Philosophical hermeneutics
Understanding is not one method among others but our way of existing: we make a meaning our own only from what we inherit.
1960 – …
A movement that makes interpretation the central question of philosophy, refounded by 's . Hermeneutics was long an art of reading difficult texts, scripture or law. made it a general theory of understanding, both grammatical (the language of the text) and psychological (the author's thought), and the method of the human sciences. Heidegger shifted it by making understanding a feature of existence itself. Philosophical hermeneutics is taken here to begin with 's (1960). broadened it to symbol, psychoanalysis and narrative, bringing it into dialogue with the human sciences. Gadamer's debate with (1967-1971) over the authority of tradition and the critique of ideology remains its high point; Ricœur sought a mediation between them.
There is a truth that method does not exhaust: the truth we undergo in the work of art, in history and in dialogue, which cannot be checked like a laboratory experiment.
We never understand from nowhere: our prejudices, inherited from a tradition, make understanding possible, even though understanding must put them to the test.
Justification
starts from the experience of art: the work teaches us something, and this truth cannot be reduced to the outcome of a methodical procedure. The human sciences were wrong, in his view, to seek their legitimacy by imitating the natural sciences; he does not reject method, he rejects the claim that it is the only access to truth. refuses to choose between explaining and understanding: the structural analysis of a text prepares our appropriation of its meaning instead of replacing it.
Gadamer, Truth and Method (1960), introduction and Part I · Ricœur, "Explanation and Understanding", From Text to Action (1986)
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Justification
The axis concerns the meaning of words; hermeneutics speaks of the interpretation of texts, hence a correspondence that is only approximate. gave interpretation the aim of reconstructing the author's thought. replies that the meaning of a text goes beyond its author, not occasionally but always. explains this through : once written, the text frees itself from its author and its first audience. Meaning is at stake in application, which brings it closer to use; the author's intention remains a landmark, hence its share, without being the norm of interpretation.
Gadamer, Truth and Method (1960), Part II, II.1.c · Ricœur, "The Hermeneutical Function of Distanciation", From Text to Action (1986)
Justification
The position belongs first of all to : the self is not grasped directly but indirectly, through signs, works and narratives. He distinguishes idem-identity, the sameness of character, which answers the question of permanence over time, hence a share left to continuity, from ipse-identity, selfhood, self-constancy in keeping one's word. mediates between the two: by telling one's life, one holds together what endures and what changes.
Ricœur, Time and Narrative, III (1985) · Ricœur, Oneself as Another (1990), fifth and sixth studies
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Justification
The Enlightenment discredited ; rehabilitates the word in its original sense, a judgment made before examination. Every interpreter belongs to a tradition that has already worked on the object as well as on the interpreter's own situation, what he calls (Wirkungsgeschichte). Not all prejudices are legitimate: temporal distance and dialogue help sort those that illuminate from those that mislead. To understand is to achieve a : the horizon of the present forms only by widening to include that of the past. The forward-looking share comes from the anticipation of meaning, inherited from Heidegger: we always understand by projecting ourselves towards a meaning to come, which application to the present fulfils. objects that a tradition can also pass on domination, which hermeneutics alone cannot unmask.
Gadamer, Truth and Method (1960), Part II, II.1 · Habermas, On the Logic of the Social Sciences (1967)
Lineages
See on the friezeAll lineages↑ Influences received
- Reacts againstSchleiermacherSchleiermacher founded general hermeneutics, whose aim is to understand the author as well as and better than he understood himself.Read
- ReinterpretsDiltheyDilthey had made understanding the proper method of the human sciences.Read
- ContinuesHeideggerHeidegger turned understanding from a method into a mode of being of Dasein, always caught in a circle of anticipations.Read
↓ Influence exerted
- challenged byHabermasAgainst Gadamer, Habermas argues that a tradition can pass on communication distorted by domination; what is needed is therefore a critique of ideology that does not depend on tradition.Read