HERMENEUTICS

The term Hermeneutics (from the Greek Ερμηνεύς, 'interpreter') is derived from the name of the Greek god Hermes who functioned in classical mythology to relay to humans messages sent by the gods.  (Hermes was believed to play tricks on those he was supposed to give messages to, often changing the messages and influencing the interpretation thereof.) 

Initially, the term 'Hermeneutics' was closely linked to the interpretation of the Bible and related texts in the Christian tradition.  However, more recently, it has come to be used in a broader sense to denote the study of the theories and methods involved in the interpretation of texts of all kinds, the concept of 'text' here being extended beyond merely written documents to include any number of objects (e.g. film, art, society, etc.) that may be subjected to interpretation.  I use the term 'Hermeneutics' in this regard to refer to interpretive approaches that emphasise in particular how the meaning of texts is shaped by their socio-historical context and rhetoric. 

The term 'Hermeneutics' also refers to a particular school of Continental thought inspired initially by thinkers like Schleiermacher and Dilthey in the nineteenth century and shaped by Heidegger and Gadamer in the twentieth century who were influenced by the Phenomenology of Husserl.  Hermeneutical phenomenology studies interpretive structures of experience, how we understand and engage things around us in our human world, including ourselves and others.

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SUB-PAGES

Philosophers / Theorists:

• Medieval:
  • St. Thomas Aquinas (1225 - 1274)

• Early Modern:

  • Giambattista Vico (1688 - 1744)

  • Johann Martin Chladenius (1710 - 1759)

• Nineteenth Century:

  • Johann Gottfried Herder (1744 - 1803)

  • Wilhelm Humboldt (1767 - 1835)

  • Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768 - 1834)

  • Friedrich von Schlegel (1772 - 1829)

  • Georg Anton Friedrich Ast (1778 - 1841)

  • August Philip Böckh (1785 - 1867)

  • Johann Gustav Droysen (1808 - 1884)

  • Wilhelm Dilthey (1833 - 1911)

  • Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900)

• Twentieth Century:
  • Rudolph Bultmann (1884 - 1976) (see also Religion)
  • Martin Heidegger (1889 - 1976) (see also Existentialist Phenomenology and Existentialism)
  • Emilio Betti (1890 - 1968)
  • Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900 - 2002) (see also Existentialist Phenomenology and Existentialism)

  • Ernesto Grassi (1902 - 1991) (see also Existentialist Phenomenology and Existentialism)

  • Paul Ricoeur (1913 - 2005) (see also Existentialist Phenomenology and Existentialism)

  • Hans Blumenberg (1920 - 1996)

  • Hans-Robert Jauss (1921 - 1997) (see also Phenomenological and Existentialist Literary Theory)
  • Karl Otto Apel (1922 - ) (see also Marxism)

  • Jurgen Habermas (1929 - ) (see also Frankfurt School of Critical Theory)

  • Jacques Derrida (1930 - 2005) (see also Deconstruction)

  • Richard Rorty (1931 - ) (see also Pragmatism and Recent Analytic Philosophy)
  • Richard J. Bernstein (1932 - ) (see also Pragmatism)

  • Richard E. Palmer (1933 - )

  • Don Ihde (1934 - ) (see also Science and Technology Studies)

  • Gianni Vattimo (1936 - ) (see also Phenomenology and Existentialism)
  • Stanley Fish (1938 - ) (see also Pragmatism and Rhetoric and Argumentation)

  • John D. Caputo (1940 - ) (see also Deconstruction)

  • Manfred Frank (1945 - ) (see also Existentialist Phenomenology and Existentialism)

  • Shaun Gallagher (1948 - )

  • Andrew Bowie (1952 - )
  • Jean Grondin (1955 - ) (see also Existentialist Phenomenology and Existentialism)

Related Pages:

• Literary Theory
• Language Theory
• Phenomenology and  (Existentialist Phenomenology and Existentialism
• Rhetoric and Argumentation

ASSOCIATIONS

• Circulo de Fenomenologia y hermeneitica de Santa fe y Parana (Argentina)

• Círculo Peruano de Fenomenología y Hermenéutica (CIphER)

• International Institute of Hermeneutics (IIH)

• International Society for Hermeneutics and Science

• North American Society for Philosophical Hermeneutics

CONFERENCES

2008:

• Hermeneutics: Contemporary Prospects (Tradition, Transmission and Treason), Annual Conference, British Society for Phenomenology,
  St Hilda’s College, University of Oxford, April 4-6

2007:

• Annual Meeting, North American Society for Philosophical Hermeneutics, Villanova University, September 28-29

2006:

