What is Hermeneutics?
There may be at least two ways to
respond to the question: What is hermeneutics? First, one may attempt to define
the term hermeneutics in a single statement through abstraction. Second, one may
try to understand it by considering all of its various aspects in detail.
If one follows the first way, one, like
Bleicher, may ‘loosely’ and generally define hermeneutics ‘as theory or
philosophy of the interpretation of meaning.’ Following the same way, six different particular (rather than general)
definitions of hermeneutics may also be obtained with respect to the six
different senses it has been used in, throughout its historical development;
that is, it may be defined as: ‘(1) the theory of biblical exegesis; (2) general
philological methodology; (3) the science of all linguistic understanding;(4)
the methodological foundation of Geisteswissenschaften; (5) the phenomenology of
Dasein and of existential understanding; and (6) the systems of interpretation,
both re-collective and iconoclastic, used by man to reach the meaning behind
myths and symbols.’ Considering the
six particular definitions of hermeneutics one confronts with the interpretation
of meaning in each case while the object of interpretation varies respectively.
For instance, in (1) & (2) the object is the biblical text; in (3) the text is
general ; in (4) , Geisteswissenschaften; in (5), Dasein; and in (6) ‘the
collection of signs and symbols susceptible of being considered as a text’.
So through all of the seven definitions (one from Bleicher & six from Palmer),
one finds no common thread being a defining characteristic or a fixed single
essence of the term hermeneutics except the phrase -- the interpretation of
meaning -- which is not an absolutely appropriate answer to the question: What
is hermeneutics? Instead one may find here, as Wittgenstein put it: ‘A
complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing sometimes
overall similarities, sometimes similarities of detail’. Therefore, the better way of grasping this complex term is to consider, in
detail, the specific arguments and theories of the major thinkers who build up
the tradition of hermeneutics. If one follows the way concerning understanding
rather then defining hermeneutics, one can comprehend the term with greater
clarity as there is no restriction on one to abstract the defining
characteristic of the term concerned. Instead, in this way, one tries to
understand the term comprehensively by considering all of the significant
aspects of it, which may help to make it more and more clear. So in order to
understand what hermeneutics is, this author will have a treatment of the term
regarding the two different aspects of its meaning namely (1) etymological and
(2) historical thematic.
(1) Etymological Treatment of the Term Hermeneutics
Like most of the significant philosophical terms,
hermeneutics is also rooted in the tradition of Greek philosophy. One of the
major treatises of the Organon, the collection of Aristotle’s logical treatises,
was titled as Peri Hermeneias (‘On Interpretation’).
The word hermeneia, a noun meaning ‘interpretation’ is derived from the verb
hermeneuein which means ‘to interpret’ whereas the noun and the verb both ‘point
back to the wing-footed messenger-god Hermes, from whose name the words are
apparently derived (or vice versa).’
Hermes being an interpreter had to do a twofold job: he not only ‘transmitted
the messages of the gods to the mortals’,
but he also rendered these messages ‘intelligible and meaningful’ for human beings. Plato, in one of his dialogues, portrayed Hermes as an
entrusted ‘ambassador or envoy to a foreign state’ whose job is to deliver the
messages he is commissioned for without any distortion or falsification as one
of the interlocutors says:
If an ambassador or envoy to a foreign state behaves
disloyally in his office, whether by falsification of the dispatch he is
commissioned to deliver or by proved distortion of messages entrusted to him by
such state, friendly or hostile, as ambassador or envoy, all such persons shall
lie upon to impeachment of the crime of sacrilege against the function and
ordinances of Hermes and Zeus...
The Threefold Meaning of Hermeneuein-Hermeneia
Regarding their ancient usage, the Greek word hermeneuein
and hermeneia have a threefold meaning depending upon the three-dimensional role
Hermes played mediating between god and man by bringing messages from the former
to the latter. These three dimensions of meaning of the verb hermeneuein are:
‘(1) to express aloud in words, that is, ‘to say’; (2) to explain, as in
explaining a situation; and (3) to translate, as in the translation of a foreign
tongue’. They can be understood
with respect to the threefold role Hermes played as an interpreter, that is, he,
first, had to utter the messages of the gods in front of the mortals; second, he
had to explain the messages in order to make the mortals understand them; and
third, the utterance and the explanation both cannot be complete until and
unless the messages have not been translated from the divine and the
extra-mundane language to the mundane one of the mortals.
