Chapter 4.1: The hermeneutic circle

[@LemmonyQuack]

Great explanation, thanks. Unlike a few others here, I found it very pleasant that you took your time speaking. Made it easier to understand.

[@EricChapmanHowell]

Fantastic explanation and the measured, deliberate speaking gave me time to really consider each sentence. Thank you for this.

[@michaelpisciarino5348]

Interpretation 0:32 Difference in Natural Science 0:50 “Humanities study products of human mind” 1:07 Questions 1:59 The Hermeneutic Circle 2:26 “Meaning is determined by the whole as a whole, not by the parts individually” 2:34 Example of Holism 3:16 Tastiness 3:56 Meaning is even more holistic than taste.

[@sarahmcbeth9156]

9:56 Media Offline

[@Aritul]

Thank you so much, Michael.

[@chaz6399]

I watched the video and then I read the comments. When I watched the video again I understood it better.

[@Braddtastic]

This is an absolutely EXCELLENT synopsis of a construct that is described vaguely (at best) in the literature. Thank you!

[@PokePresto]

Thank you so much. I have litteraly been sitting for 2 hours reading thru 20 pages on this and not gotten it down, but with this video you have really helped me understand the concept.

[@CalebStew]

This is the best explanation of Hermeneutics on KZbin

[@hansderaeymaeker9137]

Excellent - straightforward, unambiguous and uncomplicated.

[@johnzicari]

Thank you for making this available. It's a great intro to what can be a bit cryptic.

[@mjgeronimo6976]

Thank you so much for this clear explanation! Keep on doing this! More power to the team!

[@Daybed4448]

For anyone going frame by frame trying to work it out, at 9:56, the red screen reads 'media offline' in several languages.

[@pezn2077]

But what does it mean?

[@jacquiecotillard9699]

Lol thank you, I was about to track through it to make sure I wasn’t being signaled by Skynet

[@1Sadblackbird1]

This series is awesome! It's helped me from Argentina. Greetings!

[@mattnyman343]

Nicely done! Thanks for your clarity and pace.

[@mystickarthikeyan]

Brilliant!! Thank you so much for the absolutely simple and clear explanation!

[@pamtebelman2321]

I think I get it. The purpose is to get a better understanding of what the author (artist, etc.) intended to communicate when he/she created the work that you are studying, and when we increase the context, we increase the understanding. I suppose one can never arrive at a complete understanding because we can never be the person who created it, but it is an interesting and useful concept nonetheless.

[@deepika9186]

Wow! Thankyou for all the thought and effort you put into this series, to make such complex concepts seem within reach. I'm sure if I try to go look up the same thing on my own, I won't be able to grasp it unless I persist and deal with the initial discomfort. But that's such a pity because just being familiar with the concept is wonderful, and broadens the mind for future connections. Thankyou for making this possible.

[@andreakreuiter-rb7hd]

Excellent lecturer/script! Easy to understand.

[@piyushashah1]

At some point in the past when we did not know the science of volcanic eruptions, people did see meanings in them - like God's signal maybe. Since we now know the mechanism we call it an event and feel that there is no meaning in volcanic eruptions. So, can it be that all such meanings are a signal of limited or inadequate understanding?

[@matthewkmrreptiles1332]

I find it funny that on a video about hermeneutics that many of these comments are some of the worst examples of the application of hermeneutics.

[@lamdawave]

Thanks for your succinct elucidation. There is also the problem of over interpretation, i.e.adding more context based on our own preferences or even bias, beyond what the writer originally intended. But we would never know that. What is your thought on this?

[@me_lero]

This helped me a lot! The pace is just perfect for me as it gives me time to really think about what is being said. Thank you!

[@rafaelalvarado4735]

Lead research strategy across different verticals for corporates and VCs (content partnerships, curated research, newsletters, social media) - Interface for sales strategy with Sales/BDR and CSM teams - Interface with product and data to enhance sector-specific insights

[@angelinedeepa4470]

Excellent explanation. Means a lot for a beginner like me. Thank you and God bless your efforts!

[@liza3940]

Thank you, that was the best explanation of HC I have ever got :)

[@Rayquaza498]

I love Gijsbers I wish he'd make more of this; I would never have to read again

[@IngloriousGambler]

Would hermeneutic scholars then think that its only worth studying texts of death authors, since we could simply ask a living author what he or she meant by what she wrote?

[@aioniansage6081]

I swear I saw this guy at Woodstock.

[@TiiTime]

Do you have a book??? I will definitely add your book to my collections if you've written one. Your teachings are very clear and easy to follow. Thank you.

