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Signposts Through the Hermeneutical Labyrinth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2024

Peter Mann O.S.B.
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Extract

Introducing the hermeneutical problem

It is a pity that theological communication so often gets bogged down because a key concept is never satisfactorily and clearly explained. The key idea then degenerates to a kind of magical word, periodically invoked, temporarily perhaps exciting, but ultimately mystifying. A few years ago the word ‘existential’ underwent this process of degeneration. Although the word had a clear meaning in Heidegger’s early philosophy, and indeed, as ‘existential analysis’, signified an enduringly valuable method, the basic insight represented by it failed to shape and illuminate the popular theological discussion. (A fine example of the kind of communication that should have taken place on a much wider scale regarding this word is still Cornelius Ernst’s 1961 Introduction to Karl Rahner’s Theological Investigations.) Instead, the word ‘existential’ became used indiscriminately for anything remotely ‘relevant’ or ‘concrete’. This inflation ended by making the word worthless and unusable—where everything had to be ‘existential’, nothing could be any more. And the mystifying communicators and the befogged hearers concluded about the same time that the word had become meaningless. This need not have been the case: as so often before, a chance had been missed.

Perhaps something similar is happening now with the word ‘hermeneutical’. Wheareas ‘existential’ was used indiscriminately, ‘hermeneutical’ is often used in an almost gnostic fashion, as if allusion is being made to some arcane discipline allowing a privileged few access to philosophical and theological mysteries. And before the general meaning of the word has been assimilated within theological discussion and satisfactorily communicated, particular ‘hermeneutics’ have begun to proliferate, producing a situation at once labyrinthine and mystifying.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 53 , Issue 621 , February 1972 , pp. 82 - 89
Copyright
Copyright © 1972 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

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References

page 84 note 1 Cf. Robinson, James M., ‘Hermeneutic since Barth’, in The New Hermeneutic (New Frontiers in Theology, Vol. II), Harper & Row, 1964, pp. 1‐77Google Scholar, esp. 1‐19; Gadamer, H.‐G., Wahrheit und Methode (J.C.B. Mohr Tubingen, 1960), pp. 295‐307Google Scholar (on Aristotle).

page 84 note 2 Gadamer, op. cit., 172‐185 (Schleiermacher), 205‐228 (Dilthey); Habermas, J., Erkenntnis und Interesse (suhrkamp, 1969), 178‐203Google Scholar; id: ‘Zur Logik der Sozialwissenschaften’ in Philos. Rundschau,Beiheft 5, Tbg. 1967, pp. 124ff.

page 85 note 1 On Phenomenology, cf. Spiegelberg, Herbert, The Phenomenological Movement, A Historical Introduction Vol. I and II (Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1960)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On Husserl, esp. pp. 73‐167 (lit.); on Heidegger, pp. 271‐357 (lit). Apart from Husserl's and Heidegger's own writings (esp. Being and Time, SCM, 1962. E.T. of Heidegger's Sein und Zeit), recommended are W. J. Richardson's Heidegger book Through Phenomenology to Thought (Haag, 1963)Google Scholar; Vol 1 of New Frontiers in Theology, The later Heidegger and Theology, (Harper & Row, 1964)Google Scholar; Gadamer, op. cit. 240‐250; Ricoeur, op. cit., pp. 222‐232, ‘Heidegger et la question du sujet’. An introduction to aspects of Husserl's thought is given by Quentin Lauer in his edition and translation of Husserl, Edmund, Phenomenology and the Crisis of Philosophy (Harper Torchbooks, 1965)Google Scholar.

page 86 note 1 On Ricoeur, apart from the essay already mentioned, ‘Existence et herméneutique’, cf. also the concluding section of his Freud book, Freud and Philosophy (Yale, 1970)Google Scholar, ‘hermeneutics: the Approaches to the Symbol’, pp. 494‐552. also the conclusion to his book, The Symbolism of Evil (Boston, 1969)Google Scholar, ‘The Symbol gives rise to Though’, pp. 347‐357.

page 89 note 1 On Lonergan, , Insight (Longmans, 1958)Google Scholar, esp. pp. 562‐594, ‘The Truth of Interpretation’; Collection (Darton, Longman & Todd, 1967)Google Scholar, esp. 14; ‘Cognitional Structure’, pp. 221‐239 and 16; ‘Dimensions of Meaning’, pp. 252‐267. Cf. also Tracy, David W., The Achievement of Bernard Longergan (new York, 1970)Google Scholar, also McShane, Philip S. J. (ed.), Foundations of Theology (Gill and Macmillan, 1971)Google Scholar, Papers from the International Lonergan Congress, 1970.