a. ‘Hermeneia’ as Saying
Being a mediator between the gods and the mortals, the
basic job of Hermes was to say or to express what the gods told him for the
mortals. So the first primary dimension of the noun hermeneia is ‘saying’ or
‘expressing’. How can ‘interpreting’ be identified, though partially, with
‘saying’ or ‘expressing’? This identification may be understood by viewing the
definition of ‘spoken words’ given in Aristotle’s Peri Hermeneias (On
Interpretation) which states: ‘spoken words are the symbols of mental
experience’. It implies that when
we speak something, we not merely express what we have in our own mind by
producing certain sounds rather, at the same time, we interpret our mental
experiences through certain words manifested as symbolic sounds. So speaking
itself is a process of interpretation. The role of spoken words is very
significant in those religions, which are text-based like Islam. The message of
Islam was oral as in the Bultmanian theology in which the scriptures are
considered to be ‘kerygma, a message to be proclaimed’.
The message of Islam was, first, orally given from God, through Gabriel, to the
Prophet (sws), and then from the Prophet (sws) to all human beings. The sole
purpose of the message is to be preached and communicated to every corner of the
world. This task can only be achieved through spoken language, as Palmer put it
(though Palmer said these words concerning Christian theology; but they are
equally applicable on Muslim theology as well): ‘Certainly the task of theology
is to explain the Word in the language and context of each age, but it also must
express and proclaim the Word in the vocabulary of the age.’
Interpretation, as an oral expression, reminds us of the significance of oral
recitation of the Qur’ān which is very popular an activity in our religious
culture. The Qur’ān derives much of Its dynamism and impact from the strength of
the spoken words. It was the magical power of the spoken words that the
understanding of the message was to be communicated with such a great pace
throughout the Arab Peninsula. And again it was the magical power of the spoken
words that the Prophet (sws) and his Companions (rta) were that much successful,
as the interpreters of the Qur’ān, in transforming the human situation of their
day from undeveloped to civilised in religious, political and social terms. But
unfortunately our present day religious scenario is deprived of that magical
power of the message as the oral recitation of the Qur’ān is absolutely devoid
of any sense of understanding or interpretation. Today the overall approach of
Muslims to the Word of God is not interpretative or understanding oriented
instead very superficial and pragmatic. People recite the Qur’ān, as Islāhī put
it, ‘to transfer the reward of its recital to their dear departed ones as well
as for softening the agony of death’.
b. ‘Hermeneia’ as Explanation
Interpretation is not merely ‘to say’ or ‘to express’
something rather it is far more than that. If Hermes was an interpreter, he was
not merely to convey the message of the gods to the mortals rather he had ‘to
explain’ the message as well to make the mortals understand it aptly. This
aspect of Hermes’s job determines the second dimension of the meaning of the
noun hermeneia that is explanation. In Cratylus, Plato equates ‘interpretation’
with ‘explanation’ while discussing the meaning and explanation of certain
divine names. In the dialogue, Socrates says that Hermes as an interpreter ‘has
a great deal to do with language’ and that he is not only a speaker rather ‘the
contriver of tales of speeches’.
It means that being an interpreter Hermes was not merely to convey the words of
the gods to the mortals, but he was to make them grasp the words properly
through certain explanations in the form of tales or speeches etc. That is to
say, when we have to ‘interpret’ some text whether it is a religious scripture,
a social issue, a piece of art, or a literary work, we do not have to simply
describe it but we should ‘explain’ it by giving some additional account as an
elaboration of its meaning. Since the interpretation of the text as an
elaboration of its meaning is always to be linked with it in certain context,
therefore, it makes us understand the text more clearly. So the explanation of a
text is nothing but an extension of the meaning of the very text. In the light
of this second dimension of the meaning of hermeneia’ we can understand the
hermeneutical role of the Prophet (sws) as a mediator between God and the
mortals. He was to be raised up among the mortals not only to deliver the
message of God to them rather he had to explain it as well so that they could
understand it clearly. In this regard, the Sunnah and the Ahādīth of the Prophet
(sws) are considered to be an extension of the meaning of the Word of God.
