Hermeneutics Hermeneutics Jacques Cartier Category="Branches of philosophy"Category="Hermeneutics"Category="Literary criticism"Category="Social philosophy"Hermeneutics may be described as the Theory of Interpretation and understanding of a Text through empirical means. It should not be confused with the concrete practice of interpretation called Exegesis. Exegesis extracts the meaning of a passage of text and enlarges upon it and explicates it with explanatory glosses; hermeneutics addresses the ways in which a reader may come to the broadest understanding of the creator of text and his relation to his audiences, both local and over time, within the constraints of Culture and History. Thus it is a branch of Philosophy concerned with human understanding and the interpretation of texts. Recently the concept of texts has been extended beyond written documents to include, for example, Speech, performances, works of Art, and even events.

Etymology

The word hermeneutics (Hermeneutic means interpretive) is a term derived from the Greek Verb 'to interpret' (hermēneuō) and has two derivations. One is from the Greek god Hermes in his role as patron of interpretive communication and human understanding, while the other is from the syncretic Ptolemaic deity Hermes Trismegistus, in his role as representing hidden or secret knowledge.

Biblical hermeneutics

Perhaps the most commonly used meaning of the word hermeneutics outside academic circles is in relation to Biblical interpretation. Throughout Christian history scholars and students of the Bible have sought to mine the wealth of its meanings by developing a variety of different systems of hermeneutics which are discussed in the main article Biblical hermeneutics. In contrast to the above definition, Biblical interpretation is not sought through empirical means alone, but through diligent study of the text and with objective truth in mind. An interpretation cannot merely be based on experiential evidence alone.

Medieval hermeneutics

Medieval interpretations of text incorporated Exegesis in a fourfold mode that emphasized the distinction between the letter and the spirit of the text. This handy scheme of various ways of interpreting the text was handed down from Patristic programs of Late Antiquity. The literal sense (sensus historicus) of Scripture denotes what the text states or reports directly. The allegorical sense (sensus allegoricus) explains the text with regard to the doctrinal content of church dogma, as a manifestation in which each literal element has a symbolic meaning. The moral application of the text to the individual reader or hearer is the third sense, the sensus tropologicus or sensus moralis, while a fourth level of meaning, the sensus anagogicus draws out of the text the implicit allusions it contains concerning metaphysical and eschatological secret understanding, or Gnosis.
"The hermeneutical terminology used here is in part arbitrary. For almost all three interpretations which go beyond the literal explanations are in a general sense "allegorical." The practical application of these three aspects of spiritual interpretation varied considerably. Most of the time, the fourfold sense of the Scriptures was used only partially, dependent upon the content of the text and the idea of the exegete.... We can easily notice that the basic structure is in fact a twofold sense of the Scriptures, that is, the distinction between the sensus literalis and the sensus spiritualis or mysticus, and that the number four was derived from a restrictive systematization of the numerous possibilities which existed for the sensus spiritualis into three interpretive dimensions." (Ebeling)

The customary medieval exegetical technique divided the text in glossa ("glosses" or annotations) written between the lines and at the side of the text which was left with wide margins for this very purpose. The text was further divided into "scholia" which are long, exegetical passages, often on a separate page.

This fourfold categorization is also found in Rabbinical thought. It remains to be seen if this rabbinical conception predates the christian one. The fourfold categorizations are, in Hebrew; Peshat( simple interpretation ), Remez( allusion ), Derash( interpretive ), and Sod( secret / mystical ). More information can be found at Torah study.

Renaissance hermeneutics

The discipline of hermeneutics emerged with the new humanist education of the 15th century as a historical and critical Methodology for analyzing texts. In a triumph of early modern hermeneutics, the Italian humanist Lorenzo Valla proved in 1440 that the "Donation of Constantine" was a forgery, through intrinsic evidence of the text itself. Thus hermeneutics expanded from its medieval role explaining the correct analysis of the Bible. In the 19th century Wilhelm Dilthey's more historically conscious methodological hermeneutics sought to produce systematic and scientific interpretations by situating any text within the context of its production. Since Dilthey, the discipline of hermeneutics has detached itself from this central task and broadened its spectrum to all texts, including Multimedia and to understanding the bases of meaning. In the 20th century, Martin Heidegger's Philosophical hermeneutics shifted the focus from interpretation to existential understanding, which was treated more as a direct, non-mediated, thus in a sense more authentic way of being in the world than simply as a way of knowing.

Advocates of this approach claim that such texts, and the people who produce them, cannot be studied using the same scientific methods as the natural sciences, thus use arguments similar to that of the Antipositivism. Moreover, they claim that such texts are conventionalized expressions of the experience of the author; thus, the Interpretation of such texts will reveal something about the social context in which they were formed, but, more significantly, provide the reader with a means to share the experiences of the author. Among the key thinkers of this approach are Wilhelm Dilthey, a historian and philosopher; the sociologist Max Weber; the philosopher Martin Heidegger; and the philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer. Jürgen Habermas attacked the principles of hermeneutics as conservative and advocated Critical theory as an alternative, although in contemporary usage one could reasonably call hermeneutics an aspect of critical theory. Paul Ricoeur has attempted to reconcile and synthesize these two opposing traditions, although his own work is not hermeneutics in the Gadamerian sense at all.

Rather surprisingly (given its origins) hermeneutics has also become influential on some thinkers in the Artificial intelligence tradition who see cognitivist or Information processing views of human understanding as being inadequate.

