Paul Ricoeur (1913-2005) was one of the leading philosophers of the twentieth century, most famous for his methodological approach of combining hermeneutics and phenomenology. John B. Thompson is Professor of Sociology at the University of Cambridge. He has written extensively on contemporary social and political theory and his most recent publications include Merchants of Culture (2010) and Books in the Digital Age (2005).

'[Ricoeur] does capture a quite crucial point of Peirce's concept of interpretation: its 'synechistic' nature, namely the continuous, non-extrinsic character of the relationship between (to use Ricoeur's terminology) 'tradition' - what a text or other forms of discourse signify (tradit) - and 'interpretation' - what it evokes in the mind of the interpreter.' Francesco Poggiani , Phenomenological Reviews

• Preface to this edition Charles Taylor; Acknowledgements; Editor's introduction; Notes on editing and translating; A response Paul Ricoeur; Part I. Studies in the History of Hermeneutics: 1. The task of hermeneutics; 2. Hermeneutics and the critique of ideology; 3. Phenomenology and hermeneutics; Part II. Studies in the Theory of Interpretation: 4. The hermeneutical function of distanciation; 5. What is a text? Explanation and understanding; 6. Metaphor and the central problem of hermeneutics; 7. Appropriation; Part III. Studies in the Philosophy of Social Science: 8. The model of the text: meaningful action considered as a text; 9. Science and ideology; 10. The question of proof in Freud's psychoanalytic writings; 11. The narrative function; Notes; Select bibliography; Index.