Through the Sunnah and the Ahādīth, he made his companions understand what was
to be revealed on him from God and thereby he educated them in accordance with
that very revelation. That is to say, the task of the Prophet (sws) was not only
to deliver the Word of God, as it is, to human beings; rather he had to explain
the same in order to educate them as well as to purify their souls, as the
Qur’ān says:
We sent a messenger from among you to convey our message
to you and cleanse you, and teach you the Book and the Wisdom. (2:151 )
In the nexus of this verse, the second dimension of the
meaning of hermeneia, that is, ‘explanation’ is extremely important in the sense
that being the educator and the purifier of soul the apostle could achieve his
main purpose by ‘explaining’ the Word of God in his own words (Ahādīth) as well
as by his own actions (Sunnah).
c. ‘Hermeneia’ as Translation
Being an interpreter Hermes mediates between the two
worlds namely the world of the gods and that of the mortals. To the mortals, the
former is an alien, foreign, strange and un-intelligible world. And the role of
Hermes it is to make that world intelligible for the mortals. This role of
Hermes is to determine the third dimension of the meaning of the word hermeneia,
that is ‘translation’. The
translation of a text of a foreign language into one’s own language is an
attempt to render it understandable to one’s original public. It is not only an
‘act’, as Palmer put it ‘of
finding synonyms’ and their juxtaposing in a particular manner rather by virtue
of the translation one becomes able to have a meaningful view of the text in
one’s own language. A good translator not only puts a particular synonym of his
own language against a particular word of the text, but he coins certain
composite terms or even long phrases as well to make his rendering as clear to
his reader as possible. This aspect of ‘translation’ is one which makes it a
hermeneutical activity as it is characterised by a touch of interpretation
through the composite terms and the long phrases against a mere literal
rendering of the text from one language into another by the juxtaposition of
synonyms. Furthermore, the issue of Qur’ānic hermeneutics can illustrate this
dimension of the meaning of hermeneia. The Qur’ān was revealed in a particular
language (Arabic) onto the Prophet (sws) who was an inhabitant of a specific
spacio-temporal world constituting its own social, cultural and historical
horizon. The task of the Prophet (saw) was not only to impart the message of God
to human beings, but he had to educate them as well as to purify their souls, as
the Qur’ān says:
It is He Who raised among the children of Ismail a
Messenger from amongst them, Who recites His revelations to them, purifies them
and teaches them the Book and the Wisdom, for before him they were clearly in
error. (62:2 )
If a today’s exegete, being an inhabitant of our own
society, intends to translate the Qur’ān into our own language, then he should
not work out an interpretation of its text by juxtaposing the traditions
concerned; instead he should interpret the Qur’ān as a mediator between the two
worlds. That is to say, his interpretation of the Qur’ān should be characterised
by the fusion of the two horizons whereby he could make his readers understand
the Word of God perfectly as well as it could help them in getting the right
guidance in leading a good life in their own world.
(2) Historical-Thematic Treatment of the Term Hermeneutics
The phrase ‘historical-thematic’ is characterised by the
view that hermeneutics is not only a historically developed tradition of the
Western thought, rather there are certain ‘themes’ interwoven together to
constitute it as a distinct sphere of philosophy. Historically speaking, the
term hermeneutics can be traced back to Greek culture, as discussed above, but
after the emergence of Christianity, the question of biblical interpretation
gave rise to it as a theory of interpretation. Then since Schleiermacher onward,
there started to emerge certain philosophical themes which later on developed
through Dilthey, Heidegger, Gadamer, Apel, Habermas, Hirsch, Bultman and Ricouer
etc. to build it up as a distinct philosophical tradition.
Biblical Hermeneutics
The ancient Greek states used to have Homer’s and Hesiod’s
poems as a part of their education curriculum as they were rejected as such by
Plato in the Republic. It shows
that the Greek pedagogues had a sense of interpreting literary text though they
were not aware of the term hermeneutics as we are today. That is to say, they
were not hermeneuticians but still had a hermeneutical approach to drama and
poetry. Aristotle, for instance, in his ‘Art of Rhetoric’ taught how to dissect
the whole of a literary work into its parts, distinguish literary forms and
recognise the effect of rhythm, period and metaphor.
But technically speaking, according to Palmer, the oldest and ‘the most
widespread understanding of the word hermeneutics refers to the principles of
biblical interpretation’ based upon the distinction of biblical exegesis as mere
interpretation from hermeneutics as the methodology of interpretation
characterised by certain rules, methods and theories governing the
interpretation. Throughout the
medieval era, two methods were commonly used in interpreting the Bible namely:
grammatical-historical and allegorical.
