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HERMENEUTICS

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Prepared By Mohamed Elgedawy

Hermeneutics as a Research Method

Overview

Hermeneutics, a form of an ontological inquiry, a method of conceptual –textual analysis, situates the text within its historical and socio-cultural context. Historically, hermeneutics is associated with the interpretation of the bible. The term “hermeneutics” was initially drawn from the Greek verb “hermeneueuein” (to interpret), and from the noun “ hermeneia (interpretation). Since the 19 century, hermeneutics expanded its domain to embrace not only biblical texts, but historical, literary, legal texts, and other experiences and events as well. As a research methodology, hermeneutics focuses on understanding, interpreting, exploring, and clarifying the hidden meaning of texts or any other written or oral event. Primarily, hermeneutics deals with how we make sense of what is said or written in a particular moment in time and place. It is a deductive process of reading and understanding the researched item (Palmer, 1969; Bleicher, 1980; Byrne, 2003).

Definition

Webster ‘s Third New International Dictionary defines hermeneutics as “ the study of methodological principles of interpretation and explanation “ (Palmer, 1969).

Key players

Martin Heidegger ( 1889 – 1976) Heidegger was born in Messkirch in Germany, and studied between 1913 and 1916 theology, philosophy , science, and history, where he received two doctorate degrees. In his published seminal work “ Being and Time” (1927), Heidegger considered understanding/interpretation as “a mode of being”.

Hans-Geory Gadamer , a student of Heidegger, was born in 1900, studied philosophy, and received his doctorate in 1922. In his distinguished work Truth and Method, Gadamer asserts that “no understanding/interpretation would be possible if the interpreter were not also part of the historical continuum, which he and the phenomenon he studies must share“ (Mueller-Vollmer, 1994).

Main principles

1. Meaning is socio-culturally and historically situated

2. We articulate our understanding/interpretation of the world according to our own intersubjective and contextualized perspectives.

3. We convey our thoughts, understanding, and interpretations through language and communication, and the model of communication is dialogue

4. Hermeneutic interpretation focuses on what is said and what is unsaid (the hidden logic of the speaker or the writer)

5. At the heart of the hermeneutic articulation is a reconception of the past and the present and a projection of the future

6. Meaning is not fixed, but changes over time

7. Language and history are essential anchors in making meaning possible

Annotated bibliography of selected works

Bleicher, J. ( 1980). Contemporary hermeneutics: Hermeneutics as a method, philosophy and critique. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.

Gives an overview of three basic contemporary hermeneutical stances : hermeneutical theory, hermeneutical philosophy, and critical hermeneutics. It presents hermeneutical theory as a methodology of interpreting and understanding ourselves and the world around us. The second part focuses on Dilthy’s hermeneutic philosophy, which historicizes and contextualizes interpretation and understanding.

The third part introduces critical hermeneutics as developed by Hebermas, who challenged the principles of both hermeneutic theory and hermeneutic philosophy and their subjective and intersubjective premises. This part of the book highlights Hebermas’ critical hermeneutics which, as he claims, goes beyond interpretation to embrace” self reflexive and liberating” mode of making meaning and scientific explanation of socio-cultural and economic parameters that put limitations on the interpreter. The book ends with a methodical glossary that helps researchers in understanding difficult terminologies( such as : Being, Dasein, critical hermeneutics, Hermeneutic Dialogue, Hermeneutical circle, Hermeneutic experience, Temporality, Pre-understanding, and …etc.) that the reader frequently encounters while reading books or articles about hermeneutics.

Gadamer, H. (( 1979 ). Interpretation and the science of man. In P. Rabinow & W. Sullivan (Eds.). Interpretive social science : A reader, ( pp.25-71). Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Focuses on the concept of “prejudice”, which, according to Gadamer’s hermeneutic philosophy, is impossible to eradicate from research as we can’t separate the knower from the known. The article presents Gadamer’s interpretive approach, which appropriates researchers’ prejudices being historically and culturally embedded in their interpretation of the data. Gadamer shows that it is our historical and cultural heritage that gives meaning to our interpretation, without which no understanding/interpretation is possible. The rest of the article provides a solution to our inescapable prejudice through reappropriating the Aristotelian dialectic approach, which helps researchers search for “the hidden constraints”, allowing to “ keep oneself open to what is other, to other, more universal points of view”( cited in Rabinow & Sullivan’s Introduction: The interpretive turn , p. 17).

