Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

In this historical introduction to philosophical hermeneutics, Jean Grondin discusses the major figures from Philo to Habermas, analyzes conflicts among various interpretive schools, and provides a persuasive critique of Gadamer's view of hermeneutic history, though in other ways Gadamer's Truth and Method serves as a model for Grondin's approach.

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CHOICE Review

In this excellent introduction, philosophical hermeneutics is traced back to Greek antiquity, keying on the issue of universality. Gerald Bruns, in Inventions (CH, Dec'82) and in Hermeneutics: Ancient and Modern (CH, Sep'93), had, of course, already extended the horizon of present hermeneutical discussion back to Jewish and Greek antiquity and the early Christian tradition; but Grondin (Univ. of Montreal) here offers a coherent, brief history of philosophical hermeneutics from antiquity through the Middle Ages, Reformation, and Enlightenment to the present discussion by Habermas and Derrida. Particularly helpful is the excellent 60-page, historically arranged bibliography, previously unavailable in English. The volume also has a foreword by Hans-Georg Gadamer, which the original work, Einf"uhrung in die philosophische Hermeneutik (Darmstadt, 1991), lacked. Gadamer is also the subject of Grondin's Hermeneutische Wahrheit? (K"onigstein, 1982). A much more extensive collection of Grondin's writings on hermeneutics is announced as forthcoming from SUNY Press, but they only supplement in greater depth this valuable introduction. The book under review is a major new step forward in the availability of hermeneutics to English-speaking readers. Highly recommended for both general readers and scholars. Upper-division undergraduate; graduate; faculty. R. E. Palmer; MacMurray College