The History of the Humanities and Hermeneutics. The Old Testament being interpreted as a prophecy of...
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![Page 1: The History of the Humanities and Hermeneutics. The Old Testament being interpreted as a prophecy of the New Testamen Origen’s (185-253) three levels:](https://reader030.fdocuments.us/reader030/viewer/2022032523/56649d835503460f94a69678/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
The History of the Humanitiesand
Hermeneutics
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Hermeneutics
• The Old Testament being interpreted as a prophecy of the New Testamen
• Origen’s (185-253) three levels:– a literal meaning– a moral meaning– allegorical (anagogic, i.e. mystical, spiritual)
meaning
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Scholasticism
• Continuing the Church Fathers hermeneutics
• The four levels:– literal– allegorical – moral – anagogical/spiritual
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Renaissance
• The rediscovery of the classics
• The problem of temporal distance
• The need for interpretation
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Leonardo Bruni’s suggestion (ca 1420)
• Translating Aristotle’s Ethics according to the historical context not with the letter
• The beginning of the use of hermeneutics as an epistemological method
• The introduction of the hermeneutical circle: understanding the whole in terms of the parts and the other way round (16th c).
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Romanticism
• J.G. Herder (1744-1803) – identifying language with humanity—urging a sympathetic approach to ancient myths.
• ”Any book from an ancient time or a foreign country must be explained by going back to that time and country. It is absurd to expect that a text be intelligible to all people in all countries at all times.”
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Ninteenth Century
• Herder aimed at a self-identification with the context of the work.
• F. Schleiermacher (1768-1834): “to understand the text at first as well as and then even better than its author.”
• The universality of hermeneutics: understanding the human spirit/behavior.
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Wilhelm Dilthey
• Emphasis on the difference between the human and the natural sciences:– Different objects of study– Different modes of knowledge
Human sciences using categories such as meaning, intention, value; no distinction between subject and object; the method of interpretation requires ”experience” and ”identification”
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The Neo-Kantians
• Disciplines:• - nomothetic (nomos: law): understanding a particular
phenomenon in terms of general laws• - ideographic (idios: separate): understanding a
particular phenomenon on its own terms, the importance of context
• The difference is purely methodological
• Studying phenomena in relation to a system of values
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The Ontological Turn
• Heidegger and the phenomenological impact: hermeneutics acquires a constitutive role; prejudices, assumptions constituting the subject enable knowledge of phenomena.
• Hermeneutics acquires an ontological value that transcends the distinction between human and natural sciences
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Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002)
• Gadamer stresses practical interpretation (in opposition to historicists):
• - the encounter between the ”horizon” of the intepreter and that of the text; an existential encounter between two perspectives/”horizons of expectation”—>”fusion of horizons”
• Our pre-judgments make knowledge possible; hence, the importance of tradition
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Paul Ricoeur (1913-2005)
• ”Critical hermeneutics” distinguishing between true and false intepretations (return to an epistemological outlook)
• ”The hermeneutics of suspicion” (Marx, Nietzsche, Freud)
• (Author) – Text - Reader
• Understanding and explanation are complementary
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•The principle of charity, rational assumptions (Davidson)
•Thick description/context (Geertz)
•Quentin Skinner’s method: illocutionary statements and language games
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Early premises
• Humanus, humanior
• Paidea – the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, logic)
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From Humanism to the Humanities
• Reaction against Scholasticism; rediscovering antiquity; emerging in opposition to theology.
• Humanism presupposed emancipation from scholastic reason; true logic meant ancient logic not the ”sophisticated semantics” of scholasticism.
• Renewed interest in the Greek language and texts; the development of translation and editing skills.
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Marsilio Ficino
• Comparing his time with the ”Golden Age” that ”has brought back to light the Liberal Arts which had almost been extinct: Grammar, Poetry, Rhetoric, Painting, Architecture, Music and the ancient arts of Singing to the Orphic Lyre.” (Platonic Theology, 1482)
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Valla and Erasmus
• ”Donatio Constantini” (Constantine’s Donation); Valla’s disclosure by means of source criticism and philological skills (mid-15th c.)
• Erasmus’ translations and text editing; his contribution to the replacement of logic and dialectic by rhetoric and grammar (early 16th c.)
• By the 1550s humanism (as a movement) became ”the humanities” (as a scholarly practice); but, also, the emphasis on the moral importance of the humanities
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An Intellectual Fashion
• Education in the humanities became fashionable:
• - training fluency (speaking at short notice on any subject)
• - teaching (intellectual) docility, trusting the authorities
• The Ciceronian model (the orator) could be problematic since it was based on another language and culture than one’s own.
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Losing ground
• Francis Bacon’s criticim of Plato and Aristotle as well as of the humanists along with the Renaissance scholars; the gist of the criticism focused on the metaphysical treatment of natural philosophy; in the process, the humanities are regarded less and less as leading to moral edification, becoming increasingly disciplines to be studied.
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Further shifts• Philology still applied to the study of the Bible, but not within a theological
framework (in Reformation theology, philology was at first an auxiliary discipline to the study of the Bible);
• Theology no longer seen as expressing truths in need of clarification through philology
• The first chairs of history (Marburg, Vienna; 16th-17thc.) At this stage the university historians were mainly textual exegetes.
• Knowledge of state systems was provided by the professors of rhetoric who extended their analysis to contemporary culture and institutions
• By 18th c. the professors of history were freeing themselves from the classical framework: universal history meant (increasingly) the causal analysis of the rise and decline of empires
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Decisive turning point
• Humboldt’s outlook on knowledge and research
• The impact of Sanskrit on philology
• Philology replacing the rhetorical tradition of ”belles lettres” (first in Germany, then from the beginning of the 20the c in the rest of Europe)
• Herder’s philosophy stimulating research on folklore
• Philology as an exact science (Renan’s claim; Böckh’s criticism of the rest of the human sciences: lacking stringency)
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Leopold (von) Ranke and historical research
• ”Ad fontes”, back to the sources (once more, see the Renaissance appeal)
• Presenting history ”as it really was”
• Stressing the importance of archive research—primary sources
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Literary history
Increasing autonomy: studying literature as an expression of the national spirit (Herder)
Romance studies/languages (Germany, mid-19th c)—no need to speak French, studying the material as a manifestation of the historical ”spirit”
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Institutionalization
• The increasing institutionalization of the humanities
• Degree in history, 1873 (England); at Cambridge history incorporated into the Moral Sciences Tripos (modern history, law, jurisprudence, political economy and moral philosophy), 1850-1867
• Literary studies being established at the turn of the century
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Gadamer under fire
• Criterion of validation (Hirsch, et al)
• The principle of charity, rational assumptions (Davidson)
• Thick description (Geertz)
• Quentin Skinner’s method (based on Austin and Wittgenstein)
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Science and/or Scholarship
• Postmodernism: questioning epistemological assumptions
• Deconstruction: back to the text; the centre, the margin and the fragment
• Inter/transdisciplinarity