• Annual Meeting, North American Society for Philosophical Hermeneutics, Gordon College, June 2

2005:

• Hermeneutics and Tradition, Centre for Research in Philosophy and Literature, University of Warwick, November 7

• Hermeneutics and Science 2003, Budapest Center of the International Society for Hermeneutics and Science, Tihany, Hungary, June 7-11

2004:

2003:

2002:

• International Congress on Hermeneutics, St. Bonaventure University, New York, May 6-10

• Understanding and Reflectivity in Communication, Culture and Education, Eighth Tver International Hermeneutic Conference, Tver, Russia, March 22-24

2001:

2000:

Annual:

COURSES

• University of Auckland: Introduction to Hermeneutics: Gadamer and Beyond (Franchi)

• Augustana University College: Hermeneutics (Janz)

• University of Central Florida: Hermeneutics (Gallagher)

• University of Dundee: Understanding, Dialogue and Interpretation (Davey)

• University of Exeter: Critical Hermeneutics (King)

• Monash University: Hermeneutics (Heinze)

• Université de Montréal:

  • Herméneutique

  • Hermeneutique II (Grondin)

  • Ontologie et hermeneutique (Grondin)

• University of Nevada, Las Vegas: Pragmatist Hermeneutics (Shalin)

• State University of New York, Stony Brook: Hermeneutics and Deconstruction (Sliverman)

• University of Texas, Austin: Hermeneutics (Reeder)

JOURNALS

• Le Cercle Herméneutique: Revue Transversale d’Anthropologie Phénoménologique, de Phénoménologie Psychiatrique, de Daseinsanalyse et d’Herméneutique Générale

• Hermeneutics in Russia

• Internationales Jahrbuch für Hermeneutik

SOURCES: PRIMARY

Book Series:

• Yale UP: Yale Studies in Hermeneutics

Off-Line:

• Anthologies:

  • Barbotin, Edmond, ed.  Qu'est-ce qu'un texte?  Eléments pour une herméneutique.  Paris: Corti, 1975.

  • Bleicher, Josef.  Contemporary Hermeneutics: Hermeneutics as Method, Philosophy and Critique.  London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980.  [contains original essays by Betti, Gadamer, Habermas and Ricoeur]

  • Hernadi, Paul, ed.  The Rhetoric of Interpretation and the Interpretation of Rhetoric.  Durham: Duke UP, 1989.

  • Mueller-Vollmer, Kurt, ed.  The Hermeneutics Reader.  London: Continnuum, 1989.

  • Ormiston, Gayle L., and Alan D. Schrift, eds.  The Hermeneutic Tradition from Ast to Ricoeur.  Albany: SUNY Press, 1990.
  • Ormiston, Gayle L., and Alan D. Schrift, eds.  Transforming the Hermeneutic Context: from Nietzsche to Nancy.  Albany: SUNY Press, 1990.

  • Wachterhauser, Brice R., ed.  Hermeneutics and Truth.  Evanston, IL: Northwestern UP, 1994.

  • Wachterhauser, Brice R., ed.  Hermeneutics and Modern Philosophy.  Albany: SUNY Press, 1986.

• Selected Individual Works:

  • Bleicher, Josef.  The Hermeneutic Imagination: Outline of a Positive Critique of Scientism and Sociology.  London and Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982.

  • Gumbrecht, Hans Ulrich.  Production of Presence: What Meaning Cannot Convey.  Stanford: Stanford UP, 2004.

  • Jasper, David.  A Short Introduction to Hermeneutics.  Westminster John Knox Press, 2004.

  • Lyon, Arabella.  Intentions: Negotiated, Contested, and Ignored.  U

  • Fiumara, Gemma Corradi.  The Other Side of Language: a Philosophy of Listening.  London: Routledge, 1990.

  • Nicholson, Graeme.  Seeing and Reading.  Amherst, NY: Humanity, 1989.

  • Smith, P. Christopher.  The Hermeneutics of Original Argument: Demonstration, Dialectic, and Rhetoric.  Evanston: Northwestern UP, 1998.

  • Smith, P. Christopher.  Hermeneutics and Human Finitude: Toward a Theory of Ethical Understanding.  New York: Fordham UP, 1991.

  • Smith, Nicholas H.  Strong Hermeneutics.  London: Routledge, 1997.

  • Spanos, William V.  "Heidegger, Kierkegaard, and the Hermeneutic Circle: Towards a Postmodern Theory of Interpretation as Dis-closure."  Martin Heidegger and the Question of Literature.  Ed. Spanos, et al.  1979.

