Toward a Constitutional Hermeneutics

Abstract

The ferment that presently characterizes constitutional theory is partly the product of renewed interest in hermeneutical questions. The oft-debated issues of how to determine the meaning of a text, the status of the framers' intentions, the historicity of language, and the consequences of conceptual change in the law are properly understood as hermeneutical problems. In this paper I argue that the adoption of a hermeneutical perspective allows constitutional theorists to address the salient problems in a new and beneficial light. The chief virtue of constitutional hermeneutics is that of deepening the self-understanding of constitutional interpreters who seek to gain a better grasp of the philosophical presuppositions of their practical activity. This theoretical virtue manifests itself on the practical level by providing the means for a clearer-perhaps even truer-understanding of contemporary constitutional meaning.