Summary |
Hermeneutics concerns the study of understanding and
interpretation. While this study includes considerations of the art, techniques,
methods, and foundations of interpretative research in the humanities and
related disciplines, philosophical inquiry into hermeneutics characteristically
focuses on questions raised by the phenomena of understanding and
interpretation in epistemology, the theory of meaning, the ontology of human
beings, and the philosophy of language and history. Philosophical interest in hermeneutics
may be traced back to ancient Greek and Judeo-Christian sources, but the
philosophical tradition of modern hermeneutics originates in the early
nineteenth century. The principal figures associated with this modern tradition of hermeneutics are
Friedrich Schleiermacher, Wilhelm Dilthey, Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg
Gadamer, and Paul Ricoeur. Notable developments in the post-war ear include debate that arose between hermeneutics, on the one hand, and deconstruction and critical theory on the other. More recently, hermeneutics has come to be associated with figures in the continental tradition such as Gianni Vattimo, John Caputo, and Günter Figal, and figures in the anglophone context such as Richard Rorty, Charles Taylor, and John McDowell. The philosophical study of hermeneutics both draws
from and is of consequence for several related areas of humanistic research, perhaps especially biblical hermeneutics, legal hermeneutics, the philosophy of medicine and nursing, and the
philosophy of education. |