Hermeneutic Circle Research Articles

Traditional Cultural Expressions and Intellectual Property Rights in Indonesia

Protection of traditional culture and knowledge has been a concern in Indonesia. Efforts that have been made to legally protect Indonesian traditional expressions and knowledge usually involve intellectual property (IP) laws. However, the protection provided by IP laws may be inadequate for Indonesian traditional communities that care more about the survival and maintenance of their culture and knowledge than the legal exclusivity of their works. This study uses a normative legal approach with the perspective of hermeneutic circle to look at various studies and legal documents to find reasons why IP laws may not be entirely suitable for the Indonesian context and how an IP-based law can be designed to suit the actual needs of Indonesian traditional expression holders. The results obtained affirm that Indonesian traditional cultural expressions cannot be contained by laws that exclusively limit the usage of those expressions and thus a ‘sui generis’ law is needed to give a more appropriate protection.

Getting into it in the wrong way: Interpretative phenomenological analysis and the hermeneutic circle

This article critically analyses the hermeneutic commitment of interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). In the theoretical framework of IPA, the role of preconceptions and prejudices is consistently downplayed; priority is given to the participant's own words. Paley has argued that IPA's interpretative phase is always and necessarily determined by the researcher's fore-conceptions, as opposed to the participant's narrative. I demonstrate that IPA's failure to recognize the importance of an external frame of reference in interpretation may arise from the misunderstanding of the method's hermeneutic underpinnings. I essentially argue that bracketing the researcher's fore-conceptions during the initial phases of IPA is merely an illusion. While it is beyond the scope of this article to dispute whether IPA is genuinely phenomenological, my claim ultimately poses a challenge to IPA's phenomenological commitment on its own terms. The article concludes with a proposal to substantially improve IPA's consistency with hermeneutic tradition and its grounding in phenomenological philosophy.

Between the Cyclic Text – Context

Hermeneutics is chiefly related to the discipline of interpretation of a specific body of texts. The process of interpretation of literary texts hermeneutically is regarded as the consequence of the academic arena. It is a fact that literary hermeneutics shares mutual threads with various schools of literary criticism but what sets it apart from literary criticism proper are its philosophical leanings and its self reflexive and meta-critical character. Thus, this study is an attempt to concentrate on the application of hermeneutics to literary texts. It does reread Thomas Hardy’s most distinguished tragic novel, Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891) with the interpretive procedure of the hermeneutic circle as developed by Schleiermacher, Heidegger, and Gadamer. The study also examines the relationship between the text – context, and how they both occur as a dialogical space; and how this space of the text exists as a route of interpretation the part (Tess) and the whole (text).

Russian Masscult: Reflections about the Specificity of the Author’s Vision

The review notes the specifics of understanding the Russian mass culture transformation, given by the domestic cultural studies expert, literary critic and philosopher I.V. Kondakov.The monograph “Russian Mass Culture: From Baroque to Post-Modernism” is interesting for its relevant methodology, which allows to build a scientific model that can combine classical issues and mo­dern interpretations. The methodology is based on the principles of dialectical development of masscult; literature-centrism is considered the main idea of the author, which determines the main trends in the development of Russian mass culture. The author’s position of “out-presence” regarding to the subject of his research proves that it is legitimate to review the logical and illogical in the history and development of the Russian masscult. The architectonics of I.V. Kondakov’s scientific research is defined as having a circular structure, which connects the metho­dological foundations of the peer-reviewed monog­raph with H.-G. Gadamer’s “hermeneutic circle”. The author defines three features in the understanding of mass culture, defined by the negation of “-not”: its emergence is “not connected” exclusively with the 20th century; the origins “can not” have only ethno-national character; “do not belong” to a certain socio-economic formation. He manages to open the boundaries of the usual interpretations of mass culture due to a more voluminous approach to the subject of research. This approach, of course, required the scientist to apply not only encyclopedic know­ledge, but also a consistent analysis of the broad historical, cultural, and literary context of the undertaken research. The article notes the representativeness of the author’s sample of personalities for the study, which is reflected in the index of names, in particular.The study is characterized as somewhat provocative, offering the reader an unexpectedly new interpretation of famous works, presented mainly by Russian literature.The specificity of the author’s interpretation lies in the fact that the philosophical-culturological concept of the Russian masscult transformation not only brings a kind of research result, but also determines the vectors for further study of the issue.