Heidegger, M. ( 1962). Being and time. Trans. John Macquarrie & Edward Robinosn. New York : Harper and Row.

Translated Heidegger’s ontological process of inquiry, which historicizes our understanding in relation to our lived experiences in the present and the projected possibilities of the future. The book presents Heidegger’s concept of Dasein – the fundamental existential makeup of human survival – with its ontological understanding as part of its Being. It also explains Heidegger’s view of understanding as springing from a “primordial mode of understanding”, that is a fundamental constituent of Dasein’s Being. Heidegger shows how people’s historical, socio-cultural traditions shape their interpretation and understanding of a phenomenon or event and how the essence of our Being lies in our ability to understand, to anticipate, to project, and to envision new horizons and possibilities that give meaning to our life.

Mueller-Vollmer, K. ( 1994) (Ed.). The hermeneutics reader. New York : The Continuum Publishing Company.

Introduces a collection of texts written by hermeneutically oriented philosophers, theologians, historians, and social scientists to students of humanities and social sciences. The purpose of the book is to give its audience an overview of the essential ideas of the nineteenth and twentieth century hermeneutic tradition. Some of the texts in this book, according to the editor, are published in English for the first time with the intention of providing the reader with various aspects of hermeneutics as “originated from the German source."

Palmer, R. (1969). Hermeneutics: Interpretation theory in Schleiermacher, Dilthy, Heidegger, and Gadamer. Evanston, II: Nrthwestern University Press.

Gives a focused review of the meaning of hermeneutics, and provides a fundamental explanation of the term “Hermeneutics”, which might be unfamiliar to those who are concerned with the act of interpreting texts or events. The book designates the field of hermeneutics, giving considerable effort to exploring controversial definitions of hermeneutics while clarifying its scope. The first part of the book highlights the implications of hermeneutics for literary interpretation.

The second section presents an in-depth discussion of hermeneutic issues that concerned four of the most influential hermeneutic thinkers : Schleiermacher, Dilthy, Heidegger, and Gadamer, who provide thorough examination and clarification of questions such as, what is understanding? , What is interpretation? The book also provides a preliminary exploration of the philosophical foundation of hermeneutics. Palmer ends his book presenting a focused review of Heidegger’s ontological character of understanding, which goes beyond the subject-object dichotomy, fostering a new approach that views understanding “ not in the autonomous reflective activity of man but in the act of the world, the facticity of the world on man… [and as] the medium by which the world comes to stand before a man…the medium of ontological discourse…in which and through which one exists…[Thus understanding] can never be objectified, for it is within understanding that all objectification takes place. An existing human cannot survey understanding from without; understanding is always the position from which all that is seen is seen…[and] it is through language that something like a world can arise for us. This world is a shared world … of linguistic, historical, and ontological … understanding” (p. 228).

Taylor, C. ( 1979 ). Interpretation and the science of man. In P. Rabinow & W. Sullivan (Eds.). Interpretive social science : A reader, ( pp.25-71). Los Angeles: University of California Press

Spells out Taylor’s position as regards the elements of meaning, understanding, and interpretation, which he considers as neither objective nor subjective, but rather “intersubjective”. The article illuminates Taylor’s interpretive approach, which goes beyond the polarity of subjectivity and objectivity to embrace the idea of a common language and shared meaning, where what is “in here” in our minds is webbed into what is “out there” in the world, and where “there is no utter heterogeneity of interpretation”(p.38), “…but rather intersubjective meanings…and norms… [which] are not just in the minds of the actors but are out there in the practices themselves, practices which cannot be conceived as a set of individual actions, but which are essentially modes of social relation, of mutual action (p. 48).

Selected Useful links

Byrne, M. ( 2003 ). Hermeneutics 101. Available from : http://www.coe.uga.edu/quig/proceedings/Quig98_Proceedings/byrne.htmln Provides an easy-to read preliminary introduction to hermeneutics.

http://homepage.newschool.edu/~quigleyt/vcs/surber2.html This link encapsulates basic principles of hermeneutics.

http://www2.canisius.edu/~gallaghr/ahtheory.html Classified Hermeneutics as a research method into four categories :

# Conservative hermeneutics # Dialogical hermeneutics # Critical hermeneutics # Radical hermeneutics

This is a link to Gadamer home page: http://www.svcc.cc.il.us/academics/classes/gadamer/gadamer.htm

Compiled by: Kathleen Klompien, Nicole Munday and Mary Verbout