Hermeneutic traditions

Hermeneutics in the Western world, as a general science of text interpretation, can be traced back to two separate sources. One source was the Ancient Greek rhetoricians' study of literature, which came to fruition in Hellenistic Alexandria. The other source has been the contemporary Midrash traditions of Biblical Exegesis, that were contemporary with Hellenistic culture. Scholars in antiquity expected a text to be coherent, consistent in Grammar, style and outlook, and they emended obscure or "decadent" readings to comply with their codified rules. By extending the perception of inherent logic of texts, Greeks were able to attribute works with uncertain origin.

Although the Jewish Rabbis and the early Church Fathers deployed similar philological tools, their Biblical interpretation stressed allegorical readings, frequently at the expense of the texts' literal meaning. Their interpretations found within the visible sign a hidden sense in deeper agreement with the interpreters' preconceived theme. Scholars in other traditions approached scriptural texts with similar hermeneutics: the Vedas and the Qu'ran and other sacred writings. Prefiguration and Allegory seem typical strategies for reconciling texts whose surface banality was seen as beneath the dignity of an enlightened or moral world view.

Hermeneutics in the Middle Ages witnessed the proliferation of non-literal interpretations of the Bible. Christian commentators could read Old Testament narratives simultaneously as prefigurations of analogous New Testament episodes, as symbolic lessons about Church institutions and current teachings, and as personally applicable allegories of the Spirit. In each case, the meaning of the signs was constrained by imputing a particular intention to the Bible, such as teaching morality, but these interpretive bases were posited by the religious tradition rather than suggested by a preliminary reading of the text. Thus, when Martin Luther and other 16th century reformers argued that Christians could interpret Scripture for themselves, the Catholic Church responded that the authority of tradition was necessary.

The rationalist Enlightment and movement toward a more objective historical perspective led hermeneutics, especially Protestant exegesis, to view Scriptural texts as secular Classical texts were viewed. Scripture thus was interpreted as responses to historical or social forces, so that apparent contradictions and difficult passages in the New Testament, for example, might be clarified by comparing their possible meanings with contemporaneous Christian practices.

Hermeneutics in Law

Main article is at Legal hermeneutics.

Some scholars argue that law and theology constitute particular forms of hermeneutics because of their need to interpret legal tradition / scriptural texts.

Hermeneutics in Sociology

In Sociology, hermeneutics means the interpretation and understanding of social events by analysing their meanings to the human participants and their Culture.

Hermeneutics of Schleiermacher and Dilthey

Friedrich Schleiermacher explored the nature of understanding in relation not just to the problem of deciphering sacred texts, but to all human texts and modes of communication. The interpretation of a text must proceed by framing the content asserted in terms of the overall organization of the work. He distinguishes between grammatical interpretation and psychological interpretation. The former studies how a work is composed from general ideas, the latter considers the peculiar combinations that characterize the work as a whole.

Wilhelm Dilthey broadened hermeneneutics even more by relating interpretation to all historical objectifications. Understanding moves from the outer manifestations of human action and productivity to explore their inner meaning. In his last important essay "The Understanding of Others and Their Manifestations of Life" (1910) Dilthey makes it clear that this move from outer to inner, from expression to what is expressed, is not based on empathy. Empathy involves a direct identification with the other. Interpretation involves an indirect or mediated understanding that can only be attained by placing human expressions in their historical context. Understanding is not a process of reconstructing the state of mind of the author, but one of articulating what is expressed in the work.

Hermeneutics since Dilthey

See Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur

Misuse

One prominent theme which arises in contemporary philosophical hermeneutics (i.e., the work of Hans-Georg Gadamer) is a serious calling into question of scientism. Scientism is the more or less unquestioned belief in the supremacy of the natural sciences when it comes to serving as models of knowledge. By calling scientism into question, hermeneutics is arguing for the legitimacy of (among other things) aesthetic, literary, spiritual, and philosophical knowledge, alongside (but not instead of) scientific knowledge.

Not surpisingly, this critique of scientism has won hermeneutics some enemies within the natural sciences. One of the most famous of these is a physicist by the name of Alan Sokal.

In an attempt to discredit hermeneutic, postmodern, and other forms of “non-scientific” knowledge, Sokal wrote a paper which he intended to be complete gibberish, to see if a postmodern Cultural studies journal would "publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and (b) it flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions". The paper, entitled "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity" , was accepted and published in the journal Social Text.

Critics of hermeneutics and postmodernism view this, the Sokal Affair, as evidence that the claims made by non-scientific fields of study are nonsensical, and therefore not worth studying. Critics of Sokal point to the rather brazen academic dishonesty involved trying to deceive an editorial board of one's fellow scholars, and have pointed out that scientists who publish articles in scientific journals based on fabricated data are often expelled from the community of respected scientists. In addition, they claim that, despite Sokal's protestations to the contrary, his article did have a meaning, and one worth publishing and studying.

Needless to say, Sokal and his supporters would disagree strongly, perhaps arguing that things are either meaningful (i.e., scientific) or not (i.e., come from the humanities). They are thus especially prone to believe that although the word hermeneutics is meaningful, it is often used in a pretentious way, to give an impression of profundity.

Whatever the lessons of the Sokal Affair, it is clear that it, like many other things, it is capable of being interpreted in multiple ways, according to different intellectual (and political) interests. That, if nothing else, makes it a useful contemporary example of hermeneutics.

See also

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