In our so-called "postmodern" situation, the "hermeneutical turn" has taken us down paths of alienation and suspicion en route to an ultimate loss or retrieval of meaning. But one must ask whether it is texts or their interpreters who stand most alienated, most under suspicion, most in need of retrieval from the lime pit of ideology or from the abyss of unyielding ambiguity and unmeaning. Who or what, if anybody or anything, can effect the retrieval?...