Daniel Martin Feige & Thomas J. Spiegel 
McDowell and the Hermeneutic Tradition [PDF ebook] 

This volume explores the connections between John Mc Dowell’s philosophy and the hermeneutic tradition. The contributions not only explore the hermeneutical aspects of Mc Dowell’s thought but also ask how this reading of Mc Dowell can inform the hermeneutical tradition itself. John Mc Dowell has made important contributions to debates in epistemology, metaethics, and philosophy of language, and his readings of Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, and Wittgenstein have proved widely influential. While there are instances in which Mc Dowell draws upon the work of hermeneutic thinkers, the hermeneutic strand of Mc Dowell’s philosophy has not yet been systematically explored in depth. The chapters in this volume open up a space in which to read Mc Dowell himself as a hermeneutic thinker. They address several research questions: How can Mc Dowell’s recourse to the hermeneutical tradition be understood in detail? Besides Gadamer, does Mc Dowell’s work implicitly convey and advance motives from other seminal figures of this tradition, such as Heidegger and Dilthey? Are there aspects of Mc Dowell’s position that can be enhanced through a juxtaposition with central hermeneutic concepts like World, Tradition, and Understanding? Are there further, perhaps yet unexplored aspects of Mc Dowell’s infl uences that ought to be interpreted as expressing hermeneutic ideas?Mc Dowell and the Hermeneutic Tradition will appeal to researchers and advanced students working in American philosophy, Continental philosophy, hermeneutics, history of philosophy, philosophy of language, and epistemology.