Hermeneutics (redirected from Hermenutics)

hermeneutics, the theory and practice of interpretation. During the Reformation hermeneutics came into being as a special discipline concerned with biblical criticism. The Protestant theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher expanded the discipline from one concerned with removing obstacles preventing readers from gaining the proper understanding of a text to one concerned in addition with analyzing the necessary conditions for readers coming to any understanding of a text. The philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey expanded the discipline still further by conceiving of all of the human and social sciences as hermeneutical enterprises and trying to construct a method uniquely for them, instead of borrowing one from the natural sciences. In the 20th cent. hermeneutics has been developed by the philosophers Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur.

Bibliography

See D. Hoy, The Critical Circle: Literature, History, and Philosophical Hermeneutics (1978); K. Mueller-Vollmer, ed., The Hermeneutics Reader (1985).

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hermeneutics

Study of the general principles of biblical interpretation. Its primary purpose is to discover the truths and values of the Bible, which is seen as a receptacle of divine revelation. Four major types of hermeneutics have emerged: literal (asserting that the text is to be interpreted according to the “plain meaning”), moral (seeking to establish the principles from which ethical lessons may be drawn), allegorical (interpreting narratives as having a level of reference beyond the explicit), and anagogical or mystical (seeking to explain biblical events as they relate to the life to come). More recently the word has come to refer to all “deep” reading of literary and philosophical texts.

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hermeneutics

1. the science of interpretation, esp of Scripture

2. the branch of theology that deals with the principles and methodology of exegesis

3. Philosophy

a. the study and interpretation of human behaviour and social institutions

b. (in existentialist thought) discussion of the purpose of life

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Hermeneutics 

exegesis, the study of the interpretation of texts, primarily ancient ones, whose original sense has been obscured by time or the badly preserved condition of the sources. The texts are deciphered through grammatical research of the language, the study of the form and of the historical context, the explication of allusions whose meaning has been obscured by time, and specific psychological research. In its application to the Bible, hermeneutics (Hermeneutica Sacra) seeks to discover the triple meaning of the text: the literal, the abstract and edifying, and the ideal and mystical. In addition to literature, hermeneutics is also used in music and law (the interpretation of laws). Hermeneutics is becoming obsolete and is being replaced by the broader method of interpretation, which also extends to recent literature.

REFERENCES

Blass, F. Germenevtika i kritika. Odessa, 1891. (Translated from German.)
Gornfel’d, A. “O tolkovanii khudozhestvennogo proizvedenia.” Russkoe bogatstvo, 1912, no. 2.
Beliaeva-Ekzempliarskaia, S. N. “Muzykal’naia germenevtika.” Iskusstvo, 1927, book 4.
Schleirmacher, F. Hermeneutik und Kritik…. Berlin, 1833.

A. L. GRISHUNIN