Hermeneutics: Interpretation Theory in Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer

By Richard E. Palmer and Palmer

Book Overview

Hermeneutics introduces English-speaking readers to a field of increasing importance in contemporary philosophy and theology-hermeneutics, the theory of understanding, or interpretation. Hermeneutics is concerned with the character of understanding, especially as it is related to interpreting linguistic texts. It goes beyond mere philological methodology, however, to questions of the philosophy of language, the nature of historical understanding, and ultimately the roots of interpretation in existential understanding.

Palmer principally treats the conception of hermeneutics enunciated by Heidegger and developed into a "philosophical hermeneutics" by Hans-Georg Gadamer. He provides a brief overview of the field of hermeneutics by surveying some half-dozen alternate definitions of the term and by examining in detail the contributions of Friedrich Schleiermacher and Wilhelm Dilthey. In the "Manifesto" which concludes the book, Palmer suggests the potential significance of hermeneutics for literary interpretation.

When the context of interpretation is pressed to its limits, hermeneutics becomes the philosophical analysis of what is involved in every act of understanding. In this context, hermeneutics becomes relevant not simply to the humanistic disciplines, in which linguistic and historical understanding are crucial, but to scientific forms of interpretation as well, for it asserts the principles involved in any and every act of interpretation.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0810104598
• ISBN13: 9780810104594
• Release Date: August 1970
• Publisher: Northwestern University Press
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.9" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Hermeneutics (SPEP)

Started reading this book for class, and it is pretty informative, but I don't think I would buy this book just for fun to read unless you're a philosophy major

Use the Hermeneutic lens to "see" the world

I read this book for a graduate seminar on philosophy of art. Richard E. Palmer's "Hermeneutics" is an excellent guide to reading and understanding Hans-Georg Gadamer's "magnum opus" "Truth and Method," which is a seminal work not just for the field of the philosophy of art, but also for epistemology, ontology, teleology, history, and the social sciences. This book has caused me to "see" everything in a new philosophical light. When reading Gadamer, one instantly finds that he was influenced by Martin Heidegger, who he studied under, Hegel, and Aristotle. Hermeneutics is an interpretive methodology of a historically situated, linguistically mediated, contextualist and antifoundationalist theory of understanding. I know that is a mouthful, so the following will unpack this definition. The God Hermes is the source of the word "hermeneutics" Hermes the "messenger" was the go between the Gods and humans thus the word hermeneutics. For Gadamer, interpretation is always connected with the "as," interpretation assumes that there are multiple ways or "lenses" with how we engage works. A different lens will produce a different way of seeing things. So, if our "as" is "cognitive knowledge" then we would approach a thing accordingly. If our "as" is "practical usefulness" then we approach it accordingly. For example, a botanist wants to understand what makes a tree a tree, a carpenter sees a tree as a source of lumber. Thus, hermeneutics is about the idea that there are many ways to interpret, which is why history is so important. It can also be present the world. Does historical inheritance allow for a blank slate? No, no divorce from what we are to be able approach a work in pure disinterestedness as Kant would have us do. No separate space in time. No pure present separated from the future. History doesn't tell us about the past, but about ourselves. Every present has sense of future, not just the past. Gadamer's idea of interpretation is to turn away from the idea of truth as a simple matter of fact, or certainty or a single principle. The idea of interpretation is that it is something that is "open." We use the word "interpret" that way when we say, "well how do you interpret that work"? This question means that there is not one way of reading the work. Unfortunately, though the difference between interpretation and fact is that a fact is not something open to interpretation, and therefore interpretation is seen as some kind of deficiency. It is seen as a lesser matter because it is open, and can't be secured by some kind of decisive result. A wide array of possibilities is what hermeneutics looks for; it is not just making it up. Hermeneutics does not mean one can't believe in objective truths; for example, there was a Civil War, it is a fact, what isn't a fact and has multiple truths and interpretations is what where the "causes" of the Civil War. Thus, hermeneutics for Gadamer doesn't mean that anything goes, it just mea