Hermeneutic Philosophy and the Sociology of Art: An Approach to Some of the Epistemological Problems of the Sociology of Knowledge and the Sociology of Art and Literature

London and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975. 1st Published in 1975 . Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. 8vo or 8° (Medium Octavo): 7¾" x 9¾" tall. 149 + 14 pp. Book could almost pass as 'like new', but for some minor fading, due to aging. Very clean copy. Price inside front flap of dj cut out. Printed in Great Britain. A great study/work copy. Hermeneutics may be described as the development and study of theories of the interpretation and understanding of texts. In contemporary usage in religious studies, hermeneutics refers to the study of the interpretation of religious texts. It is more broadly used in contemporary philosophy to denote the study of theories and methods of the interpretation of all texts and systems of meaning. The concept of "text" is here extended beyond written documents to any number of objects subject to interpretation, such as experiences. A hermeneutic is defined as a specific system or method for interpretation, or a specific theory of interpretation. However, the contemporary philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer has said that hermeneutics is an approach rather than a method and, further, that the Hermeneutic circle is the central problem of interpretation. Essentially, hermeneutics involves cultivating the ability to understand things from somebody else's point of view, and to appreciate the cultural and social forces that may have influenced their outlook. Hermeneutics is the process of applying this understanding to interpreting the meaning of written texts and symbolic artifacts (such as art or sculpture or architecture), which may be either historic or contemporary. Janet Wolff (Now Proeessor Janet Wolff) joined the University of Manchester in 2006, having taught earlier at the University of Leeds and, in recent years, in the United States. she was director of the PhD programme in Visual and Cultural Studies at the University of Rochester, New York, from 1991 to 2001, and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in Columbia University's School of the Arts from 2001. Her work has been on the sociology of art and culture; gender and culture; modernism and modernity; English and American early twentieth-century art; and aesthetics. She has just completed a book, The Aesthetics of Uncertainty, which addresses the problem of aesthetics after critique: the 'return to beauty', the challenge to the anti-aesthetic and the possibility of principled judgment in the light of post-critical relativism. she is also writing a book which combines family history, memoir, trans-Atlantic reflections, and visual imagery.