Hermeneutics

General standard

Fields of the hermeneutics

One speaks about hermeneutics for the interpretation of the texts in general, old in particular, even of any work, the Contemporary art for example, that the hermeneutics sometimes have to cover.

That of the Scriptures which it is of the Bible or the Coran is a subject which remains delicate. One also indicates by hermeneutics the philosophical reflection interpretative on the symbols religious and the Mythe S. One calls this the crowned Herméneutique (or biblical hermeneutics when it is limited to the Bible, i.e. with the texts of the Judaïsme and Christianity).

The hermeneutics find applications in literary criticism or historical, in the Droit, the Sociologie, in Informatique, theology (field of origin), or even within the framework of the Psychanalyse.

Questions of methodology

The methodology of the revealing or the restitution of a text raises two questions:

which statute to give the script writers (because the term of author poses to him also problems!) biblical text? Inspiration, diction (infallibility)?
up to what point does the interpretation of the reader have to be taken into account and is it validates (compared to the religious Tradition and with a collective reading representative of the group carrying this tradition)?

History of the hermeneutics

The hermeneutics are the activity which consists in explaining texts whose comprehension is not immediate. It makes it possible to arrive to a comprehension of a text at least as good as that which its author had, and often even better.

Origins

The hermeneutics is as old as are to it the Religion S, the Spiritualité S, and philosophy. However, the term of hermeneutics appeared only in the last centuries, in order to renew the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures in the context of the modern scientific revolution (Galileo).

In the Organon, which treats Logique (general), Aristote (IVe century AEC) had defined rules of interpretation of the texts ( Of interpretation , second book of the Organon).

The tradition of the rabbinical Judaïsme for a long time knew rules of interpretation of the Torah. Hillel Hazaken (Ier century AEC) had defined seven rules of interpretation. Rabbi Ishmaël, developing the seven rules of Hillel, exposed thirteen principles.

In addition, the rabbinical Judaïsme knew four directions (By) to interpret the Hebraic Bible: Peshat , remez (allusive), Drash (interpretative), and sod (secret/mystical). For example, the literal Sens ( Peshat ) proved often insufficient to include/understand in-depth the direction of the crowned Textes.

The Christian tradition took again these doctrines of the Four directions of the Writing by adapting it to the Christianisme. Origène at the 3rd century applied it to the Prière (Lectio divina), then Jean Cassien (whose famous the Règle is inspired by Saint Benoit) theorized it by introducing it into the Monastère S.

Medieval hermeneutics

The doctrines of the Four directions of the Writing had an important success during all the Moyen-âge: the allegorical Direction, following Prudence, inspired most of the medieval Littérature layman.

It is at the 12th century that she knew her apogee, at the time of the introduction of sciences Greek and arabo-Moslem woman in Occident. She played a big role with the birth of the Scolastique. Hugues of Saint-Victor knew it ( De Scripturis ).

In the Judaism, the medieval period saw the development of many new categories of rabbinical interpretation and explanation of the Torah, including the emergence of the Kabbale and the writings of Maïmonide. The biblical comments and the comments of the Talmud fall under this tradition.

Rebirth

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19th century

It is Schleiermacher (1768 - 1834) which posed the bases of the contemporary hermeneutics. Schleiermacher also highlighted the Cercle hermeneutics (the expression is of Dilthey). To include/understand a text, it is necessary to have included/understood work, but to include/understand work, it is necessary to have included/understood the texts.

20th century

The pupil of Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer published in 1960 the work which still passes for its most important book: Truth and Méthode . This important text affirms, in dispute of false objectivity often present in the Social sciences, that " the method is not enough pas". A work cannot be explained why according to our own horizon of waiting. The reading is made in the existing tension between the text of last and the current Horizon of waiting. Thus Céline could say of an contemporary artist whom it made of the things that one did not ask him! Moreover, Gadamer affirms that " any text is answer to a question." If the text still speaks to the readers present it is that he still answers a question. The work of the Historien is to find which question the text answered in the past and which he answers today.

Hans Robert Jauss, in For an esthetics of the reception (1972), taking again the lesson of Gadamer, in the vision of the School of Constancy, will refine the theory hermeneutics. He will propose the use of a " triade" hermeneutics for the study of works.

the triad hermeneutics of Jauss

the interpretation of the text where it is necessary to reflect, retrospectively and to find the significances.
the historical rebuilding , where one seeks to include/understand the Altérité carried by the text.
the immediate comprehension of the text, its esthetic value and the effect that its reading produces on oneself.

The herméneute which uses this model is thus implied enormously in the study and tries to include/understand the innovative value of work.

Applications of the hermeneutics

Sociology

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Right

Data-processing

The researchers in Informatique, particularly those which treat Linguistique data processing, of Ingénierie of knowledge, economic Intelligence, and protocols of analysis, did not fail to notice the Communauté of interest which they share with the researchers in hermeneutics, compared to the character of the agents of interpretation and with the control of the activities of interpretation. For example, in their summary of memory in artificial intelligence in 1986, Mallery, Hurwitz, and Duffy declared what follows:

The hermeneutics, which are a branch of the continental Philosophie European treating comprehension and human interpretation of written texts, offer a power of Discernement which can contribute to the comprehension of the significance, the translation, architectures for the comprehension of the natural Language, and even with the methods which are appropriate for the scientific research in artificial intelligence. (Mallery, Hurwitz, Duffy, 1986).

International relations

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Religion and theology

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In the field of biblical sciences, one calls hermeneutics the Discourse on Method of the biblical Exégèse: how it is possible to interpret the old texts which compose the Bible. In the Catholic church, the pontifical biblical Commission published in 1993 a document presenting the rules of these hermeneutics.

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