Because of the confusion created by recent literature on hermeneutics, it has become more and more difficult in a few paragraphs to say what hermeneutics is and what it is concerned with. At one time this was a rather easy task; lately the basic issues have become so clouded, that one must begin by distinguishing a number of quite different conceptions of hermeneutics, before one can turn to the most important and urgent issues at hand. This confusion is due mainly to the publications of Heidegger, Gadamer, Ricoeur, and others, who used the term "hermeneutics" in senses quite different from the one originally given to the term in the nineteenth century.