the exchange did remain, in a sense, unfair – see Derrida (1984) and Gadamer (1984). Specifically,
Gadamer’s “Text and Interpretation” does not appear in its complete version and Derrida’s “Interpreting
Signatures” is absent.
4
Letter from Derrida to Gadamer, December 10, 1985. My emphasis.

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 Jacques Derrida and Hans‑Georg Gadamer, correspondence (1977–… 537

than a mere dialogue of the deaf, and even perhaps, although unique, uneasy, and
maladroit, a kind of dialogue after all.5

2 Jacques Derrida and Hans‑Georg Gadamer, correspondence

(1977–2000)

2.1 Foreword by Jean Grondin

The exchanges between Jacques Derrida and Hans-Georg Gadamer were so brief,
furtive, and doubtless also slightly maladroit. The two thinkers have painfully felt it,
and it thus seems appropriate to publish their correspondence to further document
their encounter. In addition to the friendship and esteem that bound them, it attests
that the two thinkers did indeed encounter each other and had things to say to each
other. They launched a discussion between hermeneutics and deconstruction, about
which Derrida said that it had “developed without us, yes, between us without us”
but that it “nonetheless united [them] more than [it] opposed [them] throughout the
last decades.”6 As this corresponds informs us, there were indeed bridges between
the two philosophers. It is now up to their heirs to cross them.
Jean Grondin

3 Hans‑Georg Gadamer to Jacques Derrida

March 9, 1977

Dear Mr. Derrida,

It was proposed by some German and Italian colleagues to organize a conference on

Heidegger, for which they turned to me. In addition to my German colleague Ilting,
who speaks Italian perfectly and seems to me very interesting especially because he
does not belong to Heidegger’s followers, I have myself proposed some French par-
ticipants that seem important for this occasion. I have thus proposed your name and
that of Levinas. I have been following your publications for several years (something
I cannot really say about myself) and believe that your perspective concerning the
relation between Heidegger and Nietzsche must represent an important point in a
productive confrontation with the legacy of Heidegger.

5
A more nuanced approach to the Derrida-Gadamer debate is found in Chapter 17 of Jean Grondin’s
(2011) French version of his biography of Gadamer, as well as in Jean Grondin (2012). Unfortunately,
the English translation of the biography is based on the German first edition, which did not include the
Derrida chapter, and Grondin’s essay remains to my knowledge untranslated.
6
See Jacques Derrida, “How Right He Was! Gadamer, My Cicerone” published in English translation in
this issue.

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 538 A. Pageau‑St‑Hilaire

It would therefore be very important to me if you could make yourself available

for the now planned date, namely, the second week of December. The proceedings
of the conference [in honor of Heidegger] that was held in Freiburg on December 16
of last year will appear in print in the coming weeks (with texts from Werner Marx,
C. Fr. V. Weizsäcker, and myself). Maybe that could be very useful information for
your own contribution to the conference. Who will not have their own perspective to
bring to bear alongside that of others?
We only met once in person in Zurich and I would be happy if that occasion
could reunite us again.
Yours,
Hans-Georg Gadamer
PS: The publication of the proceedings by Alber Verlag will be directly sent to
you.

4 Jacques Derrida to Hans‑Georg Gadamer

March 20, 1977

Dear Professor Gadamer,

Allow me to thank you warmly for your letter and invitation. The interest and neces-
sity of this conference do not elude me. They would furthermore give me the chance
to meet with you and to benefit from precious exchanges. For many reasons, I must,
unfortunately, decline this invitation. To prepare good work on Heidegger is in itself
a difficult task, as you know, and this difficulty is only increased by the short notice
for such preparation and the too many commitments that tie me until the end of the
year (especially a trip to the United States and a heavy teaching load). I am also inca-
pable to participate properly in debates that would take place in Italian or German.
I very much–and very sincerely–regret to have to give you such a negative answer.
May I, however, ask you to keep me informed of the conference’s preparation? And
if a possibility would open up, between now and the Fall, to envision giving a talk,
could I still propose it to you then?
I thank you for your attention and pray you to accept, dear Professor Gadamer,
the assurance of my most cordial feelings.
Jacques Derrida

