Introduction to Philosophical Hermeneutics: (Yale Studies in Hermeneutics)

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.

Table of Contents:
Part 1 On the prehistory of hermeneutics: linguistic delimitations; the semantics of Hermeneuein; allegorical interpretations of myth; Philo - the universality of allegory; Origen - the universality of typology; Augustine - the Universality of the inner logos; Luther - sola scriptura?; Flacius - the universality of the grammatica1. Part 2 Hermeneutics between grammar and critique: Dannhauer - true interpretation and interpretive truth; Chladenius - the universality of the pedagogical ; Meier - the universality of signs; pietism - the universality of the affective. Part 3 Romantic hermeneutics and Schleiermacher: the post-Kantian transition from the enlightenment to romanticism - Ast and Schlegel; Schleiermacher's universalization of misunderstanding; limiting hermeneutics to psychology?; the dialectical ground of hermeneutics. Part 4 The problems of historicism: Boch and the dawn of historical awareness; Droysen's universal historiology - understanding as research in the moral world; dilthey - on the way to hermeneutic. Part 5 Heidegger - hermeneutics as the interpretation of existence: the "fore" of fore-understanding; its transparency in interpretation; the idea of a philosophical hermeneutics of facticity; the derivative status of statements?; hermeneutics after the turn. Part 6 Gadamer and the universe of hermeneutics: back to the human sciences; the overcoming of historicist hermeneutics; effective history as principle; understanding as questioning and therefore application; language as dialogue; the universality of the hermeneutic universe. Part 7 Hermeneutics in dialogue: Betti's epistemological return to the inner spirit; Habermas's critique of hermeneutics in the name of agreement; the deconstructive challenge to hermeneutics.

About the Author :
Jean Grondin is professor of philosophy at the University of Montreal.