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MODULE 4, Part 1
Hermeneutics and Human
Understanding
M4-1.1—Module Learning Objectives
On successful completion of this first part of Module 4, you should be able
to:
1. state the significance for theology of the rise of “historical
consciousness”;
2. explain the notion of “the hermeneutical circle;
3. explain the hermeneutical triad of understanding, interpretation and
application;
4. articulate the appropriateness of conceiving understanding in terms of
the logic of question and answer;
5. articulate the necessary interrelationship between a hermeneutics of
the author, a hermeneutics of the text, and a hermeneutics of the reader;
Introduction
In the last Module we looked at language as a world in which we swim.
“Understanding” within that world now becomes our focus in this Module.
If theology is “faith seeking understanding” then we need to have some
clear theory about how human beings understand, and how human beings
with faith understand God’s revelation.
The approach of “hermeneutics” will help us in our endeavour. The Greek
word refers to Hermes the messenger of the gods in ancient Greek myths.
The verb hermeneuo means “to interpret.” We will see that understanding
and interpreting are closely interrelated.
Key Words
In what follows we will be examining the following key notions:
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historical consciousness
experience
interpretative experience
horizon
the hermeneutical circle
the hermeneutical triad
understanding
interpretation
application.
M4-1.2—Historical Consciousness
“History” as a modern discipline arose only in the nineteenth century. We
now cannot but think “historically.” We have come to learn that because
we live in the flow of history and time, any understanding we have of an
event or person or text will always be coloured by where we are in that
flow of history. We can never find some perspective above history from
which we see things “as they really are.” The historicism and historical
positivism of the 19th century thought one could.
It is impossible to get some viewpoint on the past or the present or the
future which is not conditioned by our present context. This awareness of
our embeddedness in history is called an “historical consciousness.” It is
exemplified in the story of the four blind people interpreting what part of
the elephant they are touching.
How does having “an historical consciousness” affect our understanding of
revelation? The approach of hermeneutics will be our guide.
General or Philosophical Hermeneutics
Philosophical hermeneutics is the investigation of how human beings come
to interpret texts, and more broadly, the social, historical or psychological
world. Philosophical hermeneutics has also been called general
hermeneutics because it proposes a general theory of interpretation.
We don’t need to go into a detailed history of the discipline, except to
note the major players. Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) could be
considered the founder of modern hermeneutics. His focus was on the
interpretation of texts. His “successor” in the development of the
discipline, Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911), widened his inquiry beyond
“interpretation” to “understanding”, and set his focus not only on texts but
indeed on “life” itself. Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) widened the inquiry
of hermeneutics even further to a consideration of understanding in the
context not just of texts or life but indeed of existence or “being”. Then,
refining Heidegger’s work, Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002) emphasised
that language is the world in which understanding of existence comes to
light.
Parallel to this ever-widening focus of hermeneutics’ concern (from text,
to life, to existence, to language) is a further shift. From seeing
understanding as knowing the historical situation of the original author
and his or her public, hermeneutics after Gadamer highlights the need to
also bring into consideration the historical situation of the present
interpreter. This focus on the present reader as well as the text and
author will here be spoken of as a “reception hermeneutics.” The
“reception” of the text is an important element in the determination of a
text’s meaning.
M4-1.3—Particular or Special Hermeneutics
The insights of general or philosophical hermeneutics have over the years
been applied to particular disciplines where the interpretation of texts (of
the social, or political, or legal worlds) has a more particular focus. For
example, legal studies takes texts from the past and seeks to apply them
to current cases. Hence there are particular aspects that make the
discipline of legal hermeneutics different from a general hermeneutics.
Another example of particular or special hermeneutics is the study of
literary texts, such as poems, novels, plays. Literary hermeneutics seeks
to outline the distinctive nature of understanding a literary text. The key
distinctive feature is that these works are works of art and require the
reader to approach them with what is called an “aesthetic attitude.”
When theology goes about its activity with a hermeneutical awareness,
such theological hermeneutics could be spoken of a special or particular
hermeneutics. Let’s move on to examine how theology necessarily needs
to engage with philosophical hermeneutics, while not forgetting that faith
does not come to understanding in ways different from everyday human
processes.
“Theological” Hermeneutics
What makes theological understanding different from understanding of
“non-religious” experiences? Do believers have a special way of
understanding? Not really. Even if they are proposing that God has given
them special revelation, that does not mean they stop coming to
understand that divine revelation in normal human ways?