The grammatical-historical method is used in interpreting
the Old Testament in the light of the New Testament and vice versa. It is based
upon the view that both the Scriptures are revealed by God though in different
times. The New Testament was revealed onto Jesus (sws) who is considered to be
the last Prophet among the children of Israel, so it is an extension of the
teachings of the previous prophets.
In Biblical hermeneutics, one could interpret certain passages of the New
Testament by referring to certain passages of the Old Testament determining as
appropriately as possible what they meant to their original readers and then how
they can be used in interpreting the passages of the New Testament. In this
regard, the Old Testament may be useful in different ways but the most important
one is that of the Old Testament prophecies and their New Testament fulfillments.
There are certain passages in the Old Testament (for instant, Isaiah 9:6) that
predict a royal ‘birth of superhuman king of David’s line who is both king and
priest and divine’. The majority of Biblical exegetes, according to Laird
Harris, have a consensus of opinions on this issue alleging that the predicted
superhuman son of David is Jesus Christ.
Besides the grammatical-historical method, the procedure
of allegorical interpretation of the Bible, imported from the Stoics, had been
of great significance as ‘it eliminated the conflict between religious texts and
an enlightened world view’. The
allegorical interpretation might be satisfactory for both gnostics and orthodox
simultaneously as thereby one could work out both gnostic and agnostic meanings
of a religious text through allegories and metaphors.
The Renaissance & the Biblical Hermeneutics
Along with several other spheres of learning in the
Western world Biblical hermeneutics was also to be benefited from the
Renaissance. From 1545 to 1563, the council of Trent insisted ‘on church
authority and tradition on matters of’ Biblical interpretation and thereby a
conflict of opinion was to arise between the Catholic Church and the Protestant
reformers. The latter, rejecting the church authority and tradition, advanced
the view that the Holy Scriptures are ‘perspicuous and self-sufficient’ to be
interpreted so that the church is not supposed to be a necessary authority to
mediate the text to the mortals.
Both Dilthey and M-Vollmer consider Matthias Flacius Illyricus as ‘the most
important Protestant theorist’ who ‘laid firm basis for the development of
Protestant hermenetics’.
Rejecting the church authority in interpreting the Bible ‘he argued that if the
Scriptures had not yet been understood properly, this did not necessarily imply
that the church ought to impose an external interpretation to make them
intelligible; it merely reflected the insufficient knowledge and faulty
preparation of the interpreters.’
Flacius, like Luther and Melanchthon, also claimed that ‘the Scriptures
contained an internal coherence and continuity’, that is to say, ‘an individual
passage [of a Scripture] must be interpreted in terms of the aim and composition
of the whole work’. This argument
of Flacius’ seems to be a very initial form of the ‘hermeneutical circle’ which
is the ‘canon of totality and meaningful coherence’ used as a methodological
device in hermeneutical theory. In this device, a text is brought to the
understanding as a ‘whole in relation to which individual parts acquire their
meaning’ and vice versa. It
reminds us of the basic doctrine of Farāhī’s school of thought concerning
Qur’ānic hermeneutics. Although Farāhī had no acquaintance with Flacius’ work
and he had not as well to react against any ‘Church’. But like Flacius, who
played a vital role in working out new theories for biblical interpretation, he
laid a new foundation for the development of Qur’ānic hermeneutics. He opined
that the Qur’ān is not a set of discrete verses, instead it is an organic whole
wherein the verses are integrally connected. Furthermore, a verse should be
interpreted in the nexus of the other verses, that is to say, the Qur’ān should
be interpreted in the light of its own rather than by any other external
authority.
Toward General Hermeneutics: Schleiermacher
Before Schleiermacher
Schleiermacher is considered to be the founder of modern
tradition of hermeneutics. He was the first thinker who intended to work out a
hermeneutical theory by virtue of which any kind of text could be interpreted.
This hermeneutical approach was very novel comparing the classical tradition of
hermeneutics in which the object of interpretation had often been the Biblical
text. The Schleiermacherian approach is reported to influenced by two
intellectual traditions: first, the Enlightenment philosophers who intended ‘to
proceed everywhere from certain principles and to systematize all human
knowledge’ and that is the approach whereby ‘hermeneutics became a province of
philosophy’; second, the Romantic
tradition which Schleiermacher was himself a part of.
