Hermeneutics Ancient and Modern (Yale Studies in Hermeneutics) [Hardcover]

Professor Gerald L. Bruns (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 25, 1992 | ISBN-10: 0300054505 | ISBN-13: 978-0300054507

In this meditation on the nature and purpose of hermeneutics, Gerald L. Bruns argues that hermeneutics is not merely a contemporary theory but an extended family of questions about understanding and interpretation that have multiple and conflicting histories going back to before the beginning of writing. What does it mean to understand a riddle, an action, a concept, a law, an alien culture, or oneself? Bruns sets out to expand our sense of the horizons of hermeneutics by situating its basic questions against a background of different cultural traditions and philosophical topics. He discusses, for example, the interpretation of oracles, the silencing of the muses and the writing of history, the quarrel between philosophy and poetry, the canonization of sacred texts, the nature of allegorical exegesis, Rabbinical midrash, the mystical exegesis of the Qur'an, the rise of literalism and the individual interpreter, and the nature of Romantic hermaneutics. Dealing with thinkers ranging from Socrates to Luther to Wordsworth to Ricoeur, Bruns also ponders several basic dilemmas about the nature of hermeneutical experience, the meaning of tradition, the hermeneutical function of narrative and the conflict between truth and freedom in philosophy and literature.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 334 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (November 25, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300054505
• ISBN-13: 978-0300054507
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,736,127 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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