What makes theological hermeneutics in some sense different from
general hermeneutics, and other special hermeneutics, is certainly the
presumption of a pre-given revelation by God and the presence of a faith
attitude in the interpreter. If general hermeneutics is about human
understanding in general, then theological hermeneutics is about faith
seeking such understanding. Just as it is legitimate for a literary
hermeneutics to presume the role of the aesthetic attitude in
understanding a literary work of art, so too it is legitimate for a theological
hermeneutics to presume the role of faith in understanding a theological
text or experience or ritual.
Most theorists would agree that there can be a mutually beneficial
dialogue between general hermeneutics and all these particular
disciplines. Each can learn from each other in the further development of
their theories. We will see later in this unit that theological hermeneutics
can learn from all these other disciplines. They can be “background
theories”, helping it present a theory of how a person of faith comes to
understand revelation and its symbolic mediation through texts, rituals,
art forms, and experiences. Should it also be true that these other
disciplines can learn a lot from theological hermeneutics? It is up to
theological hermeneutics to present a convincing case.
Theological hermeneutics seeks to lay out the dynamics that “occur” when
a human being with faith comes to an understanding of revelation and its
mediations. What makes theological hermeneutics “special” is that
understanding here takes place within a faith context.
What are the symbolic mediators of revelation that call out for
understanding and interpretation?
Anything can be a mediator of God’s revelation. Anything can be a symbol
mediating God’s presence. Here we will focus on two groups of special
texts: Scripture and the doctrines of the church. But first we must return
to general (philosophical) hermeneutics and lay out some of its principles,
before we then go on to look at how this helps us to understand
understanding in its theological form.
M4-1.4—Experience
So let’s begin with an examination of some key insights from philosophical
hermeneutics. Remember that philosophical hermeneutics seeks to
explicate how all human beings come to understanding, no matter what
the particular documents being interpreted, whether they be legal,
literary, historical.
Experience is a good place to start. There is no more problematic word in
philosophy, psychology, or theology for that matter, than “experience.”
Reflection Time
Think of some “experience” you had recently (meeting an old friend
you haven’t seen for years).
Examine the elements of what was happening in your understanding
(perhaps unreflective) of the experience.
Was the event meaningless? If it had some “meaning,” how did your
previous experiences of your friend affect the encounter? Was the
person different?
How were you able to name the difference? Would the fact that you
too are different after all these years be a factor?
All human experience takes place within the flow of human time. Past,
present and future makes the movement of a human life. All experience
has this story structure. We could talk of “the narrative quality of
experience.”
Let us examine some elements of experience.
Once we take “historical consciousness” seriously then two important
points about experience need to be highlighted.
Firstly, we cannot speak of experience as if everyone experienced in the
same way. Each individual’s experience is conditioned by their historical
context. That context includes many factors which we will examine below,
when we look at the notion of “horizon.”
Secondly, there is no such thing as “pure experience”, as if our encounter
with reality didn’t involve some kind of interpretation. We do not
experience reality directly, without somehow interpreting the encounter in
terms of some already familiar category or framework. An experience
means something only because we interpret it in some particular way.
Therefore, whenever we see or use the word “experience” it is best for us
mentally to replace it with the phrase “interpretative experience”. All
experience necessarily involves interpretation at the very outset. We are
able to experience something because it is seen in terms of something
else.
Horizon
Hermeneutics employs the ocular metaphor of “horizon” to describe the
phenomenon of experience. It is an ocular metaphor because it refers to
one’s viewpoint on a particular object. One’s horizon is the limit of one’s
view. It is the particular perspective I have. If I move forward or sideways
or higher or lower, how I see things will change.
Individuals always experience from a particular horizon. Indeed, cultures
could be said to see life from a particular horizon.
Reflection Time
Do you think women experience a novel differently from men? If so,
why? If not, why not?
Would Japanese tourists experience a visit to Uluru differently from
local Aboriginal Australians? Why?
Do all Australians experience a day at the beach in the same way?
Why?
List all the variables of human existence that determine our
perspective on things.
There are many categories we could use to name the great diversity in
perspective that determines how individuals experience:
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Personality
Language
Culture
Moment in history
Family upbringing
Education
Gender
Sexual orientation
Religious tradition
Personal life history
Perceived social “status”
Perceived economic “status”
What are some others? We could call all this “baggage” of who we are
“the tradition” (what we’ve been given or handed down) of the past and
present that determines our identity.
