Hermeneutical Theory Since 1800
Hermeneutical Theory Since 1800: an Historical Assessment (adapted from Dr. Daniel Akin’s class notes – Thank You Dr. Akin)
No discussion of hermeneutics would be complete without mention of the father of modern hermeneutics, F. Schleiermacher. He argued that interpretation consisted of two categories: grammatical and technical or psychological. Grammatical interpretation focused on the text Itself and dealt with such matters as grammar, syntax, etc. while technical interpretation focused on the mind of the author in an attempt to reconstruct his psyche in order to determine his mental process that led him to write what he did. Schleiermacher defines authorial intention in a way which most, if not all, would agree today is untenable for the simple reason that we cannot get into the author’s psyche. This problem is particularly acute when considering ancient texts. The only hint at authorial intention we have is what the author has deposited in his text. We cannot get behind the text to the author’s thought processes.
For our purposes, we note two important features of Schleiermacher’s hermeneutics. He emphasized that interpretation involved both objective and subjective factors. Furthermore, he did not attempt to dissolve the subject/object distinction as many later theoreticians have attempted to do. Schleiermacher’s s recognition that interpretation involved both objective and subjective factors should be a vital part of a balanced theory of interpretation. If we inject the notion of the interpreter’s own horizons playing an integral part in meaning determination coupled with a more workable definition of authorial intention (see below), then Schleiermacher’s basic scheme proves to be a valuable hermeneutical method.
From Schleiermacher the history of modern hermeneutical theory followed the trail of W. Dilthey to C. Frege to E. Husserl to M. Heidegger to H. Cadamer. Space does not permit an analysis of the contributions and insights of Dilthey, Frege, and Husserl. Yet it is important to note that Heidegger was a student of Husserl and could not agree with his mentor that objective knowledge was possible. This point is crucial for it was Heidegger who ushered in the ontological revolution in hermeneutics. With it came an increasing skepticism towards the possibility of achieving determinate meaning in textual interpretation. Hence, we may say that Schleiermacher, Frege and Husserl are representative of the school of thought that determinate meaning and objectivity are possible in interpretation while Heldegger and his student Cadamer are representative of the view that there can be no determinate meaning and objectivity in textual interpretation.
Heidegger has had a profound influence on contemporary hermeneutical theory in his two works Being and Times and On the Way to Language It Is to Heidegger that we owe the valuable insight of hermeneutics as embracing the whole of man’s existence. Heidegger is an ontologist who posited “interpretation” as one of the fundamental modes of man’s being. However, Heidegger’s theory concerning the historicity of all understanding forced him and his followers to exaggerate the difference between past and present into a denial of any continuity of meaning at all. In Heidegger, the shift Is made from the primacy of the text to the primacy of the interpreter. Indeed, for Heidegger the interpreter is himself the source of meaning. Reality for the interpreter is “disclosed” via his understanding. Heidegger seems to disallow the cognoscibility of any objectively valid and determinate meaning.
Our critique of Heidegger must be brief at this point. It is not our purpose to critique captiously those with whom we disagree. Suffice it to say that from our perspective he has overemphasized the role of the interpreter In creating meaning by not allowing the text to communicate determinate meaning. His theory assumes the collapse of the subject/object dichotomy and therefore the impossibility of objective textual meaning.
R. Bultmann may be the most influential figure in NT studies in this century. While teaching at the University of Marburg, Bultmann found the philosophical framework for his approach to scripture , from his colleague, Heidegger. It Is primarily through Bultmann that Heidegger’s philosophical existentialism has found its way Into biblical studies.
Bultmann’s excellent article, “Is Exegesis without Presuppositions Possible?” should be lead by all who practice exegesis. Bultmann has accurately emphasized the fact that one cannot come to any text from a totally objective standpoint. The Interpreter always brings his own conceptual grid to the text. His first paragraph is worth quoting:
The question whether exegesis without presuppositions is possible must be answered affirmatively if “without presuppositions” means “without presupposing the results of the exegesis.” In this sense, exegesis without presuppositions is not only possible but demanded. In another sense, however, no exegesis is without presuppositions, inasmuch as the exegete is not a tabula rasa, but on the contrary, approaches the text with specific questions or with a specific way of raising questions and thus has a certain idea of the subject matter with which the text is concerned7
Yet Bultmann, following Heidegger, exaggerates this notion of presuppositions and subjectivity by arguing that the text of the Bible is not intended to be interpreted objectively but rather is to be a “Subject” that determines the interpreter’s existence. While we can agree that the Scriptures do “speak” to us in a sense as subject to object, we must reject the notion that with each approach to the text, there Is no valid or permanent meaning to be identified. By deemphasizing the cognitive aspects of textual meaning, and unduly exalting the ontological notion of interpretation as “encounter,” Bultmann injects into the main arteries of biblical exegesis an overdose of Heideggerian ontology and existentialism.
