Hermeneutic Tradition Research Articles

Stanza permutation in the “Guo feng” 國風 and an examination of the hermeneutical tradition of “orderly progression”

Stanza permutation in the “Guo feng” 國風 and an examination of the hermeneutical tradition of “orderly progression”

Understanding the Meaning of “Aspeset”: Hermeneutical Approaches, Reading Practices and the Departure from Germany in Two Lea Goldberg Novels

Abstract This essay describes the departure from Europe, arguably the theme that unites Lea Goldberg’s three novels, in terms of the German tradition of Hermeneutics. I explore the various hermeneutical approaches in two of the novels, Mikhtavim Minesi’a Meduma and Avedot, and connect their metafictional and metacritical debates to the circumstances of their composition, publication and reception. While Mikhtavim Minesi’a Meduma employs a humanistic and universalist Weltliteratur perspective in order to downplay the emotions of bitter rejection from a beloved cultural home, Avedot contends with hermeneutical and philological questions ranging from authenticity and interpretation to the mystery of artistic creation. Avedot’s plot revolves around the philologist-poet protagonist’s quest for his own pseudo-ancient text, but ultimately raises questions about the spiritual nature of the creative process and whether or not this spiritual baggage can be relayed to an external reader, in political circumstances that accentuate the poet’s sense of alienation. The two novels, with their unstable form, provided Goldberg an opportunity not only to contemplate aesthetic questions, but also to psychologically process the tearing away from the cultural and intellectual legacy of Europe and in particular that of Germany.

Владимир Соловьев и Вячеслав Иванов: принципы философской герменевтики и традиция диалогов Платона

The article is dedicated to the problem of comparative study of the hermeneutics principles in religious-philosophical and literary-critical discourse of Vladimir Solovyov and Vyacheslav Ivanov. It is shown that Plato’s dialogue traditions in the works of Ivanov were intellectual reflections and expressed “Plato’s turn” in hermeneutical tradition of text interpretation that outlined in Russian religious philosophy. Special comparative study of this problem had not been conducted. It is proved that Ivanov’s interest to Plato’s dialogues derived from various sources. Solovyov’s works and translations of Plato’s works in Russia played a major role in it. Solovyov was a translator and commentator of Socratic dialogues of the ancient Greek philosopher. His introductory chapters made for Plato’s dialogue translations, his literary and philosophical criticism are considered in the article. Materials form Ivanov’s personal archive are analyzed and they show that he was interested in Plato’s dialogues “Timaeus”, “Phaedrus” and others. His articles, lectures, under-investigated materials and the books “Dionysus and Pre-Dionysianism” (1923) and “Dostoevsky. Tragedy-Myth-Mysticism” (1932) are considered. A.F. Losev’s works on ancient philosophy and his research on Solovyov and works of F. Schleiermache, H.G. Gadamer and became the object of the comparative analysis. It is shown that Plato’s dialectics and dialogues became major source for development of philosophical hermeneutics principles for Solovyov, Ivanov and Losev. It is shown that a myth in Solovyov’s, Ivanov’s and Losev’s works as well as in Plato’s dialogues becomes a category of thinking, a way of religious-philosophical perception, a form of artistic representation of the image-symbol and a basis of hermeneutical dialectic understanding. Solovyov and Ivanov’s view on Plato and Platonism is important for studying the development of hermeneutic ideas in Russian philosophy and literature studies.

HANS GEORG GADAMER'S HERMENEUTICS VS BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

At first, Hermeneutics as an interacting science was only used among the church as a method of Scripture Interpretation, with a standard system or method of hermeneutics. This hermeneutics is often referred to as Traditional Hermeneutics or Biblical Hermeneutics. However, in its development, Hermeneutics came out of biblical studies into the scope of philosophy, art, literature, and history. This hermeneutics is referred to as New Hermeneutics and appears in various variants. The purpose of this article is to introduce the New Hermeneutics system of the Postmodernist era, specifically Hans Georg Gadamer's Hermeneutics, and compare it objectively with the Biblical Hermeneutics System with the standard Grammatical-Historical method, which is often used to interpret the Bible. This study uses the comparative analysis study method to find fundamental similarities and differences between Hans Georg Gadamer's hermeneutic concepts and Biblical hermeneutics. Finally, the author makes conclusions and recommendations for Bible interpreters who are doing hermeneutics.

