Philosophical Hermeneutics Reinterpreted: Dialogues with Existentialism, Pragmatism, Critical Theory and Postmodernism

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In this important new study, Paul Fairfield examines a number of issues of central importance to philosophical hermeneutics. His aim is less to reexamine the basic hypotheses of hermeneutics (Gadamer's hermeneutics in particular) than to understand it in relational terms, by bringing it into closer association with existentialism, pragmatism, critical theory, and postmodernism. Fairfield contends that there are important affinities and areas for critical exchange between hermeneutics and these four schools of thought which have, until now, remained underappreciated. Philosophical Hermeneutics Reinterpreted examines several of these connections by interpreting hermeneutics in relation to specific themes in the writings of key figures within each of these traditions. In so doing, he both clarifies some outstanding issues in hermeneutics and advances the subject beyond what Heidegger, Gadamer, and Ricoeur have given us.

Reviews

This gifted author takes his main contribution to be engaging with figures and traditions not ordinarily taken seriously by the central representatives of the hermeneutic tradition; and in this Fairfield is certainly right...The accessibility of Fairfield's writing is (if anything) even more impressive than the scope of his concern...Our understanding of existentialism, pragmatism, critical theory, and postmodernism is richer as a result of his painstaking efforts to interpret these irreducibly diverse perspectives from the perspective of hermeneutic philosophy...I certainly would not hesitate to recommend it to my students...Philosophical Hermeneutics Reinterpreted is, without question, an imaginatively conceived, responsibly executed, and truly suggestive project. Do not look within its covers for a reinterpretation of hermeneutics, but do look there for a wider field of hermeneutic engagements than one ordinarily finds. -- Vincent M. Colapietro, Pennsylvania State University * Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *

Author Bio

Paul Fairfield is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Queen's University, Canada.