The doctoral thesis of Ilmari Kortelainen paves the way to the main problem of modern philosophy: When conceptual analysis faces the reality with all its practicalities, is there still something to it or is it good for nothing? The more precise phrasing of a question of the dissertation goes as follows: How can we use the philosophical conceptual analysis in a practical interpretation situation, e.g. in understanding a subject or culture foreign to us? Kortelainen pieces the answer together by way of Paul Ricoeur's (1913 - 2005) philosophy. Hermeneutics is a field in philosophy, which concerns the general theory of interpretation. In his thesis Kortelainen radically, yet with indulgence, brings together two philosophical schools; those of analytic philosophy and of hermeneutics. The relation between the philosophical conceptual analysis and hermeneutic interpretation is researched in this framework.