Does anyone still read this stuff?
People don’t exactly line up for books on hermeneutics like for the latest Harry Potter, and its theorists don’t quite have the Twitter following of Kanye West, but the theory’s not going away anytime soon. While its towering figures Gadamer and Ricoeur passed away in the early 2000s, their legacy lives on in their students who continue to teach, write, and publish in the field.
And today that field is morphing into a whole different animal as its insights are being adopted in other disciplines and areas of study. Heidegger, Gadamer, and Ricoeur have influenced philosophers analyzing religious practice and texts, scholars studying art and literature, and even theorists studying environmental issues.
Hermeneutics arguably has lasting power given that its key contribution—a description of our rootedness or “situatedness” in tradition, and how that shapes the way we think and interpret things—unlocks the door to explorations of the traditions of others. In that way, hermeneutics can expand our horizons and make life all-around more meaningful.