[@stinkystealthysloth]

I think flavour is a more accurate word than taste... Taste typically refers to sweet, sour, salty, bitter, spicy, whereas flavour is the multitude of different smells

[@ricardobelisario9772]

Magnificent speaker. Thank you for this lucid explanation.

[@Contextcatcher]

7:00 Shakespeare wrote a beautiful speech about honour in Henry IV part 1 spoken by the legendary Falstaff.

[@hannahrossi7089]

A great explanation, an even greater shirt.

[@kushchenkovamariia6168]

Great explanation without talking in circles

[@moomoocamus2]

Couldn't the hermeneutic circle be better characterized as the "hermeneutic back-and-forth," or the the "hermeneutic spiral"?

[@drewdegen9043]

What happens if there is no context? For example, astronomers discover a "thing" never seen or experienced before. Current understanding is absent and so is memory: No context; no circle is possible. We have to wait for a context to develop - yet there still exists a "thing" which we may name ("X") - or not. "X" is a word without context. Our hermeneutic interpretation stalls. We are caught in the same trap as Wittgenstein's language games; words (and experiences and things) exist without hermeneutic "meaning." Some things (including words) exist and refer only to their peculiar individuality - not a "community" of interpretation.

[@ThePiachu]

Thinking about the last thought - you could know you have nothing new to learn from going around the circle if your thoughts at the start of an iteration and at the end of an iteration are the same. Of course this is more computational / mathematical approach to the concept since people usually don't read like machines and sometimes it takes reading the same passage multiple times before we get something. Even then outside context can change the reading. So if you were like a physicist or working with fuzzy logic, you'd probably conclude that you are done reading something when the change inbetween iterations is small enough that it's not worth doing another iteration.

[@No-oneInParticular]

regarding "is there a perfect interpretation": theoretically if we arrive at the author's interpretation, and then we could interpret the author within a larger context and so give a larger meaning to _their_ interpretation of their own work. The *perfect* interpretation would surely have to be that which brings you back to the beginning haha

[@pamtebelman2321]

If a tree falls in the forest and there's nobody there to hear it, does it make a noise?

[@elise7651]

Around 10:00 there's a slight Adobe Premier gap :D

[@mouradmaimoune7432]

sharply observed ;)

[@aleksandrahalii5530]

This helped me to write my course work more than 3 books😭 Thanks 😍❤️

[@ATAXIA424]

very clear explanations

[@galacticambitions1277]

Marvellous clear explication.

[@sbk1911]

Holism, Contextualism, Pragmatics, Semantic Minimalism, Meaning, Hermeneutics. Herneneutic interpretation=Recanati? as opposed to input-output semantic minimalist account?

[@Comedyravinder_]

All Ur lectures are par excellence.

[@antonyragu84]

Excellent and deals with basics

[@mulualem2883]

I listened repeated . I found clarity of concepts

[@Baekstrom]

The underlying assumption is that the original author had a clear idea about what his/her words mean. In reality most people are rather fuzzy on the meaning of a lot of the concepts that we use. Also, as soon as a bit of time has passed since the text was authored, a lot of the context is lost to the erosion of time. Things aren't written down and people forget. In short: We will never know exactly what Shakespeare mean with the word honor, and it is not only for the reasons stated in the video. In fact the man himself may only have had an approximate, fuzzy definition of the word in his head when he wrote it.

[@HonestlyTho-ThePodcastShow]

An apple falling from a tree means that life is ending, the apple will eventually rot and die. The apple falling means that death exist

[@servantsuniversity]

Great explanation!

[@Impaled_Onion-thatsmine]

I have to DO the hermeneutic circle to find answers of my life? Literally knowing that blew their mind.

[@davidjelinek265]

Great explanation, thanks!

[@sallybogdanoff62]

It's just fine. Not too short or too long

[@gabie4715]

This is wonderful.

[@Luuu90]

Helpful video! Thanks

[@MAPOLYompuKarlo]

Excellent!

[@ngel2323]

Easy explanation, thanks!

[@rorymatthews]

Great video. Thanks.

[@sohu86x]

Isn't it wrong to declare that natural events don't mean anything? For example, the fall of an apple in a society that rejects gravity could very well mean to revolt against the status quo. I argue that all things have meaning because meaning itself is constructed by people and societies.

[@parshugyanram136]

Excellent .

[@nitsua803]

Thank you very much!

[@louisaccardi6808]

The hermeneutic circle? Would a hermeneutic polygon be more accurate?

[@SFKelvin]

How do you know if something is truly natural? The Japanese Earthquake - suppose it was "created" by the United States ... it would then "mean" something. How do you know that it means something?

[@monashakra5380]

Excellent explanation Thanks so much

[@ThomasQuine]

Good work.

