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The Multidimensionality of Hermeneutic Phenomenology pp 359–385Cite as

The Hermeneutics of God, the Universe, and Everything

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Part of the book series: Contributions to Phenomenology ((CTPH,volume 70))

Abstract

Hermeneutic interpretation entered modern thought as a means of clarifying and resolving apparent incoherencies and contradictions within the scriptures, its potential for determining the meanings of legal, classical, and other texts being soon recognized, and even extended to the discernment of the meanings of plays, paintings, and other artistic and cultural artifacts and performances. And while some argued such meanings were to be ascertained by interpreting them within the contexts in which they appeared, others maintaining that artists’ or authors’ intentions were ultimately authoritative, were forced to concede that these too could only be interpretively derived, often in similar manner. Moreover conflicting interpretations suggest that the concepts which shape our “perceptions” of such matters are relative, while Gestalt psychologists and Ames and his school empirically demonstrated that even our most basic empirical perceptions are interpretations shaped by our pre-conceptions; an insight which clearly undermines the objectivistic pretensions of the natural sciences. The paper concludes, along with Heidegger, that hermeneutic interpretation is central to all epistemological understanding, as indeed it is to our very existence or being as humans.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The term has its roots in the Greek term hermeneuein meaning to interpret.

  2. 2.

    See for instance Heidegger (1971, 1975, 1976a, Sect. 44, 256–273).

  3. 3.

    Dilthey (1957), 144 as quoted by Schrag (1980), 101. My addition in parentheses.

  4. 4.

    Dilthey, quoted in Polkinghorne (1983), 221, quoting Earmarth (1978), 303.

  5. 5.

    As we shall see later, Heidegger argues that epistemological hermeneutics, concerned with meanings of the sort with which we are here concerned, is merely an aspect of an ontological hermeneutics which is concerned to understand the significance of being, of what it means to be, which is in its turn to be differentiated from a hermeneutic ontology, for which, irrespective of the (epistemological) recognition thereof, the pursuit of meaning or significance is itself a mode of being.

  6. 6.

    de Saussure (1959), 114.

  7. 7.

    For a more detailed discussion and references concerning the aforementioned development of Hermeneutics see Polkinghorne (1983), 215ff.

  8. 8.

    See Bauman (1978), 9.

  9. 9.

    On this issue, see for example, Heidegger (1976b) and Martin Heidegger (1962, Sect. 32, 188–195).

  10. 10.

    Martin Heidegger (1962), 192. My addition in provided parentheses.

  11. 11.

    An enormous assumption that many would argue is clearly unwarranted. Thus while, to give but one of many examples, the Old Testament insists “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” the New Testament of course councils that we “Turn the other cheek” while the attempt to overcome this apparent contradiction by limiting each to its own Testament provides no solution to a religion whose “holy book” The Bible, consists of both!

  12. 12.

    Gadamer (1975), 263.

  13. 13.

    Gadamer (1975), 275–276.

  14. 14.

    On this distinction see, for instance, Mathew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy, as quoted by Derrida (1978), 79.

  15. 15.

    Gadamer (1975), 265.

  16. 16.

    Gadamer (1975), 264. See also 263.

  17. 17.

    Bauman (1978), 181.

  18. 18.

    Schütz (1972), 106.

  19. 19.

    Schütz and Luckmann (1974), 16.

  20. 20.

    This is not, of course, to imply that the motivating intention, and the sort of actions following from it, would necessarily remain the same over time, and regardless of circumstance. Indeed were the motive a resource grab, sufficient success, and/or the diminishing importance of the resource, brought about by technological change for instance, might well lead to the prediction that the hitherto belligerent invader will cease being so.

  21. 21.

    Schütz (1962), 246. See also 243.

  22. 22.

    Bauman (1978), 181.

  23. 23.

    Quoted by Ricoeur (1981), 151. My addition in parentheses.

  24. 24.

    Helmuth Plessner (1978), p. 39.

  25. 25.