In order to understand Schleiermacher’s thought concerning hermeneutics it is
apt to have a view of those pre-Schleiermacherian thinkers, of both
Enlightenment and Romantic traditions, whose thought has been reported to be
amalgamated by him.
Chladenius
Hermeneutics as an Art of Perfect
Understanding
As far as the development of general hermeneutics is
concerned, Chladenius (1710-1759) is the most important figure among the
philosophers of Enlightenment. In his view, hermeneutics is ‘the art of
attaining the perfect or complete understanding of utterances, whether they be
speeches (Reden) or writings (Schriften)’.
Chladenius’s position, being a theorist of hermeneutics, can be understood
clearly, as M-Vollmer put it, ‘by considering three aspects of his theory which
are closely interrelated: his concept of hermeneutics, his implied notion of
verbal meanings, and his theory of the ‘point-of-view’ (Sehe-Punckt) concerning
historical writings.’ Chladenius
defined hermeneutics as ‘the art of attaining perfect understanding’; therefore,
he gave two basic criteria as a guarantee for attaining perfect understanding of
a text. First, a text is to be understood ‘wherever we have grasped the
intention of the author and whenever we are able to think in our minds all that
the words of the author are able to arouse in us according to ‘the rules of
reason and of the mind itself.’ The authorised intention is neither an
expression of the author’s personality nor his psychological state of mind
rather it ‘relates to the specific genre of writing he intended to produce.’
Second, Chladenius considered the rules of reason unchangeable and so they
‘guarantee the stability of meaning and the possibility of its objective
transfer through verbal expressions’. If a text was constructed in accordance
with ‘the appropriate rules of discourse’ and the ideas were presented clearly
by the author, then ‘his words on the page would give rise to a correct and
perfect understanding: author and reader alike shared in the same rational
principles.’
The most important aspect of Chladenius’s theory is ‘his
notion of point-of-view or perspective (Sehe-Punckt )’ which he used to
interpret history. The same historical event could be interpreted differently by
two different historians. The two different accounts concerning the same
historical event could not be contradictory for Chladenius as he believed that
an individual understands the events and happenings surrounding him from his own
perspective or point of view. ‘This relativity of perspective’ was not
problematic for Chladenius as, according to him, one could still judge the
truthfulness of any perspective. How could one judge the truthfulness of a
perspective? When one places oneself into someone else’s perspective, one can
compare what one perceives through someone else’s account with what one knows
from other sources. This perspectivism of Chladenius’s concerning historical
interpretation is, according to himself, to be derived from Leibniz’s Optics.
But according to M-Vollmer, it seems, far more proper, to be derived from
Leibniz’s ‘Monadology in which each monad always perceives the same universe,
but from its own perspective and according to its own abilities.’
Friedrich Ast
The Concept of Geist and Hermeneutical Circle
Among the Romantic thinkers, Friedrich Ast(1778-1841) was the most important one who had a deep impact on
Schleiermacherian approach toward general hermeneutics. Ast was basically a
philologist whose major work Grundlinien der Grammatik, Hermeneutik und kritik
(Basic Elements of Grammar, Hermeneutics and Criticism) was used by
Schleiermacher as a reference in establishing his own views concerning
hermeneutics. There were various conceptions in Schleiermacher’s general
hermeneutics which were already worked out by Ast in his philology namely ‘the
hermeneutical circle, the relation of the part to the whole, the metaphysics of
genius or individuality’ etc. The main thrust of Ast’s hermeneutical views is
his concept of ‘Geist’. Philology, for him, is not only a grammatical style of a
work rather its ‘basic aim is grasping the spirit (Geist)’ of the age, which is
revealed in the work. Philology attempts to ‘grasp the outer and inner context
of a work as a unity’. The inner unity is the harmonious relation of various
parts of a work while the outer unity, which is the source of the inner unity,
is the unity of the spirit of the age. Here arises the crucial role of language
as a prime medium to transmit the spirit of the age in an authorial work. When a
reader confronts a text, he not only understands the meaning of the words but he
grasps the spirit of a genius (the author) as well as the spirit of the age in
which the text was written. So hermeneutics, for Ast, ‘is the theory of
extracting the geistige (spiritual) meaning of the text’. And the understanding
of this geistige meaning of ‘unknown view points, feelings and ideas’ of
antiquity can never be possible until and unless all of them were, in some
primordial way, bound up in Geist of the antiquity.
