Hermeneutics and the Voice of the Other

James Risser is Professor of Philosophy at Seattle University and is the author of Hermeneutics and the Voice of the Other: Re-reading Gadamer's Philosophical Hermeneutics, also published by SUNY Press.

"…Risser's book, with its reliable and insightful expositions, its tracing of the philosophical sources of Gadamer's thought, and its cogent replies to major critics, offers a guidebook to hermeneutics of enduring value both to novice and expert." — International Studies in Philosophy"…the volume is … the best introduction to philosophical hermeneutics in English and should be widely used. It firmly establishes Risser as an impeccable interpreter of Gadamer's thought." — Review of Metaphysics"In this text, Risser has heard Gadamer's own voice. Here is a study of Gadamer that presents him as neither a proto-pragmatist, nor a Heideggerian epigone, nor as a half-hearted 'post-modern' but as an independent thinker with a position of his own. Risser makes it admirably clear that although Gadamer has his roots in many of the same sources as those philosophers and philosophical positions with which his work is often confused, he nevertheless points to possibilities of interpretation of these sources that present challenging alternatives to the reigning orthodoxies. This is a work that anyone who wishes to avoid caricaturing Gadamer should read." — Brice Wachterhauser, St. Joseph's University"At last, here is a well balanced book sympathetic to Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics that deals extensively with his later writings. It carefully elucidates and clarifies key concepts in Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics, beginning with the often neglected elements of finitude and facticity in Gadamer and their roots in Heidegger and culminating with a chapter on 'The Voice of the Poet,' again returning to an emphasis found in the later Heidegger. A particularly valuable dimension of the book is Risser's effort in each chapter to specify how his reading of Gadamer differs from those offered by various critics who have reproached hermeneutics on various grounds." — Richard E. Palmer, MacMurray College

• AcknowledgmentsAbbreviationsIntroductionPart OneThe Voice of TraditionChapter OneThe Philosophical Background of Philosophical Hermeneutics§ 1. Phenomenology as a movement beyond Neo-Kantianism§ 2. Kierkegaard's philosophy of existence§ 3. Heidegger's hermeneuties of facticity§ 4. Hermeneutics and historical existenceChapter TwoHistory and the Voice of Tradition§ 5. Hermeneutics in the historical sciences§ 6. Dilthey's ambiguity§ 7. Historical understanding: Tradition§ 8. Historical understanding: The principle of WirkungsgeschichteChapter ThreeHermeneutic Experience§ 9. Philosophical hermeneutics as experience§ 10. Experience and memory§ 11. Phronesis as a paradigm for hermeneutic experience§ 12. The primacy of practicePart TwoThe Voice of the TextChapter FourPhilosophical Hermeneutics and Finitude§ 13. The question of finitude in philosophical hermeneutics§ 14. An ontology of living being§ 15. Finitude, language and possibilityChapter FivePhilosophical Hermeneutics and Truth§ 16. The question of truth in philosophical hermeneutics§ 17. The being of the beautiful§ 18. The imaging of truthChapter SixThe Voice of the TextA. Hermeneutics and Deconstruction—First Approach§ 19. Situating hermeneutics and deconstruction§ 20. Text and interpretation as communicative event§ 21. Two faces of SocratesB. Hermeneutics and Deconstruction—Second Approach§ 22. Hermeneutics at the edge of the breath§ 23. The voice in the breath§ 24. The drift in the voiceChapter SevenThe Voice of the Poet§ 25. The question of poetic discourse§ 26. The gift of the word§ 27. Poetic dwellingNotesGlossary of Greek TermsBibliographyIndex