The Cambridge Companion to Hermeneutics

The Cambridge Companion to Hermeneutics
Author: Michael N. Forster
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 435
Release: 2019-01-03
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1107187605

Explores the relevance of hermeneutics for modern human sciences, its history and development, and its key philosophical debates.

Literary Hermeneutics

Literary Hermeneutics
Author: Tomasz Kalaga
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 155
Release: 2015-06-18
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1443879304

This book analyses the most significant aspects of the evolutionary process which occurred in literary hermeneutics: the shift from interpretation perceived as a methodology of reading to the ontological function of exegesis. Through the discussion of the theories of Friedrich Schleiermacher, Eric Donald Hirsch, Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur, it focuses on the metamorphosis of the concepts of meaning, interpretation and validity, and demonstrates how the correlative changes in the essence and functions of these three elements transformed the art of understanding from being a methodological discipline to an ontological instrument for a re-description of the interpreter’s self. The book highlights the development of those aspects of hermeneutic thought which are of particular significance in the contemporary debate over validity and criteria of interpretation. The vision of hermeneutics proposed here contradicts the supposedly anachronistic character of the art of understanding, and, through a permanent departure from essentialist views and categories, enables it to enter into a discussion with such literary orientations as neo-pragmatism and reader-response theory.

Introduction to Literary Hermeneutics

Introduction to Literary Hermeneutics
Author: Peter Szondi
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 176
Release: 1995-02-24
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9780521459310

Peter Szondi is widely regarded as being among the most distinguished post-war literary critics. This first English edition of one of his most lucid and interesting series of lectures opens up his work in hermeneutics for English-speaking readers. The question of what is involved in understanding a text occupied Biblical and legal scholars long before it became a concern of literary critics. Peter Szondi here traces the development of hermeneutics through examination of the work of eighteenth-century German scholars. Ordinarily treated only as prefigurations of Schleiermacher, the work of Enlightenment theorists Johann Martin Chladenius, George Friedrich Meier, and Friedrich Ast yields valuable insight into the 'material theory' of interpretation, on which a practical interpretive methodology might be built.

Philosophical Hermeneutics and Literary Theory

Philosophical Hermeneutics and Literary Theory
Author: Joel Weinsheimer
Publisher:
Total Pages: 173
Release: 1991
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780300047851

In this lucid and elegantly written book, Joel Weinsheimer discusses how the insights of Hans-Georg Gadamer alter our understanding of literary theory and interpretation. Weinsheimer begins by surveying modern hermeneutics from Schleiermacher to Ricoeur, showing that Gadamer's work is situated in the middle of an onging dialogue. Gadamer's hermenutics says, Weinsheimer, is specifically philosophical, for it explores how understanding occurs at all, not how it should be regulated in order to function more rigorously or effectively. According to Weinsheimer, Gadamer views understanding as an effect of history, not an action but a passion, something that happens on metaphor: it fuses the different into the same but, like metaphor, does not repress difference. Similarly, Gadamer's critique of the semiotic conception of language redresses the balance between difference and sameness in the relation of word and world. The common thread in the contributions of philosophical hermeneutics to literary theory is the multifaceted tension between the one and the many, between sameness and difference. This appears in metaphor and application, in the complex dialogue between the past and present, and between the interpretation and the interpreted generally. In the final chapter of the book, "The Question of the Classic," Weinsheimer explores the implications of this analysis of Gadamer's hermeneutics for the current debate concerning the study of the canon and the classic.

Biblical Hermeneutics

Biblical Hermeneutics
Author: Stanley E. Porter
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2012-04-25
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0830869999

This book presents proponents of five approaches to biblical hermeneutics and allows them to respond to each other. The five approaches are the historical-critical/grammatical (Craig Blomberg), redemptive-historical (Richard Gaffin), literary/postmodern (Scott Spencer), canonical (Robert Wall) and philosophical/theological (Merold Westphal) views.

Theological Hermeneutics and the Book of Numbers as Christian Scripture

Theological Hermeneutics and the Book of Numbers as Christian Scripture
Author: Richard S. Briggs
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2018-06-25
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0268103763

How should Christian readers of scripture hold appropriate and constructive tensions between exegetical, critical, hermeneutical, and theological concerns? This book seeks to develop the current lively discussion of theological hermeneutics by taking an extended test case, the book of Numbers, and seeing what it means in practice to hold all these concerns together. In the process the book attempts to reconceive the genre of "commentary" by combining focused attention to the details of the text with particular engagement with theological and hermeneutical concerns arising in and through the interpretive work. The book focuses on the main narrative elements of Numbers 11–25, although other passages are included (Numbers 5, 6, 33). With its mix of genres and its challenging theological perspectives, Numbers offers a range of difficult cases for traditional Christian hermeneutics. Briggs argues that the Christian practice of reading scripture requires engagement with broad theological concerns, and brings into his discussion Frei, Auerbach, Barth, Ricoeur, Volf, and many other biblical scholars. The book highlights several key formational theological questions to which Numbers provides illuminating answers: What is the significance and nature of trust in God? How does holiness (mediated in Numbers through the priesthood) challenge and redefine our sense of what is right, or "fair"? To what extent is it helpful to conceptualize life with God as a journey through a wilderness, of whatever sort? Finally, short of whatever promised land we may be, what is the context and role of blessing?

Gadamer and Hermeneutics

Gadamer and Hermeneutics
Author: Hugh J. Silverman
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 410
Release: 2016-08-19
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1134866348

This title, first published in 1991, opens with an account by Gadamer of his own life and work and their relation to the achievements of hermeneutics. Building upon the key theme of dialogue, Gadamer and Hermeneutics provides a series of essays, either linked Gadamer to other major contemporary philosophers or focusing on a given Gadamerian theme. This book will be of interest to students of literary theory.

Interpreting Law and Literature

Interpreting Law and Literature
Author: Sanford Levinson
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
Total Pages: 524
Release: 1988
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9780810107939

From the Preface: "Contemporary theory has usefully analyzed how alternative modes of interpretation produce different meanings, how reading itself is constituted by the variable perspectives of readers, and how these perspectives are in turn defined by prejudices, ideologies, interests, and so forth. Some theorists gave argued persuasively that textual meaning, in literature and in literary interpretation, is structured by repression and forgetting, by what the literary or critical text does not say as much as by what it does. All these claims are directly relevant to legal hermeneutics, and thus it is no surprise that legal theorists have recently been turning to literary theory for potential insight into the interpretation of law. This collection of essays is designed to represent the especially rich interactive that has taken place between legal and literary hermeneutics during the past ten years."

Hermeneutics: A Very Short Introduction

Hermeneutics: A Very Short Introduction
Author: Jens Zimmermann
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2015-10-22
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0191508535

Hermeneutics is the branch of knowledge that deals with interpretation, a behaviour that is intrinsic to our daily lives. As humans, we decipher the meaning of newspaper articles, books, legal matters, religious texts, political speeches, emails, and even dinner conversations every day . But how is knowledge mediated through these forms? What constitutes the process of interpretation? And how do we draw meaning from the world around us so that we might understand our position in it? In this Very Short Introduction Jens Zimmermann traces the history of hermeneutic theory, setting out its key elements, and demonstrating how they can be applied to a broad range of disciplines: theology; literature; law; and natural and social sciences. Demonstrating the longstanding and wide-ranging necessity of interpretation, Zimmermann reveals its significance in our current social and political landscape. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.