The Responsibility of Hermeneutics

I. Our hermeneutical inheritance --
The Cartesian and Baconian legacies --
The Cartesian isolation of the aesthetic category --
Baconianism and a new world hermeneutic --
Beyond the first person --
II. Texts and actions --
The limits of the literature-as-language model --
Basic principles of the literature-as-action model --
The question of reference and mimesis --
Imagined and actual worlds --
Some consequences for hermeneutical practice --
Historical texts. III. Reader-response hermeneutics, action models, and the parables of Jesus --
Literary theory and biblical hermeneutics --
The parables of Jesus --
Audience criticism and reader-response hermeneutics --
The need for a reader-response approach to the parables --
The problems and inadequacy of a reader-response approach to the parables --
The contribution of the action model: Toward responsible interpretation.