5 Hans‑Georg Gadamer to Jacques Derrida

May 18, 1977

Dear Mr. Derrida,

The preparations for the Italian conference in December keep on, and if the world
still stands, it will indeed happen. This is why I am reaching out to you again. I

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 Jacques Derrida and Hans‑Georg Gadamer, correspondence (1977–… 539

acknowledge the reasons for your refusal and would simply attempt to alleviate
some of them. There is above all the language barrier. The selected circle of peo-
ple who will discuss there allows most certainly the use of French or English. As
for the conference papers, an Italian translation will surely be offered to all of us.
Obviously, the mingling of languages that will occur there cannot be compared to a
conference led in one language. But we all find ourselves in such a situation, and the
heaviness that establishes itself in the exchange can also lead to a gain in sobriety,
particularly in a very rhetorical country.
I would thus be very happy if you could reconsider your decision. For me person-
ally, it is not so much about Heidegger, who will have his own presence anyway, but
about my own position vis-à-vis him and the position of others, and this means, in
the end, about the possibility of philosophy today.
If you cannot be persuaded yourself, I would thus be grateful if you could suggest
someone who could, according to you, contribute to this gathering. We often find
in Italy a very careful knowledge of German and French things, and so a personal
exchange remains meaningful even if it does not yield tangible results. To be sure,
we would also respect that your contribution expresses your own position more than
your position vis-à-vis Heidegger.
Please do not feel compelled to correspond at length. I only want to try to arouse
your interest in this matter in good time. Concerning the conditions of participation,
the French cultural institutes in Naples and Genova should contact you shortly.
I pray you to abide my persistence in a friendly manner.
Yours,
Hans-Georg Gadamer

6 Hans‑Georg Gadamer to Jacques Derrida (handwritten in French)7

September 24, 1985

Dear Mr. Derrida,

These days, I have once more studied the documents of our Parisian encounter, pub-
lished under the care of Mr. Forget.8 I think it is from a great distance and with
improved good will that I have done this, and I cannot resist writing to you again.
First, pardon the barbarism of my French, which is the good result of the German
schools before the First World War, but which never had the chance to be practiced

7
In order to preserve the authenticity of this letter that Gadamer wrote in French, I decided neither to
amend the grammatical constructions in the translation, nor to correct the occasional clumsiness of the
word choices and phrasings. I have also attempted to reproduce the strangeness of Gadamer’s French by
translating it as literally as possible. [Translator’s note.].
8
See Forget, Philippe (1984). Derrida and Gadamer’s contributions in this volume were translated into
English the American volume edited Michelfelder and Palmer (1989a). In this letter, Gadamer alludes
especially to Derrida’s second response entitled “Guter Wille zur Macht (II). Die Unterschriften inter-
pretieren (Nietzsche/Heidegger)” (“Good Will To Power (II): Interpreting Signatures [Nietzsche/Hei-
degger]). [Translator’s note.].

