Hermeneutics

Hermeneutics originally concerned itself with the interpretation of the Bible such that the Gospel's relevance is not bound by space and time, and it could reproduce essential truths of the Gospels from generation to generation.

"Exegesis" is a term associated with interpretation and hermeneutics. In Roman times 'exegetes' had existed who interpreted dreams, charms, omens and pronouncements of cryptic or oracular types. Later on 'exegetes' became a term for the people who interpreted Abrahamic texts (the Bible, Quran and the Jewish Torah and Tanakh).

Etymologically, the term 'hermeneutics' has been derived from Hermes, the Greek god who acted as a messenger between the gods and humankind.

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.

Modern Hermeneutics

The 1950s and 1960s marked an increasing interest in hermeneutics with the turn of Western philosophy towards focus on language and its meanings.

Regarding hermeneutics, American theorist E. D. Hirsch put forth the theory that hermeneutics is the "philological effort to find out what the author meant", it is also the chief problem of hermeneutic i.e. determining the verbal meaning intended by the author. The author's intent is not merely the consciousness but the conventions, culture, norms of language, presuppositions and the literary conventions of the age in which the author was composing the work. The reader (at best) can achieve a probable meaning of the text which for Hirsch is adequate for the objective knowledge. Hirsch deliniates between "significance" and "verbal meaning"; "significance" is the meaningfulness for us or how the reader relates to a text, to its "verbal meaning" which is stable, discernible and the meaning intended by the author. The "significance" is indeterminate and ever-changing depending upon the reader and the time period when it is being read which entails differing personal, social and cultural scenarios and differing belief systems.

For Hirsch, "significance" is not the chiefest end of hermeneutics, but a means by which to clarify the "verbal meaning".

Another line of development takes place from Dilthey's position that a reader's re-experience of the "inner life" represented by the text leads to proper understanding of that text. Edmund Husserl's phenomenology concerned itself with an analysis of human consciousness's ability to describe the "lived world" (Lebenswelt). However, his phenomenology has a temporality of consciousness which is static and in presentational terms of science.

In Heidegger's phenomenology we find the 'historicality' (Geschichtlichkeit). His phenomenology concerns disclosing being, 'being' as such and not merely an opening up of consciousness. His 'phenomenology' is derived from Greek roots: phainomenon or phainesthai, and logos. As Heidegger would describe Phainomenon, it is "that which shows itself, the manifested, revealed (das Offenbare)." For Heidegger hermeneutics is the fundamental announcing function through which Dasein makes itself known as the nature of being. Gadamer further extends the premise of temporality and historicality. For him, experience of one's own historicality is the "true experience" - the man who stands and acts in history and who gains insight and anticipation of the future, and who posseses a receptive openness of the past. The past or a heritage is "not simply an event which one recognizes through experience and comes to control; rather it is language, that is, it of itself speaks, like a thou." The text must be allowed to speak, the reader being open to the text as a subject in its own right rather than as an object. Gadamer emphasizes on 'understanding' which is not normative or manipulative but is dialectical. He is not concerned with an "objectively valid" understanding but to create 'understanding' which is as comprehensive as possible. It is for this reason that critics say that theory of Gadamer has a consequence; that the search for a determinate meaning becomes a "will-o'-the-wisp" - something impossible to achieve. There cannot be one right interpretation, as the meaning of the text is always codetermined by the particular temporal and personal horizons of a reader - understanding is no longer viewed as an act of man but as an event in man.

It is also important to regard that Gadamer, like Heidegger, is a critic of modern technological thinking rooted in 'subjectism' (Subjektität) which is subjective consciousness which has certainties of reason behind it as the ultimate point of reference for human knowledge. The pre-Cartesian thinkers like the ancient Greeks saw their thinking as a part of being itself. They did not have subjectivity as their starting point then grounding objectivity of their knowledge in it. They had a dialectical approach in which they participated, allowed themselves to be directed and guided by knowledge and even possessed by their knowledge. This way the Greeks achieved an approach to truth which went beyond the subject-object thinking which is rooted in the subjective certainty of knowledge.

Psychoanalysis and Hermeneutics

The psychoanalytical view of hermeneutics is that manifest meanings (interpretations) are mere disguises of the latent content which is the real meaning as a part of unconscious motive and need of the author. It can be due to social structure or political realities (e.g. concealment, suppression) of author's time. Hermeneutics of suspicion is another line of development where a text is seen as a veiled set of representations whose real meaning is to be deciphered by the reader.

Infrared and Hermeneutics

Infrared's relation to hermeneutics is imperative as it has constantly provided insights by making use of hermeneutic principles.