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Hermeneutics is the study of interpretation. Hermeneutics plays a role in a number of disciplines whose
subject matter demands interpretative approaches, characteristically, because the disciplinary subject matter
concerns the meaning of human intentions, beliefs, and actions, or the meaning of human experience as it is
preserved in the arts and literature, historical testimony, and other artifacts. Traditionally, disciplines that
rely on hermeneutics include theology, especially Biblical studies, jurisprudence, and medicine, as well as
some of the human sciences, social sciences, and humanities. In such contexts, hermeneutics is sometimes
described as an “auxiliary” study of the arts, methods, and foundations of research appropriate to a
respective disciplinary subject matter (Grondin 1994, 1). For example, in theology, Biblical hermeneutics
concerns the general principles for the proper interpretation of the Bible. More recently, applied
hermeneutics has been further developed as a research method for a number of disciplines (see, for
example, Moules inter alia 2015).
Within philosophy, however, hermeneutics typically signifies, first, a disciplinary area and, second, the
historical movement in which this area has been developed. As a disciplinary area, and on analogy with the
designations of other disciplinary areas (such as ‘the philosophy of mind’ or ‘the philosophy of art’),
hermeneutics might have been named ‘the philosophy of interpretation.’ Hermeneutics thus treats
interpretation itself as its subject matter and not as an auxiliary to the study of something else.
Philosophically, hermeneutics therefore concerns the meaning of interpretation—its basic nature, scope and
validity, as well as its place within and implications for human existence; and it treats interpretation in the
context of fundamental philosophical questions about being and knowing, language and history, art and
aesthetic experience, and practical life.
1. Interpretive Experience
o 1.1 Understanding as Educative
o 1.2 Against Foundationalism
o 1.3 The Hermeneutical Circle
2. Hermeneutics as Historical Movement
o 2.1 The Art of Interpretation
o 2.2 Justification of the Human Sciences
o 2.3 Contemporary Hermeneutics
3. Hermeneutics and Existence
o 3.1 The Hermeneutics of Facticity
o 3.2 Difficulties of Self-Interpretation
4. Contemporary Hermeneutics
o 4.1 Humanism and Art
o 4.2 Tradition and Prejudice
o 4.3 Normative Implications
o 4.4 Language
5. Symbol, Metaphor, and Narrative
6. Philosophical Controversies
o 6.1 Hermeneutics and Critical Theory
o 6.2 Hermeneutics and Deconstruction
7. Postmodern Hermeneutics
8. Further Developments
o 8.1 Hermeneutics in Anglo-American Philosophy
o 8.2 Hermeneutics in Ethical and Political Philosophy
o 8.3 The Return of Normativity to Hermeneutics
o 8.4 Hermeneutics and New Realism
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1. Interpretive Experience
The topic of this article, then, is hermeneutics insofar as it is grasped as the philosophy of interpretation and
as the historical movement associated with this area. In this, hermeneutics is concerned, first of all, to
clarify and, in turn, to establish the scope and validity of interpretive experience.
4. Contemporary Hermeneutics
Contemporary hermeneutics is largely shaped by Hans-Georg Gadamer’s ‘philosophical hermeneutics.’
Gadamer’s approach is guided by the insight that the success of understanding involves a distinctive
experience of truth. Consider, once more, the example of coming to understand something through an
interpretation of Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, namely, that in politics, prudent reasoning
is not always persuasive enough to stem the tide of war. When I come to understand this, so goes
Gadamer’s insight, I experience what I understand not simply as a novel or enriching idea. Rather, I
experience what I have understood as something that makes a claim to be true. Thus, to understand
something means to understand something as true. The chief issue of Gadamer’s philosophical
hermeneutics is to clarify that such a hermeneutical experience of truth is not only valid in its own right,
but that it is distinct from, and even more original than, the sense of truth at issue in knowledge secured
through the norms and methods of modern science. Indeed, it is precisely this concern that Gadamer’s title
of his magnum opus is meant to evoke: his philosophical hermeneutics focuses on a hermeneutical
experience of truth that cannot be derived from scientific method.
