HERMENEUTICS

WHAT IS HERMENEUTICS?
● Is the theory and methodology of interpretation,
especially the interpretation of biblical texts, wisdom
literature and philosophical texts.

● It is more than interpretive principles or methods used

when immediate comprehension fails and includes the art
of understanding and communication.
 PRIMARY NEED AND PURPOSE
The primary need of hermeneutics is to determine and
understand the meaning of biblical texts.
The purpose of hermeneutics is to bridge the gap between
our minds and the mind of the biblical writers through a
thorough knowledge of the original languages, ancient
history in the comparison of scripture with scripture.
 In the history of the biblical interpretation, four
major types of hermeneutics have emerged: the
literal, moral, allegorical and anagogical.
Literal interpretation asserts that a biblical text is to
be interpreted according to the “plan meaning”
conveyed by its grammatical construction and
historical context.
 THE FOUR MAJOR TYPES OF
HERMENEUTICS
1. HERMENEUTICS LITERAL
Interpretation asserts that a biblical text is to be interpreted
according to the “plan meaning” conveyed by its
grammatical construction and historical context.
The literal meaning is held to correspond to the intentions of
the authors.
2. HERMENEUTICS MORAL
It seeks to establish exegetical principles by which ethical
lessons may
be drawn from the various parts of the bible.
Allegorization was often employed in this endeavour.
3. ALLEGORICAL HERMENEUTICS
Interprets the biblical narratives as having a second level of
reference beyond those persons, things, and events
explicitly is mentioned in the text.
It tends to focus on the spiritual sense, which includes the
allegorical sense, the moral sense, and the anagogical sense,
as opposed to the literal sense.
4. INTERPRETATION
HERMENEUTICS
This mode of interpretation seeks explain
biblical events as they
relate to or prefigure the life to come.
IMPORTANT PEOPLE
IN HERMENEUTICS
FRIEDRICH SCHLEIERMACHER
Also known as the father of modern
theology, and the father of modern
hermeneutics, took the theory of
interpretation onto a whole new
level.
He transform the traditional biblical
hermeneutics into a general
hermeneutic which incorporated
texts in all kinds.
Hermeneutics is the theory and mythology of
interpretation and specially the interpretation of
biblical texts, wisdom literature, and
philosophical texts. Indeed, it is the science and
art of Biblical interpretation. It is a science
because it is guided by rules within a system,
and it is an art because the application of the
rules is by skill, and not by mechanical
imitation.
Phenomenology (from Greek word “phainomenon”
or “that which appears” and logos that means
"study ") is the philosophical study of the structures
of experience and consciousness. As a philosophical
movement it was founded in the early years of the 20
century by Edmund Husserl and was later expanded
upon by a circle of his followers at the universities of
Gottingen and Munich in Germany.
The science of phenomena as distinct from that of
the nature of being An approach that concentrates
on the study of consciousness and the objects of
direct experience. Literally, phenomenology is the
study of phenomena appearances of things, or
things as they appear in our experience, or the
ways we experience things, thus the meanings
things have in our experience.
PHENOMENOLOGY
 Phenomenology studies conscious expenence as
experienced from the. subjective or first person point
of view it is a broad discipline and method of inquiry
In philosophy, developed largely by the German
philosophers Edmund Husserl and Martin
Heidegger, which is based on the premise that reality
consists of objects and events or "phenomena” as
they are perceived or understood in the human
consciousness.
Phenomenology, as a method has four characteristics, namely
descriptive, reduction, essence and intentionality to investigate
as it happens Observations ensure that the form of the
description are the things themselves. We can use the historical
perspective to clarify the earlier statement that there are
several types of phenomenology.

Phenomenology is concerned about reduction a way of

bracketing our experience of being in the world so as to let us
encounter the phenomena, presence, and the being of life in the
world itself.
HERMENEUTICS
PHILOSOPHERS
MARTIN HEIDEGGER
Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher
and a seminal thinker in the Continental
tradition of philosophy. He is best known for
contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics,
and existentialism.

