Abstract

The dissertation describes the antecedents of contemporary epistemology in the Enlightenment, and the development of a phenomenological alternative to theories of knowledge from Edmund Husserl to Jean Paul Sartre and Paul Ricoeur. Strategies for a hermeneutic phenomenology are given, and then applied in an examination of three works of literature . The criticisms are given as a model for the manner in which hermeneutic phenomenology may be employed as a strategy for comparative literature. Techniques employed in textual criticism include the phenomenological epoche, the cognitive references of noema and noesis, the concept of "intentionality", as well as the potential for literary criticism as a foundation for a general ontological and phenomenological epistemology. The dissertation also provides the concept of language from the hermeneutic and phenomenological point of view, and compares the hermeneutic concept for poetics to linguistic based criticism. The phenomenological approach is defended against antithetical critical approaches.