ABSTRACT
The intersection between phenomenology and hermeneutics was initially established by Martin Heidegger in his early work leading up to the publication of Being and Time in 1927. Heidegger gives a more extensive treatment of this connection between hermeneutics and the historical in his treatment of the work of Wilhelm Dilthey. In his Kassel lectures on Wilhelm Dilthey given in 1925, Heidegger is quick to point out what he considers to be Dilthey’s advance over previous theory, namely, that all reflection and inquiry arise from life, that is, from an awareness of the interwoven texture of world and self, and not from introspection. Still situated in the phenomenological tradition, the scope of hermeneutics after Heidegger was greatly enlarged by the work of both Paul Ricoeur and Hans-Georg Gadamer. The issue for Gadamer becomes the issue of an account of hermeneutic experience that will address the problem of “reason in the age of science.”.
