The Hermeneutic Tradition

Here are the major statements of the leading figures in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century German and French hermeneutic traditions--the major statements on the aims, methods, and techniques of interpretation. Some of these appear here for the first time in English. This book establishes the context for contemporary analyses of interpretation. Part I traces the evolution of hermeneutics from Friedrich Ast and Friedrich Schleiermacher through Wilhelm Dilthey to Martin Heidegger's placing of hermeneutics at the center of the ontological analysis of human being. Part II follows the development of the Heideggerian tradition in the writings of Hans-Georg Gadamer. Gadamer's "philosophical hermeneutics" is then located at the center of several important exchanges with more traditional, objective hermeneutical methodologists like Emilio Betti, ideology-critics like Jürgen Habermas, and linguistic-phenomenological thinkers like Paul Ricoeur.

In recent years in the "West," scholars have attempted to unravel old constructs of interpretation and understanding, using the discipline of hermeneutics, or the scientific study of textual interpretation. Borrowed from students of the ever growing body of biblical interpretive literature that originated in the early Christian era, theoretical hermeneutics has given many contemporary scholars potent tools of textual interpretation. Classics and Interpretations applies this method to Chinese culture. Several essays focus on hermeneutic traditions of Neo-Confucianism. Others move outside of these traditions to attempt an understanding of the role of hermeneutics in Taoist and Buddhist textual interpretation, in Chinese poetics and painting, and in contemporary Chinese culture. This volume makes a concerted effort to remedy our ignorance of the Chinese hermeneutical tradition. Part 1, "The Great Learning and Hermeneutics," demonstrates the use of commentary to define how the individual creates his social self, and discusses differing interpretations of the Ta-hsueh text and its treatment as either canonical or heterodox. Part 2, "Canonicity and Orthodoxy," considers the philosophical touchstones employed by Neo-Confucian canonical exegetes and polemicists, and discusses the Han canonization of the scriptural Five Classics, while illuminating a double standard that existed in the hermeneutical regime of late imperial China. Part 3, "Hermeneutics as Politics," discusses the transformation of both the classics and scholars, and explores the dominant hermeneutic tradition in Chinese historiography, the scriptural tradition and reinterpretation of the Ch'un-ch'iu, and reveals the pragmatism of Chinese hermeneutics through comparison of the Sung debates over the Mencius. The concluding sections include essays on "Chu Hsi and Interpretation of Chinese Classics," "Hermeneutic Traditions in Chinese Poetics and Non-Confucian Contexts," "Reinterpretation of Confucian Texts in the Ming-Ch'ing Period," and "Contemporary Interpretations of Confucian Culture." Through these literate and brilliantly written essays the reader witnesses not merely the great breadth and depth of Chinese hermeneutics but also its continuity and evolutionary vigor. This volume will excite scholars of the Confucian, Buddhist, and Taoist systems of thought and belief as well as students of history and hermeneutics.

Hans-Georg Gadamer is one of the leading philosophers in the world today. His philosophical hermeneutics has had a major impact in a wide range of disciplines, including the social sciences, literary criticism, theology and jurisprudence. Truth and Method, his major work, is widely recognised to be one of the great classics of twentieth-century thought. In this book Georgia Warnke provides a clear and systematic exposition of Gadamer's work, as well as a balanced and thoughtful assessment of his views. Warnke gives particular attention to the ways in which Gadamer's work has been taken up and criticised by literary critics, social theorists and philosophers, such as Hirsch, Habermas and Rorty. She thus provides an introduction to Gadamer which demonstrates the relevance of his work to current debates in a variety of disciplines. This book will be invaluable to students and specialists throughout the humanities and social sciences, as well as to anyone who is interested in the most important developments in contemporary thought.

This probing analysis of the history of ontology is “of enormous significance for students of the development of Heidegger’s early thought” (Daniel O. Dahlstrom Boston University). First published in 1988, Ontology—The Hermeneutics of Facticity is the text of Heidegger’s lecture course at the University of Freiburg during the summer of 1923. In these lectures, Heidegger reviews and makes critical appropriations of the hermeneutic tradition from Plato, Aristotle, and Augustine to Schleiermacher and Dilthey. Through this critical survey, he reformulates the question of being on the basis of facticity and the everyday world. Specific themes deal with the history of ontology, the development of phenomenology and its relation to Hegelian dialectic, traditional theological and philosophical concepts of man, the present situation of philosophy, and the influences of Aristotle, Luther, Kierkegaard, and Husserl on Heidegger’s thinking. Students of Heidegger will find initial breakthroughs in his unique elaboration of the meaning of human experience and the “question of being,” which received mature expression in Being and Time.

This volume explores the connections between John McDowell’s philosophy and the hermeneutic tradition. The contributions not only explore the hermeneutical aspects of McDowell’s thought but also ask how this reading of McDowell can inform the hermeneutical tradition itself. John McDowell has made important contributions to debates in epistemology, metaethics, and philosophy of language, and his readings of Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, and Wittgenstein have proved widely infl uential. While there are instances in which McDowell draws upon the work of hermeneutic thinkers, the hermeneutic strand of McDowell’s philosophy has not yet been systematically explored in depth. The chapters in this volume open up a space in which to read McDowell himself as a hermeneutic thinker. They address several research questions: How can McDowell’s recourse to the hermeneutical tradition be understood in detail? Besides Gadamer, does McDowell’s work implicitly convey and advance motives from other seminal fi gures of this tradition, such as Heidegger and Dilthey? Are there aspects of McDowell’s position that can be enhanced through a juxtaposition with central hermeneutic concepts like World, Tradition, and Understanding? Are there further, perhaps yet unexplored aspects of McDowell’s infl uences that ought to be interpreted as expressing hermeneutic ideas? McDowell and the Hermeneutic Tradition will appeal to researchers and advanced students working in American philosophy, Continental philosophy, hermeneutics, history of philosophy, philosophy of language, and epistemology.

This book presents contemporary analyses of interpretation by some of the most prominent figures in contemporary philosophy and literary criticism. These essays question and transform traditional statements on the aims, methods, and techniques of interpretation. The essays demonstrate how contemporary discussions of interpretation are necessarily sent back to the hermeneutic tradition. Emphasizing the importance of Friedrich Nietzsche's influence on the contemporary debates concerning current interpretive practices, this volume traces the differences in interpretive perspectives generated in the writings of Michel Foucault, Eric Blondel, Julia Kristeva, Jacques Derrida, Manfred Frank, Werner Hamacher, and Jean-Luc Nancy. The essays by Foucault, Blondel, Frank, Hamacher, and Nancy appear here for the first time in English.

Constitutes a thoughtful survey of contemporary hermeneutics in its historical context.

This book presents contemporary analyses of interpretation by some of the most prominent figures in contemporary philosophy and literary criticism. These essays question and transform traditional statements on the aims, methods, and techniques of interpretation. The essays demonstrate how contemporary discussions of interpretation are necessarily sent back to the hermeneutic tradition. Emphasizing the importance of Friedrich Nietzsche’s influence on the contemporary debates concerning current interpretive practices, this volume traces the differences in interpretive perspectives generated in the writings of Michel Foucault, Eric Blondel, Julia Kristeva, Jacques Derrida, Manfred Frank, Werner Hamacher, and Jean-Luc Nancy. The essays by Foucault, Blondel, Frank, Hamacher, and Nancy appear here for the first time in English.