Abstract

The aim of this paper is to raise questions for Gadamer’s interpretation of Lebensphilosophie through an analysis of Nietzsche and Dilthey’s commentaries on “life” and “death.” Against Gadamer’s view that life philosophers failed to achieve an ontological concept of life, I argue that both Nietzsche and Dilthey reflected on the connection which exists between life and death, and thus anticipated the ontological direction of philosophical hermeneutics. In anticipation of Heidegger’s concept of “being with the dead,” Nietzsche and Dilthey viewed living beings as connected to the dead of history and historical interpretation as one way of living with the dead.