oNE What Is Hermeneutics? Introduction Hermeneutics has a long and complex history with many surprising twists and turns. As a discipline in its own right it is relatively mo dern, yet the idea of hermeneutics may be traced as far b ack as the ancient Greeks. In its most basic sense hermeneutics refers to the many ways in which we may theorize ab out the nature of human interpretation, whether that means understanding b o oks, works of art, architecture, verb al communication, or even nonverb al b o dily gestures. Indeed, as we shall see in the following chapters, the nature of human understanding, and therefore our ideas ab out hermeneutics and interpretive theory, face a numb er of interesting challenges that make a complete description of "what it means to under­ stand" difficult. What do we mean when we say that we understand something? While most of us may pick up an apple and immediately know that it is red and that, if we take a bite, it tastes delicious, we are unable to answer how it is that we know what we know. Few of us stop to consider what is going on when we exp erience things. An apple is self- evident to each of us who holds one. We do not need to be convinced that it exists and that it has prop erties we see, taste, and touch. Yet what makes our interaction with the apple po ssible remains a mystery. From a hermeneutical p erspective, this is not just a question ab out how our senses work in relation to our cog­ nitive pro cesses. Perhap s the eating of a candied apple at a fair or circus represents an experience that holds special meaning. If it does, then the 1 HERMENEU T I C S question of p erceiving the obj ect, the candy apple, clearly involves a unique context - a history, an event, a specific micro -world - that only the individual involved knows. It is a context that influences how one ex­ periences that object. And now, as we think ab out it, it is a context that conditions our recollection . In a similar way, our exp eriences of p eople, b o o ks, so cial events, and so on, are all conditioned by surrounding cir­ cumstances. We do not merely hold a b o ok in our hands, see the letters on the page, and understand the sentences and paragraphs as they exist in front of us . We exp erience the meaning in relation to our own histories, desires, memories, imaginations, etc. Thus the question of what it means to understand b ecomes a very large one. Hermeneutics attempts to answer the question by examining closely the hidden realm of activity b ehind the scenes of our own lives. The aim is to make the structure, or perhaps the lack of structure, of human understanding as explicit as possible. There are many different explanations as to what might b e transpir­ ing in the act of human understanding, e.g., so ciological, psychological, biological, chemical, neurological. S ome of these have met with more suc­ cess than others. There are also many different hermeneutical descrip­ tions, many of which do not agree with one another or with the more sci­ entific explanations . One of the unique claims of hermeneutics is that it go es beyond the biological, psychological, etc., b ecause it looks at what makes all of them p ossible. Most imp ortantly, hermeneutics tries to avoid reducing "understanding" to its lowest common denominator, e.g., de­ scribing it only in terms of specific neural networks working in specific electro - chemical ways within the brain. Hermeneutics is successful only to the degree that it is able to include as much of what makes us human as po ssible, e.g., our so cial, historical, linguistic, theological, and biological influences . Broadly speaking then, to think hermeneutically means to ask what we mean by human understanding universally, i.e., what we all do naturally, regardless of our specific cultures, languages, or traditions. However, most hermeneutical descriptions also p ay clo se attention to how our cultures, languages, and traditions influence the ways in which we un­ derstand. In short, hermeneutics asks three important questions . What is understanding? How might we describ e it b est? And how might we under­ stand b etter ? "Hermeneutics" comes from the Greek verb hermeneuein, which means "to interpret" or "to translate:' Today it refers to the science, theory, and practice of human interpretation. The term has an interesting historical association with the Greek go d Hermes. Hermes, a character in the ancient 2 What Is Hermeneutics? Greek p o ems the Iliad and Odyssey, played a numb er of interesting roles one of them was to deliver messages from the go ds to mortals. He was a me­ dial figure that worked in the "in-between'' as an interpreter of the go ds, communicating a message from Olympus so humans might understand the meaning. In this way, Hermes, son of Zeus, was responsible for fo stering genuine understanding - comprehension - which required more effort than if he merely transliterated (interpreting letter for letter, word for word without any mo dification or adaptation ) . Hermes had to interpret the meaning of the messages on behalf of his listeners and in doing so had to go far beyond merely repeating the intended truth. He had to re- create or re­ produce the meaning that would connect to his audience's history, culture, and concepts in order to make sense of things. In like manner, hermeneu­ tics tries to describ e the daily mediation of understanding we all exp erience in which meaning do es not emerge as a mere exchange of symb ols, a direct and straightforward transmission of binary co de, or a simple yes or no . Rather, meaning happ ens by virtue of a "go-between'' that bridges the alien with the familiar, connecting cultures, languages, traditions, and perspec­ tives that may b e similar or millennia apart. The go -b etween is the activity of human understanding that, like Hermes, tries to make sense of the world and the heavens. It is an intricate and complex activity that sometimes gets things wrong. Our goal in this b o ok is to consider some of the mo st popular ways in which this hermeneutical activity has b een conceived and some of the things we may do to improve our chances of getting interpretation right. In its earliest mo dern forms, hermeneutics developed primarily as a discipline for the analysis of biblical texts. It represented a b o dy of ac­ cepted principles and practices for interpreting an author's intended ( and inspired) meaning, as well as providing the proper means of investigating a text's so cio-historical context. This form of hermeneutics was fo cused on the many dynamics that exist b etween author, text, and reader. It was as­ sumed that in order to achieve a clear and accurate reading of a text one had to employ definitive rules of interpretation to clarify and safeguard the prop er untangling of a rather obvious and commonsense relationship ; that is, someone ( at a specific place, at a specific time, with a specific language) had written something with the intention of having a later reader under­ stand what he or she had in mind. In