Abstract

This paper introduces the International Institute for Hermeneutics, which has been founded to foster the project of understanding in the "age of interpretation." As an international community of scholars committed to research and collaboration crossing the traditional boundaries of academia, the Institute furthers the dialogue between speakers who are otherwise alienated from each other. To understand means to grasp meaning and to share it with others. The mandate of the Institute is to practice hermeneutics by upholding the hermeneutic legacy of Heidegger, Gadamer, and Ricoeur through a variety of activities and research on the historical, philosophical, lingual, and religious aspects of the project of understanding. The president-founder of the Institute describes the present and future of lingually oriented hermeneutics and addresses the major publishing projects of the Institute. The paper concludes by extending an invitation of collaboration to international scholars to join with the Institute in addressing that which needs to be thought in an increasingly comprehensive horizon of interpretative theory and practice