Introduction / Gary Shapiro and Alan Sica -- Part 1. Philosophy and hermeneutics -- The epistemological problem of understanding as an aspect of the general problem of knowing / Emilio Betti -- The hermeneutics of suspicion / Hans-Georg Gadamer -- Beyond hermeneutics : interpretation in late Heidegger and recent Foucault / Hubert Dreyfus -- On the transcendability of hermeneutics (a response to Dreyfus) / Richard E. Palmer -- Transcendential philosophy and the hermeneutic critique of consciousness / J.N. Mohanty -- Phenomenality and materiality in Kant / Paul De Mann -- Part 2. Literature and hermeneutics -- The problem of figuration in antiquity / Gerald L. Bruns -- Homotextuality : Barthes on Barthes, Fragments (RB), with a footnote / John O'Neill -- A response to John O'Neill / Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak -- Surviving figures / Gary Lee Stonum -- Part 3. Social science and hermeneutics -- Hermeneutics and social theory / Anthony Giddens -- Comments on Giddens / Fred R. Dallmayr -- Conflicting interpretations in history : the case of the English Civil War / W.H. Dray -- On Dray's "Conflicting interpretations in history : the case of the English Civil War" / Rex Martin -- Afterword / Alan Sica.