Philosophy of Language in Continental Philosophy The task of the philosophy of language within the tradition of continental European philosophy has been to overcome the idea of language as an instrument or as a means at the disposal of human beings....

Hermeneutics is a term used to describe the views of a variety of authors who have been concerned with problems of understanding and interpretation. Some of the themes of hermeneutics were introduced to English-speaking social scientists by the...

. Name given to a group of illustrated adaptations of the Bible first composed in Latin in the 13th century and translated into French in the 14th. The text consists of quotations from the Old and New Testaments that do not flow continuously. These are...

A subdiscipline of linguistic theory. Text theory supplies an explanation for the constitutive properties of texts in text linguistics. Common to all newer suggestions for a schema is the assumption that texts can only be explained and adequately...

Hermeneutics may be described as the development and study of theories of the interpretation and understanding of texts. In contemporary usage in religious studies, hermeneutics refers to the study of the interpretation of religious texts. It is more...

R. S. SUGIRTHARAJAH (ed.), Vernacular Hermeneutics (Bible and Postcolonialism 2; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999). Pp. 148. Paper 12.95, $19.95. This collection of articles contains an introduction and two parts. In part I are collected various exegetical essays informed by vernacular hermeneutics. In...

This essay offers a critical contribution to the widely shared contemporary concern with hermeneutics in religious studies. The emphasis on the "hermeneutic circle" engenders a certain intellectual sterility and has no room for intercultural and interreligious dialogue. Over against this, "hermetics," as explained by...

In the ill-wind-that-blows-no-good department, special consideration should be given to the American politicians photo-opping their way through the catastrophic sadness of Southeast Asia. Due recognition ought to be given to the ghoulish discussions on TV about how the death and misery of so many...

When I read a good book—any good book, but especially a biography—I can’t help but suspect that its author is a charming person: a witty raconteur with, at bottom, a good heart. I would have adored Boswell, for instance. He was a drunk and a...