Teaching of Hermeneutics

Teaching of Hermeneutics

Introduction

Critical hermeneutics is the umbrella term for the shared theoretical and methodological projects undertaken by a variety of philosophical and social-theoretical thinkers since the 1960s. It is “hermeneutics” because the core of the shared orientation consists in reconstructing the general grounds for the understanding and interpretation of symbolic expressions, including texts, actions, images, and practices. Yet it is “critical” because it takes the grounds of interpretation to be essentially linked to social power and domination and, thus, to require a systematic analysis of the nature, structure, and impact of power on the constitution and understanding of meaning. In the same vein, the focus on power gives this theoretical project a critical dimension inasmuch as its cognitive interest aims at a normatively motivated transformation of social practices toward more freedom, self-realization, and equality. The basic idea is that acts of interpretation are internally related to forms of power, whereas this reflexive insight can foster practices of critical interpretation within which power practices are unmasked. Those existing power practices thereby become challengeable, enabling an improved ethical practice.

Critical Social Theory as Critical Hermeneutics

We can distinguish two phases in the articulation of a critical hermeneutic paradigm. By “paradigm” here, we mean a coherent vision and perspective vis-à-vis the understanding of social agency as well as its symbolic and cultural expressions. Such a perspective emerges first in the debate between philosophical hermeneutics and critical social theory. Jürgen Habermas articulated, initially on the basis of neo-Marxist assumptions, a forceful criticism of Hans-Georg Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics. Gadamer's lasting achievement was to bring Martin Heidegger's insight on the universal significance of interpretation for human existence to bear on the methodological self-understanding of the human and social sciences. Humans are, in Charles Taylor's words, interpreting animals; human agency is intrinsically defined by linguistic concepts grounded in social and historical practices. Gadamer showed how this entails that all explicit understanding remains bound to an implicit pre-understanding that encompasses all interpretation. Given that pre-understanding makes interpretation possible because it provides a horizon of significance and relevance, the positivist illusion of objective understanding and neutral assessment of meaning must be abandoned. In its place moves the concept of a dialogic encounter of other meaning that is oriented at truthfully explicating the other's beliefs and assumptions while knowing that any such process will entail a fusion of horizons based on the involved background concepts.

The critical exchange between Habermas and Gadamer gave rise to a larger debate about the foundations of critical theory. In this context, the term critical hermeneutics was first raised to capture the communicative transformation of critical theory (which was initially conceived as a fusion of Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud). Habermas's paradigm of critical theory makes linguistic communication (not labor as with Marx) central, and it is oriented at communicative action as a means to engage in dialogic rationality so as to solve social conflicts. However, many believed that the hermeneutic insights into the contextual nature of interpretation and the moment of productive historical dialogue here ...