All of these variables could be described in anthropological, social,
cultural, psychological, economic, political categories (or in terms of many
other of the human sciences). Theology is wise to dialogue with all these
background theories in order to better understand the horizons out of
which contemporary Christians experience life and the faith.
M4-1.5—The Necessity of an “Interpretative
Framework”
Is this a good thing or a bad thing, that we bring all this diversity to our
experience of life?
It is neither good nor bad; it is just the way things are. The hermeneutical
tradition simply claims that it hasn’t been brought to bear explicitly
enough in a theory of interpretation.
The “tradition” that makes us who we are and conditions how we see
things certainly has negative aspects, as we will soon discuss. But here I
want to point out its positive aspects. When we experience something
new, we come to an understanding of it out of the familiar categories of
our past. The unfamiliar is understood in terms of the familiar. Our
familiar framework, fashioned by past experience, enables us to
understand anything new.
Reflection Time
Go back to the event you reflected on in the last activity.
How did your previous experience colour the event?
Can we avoid the influence of past experience on our present ones?
The philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650) searched for secure
“foundations” in human knowing, and wanted to prove everything through
scientific experiment. He said we need to first get rid of all our
preconceptions and then, with a tabula rasa (a clean slate) to try to build
up knowledge from there. Methodical doubt, he called it. We need to get
rid of all prejudices (“pre-judgments”) that cloud our thinking. Doubt
everything, and then try to prove it. The foundational truth that he tried
to begin with was the fact that we are thinking beings. Cogito ergo sum
(“I think, therefore I am”) was Descartes’ catch-cry.
Gadamer, whom I mentioned above, sees this “prejudice against
prejudice” as a total lack of historical consciousness. It doesn’t take into
account the importance of our already existing knowledge for helping us
come to understand anything. Our already existing frameworks for
thinking may be clouded, but they are utterly necessary for some sort of
understanding to take place.
All those diverse horizons mentioned above contribute not only to the
richness of human understanding but indeed to the very possibility of
understanding itself.
But must we then say that all perspectives are “right”? Can one
interpretation be the “right” one and all others wrong? How do we
recognise the wrong ones? What of truth? How do we decide what is
truth? Is it something “given” to us, or something we create and decide
ourselves? What is the difference between meaning and truth? These will
be vital questions when we come to examine the conflict of interpretations
of revelation.
The Partiality of Understanding
The hermeneutical tradition emphasises not only the necessity and
richness of diverse horizons of interpreting things; it also emphasises the
limitations in individual perspectives.
The framework out of which we experience, while necessary, means that
how we see things is limited to where we are standing. No one person can
stand and view things from all possible places. I may read from this place
or horizon, but someone else may read it differently from another place or
horizon. And both may be “true”.
M4-1.6—The Hermeneutical Circle
These dynamics in human understanding are sometimes described as “the
hermeneutical circle.”
Understanding is a circular movement from the whole to the part and back
to the whole again. For example, I may come to a topic with only a vague
knowledge of the subject matter. The “whole” of my knowledge is limited;
my current position is one of “not-knowing.” I may go to a dictionary or
an encyclopaedia to get an overview, thus broadening my knowledge of
“the whole.” Perhaps one particular aspect of the topic grabs my
attention, and a question may formulate in my mind about the matter. So
I telescope in on the narrower question, seeking an answer. My
knowledge of the whole already gained gives some kind of context to what
I now learn about the detail. I understand the detail in terms of the
general view I already have; I understand the part in terms of the whole.
The consequence of this narrower enquiry is an expansion of my
knowledge of the whole. I now have a broader general knowledge of the
topic as a result of my narrower investigation.
This back and forth process of questioning, from whole to part and back
again, from general to particular and back again to general knowledge, is
the rhythm of the hermeneutical circle. Some authors prefers to speak of
“the hermeneutical spiral,” an expression that perhaps better captures the
ongoing expansion of understanding. We don’t just return to the same
point in a circle; when we come back and take the helicopter view of the
forest, we see it differently than before.
This circle or spiral is similar to the way we come to know the past and
the present. We only know the present out of the past; and we only know
the past out of the present. This interrelationship of past and present is
also a hermeneutical circle.