In the light of the concept of Geist, one can understand
Ast’s conception of the hermeneutical circle. According to Ast, if one confronts
a text of antiquity, one can get twofold understanding of it. On one hand, one
can grasp the Geist of antiquity revealed as a whole in the text and, on the
other hand, one can also find ‘the Geist of an individual author’ in connection
with ‘higher relationship to the whole’. Now the task of hermeneutics is to
clarify ‘the relationship of [text’s] inner parts to each other and to the
larger spirit of the age’. So hermeneutics, for Ast, becomes a three-dimensional
activity, that is, it may be the historical, the grammatical or the spiritual (geistige).
In the historical hermeneutics, a text is to be understood ‘in relation to the
content of the work’. In the grammatical hermeneutics. a text is to be
understood ‘in relation to the language’. And in the geistige hermeneutics, a
text is to be understood ‘in relation to the total view of the author and the
total view of the age. Two Enlightenment thinkers Semler and Ernesti had already
developed the first two respectively. But the third one was an original
contribution of Ast to the rise of general hermeneutics and it is the type of
hermeneutics, which was further developed by Schleiermacher.
F.A.Wolf
Interpretation as a Dialogue
Along with Chladenius and Ast the philologist,
F.A.Wolf (1759-1824) is also very important in order to understand
Schleiermacher’s contribution to the rise of general hermeneutics. For Wolf,
interpretation is a kind of dialogue between the author and the interpreter and
the dialogue takes place at the spiritual level. So the interpreter must have a
talent of ‘entering into the mental world’ of the author, as without it the
explanation of the text is not possible. It means that the grasping of a text is
characterized by a twofold enterprise: first, the interpreter has to understand
the text by a dialogical process at the spiritual level and second, he has to
explain his understanding to others.
Schleiermacher’s Contribution
to the Rise of General Hermeneutics
Two Dimensional
Interpretation
Schleiermacher’s hermeneutical philosophy is characterized by an amalgamation
of the hermeneutical theories before him with a touch of his own creative
approach. He defines hermeneutics
as an ‘art of understanding’,
i.e., it is something to deal with the possibilities of understanding a text and
its modes of interpretation. He considers a text as an utterance whether spoken
or written. Furthermore, an act of speaking is only an outer side of thinking so
‘hermeneutics is a part of the art of thinking’, and is, therefore,
philosophical in nature. There are two dimensions of interpretation namely
grammatical and psychological; grammatical because the text is an act of
speaking which is always expressed through language, and psychological because
it is a manifestation of the speaker’s [the author’s] thought.
For Schleiermacher, understanding a speech [text] always
involves two moments: to understand what is said in the context of the language
with its possibilities, and to understand it as a fact in the thinking of the
speaker [the author].
Understanding a text depends upon the coherence of the
two moments discussed above and neither of the two dimensions is ‘lower’ or
‘higher’ in terms of its importance rather both are equally crucial. Both of the
dimensions should be applied simultaneously on the text to understand it.
Keeping in mind this task, the interpreter should be competent linguistically,
on one hand, and able enough to know people psychologically, on the other.
The Grammatical Interpretation
Schleiermacher’s notion of the grammatical
interpretation is based upon the two canons as follows:
1. ‘A more precise determination of any point
in a given text must be decided on the basis of the use of language common to
the author and his original public.’
2. ‘The meaning of each word of a passage must
be determined by the context in which it occurs.’
The first canon can be grasped by making a
distinction between meaning (Bedeutung) and sense (Sinn) of a word. Bedeutung,
for Schleiwermacher, is something ‘what a word is thought to mean ‘in and of
itself’, while Sinn is something ‘what the word is thought to mean in a given
context’. So having a single meaning a word could acquire a range (Cyclus) of
the various senses. In the interpretation of a text, the meaning of a word
should be determined by the sense in which the author used the word in the
language shared by him with his original public. In order to achieve the task of
the grammatical interpretation, the interpreter should be very well equipped
with the comprehensive knowledge of the language shared by the author and his
public. This kind of knowledge can be obtained if an interpreter grasps an
author’s linguistic ‘sphere’ which is constituted by the various factors of the
author’s life and his age. ‘The statement that we must consciously grasp an
author’s linguistic sphere in contrast to other organic aspects of his language,
implies that we understand the author better than he understood himself.’ It is
so as, at times, when we interpret a text, we confront certain difficulties and
problems; and when we attempt to solve that problems we ‘become aware of many
things of which the author himself was unaware’.
