Kurt Mueller-Vollmer is Emeritus Professor of German Studies and Humanities at Stanford University

"A much needed contribution to a growing area of philosophical awareness....Mueller-Volmer's reader is a well-translated collection of classic primary sources: Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer; Boeckh, Bultmann, Habermas, Ingarden, Apel, Humboldt, Droysen, and Chladenius are included as well....The work includes an excellent bibliography, and is highly recommended."--Choice

• PrefaceIntroduction: Language, Mind, Artifact: An outline of Hermeneutic Theory Since the Enlightenment1. Reason and Understanding: Rationalist HermeneuticsJohann Martin ChladeniusOn the Concept of InterpretationOn the Interpretation of Historical Books and Accounts2. Foundations: General Theory and Art of InterpretationFriedrich D. E. SchleiermacherGeneral HermeneuticsGrammatical and Technical Interpretation3. Foundations: Language, Understanding, and the Historical World Wilhelm von HumboldtThe Nature and Conformation of LanguageOn the Task of the HistorianJohann Gustav DroysenHistory and the Historical MethodThe Investigation of OriginsThe Modes of Interpretation4. Philological HermeneuticsPhilip August BoeckhFormal Theory of PhilologyTheory of HermeneuticsTheory of Criticism5. The Hermeneutics of the Human SciencesWilhelm DiltheyAwareness, Reality: TimeThe Understanding of Other Persons and Their Life-Expressions6. The Phenomenological Theory of Meaning and of Meaning-ApprehensionEdmund HusserlEssential DistinctionTowards a Characterization of the Acts which Confer MeaningRoman IngardenOn the Cognition of the Literary Work of Art7. Phenomenology and Fundamental Ontology: The Discourse of MeaningMartin HeideggerBeing-there as UnderstandingUnderstanding and InterpretationAssertion as a Derivative Mode of InterpretationBeing-there and Discourse Language8. Hermeneutics and TheologyRudolf BultmannIs Exegesis without Presuppositions Possible?The Problem of Demythologizing9. The Historicity of UnderstandingHans-Georg GadamerThe Discrediting of Prejudice by the EnlightenmentThe Rehabilitation of Authority and TraditionThe Principle of Effective HistoryRhetoric, Hermeneutics, and the Critique of Ideology10. Hermeneutics and the Social SciencesJürgen HabermasOn Hermeneutics' Claim to Universality11. Perspectives for a General Hermeneutic TheoryKarl-Otto ApelScientistics, Hermeneutics, Critique of Ideology: An Outline of a Theory of Science from an Epistemological-Anthropological Point of ViewBibliographyAcknowledgementsIndex