This book details a history of the methodology of textual interpretation from Ancient Greece to the 20th century. It presents a complete English translation of Hermeneutics and Its Problems, written by Russian philosopher Gustav Gustavovich Shpet, along with insightful commentary. Written in 1918, Shpet's text remained unpublished in its original Russian until the collapse of the Soviet Union. This engaging translation will be of value to anyone interested in early phenomenology, Russian intellectual history, as well as the divergence of phenomenology (...) and the analytic philosophy of language. The volume also features translations of five key essays written by Shpet. The first presents an extended elaboration of a non-egological conception of consciousness on Husserlian grounds that considerably predates the well-known arguments of early Sartre and Gurwitsch. The second details the rudiments of a phenomenological philosophy of history that traces a central theme back to Parmenides. The next two reveal Shpet’s abiding philosophical interest in combating skepticism and what he took to be the reigning neo-Kantian model by which philosophy is a handmaiden to mathematical physics. The final one features a terse statement of Shpet’s overall philosophical viewpoint, written during the early years of the Stalinist period. Shpet offers an example of one facet of philosophy from a phenomenological viewpoint, demonstrating the progress as well as the deficiencies of successive eras along the historical journey. In doing so, he also gradually reveals the need for a theory of signs, interpretation, and understanding. This collection brings together key documents for assessing Shpet’s hermeneutic phenomenology and his perceived need to develop a phenomenological philosophy of language. (shrink)

Theoretical philosophy is a term that requires the most meticulous clarification, above all as a subject.

Neopublikovannye raboty G.G. Shpeta -- Opublikovannye statʹi G.G. Shpeta.

Iskusstvo kak vid znanii͡a -- Ėsteticheskie fragmenty -- Vnutrenni͡ai͡a forma slova.

These excerpts have been kindly provided by Professor George L. Kline, who had edited and introduced the English translation of Germenevtika i ee problemy, done from a manuscript by the late Erika Freiberger. The Russian manuscript written in 1918 had been published in installments in the yearbook Kontekst in 1989-92. The excerpts presented here can be found in the 1991 and 1992 issues, in which the installments were edited by Shpet's granddaughter Elena V. Pasternak. The English translation of the entire (...) book is forthcoming. (shrink)

Theater is an art or theater is not an independent art. Each of these antithetical propositions has its supporters. It is usually the supporters of the second who come up with anything resembling intelligible argumentation. The first is usually accepted as fact, sanctified by universal acknowledgement, without criticism, without much reflection—it is just accepted: theater unquestionably gives satisfaction. What kind? Aesthetic! And so, theater is an art!