[@NRWTx]

this guy is a goat

[@Aritul]

Thank you.

[@Patrick-gx7cw]

Humanities study products of the human mind, which, unlike natural occurrence (hurricane forming, volcano erupting, lightning striking), do have meanings that move the humanities to work; the meaning of the whole is not simply the sum of its parts; words as having no determinate meaning apart from their context, like the word 'can'; the meaning of the word is not simply the sum of its parts, i.e., its phonemes and its morphemes, but rather it has meaning both as a result of those units and as a result of its context, like how it functions in the sentence as a part of speech, a noun or auxiliary verb or an adjective, for example; sentences only have a determinate and specific meaning in a larger context; the context that determines something meaning is unlimited, which means; we may never know for sure that we have gotten to the right interpretation of what the author originally meant; we can go ever round the hermeneutic circle My notes :D

[@omegamkandawire3576]

Where is this University? I am learning a lot from your videos.

[@nicholassimpson518]

Ancient university in the Netherlands.

[@koen8498]

1.25 speed, thank me later

[@Jebusite100]

Thank you

[@kianklen4750]

I'll thank you now.

[@mememepants]

ha! no kidding. thank you

[@neoepicurean3772]

1.5 even better.

[@trinityfrank2526]

Thank you!

[@wwowowoww]

lifesaver! thank you

[@rizalgueci3662]

Thank you very much for ur lecture.

[@julesjgreig]

Very good, thank you

[@m4641]

At 5:25ish. How does he come to the conclusion that "can" means "a promise to" in the email example; and a "boast" in the running example? Explicitly "can" means capable of. The person in the email example is 1. Explicitly stating that she is capable of sending the email ; and perhaps implying that she will. However, in our modern day environment there is no seasoned supervisor that wouldn't follow up in the "I can" response with "please send it today by xxx time" In the same vein, a runner who explicitly states, "I can" run it is not boasting but speaking truth--that he is capable of running it within that specified time. To speak truth is not boasting. If it turns out that he is not capable by means of evidence then he was not speaking truth in the first place. Just my initial thoughts...

[@okamisensei7270]

Yes, but what the speaker is intending to convey with the word is different. In each sentence, the speaker is trying to convey a different thing. The same word that means 'being capable of' describes different meanings depending on the context. What you've described is this contextual information. Now instead of a word in a sentence, think about a sentence in a whole text. How do you describe the contextual information then?

[@tobse3030]

Holism: Emergence, but with meaning

[@mudasseralikhan7380]

Great.. Thank you..

[@StaminatorBlader]

9:56

[@judithoakes6597]

Excellent! in a circular way...

[@sjsuz]

I think it's even more excellent in a spiral way, wink

[@riot.9]

omg Manny from Black Books has swallowed small wise book.

[@nicholaswestbury7689]

Particularly challenging where people write ambiguously.

[@sejalzaveri115]

excellent video

[@lanarae5408]

Thank you :)

[@PianoGesang]

Not atomistic but reductionist.

[@Wingedmagician]

Thank you

[@Angel-cu5mf]

clicked for the shirt, stayed for the data 😁🤓

[@subhashrawat7321]

Thank you sir!!

[@monaelnamoury5193]

Great!

[@MatthijsiX]

9:55 has missing content

[@LordMarlle]

9:56 what is this?! A Hideo Kojima Lecture!?

[@betajakob]

relly good work

[@linduspindus]

thanks mate!

[@martinagori6248]

Life saver

[@robertedwards9055]

I disagree with the point (made early in the video) that scientists aren't concerned with (or should not be concerned with) hermeneutics (since they study the "natural world"). As Foucault, Kuhn, and several other people have shown, "science" is not above interpretation. Observations, as well "truths" derived from them, are, in themselves, hermeneutical.

[@languagetv4756]

nice

[@maris0038]

Thank you so much!!!!!!! ^_^

[@ietcetera7137]

Subliminal message at 9:55.

[@billyboat7198]

😂😂😂😂😂 that shirt tho !!!!

[@FR-yr2lo]

''Can'' has meanings. Two meanings is not tantamount to zero meaning.

[@okamisensei7270]

It means 'meaning' is contextual and needs to be interpreted with relation to the large or smaller units. If a word is the smaller unit, to understand why the word 'can' is being used, you interpret the whole sentence. To understand the sentence, you interpret the whole text. Then you interpret everything that probably influenced the author in writing that text. Perhaps, the meaning of 'can' now has 'more' meaning than before.

[@conrado5859]

Imagine all the people...

[@exploringplanet]

I just came back after reading the original text by Rorty and now watching this video makes it more clear.

[@Tvz_lol]

im here from mario 64 iceberg