ITTOL - Lecture 3 - Ways in and out of the Hermeneutic Circle
Prof. Fry, in Lecture 3, defines hermeneutics as "the art or principles of interpretation" whose history, in Western culture, can be traced back to Aristotle but whose development stems primarily from Protestant theologians and their interest in interpreting and explaining scripture whose meanings are considered to be both important and difficult to grasp.
With the rise of Protestantism and the emergence of civil states, the art was increasingly applied to secular texts; in particular, the growing body of legal documents comprising secular law. In effect, the principles of interpretation grew to encompass the interpretation, and explanation, of secular as well as sacred laws. The art did not extend itself to include the interpretation and explanation of literature until the rise of Romanticism near the end of the 18th century. Prior to this period "good writing" was "clear writing"; if you could not understand what the writer meant then the writing was bad writing. With the rise of the Romantics, whose writings were derived primarily from personal insight and not the system of "shared values" that were the trademark of earlier literature, literature "begins to take over partly at least the role of religion." It becomes important as "secular scripture" and as such gets pulled into the field of hermeneutics.
It strikes me that the development of the art, then, is a gradual expansion of the interpretation and explanation of sacred law (scripture), to the interpretation and explanation of secular law (the constitution), to the interpretation and explanation of personal law (ethics, morals?). It can also be viewed as the devolution of authority from a Supreme Being, to a legislative body, to individual persons.
The movement of hermeneutics into literature during the age of Romanticism began with Fredrich Schleiermacher, a theologian who established a tradition in which literature became "the central focus of hermeneutics". He was followed by William Dilthey, Heidegger's Being and Time and Gadamer. The basic problem of this tradition is "the hermeneutic circle" or, as Prof. Fry says E. D. Hirsch defines it: as the relationship between the reader and the author with "the text acting a mediatory document containing the meaning of the author." or as Gadamer defines it, "a relationship between the reader and the text" or "the part and the whole" or "the past and the present". Fry enlarges on the definition, marking the circle as the interplay that occurs in trying to merge the historical, social, cultural and personal horizons of the reader, author and text. He describes a continuous back and forth that occurs as each part of the whole is digested and put into play in the understanding of the next part and so on until the whole is digested. In other words, the text is understood in part and the readers understanding of the part is understood according to what he knows and that understanding becomes the basis for understanding the next part, and all that is incorporated into how he reads and understands the next part and so on until the whole text is read at which point the reader understands the subject matter of the text or "what is there". Essentially the act of reading establishes a feedback loop with the readers understanding lighting the text and the raw text fuelling the readers understanding. The whole point of this is to introduce Gadamer's premise that we cannot help but come to a text without preconceptions; or as Gadamer says, without prejudice.
Heidegger recognizes the problem but believes we can draw our interpretation of the text directly from the text presumably by having a wider understanding of the place of the text in time. I think the sense here is that if you come to a text with only a very basic preconception i.e. these are written words, you get caught in the hermeneutic circle but, if you come to it as part of a continuing dialogue of written words and you've got a general understanding of how that dialogue has developed, then your preconceptions will be wider and less likely to trap you in a circular understanding of the material; you won't get caught up in a self-referential loop. This also appears to be Gadamer's approach; recognize that the reader and the text each have a past and that an effective interpretation needs to merge these histories to create what he calls an effective or useful history. It is not a question of knowing about things in the past but of bringing our understanding of the past to the text. In other words, it is not simply a matter of recognizing the author of the text came from a different time and place but an understanding of his time and place. At least, I think that's what he's getting at; we can't just bring past facts to the text, we must bring digested facts. According to Prof. Fry, the problem with this approach is that our understanding of the past is the source of our preconceptions. If we understand slavery to be ok, as many classicists did, then our effective or useful history will also understand slavery to be ok. [Is that necessarily true? I guess Jefferson is a prime example of this happening, he had no problem with the rights of man excluding blacks because for him Negros were first and foremost, slaves. The problem with prejudices is we are generally blind to our own.]
Now Fry says we need to contrast Gadamer's approach to that of E. D. Hirsch, who says that by merging the histories or past of the author with our own history to create a useful history we are essentially turning the past into a tool for our own use and destroying the author's original intention. According to Prof. Fry, Gadamer is eschewing methodology to get at the truth [a useful history?] while Hirsch is focused on a methodology for getting at meaning. Gadamer "is willing to sacrifice historical or cultural exactitude of meaning" because he knows his interpretation will also be coloured by his preconceptions but, since he is aware of them, they are a good, they don't taint the interpretation, they improve it. While Hirsch works to be as objective as possible, to get beyond his preconceptions to the author's original meaning; he doesn't want to merge his history with the author's, he wants the author to stand in his own light.