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 540 A. Pageau‑St‑Hilaire

in a francophone country. But if you withhold your red ink, which always appears
to me when I take the risk of writing French sentences, I believe that I can find my
words.
I begin with the Nietzsche problem, and your analysis of the Heideggerian inter-
pretation, and it’s true that I have myself defended this interpretation–forced, as with
every Heideggerian interpretation–as adequate, or, perhaps, as the sole interpreta-
tion of the compatibility of the will “zur Macht” and the eternal return that I know
(there is a legion of argumentations in favor of the incompatibility of these two
arguments).9
So, I agree with you that the motto is mutilated by Heidegger, because he pre-
tends to situate Nietzsche in the context of metaphysics. Heidegger is not satisfied
with this dance and this feast of experimental life! But this situation is not at all
an insertion of Nietzsche in metaphysics. To the contrary, Heidegger characterizes
Nietzsche as “das Unwesen der Metaphysik” –this means the dissolution of the
essence, of substance, of presence.10
Heidegger would respond to your first demand: yes, Nietzsche risked to dissolute
the question of metaphysics. This is why this exciting and “dilettante” (?) dissemi-
nation of his notes. But Heidegger gives a reconstruction, which is at the bottom of
this deconstruction.
Your second demand corroborates my point. This contradiction with which Hei-
degger opens the discussion of this theory about “das Seiende im Ganzen” –which
is never replaced by “Das Ganze des Seienden”! –is a metaphysician argumentation
on Nietzsche’s part, and even the opposition life-death is deformed by this context.11
Heidegger was never wrong about Nietzsche’s conceptual dilettantism–and his
visionary genius. He would see in you a further argumentation, more professional
and more conceptual, of the Nietzschean position. Maybe, to transcend this radical
dissolution–Heidegger’s goal–is an impossible attempt. Only a God can save us! I
send you my critical review of W. Marx, etc.
You will see that, to some extent, I am myself less radical, less extremist than
Nietzsche and Heidegger (and yourself?). But I begin to understand better your
“effort of the concept” and the only obstacle on my part for a new encounter is my
lack of an acceptable French. The translation of your texts in the German publica-
tion is excellent, but without a French translation of the volume, the exchange is
unfair.
Pardon, if I took your time. I dare not bother you more.
All yours,
Hans-Georg Gadamer

9
“zur Macht”: “to power.” [Translator’s note.].
10
“Das Unwesen der Mataphysik”: “The failure/collapse/unessence of metaphysics.” [Translator’s
note.].
11
“das Seiende im Ganzen”: “The beings/entities as a whole.”; “Das Ganze des Seienden”: ““The whole
of beings/entities.” [Translator’s note.].

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 Jacques Derrida and Hans‑Georg Gadamer, correspondence (1977–… 541

7 Jacques Derrida to Hans‑Georg Gadamer

Paris, December 10, 1985

Dear Professor Gadamer,

Forgive me for responding to your letter so late. It has really touched me, and,
whatever may be the agreement or disagreement, the understanding or misun-
derstanding between us on this or that, the initiative that you took in writing to
me, in coming back to the dialogue that was interrupted or that never took place
(which would not prevent it from being “revived”), this very initiative, yours, is
for me a precious testimony and I am infinitely grateful to you for it. It would by
itself prove that you may be right.
But I would not hide from you that I have a hard time with philosophical cor-
respondence. I thus dream that I would not need to write anymore, especially
to collect the premises, the pretexts, and conclusion in two sheets, or even ten
sheets of letter paper. I dream of long living exchanges, spoken, rhythmed by
silences, rereadings, in short, of all this philosophical sociality that we miss and
that will be missed more and more by the coming generations. Contrary to the
rumor, I am a man of word, of this “lively word” –as we think we can say–that
exposes more than any other experience what I call writing or trace.
Therefore, I will not commit here to a philosophical dissertation. If it must
happen, it has, it will, it will have its chance elsewhere. I would simply like to
tell you “here” my gratitude for your letter–and first for this exchange that put
us together many years ago –, but mostly, mostly to tell you how much I hope to
have the chance to meet sigh you again and to speak with you.
Accept my fervent wishes for the new year.
J. Derrida

8 Hans‑Georg Gadamer to Jacques Derrida

March 4, 1991
Dear Mr. Colleague Derrida,

I learned from Mr. Hörisch that you have celebrated your 60th birthday. I would
like to belatedly join in the circle of those who send their wishes. Naturally, I
do not do this entirely without jealousy. How beautiful would it be if, like you,
I still had an open future before me for the spiritual harvest of decades. So it is
wittingly that I can wish you, for this future of yours, health and creative energy.
I have often thought about you in the last few months. Not only because your visit
to Heidelberg has produced an enduring resonance among all of us.12 It is mostly