4.4 Language
The hermeneutical experience of truth is conditioned by not only tradition but also language. In Gadamer’s
philosophical hermeneutics, the relation of truth to language is described in reference to being. Gadamer
expresses this relation in a celebrated motto, “being that can be understood is language” (Gadamer, Truth
and Method, 474).[7] According to this motto, language is primarily a ‘medium’ that shows us the being, or
meaningful order, of the world and the things we encounter in it (Gadamer, Truth and Method, Part III.1).
[8]
Thus, language is only secondarily an instrument that we use, among other things, to represent
something, communicate about it, or make assertions about it. The experience of language as a medium
takes place in what Gadamer calls “hermeneutical conversation” (Gadamer, Truth and Method, 388). The
primary example of such hermeneutical conversation is a conversation between interlocutors about
something; but, he believes that hermeneutical conversation also includes all interpretive experience, so
that the interpretation of artworks and texts is conceived as a conversation between the interpreter and work
about the subject matter of the work. In hermeneutical conversation, interlocutors may, of course, use
language to represent, communicate or make assertions. More originally, however, hermeneutical
conversation concerns the being of the matter under consideration. Hermeneutical conversation is thus an
event of interlocution that aims to show something in its being, as it genuinely or truly is.
The hermeneutical experience of truth can be described as the success of conversation so conceived. But, in
this, truth is not experienced as a matter of “correctness,” or as this may be clarified, a matter of correct
predication (Gadamer, Truth and Method, 406). In the experience of truth as correct predication, truth is
typically conceived as the property of a proposition, statement or utterance that suitably connects a subject
with a predicate. In the hermeneutical experience of truth, by contrast, the concern is not with predication,
that is, the connection of a subject with a predicate, but, instead, with conversation, grasped as an event of
interlocution concerned with the being of a subject itself. In such a conversation, truth is reached, if it is
reached, not when a subject is suitably connected with something else, but, instead, when the subject is
sufficiently shown in its own being, as it truly is. The measure of such sufficiency is established not in
advance, but is achieved in the course of conversation along with the claim of truth that it measures.
Philosophical hermeneutics maintains that the experience of truth as correct predication is dependent on the
hermeneutical experience of truth. This is because in truth as correctness, the proper connection of subject
and predicate depends in part on the being of the subject. In predication, the being of the subject is typically
either left out of account or is presumed already to be determined or interpreted. But, the being of the
subject—what it truly is—is a matter of interpretation. In illustration, we may consider the fictional
conversation presented by Plato in the Republic among Socrates, Glaucon and other interlocutors about
justice. In conclusion of our interpretive experience, we may assert the proposition, ‘justice is nearly
impossible to achieve!’ But, whether this is so will depend on the being of justice, and the truth of the being
of justice will depend, in turn, on an interpretation of it, whether we derive it from Plato’s text or otherwise.
Truth as correctness, then, depends on the hermeneutical experience of truth, and such truth, in turn, is a
matter of interpretation.
Finally, in Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics, it is claimed that the hermeneutical experience of truth
is ‘universal.’ This does not mean that the hermeneutical experience of truth takes place every time we
converse about something. Rather, it means that the hermeneutical experience of truth remains always a
problem, whenever we wish to understand something, and even when a conversation culminates in an
experience of truth. Each hermeneutical experience of truth remains open to further interpretation (see
Gadamer, “The Universality of the Hermeneutical Problem”).
6. Philosophical Controversies
The development of hermeneutics since Gadamer forwarded his ‘philosophical hermeneutics’ in Truth and
Method has been fostered by philosophical controversies about the consequences of his project. The most
significant of these controversies are about the consequences of philosophical hermeneutics in relation to
critical theory and to deconstruction.[9] Although philosophical interest in these controversies is extensive,
in each case, discussion arises in close connection with Gadamer himself. In the case of the controversy in
relation to critical theory, discussion originates between Jürgen Habermas and Gadamer over the problem
of critique, or, more specifically, the critique of ideology. In the case of the controversy in relation to
deconstruction, discussion originates between Jacques Derrida and Gadamer. While this discussion is itself
layered and gives rise to new questions over time, it concerns, in part, the question of whether the success
of understanding genuinely achieves a determination of meaning.