Prof. Fry points out that the two positions are irreconcilable. One states you can't get away from preconceptions so do your best to establish the truth of a text; the other, that you can't get to the truth without first understanding the original meaning and that there are objective methods that can be used to arrive at meaning. At least, that's what I've taken from the lecture.
With the rise of Protestantism and the emergence of civil states, the art was increasingly applied to secular texts; in particular, the growing body of legal documents comprising secular law. In effect, the principles of interpretation grew to encompass the interpretation, and explanation, of secular as well as sacred laws. The art did not extend itself to include the interpretation and explanation of literature until the rise of Romanticism near the end of the 18th century. Prior to this period "good writing" was "clear writing"; if you could not understand what the writer meant then the writing was bad writing. With the rise of the Romantics, whose writings were derived primarily from personal insight and not the system of "shared values" that were the trademark of earlier literature, literature "begins to take over partly at least the role of religion." It becomes important as "secular scripture" and as such gets pulled into the field of hermeneutics.
It strikes me that the development of the art, then, is a gradual expansion of the interpretation and explanation of sacred law (scripture), to the interpretation and explanation of secular law (the constitution), to the interpretation and explanation of personal law (ethics, morals?). It can also be viewed as the devolution of authority from a Supreme Being, to a legislative body, to individual persons.
The movement of hermeneutics into literature during the age of Romanticism began with Fredrich Schleiermacher, a theologian who established a tradition in which literature became "the central focus of hermeneutics". He was followed by William Dilthey, Heidegger's Being and Time and Gadamer. The basic problem of this tradition is "the hermeneutic circle" or, as Prof. Fry says E. D. Hirsch defines it: as the relationship between the reader and the author with "the text acting a mediatory document containing the meaning of the author." or as Gadamer defines it, "a relationship between the reader and the text" or "the part and the whole" or "the past and the present". Fry enlarges on the definition, marking the circle as the interplay that occurs in trying to merge the historical, social, cultural and personal horizons of the reader, author and text. He describes a continuous back and forth that occurs as each part of the whole is digested and put into play in the understanding of the next part and so on until the whole is digested. In other words, the text is understood in part and the readers understanding of the part is understood according to what he knows and that understanding becomes the basis for understanding the next part, and all that is incorporated into how he reads and understands the next part and so on until the whole text is read at which point the reader understands the subject matter of the text or "what is there". Essentially the act of reading establishes a feedback loop with the readers understanding lighting the text and the raw text fuelling the readers understanding. The whole point of this is to introduce Gadamer's premise that we cannot help but come to a text without preconceptions; or as Gadamer says, without prejudice.
Heidegger recognizes the problem but believes we can draw our interpretation of the text directly from the text presumably by having a wider understanding of the place of the text in time. I think the sense here is that if you come to a text with only a very basic preconception i.e. these are written words, you get caught in the hermeneutic circle but, if you come to it as part of a continuing dialogue of written words and you've got a general understanding of how that dialogue has developed, then your preconceptions will be wider and less likely to trap you in a circular understanding of the material; you won't get caught up in a self-referential loop. This also appears to be Gadamer's approach; recognize that the reader and the text each have a past and that an effective interpretation needs to merge these histories to create what he calls an effective or useful history. It is not a question of knowing about things in the past but of bringing our understanding of the past to the text. In other words, it is not simply a matter of recognizing the author of the text came from a different time and place but an understanding of his time and place. At least, I think that's what he's getting at; we can't just bring past facts to the text, we must bring digested facts. According to Prof. Fry, the problem with this approach is that our understanding of the past is the source of our preconceptions. If we understand slavery to be ok, as many classicists did, then our effective or useful history will also understand slavery to be ok. [Is that necessarily true? I guess Jefferson is a prime example of this happening, he had no problem with the rights of man excluding blacks because for him Negros were first and foremost, slaves. The problem with prejudices is we are generally blind to our own.]
Now Fry says we need to contrast Gadamer's approach to that of E. D. Hirsch, who says that by merging the histories or past of the author with our own history to create a useful history we are essentially turning the past into a tool for our own use and destroying the author's original intention. According to Prof. Fry, Gadamer is eschewing methodology to get at the truth [a useful history?] while Hirsch is focused on a methodology for getting at meaning. Gadamer "is willing to sacrifice historical or cultural exactitude of meaning" because he knows his interpretation will also be coloured by his preconceptions but, since he is aware of them, they are a good, they don't taint the interpretation, they improve it. While Hirsch works to be as objective as possible, to get beyond his preconceptions to the author's original meaning; he doesn't want to merge his history with the author's, he wants the author to stand in his own light.
Prof. Fry points out that the two positions are irreconcilable. One states you can't get away from preconceptions so do your best to establish the truth of a text; the other, that you can't get to the truth without first understanding the original meaning and that there are objective methods that can be used to arrive at meaning. At least, that's what I've taken from the lecture.