fact, the relationship b etween author, interpreter, and the interpreted material may seem so straightforward that some may doubt whether hermeneutics and interpretive theories are even necessary. After all, most of us engage in conversations daily without any 3 HERMENEU T I C S specific hermeneutical aids or external metho ds, and w e read novels, newsp ap ers, magazines, and the like with few serious difficulties or misun­ derstandings. However, as we shall soon see in the chapters that follow, making sense of this seemingly elementary relationship b etween author, text, and reader has proven to b e extremely difficult, especially when the text in question may be thousands of years old and written in ancient lan­ guages. Engaging a text or p erson in close proximity to one's own histori­ cal and cultural situation is easier than if there are temp oral, spatial, and linguistic gaps. Yet even when we intently lo ok b elow the surface of our ca­ sual and everyday encounters we find a sense of otherness or distance be­ tween ourselves and the text or other person. How many times have we been sure that we understo o d what was just read or heard, only to discover later on that we had been entirely mistaken? Hermeneutics thrives up on the inherent ambiguity and otherness that we face daily, and is used to fos­ ter a common accord when there is misunderstanding or lack of agree­ ment. Whether reading an ancient text such as the Bible - where herme­ neutical questions continue to be imp ortant - or trying to make sense of a current b est- selling novel, our interpretive exp erience will b e one in which hermeneutical reflection is always relevant. One of the ongoing deb ates in hermeneutics has b een over which el­ ements to emphasize in the tripartite relationship of author, text, and reader, for the purp ose of bridging gaps in understanding - whether be­ tween (1) the author and his or her intention placed within the text, (2 ) the text and its cultural-historical context, or ( 3 ) the reader's present situation and so cio -historically conditioned way of understanding the text. Fo­ cusing on one element over the others runs the risk of creating an imb al­ ance or, at the very least, rendering an incomplete picture. For instance, emphasizing a search for an author's originally intended message will often mean that the circumstances that influence the reader's own p ersp ectives on the text - that is, what the reader is likely to have "read into" the text, "b etween the lines" so to say - are potentially overlo oked. Conversely, many contemp orary hermeneuts (hermeneutical thinkers ) accept the "death of the author" in favor of emphasizing the dynamics b etween reader and text for, it is argued, we simply do not have access to an author's origi­ nal intention. This does not mean that we should entirely ignore the au­ thor, only that we should not regard authorial intention as something to be sought like a secret plot or mystery b ehind the words themselves. We may never fully put ourselves into the sho es of another, so there will always b e some uncertainty. Moreover, some hermeneuts have gone much further 4 What Is Hermeneutics? and argued that the b asic tripartite depiction of author, interpreter, and in­ terpreted is flawed from the start. They have ab andoned it for something they b elieve is more fundamental. One of the more popular versions of this appro ach argues that finding the "ideal" source of human understanding, attained through principles and rules of interpretation that offer metho d­ ologically sound and objectively reliable knowledge, is an impossible quest. Instead, what we should examine is our "way of b eing" in the world, for which method and obj ectivity have only minor roles to play at most. Whether for legal, philological (the historical study of languages), or theological applications, early hermeneutical thinking was dominated by attempts to find the right metho d or technique for ensuring correct under­ standing. Since then the different hermeneutical applications have given way to more generalized hermeneutical appro aches that go b eyond the scope of disciplinary b oundaries. Hermeneutics now applies to every sub­ j ect area within the so cial, human, and natural sciences. It has ceased to b e a special philo sophy, method, or way of interpreting sacred literature, and has b ecome a universal means of thinking by which we attempt to clarify the conditions of all human understanding. Strictly sp eaking, contempo­ rary hermeneutics is not a discipline in the typical sense. True to its medi­ ating heritage, hermeneutics does not attempt to establish itself as a philo­ sophical scheme or discipline on its own. Rather, it endeavors to describ e the already present structure of human understanding and to highlight the conditions for clearer insight and comprehension. Hermeneutics does not directly seek to set up a new way of seeing the world; that is, it does not prescrib e how we "ought" to reflect up on and think ab out things (although there is a very real sense in which such changes may result from thinking hermeneutically) , but to describe how we already do reflect and think. S ome contemp orary hermeneutical investigations still function chiefly as the application of techniques and metho ds for the sake of facili­ tating understanding; that is, they continue to rely on prescrib ed rules and principles for bolstering a sp ecific kind of reliable comprehension . As we shall observe, such attitudes and po sturing toward interpretation, while p erhaps serving valuable roles in their own right, have held more mo dest p o sitions among contemp orary hermeneutics, which p erceives itself as de­ scribing what it is to understand in the first place, prior to any secondary and "externally applied" means toward truth. In sum, hermeneutics once something characterized by specific to ols of thought within a handful of disciplines - has b ecome a general theory of understanding for all spheres of human awareness. 