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Accordingly, hermeneutics may be broadly defined as either the art or the theory of critical interpretation, more exactly, critical interpretation of historical phenomena insofar as they are expressions of unique human existence. More strictly defined, hermeneutics may be said to be either the art or the theory of critically interpreting expressions of unique human existence that are enduringly fixed; and it may be defined more strictly still as either the art or the theory of critically interpreting expressions of unique human existence that are enduringly fixed in writing, i.e., texts.

Wiki MarkupThis definition of hermeneutics is my way of trying to do justice both to Rudolf Bultmann's definition of it as the _art_ of scientific \ [_sc_. disciplined or critical\] understanding of expressions of life that are enduringly fixed and to K.O. Apel's definition of it as the _theory_ of understanding, especially of the scientific \ [_sc_. disciplined or critical\] interpretation, of expressed or implied meaning.

Perhaps an even better way of defining it so as to realize the same basic motives would be to define it as the art or the theory of critical interpretation of life-praxis as mediated by the forms of culture, religious as well as secular.

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In terms of my anthropology, one can say that any of our vital questions on the primary level of self-understanding and life-praxis can be put to the facts of the past in such a way that they become historical phenomena that have a meaning or significance for the present. By the same token, any of our vital questions can establish a life-relation with, and a preunderstanding of, the subject matter of a text that makes it possible for us both to understand the text and to interpret it in a critical way. Thus not only our existential question properly so-called, but any of our vital questions makes possible an encounter with facts of the past and/or the subject matter of a text out of which both understanding and critical interpretation become possible.

Wiki MarkupFollowing are several relevant passages from Bultmann's essay, "The Problem of Hermeneutics," which fill out this basic understanding. "... any understanding or interpretation is always oriented to \ [or by\] a certain way of asking questions or to a certain objective. This means that it is never without presuppositions; more exactly, it is always guided by a preunderstanding of the subject matter about which it questions the text. Only on the basis of such a preunderstanding is a way of asking questions and an interpretation at all possible" (72 f.).

Wiki Markup"... in each case the process of understanding will be different, depending on how the objective of interpretation is determined. It is evidently not enough to say 'depending on the kind of text,' that is, on the subject matter that is directly expressed in the text or the interest by which it itself is guided.... Of course, in the first instance, questioning of the text is \ [or should be\] oriented to the subject matter that is talked about in the text and mediated by it" (73).

Wiki Markup"A way of asking questions ... grows out of an interest that is grounded in the life of the questioner; and the presupposition of all understanding interpretation is that this interest is also alive in some way in the text to be interpreted and establishes communication between the text and the interpreter.... \ [T\]he presupposition of understanding is the life relation of the interpreter to the subject matter that is \ -\- directly or indirectly \ -\- expressed in the text" (73 f.).

"... Underlying any interpretation there is a life relation to the subject matter with which the text is concerned, or about which it is questioned..." (74).

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"Interest in the subject matter motivates interpretation and provides a way of asking questions, an objective. The orientation of the interpretation is not problematic when it is guided by a question concerning the subject matter that the text itself intends to communicate.... But the whole business soon becomes more complicated, for a naive way of questioning the text does not last beyond the stage of childhood even if it never ceases to be justified as a way of asking about what the text directly intends to communicate. The naive way of questioning retains its place especially in the case of scientific texts that seek to mediate knowledge directly. Even when the questioning proceeds to the point of understanding the texts as sources for the history of the science concerned, there is no excluding a prior understanding of what they directly transmit by way of knowledge.... Even so, the objective has become different when scientific texts are read simply as so many witnesses for the history of science" (76 f.).unmigrated-wiki-markup.

"The right way of asking questions in interpreting the texts and monuments of literature and art, philosophy and religion, had to be acquired anew after it had been suppressed by the prevailing way of asking questions during the period of so-called historicism.... Under the hegemony of historicism, texts and monuments had been understood in different ways as 'sources,' for the most part as sources for reconstructing a picture of some past age or period of time.... It is not as though texts and monuments cannot also be understood as 'sources.'... The way of asking questions that takes the text to be a source has its proper place in the service of genuine interpretation. For any interpretation necessarily moves in a circle: on the one hand, the individual phenomenon is understandable \ [only\] in terms of its time and place; on the other hand, it itself first makes its time and place understandable. Understanding Plato in terms of his own time stands in service of a genuine interpretation of Plato and belongs to the sphere of the traditional hermeneutical rules..." (78 f).

"By analogy, other ways of asking questions that were developed during the period of historicism have a legitimate place in the service of genuine understanding" (79).

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"... in questioning the text one must allow oneself to be questioned by the text and to give heed to its claim" (84).unmigrated-wiki-markup

"... can \ [we\] achieve objectivity in interpretation and in the knowledge of historical phenomena\[?\] If the concept of objective knowledge is taken over from natural science (where, by the way, its traditional meaning has also become problematic today), it is not valid for the understanding of historical phenomena, which are of a different kind from the phenomena of nature. As historical phenomena they do not exist at all without a historical subject who understands them. For facts of the past become historical phenomena only when they become meaningful for a subject who exists in history and participates in it. They become historical phenomena only when they speak, and this they do only for the subject who understands them. This is not to say, of course, that the subject simply attaches a meaning to them by arbitrary preference; it is to say, rather, that they acquire a meaning for anyone who is bound together with them in historical life. Thus, in a certain sense, it belongs to a historical phenomenon \ [_sc_. fact of the past\] that it should have its own future in which it alone shows itself for what it is" (84).

Wiki Markup"... every historical phenomenon \ [_sc_. fact of the past\] is complex and many-sided; it is open to different ways of asking questions, whether the way of intellectual history, psychology, sociology, or what have you, provided only that it arise out of the historical bond between the interpreter and the phenomenon \ [_sc_. the fact\]. Any such way of asking questions leads to objective, unambiguous understanding if the interpretation is carried through in a methodical way" (84 f.).

Wiki Markup"Knowledge acquired in a methodical way is 'objective,' which can only mean 'appropriate to the object once it comes within a certain way of asking questions'... The way of asking questions as such does not grow out of individual preference but out of history itself, in which every phenomenon \ [_sc_. fact of the past\], in keeping with its complex nature, offers different aspects, that is, acquires \ -\- or, better, claims \ -\- significance in different directions. And it is in this same history that every interpreter, in keeping with the motives present in the variety of historical life, acquires the way of asking questions within which the phenomenon \ [_sc_. fact of the past\] begins to speak" (85).

"Thus, the demand that the interpreter has to silence his or her subjectivity and quench any individuality in order to achieve objective knowledge could not be more absurd. It makes sense and is justified only insofar as it means that the interpreter must silence his or her personal wishes with respect to the results of interpretation – such as a wish, say, that the text should confirm a certain (dogmatic) opinion or provide useful guidelines for praxis.... For the rest, however, this demand completely misjudges the nature of genuine understanding, which presupposes the utmost liveliness of the understanding subject and the richest possible unfolding of his or her individuality. Just as we can succeed in interpreting a work of art or literature only by allowing it to grip us, so we can understand a political or sociological text only insofar as we ourselves are concerned with the problems of political and social life. The same holds good ... of the kind of understanding ... which can be said to be understanding of historical phenomena in the ultimate and highest sense, namely, the interpretation that questions texts about the possibilities of human existence as one's own. Here the 'most subjective' interpretation is the 'most objective,' because the only person who is able to hear the claim of the text is the person who is moved by the question of his or her own existence" (85 f.).

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