The philosophy of presence, primarily initiated by Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, revised the central role of practices of meaning attribution and their hermeneutic reflection within the humanities. The essays gathered in this volume document the emergence of this movement from a transformation in the construction of time, in which our present articulates and understands itself, on one hand, and from the self-criticism of a generation of humanities scholars focused on the concepts of society and consciousness, on the other. They simultaneously demonstrate the transformation of the philosophy of presence into a new aesthetics of epiphany and serenity, which leaves behind the established paradigms of the humanities.