This book challenges the standard view that modern hermeneutics begins with Friedrich Ast and Friedrich Schleiermacher, arguing instead that it is the dialectic of reflective and teleological reason in Kant’sCritique of Judgmentthat provides the actual proto-hermeneutic foundation. It is revolutionary in doing so by replacing interpretive truth claims by the more appropriate claim of rendering opaque contextsintelligible. Taking Gadamer’s comprehensive analysis of hermeneutics inTruth and Method(1960) as its point of departure, the book turns to Kant’s Critiques, reviewing his major...