Invited Paper. The Hermeneutic Wager: Building Community in Pediatric Neuro-Oncology

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Hovey was contacted by the lead of a pan-Canadian working group on pediatric brain tumours (PBTWG). While all stakeholders (researchers, clinicians, regulators, patient advocates, ethicists, and industry experts) were highly motivated to address barriers through innovative strategies in collaboration, clinical research, regulation, and business models, advancement has been challenging on multiple levels. Hovey and his team were tasked to facilitate and successfully engage this diverse divisive group of stakeholders to achieve their goals. Inspired by Richard Kearney’s anatheistic wager, the hermeneutic wager acts simultaneously as a team building and research approach, as it serves to gain insight into the perspectives of members of a purposeful community. Through its five conversations, namely imagination, humility, commitment, discernment, and hospitality, the hermeneutic wager elicits responses from the participants that are based on meaningful participation in a relational approach of community co-creation. We individually interviewed the PBTWG facilitators (5). With informed consent, our research team also recorded all 5 of the PBTWG work group meetings (20 participants from 6 stakeholder groups) and break-out room meetings and took notes which consist of rich and extensive narrative data. This data was analyzed alongside the individual PBTWG interviews. The audio and visual data collected via a secure Zoom platform was then transcribed verbatim and analyzed interpretively according to the applied philosophical hermeneutic tradition. Findings centered around six points: “The Work of Stories,” “Changing Landscapes: Community / Communication not Consensus,” “Let the Words Lead You,” “Those Words Matter,” “Metaphors as a Bridge to Understanding,” and “A Road Map to be Inspired By.” Through these findings, we contend that the hermeneutic wager is an invitation for conversation that builds a path to the generation of new and creative understandings that transcend previous ways of knowing. The efficacy of the hermeneutic wager resides in its ability to help build a community of people who work together through and across difference to arrive at a shared understanding and collective outcome.

Patients' experiences with early rehabilitation in intensive care units: A qualitative study about aspects that influence their participation.

To explore patients' experiences with early rehabilitation in the intensive care unit and what they perceive to influence their participation. A qualitative design anchored in phenomenological and hermeneutical traditions utilizing in-depth interviews. Thirteen patients were interviewed from 5 to 29 weeks following discharge from three units, in January-December 2022. Analysed using systematic text condensation and the pattern theory of self. Reporting adhered to consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research. Interviews described four main categories: (1) A foreign body, how the participants experienced their dysfunctional and different looking bodies. (2) From crisis to reorientation, the transformation the participants experienced from a state of crisis to acceptance and the ability to look forwards, indicating how bodily dysfunctions are interlinked to breakdowns of the patients' selves and the reorganization process. (3) Diverse expectations regarding activity: ambiguous expectations communicated by the nurses. (4) Nurse-patient: a powerful interaction, highlighting the essential significance of positive expectations and tailored bodily and verbal interaction for rebuilding the patient's outwards orientation. Outwards orientation and reorganization of the self through a reduction in bodily dysfunctions, strengthening the patients' acceptance of the situation, providing tailored expectations and hands-on and verbal interaction appear to be fundamental aspects of patient participation in early rehabilitation. Insights into patients' perceptions show how dysfunctional bodies cloud individuals' perceptual fields, causing inwards orientation and negative thoughts concerning themselves, their capabilities, environment and future. This knowledge can improve nurses' ability to tailor care to promote optimal recovery for patients. User representative contributed to the design of the study.

A.A. Fet's Lyrics in the Interpretation of V. Solovyov: on the question of methodology

