This book discusses Gadamer's theory of context-dependence. Analytical and partly critical, the book also shows exegetical accuracy in the rendering of Gadamer's position. It explores the following questions that Gadamer's theory of context-dependence tries to answer: in what way is thought influenced by and thus dependent on its historical context? To what extent and in what way is the individual able to become reflectively aware of and emancipate himself from this dependence? The book takes Gadamer's wide interests into account, e.g. issues relating to the history of historiography and the nature of art and aesthetic experience. The problem of the context-dependence of thought is prominent in contemporary philosophy, including the fields of structuralism, post structuralism, deconstruction, certain forms of feminist philosophy and the philosophy of science. In this sense, the book discusses an issue with wide repercussions.

Anders Odenstedt received a PhD in Philosophy at Umeå University in Sweden in 2001. He is currently a Senior Lecturer in philosophy at the Department of Business Administration, Technology and Social Sciences at Luleå University of Technology in Sweden, and also teaches aesthetics at the Academy of Fine Arts in Umeå. Odenstedt's research concerns German phenomenology and hermeneutics, aesthetics and the history of philosophy. 

Chapter 1: Art, History and the Decline of Tradition.-Chapter 2: History as Conversation Versus History as Science: Gadamer and Dilthey.- Chapter 3: Forms of Reflection.- Chapter 4: Context-Dependence Its Nature and Scope.- Chapter 5: Gadamer and Hegel on Bildung.- Chapter 6: Being a Child of One s Time: Gadamer and Hegel on  Thought and Historical Context.