Hermeneutic Circle -- Viscious Or Victorious
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Hermeneutic Circle-Viscious or Victorious Maddox, Randy L Philosophy Today; Spring 1983; 27, 1; ProQuest pg. 66 Hermeneutic Circle -- Viscious or Victorious randy I. maddox The discipline of hermeneutics has has received much attention and in come to play an increasing role in con many ways helps to characterize the temporary philosophical discus.sion. various "schools" of thought is that of, This is a direct result of the awareness the "hermeneutic circle."2 Expressed that characterizes nearly all modern in perhaps its simplest terms, the desig thought of the contextual nature ·of nation "hermeneutic circle" refers to· truth. For, precisely the concern of the dilemma that "a certain preunder hermeneutics is the attempt to mediate standing of a subject is necessary or no meaning expressed from one context to communication will tal{e place, yet that another. understanding must be altered in the Philosophy has not, however, sim act of understanding."3 The debate in ply taken over the models and methods contemporary hermeneutical discussion of hermeneutics utilized, for example, deals with the nature of that preunder in theological and legal thought, and standing and the extent to which it can applied them - unchanged - to its be altered. The purpose of this paper problem. Rather, precisely the question is to present an overview of this debate of the appropriate methods and; or un and advance a constructive proposal re derstanding of hermeneutics has be lating to it. To facilitate the discussion, come a matter of vigorous contempor a short summary of the background to ary philosophical debate. In a recent the present debate is first required. survey treatment, Josef Bleicher has identified three main "schools" of BACKGROUND TO thought within this debate which he CONTEMI'ORABY DISCUSSION designates "Hermeneutics as 1) Meth While something like the herme od, 2) Philosophy and 3) Criticism."1 neutical circle was discussed as far back As the primary contemporary represen as classical rhetoric,"' the more perti tatives of these groups he treats 1) nent background for tlte contemporary Emilio Betti, 2) Hans-Georg Gadamer discussion begins with the man who is and 3) .Tiirgen Habermas. generally recognized as the father of Within this debate on the nature the concern for hermeneutics in a sys of hermeneutics, a particular topic that tematic and general fashion - Fried~ PHILOSOPHY TODAY SPRING 1983 66 Copyright (c) 2002 ProQuest Information and Learning Company Copyright (c) DePaul University rich Schleiermacher. While Schleier~ of the whole and its .parts and that the macher was primarily concerned with solutions deal with the problem ln the use of hermeneutics in theology, his terms of a method. real significance lies in the fact that he A development that is in essential stressed the need to set this specific continuity with Schleiermacher's ap~ hermeneutical task within a general proach can be found in the philologist hermeneutical understanding that dealt August Boeckh - a student of Schlei~ with hermeneutics as the "art of under ermacher. In his treatment of the in~ standing.''5 The key to his conception terpetive moment of philology, Boeckh of this art is found in his ma::>!:im that notes that a circle of reasoning hermeneutics comes into play where is found in various kinds of interpreta understanding breal:rs down. 6 This is tion. "In fine, the various kinds of in~ not to say that herr.neneutics deals only terpretation presume substantial a with difficult texts, for one must build mounts of factual knowledge, and yet one's understanding of the diffieult text these different bodies of knowledge be on the basis of one's understanding of come known first through interpreta the more common texts. Nonetheless, tion of all the sources.''11 Recognizing the special task of hermeneuti.cs deals that this circle could become "vicious," with explaining difficulties. As such i.e., allow for no solution, he defines the hermeneutics can be called " 'part' of essence of the hermeneutic art as the the art of thinking."7 attempt to avoid this.12 The means by Schleiermacher's treatment of the which this is done are again methodo hermeneutical circle fits in precisely logical in that Boeckh's recommenda here. The essence of the problem is tion is that one break this circle by: that in trying to understand an author {or another language, etc.) one finds beginning with clear-cut examples, where the historical basis is given oneself involved in the dilemma that or can be supplied. After these ..complete knowledge always involves have been analyzed and the prin an apparent circle, that each part can ciple governing the manner of rep~ be understood only out of the whole to resentation has been discovered, which it belongs and vice versa."8 That this principle