MONASH UNIVERSITY FACULTY HANDBOOKS

Arts Graduate Handbook 1996

Authorised by Academic Registrar, April 1996

CLT5220

Hermeneutics

Walter Veit

Synopsis The subject studies the main events in the development of hermeneutics from a theory and practice of textual interpretation during the Enlightenment and the 19th century to a modern theory of understanding and knowledge in the work of Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, JYrgen Habermas, as well as its application in the study of literature and history in the work of E D Hirsch, Emilio Betti, Paul Ricoeur and Hans Robert Jauss. It addresses problems such as the conflict between subjectivity and objectivity, the dialectics of the foreign and the familiar, the recognition of the new, the role of language and the function of tradition in understanding, the universality of hermeneutics as a theory of cognition and its impact on the social sciences.

Assessment (8 points) Two seminar papers (1000-1500 words each): 20% each + Research essay (4000 words): 60%

Assessment (12 points) Two seminar papers (1000-1500 words each): 20% each + Research essay (6000 words): 60%

Prescribed texts

• Mueller-Vollmer K (ed.) The hermeneutics reader Basil Blackwell, 1985

Recommended texts

• Baynes K and others After philosophy, end or transformation? MIT Press, 1987
• Bleicher J Contemporary hermeneutics: Hermeneutics as philosophy, method and critique Routledge, 1980
• Dallmayr W and McCarthy T (eds) Understanding and social inquiry Notre Dame U P, 1977
• Howard R Three faces of hermeneutics U California P, 1983
• Natoli J (ed.) Tracing literary theory Illinois U P, 1987
• Palmer R E Hermeneutics Northwestern U P, 1969
• Radnitzky G Contemporary schools of metascience Akademiforlaget, 1973
• Stamiris Y Main currents in twentieth century literary criticism: A critical study Whitson, 1986
• Wachterhauser B R (ed.) Hermeneutics and modern philosophy SUNY Press, 1986