Hermeneutics

History and Meanings

Consistent with the varied contemporary understandings of the term, the etymological roots of the word hermeneutics are equally rich and complex. The word first appears in ancient Greek as the verb hermēneuein (“to interpret”) and the noun hermēneia (“interpretation”). Specifically, its origins point to Hermes, the wing-footed herald of the gods who traveled between the mortal and immortal worlds, delivering messages from the latter to the former. As such, Hermes is associated with activities that are later regarded as central to the hermeneutical enterprise, namely, the activities of interpreting and illuminating alien or opaque systems of meaning (in Greek, a hermēneus was an interpreter), of translating meanings from one world or language into another, and of mediating between different people or worlds. At the same time, Hermes's reputation as the discoverer of writing, music, and poetry points to the strong emphasis that advocates of hermeneutics place on the role of language in human life. Coming to an understanding of some phenomenon, hermeneuticists contend, inevitably requires a grasp of the linguistic practices and symbolic systems through which the meaning of that phenomenon is expressed. Finally, the connection between hermeneutics, interpretation, and language is apparent in the title of Aristotle's work on the relationship between language and logic, Peri Hermeneias, which was later translated into Latin as De Interpretatione.

Although originating in the classical world, the concept of hermeneutics is sharply altered during the modern period. With the advent of the Protestant Reformation and its shift of responsibility for interpreting the Bible from the Church Fathers to individual Christians, hermeneutics, especially in Germany, becomes increasingly identified with efforts to expound the proper principles and methods of Biblical interpretation. This notion is broadened over time to include methods of philological and legal interpretation but nonetheless remains the dominant understanding of hermeneutics into the 19th century, when the philosopher and theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher advances a view of hermeneutics as a universal discipline that encompasses all fields of study in which the interpretation of texts (in the extended sense of the term) is a central concern. According to Schleiermacher, universal hermeneutics aims to articulate the general principles of all understanding that constitute the foundation of the specialized fields of hermeneutical inquiry.

...