Copyright © 2014 SAGE Publications. Not for sale, reproduction, or distribution. Hermeneutics 375 Further Readings from the Greek gods. Hermes was not simply a mes- Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education. London, senger, however. He was also a trickster. It was not England: Macmillan. always easy to determine which role Hermes was Dunkel, H. B. (1969). Herbart and education. New York, playing. NY: Random House. As Hermes’s story suggests, understanding and Dunkel, H. B. (1970). Herbart and Herbartianism: interpretation can be fraught. In education, for An educational ghost story. Chicago, IL: University of example, students sometimes struggle to understand Chicago Press. the meaning of texts. Teachers try to understand English, A. R. (2013). Discontinuity in learning: Dewey, students’ questions and may wonder about the Herbart, and education as transformation. New York, meaning of teaching for their own lives. Educational NY: Cambridge University Press. researchers who use qualitative and quantitative Herbart, J. F. (1852). Johann Friedrich Herbart’s methods make interpretive judgments (albeit for Sämmtliche Werke [Collected works] (12 vols.; G. different reasons) and must determine whether their Hartenstein, Ed.). Leipzig, Germany: Leopold Voss. interpretations are defensible. Hermeneutic theory (Original work published 1850) recognizes that interpretive challenges such as these Herbart, J. F. (1896). Herbart’s ABC of sense-perception can be analyzed from various perspectives that posit and minor pedagogical works (W. J. Eckoff, Ed. & different assumptions about what interpretation Trans.). New York, NY: D. Appleton. entails and what the goals of interpretation should Herbart, J. F. (1898). Letters and lectures on education be. Becoming familiar with debates in hermeneutic (H. M. Felkin & E. Felkin, Trans.). London, England: theory can help us appreciate the interpretive com- Swan Sonnenschei. plexities we encounter every day and permit us to Herbart, J. F. (1902). The science of education, its general become more thoughtful interpreters. principles deduced from its aim, and the aesthetic A key debate concerns how interpretation is revelation of the world (H. M. Felkin & E. Felkin, defined. One definition frames interpretation in Trans.). Boston, MA: D. C. Heath. terms of epistemology (the philosophy of knowing Herbart, J. F. (1912). Johann Friedrich Herbart’s Sämtliche and knowledge). From this perspective, interpreta- Werke in Chronologischer Reihenfolge [Complete works in chronological order] (19 vols.; K. Kehrbach, Ed.). tion is a method or cognitive strategy we employ to Langensalza, Germany: Hermann Beyer und Söhne. clarify or construct meaning. The goal is to produce (Original work published 1887) valid understanding of meaningful “objects,” such Herbart, J. F. (1913). Outlines of educational doctrine as texts, artifacts, spoken words, experiences, and (A. F. Lange, Trans.). New York, NY: Macmillan. intentions. The second definition frames interpretation in terms of ontology (the philosophy of being and Website existence). In this view, interpretation is not an National Society for the Study of Education: https://nsse- act of cognition, a special method, or a theory of chicago.org/Home.asp knowledge. Interpretation, instead, characterizes how human beings naturally experience the world. Realized through our moods, concerns, self-under- HERMENEUTICS standing, and practical engagements with people and things we encounter in our sociohistorical Hermeneutics—“a term whose Greek looks, theo- contexts, interpretation is an unavoidable aspect of logical past, and Herr Professor pretentiousness human existence. ought not put us off because, under the homelier The epistemological and ontological definitions and less fussy name of interpretation, it is what of interpretation interact as sibling rivals. The her- many of us at least have been talking all the time.” meneutic “family split” arose more than a century ago when beliefs about the practice and aim of inter- —Clifford Geertz, Local Knowledge pretation intersected with the success of physical sci- (1983, p. 224) ence and the rise of social science. In the course of this entry, we will examine the German branch of Hermeneutics is the theory and philosophy of under- the hermeneutic family tree beginning in the 19th standing and interpretation. The term derives from century with Wilhelm Dilthey, who argued that Hermes, a son of Zeus, who interprets messages interpretation is both (a) a method and a theory of Copyright © 2014 SAGE Publications. Not for sale, reproduction, or distribution. 