General Hermeneutics Research Articles

Entanglement as a Hermeneutic Tool for Interpreting Humanities Texts: The Case of Oedipus the King and The Book of Job

The essay seeks to develop the foundations of a general hermeneutics, by which I mean a strategy of interpretation that not only encompasses the sciences and the humanities, but also seeks to integrate them. More specifically, certain classic texts in the humanities (i.e., those deemed representative of certain cultural traditions) are accordingly interpreted by way of categories derived from physics. In the present case, categories associated with quantum entanglement are applied to the classic or foundational humanities texts: Sophocles’ Oedipus the King and the Old Testament Book of Job. The main categories brought to bear in this experiment in hermeneutics are the following: (1) entanglement itself, (2) locality-non-locality, (3) realism-non-realism, (4) latent and manifest levels of reality, and (5) internality-externality. After an introductory section defining the foregoing categories, the second section applies them to the texts in question with a view to redefining the relationship between two major components of the ancient world: the Greco-Roman and the Hebraic. The final section concludes the essay by outlining the framework of a general hermeneutics whereby schemas and objects of interpretation are structured in terms internality and externality. The former pertains to mind and culture while the latter is associated with a non-conscious materiality. Thus, four interpretive strategies can be deployed to give a comprehensive understanding of the world: (1) externalist schemas of interpretation applied to internalist objects of interpretation; (2) internalist schemas applied to externalist objects; (3) externalist schemas applied to externalist objects, and (4) internalist schemas applied to internalist objects. Received: 8 July 2021 / Accepted: 19 August 2021 / Published: 5 September 2021

Hermeneutics after Ricoeur

Hermeneutics after Ricoeur

A Hermeneutical Study On The Symbolic Meaning Of The Number 144.000 In Revelation 7:1-17

This study aims to analyze and reveal the symbolic meaning of “the number those who were sealed: 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel” in Revelation 7:1-17 and implications for the mission. The research method used is qualitative research carried out with the principles and hermeneutic methods of the Bible. The Bible’s hermeneutic method is divided into two characteristics, namely general hermeneutics and specific ones. For the general hermeneutic interpretation method, the author uses three existing analyses structural analysis, grammatical analysis and theological analysis. Then for the particular hermeneutic interpretation method, the author uses the interpretation of number symbols. The results of this study reveal that the symbolic meaning of “the number those who were sealed: 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel” in Revelation 7:1-17 are symbolic numbers of the number redeemed by the Lamb who made it through the tribulation period by remaining faithful to the end of being followers of Christ. As for the theological implications of the text of Revelation 7:1-17 for the mission, namely, God Protects His People (7:1-3), God is Consistent with His Promise of Salvation (7:4-8), and God Grants Universal Salvation (7:9-17). As for the practical implications of the text of Revelation 7: 1-17 for the mission, namely Believers are sealed as servants of God (7:1-8), Believers glorify God (7:9-12), and Believers receive sanctification and God's providence (7:13- 17).

Wisdom and Theological Interpretation: A Biblical Studies Response to Myk Habets on Theological Theological Interpretation of Scripture

AbstractThis article responds to Myk Habets’s article ‘Theological Theological Interpretation of Scripture’. It begins with comment on those matters in which we are in agreement. The article, after reflecting on some dualities of practice that arise when theologians and biblical scholars attempt to work together, then examines two particular dualities in Habets’s argument: hermeneutics and theology, and general and special hermeneutics. With respect to special and general hermeneutics, the article draws on the biblical wisdom tradition, and suggests an understanding of theological interpretation that is dialogic and organic in nature.

Contours of a Constructive Pentecostal Philosophical-Theological Hermeneutic

Development of Pentecostal hermeneutics continues to benefit from further consideration of the roles general philosophical and theological hermeneutics play in the formation of Pentecostal hermeneutics of Scripture and life. This article pictures a Pentecostal philosophical-theological hermeneutical paradigm by sketching the contours of a broad hermeneutical realist program for Pentecostal interpretive structures. It commends a dialectical structure which recognizes the thoroughgoing contextuality of human understanding with attendant linguistic-symbolic encultured categories of knowing in interpretive relation with the ontic, which, for Pentecostal Christian hermeneutics especially, includes divine revelation. The article further commends a theological narrative of epochal moments in salvation history – Creation-Incarnation-Pentecost-Eschaton – to provide an overarching theological structure which is complementary with already prominent Pentecostal governing theological narrations.

