Hermeneutics

   Hermeneutics is (1) the theory of interpretation, a systematic articulation of the principles that underlie the interpretation of texts, (2) an approach to philosophy that begins with issues of interpretation. The history of hermeneutics has seen (2) gradually emerge from the development of (1). Initially hermeneutics arose with a concern for the appropriate exegesis and interpretation of religious texts (especially the Bible). Medieval biblical hermeneutics was dominated by the 'Quadriga' the alleged four levels of meaning in each biblical passage: literal, allegorical, tropological (or moral) and anagogical (or eschatological). With the Reformation turn to the literal sense, the development of modern hermeneutics began, coming fully to birth with Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher, who argued that we come to understand the text both with relation to the grammatical form and the psychological condition of the writer. Through the work of philosophers like Wilhelm Dilthey, Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer, hermeneutics in the second sense has gradually emerged. Hence, Gadamer viewed hermeneutics in the broadest sense as encompassing everything interpretable, from texts to people to events. Moreover, he stressed the absence of transhistorical criteria of interpretation, which leads to the hermeneutical circle, a recognition that understanding comes only through tacit foreknowledge. The interpretation of texts thus involves a fusion of horizons between the interpreter and text. This has proved very influential for such Christian philosophers as Paul Ricoeur.

   See Heidegger, Martin; Ricoeur, Paul; Schleiermacher, Friedrich Daniel Ernst

   Further reading: Gadamer 2003; Ricoeur 1981, 1991, 1996 and 2004; Shapiro and Sico 1984; Thiselton 1992