376 Hermeneutics knowledge for the human sciences and (b) the prere- Dilthey based his ideas on the hermeneutic circle, flective mode of everyday lived experience. As will be a method of interpretation that became prominent shown, Dilthey could not reconcile his aspiration for during the Reformation, when Protestant theolo- an epistemology of interpretive social science with gians sought to interpret the Bible without appealing his realization that interpretation is an ontological to the Catholic Church to determine the meaning feature of human experience that cannot easily be of problematic passages or resolve interpretive dis- transformed into reflective scientific knowledge. putes. As its name suggests, the hermeneutic method In the 20th century, Martin Heidegger argued assumes that interpretation is circular. Because the that Dilthey was correct to intuit that “lived” meaning of the Bible was thought to be unified and understanding cannot be fully theorized or methodi- self-consistent, the meaning of any specific passage cally regulated. Unlike Dilthey, however, Heidegger could be determined by referring to the text as a maintained that scientific knowledge necessarily whole. But since understanding the text as a whole remains indebted to lived understanding. We will presumes understanding its problematic passages, explore why Heidegger argued for the primacy of determining the meaning of a problematic passage lived understanding. We will also see how Hans- depends on a preliminary intuitive grasp of the Georg Gadamer drew on Heidegger’s hermeneutics text’s entire meaning. Biblical exegesis thus revolves to develop an ontological model of social science, in a continuous cycle of anticipation and revision. which posits that interpretation in social science is Interpreting the meaning of any part of the Bible no different from interpretation in ordinary life. depends on having already grasped the meaning of Gadamer’s ideas have provoked a range of the Bible as a whole, even as one’s understanding of responses. We will look at two contemporary criti- the entire Bible will be reshaped as one clarifies the cisms. One seeks to replace Gadamer’s ontological meaning of its constituent parts. hermeneutics with epistemological hermeneutics. The Another Protestant theologian, Friedrich other appreciates Gadamer’s ontological social science Schleiermacher (1768–1834), maintained that the but argues that it must be supplemented by method hermeneutic circle could ensure understanding not and theory. In conclusion, the entry will briefly review only of the Bible but also of all written and oral how educational philosophers use hermeneutics to expressions. Using this method correctly, inter- analyze educational practices, aims, and research. preters could understand the meaning of linguistic expressions better than the authors who produced them. Schleiermacher transformed the hermeneu- Interpretive Social Science: Dilthey’s Dilemma tic circle from a method of Biblical exegesis into Wilhelm Dilthey (1833–1911), a Protestant a general theory of interpretation that explained theologian, devoted his life to developing the how understanding could be achieved in ordinary Geisteswissenschaften (German for social science, circumstances. also translated as the human or moral sciences, or Extending Schleiermacher, Dilthey contended sciences of mind or of the human spirit). Dilthey that the hermeneutic circle not only helps people thought that human beings express their under- reflectively interpret others’ meaningful expres- standing of life experience in the form of meaningful sions but also enables people to understand objects, such as texts, works of art, and various cul- themselves and their own lived experience. This tural expressions, and that interpreting these mean- is because life experiences do not unfold in linear ingful objects is fundamental for maintaining social fashion but, instead, are related to one another as life. Social science therefore requires a hermeneutic parts are related to wholes. On the one hand, we method, not the methods of physical science. It also understand specific life experiences in terms of how requires an epistemology of interpretive knowledge, we understand the meaning of our life as a whole. not a theory of knowledge concerned with causal At the same time, the way we understand our life explanation. The German word Verstehen (inter- as a whole depends on how we understand specific pretation; commonly translated as understanding) life experiences. Understanding specific experiences captures Dilthey’s belief that the social sciences are thus shapes and also is shaped by understanding interpretive and, therefore, are distinct from the the overall meaning of our lives, even as under- physical sciences. Dilthey insisted that the two forms standing our life’s overall meaning both shapes of scientific knowledge, while different, are equally and is shaped by how we understand