Editing Hermeneutics (section)

===Incipient Development of Hermeneutics===
The general principles of hermeneutics were first laid out by the 19th-century Protestant theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher. It was in 19th century that hermeneutics came to be used for interpretation of biblical, legal, historical and written texts. Schleiermacher's framing of hermeneutic theory had as its imperative aspect the "art of understanding".

During the closing years of the 19th century, William Dilthey came up with the classification and subsequent distinction between the 'natural sciences' (Naturwissenschaften) and 'human sciences' (Geisteswissenschaften). For him the former explained the world in an abstract, reductive and static way and the latter aims to achieve a concrete understanding of the world - as it deals with the temporal and concrete "lived experience" of human beings. Thus, a stain of humanism can be seen in Dilthey's contention. 

The 'hermeneutic circle' is a term coined by Dilthey on the process of Schleiermacher, where ''in order to understand the determinate meaning of parts we must have a prior sense of the meaning of the whole, yet it is essential to know the meaning of the whole only by knowing the meanings of the constituents parts.'' This dialectical interaction between whole and the part gives each other the meaning, and within this circle there is the site of meaning, thus it is called 'hermeneutic circle'. It is not a vicious circle but ''an interaction or interplay between our evolving sense of the whole and retrospective understanding of the parts which mutually qualify to help achieve a valid interpretation.''

For Dilthey, it is not through introspection but via interpretation that we penetrate into the inner world of a man. In fact, for him introspection could never serve as the basis for human studies. This is because, unlike natural sciences, human sciences has the possibility of understanding the "inner experience" of another person through a mysterious process of mental transfer - it is when man understands a man. The utility of interpretation is realised in such a transposition which only take place because a likeness exists between the facts of our own mental experience and those of another person, which can serve as the basis of discovery of a more profound inner world. Here, the hermeneutic significance established as an [[art]] work or literary work is the "objectification" of mind viz. feelings, knowledge, etc; which is an ''objective'' expression of lived experience and there is no introspection entailing the impossibility of capturing it.

Dilthey's emphasis on subject can be further exemplified by his "Historicality"(Geschichtlichkeit) and man as "a historical being" (ein geschichtliches Wesen), such that man is the "hermeneutical animal" who understands himself in terms of interpreting a shared world bequeathed to him from the past, which is still current in all his actions and decisions. Also, Modern hermeneutics has historicality as its important underpinning.