12
Following the publication of Victor Farias’ (1987) book on Heidegger and Nazism, a public debate
on the philosophical and political meaning of Heidegger’s thought was held in Heidelberg in February
1988 with Jacques Derrida, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe as participants and
Reiner Wiehl as moderator. The encounter was organized by Mireille Calle-Gruber. The conversations

13
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 542 A. Pageau‑St‑Hilaire

that I have put myself in your situation. The bloody conflict that has shaken the East
must be a time of anxiety and commotion for someone who honors as much their
Muslim fatherland as their own Jewish origin, as it is for us all.
May some real respite be granted to you and all of us, and the artificial creation of
states in the Muslim world and the neighborship of Israel develop reasonable forms
of life.
This is what my belated best wishes for your birthday particularly wish you.

9 Jacques Derrida to Hans‑Georg Gadamer

March 8, 1991

Dear Professor Gadamer,

Your letter touched me beyond what I can say without giving way to pathos. Your
solicitude for me, the attentive and considerate words with which you show me
your friendship, go straight to my heart. You are always very present in my thought
through the remembrance of our encounters, of course, but also in the work of
thought and the discussions in which I partake, very often with the most remarkable
among the disciples you taught. Thus, to take only the most recent example, last
week, during a trip to Naples in places that you know well and that your visits have
deeply marked, your name regularly came up in the exchanges I had with the Italian
philosophers that also owe you a lot, Vattimo, Ferraris, and many others.
I keep a happy and living memory of our last encounter in Heidelberg and I hope
to have the chance to see you again soon. Meanwhile, I send you my warmest wishes.
Please trust, dear Professor Gadamer, my affectionate and grateful admiration.
Jacques Derrida.

10 Postcard from Jacques Derrida (and Maurizio Ferraris)

to Hans‑Georg Gadamer

(Postcard of the canals in Bruges)

Leuven, July 26, 1995

Cordial greetings

Footnote 12 (Continued)
took place entirely in French, per Gadamer’s gracious agreement. This Heidelberg Conference was a big
mediatic event and was thus recorded. The debate and the subsequent encounters with journalists were
than transcribed and revised by their author as well as by Derrida. It was agreed, however, to postpone
their publication until things cooled down. It was finally published in 2014 by Calle-Gruber (2014) and is
so far only available in French. [Translator’s note.].

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 Jacques Derrida and Hans‑Georg Gadamer, correspondence (1977–… 543

Yours
Maurizio Ferraris

With my faithful thought and fervent wishes, wholeheartedly,

Jacques Derrida

11 Postcard from Jacques Derrida to Hans‑Georg Gadamer

(Postcard of a view of Heidelberg, its old bridge, and the church of Holy Spirit).

Cairo, February 10, 2000.

Dear Professor Gadamer,

I was really happy to have the chance to talk with you just now and to know that you
are very well.
As promised, I send you again my wishes from Cairo, even though this card of
Heidelberg signifies proximity, and how much I would have loved to be among you
for the celebration of your centennial. You remain for us a model. And I hope to see
you again soon to nurture the ongoing dialogue.
Yours wholeheartedly,
J. Derrida

12 Hans‑Georg Gadamer to Jacques Derrida

July 17, 2000

Dear Mr. Derrida,

I would like to express many grateful wishes to you for your ­70th birthday. It is for me
a great abdication not to be able to travel at all anymore and, alas, not to be able to use
foreign languages anymore. But there are without a doubt several bridges between
my own attempts and your work, no matter how wide the division may otherwise be.
Your own approach through Husserl is not completely obvious to me. To be sure I
owe a lot to Husserl and above all, obviously, his influence on Heidegger, so phenom-
enological intuition is of special importance in my own way of thinking. To me, this
constitutes something like a bridge, because you, as a writer, are used to lending an
ear to the written form of language. For me, at any rate, it is not so much the written
word, the printed word, but the word for which we seek the word that truly speaks.
One must not forget that until the 1­ 2th Century, no one could read the Greek and
Latin texts and those of their successors without reading them out loud. To my view,
you begin a little too late when I look, in your early works on the theme of vouloir
dire, for your search for the words that precede their enunciation, and the discovery