  • Szondi, Peter.  On Textual Understanding, and Other Essays.  Trans. Harvey Mendelsohn.  1986.

  • Warnke, Georgia.  Justice and Interpretation.  Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994.

On-Line:

SOURCES: SECONDARY

Off-Line:

• Anthologies:

  • Gross, Alan G., and William M. Keith, ed.  Rhetorical Hermeneutics: Invention and Interpretation in the Age of Science. 
    Albany: SUNY Press, 1996.

  • Hernadi, Paul, ed.  The Rhetoric of Interpretation and the Interpretation of Rhetoric.  Durham: Duke UP, 1989.

  • Hollinger, Robert, ed.  Hermeneutics and Praxis.  Notre Dame: U of Notre Dame P, 1985.

  • Jost, Walter, and Michael J, Hyde, eds.  Rhetoric and Hermeneutics in our Time: a Reader.  New Haven: Yale UP, 1997.

  • Shapiro, Gary, and Alan Sica, eds.  Hermeneutics: Questions and Prospects.  1984.
  • Silverman, Hugh J., ed.  Gadamer and Hermeneutics: Science, Culture, and Literature.  Vol. 4 of Continental Philosophy.  London: Routledge, 1991. 

  • Silverman, Hugh J., and Don Ihde, eds.  Hermeneutics and Deconstruction.  Albany: SUNY Press, 1985.

  • Vandevelde, Pol, ed.  Issues in Interpretation Theory.  Milwaukee: Marquette UP, 2006.

  • Wiercinski, Andrzej, ed.  Between the Human and the Divine: Philosophical and Theological Hermeneutics.  Toronto: Hermeneutic Press, 2002.
  • Woolfolk, Robert L., Louis A. Sass, and Stanley B. Messer, eds.  Hermeneutics and Psychological Theory: Interpretive Perspectives on Personality, Psychotherapy, and Psychopathology.  Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers UP, 1988.

• Selected Individual Works:

  • Bauman, Zygmunt.  Hermeneutics and Social Science: Approaches to Understanding.  London: Hutchinson, 1978.

  • Bleicher, Josef.  Contemporary Hermeneutics: Hermeneutics as Method, Philosophy and Critique.  London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980.

  • Bowie, Andrew.  "Interpretive Reasons."  From Romanticism to Critical Theory: the Philosophy of German Literary Theory.  London: Routledge, 1997.  90-103.
  • Bruns, Gerald L.  Hermeneutics Ancient and Modern.  New Haven: Yale UP, 1992.
  • Caputo, John D.  Radical Hermeneutics: Repetition, Deconstruction, and the Hermeneutic Project.  Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1987.

  • Eden, Kathy.  Hermeneutics and the Rhetorical Tradition: Chapters in the Ancient Legacy and its Humanist Reception.  New Haven: Yale UP, 1997.

  • Ferraris, Maurizio.  History of Hermeneutics.  Trans. Luca Somigli.  Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1996.

  • Gallagher, Shaun.  Hermeneutics and Education.  Albany: SUNY Press, 1992.

  • Grondin, Jean.  Der Sinn für Hermeneutik.  Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1994.

    • Sources of Hermeneutics.  Albany: SUNY Press, 1995.

  • Howard, Roy.  Three Faces of Hermeneutics: an Introduction to Current Theories of Understanding.  Berkeley: U of California P, 1982.

  • Jasper, D.  A Short Introduction to Hermeneutics.  Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004.

  • Johnson, Elliot.  Expository Hermeneutics: an Introduction .  Zondervan, 1990.

  • Kockelmans, Joseph R.  Hermeneutic Phenomenology: Lectures and Essays.  Washington: UP of America, 1988.

  • Lafont, Cristina. 

    • The Linguistic Turn in Hermeneutic Philosophy.  Trans. José Medina.  Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002.

  • Madison, Gary Brent.  "The Interpretive Turn in Phenomenology: a Philosophical History."  Special Issue.  Symposium (Summer 2004): .

  • Madison, Gary Brent.  "Coping with Nietzsche's Legacy: Rorty, Derrida, Gadamer."  The Politics of Postmodernity: Essays in Applied Hermeneutics.  Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 2001.

  • Madison, Gary Brent.  The Politics of Postmodernity: Essays in Applied Hermeneutics.  Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2001.

  • Madison, Gary Brent.  "Hermeneutical Integrity: a Guide for the Perplexed."  The Market Process: Essays in Contemporary Austrian Economics.  Ed. Peter J. Boettke and David L. Prychitko.  Aldershot: Edward Elgar, 1994.  

  • Madison, Gary Brent.  The Hermeneutics of Postmodernity: Figures and Themes.  Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1989.

