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The article discusses the main claims, proofs and consequences of philosophical hermeneutics or the study of the principle of interpretation. Topics include the history of hermeneutics, the development of philosophical hermeneutics by philosophers Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer and its use in the analysis of pragmatist thinkers Richard Rorty, Stanley Fish and Richard Shusterman.

The author looks at how philosophers Hans-Georg Gadamer and Richard Rorty interpreted history and the history of philosophy within the framework set by their ontological narratives. He presents his own general interpretational framework, the main characteristics of Gadamer's philosophy in general as well as his hermeneutical approach to the history of philosophy. He also discusses Rorty's neopragmatism in general and his neopragmatist relationship to the history of philosophy.

I shall prove my overall thesis that Rorty consistently enforces his politically saturated liberal ironic standpoint in the fields of religion and history from his Contingency book (1989). As a neopragmatist thinker he gives priority to politics in the sense of a liberal democracy over everything else. I shall analyze briefly his neopragmatist thoughts in general in the first part. This shows Rorty as a liberal ironist who regards almost everything as contingent, except democracy. In the second part I shall interpret his main views about religion in connection with his political thoughts. Finally, I shall show that history also belongs to the contingent social phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]