We can all agree that interpretation does not involve. a totally passive subject who stands wholly apart from his text and interprets it without any input from his own subjectivity. Like F. Kant, we have all been awakened from our Cartesian dogmatic slumbers. Whatever Insights Heidegger, Bultmann and the like may press upon us in this vein, we are the better for it. However, we must argue that meaning is not a construct of the interpreter’s subjectivity alone. It must be forcefully stated In opposition to the correlation of interpretation with ontology by Heidegger and Bultmann that they are doing nothing more In the end than suggesting that the interpreter projects his own subjectivity. Unless we maintain the otherness or objectivity of textual meaning, then we must face squarely the fact that we could not interpret at all. Heidegger’s scheme ineluctably results in the complete breakdown of the subject/object dichotomy, and it is this fact which causes his “method,” along with Bultmann’s, to be methodologically inadequate in biblical exegesi
Like Heidegger’s Being and Time, Gadamer’s monumental work Truth and Method must be reckoned with by evangelical exegetes. It contains some crucial insights which should not be ignored by those of us interested in text interpretation. Particularly helpful is his emphasis that interpreters come to a given text with their own worldview, presuppositions, or “horizon” as Gadamer uses the term, which is different from that of the text. What is necessary is a “fusion of horizons” for interpretation to take place.
However, Gadamer’s system is not without its philosophical and methodological flaws. Gadamer continues the attack on objective textual interpretation by emphasizing that meaning is not to be identified with authorial intention. Furthermore, exegesis has no foundational “methods” to be used in eliciting meaning from a given text. According to Gadamer, our historicity eliminates the possibility of discovering any determinate textual meaning and therefore objective meaning is not possible.
Yet Gadamer does not want to proffer relativism in text interpretation and hence he falls back on three concepts in an attempt to extricate himself from ultimate hermeneutical nihilism. These are 1) tradition, 2) meaning repetition, and 3) fusion of horizons. The role of tradition, as Gadamer sees it, is to enlarge the horizons of the text for each passing generation such that tradition serves as a bridge between the past and the present. The problem here is of course how to mediate between two conflicting traditional interpretations. By eliminating the possibility of objective textual meaning, Gadamer also eliminates the criterion needed to make a choice between conflicting interpretations and he is again left with relativism.
Gadamer seems to argue that a text does represent a repeatable meaning and yet in the same paragraph turns around and suggests that this is “not repetition of something past, but participation in a present meaning.” This creates confusion in that Gadamer seems to be saying first that meaning is repeatable and then that it isn’t. Such reasoning leads Hirsch to point out: “This kind of reasoning stands as eloquent testimony to the difficulties and self-contradictions that confront Gadamer’s theory as soon as one asks the simple question: what constitutes a valid interpretation?” While we can profit greatly from Gadamer’s statements about pre-understanding and “fusion of horizons,” we must reject his basic thesis that a text contains no determinate meaning.
In Heidegger and Gadamer, the notion of understanding is not conceived as a way of knowing but rather as a mode of being. Somehow they never quite get around to answering the epistemological questions which were left in the wake of the ontological revolution. What we need is a hermeneutical system which strikes a proper balance between epistemology and ontology.
Hirsch of the University of Virginia has countered the relativism of Heidegger and Gadamer by arguing for the stability of textual meaning in two important works: Validity in Interpretation and The Aims of Interpretation. One of Hirsch’s most important contributions is his emphasis on the distinction between “meaning” and “significance.” Drawing on A. Boeckh’s division of his Encyclopaedie into the two sections labeled “Interpretation” and “Criticism,” Hirsch points out that “the object of interpretation is textual meaning in and for itself and may be called the ‘meaning’ of the text.” Conversely, the object of criticism is textual meaning as it bears on something else. This object is what Hirsch refers to as the “significance” of the text.