may by analogy be applied to more difficult in Schleiermacher sees this problem as stances.13 primarily a matter of method or the development of an art is evidenced in A significant further development his proposed solutions. There actually in the discussion of the hermeneutical seem to be two solutions proposed. The circle takes place in Wilhelm Dilthey. more "practical" solution is that one Essentially, where he goes beyond should first read quickly through a Schleiermacher a"nd Boeckh is that he whole text and then start over again applies the relat!onship of the whole with the "vague" idea of the whole thus and the parts not just to texts but to gained and attempt to "fill it out."9 In the structural continuity of life itse-lf. other places there is reference to what To quote him: "All psychological Schleiermacher calls "divination" as thought contains the basic feature that the key to breaking into the circle.10 the apprehension of the whole makes For our purposes, an explanation of the possible and determines the interpre relation of these two ways is not neces tation of the individual."H However, sary. The primary point is that the not only was he critical of the Roman problem is basically that of the relation ticist restriction to texts, he also HERMENEUTICAL CIRCLE • • • 67 Copyright (c) 2002 ProQuest Information and Learning Company Copyright (c) DePaul University charged them with not taking the As he argues, all interpretation i3 relativity of history seriously enough grounded in a fore-having, a fore-sight, and thus producing a closed sense of and a fore-conception.20 What consti unity.~~ His main point in response is tutes this preunderstanding is not, how that the focal point of the hermeneuti ever, some unchanging structure of the cal circle must be seen as a hypotheti mind or some innate content that needs cal or reflective element, not something merely be reawakened. Rather, it is concrete or divined.16 From his under the product of all previous experience standing of the hermeneutical circle, and understanding and the "horizon" Dilthey drew several conclusions. These of ·~he current experience that is pres included: 1) meaning and meaningful ent apprehensively (drawing on Hus ness are contextual; 2) meaning is his serl21} in the experience itself. The pur torical, it has changed with time; 3) pose of interpretation is not to escape there is really no true starting point this preunderstanding but rather to ex for understanding; and 4} there is thus plicate what is present there in an im no presuppositionless understanding.11 plicit or vague manner. Once interpre It is in this light that Dilthey can claim tation has accomplished this, the circle that the process of understanding con does not cease to exist. Rather, the new ceived in terms of the hermeneutical understanding becomes the preunder circle is peculiarly suited to deal with standing of the following experience. the dynamism of historical life and its In this Heidegger agrees with Dilthey subsystems."8 against the Romanticists who, because The final figure to be dealt with they dealt at the level of texts, could in this background discussion- Martin talk of a final or complete understand Heidegger - in many ways is a con ing, tinuation of the move of Dilthey to uni Heidegger's main concern is to versalize the significance of the her deny that this circle is "vicious." In meneutical circle. However, Heidegger deed, he castigates even the "feeling does this through the radical method of that the existence of the circle is an in defining the nature of understanding evitable imperfection" as a misunder itself as circular and then making the standing of the act of understanding particular expressions studied by his which neglects the basic structure of predecessors derivative of this struc "care" that characterizes all under ture of understanding. In short, his is standing.22 For him, what is decisive is a treatment of the hermeneutic circle not how to get out of the circle but which develops at the level of an on rather that one should recognize the tology of the understanding rather than fact that all understanding is inevitably merely at the level of methodology as in the circle and that one should "ex in Schleiermacher or Boeckh.w ploit" this situation, for in the circle is Heidegger's essential point is that hidden a positive possibility of the most an interpretation must arise from a primordial kind of knowing.:2a previous understanding however vague - of the matter under consider Heidegger's radicalization of the ation and that its goal is to lead to a hermeneutical circle, which makes the new understanding which can then be methodological approach of Schleier come the basis for further interpreta macher and Boeckh a derivative of an tion. He is denying the view that un ontological account of understanding, derstanding can be presuppositionless.