Novice RNs' Lived Experience Providing End-of-Life Care: A Hermeneutic Phenomenology

This hermeneutic study explored the lived experience of novice RNs who care for dying patients in acute care settings to understand to meaning of their experience. Fourteen novice RNs participated in individual telephone semi-structured interviews. Transcripts were analyzed using Colaizzi's method. Results obtained were based on the hermeneutic circle. The findings identified 3 major themes: (a) obstacles in end-of-life care; (b) personal response; and (c) coping strategies and 12 subthemes. Despite the obstacles in care, compassionate care was provided that resulted in professional growth.

The Hermeneutic Circle and Teaching the Water Cycle in Nature to Grade 4 Students

The Hermeneutic Circle and Teaching the Water Cycle in Nature to Grade 4 Students

Leadership in a Constant Liminal Loop: How can i be Authentic when i don't know who i am?

The search for leader authenticity implies that somewhere there is a true self. Yet the self, like anything else, is constantly changing, passing through a series of liminal phases. Authenticity, therefore, would capture the liminal condition within which all leaders operate. What this process yields, however, is a web of paradoxes, such as the need to stabilize while remaining open to a shifting reality and interpreting that reality at both the micro and the macro levels in a never‐ending loop known as the hermeneutic circle. Only a complex and fluid leader can cope with a complex and fluid reality. Fortunately, the literature presents a conceptual toolkit, including Boyd's OODA loop, paradoxical thinking, design thinking, and systems thinking–gathered in this article to assist the leader whose authentic self is always a work in progress.

O PAPEL DO AUTOR NOS ESTUDOS DO DIREITO NA OU ATRAVÉS DA LITERATURA

Este artigo discute o papel do autor, a partir das formulações de teóricos da literatura, adota a hermenêutica filosófica como matriz teórica e tem como objetivo contribuir para o debate teórico-metodológico que envolve as pesquisas e estudos em Direito e Literatura. Para tanto, são oferecidos postulados teóricos que, relativos ao papel do autor, foram desenvolvidos pelas principais correntes da crítica literária moderna, culminando com a ideia da morte do autor e a discussão dela decorrente. A seguir, abordam-se a noção de círculo hermenêutico e sua relação com o percurso analítico-interpretativo que articula autor, texto e leitor na interpretação de narrativas literárias. Por fim, busca-se demonstrar – através do romance “1984”, de George Orwell – em que medida o contexto histórico do autor pode colaborar para a atribuição de sentido ao texto.

Engaging with the Bible in Visual Culture

Abstract Increasingly articulate contemporary art practices are engaging with biblical representation, revealing new relationships with religion through the availability of the word in image. Taking as exemplary the photographic publication of Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin’s Holy Bible (2013), this essay considers the evidence for their hermeneutics between image and word that is characterized by open awareness of and expansive participation in the (rereading of the) Bible. Discussing this engagement, I explore imagistic readings of the Bible through the artists’ strategies of interpolation and repetition, as well as examining their chosen theme—catastrophe—for its revelatory power. Through the artists’ self-reflexive hermeneutics of indeterminacy, I argue that the discussion of the return of religion in art needs attuning to this kind of specific practitioner experience: a hermeneutical circle of imaginative, dialogical, and dynamic interpretative positions in which the notion of indeterminacy is persuasive for interpretative grist, historical accountability, and theological horizon.

Said, Auerbach, and the Return to Philological Hermeneutics

ABSTRACTThis essay explores the relationship between Edward Said’s well-known contrapuntal reading of history and Erich Auerbach’s Ansatzpunkt, or point of departure, as a means of entering a given hermeneutic circle. Although Auerbach occupied an increasingly prominent place in Said’s critical thought, his engagement with the work of the German philologist has been largely ignored or downplayed. In this essay I take the figure of exile, which is so central to Said’s scholarship and which he explicitly links with the intellectual mission of critique, as a point of departure for a deepened exploration of Said’s critical method—a method developed in critical dialogue with Auerbach’s work. Building on the existing literature, I argue that Auerbach offers more than simply a way for Said to problematize identity politics and to challenge the dogmatism of received notions of home and political belonging. More than this, I argue that the German philologist provides Said with a way to reconfigure the dialectic between history and literature; to develop his contrapuntal approach to reading history; and to rethink the parameters of a historicist humanism that, in turn, enables him to reactivate the critical potential of philological hermeneutics.