Gadamer’s engagements with Habermas and Derrida themselves are sometimes hailed as examples, or
perhaps case studies, of his own conception of hermeneutical conversation. Gadamer has claimed that such
conversation proceeds always from “recognizing in advance the possibility that your partner is right, even
recognizing the possible superiority of your partner” (Gadamer, “Reflections on My Philosophical
Journey,” 36). Gadamer famously puts this belief into practice in his discussions with both Habermas and
Derrida, and the legacy of these debates plays an important role in Gadamer’s subsequent thinking.
7. Postmodern Hermeneutics
The rise of postmodernism has proved to be an important impetus for developments within hermeneutics.
While ‘postmodernism’ signifies a number of things, of particular influence in philosophy is Jean-François
Lyotard’s definition of postmodernism as an “incredulity toward metanarratives” (Lyotard, Postmodern
Condition, xxiv). By ‘metanarrative,’ Lyotard has in mind foundational stories of modern Western
philosophy, especially, as these foundational stories function to legitimate discourses in the sciences
(Lyotard, Postmodern Condition, 34). Examples of metanarratives include, say, stories about the objectivity
of science and the contribution that science makes to the betterment of society.
Lyotard sees both a danger and a possibility in the postmodern rejection of metanarratives. Lyotard
maintains that postmodern incredulity toward metanarratives has resulted, first, in the increased danger that
our valuation of knowledge will be reduced to one, totalizing standard, namely, that of an “information
commodity” produced and exchanged for the accumulation of wealth and power (Lyotard, Postmodern
Condition, 5). But, he believes, the postmodern incredulity toward metanarratives has resulted in a new
possibility, too, of liberating the creation of narrative meaning from the need to establish legitimating
foundations. Philosophers of postmodernism have sought to clarify such a postmodern possibility for the
creation of meaning through the development of hermeneutics (see Vattimo, Beyond Interpretation, Gary
Madison 1989, John D. Caputo 1987, 2018; for a creative intervention in postmodern hermeneutics, see
Davey 2006). In this, hermeneutics places stress on the possibility of interpretive experience to produce
new meaning and shifts away from concerns about truth and existence.
Probably the most influential conception of postmodern hermeneutics is embodied in Gianni Vattimo’s
notion of ‘weak thought.’ Vattimo’s hermeneutics is influenced not only by figures such as Gadamer and
Heidegger, but also Nietzsche, as well as the important Italian philosopher Luigi Pareyson (see Benso,
2018). By ‘weak thought,’ Vattimo has in mind interpretive practices that incrementally diminish the
efficacy of narratives about the purported ‘being’ of things that have been passed down from the tradition
of Western metaphysics. Vattimo embraces the postmodern possibility to liberate the creation of meaning
from any needs for foundation or legitimacy. Building on Heidegger and Nietzsche, Vattimo argues that
despite all postmodern incredulity, narratives passed down about the purported ‘being’ of things continue to
be in effect, often tacitly, in a broad range of our current beliefs and practices. What is then called for are
interpretive practices that loosen the hold of these narratives, and thus expose that what they have to say
about the ‘being’ of things are not eternal verities but, instead, mockups that are subject to interpretive
revision. Vattimo, then, defines interpretive experience not in Gadamerian terms of a conversation that
brings something into focus in its being, as it genuinely is. Rather, he conceives of interpretive experience
as a practice of recovery, even convalescence (Verwindung), that weakens the effects of interpretations of
‘being’ passed down from Western metaphysics. Indeed, Vattimo associates the possibility to liberate
meaning through weak thought as the pursuit of what he calls ‘accomplished nihilism,’ in that weak
thought seeks to unmask every sense of ‘being’ which purports to be more than the result of an
interpretation (see Vattimo, Beyond Interpretation, The End of Modernity).
8. Further Developments
Research in hermeneutics is perhaps more diverse now than at any other period in the historical movement,
and has also begun to expand interest in hermeneutical considerations to contexts such as feminist
philosophy (see Warnke 2015), comparative philosophy (see, for example, Nelson 2017), philosophy of
embodiment (see, for example, Kearney 2015), and Latin American philosophy (see, for example, Vallega
2019). While it is impossible to gather all directions of current research in a short article, some further
developments have received particular attention.