5 HERMENEU T I C S This fundamental shift represents a very important repositioning of interests in regard to the nature of human understanding. An obvious ex­ ample is that most hermeneuts no longer try to answer what a particular passage "really means" in a complete and total way or what an author "really intended:' Few today would be so b old as to claim to know "the Truth'' b eyond a shadow of doubt. This is due in large p art to the p er­ ceived failure of the many previous interpretive theories and metho ds. In­ deed, in surveying the history of hermeneutics and interpretive theory one cannot help but be struck by a growing sense of modesty and humil­ ity. The activity of interpretation and how we might b est do it remains an open question. It is not surprising then that some, e.g., radical decon­ structionists, have simply given up, or at the very least have b ecome radi­ cally skeptical ab out ever having a comprehensive theory of interpreta­ tion or a hermeneutic. Recent generations of hermeneuts are similar to the old in that they endeavor to bring ab out meaningful agreement - a sharing of a common meaning among p eople - but, unlike their predecessors, they seek to bridge the gap between interpreter and interpreted by illuminating the conditions under which agreement may be reached through dialogue in all areas of human pursuit, whether biblical, theological, philosophical, scien­ tific, and so on. Hermeneutics does not and cannot guarantee the fixed meaning of a text, a lab oratory exp eriment, or a work of art. Thus the very go als of hermeneutics, and not only the metho ds and practices, have b een thrown open to debate and discussion . Part of the challenge in thinking ab out hermeneutics is deciding which debates and discussions are worthy of engagement, and which are unlikely to b e fruitful. Our hop e is that readers will find something of value in each chapter, and that the questions they take away will help inform their own field, discipline, or vo cation. So what might this general theory of human understanding offer us to day? We shall answer this in due course. For now let us take note of the fact that hermeneutics is an umbrella movement with many different themes that have evolved into a surprising array of theories, most dramati­ cally so since the late nineteenth century. Fortunately for students of her­ meneutics, there is a strong tradition of shared interest in concepts and motifs such as language, creativity, experience, authority, history, tradi­ tion, freedom, application, knowledge, understanding, and science. So while there may b e little in the way of universally accepted prop erties and even less that may be recognized as linear and gradual development in hermeneutics, i.e., clear steps of progress that have led uniformly to the 6 What Is Hermeneutics? present, there are still many common themes, historical stages, and endur­ ing questions that we may critically examine. For our purpo ses there are six distinct hermeneutical trends that, while overlapping in many areas, are worth examining in detail: romantic, phenomenological and existential, philo sophical, critical, structural, and p o ststructural (deconstruction). In addition to studying these major her­ meneutical movements, we will also examine what we consider to be some of the most influential and imp ortant adaptations of these interpretive the­ ories, in order to gain greater insight into the intricate problems and ques­ tions in mo dern hermeneutics, as well as to b ecome aware of the more practical difficulties exp erienced when one tries to apply hermeneutical theories theologically and biblically. To that end, we will examine herme­ neutic phenomenology, dialectical theology and exegesis, theological her­ meneutics, and literary hermeneutics. The dependency of these adapta­ tions up on the major hermeneutical trends should b ecome clear in their individual discussions . However, the order and style of presentation will not be as simple as these lists indicate. We fo cus up on key figures within each movement and integrate the appro aches into an order that we think makes their relationships clear. At this point, we wish to intro duce the major trends and adaptations that we treat in this volume. Romantic Hermeneutics Romantic hermeneutics, associated primarily with the work of Friedrich S chleiermacher (1768- 183 4) and Wilhelm Dilthey (183 3 - 1911), represents the first significant movement in what would influence many hermeneuti­ cal revolutions during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Schlei­ ermacher and D ilthey are exemplars of the author-oriented hermeneutical tradition that fo cused interpretive efforts on understanding the author and his or her so cio -historical context over and ab ove understanding the text on its own. Two of the most important developments fostered by romantic hermeneutics include a shift from regional or disciplinary-b ound herme­ neutics to a general hermeneutics and the development of metho dological and epistemological ways of understanding that incorp orate reconstruc­ tive appro aches, most notably that of the author's original creative acts. Prior to S chleiermacher, hermeneutics was divided into specialized forms, with biblical hermeneutics (virtually synonymous with exegesis as 7 HERMENEU T I C S the obj ective study of texts) being preeminent among them. Due t o S chlei­ ermacher, followed clo sely by Dilthey, the notion of hermeneutics as a matter of practical exegetical op eration b etween text and reader is general­ ized to include much bro ader concerns related to the nature of human un­ derstanding. Schleiermacher was the first to move hermeneutics away from b eing a corpus of rules that are applied to texts, to its being represen­ tative of universal principles or laws of understanding that transcend indi­ vidual o ccasions or applications. Wherever there is discourse, he propo ses, hermeneutics as the "art of understanding" is necessary. By the end of the nineteenth century the idea of hermeneutics could no longer be consid­ ered primarily a matter of biblical interpretation, for it had b ecome a transdisciplinary activity. Still, Schleiermacher's romantic hermeneutics is applicable to biblical texts even though he denies that the interpretation of sacred literature has a sp ecial place among other literature or that it de­ serves a unique interpretive method. D ilthey is well known for his epistemological analysis ( concerning the nature and scop e of knowledge) of the human sciences, and as one of the first to stress a distinction b etween the human and the natural sci­ ences. Dilthey, inspired by S chleiermacher, accepts the universal character of hermeneutics as something b elonging to the essential nature of all the human sciences. Life itself, he claims, is hermeneutical. One of the key fac­ tors in D ilthey's appro ach concerns concrete expressions of historical life and their interpretation through a metho dology that provides objective understanding - a form of understanding said to be cap able of acting as the foundational discipline for the human sciences. Hermeneutics is not only a general process according to D ilthey but a scientific and founda­ tional method, and therefore something far in excess of mere rules and principles for the reading of texts. Phenomenological and Existential Hermeneutics Edmund Husserl (185 9 - 1938) and Martin Heidegger (1889- 1976) were the first major contributors to phenomenological hermeneutics. Of the two it is Heidegger who has had the most imp act. While Husserl avoided work­ ing directly with hermeneutics, his work has proven to be of inestimable value to all later hermeneutical thinkers, with the most obvious among them being Heidegger, along with Paul Rico eur. Two of the most impor­ tant developments in phenomenological hermeneutics include Husserl's 8 What Is Hermeneutics? descriptive metho d and critical examination of consciousness, and Heidegger's propo sal that understanding and interpretation always arise from the p