Abstract

Hegel has a particularly striking and original contribution to the field of hermeneutics: a contribution long recognized, but a contribution still not sufficiently appreciated. This chapter works through a hermeneutical thesis central to Hegel's philosophy: experience is ongoingly interpretive through and through, such that the very “given” is already dependent upon interpretive acts. Hegel's philosophy clearly incorporates the central tenets of this philosophical movement in his notion that all experience is interpretive, in the “concrete” or holistic principle of his interpretive practice, in his notion that self‐identity is a hermeneutical phenomenon, and in his notion that hermeneutics is beyond method. His central notion of dialectic, further, anticipates the tradition of deconstruction associated with Derrida. Though it is not typically associated with the historical movement of “hermeneutics”, Hegel's is a systematic hermeneutical philosophy, of profound relevance to contemporary studies of interpretation and its role in human life.