Overview

When do we interpret? That is the question at the heart of this important new work by Johann Michel. The human being does not spend his time interpreting in everyday life. We interpret when we are confronted with a blurred, confused, problematic sense. Such is the originality of the author's perspective which removes the anthropological interdict that has hampered hermeneutics since Heidegger. Michel proposes an anthropology of homo interpretans as the first and founding principle of fundamental ontology (relating to the meaning of being) as well as of the theory of knowledge (relating to interpretation in the human sciences). He argues that the root of hermeneutics lies in ordinary interpretative techniques (explication, clarification, unveiling), rather than as a set of learned technologies applied to specific fields (texts, symbols, actions).

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9781786608833

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Homo Interpretans is a most significant contribution to the theory of interpretation that at the same time rather uniquely demonstrates this theory's practical contemporary import and ongoing implications for daily life. The emphases that interpretation is not individual but social and also creative and enabling are additional signal assets. The book deserves separate commendation for its interdisciplinarity. -- George H. Taylor, Professor of Law, University of Pittsburgh This book is the most ambitious and most comprehensive new approach in the area of hermeneutics. -- Hans Joas, Ernst Troeltsch Professor for the Sociology of Religion at the Humboldt University of Berlin This well-researched and carefully argued book provides an ambitiously comprehensive and multi-leveled account of interpretation. Drawing on a wide variety of philosophical sources and on multiple disciplines of the natural and social sciences, Johann Michel renews the hermeneutic tradition by showing its relevance to an impressive range of contemporary practices. -- Richard Shusterman, Author of Surface and Depth: Dialectics of Criticism and Culture

Homo Interpretans is a most significant contribution to the theory of interpretation that at the same time rather uniquely demonstrates this theory's practical contemporary import and ongoing implications for daily life. The emphases that interpretation is not individual but social and also creative and enabling are additional signal assets. The book deserves separate commendation for its interdisciplinarity. -- George H. Taylor, Professor of Law, University of Pittsburgh This book is the most ambitious and most comprehensive new approach in the area of hermeneutics. -- Hans Joas, Ernst Troeltsch Professor for the Sociology of Religion at the Humboldt University of Berlin

Author Information

Johann Michel is Professor at the University of Poitiers and is affiliated with the EHESS in Paris. He is member of the scientific council of the Fonds Ricoeur and member of the Institut Universitaire de France. Specialist of hermeneutics and social theory, he is author of many books in French, translated into several languages, including Ricoeur and the Post-Structuralists.

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