The Hermeneutical Triad
The hermeneutical circle can be further explained in terms of what has
been called the hermeneutical triad: understanding, interpretation and
application. These three elements, although distinct, are nevertheless
intertwined.
We only ever come to understanding because we already have a
framework of interpretation out of which we comprehend the meaning of
some text or event or person. But coming to understand the unfamiliar in
terms of the familiar, if it is meaningful, is already an application to my
present context. Understanding has taken place because I know what it
means for me in my horizon of experience. Thus understanding,
interpretation and application are intertwined. Application is an important
moment in legal hermeneutics when past legal rulings are applied to cases
in the present.
Application is important too for theological hermeneutics, as it seeks to
not only understand and interpret, but to see the pragmatic implications
of such interpretative understandings for particular situations.
Anselm’s classic definition of theology is “faith seeking understanding.” A
theology that wishes to be truly hermeneutical would want to expand that
definition to “faith seeking understanding, interpretation and application.”
M4-1.7—The Logic of Question and Answer
The hermeneutical circle and the hermeneutical triad can be further
explained in terms of what Gadamer, following the historian Robin George
Collingwood (1889-1943), has called “the logic of question and answer.”
An experience is “new” to me because there is some mystery about the
person or event or text that I am encountering. It is new because I don’t
know it fully or am puzzled as I try to understand some aspect of it. This
puzzlement could be expressed as a question for which I am seeking an
answer. My not knowing is a questioning to know more. I have a question
for which I want an answer. Understanding is an ongoing “quest”. My
quest for greater understanding follows the pattern of question and
answer.
The hermeneutical tradition sees the dynamic that takes place when a
reader engages with a text or event as being like a conversation or
dialogue. I “speak” with the text. I come to the text with questions and
expect that the text will give back to me some answer to my questioning.
In the encounter I may find myself being challenged and questioned by
the text. The metaphor of conversation shouldn’t be pushed too far; it has
it weaknesses. Some scholars don’t like to use it; I do. I think (along with
people like Gadamer) that it is a very helpful way of understanding the
dynamic that occurs when a text or event is read.
Naïve Approaches to “Tradition” and the Need for
Suspicion
We spoke above of the partiality of knowing because of the limited nature
of our horizons. An individual can’t take on all perspectives on a reality.
This negative side of what determines how we see things should give us
pause in claiming to have “the” correct and only perspective on
something.
Societies have racist words and phrases which people use to describe
other individuals or groups.
Reflection Time
Does the use of such phrases have the power to perpetuate racist
attitudes? Does your using the “put-down” language mean that really
you do think that “they” are below you and that you are superior to
them? Think of some racist tags you use among your friends.
Do you think that exclusive language with regard to women in the
liturgy “excludes” them?
Do you think that exclusively male language about God perpetuates
a mindset that sees God as male?
Continual use of racist language transmits (traditions) racist mindsets.
Continual use of exclusive language traditions exclusivist mindsets. The
way a society “uses” language is part of a community’s tradition. Indeed,
as Gadamer rightly states, language is a world that fashions us. We are
how we speak. Like a fish swimming in water, we are oftentimes unaware
of the language world we relate in.
The German philosopher Jürgen Habermas (1929- ) has criticised
hermeneutical philosophers like Gadamer for having a naïve notion of
tradition. Agreeing with Gadamer about the role of language in shaping
us, Habermas thinks Gadamer presumes that the language which
traditions us is always benign. Habermas stresses that the negative and
destructive implications of how we speak and think need to be
acknowledged.
The French philosopher Paul Ricoeur (1913-2009) has incorporated
Habermas’ critique and has proposed a more critical hermeneutics. There
should be a twofold movement in our interpretations, says Ricoeur. There
is, first of all, a need for a “hermeneutics of suspicion.” Here the
interpreter seeks out what are the negative and destructive forces in
particular interpretations. But such suspicion needs to then move to a
position of trust in a “hermeneutics of retrieval”, seeking to re-find what
can be positive and liberating in the past text. A hermeneutics of suspicion
and a hermeneutics of retrieval can work in tandem.
This hermeneutics of suspicion is an important element in the process of
interpretation for liberationist and feminist theories. A rich person will
understand, interpret and apply a text differently from a person who is
poor and economically oppressed. Groups who are marginalised in society
in terms of power and authority will see things differently from groups
who are privileged and capable of exercising power and authority. That
the past tradition has excluded the perspective of women means that the
viewpoint of a past text gives only a privileged view, the view of males.
