ABSTRACT
This final retrospective assessment covers the last five essays of Part VII rather than the volume as a whole. It might appear that some essays of Part VII stray away from hermeneutics, but this is not the case. Essay 37, on the morality of scholarship, redresses an imbalance to which writers on hermeneutics are too prone, namely to invoke a proper concern about the role of pre-understanding as an improper alibi to pursue personal or corporate interests under that flag of convenience. “Neutrality” may be an illusion, but to strive for “impartiality” is a necessary scholarly virtue. The next essay defends a corporate epistemology that allows room for the transmission of traditions, and demonstrates the kind of theories of knowledge and understanding with which hermeneutics operates. We reject the claim that hermeneutics “replaces” epistemology as “a way of coping”.
