Hans-Georg Gadamer

Hans-Georg Gadamer (b. 1900) is widely recognized as the leading exponent of philosophical hermeneutics. The essays in this collection examine Gadamer's biography, the core of hermeneutical theory, and the significance of his work for ethics, aesthetics, the social sciences, and theology. They consider his appropriation of Hegel, Heidegger, and the Greeks and his relation to modernity, critical theory, and post-structuralism. New readers will find this Companion the most convenient and accessible guide to Gadamer currently available. Advanced students and specialists will find a conspectus of recent developments in the interpretation of Gadamer.

""Gadamer's Repercussions is a terrific collection of essays. While Gadamer is not the most precise of philosophers, he turns out, in this book at least, to be among the most generative. The essays prove that Gadamer's idealizing of dialogue can actually be put in practice by careful attention to the frameworks he addresses. I was most impressed by the essays that situate his ethics, his aesthetics, his relation to romanticism, his understanding of the relation of law and morality, his engagements with Fascism, and several aspects of his vexed relationship with postmodern thinking, especially on the possibility of dialogue."--Charles Altieri, author of "The Particulars of Rapture

"Gadamer is well known for his insistence that every reading is a new reading and every act of understanding a pathway to new understanding. Krajewski's carefully assembled volume applies these maxims to the understanding of Gadamer himself. By focusing on his intellectual and political background as well as his long-range influence and repercussions, the book opens new vistas for assessing one of the philosophical giants of the twentieth century."--Fred Dallmayr, author of "Dialogue Among Civilizations

An interdisciplinary study which provides a comprehensive and critical presentation of the major twentieth century approaches to literature.

"Real" knowing always involves a political dimension, Linda Martin Alcoff suggests. But this does not mean we need to give up realism or the possibility of truth. Recent work in continental philosophy insists on the influence that power and desire exert on knowing, whereas contemporary analytic philosophy largely ignores these political concerns in its accounts of justification and truth. Alcoff engages these traditionally conflicting approaches in a constructive dialogue, effectively spanning the analytic/continental divide. In provocative readings of major figures in the continental tradition, Alcoff shows that the work of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Michel Foucault can help rectify key problems in coherence epistemology, such as the link between coherence and truth. She also argues that discussions about knowledge among continental philosophers can benefit from the work of analytic philosophers Donald Davidson and Hilary Putnam on meaning and ontology. Alcoff makes a compelling case for the need toaddress truth as a metaphysical issue, in contrast to minimalist tendencies in Anglo-American philosophy and deconstructionism on the continent. Her work persuasively argues for coherentist epistemology as a more realistic reconfiguration of the ontology of truth.

Recently, the concept of judgment has emerged as a highly contestatory site for philosophical, rhetorical, & cultural reflection & inquiry. Judgment Calls offers a variety of essays that explore the question of judgment in a postmodern age, seeking out the question of how, once solid ground is pulled out from underneath the position of the judge, one continues to "tread" judgment, to meet obligations while remaining afloat.

This monograph examines the past, present, and potential relationship between American pragmatism and communication research. The contributors provide a bridge between communication studies and philosophy, subjects often developed somewhat in isolation from each other. Addressing topics, such as qualitative and quantitative research, ethics, media research, and feminist studies, the chapters in this volume: *discuss how a pragmatic, Darwinian approach to inquiry has guided and might further guide communication research; *advocate a functional view of communication, based on Dewey's mature notion of transaction; *articulate a pragmatist's aesthetics and connect it to Deweyan democracy; *discuss the similarities and differences between Dewey's notion of inquiry and the philosophical hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer; *apply accommodation theory, linked to symbolic interactionism and more generally to the social behaviorism of George H. Mead and his followers, to media research; *interpret media-effects evidence in light of pragmatist ideas about inquiry; and *argue that pragmatism theorizes about despair and life's sense of the tragic. This book is written to be readily accessible to students and professional academics within and outside the field of communication studies without extensive training in specialized areas of communication study.

Historicism is the essential introduction to this crucial concept in literary studies. This edition has been fully revised and includes a new glossary of critical terms, fully updated bibliography, clear suggestions for additional reading, as well as new discussion of Historicism's relation to the globalization debate. Historicism :*explains the theory and practice of historicism*presents the history of the term and its uses*introduces key thinkers in the field, from ancient Greece to the present*considers historicism in relation to contemporary debates, such as post-colonialism, feminism and globalization.This compact, yet comprehensive guide enables students to understand and apply historicist approaches in their own studies.