That does not mean that such a privileged viewpoint has not been able to
capture something of truth, goodness and beauty, but it does mean that it
is a limited perspective. Its effect will be to continue the exclusion not
only of the viewpoint of women but also the exclusion of women from
power and authority in society.
A liberationist hermeneutics attempts to name such negative forces in the
act of interpretation and to bring to bear certain checks and balances.
M4-1.8—Literary Hermeneutics
We have so far been discussing the elements of a general or philosophical
hermeneutics. When, you say, are we going to get to apply all this to a
theological hermeneutics? Soon.
But first we need to examine insights from the special hermeneutics for
literary works. This discipline’s application of general hermeneutical
principles to literary works of art will be particularly helpful to us
theologians because the primary norm for all our theologising is a
collection of literary works: the Bible. A full biblical (= theological)
hermeneutics will need to show how faith impacts on the interpretation of
this literary work, but first it is important to appreciate to the full the
literary artistic nature of the Bible and the appropriateness of learning
some principles from literary hermeneutics. In other words, literary
hermeneutics is one of the “relevant background theories” with which
theology dialogues in wide reflective equilibrium.
Paul Ricoeur (1913-2009) will be our guide. The biblical scholar Sandra
Schneiders in her book The Revelatory Text has applied his approach to
biblical hermeneutics.
Ricoeur talks of three worlds to be explored in the interpretation of any
text. He takes the notion of “world” or “lifeworld” from a philosophical
approach called phenomenology.
A Hermeneutics of the Author: Reconstructing the
World Behind the Text
The first world that is operative in the production of any literary text is the
world within which the work is originally produced. For example,
Shakespeare’s plays are a “product” of Elizabethan England.
A hermeneutics of the author and the author’s world seeks to state what
the meaning of the work may have been in its original context. Some
would claim that this original meaning is “the” meaning of the work.
For such an approach the “intention of the author” is what is to be
retrieved. “If we could only formulate what the author wanted to express
then we have arrived at a proper interpretation of the work.” In terms of
“the logic of question and answer” discussed above, reconstruction of the
world behind the text could be seen as a search for the question for which
the text was intended as an answer.
The “historicism” and “historical positivism” of the nineteenth century
employed a naïve hermeneutics of the author. They presumed that it was
possible to go back and to understand things as they would have been
understood then.
From all that has been said above about the concerns of the
hermeneutical tradition, you can see why historical positivism and
historicism can be criticised. There is no way that we can go back and
understand things in the same way that someone in Elizabethan England,
for example, would have experienced Macbeth. Things are a bit more
complicated.
What we can do is enter into dialogue with the text. The questions and
answers emerging out of that original horizon and the questions and
answers emerging out of our present horizon need to be set in
conversation.
To reconstruct the question for which this text was an answer back then is
to reconstruct “the world behind the text.” The reconstruction of this world
is “only” just that, a reconstruction. It is not “the meaning of the text.” It
is an attempt at an interpretation of that world which constantly needs to
be revised. Its revision takes place alongside the reconstruction of the
other two worlds: the world of the text and the world in front of the text.
There is a range of methods or approaches available for investigating the
world behind the text. Among literary approaches, the term “historical–
criticism” covers a wide range of methods, eg, form-criticism, redactioncriticism, tradition-criticism, textual criticism. Other disciplines such as
history, anthropology, archaeology, cultural anthropology and other social
sciences can aid in reconstructing this world behind the text.
Here “history” is the main concern, but history in a particular sense: the
original historical context.
M4-1.9—A Hermeneutics of the Text: Reconstructing
the World Of the Text
Once the text has been written, the author, in a sense, no longer owns
the work. Recent authors go as far as to speak of “the death of the
author.” As we will see, we don’t want to go that far. What the author
intended still sets limits on possible interpretations of the work.
But it is true to say that once a work has been produced it should be
valued and interpreted with proper attention to the literary devices which
the author has employed to convey meaning. This approach is not
concerned about the history behind the text. It is ahistorical in its
concerns. What concerns a hermeneutics of the text is the text as we
have it now.
