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Hermeneutics

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Abstract

Hermeneutics is a field of inquiry that explores the phenomenon of interpretation. This chapter provides an overview of some of the main approaches to hermeneutics—as a philosophy of interpretation and of literature and literary studies. After first presenting briefly the main ideas of Friedrich Schleiermacher and Wilhelm Dilthey, the chapter focuses on Gadamerian philosophical hermeneutics and its view of understanding as profoundly historical and dialogical. The chapter shows how hermeneutics allows us to approach literature not only as an object of interpretation but as an interpretative practice in its own right. The chapter ends with a glance at some of the challenges that hermeneutics currently faces and with a brief discussion of how contemporary narrative hermeneutics explores narrative as a culturally mediated interpretative practice.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The term hermeneutics enters the lexicon in the Latinate form in seventeenth-century protestant theology (Keane and Lawn 2016, 1); according to the Oxford English Dictionary, it was first used in English in the second edition of Daniel Waterland’s Review of the Doctrine of the Eucharist (1737).

  2. 2.

    Schleiermacher developed his hermeneutics in his lectures in 1805–1833.

  3. 3.

    On ‘etwas als etwas’, see also Heidegger (1996, 58, 139) and Gadamer (1997, 90).

  4. 4.

    This and the next paragraph draw on The Ethics of Storytelling (Meretoja 2018, 45–46), in which I analyse in more detail examples of complex narrative interpretations.

  5. 5.

    Gadamer questions the theoretical-methodological self-understanding that derives from modern natural science but does not reject theories and methods as such (as is often claimed): ‘It is imagination that … serves the ability to expose real, productive questions, something in which, generally speaking, only he who masters all the methods of his science succeeds’ (1977, 12).

  6. 6.

    See Habermas (1986b, 198) and Gadamer (2001, 149–50, 1993, 469).

  7. 7.

    For a similar point, see Warnke (2002, 318–20). See also MacKendrick (2008, 93–94).

  8. 8.

    See, for example, Dostal (2002, 255–57).

  9. 9.

    On the dialogical relationship between individuals and social systems, see Meretoja (2014b, 167–71, 2016, 2018, 74–85).

  10. 10.

    For example, Warnke (1987, 116) claims that Gadamerian hermeneutics ‘remains tied to a society’s explicit or implicit self-understanding’.

  11. 11.

    On the idea of the text as a question, see Figal (2000, 337).

  12. 12.

    On the suspicion towards hermeneutics in French thought, see Davis (2010, 32–33, 50, 63, 173), Meretoja (2014b) and Felski (2015, 32–33).

  13. 13.

    These charges were levelled against hermeneutics in the famous debate between Habermas (see 1971, 1986a) and Derrida (see Michelfelder and Palmer 1989).

  14. 14.

    See Thompson (1995), Kögler (1999), Pappas and Cowling (2003), Mootz and Taylor (2011), Roberge (2011) and Meretoja (2014b).

  15. 15.

    In the discussion of narrative hermeneutics, I draw on Meretoja (2016, 2018).

  16. 16.

    See, for example, Meretoja and Davis (2018), Meretoja (2014b, 2016, 2018) and Korthals Altes (2014) and the contributions by several literary scholars to the special issue Narrative Hermeneutics (Brockmeier 2016).

  17. 17.

    See, for example, Fludernik (1996), who sees ‘experiencing’ as a universal cognitive frame.

  18. 18.

    See, for example, Velleman (2003); on narrative as a form of explanation, see also Ritivoi (2009, 33).

  19. 19.

    For a more thorough discussion of these advantages, see Meretoja (2016 and 2018, Ch. 2).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Turku, Turku, Finland

    Hanna Meretoja

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  1. Hanna Meretoja
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Correspondence to Hanna Meretoja .

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  1. Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Barry Stocker

  2. Durham University, Durham, UK

    Michael Mack

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Meretoja, H. (2018). Hermeneutics. In: Stocker, B., Mack, M. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Philosophy and Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54794-1_16

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