The present study is aimed at identifying specific features of the methodology of interpretation of Russian lyrics by V.S. Solovyov. The article raises the question of the methodological tools of Solovyov's interpretive strategy on the example of his approach to the lyrics of A.A. Fet. In particular, an immanent analysis of the article "On lyrical poetry. About the last poems of Fet and Polonsky" ("Russian Review", 1890). The compositional features of the work are studied, the complex of problems that Solovyov puts forward in connection with his proposed interpretation of Fet's lyrics is considered. At the same time, special attention is paid to the problem of creating an artistic image of the poet in Solovyov's poem "A.A. Fet, October 19, 1884" - a poem inspired by the presentation of the first Pushkin Prize to Fet for the complete translation of Horace. The methodology presented in this article for the study of Solovyov's approach to Fet's lyrics, as well as his general theoretical calculations about the essence of lyrics as such, are based on the possibilities of logical and semantic contextual analysis of the utterance. The novelty of the research consists in the fact that for the first time the problem of actualization by Solovyov of the dialectic of such properties as "subjectivity" / "objectivity", "singularity" / "multiplicity", "completeness" / "openness", "form" / "content" when reading Fet's poetry is considered. It is shown that in Solovyov's article "On lyrical poetry" this method is used in the disclosure of various aspects. It is argued that the interaction of the properties of "completeness" and "openness" in Solovyov's presentation of general theoretical issues related to the problem of defining poetry allows the philosopher to deduce the definition of "pure lyrics". It is concluded that Solovyov's analysis of the thematic range of Fet's lyrics and his study of the formal features of poetry are based on dialectical principles, which makes it possible to correlate the philosopher's approach with the hermeneutic tradition.

Euhemerus and Euhemerism in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries.

This paper looks at the way in which scholars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries conceptualized the relationship between sacred history and pagan mythology through the lens of their approach to the ancient Greek writer Euhemerus. It argues that the popular contemporary tendency to equate Euhemerism with the historical interpretation of pagan mythology is the product of early eighteenth century French mythography, during which time scholars divested the study of pagan myth from the study of biblical history and thereby sought for new, non-Christian, hermeneutical traditions through which to analyze the origins of pagan mythology more generally.

A Critical Reading of Jean‐Luc Marion's Interpretation of Anselm's Ontological Argument

AbstractIn this essay, I qualify Jean‐Luc Marion's anti‐ontological interpretation of Anselm's argument. Marion claims that the argument is not ontological but in line with Dionysian apophatic theology. To substantiate his anti‐ontological reading, Marion suggests that the main regulative idea of the Proslogion is bonum. The final regulative idea, however, is gaudium, since gaudium, not bonum, leads the argument to the beatific vision. If we reformulate the Proslogion focusing on gaudium, we find that Marion's analysis misses the evident ontological aspects of the argument, such as the tradition of prayer and hermeneutics. Since Anselm promulgated the argument within the Benedictine tradition of Bec, the practice of prayer or meditation is the legitimate context of the argument. However, because of his emphasis on the structure of call and response over the ontological and hermeneutical aspects of revelation, his analysis neglects the importance of the hermeneutic relation within which the Proslogion is born.

A balancing act-midwives' and public health nurses' experiences with breastfeeding counselling.

To explore midwives' and public-health nurses' experiences of breastfeeding counselling in order to provide a deeper insight into breastfeeding counselling. A qualitative design was used, and qualitative content analysis was conducted to analyse the data in accordance with the phenomenological hermeneutic tradition. The Norwegian Centre for Research Data approved this study. All participants provided written consent. Four focus-group interviews were conducted on a sample of eight midwives and 13 public-health nurses in Norway. Three interrelated themes describing the meaning of midwives' and public-health nurses' experiences with breastfeeding counselling emerged from the analysis: Breastfeeding Counselling Means Responsibility for Collaboration and Facilitation, Being Confident as a Breastfeeding Counsellor Means Striving for Professional Competence and Supporting the Individual Breastfeeding Family Means Being Sensitive and Adapting to Novel Situations. The focus groups comprised a mix of midwives and public-health nurses, which may have inhibited honest declaration of these professionals' opinions of each other. Midwives and public-health nurses regard structural factors and prioritising breastfeeding support in society as important for providing good breastfeeding counselling. Midwives and public-health nurses strive to find a balance between relying on their own competence, promoting breastfeeding in accordance with guidelines and respecting mothers' choices. Healthcare professionals require knowledge about breastfeeding, good clinical judgement, a listening attitude and openness to how breastfeeding affects mother's everyday life to provide good breastfeeding care.