According to the second canon, a passage in
which a word occurs constitutes a ‘determinative linguistic sphere’ as a context
within which the meaning of the word is to be determined. Likewise, the whole of
the text is a context in which a passage of it can be understood. It may be that
one moves, in order to decipher an appropriate meaning of a word, from the
second canon to the first. When the context of a passage is not sufficient to
explain the meaning of a word, ‘one must turn to other passages where these same
words occur, and under certain conditions, to other works of the author or even
to works written by others in which these words appear. But one must always
remain within the same linguistic sphere’.
The Psychological or Technical Interpretation
As stated earlier a text is, for
Schleiermacher, an act of speaking, that is, a linguistic manifestation of an
author’s thought. So the meaning of the text is grounded upon the primordial
speech act of a speaker [author]. And an author is not merely an ego, having the
label of Romantic subjectivism, as a fixed substance as little as the ‘I’ in
Fichte’s science of knowledge, instead, as M-Vollmer put it, ‘he must be seen in
the context of linguisticality as something fluid and dynamic, something
mediated, an act from which the text originates’.This speech act of an author amalgamates the two aspects of his personality:
the inner system of his thought, and the system of language as its outer
expression. Therefore, both grammatical and psychological (technical)
interpretations are applicable on the text at the same time. ‘But in the
technical [psychological] interpretation the unity of the work [text], its
theme, is viewed as the dynamic principle impelling the author, and the basic
features of the composition are viewed as his distinctive nature, revealing
itself in that movement’.
The Hermeneutical Circle
The psychological interpretation is based upon the hermeneutical circle at
the level of thought, that is to say, an interpreter is to consider the whole of
the text in terms of its parts and in every part there is a manifestation of the
author’s individual thought thereby all of these parts mutually constitute the
theme of the whole text. The same notion of hermeneutical circle can be seen at
the linguistic level particularly in case of the second canon where the meaning
of a word is to be determined in the nexus of the whole passage in which it
occurs and again the meaning of the passage is to be constituted by the meanings
of the individual words.
Understanding an Author’s Style: Divinatory / Comparative Methods
For Schleiermacher, the goal of the technical interpretation is the complete
understanding of author’s style. An author’s distinctive style is to be
established by how does he ‘organize his material’ as well as how does he use
the language. As far as the understanding of author’s style is concerned, the
technical interpretation involves two methods namely divinatory and comparative
methods. The divinatory method involves the interpreter’s intuition. Intuitively
speaking, the interpreter transforms himself into author and that’s how he
immediately comprehends the author as a unique individual as well as his
distinct style. While in the comparative method, as the term implies, an
interpreter grasps the distinct style of an author by comparing him with the
other authors of the same general type to which the author is also subsumed to
belong. The divinatory and comparative methods, for Schleiermacher, can never be
separated from each other; rather they should be applicable at the same time.
Without the touch of comparison, the divination ‘always tends to be fanatical’
and the same is true for comparison if it is applied solely.
Conclusion
The conclusion I have drawn from this study is
that Schleiermacherian approach toward hermeneutics is a midway between the
classical tradition of Biblical hermeneutics and the modern tradition of
philosophical hermeneutics. He is truly considered to be the founding father of
modern hermeneutics as one can easily find certain traces of contemporary
hermeneutics, like hermeneutical circle, the psychology of author, and
divination etc., as rooted in his thought. The line of demarcation between him
and the classical hermeneuticians is his intention to derive a universal kind of
methodology by virtue of which one can interpret any sort of text rather than
the Bible particularly. And then his philosophical way to work out that
methodology is the characteristic, which links him with the modern sphere of
hermeneutics. That’s the reason why great hermeneuticians like Dilthey,
Heidegger, Gadamer etc owe a great debt to him for his distinct contribution in
the development of hermeneutics. Furthermore, this study of mine shows that
certain doctrines of the Western hermeneutics are somewhat similar to that of
Muslim hermeneutics. So, in order to work out an appropriate methodology for
understanding the Qur’ān, Muslim hermeneuticians or exegetes could benefit from
the Western hermeneutics.
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