The Hermeneutic Tradition

This book establishes the context for contemporary analyses of interpretation. Part I traces the evolution of hermeneutics from Friedrich Ast and Friedrich Schleiermacher through Wilhelm Dilthey to Martin Heidegger's placing of hermeneutics at the center of the ontological analysis of human being. Part II follows the development of the Heideggerian tradition in the writings of Hans-Georg Gadamer. Gadamer's "philosophical hermeneutics" is then located at the center of several important exchanges with more traditional, objective hermeneutical methodologists like Emilio Betti, ideology-critics like J rgen Habermas, and linguistic-phenomenological thinkers like Paul Ricoeur.