Structuralism of the 1970’s is an example of a hermeneutics of the text
which is concerned solely with the world of the text. It examines the text
for formal literary devices with which the work is structured. The
meanings of the work can be found in such signs. Semiology and
semiotics are similar approaches which base the interpretation of a work
on these signs internal to the work. Whereas the previous approach
looked to external factors as determining proper interpretation, a
hermeneutics of the text looks to intrinsic factors of the work. The
approach has been called “formalism” because it looks at the form of the
work. Its strength is that it highlights the artistic elements of literary
works.
The text creates a world of meaning. A narrative, for example, conjures
up a world inhabited by characters interacting in certain situations. One
can speak of “the world of the text.” Jesus’ parables, for example, narrate
the world of God’s reign. The hearer or reader is invited to enter into that
world and to see reality from a perspective within the narrative.
Contemporary theories of narrative criticism are approaches which focus
mainly on the world of the text.
But because the text creates a world of meaning, could it be that it is
creating a world “in front of” itself as it is read through history which is
negative and oppressive? As the text is received continually, the world of
the text and the world of the reader impact on one another. It is to this
world in front of the text that we must now turn.
A Hermeneutics of the Reader: Reconstructing the
World Before the Text
In the late 1960’s, a paradigm shift took place in literary studies. The
weakness of the previous two approaches came to be recognised. They
ignored the person for whom the work was ultimately intended, the
reader, the real flesh and blood person who takes up the work and
engages with it. It is the reader who brings the work back into existence
and allows it to have meaning once again. The text is dead until it is read.
A reader brings a whole world to the act of interpretation. Each reader
receives the work from a particular horizon, conditioned by many factors.
Literary hermeneutical approaches that give weight to the reader’s world
in front of the text come under two general categories: reader-response
theories and reception theories.
Reader-response theories tend to focus on the individual reader implied by
the work (the so-called “implied reader”). These approaches too could be
said to be ahistorical in that they try to generalise the reader. Reception
theories, on the other hand, want to highlight the diverse horizons of the
real reader and communities of readers who take up the work and give it
meaning within specific historical, cultural, linguistic, political, economic
and social contexts through the whole history of the text’s reception,
including the present one. The history of reception of the text (its
tradition) fashions the horizon out of which we now receive the text.
A full interpretation theory (hermeneutics) cannot presume to work with
the contemporary horizon and the original horizon of the text. The
intervening reception of the text throughout history also must be
acknowledged and brought to bear on contemporary interpretation. A
history of the text’s intervening reception has a positive element: it
enables us to understand the text (as we saw above in speaking of the
necessity of interpretative frameworks). It has a negative element: it has
perpetuated oppressive and marginalising forces in the language and
perspectives of the text.
For the German literary theorist, Hans Robert Jauss (1921-1997), the
reader is a co-creator of the meaning of the work, along with the original
author. In a sense, that author needs the reader to take up the work and
fill in the gaps of the literary signs that make up the text.
Jauss, although he brings the reader to the fore in his hermeneutics, does
not want to focus exclusively on the creative role of the reader. He wants
to incorporate all three worlds in the act of interpretation. All three
elements of author-text-reader have a role in determining the meaning of
a work. Sole focus on any one element leads to historicism (an exclusive
hermeneutics of the author), ahistoricism (an exclusive hermeneutics of
the text), or relativism (an exclusive hermeneutics of the reader). The
theological hermeneutics proposed in this unit seeks to bring all three
elements into play.
In the next Module, we will examine more closely how all these
hermeneutical principles should come into play when theology seeks to
understand its sources of faith.
Reading
Now proceed to your reading. This gives a general overview of
hermeneutics.
Werner G. Jeanrond, Theological Hermeneutics: Development and
Significance (New York: Crossroad, 1991), 1-11.
This optional reading will give you a taste of the major writing of Gadamer
on hermeneutics:
Hans Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2nd rev. ed. (New York:
Crossroad, 1989), 362-379 (“The Hermeneutic Priority of the Question”).
Reflection Time
Reflect on the following as a good way of recalling the content of this
Module:
1. Why are our ways of understanding conditioned by history?
2. Describe the distinction between a general and a particular
hermeneutics.
3. What is the hermeneutical circle?
4. What is the hermeneutical triad?
5. How does the question and answer schema model the process of
human understanding?
6. What is distinctive about theological hermeneutics?
7. Summarise Paul Ricoeur’s notion of “the three worlds” related to
understanding a text?
8. How does the question and answer schema model the process of
human understanding?