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Single Idea 23408

[filed under theme 1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 3. Hermeneutics ]

Full Idea

The first type of hermeneutic circle operates inside the text, studying relationships between sentences. …The second type is between the text and the reader, …who brings assumptions about what it means.

Gist of Idea

The hermeneutic circle is either within the text, or between text and biased reader

Source

Bryan van Norden (Intro to Classical Chinese Philosophy [2011], App A.I)

Book Ref

Norden,Bryan van: 'Intro to Classical Chinese Philosophy' [Hackett 2011], p.228


A Reaction

The first kind is an essential aspect of reading well. Readers are biased, but I get very tired of those who do nothing but search for bias, and ignore the truth a text has to offer. If everything is bias, intellectual life is dead.


The 15 ideas with the same theme [seeking rhetorical explanation instead of hard facts]:

An interpreter of a text, because of wider knowledge, can understand it better than its author [Schleiermacher, by Mautner]
Unity emerges from understanding particulars, so understanding is prior to seeing unity [Schleiermacher]
The claim of hermeneutics to give knowledge through understanding is challenged by positivism [Mautner on Dilthey]
Thoughts are uncertain, and are just occasions for interpretation [Nietzsche]
A text has many interpretations, but no 'correct' one [Nietzsche]
A text explained ceases to be a text [Cioran]
Interpretations can be interpreted, so there is no original 'meaning' available [Derrida]
Hermeneutics of tradition is sympathetic, hermeneutics of suspicion is hostile [Ricoeur, by Mautner]
Hermeneutics blunts truth, by conforming it to the interpreter [Derrida, by Zimmermann,J]
Hermeneutics is hostile, trying to overcome the other person's difference [Derrida, by Zimmermann,J]
The 'hermeneutic circle' says parts and wholes are interdependent, and so cannot be interpreted [Mautner]
Knowledge is not a static set of correct propositions, but a continuing search for better interpretations [Polt]
Interpreting a text is representing it as making sense [Morris,M]
The hermeneutic circle is either within the text, or between text and biased reader [Norden]
Heremeneutics is either 'faith' (examining truth) or 'suspicion' (looking for hidden motives) [Norden]