    I use his qualification to distinguish “Travelers” from Tourists, who sojourning in Europe, South America, Africa or Asia, typically journey by air or with coach touring parties, from one Holiday Inn, Hilton or Ritz Carlton resort to another, and, like visitors to Disney’s Epcot “World Showcase,” make occasional forays from these hotels into “alien” cultures.

  26. 26.

    Plessner (1978), 31.

  27. 27.

    See Simmel (1970).

  28. 28.

    See for example Koepping (1981).

  29. 29.

    Ricoeur (1981), 17.

  30. 30.

    See my note 10. While I am aware that Marxists normally apply this term to those who, they claim, do not understand what is in their best interests economically, there is no reason why it should not be more widely understood as indicative of delusions of many sorts.

  31. 31.

    Gadamer (1975), 484. Gadamer’s parentheses.

  32. 32.

    See my note 10 above.

  33. 33.

    Habermas (1978), 313–314. See also 315.

  34. 34.

    Gadamer (1976), 51.

  35. 35.

    Gadamer (1975), 239–240.

  36. 36.

    See Barnes (1974), 5. For a fuller discussion of the Postmodern critique of reason see Glynn (1991).

  37. 37.

    See How (1980).

  38. 38.

    See Gadamer (1975), 245, and (1976), 51, and Jacques Derrida (1974), 11. For a fuller discussion see Glynn (2005), 59–76. Note that so far from being synonymous with the irrational, and thus simply the logical negation of rational, the “non-rational” is nether.

  39. 39.

    Gadamer (1976), 9.

  40. 40.

    Scheler (1960), 122, FN 2, as quoted by Leiss in (1974), 109.

  41. 41.

    Bacon as quoted in Rozack (1973), 149.

  42. 42.

    For but one example see Nietzsche (1970) 3:526.

  43. 43.

    Friedrich Nietzsche (1970) 3:726, as quoted by Habermas (1978), 297. Nietzsche’s addition in parentheses.

  44. 44.

    Heidegger (1976b), 247–248.

  45. 45.

    Husserl (1913), 374 quoted by Lubbe (1978), 108.

  46. 46.

    Husserl (1970), 233.

  47. 47.

    Merleau-Ponty (1962), 3 & 7.

  48. 48.

    Kuhn (1970), 126–127.

  49. 49.

    Polanyi (1958), 96.

  50. 50.

    Husserl (1970), 128–129.

  51. 51.

    Husserl (1970), 127.

  52. 52.

    See Hume (1967), 204–208, 211–212 & 215.

  53. 53.

    Albert Einstein quoted in Heisenberg (1971), 64–65. My additions in brackets.

  54. 54.

    Pierce (1931–5), Vol. VII, 344.

  55. 55.

    See Rozack (1973), 362ff.

  56. 56.

    Polanyi, Personal Knowledge, 167.

  57. 57.

    Albert Einstein quoted in Heisenberg (1971), 63.

  58. 58.

    Popper (1959), 107, Fn. 3. My addition in brackets.

  59. 59.

    Lakatos (1970), 99.

  60. 60.

    That Universal theories can never be definetively verified but gain greater credability with the failure of diverse observations to falsify them.

  61. 61.

    Heidegger (1959), 205. My addition in parentheses.

  62. 62.

    Heidegger (1962), 27. My addition in parentheses.

  63. 63.

    Heidegger (1962), 32. See also 27.

  64. 64.

    Heidegger (1962), 62.

  65. 65.

    Ricoeur (1981), 44.

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  1. Florida Atlantic University, 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton, FL, 33431, USA

    Simon Glynn

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  1. Fordham University, New York, New York, USA

    Babette Babich

  2. St. Kliment Ohridski University, Sofia, Bulgaria

    Dimitri Ginev

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Glynn, S. (2014). The Hermeneutics of God, the Universe, and Everything. In: Babich, B., Ginev, D. (eds) The Multidimensionality of Hermeneutic Phenomenology. Contributions to Phenomenology, vol 70. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01707-5_20

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