Professional transition and identity formation of surgical care practitioners: a phenomenological interpretation of their lived experiences

Surgical care practitioners are non-medical members of the surgical team, who provide direct surgical care to patients, delegated by consultant surgeons. The surgical care practitioners' professional role is within the new non-medical or nursing workstream, practising under the medical model of care in response to staff shortages and the rising expectations that are affecting the National Health Service. This article seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the phenomenon of the emergent professional identity of surgical care practitioners. Six surgical care practitioners were purposively sampled for in-depth, semi-structured interviews whereupon their concepts of professional transition and professional identity formation from their individual points of view were explored using a phenomenological approach. Transcripts and reflective texts were subject to repeated interpretation in a hermeneutic circle of understanding. Interpretation of the results in context allowed for a discussion informed by self-interpreted constructions and revolved around eight cluster themes that emerged explicating how surgical care practitioners experienced professional transition and professional identity formation. In addition, a notion of 'journey' in the development of professional identity (narratives about professional identity formation: the hero's journey) was embedded in the reflections of the participants and their narratives produced rich accounts of the phenomenon under investigation.

Czas i przestrzeń w badaniach sztuki oraz twórczości literackiej ks. profesora Janusza St. Pasierba

SUMMARY
 The Author separated the visualized time and the time when the painting was created. Both are rooted in the point of history which was important for the artist, in the time of creating the work of art as well as in the internal structure of the painting which is expressed through the theme and the presented figures. The researcher who was deeply influenced by history, browsed it deeply in order to find every “now”, adding it to the timeline of the artist’s life, or to the history he was a part of. The timeline, history, constitutes a basis of the knowledge about the artist’s workshop and it is the basis for the historical-comparative method. The Priest Professor Pasierb knew hermeneutics with the hermeneutic circle of Hans Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur. In his exploration of the temporal structure of his works of art he indicates to the reader the circular structure of the composition, which is typical for the scenes of the greatest masters of the Baroque, e.g. The Coronation of Mary, The Adoration of the Shepherds. The structure of time is particularly important in the portraits of Herman Han in the painting of 17th century. The analysis of the paintings of the master of Gdańsk Herman Han, especially of his painting The Coronation of the Virgin Mary in the main altar in Pelplin is an introduction for discovering the circular structures of time and space. It shows the Author’s concepts as close to the traditional Antique concepts of time: as the two opposites: Chronos – the inevitable time which consumes everything on its way and Kairos, the fugacious moment which can, however, be stopped by wisdom, beauty, the ability of predicting. The sensitivity to time, the Kairos, was expressed by the priest Professor Pasierb who was impressed by a Greek vase painted by Makron (Paris, Louvre) “long-haired boy with a hoop and with a dog, quickly running round an attic goblet, looking back where they are calling you, come back, you didn’t listen, today it is too late, twenty-five centuries passed. The painter Makron whom you passed by so quickly, managed to write kalos – Beautiful”. The basic method used for the analysis of time and space in the painting is the hermeneutic method of Paul Ricoeur and Hans Georg Gadamer.

The Art-Based Methods in Developing Transversal Competence

This article describes a project called ”The art based methods in developing transversal competence” funded by The Finnish National Board of Education. The article is based on the hermeneutic phenomenological approach in action research. The project developed learning environments as well as project-based learning with emphasis on the art-based methods and transversal competence approach to learning. The aim was to develop unique and communal well-being in learning. The project offered tools to strengthen teachers’ professional skills to use expressive, art-based methods in different curriculum-based projects. The professional in-service training project included five contact days in six weeks divided into three periods. The expressive art work process followed the model of the expressive art work. The whole process followed the hermeneutical circle as well as the phenomenological method: expressions, reflections and sharing linked all together as a part of authentic learning experience in the context of the Finnish National Core Curriculum (2014). One of the main outcomes was that the use of the art-based methods in transversal competence increases ubiquitous well-being among teachers and pupils. Research material is based on students’ diaries, experiences and anonymous feedback.

