The History of the Humanitiesand

Hermeneutics

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

Scholasticism

• Continuing the Church Fathers hermeneutics

• The four levels:– literal– allegorical – moral – anagogical/spiritual

Renaissance

• The rediscovery of the classics

• The problem of temporal distance

• The need for interpretation

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).

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.”

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.

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”

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

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

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

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

•The principle of charity, rational assumptions (Davidson)

•Thick description/context (Geertz)

•Quentin Skinner’s method: illocutionary statements and language games

Early premises

• Humanus, humanior

• Paidea – the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, logic)

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.

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)

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

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.

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.

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

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)

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

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”

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

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)

Science and/or Scholarship

• Postmodernism: questioning epistemological assumptions

• Deconstruction: back to the text; the centre, the margin and the fragment

• Inter/transdisciplinarity