erspective provided by one's own life-world or situation, includ­ ing one's prejudices and presuppo sitions. Like Dilthey, Husserl claims to offer a foundational theory of knowl­ edge and metho d on which to ground other disciplines . His foundational science b egins with what is originally and immediately present to con­ sciousness, without relying on empirical evidence or data to confirm what we experience. Through his phenomenological metho d, he argues that it is p o ssible to describe our consciousness of phenomena as they are in them­ selves, prior to interpretations, presupp ositions, or explanations. We are thinking creatures and all that may be thought ab out exists to us as our "consciousness of something:' Hence, for Husserl, b ecause consciousness is always intentional, as directed toward something, then the only proper sphere for analysis will be the study of obj ects and the world as they app ear to consciousness. How are things given in experience? How are the mean­ ings of things constituted? In contrast to Husserl, Heidegger argues that we should avoid a metho dological stance toward fostering human understanding and clarity of interpretation . Instead, he argues that we should seek to disclose some­ thing more fundamental to our way of living. With Schleiermacher and D ilthey, the first major move of hermeneutics was toward providing a gen­ eral hermen eutics, preo ccupied with method and an epistemic desire to find correct, even obj ective interpretations. Heidegger rejects this path pi­ oneered by earlier hermeneuts for a much more radical appro ach that be­ gins with the forgotten existential question - What is the "meaning" of b eing? This is not a question of what we know and how we may guarantee interpretive accuracy. Rather, it is a question ab out our mode of knowing, a question ab out our living as knowers, not ab out the status or content of our knowledge per se. Heidegger's hermeneutics is made po ssible because of our nature as existentially situated creatures. He argues that we are always already in the world and that we already understand it interpretively through our cir­ cumstances and our practical involvements. To understand, for Heidegger, is to understand in relation to one's own finite situation . It is not an act of our conscious awareness or intentionality, as it is for Husserl, or of our epistemological knowing or metho dological investigation, as it is for ro­ mantic hermeneuts. Rather, Heidegger b elieves that hermeneutics is possi­ ble b ecause we are beings-in- the-world. We are mortal and contingent 9 HERMENEU T I C S creatures that are inaccessible through metho ds, rules, and techniques o f interpretation. Heidegger's more existential appro ach i s different from Husserl's metho dologically rigorous phenomenology. The most obvious difference is that, contrary to Husserl's efforts to avoid presupp ositions (and S chleiermacher's and D ilthey's desires to overcome the negative im­ pact of one's own prejudices ), Heidegger embraces a view of human under­ standing in which it, and all acts of interpretation, are inseparable from our s ituatedness . If correct, what this means for all prior hermeneutics and interpretive theories is that no matter how thorough and objective the in­ terpretation may seem, it will always b e at least partially determined by presupp ositions and prejudgments - sometimes for b etter, sometimes for worse. Philosophical Hermeneutics Philosophical hermeneutics was initially developed by Hans- G eorg Gada­ mer (19 0 0 - 2002), a German philosopher widely accepted as one of the most important twentieth- century hermeneuts . According to G adamer, previous hermeneutical thinking, excluding Heidegger's, mistakenly ac­ cepts the scientific ethos in an attempt to foster objectivity and method as all- important ways to achieving the most reliable insight possible. Gada­ mer argues against the claim that the b est form of understanding is achieved either through technique or metho d for avoiding misunder­ standing, as it is for S chleiermacher, or as a way of securing objective foun­ dational knowledge, as it is for Dilthey. And against the mo dels provided by the natural sciences, and mimicked by many disciplines in the s o cial and human s ciences, Gadamer proposes that understanding is not s ome­ thing we grasp through experimental isolation and interrogation but that which grasps us as an exp erience or event of meaning outside of our con­ trol. Metho d is a valuable to ol but it is severely limited. G enuine under­ standing, for G adamer, emerges when we b egin to see what is questionable in new ways and open ourselves to a dialogue with the other, e.g., text, per­ son, work of art. One of the chief virtues of G adamer's philosophical her­ meneutics is that it seeks to find willing dialogue p artners, never merely passive audiences. Thus, unlike many current (especially scientific) inter­ pretive metho dologies, it does not treat given subj ect matters, texts, or people with dispassionate and neutralizing distance, but as mutually influ­ ential partners in an ongoing interpretive dance or play of give-and- take. 10 What Is Hermeneutics? In G adamer, the bro ader hermeneutical shifts from regional to gen­ eral hermeneutics, and from epistemological to existential hermeneutics, are clearly evident. His most s ignificant contributions to hermeneutics come from his unique emphasis on how understanding is mediated through language and tradition . Gadamer is p erhaps b est known for his distinctively dialogical (the logic of dialogue) appro ach to human under­ standing and his further exp ansion of the reach of hermeneutics. Like Heidegger, G adamer b egan with the notion that all understanding is her­ meneutical, where the hermeneutical function is our b asic mode of being- in- the-world. Philosophical hermeneutics is not concerned with the fixed mean ing of a text. Rather, it seeks to establish a dialectic or open- ended questioning and answering b etween the p ast and present, the text and the interpreter, without aiming at a final or complete interpreta­ tion. Understanding, for G adamer, is more than a matter of taking a go o d look t o s e e what i s there. It i s a pro duct of asking questions, even i f all we are given are propositional statements. We must risk our b eliefs, assump­ tions, and desires, allowing ourselves to be caught up in the event of inter­ pretation if we want to truly understand. Hermeneutic Phenomenology Paul Rico eur (1913 - 20 0 5 ) , a French philosopher, was a phenomenologist with wide-ranging interests, especially in hermeneutics and language, the human subject, psychoanalysis, and religion . His writings are also wide­ ranging, and his work in b oth North America and France has given him a unique persp ective and platform for his hermeneutical philosophy. In par­ ticular, his philosophy took a decidedly hermeneutical turn, with the result that his work on language and hermeneutics merits serious consideration b ecause of its linguistic grounding