The author proposes a new general theory of interpretation by taking as a starting point the interconnectedness between Method, Theory, and Discourse. He holds that a worldview requires a way of understanding it, and trying to comprehend something requires that we have some idea of it. In this fashion, Method and Theory are always co-present during interpretation. To explore this bond, the author finds in Discourse the common and indeed primordial material to enable both theorization and methodic inquiry. In a strong reevaluation of rhetoric as philosophy, fertile ground for the thesis is found in the Sophists, Peirce, Ricouer, and Perelman. With these premises established, the book then lays out a flexible model for interpretation anchored to three necessary critical loci: the Work, the Interpreter, and the Interpreting act or process itself. This last element requires the reintroduction of consciousness and taking language as endowed from the start with a pragmatic dimension. The model is put to the test by studying the relation between Method and Discourse in Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, and Husserl. Crossing various disciplines, these researches delve into key turning points in the succession of approaches that became dominant in determining who or what we are, and how we can know anything at all. The author concludes that the sciences and the humanities are not antithetical, as we have been led to believe throughout Modernity, but rather share common origins, concerns, and discursive practices. This is the first of a four volume project under the aegis of the messenger deity Hermes. Volume IV, On the Postmodern, was published in 2009; volume II,Thresholds: Method and Interpretation in Contemporary Italy, is in progress; volume III will focus on humanism.