Heidegger addresses the meaning of "being

exonsidering the question, "what is common to
all entities that makes them entities? Heidegger
approaches this question through an analysis of
Dasein, his term for the specific type of being
that humans possess, and which he associates
closely with his concept of 'being-in-the-world”
PAUL NICOLAI HARTMANN
He was a Baltic German philosopher. He is
regarded as a key representative of critical
realism and as one of the most important
twentieth century metaphysicians.

Hartmann's. ontological theory, the levels of

reality are:

1. the inorganic level

2. the organic level

3. the psychical/emotional and

4. the intellectual/cultural level

The central concept of Hartmann's ethical theory is that of a
value, Hartmann's 1926 book Ethik elaborates a material
ethics of value according to which moral knowledge is
achieved through phenomenological investigation into our
experiences of values.

Moral phenomena is understood by Hartmann to be

experiences of a realm of being which is distinct from that of
material things, namely, the realm of values. The values
inhabiting this realm are unchanging, super-temporal, and
super- historical, though human consciousness of them shifts
in focus over time.
Values are what make it possible for situations in the
world to be good. Our knowledge of the goodness (or
badness) of situations is derived from our emotional
experiences of them, experiences which are made
possible by a prior capacity for the appreciation of value.

For Hartmann, this means that our awareness of the

value of a state of affairs is not arrived at through a
process of reasoning, but rather, by way of an experience
of feeling, which he calls valuational consciousness.
Hartmann's conception of proper moral philosophy
contrasts with rationalist and formalist theories, such
as Kant's, according to which ethical knowledge is
derived from purely rational principles.
GABRIEL HONORÉ MARCEL
was a French philosopher,
playwright, music critic and leading
Christian existentialist. The author
of over a dozen books and at least
thirty plays, Marcel's work focused
on the modern individual's struggle
in a technologically dehumanizing,
society.

Though often regarded as the first

French existentialist.
He is often classified as one of the earliest existentialists,
although he dreaded being placed in the same category as
Jean-Paul Sartre; Marcel came to prefer the label Neo-
Socratic.

While Marcel recognized that human interaction often

involved objective characterization of "the other", he still
asserted the possibility of "communion" - a state where
both Individuals can perceive each other's subjectivity.
 TWO MAIN APPROACHES TO
PHENOMENOLOGY:
1. Descriptive Phenomenology is widely used in social science research as
a method to explore and describe the lived experience of individuals. It is
a philosophy and a scientific method and has undertaken many
variations as it has.
2. Interpretative Phenomenology is an approach to psychological
qualitative research with an idiographic focus, which means that it aims
to offer insights into how a given person, in a given context, makes sense
of a given phenomenon.
 TYPES OF
PHENOMENOLOGY
1. Transcendental Constitutive
Phenomenology
-studies how objects are constituted in transcendental
consciousness, setting aside questions of any relation to
the natural world.
2. Naturalistic Constitutive
Phenomenology
-(see naturalism) studies how consciousness
constitutes things in the world of nature, assuming
with the natural attitude that consciousness is part of
nature.
3. Generative Historicist
Phenomenology
-studies how meaning-as found in our experience is
generated in historical processes of collective
experience over time.
4. Genetic Phenomenology
-studies the emergence/genesis of meanings of things
within one's own stream of experience.
5. Hermeneutical Phenomenology
-studies interpretive structures of experience.This
approach was introduced in Martin Heidegger's early
work.
Hermeneutical phenomenology is a philosophy of and a method for
interpreting human experiences as a means to understand the
question of what it is to be human. This philosophy was developed by
Martin Heidegger as a continuation and divergence from
phenomenology, the philosophy developed by his mentor and
colleague, Edmund Husserl.

Hermeneutical phenomenology is sometimes referred to as

interpretative phenomenology While the phenomenology developed
by Husserl is sometimes referred to as descriptive phenomenology or
pure phenomenology. This is an inquiry on how the human mind can
grasp the true nature of things as experienced in the world.
The phenomenology perspective tells us to remove our
preconceived ideas in order to arrive at a pure
description of our experiences. On the other hand, it
similarly seeks the truth in things as experienced in
the world. However, it attempts to see the truth in
things as a means to understand what it is to be
human. Humans are born in a particular historical
period, country, community and background.