and literary application . Rico eur's hermeneutic phenomenology brings together and extends a numb er of major themes. These include an exploration of the nature of discourse in terms of narrativity; a recognition of and appropriation of the place of creativity; an appreciation of language as discourse; extension of his work on the human will by incorp orating and modifying the work of sp eech- act theory as part of his human action mo del; and exploration of the issue of time. Rico eur's major hermeneutical contribution b egins with what he identifies as the apparent conflict or dialectic b etween the concepts of ex11 HERMENEU T I C S planation and understanding, and argues through t o the conclusion that this dichotomy is more apparent than real. He does this through two major hermeneutical moves. The first is to consider language as dis course, esp e­ cially written language, and the second is to consider the notion of what he calls plurivo city, by which he means plural meaning at every level of lan­ guage, from the word to the dis course. The problem of language as dis­ course is as old as the ancients. According to Rico eur, this problem stems from a fundamental distinction b etween language as code and language as it is used. Linguistics has concentrated on language as system or structure, rather than language as it is used, which has relegated discourse to a marginalized position. The neglect of discourse is the result of Ferdinand de Saussure's ( 1857-19 13 ) fundamental dichotomy b etween langue and pa­ role. For Rico eur, parole is to be equated with dis course, whereas Saussure emphasized langue as the synchronic analysis of language systems. A discourse is not a series of sentences, but a whole, according to Rico eur. These multiple s entences lead to a plurivo city of the discourse typical of complex discourses. These dis courses consist of a complex hier­ archy of elements - s een in terms of the relation of the parts to the whole - that are recogn ized through a circular interpretive pro cess. Further, un­ derstanding a text means that one must understand it as an individual text, not as a type. Any literary text also has a numb er of different potential meaning horizons . These are often posited through the metaphorical and symb olic extensions of meaning of the text. Rico eur b elieves that it is logi­ cal prob abilities that provide the validation of these potential horizons, rather than some kind of empirical proof, just as there are also ways of fal­ sifying interpretations and determining that some are more probable than others . Rico eur sees all of this as p art of the hermeneutical circle, in which there is a circular relationship b etween a guess and its validation. Thus, Rico eur notes that even though there may be s everal potential ways of un­ derstanding a text (the potential limited by the text itself) , not all of the in­ terpretations have equal validity. Critical Hermeneutics Jiirgen Hab ermas (1929 - ) is responsible for what is commonly referred to as critical hermeneutics. His work on critical hermeneutics has less obvi­ ous relevance to the reading of texts, though it still applies, for it is meant to s erve as a means of displacing distortions within communication and 12 What Is Hermeneutics? understanding and fostering the rationality inherent in interp ersonal lin­ guistic communication. Hab ermas's concern for distorted communication and interaction, most evident in his critical theorizing ab out b oth the con­ ditions that create legitimacy crises and the necessary conditions for re­ storing legitimacy, is evidence of his p ersistent emancipatory interest to free society from domination, violence, co ercion, and ignorance. Through his critical hermeneutics, Hab ermas b elieves we may b e objective ab out given issues while working toward the public go o d, b ecause we are able to move b eyond the reign of regional biases and prejudices that lie hidden in our ideologies and unreflected assumptions ab out the world. Hab ermas's unique p erspective on critical thought within herme­ neutics follows from his understanding of communicative rationality and is meant to supplement what he sees as reflective deficiencies in contem­ p orary hermeneutics, specifically philosophical hermeneutics and its in­ ability to adequately act as a critique of society. Hab ermas, like Heidegger and G adamer, rej ects any monological foundation up on which to b ase in­ terpretation and understanding, i.e., universally binding and absolute metho ds. However, he is not as radical as they are, for he insists on a semi­ foundational appro ach that he believes makes it p o ss ible to subject tradi­ tion and our own prejudices to a critical and quasi-objective examination. Hab ermas argues that the only way to lib erate ourselves from distortions and ideologies, and to recover legitimacy in the public sphere, is a kind of critical reflection that other hermeneuts have yet to offer. Hab ermas agrees with Heidegger and G adamer that communicative meaning is understo o d within tradition, but he desires to go further and to judge the tradition within which meaning arises. He accepts our situated­ ness as the starting p o int for all understanding while at the same time pro­ p osing a way to step out of our circumstances and conditioned ways of thinking. What is prior to our situation, he argues , is the claim to univer­ s ally valid groundings. Whereas G adamer describ es the interpretive act as a fusion of horizons, Hab ermas argues that the horizon of reason is always already implicit. To ignore implicit validity claims is a serious mistake, for they are a necessary part of every fus ion of horizons . By pulling truth and metho d closer together, Hab ermas offers metho dical criteria for the suc­ cessful analysis of communication, whereby he b elieves he overcomes the limited G adamerian proposal that misses much-needed critical judgment and reflection. 13 HERMENEU T I C S Structuralism Structuralism is a diverse field of study, which has had significant influ­ ence over a wide range of fields of academic and intellectual inquiry, in­ cluding both the natural s ciences and the arts and humanities. Structur­ alism made its major migration to North America in the 1920s, where it was popular for several decades as a hermeneutical mo del in fields includ­ ing linguistics, literary criticism, b iblical studies, and anthrop ology, among others. Structuralism continues to b e a major force in such fields as anthropology and linguistics, but it has lost its influence or b ecome trans­ formed into various poststructural forms of inquiry in fields such as liter­ ary and biblical studies. Structuralism has its origin in the linguistic theories of Ferdinand de Saussure. Several of the key notions in Saussure's thought include: (1) the arbitrary nature of the sign: Saussure distinguishes b etween the signifie (thing signified) and the significant (signifier), and he sees no necessary correlation b etween the concept and the sounds used