This book analyzes the hermeneutics of place, raising questions about central issues such as textuality, dialogue, and play. It discusses the central figures in the development of hermeneutics and place, and surveys disciplines and areas in which a hermeneutic approach to place has been fruitful. It covers the range of philosophical hermeneutic theory, both within philosophy itself as well as from other disciplines. In doing so, the volume reflects the state of theorization on these issues, and also looks forward to the implications and opportunities that exist. Philosophical hermeneutics has fundamentally altered philosophy’s approach to place. Issues such as how we dwell in place, how place is imagined, created, preserved, and lost, and how philosophy itself exists in place have become central. While there is much research applying hermeneutics to place, there is little which both reflects on that heritage and critically analyzes a hermeneutic approach to place. This book fills that void by offering a sustained analysis of the central elements, major figures, and disciplinary applications of hermeneutics and place.

"James K. A. Smith, in this book, cogently surveys contemporary hermeneutical discussion, identifying three traditions and how they understand interpretation: a present immediacy model, an eschatological immediacy model and a violent mediation model." "Questioning the foundational assumption that these models share, Smith deftly draws on and reworks Augustine's biblical understanding of the goodness of creation to propose a creational-pneumatic model of hermeneutics."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

What does place mean for human beings? What does it mean to exist in space? How do we place ourselves not only in physical space, but within the interior landscape of consciousness? Place Meant is an interdisciplinary exploration of these and related questions, through the lenses of psychoanalysis, sociology, anthropology, geography, folklore, memoir, and the history of ideas. It will be of interest to anyone who has traveled the earth and pondered their relationship to home, away, and the world at large.

In this wide-ranging 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 expands 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 hermeneutics. 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. His eloquent book demonstrates the continuing power of hermeneutical thinking to open up questions about the world and our place in it.

This volume presents selected papers from the first symposium on Hermeneutics and Translation Studies held at Cologne in 2011. Translational Hermeneutics works at the intersection of theory and practice. It foregrounds both hermeneutical philosophy and the various traditions -- especially phenomenology -- to which it is indebted, in order to explore the ways in which the individual person figures at the center of the mediating process of translation. Translational Hermeneutics offers alternative ways to understand the process of translating: it is a holistic and strategic process that enhances understanding by assisting the transmission of meaning in and across multiple social and cultural contexts. The papers in this collection accordingly provide a preliminary outline of Translational Hermeneutics. Gathered together, these papers broach a new discipline within Translation Studies. While some essays explain the theoretical foundations of this approach, others concentrate on practical applications in diverse fields, for example literary studies, and postcolonial studies.

This volume explores the connections between John McDowell’s philosophy and the hermeneutic tradition. The contributions not only explore the hermeneutical aspects of McDowell’s thought but also ask how this reading of McDowell can inform the hermeneutical tradition itself. John McDowell has made important contributions to debates in epistemology, metaethics, and philosophy of language, and his readings of Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, and Wittgenstein have proved widely infl uential. While there are instances in which McDowell draws upon the work of hermeneutic thinkers, the hermeneutic strand of McDowell’s philosophy has not yet been systematically explored in depth. The chapters in this volume open up a space in which to read McDowell himself as a hermeneutic thinker. They address several research questions: How can McDowell’s recourse to the hermeneutical tradition be understood in detail? Besides Gadamer, does McDowell’s work implicitly convey and advance motives from other seminal fi gures of this tradition, such as Heidegger and Dilthey? Are there aspects of McDowell’s position that can be enhanced through a juxtaposition with central hermeneutic concepts like World, Tradition, and Understanding? Are there further, perhaps yet unexplored aspects of McDowell’s infl uences that ought to be interpreted as expressing hermeneutic ideas? McDowell and the Hermeneutic Tradition will appeal to researchers and advanced students working in American philosophy, Continental philosophy, hermeneutics, history of philosophy, philosophy of language, and epistemology.