Hermeneutics
HERMENEUTICS AS A METHOD OF TEXT-INTERPRETATION
"Hermeneutics" means the theory of interpretation, i.e. thetheory of achieving an understanding of texts, utterances, and so on (it does notmean a certain twentieth-century philosophical movement). It is the art of interpreting. Hermeneutics proved to be much bigger than theology or legal theory. The comprehension of any written text requires hermeneutics; reading a literary text is as much a hermeneutic act as interpreting law or Scripture.
Without collapsing critical thinking into relativism, hermeneutics recognizes the historicity of human understanding. Ideas are nested in historical, linguistic, and cultural horizons of meaning. A philosophical, theological, or literary problem can only be genuinely understood through a grasp of its origin. Hermeneutics is in part the practice of historical retrieval, the re-construction of the historical context of scientific and literary works. Hermeneutics does not re-construct the past for its own sake; it always seeks to understand the particular way a problem engages the present.
A philosophical impulse motivates hermeneutic re-construction, a desire to engage a historically transmitted question as a genuine question, worthy of consideration in its own right. By addressing questions within ever-new horizons, hermeneutic understanding strives to break through the limitations of a particular world-view to the matter that calls to thinking.[11] Hermeneutics is not satisfied with translating the language of the other; it wants to speak with the other in the language of the other. Hermeneutics is philosophy in the original sense of the word, the love of wisdom, the search for as comprehensive an understanding of human existence as possible.
On a certain level, translation is impossible. What is said in a particular language is said in a distinct form of life, a historical context of meaning. The only way to understand a text is to read it in its original language; the
"Hermeneutics" means the theory of interpretation, i.e. thetheory of achieving an understanding of texts, utterances, and so on (it does notmean a certain twentieth-century philosophical movement). It is the art of interpreting. Hermeneutics proved to be much bigger than theology or legal theory. The comprehension of any written text requires hermeneutics; reading a literary text is as much a hermeneutic act as interpreting law or Scripture.
Without collapsing critical thinking into relativism, hermeneutics recognizes the historicity of human understanding. Ideas are nested in historical, linguistic, and cultural horizons of meaning. A philosophical, theological, or literary problem can only be genuinely understood through a grasp of its origin. Hermeneutics is in part the practice of historical retrieval, the re-construction of the historical context of scientific and literary works. Hermeneutics does not re-construct the past for its own sake; it always seeks to understand the particular way a problem engages the present.
A philosophical impulse motivates hermeneutic re-construction, a desire to engage a historically transmitted question as a genuine question, worthy of consideration in its own right. By addressing questions within ever-new horizons, hermeneutic understanding strives to break through the limitations of a particular world-view to the matter that calls to thinking.[11] Hermeneutics is not satisfied with translating the language of the other; it wants to speak with the other in the language of the other. Hermeneutics is philosophy in the original sense of the word, the love of wisdom, the search for as comprehensive an understanding of human existence as possible.
On a certain level, translation is impossible. What is said in a particular language is said in a distinct form of life, a historical context of meaning. The only way to understand a text is to read it in its original language; the