Hans-Georg Gadamer was one of Heidegger's oldest disciples. In these essays written over three decades for very diverse occasions and audiences, Gadamer exposes how his teacher's philosophy emerges and unfolds behind the deep historical and cultural ruptures of the early twentieth century. In this work Gadamer describes the ways of thinking of Heidegger, from his first theological concerns and his attempts to renew the philosophical interrogation in the confused environment after the First World War. He himself considered himself an "eyewitness" of the impact that Heidegger caused in the academic world and insists that both the fascination with Heidegger and the rejection of his supposed darkness are not adequate ways to understand it. The essays collected in this volume, in their chronological order, are also the testimony of a process of serene detachment that allowed Gadamer to situate himself in the privileged position of the friend who knows how to listen without reverences. It is precisely this distancing that allows him to retain all that Heidegger can still tell us about the problems that our civilization has to face.