Roughly speaking, such a division corresponds to the exegesis of a text which seeks to determine the text’s meaning and the application of that meaning (as, for example, in preaching) to point out its significance/application for today. Both meaning and significance or interpretation and application are two foci which the exegete must constantly keep in mind. Furthermore, because they tend to happen concurrently, it is probably not wise to argue that in practice these two foci can remain completely separated, although for the sake of discussion, we may separate them for the purpose of investigation and analysis.
Hirsch’s categories of “meaning” and “significance” are important and helpful for us. When the biblical exegete comes to a text of Scripture, he can proceed on the premise that there is a determinate meaning there. His job is to discover this meaning through exegesis. Having done this, there remains the further task of applying this meaning to modern day man.
Hirsch has also made a solid contribution in that his writings stand as perhaps the best critique of Gadamerian hermeneutics. His most telling criticism of the weaknesses of Gadamer’s theory can be found in Appendix H of his Validity in Interpretation.
A third valuable contribution of Hirsch to the contemporary hermeneutical scene Is his insistence upon authorial intention as a criterion of validity in text Interpretation. What do we mean by the term “authorial intention” It may be helpful to outline what we do not mean. By this term, we do not mean the psychological experience of the author for such is inaccessible. We do not mean the relation between mental acts and mental objects as in Husserl’s theory. We do not mean the hoped for consequences of the author’s writings. Authorial intention Js to be identified with textual meaning, with the “sense of the whole” by which the author constructs, arranges and relates each particular meaning of his work.
We propose then that a text has one primary meaning with multiple significances or applications of .that meaning. Generally speaking, a text will not have multiple meanings of equal validity.The key phrase here is “of equal validity” because some method and norms are necessary to adjudicate meaning possibilities. Hirsch has argued for such norms in his works. By way of illustration, we may say that the one primary meaning of a text is like an iceberg. The tip protrudes above water and- is analogous to “meaning,” but further investigation continues to yield fuller and deeper “meaning” just as the bulk of the iceberg is underwater. It is the same iceberg and hence the same meaning. Various disciplines approach the “meaning”/ iceberg in different ways. For example, a photographer would analyze the iceberg from the standpoint of its aesthetic value. An oceanographer would analyze it to obtain its scientific value, while a ship’s captain may analyze it so as to avoid any damage to his ship. It is the same iceberg that all are analyzing, but it yields for each different aspects of meaning. At no time do any of these “interpreters” interpret the iceberg as a whale! The iceberg itself furnishes the constraints which guide and limit the interpreters potential elicitation of meaning. The kind of meaning we find in a text depends to some extent on the kind of meaning for which we are looking. Sometimes interpreters differ on a given text because they are looking for different kinds of meaning and from different perspectives. But it is the iceberg/text which determines the meaning capable of being drawn out, not the interpreters themselves, although they contribute to it.
Ricoeur, the French phenomenologist, is considered by many today to be on the cutting edge in the field of hermeneutics. His work has caught the attention of us all. In an important work entitled Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning, Rieoeur defines discourse as a dialectic between event and meaning. Discourse occurs as an event (conversation, the writing of a text, etc.) but as soon as the conversation ceases or the text is written, the event ceases. Yet the text as propositional content remains and this is the meaning which can be reidentified. Written discourse awaits reactualization as event by a reader.
A second dialectic which Rieoeur describes is that of Distanciation and Appropriation. The Scriptures, for example, are distanced from us historically and culturally in the sense that they were written centuries ago by authors who are no longer around to tell us what they mean. Furthermore, our own cultural horizons serve as a barrier between us and the world of the text. The aim of all hermeneutics is to struggle against cultural distance-and historical alienation. This goal is attained only insofar as interpretation actualizes the meaning of a text for the present reader, a notion which Rieoeur calls “appropriation.”
A crucial point in Ricoeur’s theory is the fact that texts do have determinate meaning which can be appropriated by a reader. He has synthesized many of the insights of Gadamer into his theory without coming under the spell of Gadamer’s “cognitive atheism” in interpretation, as Hirsch would call it.
What we have said to this point is that the crucial difference between the two competing hermeneutical schools of thought is whether a text has a determinate meaning or not. Heidegger, Gadamer, Bultmann and company argue that it does not, while Hirsch, Rieoeur, and company argue that it does. Evangelical exegetes must be aware of the debate and its implications for our exegetical task.
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