A collection in translation of essays by Paul Ricoeur.

For some two centuries, scholars have wrestled with questions regarding the nature and logic of history as a discipline and, more broadly, with the entire complex of the "human sciences, " with include theology, philosophy, history, literature, the fine arts, and languages. The fundamental issue is whether the human sciences are a special class of studies with a specifically distinct object and method or whether they must be subsumed under the natural sciences. German philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey dedicated the bulk of his long career to there and related questions. His Introduction to the Human Sciences is a pioneering effort to elaborate a general theory of the human sciences, especially history, and to distinguish these sciences radically from the field of natural sciences. Though the Introduction was never completed, it remains one of the major statements of the topic. Together with other works by Dilthey, it has had a substantial influence on the recognition and human sciences as a fundamental division of human knowledge and on their separation from the natural sciences in origin, nature, and method. As a contribution to the issue of the methodologies of the humanities and social sciences, the Introduction rightly claims a place. This is the first time the entire work is available in English. In his introductory essay, translator Ramon J. Betanzos surveys Dilthey's life and thought and hails his efforts to create a foundational science for the particular human sciences, and at the same time, takes serious issue with Dilthey's historical/critical evaluation of metaphysics.

This book presents the historical background of the development of methodology for the human sciences, in order to provide readers with a context for understanding the present concerns and issues in research methodology.

In this book the author has brought together his long-standing interests in theory of scientific rationality and hermeneutic ontology by developing a hermeneutic alternative to analytic (and naturalist) epistemology of science. The hermeneutic philosophy of science is less the name of a new field of philosophical than a demand for a repetition of the basic philosophical questions of science from hermeneutic point of view. The book addresses chiefly two subjects: (I) The hermeneutic response to the models of rational reconstruction of scientific knowledge; (II) The specificity of hermeneutico-ontological approach to the cognitive pluralism in science.

This book provides an innovative approach to meeting the challenges faced by philosophical hermeneutics in interpreting an ever-changing and multicultural world. Rudolf A. Makkreel proposes an orientational and reflective conception of interpretation in which judgment plays a central role. Moving beyond the dialogical approaches found in much of contemporary hermeneutics, he focuses instead on the diagnostic use of reflective judgment, not only to discern the differentiating features of the phenomena to be understood, but also to orient us to the various meaning contexts that can frame their interpretation. Makkreel develops overlooked resources of Kant’s transcendental thought in order to reconceive hermeneutics as a critical inquiry into the appropriate contextual conditions of understanding and interpretation. He shows that a crucial task of hermeneutical critique is to establish priorities among the contexts that may be brought to bear on the interpretation of history and culture. The final chapter turns to the contemporary art scene and explores how orientational contexts can be reconfigured to respond to the ways in which media of communication are being transformed by digital technology. Altogether, Makkreel offers a promising way of thinking about the shifting contexts that we bring to bear on interpretations of all kinds, whether of texts, art works, or the world.

Hermeneutics was elaborated as a specific art of understanding in humanities. The discovered paradigmatic, historical characteristics of scientific knowledge, and the role of rhetoric, interpretation and contextuality enabled us to use similar arguments in natural sciences too. In this way a new research field, the hermeneutics of science emerged based upon the works of Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger and Gadamer. A dialogue between philosophers and scientists begins in this volume on hermeneutic approaches to physics, biology, ethology, mathematics and cognitive science. Scientific principles, methodologies, discourse, language, and metaphors are analyzed, as well as the role of the lay public and the legitimation of science. Different hermeneutical-phenomenological approaches to perception, experiments, methods, discovery and justification and the genesis of science are presented. Hermeneutics shed a new light on the incommensurability of paradigms, the possibility of translation and the historical understanding of science.

What was the promise of education that drew thousands of rural Eritreans to literacy classes in the midst of drought, famine, and war? This new book examines the remarkable testimony of Eritrea's fighter-teachers, the teenagers who spent years behind enemy lines teaching peasants and nomads to read and write during Eritrea's independence struggle. Using philosophical hermeneutics - the study of human understanding - as an analytical framework, Dr. Gottesman shows how the teachers became students of their students, learning the language and customs of rural people to create a "fusion of horizons." In this educational process, traditional Eritrean values and the progressive vision of the revolutionary movement found a locus for dialogue, exchange, and for change itself.

The methodology of the study of the history of political thought is an area of study which has occupied my interests for nearly a decade. I was introduced to the subject in University College, Swansea. My teachers there provided me with an excellent grounding in political studies. I am particularly indebted to Bruce Haddock, Peter Nicholson and W. H. Greenleaf. Professor Greenleaf was kind enough to supply me with a copy of his bibliography and copies of two of his unpublished papers. I continued to pursue my interest in methodology at the London School of Economics and Political Science. I am indebted to Ken Minogue and Robert Orr who taught me there. My greatest debt is to Dr. Joseph Femia ofthe University of Liverpool who devoted a great deal of time to considering the arguments presented here. His criticisms and suggestions for improvement proved to be invaluable. I would also like to thank Alan Ryan for his general comments and encouraging advice. It would be remiss of me if I neglected to express my gratitude to Dewi Beynon who was my first teacher of politics. The research for this project was carried out in the following places; The British Library of Political Science, London; The Sidney Jones Library, University of Liverpool; The National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh; The Main Library, University of Edinburgh; The Arts and Social Science Library, University College, Cardiff; and the Bodleian Library, Oxford.

Dealing extensively with Gadamer's later writings, Hermeneutics and the Voice of the Other shows neglected and widely misunderstood dimensions of Gadamer's hermeneutics: historicity, finitude, truth, the importance of the other, and the eminence of the poetic text.

Published in 1997, this volume is written from a hermenutico-phenomenological point of view. The essays cover a spectrum of relevant issues: the essential interpretation of science; the possibility of a "strong hermeneutics of science" that takes into consideration science's cognitive structure; the implications of existential-ontological interpretations of science for the post-metaphysical dialogue between hermeneutics and epistomology; the place of rhetorical tools in the human sciences; and the strategies of overcoming the legitimation crisis of the human sciences. Because of its commitment to the radical universalization of the hermeneutic problem, the strong programme of hermeneutics of science, suggested in this book, avoids both objectivism and relativism. In this regard, the essays must be read in relation to the search for a middle way between defending epistemic rationality as a basis for futher development of the "project of modernity" and the postmodern deconstruction of all cognitive identities of modernity.