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The Authenticity of the Text in Hermeneutics

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The Authenticity of the Text in Hermeneutics Cultural Heritage and Contemporary Change Series IIA. Islam. Volume 4 The Authenticity of the Text in Hermeneutics By Seyed Musa Dibadj The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy Copyright © 1998 by The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy Gibbons Hall B-20 620 Michigan Avenue, NE Washington, D.C. 20064 All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Dibadj, Seyed Musa. The authenticity of the text in hermeneuctics / Seyed Musa Dibadj. p.cm. – (Cultural heritage and contemporary change. Series IIA Islam; vol. 4) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Hermeneutics. I. Title. II. Series. BB241.D44 1998 98-6099 121’.6861—dc21 CIP ISBN 1-56518-117-4 (pbk.) Table of Contents Preface vii Introduction 1 Chapter I. The Need of Hermeneutics for a Sufficient Foundation 3 Chapter II. An Introductory Survey on the Inner Sufficiency of the Hermëneutikos methods 27 Chapter III. The Text as Internally Founded in the Introspection of Hermeneutics 59 Chapter IV. The Fundamental Character of the Question of the Text in Hermeneutics 93 Notes 127 Reference 163 Index 167 Preface George F. McLean The work of hermeneutics rightly began as interpreting sacred texts. These bear the properly transcendent message of God to humankind regarding His goals for creation and the ways to realize them in time. Each culture has been endowed with such knowledge which enlightens the mind and with values which move the heart. Some even have been recipients of explicitly dictated Sacred Texts. In the past the focus of scientific knowledge was entirely upon objective knowledge to which the human appreciation of reality was restricted. In this light hermeneutics was concerned with how the text stated objective truth. In recent times human self-awareness has taken dramatic steps. This has made possible a greater appreciation of the reality of human subjectivity, its development through time, and indeed its character as the highest of God’s creation. In this light hermeneutics has tended to shift from the external referent of the text to the text itself, as bearing through history the creative work of human subjectivity. Today we stand at a crossroad at which objectivity and sub-jectivity meet and generate new challenges and opportunities. This has led to important concerns, especially in relation to sacred texts. If human subjectivity enters the picture would it not be at the expense of what is truly divine and transcendent in a text; and if so must human interpretation be suppressed in the reading of the text. In that case, one is faced with the impossible choice of either re-jecting human historicity in order to be faithful to the sacred text, or needing to journey through time alone without divine guidance. The first path leads to fundamentalism, the second to secularism; both, in the words of Parmenides, are "all impossible ways". In the face of this dilemma Professor Seyed Musa Dabadj, a professor at Qom in Iran, in this work, written at the Catholic Uni-versity of America in Washington, has accomplished something of the greatest moment for hermeneutics, both in general and, by implication, for Sacred texts in particular. He has entered upon the issue through the contemporary Betti-Gadamer debate over objecti-vity and subjectivity in the hermeneutics of legal texts. This enables him to identify the special role of subjectivity for the text, which, he shows, lives and speaks through time via the human reader. But he has done something more, and of crucial importance to the dilemma described above. With Heidegger, he has shown how Transcendent Being emerges in time precisely through the Dasein or the human as conscious. By tracing the text to these metaphysical roots he establishes the deeper truth of Kierkegaard’s insight that subjectivity is indeed objectivity. In the light Professor Dabadj is able both to protect the text from relativization by the reader and to show how, on the contrary, the reader gives voice to the meaning of the text in time. This enables the text to guide humankind in its many and ever changing circumstances. More the deeply insightful and comprehensive vision of this work has yet broader importance at this turn of millennia. For four centuries philosophy has focused on reducing all to human reason in a way that allowed for humanization only at the lost of the divine borne by cultural traditions of the many peoples. Seyed Musa Dabadj points out another, more hopeful route, namely, a humaniza-tion of our world which is authentic precisely because a new transcendence in the divine. His is a work which must be read. Introduction Seyed Musa Dibadj This work examines the text as the reference of interpretation as this generally is employed in the human sciences (Geistes-wissenschaften). It will investigate the fundamental question of understanding the text, from the standpoint of contemporary hermeneutics. The aim here is to show that an adequate hermeneutical theory presupposes an understanding of being. One reason for pursuing this aim is a recent debate about the possibility of objectivity in interpretation. In particular, Emilio Betti does not want attention to the role of human subjectivity to undermine the place of the text as the source of objective criteria for interpretation. This issue is not simply a matter of epistemology, nor of choice between subjectivism and objec-tivism. Rather, it is a matter of drawing out the hermeneutical implications of respecting the role played by the understanding of being in interpretation. A principle source for the present investiga-tion is the work by the other party to this debate, H.