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 544 A. Pageau‑St‑Hilaire

of logos then appears to me belated.13 The Stoics themselves had recognized such
a logos, but I think that logos is itself a too late beginning, for the writer must pre-
cisely obey the music of language.
But you see through the ineptitude of my words how much I am now impeded by
old age. A couple of years ago I had proposed to myself to illuminate the hermeneu-
tics of thought under the theme “Between word and concept and from concept back
to word.”
I pray you to accept my best wishes and always leave the last word to the voice.
Yours
Hans-Georg Gadamer

13 Jacques Derrida to Hans‑Georg Gadamer

July 22, 2000

Thank you, dear Professor Gadamer, for these wishes and this generous letter. I
believe that I hear you well and indeed the “bridges” remain so that between us the
last word be the word, I mean the given word [la parole donnée].
I want to believe in it, as in the friendship that binds us.
With feelings of faithful respect.
J. Derrida

14 Jacques Derrida, How right he was! Gadamer, my Cicerone14

Often, and probably unlike Heidegger and many other classical philosophers, I ask
myself: suffice it to say that animals do not have the experience of death as such and
of its possibility, be it the possibility of the impossible? Should we not also ask if
human beings themselves, at the end of the ends, believe in something like death?
If they never encounter it itself, as such? I do not know what Gadamer would have
thought of this, but to pray him with a smile to join me in this doubt, to share once
more something like a question with him (which is something we both liked to do,
and sometimes both of us together), to share a living question with the “lively man
[bon vivant]” he was, I would have told him, despite the immense sadness that over-
whelms me tonight, that I do not believe in his death. I do not believe in Gadamer’s
death. I cannot. I had come to be habituated, if I may say, to believe that Gadamer
would never die. That he was not a man to die. Something in me still believes it.
How can we come to have such habituation and eventually call it such: habituation?

13
“Vouloir dire”: literally “to want to say.” [Translator’s note.].
14
Although Derrida published this text in German in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung under the
title “Wie recht er hatte! Mein Cicerone Hans‑Georg Gadamer” a couple of days after Gadamer passed
away, the original text was written in French. The French version was published as Derrida (2006). This
is a translation of that French original version. [Translator’s note.].

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 Jacques Derrida and Hans‑Georg Gadamer, correspondence (1977–… 545

How can we grant any faith to something that irrational? Yet this was my experience
and remains my belief.
Since 1981, the year of our first encounter in Paris (but I was still reading him even
though I had never stopped reading him and probably did it often poorly, too quickly),
everything that I had which came from him gave me a serenity which, to my impres-
sion, Gadamer himself communicated in person. As a kind of contagion or philosophi-
cal radiance. I liked so much to see him live, talk, laugh, walk, limp, and even eat and
drink. So much more than [seeing] myself! I envied this force which, in him, affirmed
life. It seemed invincible. I was even convinced that Gadamer deserved not to die
because we needed this absolute witness of that person who attends and participates
in all the philosophical debates of the century. I confess one more thing which looks
like an alibi: his immortality would allow us, I believed, to postpone almost forever
the moment of a genuine “discussion.” That which many of our common friends, in
the United States and Europe, would never cease to urge us to. Some of them com-
plained about this. Some even reproached me of never being truly involved–at least
not as much as him–in the welcoming dialogue that Gadamer seemed to have opened
et that I seemed to have fled away from in Paris in April 1981 at the Goethe Institut.
I am ready to believe that they were not wrong. It must be said that between Gad-
amer and me, the most rigorous, challenging, and informed discussion had developed
without us, yes, between us without us, if I may say, by the intelligent mediation of
these numerous disciples and continuators, mostly in the United States and in Italy.
But today is not the day for me to recall these more or less virtual or indirect debates
which, through so many other philosophers, have nonetheless united us more than they
opposed us throughout the last decades. Others have performed that task better than I
ever could.15 I would not be able to do so in the few lines in which I would like, with-
out further delay, to salute a great spirit, a great adventure of thinking which, respected
by philosophers from all around the world, has crossed the century.
Today I prefer memory. And to reignite, like night lights, the two lights which
concurred to enlighten so many moments of friendship. One of these lights looked
like a certainty, the other like a promise.
The certainty: through the abysses of misunderstanding that separated us and
which probably still separate us up to our respective interpretations of interpreta-
tion, of hermeneutic experience, of the experience of “hermeneuein,” of what “to
understand” commands and means–and the infinite separation and the “necessary
interruption” of dialogue, and the meaning [sens], etc. –, we certainly shared the
conviction that war, disparagement or offense never had any chance to corrupt the
inalterable respect between us.
The promise, now: one day would come, an undeniably promised day (for a prom-
ise is an event in itself, even though it is never fulfilled) where, given Gadamer’s
immortality, our Auseinandersetzung would finally happen. This certainty and this