STRIVING FOR THE UNDERNEATH: BODY AND PATHOS IN CHAYA CZERNOWIN'S COMPOSITION FOR VOICE IN INFINITE NOW AND HEART CHAMBER

AbstractIn her two recent operas, Heart Chamber (2017–19) and Infinite Now (2015–16), Chaya Czernowin uses vocal ensembles to embody a single character. In a 2016 article, she explained that she wanted to liberate the individual voice from its fixed emotional, social and individual conventions (especially its ingrained pathos), and to work with the voice as a free imaginative sonic material, using the ensemble technique to achieve this. This article argues that the voice ensemble technique amplifies and intensifies the pathos of the voice rather than eliminating it. Recognising that the voice has strong somatic qualities since it is produced in the body, I suggest a material-musical analysis, based on the theories of Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht and Brian Massumi, that focuses on the body, the sensual experience and the physical space, and rejects the hermeneutic tradition that refers to meaning and interpretation only. What emerges is that the voices, instrumentation and electronics of the ensemble are designed to embody the inner body and the outer space at the same time. The voice ensemble may split and produce multi-layered mental–physical states, and express how traditional dichotomies, such as culture/nature, body/mind and subject/object, can meld into multi-perspective processual movements. It is in this intersection of sound and drama, manifesting the corporeal, that the unique power of opera is evinced.

(DIS)Locating Meaning: Toward a Hermeneutical Response in Education to Religiously Inspired Extremism

AbstractA key epistemological assumption in the ideologies of many of the groups termed extremist is that there is an unmediated access to a Divine Will. Driven by this assumption, and facilitated by several other factors, a range of coercive actions (including violence) to force others into submission to the perceived Will of God are seen as justified by some of these groups. A consideration of how religion is discussed in various contexts, from seminaries and schools to media and policy discourses, shows that this assumption about unmediated access to Divine Will is widely shared and that most children grow up socialized into it. In this paper, Farid Panjwani argues that challenging this assumption through educational settings can help young people acquire critical capacities that may lead to a critique of extremist narratives, thereby decreasing their attractions. In this regard, the paper draws upon a range of theoretical ideas, for example, the hermeneutical tradition (in particular the work of Hans‐Georg Gadamer), as well as historical and textual examples, to make a case for a rethinking of religious education to develop more critical capacities among the students.

Roots of disputes over hermeneutics

The article investigates reasons and preconditions for current difficulties in hermeneutics, caused by confusion of interpretation different concepts. The work considers three trends that affected the transformation of the interpretation notion in the 19th century: 1) the author role reduction followed by the interpreter role augmentation, 2) interpretation applicability expansion from the text to the world as a whole, resulting in the hermeneutics subject diffusion, 3) substitution of the text traditional hermeneutics by hermeneutic philosophies. Hard and soft interpretations are distinguished that base formation of hermeneutics different types.

Letters and Livelihood: R. Baḥya ben Asher’s Commentary on the Recitation of the Manna Story

Abstract This article studies kabbalistic interpretation of a ritual of unknown origin: the daily recitation of the manna episode (Exod 16:1–36). This episode foregrounds a major theme in the writings of R. Baḥya ben Asher ibn Halawa (c.1255–1340) and many other medieval kabbalists: the cyclical nature of sustaining existence. Baḥya’s interpretation builds on two primary sources: R. Jacob ben Sheshet Gerondi’s commentary on Ps 145 in his kabbalistic polemic Meshiv Devarim Nekhoḥim, and a hermeneutic tradition derived from Hasidic-Ashkenazi biblical exegesis. The article also examines roughly analogous works that illuminate Baḥya’s hermeneutical outlook.

How to Change Law in Classical India

In his celebrated book The Concept of Law, H. L. A. Hart posits three secondary rules in a legal system: recognition, change, and adjudication. In this paper, I look at the second category: the means provided within the Indian legal system by which laws, in this case dharma, can be changed. The category of recognition provides us with means of knowing what the laws are. In modern systems, this is done through the passage of laws in a duly constituted legislature. The ancient Indian system did not have a provision for a legislative body. Instead, law as dharma was to be discovered rather than enacted: it was thought to be found in the Veda (vedamulatva concept) and, secondarily, in the texts known as smrtis. Law is thus eternal and, in theory, immutable; it cannot be changed. But, in spite of the theory, society and culture do change and demand laws that reflect those changes. The hermeneutical tradition of India provided means by which such change, foreclosed de jure, could be enacted de facto. This paper will analyse several of these techniques, including the yuga theory, the dharma of smaller social and geographical units, and, quite interestingly, the opprobrium of the people (lokavidvista).

