Herder's Hermeneutics
History, Poetry, Enlightenment

Through a detailed study of Herder's Enlightenment thought, especially his philosophy of literature, Kristin Gjesdal offers a new and sometimes provocative reading of the historical origins and contemporary challenges of modern hermeneutics. She shows that hermeneutic philosophy grew out of a historical, anthropological, and poetic discourse in the mid-eighteenth century and argues that, as such, it represents a rich, stimulating, and relevant engagement with the potentials and limits of human meaning and understanding. Gjesdal's study broadens our conception of hermeneutic philosophy - the issues it raises and the answers it offers - and underlines the importance of Herder's contribution to the development of this discipline. Her book will be highly valuable for students and scholars of eighteenth-century thought, especially those working in the fields of hermeneutics, aesthetics, and European philosophy.

Introduction; 1. The future of philosophy; 2. Poetry, history, aesthetics; 3. Aesthetic value and historical understanding; 4. Human nature and human science; 5. Prejudice and interpretation; 6. Critique and Bildung; 7. Self and other; Conclusion.

Kristin Gjesdal is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Temple University, Philadelphia. She is author of Gadamer and the Legacy of German Idealism (Cambridge, 2009), editor of Key Debates in Nineteenth-Century European Philosophy (2016), and co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of German Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century (2015) and The Cambridge Companion to Hermeneutics (with Michael N. Forster, Cambridge, 2019).