The book presents the development of hermeneutics, from reflection on the techniques and rules of correct interpretation of cultural products, through theoretical speculations on the essence of interpretation, to the emergence of a certain direction of contemporary philosophy. A direction for which the concepts of understanding and interpretation become basic categories, a kind of guiding thread reaching to the foundations of philosophical knowledge. The author presented the emergence of hermeneutics as a separate field of humanities education. The novelty of this book is an attempt to formulate – on the basis of the findings of the classics of contemporary hermeneutics: Dilthey, Heidegger, Gadamer and Ricoeur – the foundations of the hermeneutic position in ontology, epistemology, aesthetics, ethics, politics and anthropology.