The possibility of a truth-beyond-being and givenness: engaging the work of Jean-Luc Marion in the hermeneutics of religious education

ABSTRACT This paper argues that an enclosed hermeneutical circle is evident at the centre of modern religious education as a result of its rootedness in the romantic hermeneutical tradition. It argues that modern religious education carries an implicit text-based hermeneutical orientation. It contends that such a hermeneutical approach is limited in terms of its ability to engage with persons’ encounter with truth in life itself as it unfolds historically. This paper attempts to move beyond an enclosed hermeneutical circle at the centre of modern religious education, as well as the restrictive hermeneutics that it implicitly promotes, by recognising the givenness of the other in encounters with truth. This is achieved by considering the phenomenological and theological project of Jean-Luc Marion. It argues that Marion has much to offer hermeneutical discourse in religious education by way of his embrace of the possibility of a God-beyond-being, his notion of givenness, and his discernment of four hermeneutical moments of givenness. By engaging with, and introducing, these aspects of Marion’s work to hermeneutical discourse in religious education, this paper points to the need for a more dynamic hermeneutic that is open to the givenness of the other in encounters with truth or truth-events.

For my friend Richard J. Bernstein

For my friend Richard J. Bernstein

Johann Arnason’s unanswered question: To what end does one combine historical-comparative sociology with social and political philosophy?

Johann Arnason’s work combines the most erudite historical-comparative sociology, discussing highly knowledgeably enormous stretches of world-history, with the most subtle social and political philosophy, drawing creatively on the traditions of hermeneutics and phenomenology. Invariably, his works introduce more nuance and sophistication into the analysis of even very well studied socio-historical phenomena. At the same time, he addresses such major phenomena in terms of modernity, democracy and capitalism, agreeing that there often – maybe always – is a combination of empirical, conceptual and normative issues at work when analysing human history. Nevertheless, readers of his work may at the same time be impressed by the nuance and sophistication and at a loss with regard to what such further refinement of our socio-historical knowledge entails in terms of understanding our own time in its historical context. Searching through Johann Arnason’s work, this article identifies unexplored questions in the conceptual and historical relation between civilization, modernity, and equality and tries to understand why they have been left open.

The Gadamerian Discourse in China and the Fusion of Aesthetic Realms

Based on comparative philosophical methodology, this paper presents a new hermeneutic method for interpreting Chinese (especially ancient Chinese) texts. It first introduces the rich tradition of Chinese hermeneutics and then analyses its possible dialogues with European hermeneutic methods, especially Gadamer’s “fusion of horizons”. It identifies some methodological problems inherent in this method and, on this basis, proposes the application of a new hermeneutic method that may be more suitable for the interpretation of traditional Chinese metaphysical and literary texts. It is based on the traditional philosophical-aesthetic notion of jingjie 境界. The author preliminarily refers to this method as a “fusion of aesthetic realms”.

STAGE REFLECTION ON RUSSIAN CLASSICS (A CASE STUDY OF PERM THEATRES)

Ongoing socio-cultural transformations have influenced the fact that the problem of stage reflection on Russian classics is becoming one of the major trends in the Russian humanities. The relevance of the problem under question is determined by general changes in artistic consciousness at the turn of the centuries and innovations dynamics in theatrical art (of the centre and regional culture) opening up new paths of cognition and interpretation of increasingly sophisticated reality through semantics and symbolism of Russian classics. The novelty of the study is a comprehensive culturological approach combining categories of philosophy, art studies, aesthetics, and semiotics. The most representative methodological grounds within the framework of this part of the research are general semiotic conceptions aimed at analysis of culture text, its logic-symbolic and semantic structure (R. Barthes, Yu. Lotman). The hermeneutic tradition (M. Heidegger) and post-structuralism (J. Kristeva) play a special role in reflection on the text of the performance and its semantic depth. The purpose of the article is to examine the nature of artistic reception as a dialogue and intensification of the spectator’s subjectivity in terms of the drama synthetism. The data are presented by Perm theatre directors’ creative practices. The analysis of the data reveals a directors’ trend not just to refresh relationships with the audience through an active dialogue between the theatre and literary classics (a remake, “postmodern classicism”) but primarily to consciously bridge the boundaries in facing new challenges of modernity.