ПРИКЛАДНИЙ ПОВОРОТ ФІЛОСОФСЬКОЇ ГЕРМЕНЕВТИКИ

The article presents a critical analysis of the methodological consequences of phenomenological and philosophical hermeneutics. The article examines the possibility of a generalized perspective on qualitative research with emphasis on flexibility of research techniques and procedures that can be used in a variety of conceptual approaches. As well as focus on sequence and coherence of the methodological approach when the methodical procedures are coherent to philosophical grounds of the approach is analyzed. The author describes phenomenological and hermeneutic approaches' philosophical grounds used as a qualitative research strategy and shows how particular philosophical world view take shape in the data analysis procedures and in research quality assessment principles. The purpose of the paper is to outline the key strategies for applying the methodology of philosophical hermeneutics in social sciences: to determine theoretical conditions for the turn of philosophical hermeneutics towards applied social research; to identify key concepts and techniques of philosophical hermeneutics, relevant to exploring actual social phenomena;  to outline the logic of application of the elements of philosophical hermeneutics within social science. Scientific outcome of the paper is expressed in the following statements:  the theoretical conditions for the applied turn of philosophical hermeneutics include the pragmatic critique of ontologization of the hermeneutic circle, that is, the reinterpretation of philosophical hermeneutics contrary to the key guidelines of its founders (M. Heidegger, H.-G. Gadamer); key concepts and techniques of philosophical hermeneutics, relevant to the research of actual social phenomena, consist in the hermeneutic circle and self-understanding, hermeneutical reduction and destruction; the logic of the applied use of the elements of philosophical hermeneutics in the context of social science involves correlation of the structure of the research with the hermeneutic structure of self-understanding, inherent in the subject under consideration. In the framework of this study, a historical-philosophical excursion to the evolution of the “hermeneutic turn” of philosophizing was compared with analytics of the possibility of instrumentalizing the elements of philosophical hermeneutics by the qualitative methodology of modern social sciences.

Being in a space of sharing decision-making for dignified mental care.

WHAT IS KNOWN ON THE SUBJECT?: Several studies describe barriers and facilitators for implementing shared decision-making in mental care, yet a deeper understanding of the meaning of shared decision-making in this context is lacking. Shared decision-making is aimed at facilitating patients' active participation in their care. Mental care is intended to empower the patients by increasing their responsibility and self-awareness and helping them to use their own resources. Too much focus on the patients' independence, responsibility and choice may hinder the patients getting the help they need. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS TO EXISTING KNOWLEDGE?: The meaning of SDM can be understood as a continuous relational process between the patients and MHCPs in search of dignified care. Practising shared decision-making is a challenging process which requires the MHCPs to possess high professional competence. WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE?: Mental healthcare professionals should be conscious of their own role in the asymmetrical power relationship in decision-making and use their professional competence for their patients' benefit. Clinical supervision can be a tool for developing professional competence and is considered important when assisting mental healthcare professionals practising shared decision-making for dignified care. Abstract Introduction Several studies describe barriers and facilitators for implementing shared decision-making in mental care. However, a deeper understanding of the meaning of shared decision-making in this context is lacking. Shared decision-making is aimed at facilitating patients' active participation in their care by placing them at the centre of care. Too much focus on the patients' autonomy may hinder them getting the help they need. A comprehensive understanding of shared decision-making is needed for its implementation. Aim/research question To interpret the meaning of shared decision-making in mental care as perceived by patients and mental healthcare professionals. The research question was: What is the meaning of shared decision-making in mental care? Method A hermeneutic inductive design with a thematic interpretative analysis of data was performed from in-depth interviews with 16 patients and multistage focus group interviews with eight mental healthcare professionals. Results The overall theme being in a space of sharing decision-making for dignified mental care was described by the three themes engaging in a mental room of values and knowledge, relating in a process of awareness and comprehension and responding anchored in acknowledgement. Discussion Balancing the patients' need for assistance with autonomy, while safeguarding their dignity, is a challenging process requiring mental healthcare professionals to possess professional competence. Implications for practice Organized professional development of the carers' professional competence is important to facilitate shared decision-making.

The objects of technology assessment. Hermeneutic extension of consequentialist reasoning

ABSTRACTSince the beginning of this century, the established consequentialist approach of technology assessment (TA) has been seriously challenged by several new and emerging sciences and technologies (NEST). TA’s established mode of assessing and evaluating the anticipated consequences and impacts of technology no longer works. The paper asks for the objects of TA to be assessed beyond consequentialism. It identifies the societal meaning attached to new technology as the core object of TA reasoning. This view brings the processes of generating, disseminating, and contesting the meaning assigned within the focus of TA. These processes will be modeled as hermeneutic circles with inputs and outputs, where competing offers of meaning enter the field, motivating modifications and enabling reflexive learning. This allows complementing the consequentialist approach of TA with hermeneutic investigation and reflection, as well as drawing several conclusions for TA, e.g. with respect to role concepts and the Control Dilemma.