15
As far as these discussions are concerned, but also as far as the reading and understanding of Gad-
amer in the francophone world goes, I am mostly thinking of the work of Jean Greisch, Philippe Forget
and Jean Grondin. The remarkable texts published and edited by D. P. Michelfelder and R. E. Palmer
(1989) under the title Dialogue & Deconstruction will have done a lot to illuminate these debates in the
anglo-saxon world.

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 546 A. Pageau‑St‑Hilaire

promise have allowed all our encounters to be, or at least that is how I perceived it for
my part, smiling, happy, and trusting. Maybe, I would so like to believe it, this chance
is inscribed, as Celan’s The Meridian would say, in the “secret of the encounter (im
Geheimnis der Begegnung).” And I would have never wanted to miss any of these
encounters, and I would have liked them more numerous. Allow me to recollect here
all those that I have loved: Paris, for several days of conference in 1981; Heidelberg,
in 1987, at the public debate with Reiner Wiehl and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe on
Heidegger’s political engagement.16 (Gadamer knew more than anyone on this and
succeeded in being as accurate as possible about this episode that he lived so closely.
It must be said that the great shadow of Heidegger has perhaps partly obscured Gad-
amer’s work in the French philosophical landscape until now, and one must hope
that things will change in that respect). Then there were other encounters in Paris in
the 90s, notably at the Cité universitaire, at the Heine House, with Paul Ricoeur and
Jean-Luc Marion. We mostly met in Italy (and that is not insignificant for he loves
this country and Italy was more welcoming to his thought and person, this is probably
where he had the greatest number of inventive disciples). We would see each other in
Naples or Capri. I think today of what he told us in Capri in this seminar on religion,
with some who were trained at his school, with Vattimo, Ferraris, Gargani, Trias,
Vitiello. I also think of these long “philosophical” walks on the island; we would lis-
ten to him, astonished, in all these languages that he admirably spoke: French, Italian,
English. Telling myself that he was already 94, I reread tonight what he said about
death in that seminar, in the tradition that I was questioning at the beginning:
The unfathomable and anxious character of death remains like the dowry
attached to any anticipatory thought, to what distinguishes human beings from all
other living beings and which is a poisoned gift. For human beings, anticipation
leads, it seems, to the will to go through thought beyond death, as certain as death
is. Thus human beings are the only living beings that bury their dead. This means
that they seek to preserve them beyond death and to honor through cult those they
keep in their memory.
Then, evoking “what is distinctively human,” “language,” he added: “wondrous
is language, which can give Being to something which remains suspended, which is
not there. […] And this is why Heidegger describes anxiety before death precisely
as its anticipation.”17 Our very last encounter was last Spring in Heidelberg, where
Gadamer honored me by attending the seminar that I was giving for a full day (as
he honored me by contributing to the invitation that I received to occupy next year
a chair that will have his name. How would I have loved to do so while he was still
alive!) A year before, as I was unable to participate in the national celebration of his
centennial, I called him to communicate my wishes and to forgive my absence. As I
was supposed to leave for Egypt that day, he gave me, with a clear and joyful voice,
a thousand tips to visit this country. Whether I was able to or not (that is another
problem), it seems to me that I have done all I could to follow them diligently.

