211. The Hermeneutic Circle

[@benmusgrove7490]

I find this idea of a Hermeneutic Circle really appealing actually....it removes a tonne of the hand wringing from looking at a text and trying to mentally account for every possible bias I have at that exact point by nature of being iterative. As you point out though we don't always have time (or motivation honestly) to do a hundred rounds of the circle to get a more nuanced view so I can still see some value in trying to start from a reasonably bias-aware viewpoint when taking on a text for the first time. I'll have to engage said Hermeneutic Circle to appraise the concept of the Hermeneutic Circle as to whether or not I give it priority over my current method of basically just handwriging about how poorly I'm accounting for my biases when learning something. Cue Alanis Morissette's Ironic....

[@THUNKShow]

Part of why I was excited about the hermaneutic circle was because of its response to foundationalist claims about knowledge - we wring our hands a fair amount about the "foundations" of our understanding being so vulnerable to skepticism & bias, but the hermaneutic circle approach asserts that there *are* no foundations, that the bias is *necessary* to get into things. We aren't building up from anything fundamental, we're clarifying, comparing, & exploring. :)

[@CompilerHack]

I'm listening to HoPwaG podcast on St. Augustine. About parts of religious Texts that he considers to require an allegorical reading, St. Augustine says they should be interpreted with a certain principle as a constraint (in his case, the reading should make one more Charitable) and if multiple such interpretations are possible, all of them are intended by God, so it's a collaborative effort to study and interpret the texts in various ways with the principle of Charity in mind. And I don't see why we can't apply this to any interpretation. The more innovative the research on a given phenomenon under constraints of quality, the better! The hermeneutic circle feels like *a* way of doing this where the focus seems to be (unless I missed something) more on author-related stuff.

[@Xob_Driesestig]

I agree with Luis Shökel that a circle is not really a good word for this process and that a spiral might be a better metaphor. People who find the hermeneutic circle plausible and want to expand a similar type of thinking to more domains may be interested in (epistemological) voluntarism. Of course a common objection to both hermeneutics and voluntarism is that it doesn't constrain enough. You are allowed to pick "arbitrary" and "ridiculous" starting positions and are allowed to ignore information. I personally think that this type of methodology is pointing in the right direction, but isn't quite there yet.

[@THUNKShow]

Good parallel! I like a sort of middle ground, with normative imperatives to integrate as much relevant information as possible into an interpretation, but license to find whatever meaning in that information. (As anyone who reads their social media posts from a decade ago can tell you, we all start from somewhere arbitrary & ridiculous, what matters is the refinement of that position. :P)

[@julesjgreig]

Very good, thank you

[@CasualPhilosophy]

My first exposure to hermeneutics was as a reference to *self* interpretation. Specifically, how certain theories become popular idioms for people to understand their own experience, like Freudian psychology. Seeing discussions of it in the context of artistic interpretation feels like going backwards :)

[@THUNKShow]

The original context for hermeneutics was interpretation of scripture. AFAIK Gadamer was one of the first to extend the term beyond text (to interpretation of e.g. science) - Freud was certainly engaged in a method of interpretation, but I don't think he connected that practice to the general process by which humans find meaning in scripture, literature, art, etc.

[@CasualPhilosophy]

@@THUNKShow Oh - I don't mean that Freud did that, I mean that people used Freudian terms and ideas as a part of their self-interpretation. Just as people might use astrology or religion for example.

[@MW-ic7lr]

@@CasualPhilosophy Are there writings on this, for instance people using Freud in this way? I'm interested in this in particular because psychological terms have quietly won the culture.

[@CasualPhilosophy]

@@MW-ic7lr hi - unfortunately i can't remember the specific places where i read this, although a quick google of "Freud hermeneutics" comes up with some interesting results

[@MW-ic7lr]

@@CasualPhilosophy thanks

[@joaquinbecerra7405]

Fantastic video! Keep it up my dude :D

[@THUNKShow]

Thanks! :D

[@himanshutahiliani1235]

OMG OMG OMG!!!!! Call it coincidence, but i have been studying this topic for about 2 weeks now. And now you put out a video on it🤗🤗🤗 made my day. Also, quick suggestion for further reading(for the curious) Hermeneutics: A very short introduction by Jens Zimmerman. Understanding hermeneutics by Lawrence Schmidt. Both these have good further reading sections, one of which I'm going through right now.

[@THUNKShow]

Great suggestions! I hope my interpretation of the concept lines up with yours. :P Or at least is fertile ground for your own interpretations.

[@himanshutahiliani1235]

@@THUNKShow 😂🙌.

[@bthomson]

Fertile ground!🌷🌱🌲🌳🌴🌵🌵🌾🌿🌻🍀🍁🍂Is what you provide in each video!

[@CompilerHack]

Issa's Haiku are shared regularly on this Twitter- twitter.com/issa_haiku?s=09 If you like wry humour on misery mainly involving mosquitoes, definitely follow.

[@CompilerHack]

The meaning I get from the bramble poem is, you know how when you have fever, things feel sorta.. prickly to touch? Maybe Issa came up with the Haiku when he had fever one day.

[@destinyforreal9744]

Thanks for the info

[@ThatAnimeSnob]

all that sound like a mix of projection and the intent of the author. One is what the reader sees and one is what the author was thinking/feeling.

[@THUNKShow]

Agreed! I think "projection" is a loaded term for what's going on, & there are certainly more extreme takes of this philosophy (e.g. Death of the Author). I like a sort of halfway integrative approach, where the ultimate meaning derived from a text is still largely a function of who's reading it, but they have a normative imperative to base that meaning on as much context & reflection as they can get.

[@ThatAnimeSnob]

@@THUNKShow I've heard of a method of thought called spiral. People who freeze or don't know what to do are trapped in a loop of going over the same thoughts again and again. More brainy people are instead figuring out or change some details, thus create a spiral that is different every time they go over it. Like reading the same book and having a different feel about it every time you know something more about the background of the author or the details of the setting. It's the opposite of onion peeling for getting to the deeper truth. Here you get to the truth by adding more layers.

[@CB27255]

Nice

[@odetoazam]

Hmm. What’s your take on exegesis? For example. There is a methodology followed by mufassirun or exegetes who decode the Quran by understanding things like root words, morphology, grammar, how the word is used in other parts of the Quran and so on. There are numerous sciences that go into it. Curious how the hermeneutic circle would approach such an endeavor.

[@galek75]

Before its too late, the correct spelling is Hermeneutic.

[@THUNKShow]

TOO LATE I blame Herman.

[@enlightened1onewon]

Everything i love ends up giving me pain

[@notmyrealpseudonym6702]

Everything that allows me pain I end up loving?

[@Baroncognito]

I had to rewatch because I kept getting side tracked by thinking about translation.

[@THUNKShow]

The hermaneutic circle angle on translation is fascinating. A more literal translation of Issa's poem: Old village: come-near, also touch, also thorn's-flowers.

[@threethrushes]

Everything I touch Please oh Remains like a bush

[@THUNKShow]

😔 Truth.

[@bthomson]

All the things I feel/ Oh my! Prick like a goat head!

[@patrickdonaghy3009]

Very telling about industrial society and its future