Paul Ricoeur and religion

The path that Ricoeur peruses is twofold and not only by methodological precaution, that of philosophy, but also of the other philosophy, which is confused with non-philosophy, as is presented today by literature or science. Non-philosophy in Ricoeur is located in favor of religion and here lies linguistics, literary history, general hermeneutics and other disciplines. In this sense, philosophy is not simply critical, it is also placed in the order of conviction, and religious conviction itself has an internal critical dimension.

HERMENEUTIKA PSIKOLOGI AL-QUR’AN:

The debate on Quranic hermeneutics remains on the rise; especially when the opposition believes that hermeneutics is a scientific tradition born in western culture and used as the interpretation tools for Bible. By this belief, hermeneutics does not applicable to be used as the theory and interpretation method for Quran. Friedrich Schleiermacher is one of experts in general hermeneutics, even considered as the founding father of modern hermeneutics whose focuses are on grammatical and psychological aspects. This article attempts to test the reliability of Schleiermacher’s hermeneutics which interprets Basmallah ayah in Tafsîr Ahkam al-Quran by Ibn al-‘Arabi al-Maliki (543 H/ 1148 AD). Ibn al-‘Arabi al-Maliki is an established figure with Maliki mazhab on the field of legal tafseer in Sevilla, Spain. In this article, the theory and method of Schleiermacher’s psychological hermeneutics are employed. The article concludes that Quranic hermeneutics was interpreted incorrectly, as it is not used to interpret the Quran directly but to interpret the Quranic Tafsîr. The purpose of hermeneutics is therefore to develop the knowledge and the Quranic Tafsîr itself. This principle is in line with the motto, “keeping the good old tradition and taking the best new tradition”.

How much of Aristotle’s Four Causes can be Found in the German Legal Method to Interpret Laws?

In Germany, legal students learn in their first trimester how to use their reason to interpret the law with regard to four canons or objectives: grammatical, historical, systematical and teological interpretation. If you take a look at German course books on legal methodology you will likely find reference to the first three objectives citing Friedrich Carl von Savigny¹. Why exactly these four objectives are used, and not more or fewer, is rarely discussed. However, the interpretation of German laws stands on a firm, but unknown, basis: the Aristotelian Theory of Four Causes. Besides these, which relate to the history of ideas and the theory of cognition, finding the basis of the legal method of interpretation is concerned with the philosophy of science as its sound standing is tested. What is more, new research areas could be discovered not only with regard to Aristotle, but as well for jurisprudence and any other humanities that hold a method to interpret text, e. g. theology, philosophy, psychology, history, etc. If that is the case, the Theory of Four Causes could form a potential fundament for some sort of general hermeneutics; being at least a matrix for different interpretational disciplines, to further analyse not only the similarities and differences in their methods of interpretation, but as well the reasons for them.

Theories of Interpretation: Classical to Romantic Hermeneutics

An introduction to some central concepts in literary hermeneutics and interpretive theory (Interpretation, understanding, criticism, evaluation, meaning, etc.), and to the semiotic groundings of hermeneutics. This is followed by an overview of the main approaches in classical hermeneutics, from Greek philosophers and Homeric critics, through medieval poetics and criticism, to early modern developments. The overview concludes with an introduction to Schleiermacher's general hermeneutics in the Romantic period.