16
See Antwort in Heidegger (1988). [Translator’s note: the Heidelberg conference actually took place in
February 1988.].
17
Gadamer (1986, 227). [Translator’s note: I translate from the French.].

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 Jacques Derrida and Hans‑Georg Gadamer, correspondence (1977–… 547

To pretend to provisionally conclude, I would like to leave to Gadamer the last

word between us and to follow it as diligently. The response he gave to my own
responses, in the encounter of 1981, ended in the following way and I endorse it by
admiring its benevolence, its smiling generosity–and its lucidity:
Every reading that seeks understanding is only a step on a path that never ends.
Whoever takes up this path knows that he or she will never be completely done with
the text: one accepts the blow, the thrust, that the text delivers. The fact that a poetic
text can so touch someone that one ends up "entering" into it and recognizing one-
self in it, assumes neither harmonious agreement nor self-confirmation. One must
lose oneself in order to find oneself. I believe I am not very far from Derrida when I
stress that one never knows in advance what one will find oneself to be.18
How right he was, already and still now!
Acknowledgements I would like to express my most grateful thanks to Andrea Gadamer, Pierre Alferi,
and Jean Derrida for their permission to publish these documents in English translation, and Jean Gron-
din for allowing me to use his transcription of the correspondence preserved in the Deutsches Literaturar-
chiv in Marbach and to translate the foreword he wrote to the French translation of the correspondence. I
have also benefitted from consulting his French translation in establishing this one.

References
Calle-Gruber, Mireille (ed.). 2014. La Conférence de Heildeberg. Fécamp: Lignes.
Derrida, Jacques. 1984. Bonnes volontés de puissance (Une Réponse à Hans-Georg Gadamer). Revue
Internationale De Philosophie 38 (151): 341–343.
Derrida, Jacques. 2006. Comme il avait raison! Contre-Jour. Cahiers Littéraires 9: 87–92.
Derrida, Jacques, and Hans-Georg. Gadamer. 2012. Correspondence, ed. and trans. Jean Grondin. Les
Temps Modernes 669–670: 376–390.
Farias, Victor. 1987. Heidegger et le nazisme. Paris: Verdier.
Forget, Philippe (ed). 1984. Text und Interpretation. Deutsch-französische Debatte mit Beiträgen von J.
Derrida, Ph. Forget, M. Frank, H.-G. Gadamer, J. Greisch und F. Laruelle. Munich: Wilhelm Fink
Verlag.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 1984. Et pourtant : Puissance de la bonne volonté (Une réplique à Jacques Der-
rida). Revue Internationale De Philosophie 38 (151): 344–347.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 1986. Dialogues de Capri. In La Religion. Séminaire de Capri, ed. Jacques Der-
rida and Gianni Vattimo, 221–233. Paris: Seuil.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 1991. L’art de comprendre. Écrits II, trans. Philippe Forget. Paris: Aubier.
Grondin, Jean. 2011. Hans-Georg Gadamer. Une Biographie. Paris: Grasset.
Grondin, Jean. 2012. Le dialogue toujours différé de Derrida et Gadamer. Les Temps Modernes 669–670:
357–375.
Heidegger, Martin. 1988. Gespräch, Pfüllingen: Neske.
Michelfelder, Diane P., and Richard Palmer, eds. 1989a. Dialogue & Deconstruction. The Gadamer-Der-
rida Encounter. Albany: State University of New York Press.
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Diane P. Michelfelder and Richard E. Palmer, 1–18. Albany: State University of New York Press.

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18
Gadamer (1984, 347), republished in Gadamer (1991, 238). [Translator’s note: I reproduce here the
English translation by Michelfelder and Palmer (1989a, 57).].

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 548 A. Pageau‑St‑Hilaire

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