Store buildings as tourist attractions: Mining retail meaning of store building pictures through a machine learning approach

The aim of this paper is to understand the extent to which a store building can function as a tourism attraction, using a large luxury department store as case research. The study draws upon the idea that people complete a hermeneutic circle to create an extraordinary tourism experience to share with others. The data gathering is based on the collection of pictures posted online on Flickr and analysed using a machine learning approach. A sample of 1,557 pictures related to a specific area in London (UK) were collected and analysed by means of a cluster analysis in order to determine which objects are most photographed. Findings reveal that the store building of a luxury department store is the central object in the majority of pictures within a 1km radius of the store main entrance, which demonstrates the role of store building attractiveness in tourism experience. The theoretical contribution is that this is the first paper adding the exterior of the building as attribute of the department store, and demonstrating the role of department stores in place attractiveness.

Integrative-Multidimensional Science Paradigm: A Perspective of Islamic Epistemology

Science and human life are inseparable. Without science, human life cannot develop properly. Thus, epistemologically, humans must be placed as the basic foundation of science; that is, humans who have religious and spiritual dimensions equipped with sensory, reason, intuition, and revelation potentials. These dimensions and potentials are the main structure and characteristics of integrative-multidimensional science. This type of science is quite different from modern and contemporary science developed by the West. Western science has reduced the dimensions and potentials of humans into materialistic and mechanical beings; that is, humans who do not have spiritual nor metaphysical dimensions. The Western science is no longer meant for humanity, but for science itself. This study seeks to examine the structure and characteristics of integrative-multidimensional science from the perspective of Islamic epistemology. It makes use of philosophical methods which involve descriptive analysis, interpretation, reflection, and hermeneutic circles. After reviewing the main points of the problem, the study argues that the structure and characteristics of integrative-multidimensional science are ontologically monodualism. In this sense, material dimensions (jasadiyah) and immaterial dimensions (ruhaniyah) are seen as a unit that is synergistic and supporting each other. All the basic human potentials and revelation are the foundation of science. Each of them is seen as an inseparable part. Therefore, in the perspective of Islamic epistemology, integrative-multidimensional science is considered relevant to and connected with the Islamic science.

THE CRITICISM OF LITERALISM IN READING THE QUR'AN THROUGH NASR HAMID ABU ZAYD HERMENEUTICS

Abu Zayd believes that understanding the Qur'an is not limited to explanations or comments. It involves an interpretation process for capturing the significance (maghza) from the literal text. Interpretation also requires a presupposition that the Qur'an itself does not produce literal absolutes and certainty. The presupposition needs an interpretation that illustrates the possibility of accepting the diversity of Qur'anic interpretations in the times. By using Abu Zayd's hermeneutics, the Qur'an is an icon of Islam and at the same time a representation of Arab culture itself which is not necessarily literally absolute, but is open to interpretation. Hans Georg Gadamer's hermeneutic circle that inspired Hermeneutics of Abu Zayd emphasized that in understanding and applying the meanings of the text, the subject played a role in the text rather than the other way around. This study aims to open opportunities that the Qur'an on the one hand is an objective thing seen from the content of its truth, that is seen from its universal message, but on the other hand it is subjective, because it is bound by the interpretation of the text. This research is also intended to avoid the sacredness of the ordination of a single interpretation of the Qur'an which has resulted in the emergence of fundamentalism which has recently become so prevalent in global Islamic societies, not least in Indonesia.

Zwi(ch)nięte koło radykalnohermeneutyczne

The article is an interpretation of the traditional figure of the hermeneutic circle made from the perspective of John D. Caputo’s radical hermeneutics. It begins with a recapitulation of the most important modern positions on the hermeneutic circle, which postmodern hermeneutics radicalizes, noting the impossibility of its closure or fulfillment. Movement in the postmodern hermeneutic circle takes place not between the parts and the whole, but only between the different parts. Thus, one might say that this circle is twisted, and this has a dual meaning. It evokes Jacques Derrida’s interpretation of a phrase from Hamlet, “time is out of joint”, but it also plays with the meaning of the twist, which can be understood as a Verwindung: the impossibility of the transgression beyond modern hermeneutics.