The latitude of logic in legal hermeneutics

Legal hermeneutics (the interpretation of law] has always taken a highly significant place in general hermeneutics. The interpretation of laws involves an intricate task of determining the real meaning or rationale of legal norms. Considering the complexity of this goal, the most frequent classification of legal hermeneutics is based on the interpretation instruments. In traditional theory, the most widely recognized instruments for the interpretation of legal norms are language, logic, legal system, history and purpose of a legal norm. Under the influence of general analytic philosophy, the particular interest in language as the basic instrument for the interpretation of law may be found in mid-20th century. The interest in the language of law is closely related to the study of legal logic and legal argumentation. In theory, there is no dispute about the logical interpretation in a narrow sense which is based on drawing true conclusions by applying the basic rule of formal reasoning. Yet, it has given a head start to argumentation as 'a problem-based reasoning skill' which provides answers to the questions raised in contentious cases. Argumentation is closely associated with the dialectic method of reasoning (which has been widely recognized since the Ancient Greece], where conclusions are based on probable premises. One of the most significant goals of the argumentation theory is to locate the sources or common grounds for developing arguments; these basic argumentative patterns are generally known as 'topoi' or 'loci, sedes argumentorum'. On the other hand, 'topica' is part of rhetoric art dealing with the theoretical explanation of the basic argumentative patterns (topoi] and how they are structured, including the location of new topoi and arguments. The most significant proponents of the topical reasoning are Chaïm Perelman and Theodor Viehweg. Perelman relates topical reasoning to judicial reasoning and considers that specific legal topoi may lead to the perception of law as ars aequi et boni. According to Viehweg, 'topica' is a technique of problem-based reasoning which is fully different from the deductive-systematic reasoning. Interpretation or construing meaning is part of 'topica' which enables flexibility of practical argumentation by expanding and reducing the catalogue of 'topoi'. In legal hermeneutics, the new quality of argumentation and topical reasoning stems from the fact that the classical methods of interpretation are substituted by a far more extensive number of arguments (Giovanni Tarello recognizes 15 legal topoi and Gerhard Struck as many as 64 legal topoi]. It ultimately points out to the creative role of the interpreter's rhetoric research and decision-making processes.

The Hermeneutical Rehabilitation of Supposition Theory in Seventeenth-Century Protestant Logic

Abstract The paper focuses on some aspects of the early modern aftermath of supposition theory within the framework of the protestant logical tradition. Due to the growing influence of Humanism, supposition theory from the third decade of the sixteenth century was the object of general neglect and contempt. While in the late sixteenth-century a number of standard textbooks of post-Tridentine scholastic logic reintegrated this doctrine, although in a bowdlerized version, it remained for a century out of the scope of Protestant logic. The situation changed when the Strasburg Lutheran theologian J.C. Dannhauer, who in 1630 developed and propagated the program of a new discipline which he called ‘general hermeneutics’ (hermeneutica generalis), accentuating the importance of supposition theory as an indispensable device for the purpose of textual interpretation. Due to Dannhauer’s influence on later developments of hermeneutics, which in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries was regarded as a logical discipline, supposition theory is still present in several logical treatises of the eighteenth century. The explication of the underlying views on the notion of supposition and its logico-semantic function may give at least some clues as to how to answer the question of what supposition theory was all about.

A Logic to End Controversies: The Genesis of Clauberg's <i>Logica Vetus et Nova</i>

This article provides an analysis of Johannes Clauberg’s intentions in writing his Logica vetus et nova (1654, 1658). Announced before his adherence to Cartesianism, his Logica was eventually developed in order to provide Cartesian philosophy with a Scholastic form, embodying a complete methodology for the academic disciplines based on Descartes’ rules and a medicina mentis against philosophical prejudices. However, this was not its only function: thanks to the rules for the interpretation of philosophical texts it encompassed, Clauberg’s Logica was meant to provide a general hermeneutics designed to put an end to the quarrels raised by the dissemination of Cartesianism. Such quarrels, according to Clauberg, were caused by the misinterpretation of Descartes’ texts in Revius’ Methodi cartesianae consideratio theologica (1648) and Statera philosophiae cartesianae (1650) and in Lentulus’ Nova Renati Descartes sapientia (1651), which criticized the apparent lack of a logical theory in Descartes’ philosophy and its supposed inconsistencies. Clauberg answers their criticisms by giving a clear account of Descartes’ logical theory and by undermining the interpretative criteria they assumed, in light of a general theory of error. Polemics over Cartesian philosophy, in this way, favored the development of a comprehensive Cartesian methodology for academic disciplines and of the fi rst hermeneutics for philosophical texts.

