We are essentially interpretive beings, experiencing the world in and through the process of our construing it. So says Hermeneutics, basically a branch of phenomenology that was instituted as a field of philosophical and literary theory with the appearance of Heidegger's... [more]

We are essentially interpretive beings, experiencing the world in and through the process of our construing it. So says Hermeneutics, basically a branch of phenomenology that was instituted as a field of philosophical and literary theory with the appearance of Heidegger's landmark 'Being and Time' -- although Nietzsche had already said everything necessary to the subject some 40 or 50 years earlier. In any case, Heidegger's discussion of the "hermeneutic circle" is generally taken as the fundamental text on the subject, especially after it received treatment in Gadamer's 'Truth and Method.' According to this Heidegger-Gadamer composite, interpretation is essentially circular, since we always approach the world or a text -- or the world as text -- with a particular disposition that colors our perceptions. However, we do not merely impose our own perspective, nor is interpretation merely subjective. Circularity comes as the world resists us, confronting us with elements that refuse to conform to our disposition and subsequently forcing us to reconfigure ourselves. Thus altered, we set ourselves upon the world once again, this time with transformed eyes. The process is incessant. The word 'circular' should not mislead, however, for we never return to the same place. Every encounter alters our disposition; interpretation must be seen as an ongoing process without eternally definitive results, a ceaseless revision of our take on the world. [show less]