to sp eak of it. They - sound and concept - are joined together into a unit that he called the sign. (2) Langue versus parole: Saussure sees langue as the sign system held in common by the users of a language, while parole is each user's p ersonal and idiosyncratic use of that langue. Langue is the primary obj ect of lin­ guistic investigation. (3 ) Synchrony versus diachrony: Saussure defines synchrony as concerned with the grammatical form and the sound of a given language at a p o int in time, and diachrony as the changes that affect any language over time. Structuralism develop ed in a numb er of different ways in linguistic and anthrop ological circles . The b est known of these have b een the Prague scho ol of linguistics, American structuralism, and French structuralism. Daniel Patte (1939 - ) is prob ably the b est-known and most rigorous biblical structuralist. Patte recognizes that there are a numb er of different structural approaches, but they all have common features that are impor­ tant for interpreting a text. These include: the meaningfulness of struc­ tures, differentiation of syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations, and a lin­ guistic mo del that realizes the arbitrary relation b etween the signifier (expression) and the signified (content) in terms of both form and sub­ stance (a distinctly Saussurian concept) . This orientation leads Patte to adopt the s emio -structural mo del of A.- J. Greimas ( 1917-1992) as his metho d, which he develop s at some length along the lines of Greimas's generative traj ectory. 14 What Is Hermeneutics? Throughout his works, Patte's burden is to define and situate within the wider field of biblical exegesis a usable structuralist hermeneutics that can b e employed to examine the texts of the New Testament, with the par­ ticular purp ose of elucidating their religious or faith dimension. He s ees structuralism as providing the means by which one can bring both exege­ sis and hermeneutic, a distinction that Patte makes at one p o int, into meaningful relation, whereby exegesis (the analysis of text) leads to her­ meneutic (what the text means for the modern reader) . Poststructuralism The most famous p oststructuralist is Jacques Derrida ( 1930 -2004) . D er­ rida's work has b ecome synonymous with deconstruction, which repre­ s ents a collage of challenges and ideas that may only lo osely be described as hermeneutics. In fact, D errida is very p essimistic ab out the p ossibility of hermeneutics, whether phenomenological, existential, philosophical, critical, or otherwis e. For him, Heidegger, G adamer, Hab ermas, and the like had all failed to recognize their logocentric preo ccup ations (the mis­ guided b elief in an origin, ground, or ultimate generating source of truth and meaning) . In the case of philosophical hermeneutics, D errida b elieves that it - in a similar fashion to romantic hermeneutics - tries to uncover and make known the hidden meaning and truth of texts, and that it there­ fore reflects what he argues is G adamer's b elief in the p ossibility of com­ plete and more or less stable understanding. While the legitimacy of D er­ rida's views against hermeneutics remains highly deb ated, his arguments s erve to highlight many of the common assumptions made by deconstruc­ tionists , and hermeneuts more generally. That is, in his p essimism he artic­ ulates the nuances of his own position in relation to hermeneutics, while eliciting the s ame from G adamer and his defenders. The enduring deb ate b etween these two intellectual camps has proven to be very helpful to those trying to appreciate deconstruction in spite of its many popular mis characterizations . Strictly speaking, decon­ struction is not a philosophy, theory, or set of b eliefs , and is therefore very difficult to understand. For the s ake of convenience many refer to it as a literary metho d for reading texts, but deconstruction is not reducible to instrumentality, sets of rules and techniques, or even language. D econ­ struction is something (really "no thing") that disrupts and destabilizes prevailing assumptions and attitudes, rather than something that tries to 15 HERMENEU T I C S establish specific ways t o truth. Where many thinkers identify coherent and unified truth, meaning, and the like, D errida finds radical otherness and difference. For instance, when Husserl turns toward things in them­ selves as they appear in our consciousness, Derrida argues that the things themselves always escap e us. When H ab ermas se eks out legitimacy through the rationality inherent in communication, D errida dismisses his position as a remnant of misguided Enlightenment logocentrism. And when G adamer turns to dialogue and the fusion of horizons, D errida ar­ gues that there is always already interruption and rupture. As a quasi-poststructural and quasi-postmo dern appro ach ("quasi" because it is not at all clear just where or how deconstruction fits), D errida's deconstruction criticizes notions such as the referentiality of language (that language accurately points to things in the world) and the objectivity of structures as mistakes typical of the entire Western metaphysical tradition. Derrida's deconstructive approach seeks out elusive, excluded, marginal­ ized, and subverted meanings in order to make known what has b een ig­ nored, showing that what s omething seems to mean really means some­ thing else, often s omething other than what an author intended. However, deconstruction is not ab out proving that anything may p ass for truth or nothing at all, only that there is no transcendentally signified, e.g., trans­ cultural, transhistorical truth, or grounding like the sort assumed by tradi­ tional metaphysics. Derrida accepts that there is meaning we may know and agree upon, yet he insists that there may never be final and decidable meaning b ecause meaning is always contextual, deferred, incomplete, and full of internal tensions and contradictions. Dialectical Theology and Exegesis Dialectical theology emerged in the early twentieth century as a herme­ neutical resp onse to disenchantment with theological lib eralism, as an at­ tempt to retain discussion of G o d within a mo dern critical environment. Karl Barth (1886 - 1968) is considered by many to be the most s ignificant (Protestant) theologian s ince at least S chleiermacher, and the most prolific since Martin Luther (1483 - 15 4 6 ) . The dialectical theology that he champi­ oned throughout his intellectual career - a theology full of existential ten­ sions and p aradoxes - b ecame the most significant resp onse to the fall of theological lib eralism in its attempt to address these issues. B arth makes some strong claims for hermeneutics, esp ecially the relationship of biblical 16 What Is Hermeneutics? hermeneutics to general hermeneutics. He asserts that the common task of hermeneutics is to understand the words of the writers or speakers, using the to ols of literary-historical exegesis. Biblical hermeneutics in fact has an advantage over general hermeneutics in that it must restrict its knowledge of the text to what is found in the text, rather than importing ideas from outside the text. C entral to the foundation of Barth's dialectical hermeneutic is the biblical testimony that "G o d has spoken:' The revealed, written, and pro ­ claimed Word is the threefold form of the Word. Important is B arth's b elief that the Trinity per se is not p art of revelation, but is what the church af­ firms ab out G o d. God as wholly other is the revealer who chooses to reveal himself in divine self- disclosure as Creator, Reconciler, and Redeemer. And finally, Barth's dialectical hermeneutics maintains that the Bible is not to b e equated with the Word of G o d, but is a witness to revelation of what it means that the word was made flesh. The Bible, though the fallible prod­ uct of human b eings, has authority as a witness to God in Christ. Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976) is considered by many to be the most important New Testament interpreter and theologian of the twentieth cen­ tury, as well as a significant hermeneut. Whereas B arth appro aches these matters as a dialectical theologian, Bultmann appro aches them as a dialec­ tical thinker more heavily influenced by contemporary philosophy and historical-critically b ased exegesis of the Bible. Bultmann continues to ex­ ercise s ignificant influence over New Testament studies, but less directly in hermeneutical circles. His adoption of dialectical theology and his p ower­ ful biblical s cholarship provided a strong imp etus for the movement. Bultmann prop oses that understanding is b ased upon a numb er of fac­ tors. Some of the most imp ortant of these include: (1) pre- understanding, or how understanding of a text is always determined by a prior understanding of it; (2) existential encounter, in which the interpreter is op en to an existen­ tial encounter with the text; (3) questioning the text, whereby the interpreter formulates a particular question with a specific objective in mind for under­ standing the text; and (4) the hermeneutical circle, in which there is a recip­ ro cal spiral of growing understanding as the interpreter brings his or her pre-understanding to interpretation, and that pre-understanding is con­ firmed, denied, or mo dified in dialogue with the text. Bultmann is perhaps more p opularly known for his "demythologiza­ tion:' As we shall s ee, in Bultmann's demythologization there are a numb er of correlations among Heidegger's philosophical thought (the desire to ad­ dress the s ituation of contemp orary humanity), lib eral theology of the HERMENEU T I C S nineteenth century ( an anti-supernatural presupp osition based upon s ci­ entific naturalism), and the history- of-religions s chool of thought (the at­ tempt to find common religious origins and explanations) . Theological Hermeneutics The emergence of theological hermeneutics in the latter p art of the twenti­ eth century is an attempt to reconcile the centrality of theology in Chris­ tian interpretation with recognition of the complexity of hermeneutical thought. Anthony Thiselton (1937- ) is a significant figure in theological herme­ neutics for a number of reasons. For many students of the Bible he has pro­ vided their first and sometimes only significant intro duction to philosophi­ cal hermeneutics. His work in hermeneutics is characterized by thorough examination of the writings of the maj or philosophers, esp ecially from S chleiermacher to the present, and detailed analysis of their arguments as he appropriates them for his theological hermeneutical stance. Besides his maj or works in hermeneutics, he is an accomplished New Testament scholar and has also profitably investigated the field of mo dern linguistics. One sees in Thiselton's attempt to define the scope of theological her­ meneutics several imp ortant characteristics of his work. One is wide expo­ sure to the thought of other philosophers who might contribute to his theo­ retical understanding. In many if not all fundamental ways, the climax of Thiselton's work is seeing how his theological hermeneutics unites a number of horizons - b etween the Bible and theology, and between hermeneutical method and doctrinal practice. As Thiselton indicates, hermeneutics is an applied activity, in which understanding is seen in formative practice that is communal and public in nature and presupp ositional in orientation. Thiselton b elieves that hermeneutics is fundamental to the establish­ ment of do ctrine that is not simply abstract, theoretical, and overly gen­ eral. Returning to and relying up on Gadamer, Thiselton appro aches doc­ trine instead from the standpoint of asking hermeneutical questions from life. This is appropriate, because Christian confessions, such as the early creeds, reflect a life- context in which they are used. That life-context (as sp eech- act theory indicates ) can result in truth claims, b ecause confes­ s ional statements presuppose certain states of affairs . Kevin Vanho ozer (195 7- ) has b ecome a popular figure in the field of theological hermeneutics in North America on the b asis of sub stantial 18 What Is Hermeneutics? treatments of major issues such as the question of meaning and the dra­ matic character of do ctrine and his easily digestible and entertaining es­ s ays on s everal imp ortant and recurring themes in the field. Vanhoozer has raised the p opular profile of theological hermeneutics especially as it relates to interpretation within the church. His theological hermeneutics is identifiable as p ostconservative and p ostfoundationalist, though affirming the canon as the b asis of b elief. B oth Thiselton and Vanhoozer are advo cates of theological herme­ neutics, and they have much in common in their appeal to philosophy and the do ctrine of the church. However, there are also a numb er of interesting and obvious p o ints of contrast in their appro aches. Thiselton is biblically oriented and exegetically grounded, whereas Vanhoozer appro aches the topic as a systematic theologian. The result is that their work appro aches the topic of hermeneutics differently, with biblical exegesis providing the p o int of entry and evaluation for Thiselton, while Vanho ozer's major point of contact is contemp orary theology. This elton is more overt in his knowl­ edge and use of philosophy than is Vanho ozer. Thiselton's knowledge and do cumentation of philosophical writers is encyclopedic and exhaustive, while Vanho o zer tends to focus up on major thinkers, such as G adamer, Rico eur, and the major speech- act theorists (Austin, Searle, and Wolters­ torff), who provide the framework for his thinking. Literary Hermeneutics Literary hermeneutics combines literary interpretation with recognition of major hermeneutical issues revolving around the author, the text, and the reader. Alan Culpepper (1945 - ) positions his literary hermeneutic in terms of two maj or emphases. The first is in relation to the metaphor of the text as window or