KONTRIBUSI HASAN HANAFI DALAM KAJIAN USHUL FIQH

Hasan Hanafi is an expert on Islamic law who had the idea of reconstruction usul fiqh. Min Al-Nash ila Al-Waqi, written by him as the reconstruction effort, continuing the spirit of creativity, Al-Risala, Al-Mushtashfā and Al-Muwāfaqāt. Min Al-Nash ila Al-Waqi' written to undermine the claims of Islamic law to disappear the public good (al-mashāliħ al-' ammah). The entire reconstruction project of Hanafi had been referred as a result of application of the phenomenological method. Hanafi called tahlil manhaj al-khabarāt, comparable to manāhij al-ta'wil, manāhij al-nazhar, manāhij al-żauq, manāhij al-tahlil al-lughawī and other methods of classical Islamic creations. Through the philosophy of phenomenology, hermeneutics Gadamerian, Hanafi appreciate the application of the themes and traditions of thought, but in the context of Al-Quran and Al-Sunnah. Hanafi recommends usul fiqh as sacra hermeneutica, the specific case of general hermeneutics. Hanafi, divides methodological-epistemological consciousness of usul fiqh into three-dimensional consciousness; historical consciousness (la conscience historique), eidetic consciousness (la conscience eidetique), and the active awareness (la conscience active). Hanafi finds methodological shift that can be read from configuration changes chapter and logical structure of usul fiqh texts shift. This changes was seen in Al-Mustashfa, work of al-Ghazali (d. 505 H) and Al-Muwāfaqā,t work of Al-Syatibi (d. 790 H).

Ricoeur and Berman

This essay surveys commonalities and differences between Antoine Berman, a philosopher, and Paul Ricoeur, a hermeneutic philosopher, and thereby tries discover where and how Translation Studies and hermeneutics might come into contact. Ricoeur and Berman are known as leading representatives of modern hermeneutics and modern Translation Studies, respectively. Ricoeur, however, takes as his last philosophical topic in the context of his research about the problematics of meaning, textual interpretation, Self-and-Other. On the other hand, Berman incorporates a variety of philosophers' thoughts on - such as Schleiermacher's, Benjamin's, Heidegger's, and Derrida's - into today's Translation Studies, and thereby develops philosophical in Translation Studies that we can call philosophy, per se. These two different scholars, belonging two different fields, called hermeneutics and Translation Studies, meet in the realm of translation. Their encounter becomes concrete in that they continue quote each other. In his major works, Berman constantly refers Ricoeur's hermeneutics. And Ricoeur intensively discusses Berman in dealing with the problem of translation as the last topic of his intellectual Odyssey.1 The present investigation was ignited, first and foremost, by our curiosity into what made both of them cite each other's work. Therefore, it is the purpose of this essay consider their philosophical systems in themselves. Rather, we are going focus on a number of themes that touch both Berman's and Ricoeur's thoughts. More precisely stated, we are going see, on the level of and interpretation, where their perspectives on the nature of a text share commonalities and where they show differences. Commonalities Hermeneutics and Translation Studies are Heterogeneous and Non-Scientific Berman and Ricoeur claim clear-cut positions concerning how define knowledge in hermeneutics and Translation Studies. Let us look at Berman first. Berman defines Translation Studies as reflections on the unique experience called text translation.2 Here, reflective Translation Studies contrasts with translatics (traductique) based on technical engineering and informatics. Translatics, trying be literally scientific, overlooks the importance of reflection on translating experiences. Berman believes that translatics alone can never clarify or describe a culture's inherent drive meet new cultures through and thereby elevate itself. Therefore, he believes that Translation Studies is non-unifiable and has encompass all the plural and heterogeneous experiences. He proclaims that to postulate the possibility of a global and unique theory unifying the entirety of translating activities is overlook the fact that the space of is definitely plural, heterogeneous, and non-unifiable.3 Berman further reminds us that the truth and value of a text are only revealed through the experiences of and can hardly be analyzed through an objective-scientific approach. His argument can be taken as a warning today's discussions on translation, which tend be expressed in empiricist and scientific-oriented tones. Surprisingly enough, Berman's standpoint is very similar Ricoeur's hermeneutical perspective. Ricoeur also claims it is impossible establish general and unified principles concerning interpretation. According Ricoeur, there is no general hermeneutics, no universal canon for exegesis, but only disparate and opposed theories concerning the rules of interpretation. The hermeneutic field, whose outer contours we have traced, is internally at variance with itself.4 In brief, then, Berman and Ricoeur do think that Translation Studies and hermeneutics should be scientific. Of course, not scientific does mean anti-scientific, subjective, or biased. …

Peregrination, Hermeneutics, Hospitality: On the Way to a Theologically Informed General Hermeneutics

The recent and laudable revival of ethical criticism, both in its neo-humanist and postmodern forms, leads inexorably to either elitist exclusivism or uncritical relativism. We are, at present, lacking an account of general hermeneutics that can transcend this divide, one that takes seriously the dangers involved in opening oneself to the other while also maintaining the intellectual and moral necessity of hospitality to strangers. An analysis of this problem points, via St Augustine, to the possibility of a theologically informed hermeneutics of hospitality, and the essay goes on to limn the contours, in theory and practice, of such a hermeneutic.

