Hermeneutics Between History And Philosophy

Hermeneutics between History and Philosophy collects together Gadamer's remaining important untranslated writings on the problem of history and the major philosophical traditions of the 20th century from the standpoint of hermeneutics. In these writings, Gadamer examines important thinkers as Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Bourdieu and Habermas and their ongoing legacies. This volume also includes a preface by the editors, who are also the translators, presenting the structure of the volume, a substantial introductionsituating Gadamer's particular project and examining the place of hermeneutics vis-a-vis the disciplines of history and philosophy in the 20th century. The translation is followed by a glossary of German terms and Greek and Latin expressions, as well as a bibliography of all the works cited and alluded to by Gadamer.

In the following three chapters, Ferraris examines the universalization of the domain of interpretation with Heidegger, the development of Heideggerian philosophical hermeneutics with Gadamer and Derrida, and the relation between hermeneutics and epistemology, on the one hand, and the human sciences, on the other.

This volume contains the proceedings of the First Jerusalem Philosophical Encounter - started by the Hebrew University Institute of Philosophy (now the S. H. Bergman Centre for Philosophical Studies), which took place on December 28-31, 1974. In recent years the culture-gap that separates philosophers seems slowly - indeed much too slowly - to be narrowing. Although short circuits in communication still do happen and mutual disrespect has not vanished, it is becoming unfashionable to demonstrate ignorance of another philosophical tradition or to shrug it off with a supercilious smile. Perhaps dialectically, the insufficiency of any self-centred view that tries to immunize itself to challenges from without starts to disturb it from within. Moreover, as the culture- (and language-) bound nature of many philosophical divergencies is sinking more deeply into consciousness, the irony of an attitude of intolerance to them becomes more apparent. Our aim was to make a modest contribution to this development. We did not, however, mean to confuse genuine differences and problems in communication. Consequently, the more realistic term "encounter" was preferred to the idealizing "dialogue. " The Israeli hosts, themselves trained in a variety of philosophical traditions, felt that there is something in between real dialogue on the one hand and mutual estrangement on the other, and wished to provide a meeting place for it.

Hermeneutics is the branch of knowledge that deals with interpretation, a behaviour that is intrinsic to our daily lives. As humans, we decipher the meaning of newspaper articles, books, legal matters, religious texts, political speeches, emails, and even dinner conversations every day . But how is knowledge mediated through these forms? What constitutes the process of interpretation? And how do we draw meaning from the world around us so that we might understand our position in it? In this Very Short Introduction Jens Zimmermann traces the history of hermeneutic theory, setting out its key elements, and demonstrating how they can be applied to a broad range of disciplines: theology; literature; law; and natural and social sciences. Demonstrating the longstanding and wide-ranging necessity of interpretation, Zimmermann reveals its significance in our current social and political landscape. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

The ideas of the German philosopher, Hans-Georg Gadamer have had considerable influence both in their own right as the leading modern exposition of philosophical hermeneutics and interpreting the works of Heidegger, Plato and Hegel. This work covers the trail of Gadamer's thought. Taking 'Truth and Method' (1960, translated 1975) as the axis of the interpretation of Gadamer's thought, Jean Grondin lays out the key themes of the work - method, humanism, aesthetic judgement, truth, the work of history - with exemplary clarity. Gadamer's concerns are situated in the context of traditional philosophical issues, showing, for example, how Gadamer both continues, and significantly modifies, the philosophical problem as it begins with Descartes and advances rather than simply follows Heidegger's treatment of the relationship of thinking and language. In this way Grondin shows how the issues of philosophical hermeneutics are relevant for contemporary concerns in science and history.

Incredible originality of thought in areas as vast as phenomenology, religion, hermeneutics, psychoanalysis, intersubjectivity, language, Marxism, and structuralism has made Paul Ricoeur one of the philosophical giants of the twentieth century. The way in which Ricoeur approaches these themes makes his works relevant to the reader today: he writes with honesty and depth of insight into the core of a problem, and his ability to mark for future thought the very path of philosophical inquiry is nearly unmatched. In History and Truth, Ricoeur investigates the antinomy between history and truth, or between historicity and meaning. He argues that history has meaning insofar as it approaches universality and system but no meaning insofar as this universality violates the singularity of individuals' lives. Imposing unity upon truth, or unifying the diversity of knowledge and opinion, creates a singular and universal history but destroys historicity and subjectivity. Allowing for singularities in history promotes a multiplicity of truths over a single, unique truth and thereby annihilates system. This volume and the other new editions of Ricoeur's texts published by Northwestern University Press have joined the canon of contemporary continental philosophy and continue to contribute to emergent discussions in the twenty-first century. Book jacket.

In this wide-ranging historical introduction to philosophical hermeneutics, Jean Grondin discusses the major figures from Philo to Habermas, analyzes conflicts between various interpretive schools, and provides a persuasive critique of Gadamer's view of hermeneutic history, though in other ways Gadamer's Truth and Method serves as a model for Grondin's approach. Grondin begins with brief overviews of the pre-nineteenth-century thinkers Philo, Origen, Augustine, Luther, Flacius, Dannhauer, Chladenius, Meier, Rambach, Ast, and Schlegel. Next he provides more extensive treatments of such major nineteenth-century figures as Schleiermacher, Böckh, Droysen, and Dilthey. There are full chapters devoted to Heidegger and Gadamer as well as shorter discussions of Betti, Habermas, and Derrida. Because he is the first to pay close attention to pre-Romantic figures, Grondin is able to show that the history of hermeneutics cannot be viewed as a gradual, steady progression in the direction of complete universalization. His book makes it clear that even in the early period, hermeneutic thinkers acknowledged a universal aspect in interpretation--that long before Schleiermacher, hermeneutics was philosophical and not merely practical. In revising and correcting the standard account, Grondin's book is not merely introductory but revisionary, suitable for beginners as well as advanced students in the field.