Concept
Hermeneutics
Overview
Hermeneutics () is the study of the methodological principles of interpretation, especially the interpretation of biblical texts, wisdom literature, and philosophical texts. As necessary, hermeneutics may include the art of understanding and communication.
Modern hermeneutics includes both verbal and non-verbal communication, as well as semiotics, presuppositions, and pre-understandings. Hermeneutics has been broadly applied in the humanities, especially in law, history and theology.
Hermeneutics was initially applied to the interpretation, or exegesis, of scripture, and has been later broadened to questions of general interpretation. The terms hermeneutics and exegesis are sometimes used interchangeably. Hermeneutics is a wider discipline which includes written, verbal, and nonverbal communication. Exegesis focuses primarily upon the word and grammar of texts.
Hermeneutic, as a count noun in the singular, refers to some particular method of interpretation (see, in contrast, double hermeneutic).
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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For as when a thing is understood by anyone, there results in the one who understands a conception of the object understood, which conception we call word; so when anyone loves an object, a certain impression results, so to speak, of the thing loved in the affection of the lover; by reason of which the object loved is said to be in the lover; as also the thing understood is in the one who understands; so that when…
Aquinas Thomas, Summa Theologica, Part I
States what Hermeneutics is; the author is tied to Hermeneutics in the knowledge graph.
Then follows in the second stage of expression in speech, an analysis of that total idea into its parts, in which these parts are always put into close relations with each other. Such relations are called by grammarians subject and predicate, noun and adjective, verb and adverb, &c. The grammatical meaning of these categories shows clearly that this analysis consists of a system of primary and secondary relations…
Wilhelm Max Wundt, An Introduction to Psychology Translated from the Second German Edition
States what Hermeneutics is; the author is tied to Hermeneutics in the knowledge graph.
As soon as writing came into fashion, wise men, or those who fancied themselves such, would naturally endeavour to increase the number of those established and respected maxims, and to express their own sense of what was either proper or improper conduct, sometimes in the more artificial form of apologues, like what are called the fables of Aesop; and sometimes in the more simple one of apophthegms or wise sayings…
Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
States what Hermeneutics is.
Philosophers who discussed Hermeneutics
- Bernard Lonergan
- Heinrich Rickert
- Je Tsongkhapa
- Hans-Georg Gadamer
- Mulla Sadra
- Jürgen Habermas
- Jean-Paul Sartre
- Karl Mannheim
- Friedrich Schleiermacher
- Karl-Otto Apel
- Max Weber
- Mario Bunge
- Augustine of Hippo
- Leo Strauss
- Gianni Vattimo
- Henry Corbin
- Buddhaghosa
- Johann Gottfried Herder
- Charles Taylor (philosopher)
- Karl Jaspers
- Wilhelm Wundt
- Martin Heidegger
- Michael Oakeshott
- Vāchaspati Misra
Related ideas
- Bernard Lonergan
- Artificial intelligence
- Georg Henrik von Wright
- Philosophical realism
- Hebrew language
- Hinduism
- Philosophy
- Western philosophy
- Hans-Georg Gadamer
- Immanuel Kant
- Verstehen
- Vedas
- Mircea Eliade
- Antipositivism
- Analytic philosophy
- John Calvin
- Northern Europe
- Jacques Lacan
- Jürgen Habermas
- Nader El-Bizri
- Karl Popper
- Kabbalah
- Paradigm
- Ludwig Wittgenstein
Place in the tradition
Part of Aesthetics.