Hermeneutics  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

The heart has its reasons, of which reason knows nothing (c.1887) by Odilon Redon, a phrase from the Pensées (1669) by Blaise Pascal

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"in place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art" --Susan Sontag

Hermeneutics may be described as the development and study of theories of the interpretation and understanding of texts. In contemporary usage in religious studies, hermeneutics refers to the study of the interpretation of religious texts. It is more broadly used in contemporary philosophy to denote the study of theories and methods of the interpretation of all texts and systems of meaning. The concept of "text" is here extended beyond written documents to any number of objects subject to interpretation, such as experiences. A hermeneutic is defined as a specific system or method for interpretation, or a specific theory of interpretation. However, the contemporary philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer has said that hermeneutics is an approach rather than a method and, further, that the Hermeneutic circle is the central problem of interpretation.

Essentially, hermeneutics involves cultivating the ability to understand things from somebody else's point of view, and to appreciate the cultural and social forces that may have influenced their outlook. Hermeneutics is the process of applying this understanding to interpreting the meaning of written texts and symbolic artifacts (such as art or sculpture or architecture), which may be either historic or contemporary.

In the last two centuries, the scope of hermeneutics has expanded to include the investigation and interpretation not only of textual and artistic works, but of human behaviour generally, including language and patterns of speech, social institutions, and ritual behaviours (such as religious ceremonies, political rallies, football matches, rock concerts, etc.). Hermeneutics interprets or inquires into the meaning and import of these phenomena, through understanding the point of view and 'inner life' (Dilthey) of an insider, or the first-person perspective of an engaged participant in these phenomena.

See also

• Biblical hermeneutics
• Biblical law in Christianity
• Qura'nic hermeneutics
• Computational semiotics
• Content analysis
• Deconstruction
• Discourse analysis
• Exegesis
• Explanatory model
• Gymnobiblism
• Interpretations of Genesis
• Knowledge representation
• Literary criticism
• Literary theory
• Meaning (linguistics)
• Meaning (non-linguistic)
• Meaning (semiotics)
• Open text
• Pesher
• Philology
• Principles of interpretation
• Semeiotic
• Semiosis
• Semiotics
• Sign
• Sign relation
• Symbolic anthropology
• Syncretism
• Tafsir
• Talmudical hermeneutics
• Theory of mind
• Truth
• Truth theory
• Understanding
• Wesleyan Quadrilateral
• Epistemology

See also

• Other
• Outsider