Abstract

The flaws in Fish's hermeneutics that were diagnosed in Part I (it is now argued) are consequences of his underlying epistemology. This is a version of anti-foundationalism which claims that facts are the product of interpretation; but a careful study of how this issue is handled by N. R. Hanson and Thomas Kuhn shows that Fish's epistemology is fundamentally unsound. An alternative account of the fact-interpretation relationship is then proposed, and the outline of an objectivist, reader-independent hermeneutics are sketched. This is further developed by showing how a common argument against objectivism (based on the historical situatedness of reason and knowledge) may be refuted.