The Oxford Companion to Philosophy Part 41. The book is alphabetized by the whole headings of entries, as distinct from the first word of a heading. Hence, for example, abandonment comes before a priori and a posteriori. It is wise to look elsewhere if something seems to be missing. At the end of the book there is also a useful appendix on Logical Symbols as well as the appendices A Chronological Table of Philosophy and Maps of Philosophy. | 380 hermeneutic circle those like Gadamer who think ofunderstanding in terms of a dialogue or ongoing cultural conversation and those Habermas among them who wish to maintain a more independent role for the exercise of critical thought. . hermeneutics. D. C. Hoy The Critical Circle Literature and History in Contemporary Hermeneutics Berkeley Calif. 1978 . hermeneutics. The name of Hermes the messenger of the Greek gods gave rise to hermeneuein to interpret and hermeneutike techne is the art of interpretation . It became important after the Reformation when Protestants needed to interpret the Bible accurately. Medieval hermeneutics ascribed to the Bible four levels of meaning literal allegorical tropological moral and anagogical eschatological . But the Reformation insisted on literal or grammatical exegesis and on the study of Hebrew and Greek. Modern hermeneutics falls into three phases. 1. Friedrich Schleiermacher 1768-1834 the great Protestant theologian and Plato scholar gave in lectures from 1819 on a systematic theory of the interpretation of texts and speech. Another Plato scholar Friedrich Ast 1778-1841 had in 1808 published Elements of Grammar Hermeneutics and Criticism. The interpreter s aim is to understand the text at first as well as and then even better than its author Since we have no direct knowledge of what was in the author s mind we must try to become aware of many things of which he himself may have been unconscious except in so far as he reflects on his own work and becomes his own reader. A text is interpreted from two points of view grammatical in relation to the language in which it is written and psychological in relation to the mentality and development of the author. We cannot gain complete understanding ofeither of these aspects since we cannot have complete knowledge of a language or a person we move back and forth between the grammatical and the psychological sides and no rules can stipulate exactly how to do this . We cannot fully