  • Madison, Gary Brent.  Understanding: a Phenomenological-Pragmatic Approach.  Greenwood Press, 1982.

  • Masson, Scott.  Romanticism, Hermeneutics and the Crisis of the Human Sciences.  London: Ashgate, 2004.

  • Mueller-Vollmer, Kurt.  “Language, Mind, and Artifact: an Outline of Hermeneutic Theory Since the Enlightenment.”  The Hermeneutics Reader.  Ed. Kurt Mueller-Vollmer.  London: Continuum, 1989.  1-53.

  • Palmer, Richard E.  Hermeneutics: Interpretation Theory in Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger and Gadamer.  Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1979.

  • Prasad, Anshuman.  "Hermeneutics as an Interpretive Methodology for Understanding Texts."  Organizational Research Methods 5.1 (2002): 12-33.
  • Rosen, Stanley.  Hermeneutics as Politics.  Oxford: Oxford OUP, 1987.  Rpt. 2003.

  • Schroeder, William.  "Hermeneutics."  Continental Philosophy: a Critical Approach.  Oxford: Blackwell, 2005.  149-173.

  • Seebohm, Thomas.  Hermeneutics. Method and Methodology.  Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2004.

  • Thiselton, Anthony C.  On Hermeneutics: Collected Works with New Essays.  Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006.

  • Thiselton, Anthony C.  New Horizons in Hermeneutics.  Zondervan, 1997.

  • Thompson, J. B.  Critical Hermeneutics.  Cambridge: CUP, 2003.

  • Vanhoozer, Kevin J.  Is There a Meaning in This Text?.  Zondervan, 1998.

  • Weinsheimer, Joel.  Eighteenth-Century Hermeneutics: Philosophy of Interpretation in England from Locke to Burke.  New Haven: Yale UP, 1993.

On-Line:

• Blacker, David: Education as the Normative Dimension of Philosophical Hermeneutics

• Byrne, Michelle: Hermeneutics 101

• Demeterio, F. P. A.:

  • Introduction to Hermeneutics Diwatao 1.1 (2001)

  • Romanticist Hermeneutics of Schleiermacher and Dilthey

  • Dialectical Hermeneutics

  • Critical Hermeneutics

• Dibadj, Seyed Musa: Authenticity of the Text in Hermeneutics

• Hanko, Herman:  Issues in Hermeneutics

• Holub, Robert C.: Hermeneutics 2: Twentieth Century (Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism)

• International Institute of Hermeneutics: About Hermeneutics

• Jutersonke, Oliver: Bridging the Gap the Hermeneutical Way

• Kinsella, Elizabeth Anne: Hermeneutics and Critical Hermeneutics: Exploring Possibilities within the Art of Interpretation Forum: Qualitative Social Research 7.3 (2006)

• Lye, John: Some Principles of Phenomenological Hermeneutics

• Madison, G. B.:

  • Coping with Nietzsche's Legacy: Rorty, Derrida, Gadamer

  • Is Hermeneutics Necessarily Conservative?

  • The Hermeneutics of Postmodernity and After

• Mallery, John C. (Masachussetts Institute of Technology): Hermeneutics: from Textual Interpretation to Computer Understanding?

• Phillips, James: Key Concepts: Hermeneutics

• Pollock, Neil: Hermeneutics

• Quigley, Timothy (New School University):  Assumptions of Hermeneutics

• Ramberg, Bjorn, and Kristin Gjesdal: Hermeneutics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

• Rayment, Douglas: Hermeneutics Bibliography

• Ross, Kelley: Foundationalism and Hermeneutics

• Science Encyclopedia: Hermeneutics: the Art of Interpretation of Sacred Texts, Hermeneutics as the Methodological Basis of the Human Sciences

• Szabo, Nick: Hermeneutics

• Tatar, Burhanettin: Interpretation and the Problem of the Intention of the Author

• Wikipedia Encyclopedia: Hermeneutics

UNIVERSITY PROGRAMMES / RESEARCH CENTRES / RESEARCH PROJECTS

Europe:

• Switzerland: Universtität Zürich: Theologischen Fakultät: Institut fur Hermeneutik und Religionsphilosophie

USA:

• Marquette University: Seminar on Phenomenology and Hermeneutics
• University of Redlands: Centre for Rhetoric and Hermeneutics

WWW GATEWAYS

• Gallagher, Shaun (Canisius College): Applied Hermeneutics

• Szesnat, Holger: Biblical Hermeneutics

PHILWEB was last updated: August 28, 2007

PHILWEB is edited by Richard L. W. Clarke

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