Hermeneutics1

Hermeneutics is the study of interpretation. Reflections on interpretation started with the Greeks, particularly concerning the interpretation of Homer. The problems of interpretation become particularly acute where one is dealing with texts the correct interpretation of which is a matter of some importance, and which were written at a time or in a situation that is very different from those of the interpreter. Legal and religious texts are notable instances. Thus law and theology were the areas where hermeneutics was first systematically studied. In these two fields, interpretation was studied and debated throughout antiquity, into the Middle Ages and modern times.

The term hermeneutics (from Greek hermeneuo, to interpret) was introduced in 1654 in the title of a book by Dannhauer: Hermeneutica sacra sive methodus exponendarum sacrarum litterarum. However, related terms had been used by both Plato and Aristotle in a somewhat different sense.

The German theologian and philosopher Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) established hermeneutics as a separate discipline and expanded the area of texts to be studied to include literary and philosophical texts in addition to the legal and religious ones. The next major expansion of the scope of hermeneutics came with the German philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911), who argued that hermeneutics applies to all ‘manifestations of the human spirit’. Dilthey also endorsed the explanation-understanding thesis that had been put forth in 1858 by the German historian Johann Gustav Droysen (1808-84) to the effect that while the natural sciences aim at explanation, the humanities and in part also the social sciences aim at understanding. The difference presumably turned on whether what was being sought were causal laws or an elucidation of meaning. However, many different issues have been lumped together in this discussion, and it is far from clear what the points are and how the arguments run. In any case, hermeneutics came to be co