-G. Gadamer. The work is divided into four chapters. Chapter I situates the issue in the contemporary debates by looking at Betti’s effort to resolve the question of the role of the text in terms of the "objectivi- sation" in understanding. The chapter will advance Gadamer’s critique of Betti’s position and thereby show how Gadamer’s thought transcends the issue of subjectivity and objectivity. Chapter II unfolds Gadamer’s view that the task of hermeneu-tics is not to develop a method for interpretation, but to facilitate the understanding that takes place in the human sciences. The first part of the chapter will show that the consideration of the prejudicial conditions of understanding is necessary but insufficient as a-theory of interpretation. The other part of the chapter will raise the question whether an adequate hermeneutical theory can avoid ontological issues. Chapter III critically expands Gadamer’s hermeneutic of pre-judicial understanding to its ontological dimensions. In this respect the first task will be to show how, following Heidegger, Gadamer understands the text as the essential requirement of interpretation. A study of temporality will aid in showing that the text must be re-garded as the reference of interpretation and that it determines the understanding. Chapter IV draws the central conclusions from the previous chapters. It will show how the question of the text is inextricably tied to the question of ontological understanding in interpretation, conceived as the process of constructively unveiling the text. The last section will articulate some important consequences of taking the concept of the text as the fundamental question in human sciences, in poetry and in the study of Scripture. I would like to acknowledge here the assistance of my professor and colleagues at the Catholic University of America, Washington, particularly Professor George F. McLean in the accomplishment of this work. Bibliography Mclaughlin and David Pellauer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984, 1986, 1988. Rosen, Stanley. Hermeneutics as Politics. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. Silverman, Hugh J., ed. Continental Philosophy IV, Gadamer And Hermeneutics. New York: Routledge, Chapman and Hill, 1991. …... Gadamer and Hermeneutic. New York, N.Y.: Routledge, Chapman and Hall, 1991. Valdes, Mario J., ed. A Ricoeur Reader: Reflection and Imagination. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigation. New York: Macmillan, 1953. …... Preliminary Studies for the "Philosophical Investigation" generally known as the blue and brawn books. Oxford: B. Blackwell, 1958. Kant Studien, herausgegeben von Gerhard und Rudolf Malter. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, Heft 2. 1993. Chapter I The Need of Hermeneutics for a Sufficient Foundation The Inadequacy of the Theory of Objectivation in Understanding To review the history of the problem of hermeneutic objec-tivity, one must begin with the aim of Dilthey’s hermeneutics, namely, emphasizing the objects in which human life is expressed. Dilthey writes that hermeneutics has a further and main purpose behind its theorizing, namely, to preserve the general validity of interpretation against romantic caprice and skeptical subjectivity. A theoretical justification is needed upon which every certainty of historical knowledge is followed.1 Hermeneutics includes both grammatical and psychological interpretation. As Gadamer correctly shows, in Schleiermacher’s theory of hermeneutics more emphasis is placed upon psychological interpretation described ultimately as an apprehension of the inner origin of the composition of a work, a re-creation of the creative act.2 In this sense, interpretation is a reproduction of an original pro-duction, a reconstruction which begins from the vital moment of conception. This view of understanding, as Gadamer explains, pre-vents us from seeing the reference of hermeneutic in terms of its subject matter, in the sense of Schleiermacher’s "being". Following Kant, Schleiermacher considers artistic thoughts as life moments which contain pleasure, but still are not regarded as tied to being. This involves a crucial distinction between the poetic text and the scientific text. According to this account of interpretation, poetic utterance is not subject to the criterion of agreement with the thing meant, because what is said in poetry cannot be separated from the way it is said.3 Yet, in this understanding, the object of the her-meneutic reference is not a strong foundation.
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