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The Roots of Hermeneutics in Kant's Reflective-Teleological Judgment

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  • © 2023

Overview

Authors:
  1. Horst Ruthrof

    1. English and Philosophy, Murdoch University, Perth, Australia

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  • Connects Kant’s reflective teleology to modern hermeneutics
  • Liberates Kant’s reflective-teleological dialectic from the example of nature
  • Critiques human cognitive limitations from Kant to the present

Part of the book series: Contributions to Hermeneutics (CONT HERMEN, volume 11)

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Table of contents (12 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xxvii
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  2. Introduction: Gadamer – Benchmark of Hermeneutics

    • Horst Ruthrof
    Pages 1-36

  3. The Chiastic Structure of Kant’s Critical Concepts

    • Horst Ruthrof
    Pages 37-62

  4. Kant’s Proto-Hermeneutics

    • Horst Ruthrof
    Pages 63-91

  5. Kant’s Conception of Natural Language

    • Horst Ruthrof
    Pages 93-130

  6. Ast, Schleiermacher, Dilthey: Hermeneutics as Inductive Reconstruction

    • Horst Ruthrof
    Pages 131-159

  7. Husserl and Ingarden: Hermeneutic Intentionality

    • Horst Ruthrof
    Pages 161-186

  8. Heidegger: Being and the Hermeneutics of Pro-jection

    • Horst Ruthrof
    Pages 187-219

  9. Ricoeur: Hermeneutics of Self-Recognition

    • Horst Ruthrof
    Pages 221-256

  10. Apel and Habermas: Emancipatory Hermeneutics

    • Horst Ruthrof
    Pages 257-294

  11. Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard, Deleuze: Decentered Hermeneutics

    • Horst Ruthrof
    Pages 295-325

  12. Vattimo, Nancy, Caputo: Hermeneutics in the Shadow of Nihilism

    • Horst Ruthrof
    Pages 327-363

  13. Meillassoux: Hermeneutics of the Absolute

    • Horst Ruthrof
    Pages 365-370

  14. Back Matter

    Pages 371-402
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Keywords

About this book

This book challenges the standard view that modern hermeneutics begins with Friedrich Ast and Friedrich Schleiermacher, arguing instead that it is the dialectic of reflective and teleological reason in Kant’s Critique of Judgment that provides the actual proto-hermeneutic foundation. It is revolutionary in doing so by replacing interpretive truth claims by the more appropriate claim of rendering opaque contexts intelligible. Taking Gadamer’s comprehensive analysis of hermeneutics in Truth and Method (1960) as its point of departure, the book turns to Kant’s Critiques, reviewing his major concepts as a coherent system in relation to his sensus communis. At the heart of the book is the interaction between reflective, bottom-up search and teleological, top-down interpretative projection as provided in Part II of the third Critique. 


This text contends that Kant’s broad definition of nature invites the liberation of thereflective-teleological judgment from its biological exemplifications and so permits us to establish its generalised status as a path-breaking, methodological tool. Kant’s dialectic of reflective search and meaning bestowing, stipulated teleology is asserted to anticipate a series of motifs commonly associated with hermeneutics. Figures covered include Dilthey, Husserl, Ingarden, Heidegger, Gadamer, Apel, Habermas, Ricoeur, Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard, Deleuze, Vattimo, Nancy and Caputo. Their collective contributions to interpretation allow for a review of the evolution of hermeneutics from the perspective of the Kantian critique of the limitations of human cognition. The book is written for the informed, general reader, but will likewise appeal to advanced undergraduate and graduate students as well as researchers in the humanities and social sciences.


Authors and Affiliations

  • English and Philosophy, Murdoch University, Perth, Australia

    Horst Ruthrof

About the author

Having taught English literature and language philosophy for some 40 years, Horst Ruthrof is a founding member of Murdoch University in Perth and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. He is the author of The Reader’s Construction of Narrative (1981; 2017); Pandora and Occam: On the Limits of Language and Literature (1992; 2017); Semantics and the Body: Meaning from Frege to the Postmodern (1997; 1998); The Body in Language (2000; 2015); Language and Imaginability (2014); and  Husserl’s Phenomenology of Language: Intersubjectivity and Communality in the Nachlass (2021).

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: The Roots of Hermeneutics in Kant's Reflective-Teleological Judgment

  • Authors: Horst Ruthrof

  • Series Title: Contributions to Hermeneutics

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18637-0

  • Publisher: Springer Cham

  • eBook Packages: Religion and Philosophy, Philosophy and Religion (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-031-18636-3Published: 29 November 2022

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-031-18639-4Published: 29 November 2023

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-031-18637-0Published: 28 November 2022

  • Series ISSN: 2509-6087

  • Series E-ISSN: 2509-6095

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XXVII, 402

  • Topics: Continental Philosophy, Hermeneutics

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