The Father of Modern Hermeneutics in a Postmodern Age

Abstract

A REINTERPRETATION OF SCHLEIERMACHER'S HERMENEUTICS Friedrich Schleirermacher is generally recognized father of modern hermeneutics. This means that hermeneutics a science or, rather, an art, of understanding such originates from Schleiermacher. Before him, there were only specialized hermeneutics: philological, biblical, and legal. However, this also implies that, in this postmodern age, Schleiermacher's hermeneutics has become something passe, something safe to aufheben if not prudent to ignore. For it is widely believed to be a psychological one, which is doubly mistaken from a postmodern point of view: appealing to myth of given and being ahistorical. This essay aims to challenge this position. Its central theme is that Schleiermacher's unique contribution to hermeneutics is neither his psychological nor his grammatical interpretation but his conception of hermeneutics an artful movement between two. Since grammatical side is little contested, I shall focus on psychological side, which, I shall argue, is neither pre-linguistic nor ahistorical has so often been charged. My conclusion is that predominately Gadamerian postmodern hermeneutics goes to extreme in criticizing psychologism, evil twin of Schleiermacher's hermeneutics, while Schleiermacher's hermeneutics itself, properly understood, is a perfect antidote to both evils. Is Schleiermacher's Hermeneutics Psychological? Schleiermacher's hermeneutics consists of grammatical and psychological interpretations. The former understands the discourse and how it has been composed in terms of its language, and latter understands it as a presentation of thought.I Given this well-known fact, we may wonder how people have come to believe that Schleiermacher's hermeneutics is mainly psychological. Heinz Kimmerle tries to provide an answer by presenting Schleiermacher's early manuscripts on hermeneutics. His conclusion is that, while Wilhelm Dilthey and Rudolf Bultmann are largely responsible for propagation of misconception of Schleiermacher's hermeneutics, misconception itself is to be attributed to Schleiermacher's student Friedrich Lucke. Lucke's edition of Schleiermacher's Hermeneutics, upon which Dilthey and Bultmann based their interpretations, includes only Schleiermacher's later manuscripts.2 According to Kimmerle, however, those manuscripts reflect later Schleiermacher's sorry surrender of his early insightful conception of hermeneutics closely oriented to structure of language.3 Thus, Kimmerle sees his mission in including early manuscripts into Schleiermacher's Hermeneutics mainly restorative. It aims to render the substantially convincing and positive thoughts in Schleiermacher's earlier sketches . . . accessible and, if possible, fruitful for current philosophical reflection on phenomenon of understanding.4 He believes that Schleiermacher's early linguistically oriented hermeneutics is compatible with Gadamer's hermeneutics. In his view, had Gadamer regarded this part of Schleiermacher of positive value for Gadamer's own problematic, it could have been of direct benefit, especially in conclusion of his [Gadamer's] book where language is considered [the universal] medium of hermeneutical experience.'5 Such a distinction between early and later Schleiermacher, however, is an exaggeration to say best. For fact is that, from start to finish, Schleiermacher insists on double character of understanding: psychological and grammatical. In his very first draft of 1809-1810, he claims that hermeneutics proceeds from two entirely different points: understanding by reference to language and understanding by reference to one who speaks (68). This view he maintains later in his Second Academy Address of 1829, where he argues that full understanding requires both of these operations, and no interpreter can fully understand if he leans so much to one side that he is completely unable to make use of what other side offers (204). …