mirror. Drawing upon the New Criticism, Culpepper wishes to rep osition the study of John's Gospel, and by implication the New Testament as a whole, from being a window to b eing a mirror. The metaphor of the window is that the text serves as a point of access to the history of the com­ munity behind the Gosp el, and behind that the life and teaching of Jesus . In­ stead, if the text is s een as a mirror, the metaphor shifts the point of focus from going beyond the text to seeing meaning reside between the observer and the mirror, or between the reader and the text. Therefore, rather than or­ igins, historical background, and matters b ehind the text having preemi­ nence, the fo cus is upon the text and its readers, both implied and real. 19 HERMENEU T I C S Culp epper's literary hermeneutic also emphasizes the implications o f such a mirror-like rep ositioning. Culpepper develops for biblical studies a communications mo del that moves from the real author through the im­ plied author to the narrator and the story, and then from the story to the narratee and the implied and real reader. Involved in the communication between implied author and implied reader is b oth explicit and implicit commentary. The narrator-narratee relation contains the world of narra­ tive time, within which lies the story time. The story involves events, set­ tings, characters, and plot, and stands at the center of the communications model. The major comp onents of this communications model form the basic elements of Culpepper's literary and esp ecially narrative-fo cused hermeneutics. Culp epp er defines a literary hermeneutics that is develop ed out of the materials of a numb er of forms of literary criticism current at the time. The influence of the New Criticism was significant, esp ecially for defining narrative itself. However, the Chicago s cho ol was also imp ortant in help­ ing to articulate formal and structural elements of the text, such as plot. There is also an influence from structuralism and narratology, as his liter­ ary hermeneutic attempts to define what it is that makes a narrative func­ tion. There is also the influence of reader-resp onse criticism, especially in defining the role of the reader. To briefly summarize Culp epp er's literary hermeneutics, Culp epp er is concerned with the text as text, in terms of its maj or constituents, such as plot, character, and the like, and with the reader of the text, b oth within and outside the text. The literary hermeneutics that Stephen Moore (1954-) develops is not the same kind of working mo del that Culp epper initiated and that has be­ come enshrined in what is now known as narrative criticism. To the con­ trary, what Mo ore do es is illustrate the consequences of literary criticism, especially as one moves down the interpretive path from the New Criticism to reader-response criticism to deconstruction and p oststructuralism. There are three imp ortant interpretive signposts that characterize Moore's literary hermeneutics. (1) The first significant s ignp ost is Moore's observation that redaction criticism and literary criticism have much more in common than most scholars think. Narrative criticism is then b etter able to describ e the thought of the text than is redaction criticism, which do es not recognize the narrative nature of the text and hence does not describ e the content o f the text a s well. ( 2 ) The s econd significant signpo st concerns reader-response criticism. Whereas some forms of reader-oriented criti­ cism lead to the disappearance of the reader, s ome more radical forms lead 20 What Is Hermeneutics? to the disappearance of the text itself. All reading, even of grammar, in­ volves interpretation, to the point that there is no firm foundation for inter­ pretation that do es not involve assumptions. (3 ) The third signp ost relates to D erridaean p oststructural deconstruction. Derrida calls into question all of the major points of departure for interpretation . This "hard" form of de­ construction attempts to break completely with the foundations of criticism itself, with the interpreter becoming alienated from meaning, and an exile and an outsider to the interpretive task. With his theory of literary herme­ neutical dep endence, Mo ore thus accounts for how one gets from narrative criticism to deconstruction and poststructuralism. Conclusion This intro duction has merely sketched the major figures and movements that will b e treated in more detail in the following chapters of this volume, with a more detailed discussion of these major hermeneuts and their ap­ pro aches to the major interpretive issues of their day. The range of their thought encompasses the bro ad scope of philosophical and hermeneutical issues of the last several hundred years, and addresses such fundamental issues as epistemology, metaphysics, and general questions of being, b e­ s ides specific questions of interpretation and understanding within the realms of philosophy, linguistics, theology, and biblical studies, among others . We have not tried to be exhaustive in our approach by dealing with all of the contributors to this continuing hermeneutical deb ate. We have chosen to deal with those figures who are representative of the major areas of hermeneutical thought, especially as they have continued to have cur­ rency in ongoing hermeneutical discussion and development. This plan has guided our presentation of the subject matter of the b o o k in a roughly chronological ordering. As a result, we begin with hermeneutics as it emerged from theological discussion during the Enlightenment, and con­ tinued to develop into a mode of philosophical thought in its own right. At this p o int, hermeneutics was firmly embedded within other areas of intel­ lectual endeavor, including the field of theology and biblical studies, be­ fore emerging into its own light, where it has continued to function for the last century or more. However, as we have already seen in the brief sum­ mary within this chapter, hermeneutics has always continued to be in dia­ logue with many of the major philosophical and even theological or bibli­ cal interpretive trends of the day. This comes to the fore in a variety of 21 HERMENEU T I C S recent hermeneutical thought that i s influenced again b y theological and related questions. In the course of our dis cussion of these major figures and movements, it will also b ecome clear that hermeneutics has b een in continuous and fruitful dialogue with many other influential intellectual movements of the last one hundred years, such as structuralism and liter­ ary interpretation . Their interplay also continues to provoke important hermeneutical developments. We do not claim to have provided an ex­ haustive study of hermeneutics and interpretive theory, but we b elieve that we have intro duced the major figures and their thought within the fields of hermeneutics and interpretive theory as they have had a direct influence up on a variety of philosophical, theological, and biblical persp ectives. 22
