C. Mantzavinos

I bought this book because it was advertised on the back cover as an "in-depth and sweeping critique" of German hermeneutic philosophy (Gadamer and Heidegger in particular). Allegedly, a naturalistic hermeneutic is developed in this book as an alternative to traditional hermeneutics.

After reading the book, it is incomprehensible to me how anyone could call this feeble piece of work an "in-depth" critique. The author presents a personal, stripped-down version of Gadamer's philosophy which bares little resemblance to the original. Then he promptly proceeds to refute this straw-man argument, all within the space of 20 short pages. Later on, he laments how his straw-man arguments "possess a very low problem-solving capacity" (p.155). I definitely agree with that assessment.

As for "naturalistic hermeneutics", after reading this book I have no idea what this term is supposed to mean. In presenting it the author discusses theories for apprehending human actions and texts by hypotheses and empirical confirmation. Frankly, I didn't read this part of the book very carefully but I do know that this is not hermeneutic philosophy.

This seems to be the key problem with this book. Either the author doesn't understand what hermeneutic philosophy is or he regards it with such contempt that he refuses to allow any validity to its basic tenets. Because of this the book contains no constructive arguments at all. The author believes that Heidegger and Gadamer have proposed a "hermeneutic method" for problem-solving, but such a view is repeatedly denied by Gadamer in his hermeneutic works. Therefore, this alleged critique of hermeneutics is worthless and the alternative theory can not by any stretch of the imagination be called "naturalistic hermeneutics".

I still give this book two stars because I think the motivation behind the book is commendable. Heidegger and Gadamer certainly should be criticized for the lack of clarity in hermeneutic philosophy. But such criticism should not be based on superficial interpretation, and this critique is about as superficial as it gets.… (meer)