Vers une réflexion sur l’agir humain

The nature of language and meaning, and interpretation and subjectivity, are issues of increasing concern to a wide range of contemporary disciplines. For philosophers, linguists, social scientists and theologens, the clarifications of such issues has become an urgent and inescapable task. Historical experience is fundamentally the experience of belonging to a tradition that is received from the past. Yet, as Dilthey and Husserl have stressed, experience is essentially expressible, because it can be externalised in signs that need to be understood. In this way it has grown into the culmination of interpretation in an act of appropriation indicates that ontology forms the ultimate horizon of hermeneutics. For Heidegger, understanding is no longer conceived as a way of knowing but as a mode of being (short way), as a fundamental characteristic of our “being-in-the-world”. While for Ricœur (long way), history is in terms of the interaction between two developments: the movement from a regional to a general hermeneutics, and the transition from epistemology to ontology. Consequently, understanding is self-understanding, although the return to the self is not the first, but the final moment in the theory of interpretation. It follows that we shall not only be concerned with reasoned explanation or scientific observation, but shall be watching the emergence of these activities from the mists of a “pre-scientifics” or mythological age (Kerényi). Certainly Pythagoreanism is the most controversial subject in all Greek philosophy, but his vision of an “algorhythmical” cosmos allows us to know the first “locality”, by which hermeneutics becomes not only general but fundamental towards a theology of religions.

The Place of Theology in Theological Hermeneutics

This article attempts to analyse the recent theological interest in special hermeneutics by tracking the place it accords Christian doctrine when construing the context of scriptural interpretation. A typology is developed which both takes up and relativizes the distinction between general and special hermeneutics, arguing that while the church may welcome the renewed interest in its own peculiar reading practices, it need not lean too heavily on the philosophical and sociological commitments that underlie much of the interest in special hermeneutics. Theological hermeneutics will best serve the church when it attends from first to last to the divine grace that establishes and limits the church’s interpretation of scripture.

Pour une compréhension de la signification apocryphe dans le "continent scripturaire"

We suggest here to let ourselves be inspired by the thought process F.D.E. Schleiermacher activated when linking up general hermeneutics with particular perspectives and critical observations. It would indeed be suitable to expose present problematics governing ancient apocryphal studies to the same kind of fundamental discussion. The approach of apocryphal questions to-day remains empirical ; it prizes all singularities and their halfhazard accumulation. This proposition immediately bears on the very presuppositions of research which implicitly produce this seeming dispersion if not disparity. Its aim is to answer the needs of locating and establishing conditions for a general comprehension of those apocryphal procedures the researches study. Rather than circumscribe and define the field of apocryphal studies, let us primarily think out the meaning of apocryphity itself as a scripturary phenomenon of Antiquity.

The idea of rhetoric in the rhetoric of science

A striking but insufficiently examined feature of the current revival of interest in rhetoric is its positioning primarily as a hermeneutic metadiscourse rather than as a substantive discourse practice. When one invokes metadiscourse to account for a discursive practice, what one hopes to achieve is minimally a “redescription” of the latter. Rhetoric has entered the orbit of general hermeneutics. This essay, divided into three parts, examines the cultural identity of rhetoric, the interpretive turn and rhetorical criticism, the politics of repression and recognition, the rhetoric of science as a discursive formation, communitarian and epistemic strategies, and the inventional strategy and humanist paradigm. The works of Michael Leff Allan G. Gross, John Angus Campbell, and Lawrence J. Prelli are critiqued.

Theological hermeneutics: development and significance

The purpose of hermeneutics the interdisciplinary nature of hermeneutics texts and readings special or general hermeneutics? verbal and non-verbal communication the question of method in interpretation the plan of our investigation the development of theological hermeneutics I - from the beginnings to the enlightenment Jewish hermeneutics early Christian hermeneutics Augustine's hermeneutics hermeneutics and the reform of Christian theology the development of philosophical hermeneutics - from Schleiermacher to Ricoeur the written text the transformative power of reading the development of theological hermeneutics II - Barth, Bultmann, and the new hermeneutic the development of theological hermeneutics III - hermeneutics and Christian identity.