Hermeneutics - the philosophy or art of understanding?

Traditionally, hermeneutics is the theory and practice of interpreting texts that has developed in historical and philological science since the 18th century (G. Meyer, H. Wolf, etc.). Then it began to acquire a more universal character. Friedrich Schleiermacher developed it as a general theory of interpretation, and Wilhelm Dilthey as the foundation for the knowledge of the humanities. However, if Schleiermacher insisted on traditional, grammatically-linguistic interpretations, then for Dilthey, the hermeneutic method is, above all, the art of understanding.

In the twentieth century, from the method of interpretation of texts, hermeneutics turned into a philosophy, mainly thanks to the phenomenology of Husserl and the works of Martin Heidegger. If Husserl does not consider "spirit" or "matter" as the primary reality in cognition, then Heidegger, using Husserl's teaching, began to assert that, for history and culture, such a vital world is, by and large, language. In his later works Heidegger writes that language shapes the purpose of being, that we do not speak the language, but rather, it speaks with our help. Continuing the tradition of Dilthey, Heidegger defined what is philosophical hermeneutics. This is the hermeneutics of the language, because it contains the fact that understanding is possible as such, which, in turn, leads to "a breakthrough to true being, life and thinking."

All this determined the further development of such a phenomenon as hermeneutics. The philosophy into which it was transformed posed the question of how the process of understanding the world is possible, what place in this process is "the discovery of the truth of being". This was brilliantly done by its leading representative, Hans-Georg Gadamer. Interpreting the history and existence of man, hermeneutics began to claim the place of a philosophy that explains the meaning of life, art and history, embracing the experience of the individual, society, tradition, and break with it. If for P. Riker the hermeneutical dialectic of explanation and understanding is a philosophical art of interpreting the world around us, for Y. Habermas - the method of transformation of society, then for Gadamer - the most universal philosophy of our time.

The most famous work of Gadamer - "Truth and Method" - in its title seems to hide the fundamental basis of what hermeneutics is. The philosophy of understanding set forth in this work proves the essential difference between the interpretation of the natural and mathematical sciences on the one hand, and social and humanitarian ones, on the other. Theoretical concepts of natural and mathematical sciences are based on a formal methodology based on induction and deduction, hypotheses and verification, the study of recurring patterns. Humanitarian sciences are focused on the search for truth, and not focused on methodology. And the truth is not a theory, it is the truth of life - the one where living people act.

Using the terminology of Heidegger, Gadamer gives an answer to the question of what the humanities are and what their specificity is. He plays a huge role in the concept of tradition. This is for him a form of authority, because no one can know anything without the help of his predecessors. But tradition can not exist without language. It is transmitted through. In addition, using the language formulate the experience of a person, express and shape it. Knowledge is also conditioned by the presence of language. In the exposition of Gadamer, hermeneutics - the philosophy of understanding - proves that it is an inalienable property of language. But its ambiguity leads to the fact that the texts must be interpreted hermeneutically, in order to understand all their meanings.

In Gadamer's philosophy there is one more, even more fundamental category, than language is a game. It lies at the basis of the deepest way of human existence and makes possible the process of cognition. In addition, language and understanding as such are also based on the game. After all, it, as Gadamer believes, is not a derivative of the person, and does not contain any interest - it is independent and self-sufficient, as a "thing-in-itself". The game is a real subject - it draws in players, getting into them embodiment. No wonder the games are called "exciting" - they really capture the participants.

Such a game process is an aesthetic contemplation of a work of art, reading a book, understanding history. "The aesthetic experience, catharsis, historical research," stresses Gadamer, "promise a special pleasure, deprived of pragmatic interest."

We can say that hermeneutics, philosophy and the theory of knowledge in the humanities, suggests that understanding, approaching the game, allows you to get closer to the truth. The experience of hermeneutics, like the experience of art and religion, is based in many cases on intellectual contemplation, on intuition. The hermeneutic art of understanding, guided by intuition, allows us to comprehend the meaning of the text as such. And not only what the author wanted to say is taken into account, but also in what context the text is created, and what it carries. And this is possible thanks to such categories as common sense, personal experience, the discovery of internal logic through a kind of reincarnation, "dialogue" with the text. This knowledge "from within" allows us to comprehend both the phenomenon of society and culture, and the problem of human existence.