Archaeology In
archaeology, hermeneutics means the interpretation and understanding of material through analysis of possible meanings and social uses. Proponents argue that interpretation of artifacts is unavoidably hermeneutic because we cannot know for certain the meaning behind them. We can only apply modern values when interpreting. This is most commonly seen in
stone tools, where descriptions such as "scraper" can be highly subjective and actually unproven until the development of
microwear analysis some thirty years ago. Opponents argue that a hermeneutic approach is too
relativist and that their own interpretations are based on
common-sense evaluation.
Architecture There are several traditions of architectural scholarship that draw upon the hermeneutics of
Heidegger and
Gadamer, such as
Christian Norberg-Schulz, and
Nader El-Bizri in the circles of
phenomenology. Lindsay Jones examines the way architecture is received and how that reception changes with time and context (e.g., how a building is interpreted by critics, users, and historians).
Dalibor Vesely situates hermeneutics within a critique of the application of overly scientific thinking to architecture. This tradition fits within a critique of the
Enlightenment and has also informed design-studio teaching.
Adrian Snodgrass sees the study of history and Asian cultures by architects as a hermeneutical encounter with otherness. He also deploys arguments from hermeneutics to explain design as a process of interpretation. Along with
Richard Coyne, he extends the argument to the nature of architectural education and design.
Education Hermeneutics motivates a broad range of applications in educational theory. The connection between hermeneutics and education has deep historical roots. The ancient Greeks gave the interpretation of poetry a central place in educational practice, as indicated by Dilthey: "systematic exegesis (
hermeneia) of the poets developed out of the demands of the educational system." Gadamer more recently wrote on the topic of education, and more recent treatments of educational issues across various hermeneutical approaches are to be found in Fairfield and Gallagher.
Environment Environmental hermeneutics applies hermeneutics to environmental issues conceived broadly to subjects including "
nature" and "
wilderness" (both terms are matters of hermeneutical contention), landscapes, ecosystems, built environments (where it overlaps architectural hermeneutics ), inter-species relationships, the relationship of the body to the world, and more.
International relations Insofar as hermeneutics is a basis of both
critical theory and
constitutive theory (both of which have made important inroads into the
postpositivist branch of
international relations theory and
political science), it has been applied to international relations.
Steve Smith refers to hermeneutics as the principal way of grounding foundationalist yet postpositivist theory of
international relations. Radical
postmodernism is an example of a postpositivist anti-foundationalist
paradigm of international relations.
Law Some scholars argue that law and theology are particular forms of hermeneutics because of their need to interpret legal tradition or scriptural texts. Moreover, the problem of interpretation has been central to
legal theory since at least the 11th century. In the
Middle Ages and
Italian Renaissance, the schools of
glossatores,
commentatores, and
usus modernus distinguished themselves by their approach to the interpretation of "laws" (mainly
Justinian's
Corpus Juris Civilis). The
University of Bologna gave birth to a "legal Renaissance" in the 11th century, when the Corpus Juris Civilis was rediscovered and systematically studied by men such as
Irnerius and
Johannes Gratian. It was an interpretative Renaissance. Subsequently, these were fully developed by
Thomas Aquinas and
Alberico Gentili. Since then, interpretation has always been at the center of legal thought.
Friedrich Carl von Savigny and
Emilio Betti, among others, made significant contributions to general hermeneutics.
Legal interpretivism, most famously
Ronald Dworkin's, may be seen as a branch of philosophical hermeneutics.
Phenomenology In
qualitative research, the beginnings of
phenomenology stem from German philosopher and researcher
Edmund Husserl. In his early days, Husserl studied mathematics, but over time his disinterest with empirical methods led him to philosophy and eventually phenomenology. Husserl's phenomenology inquires on the specifics of a certain experience or experiences and attempts to unfold the meaning of experience in everyday life. His work contributed heavily to the implementation of phenomenology as a methodology. The beginnings of hermeneutic phenomenology stem from a German researcher and student of Husserl,
Martin Heidegger.
Political philosophy Italian philosopher
Gianni Vattimo and Spanish philosopher
Santiago Zabala in their book
Hermeneutic Communism, when discussing contemporary capitalist regimes, stated that, "A politics of descriptions does not impose power in order to dominate as a philosophy; rather, it is functional for the continued existence of a society of dominion, which pursues truth in the form of imposition (violence), conservation (realism), and triumph (history)." Vattimo and Zabala also stated that they view
interpretation as anarchy and affirmed that "existence is interpretation" and that "hermeneutics is
weak thought." In contemporary political hermeneutics, several authors have extended interpretive approaches to the analysis of political crises and social upheaval. In the context of the
2019–2020 Chilean protests, some interpretations have emphasised that the crisis cannot be fully understood through structural or economic explanations alone, but also involves a breakdown in the capacity of political institutions to interpret social reality adequately. Within this line of interpretation, Hugo E. Herrera’s
October in Chile: Event and Political Understanding (2019) develops a hermeneutic account of political crisis centred on the notion of political understanding.
Psychoanalysis Psychoanalysts have made ample use of hermeneutics since
Sigmund Freud first gave birth to their discipline. In 1900 Freud wrote that the title he chose for
The Interpretation of Dreams "makes plain which of the traditional approaches to the problem of dreams I am inclined to follow...[
i.e.] 'interpreting' a dream implies assigning a 'meaning' to it." The French psychoanalyst
Jacques Lacan later extended Freudian hermeneutics into other psychical realms. His early work from the 1930s–1950s is particularly influenced by Heidegger, and
Maurice Merleau-Ponty's hermeneutical phenomenology.
Psychology and cognitive science Psychologists and
cognitive scientists have recently become interested in hermeneutics, especially as an alternative to
cognitivism.
Hubert Dreyfus's critique of conventional
artificial intelligence has been influential among psychologists who are interested in hermeneutic approaches to meaning and interpretation, as discussed by philosophers such as
Martin Heidegger (cf.
Embodied cognition) and
Ludwig Wittgenstein (cf.
Discursive psychology). Hermeneutics is also influential in
humanistic psychology.
Religion and theology The understanding of a
theological text depends upon the reader's particular hermeneutical viewpoint. Some theorists, such as
Paul Ricœur, have applied modern philosophical hermeneutics to theological texts (in Ricœur's case, the Bible).
Mircea Eliade, as a hermeneutist, understands religion as 'experience of the sacred', and interprets the sacred in relation to the profane. The Romanian scholar underlines that the relation between the sacred and the profane is not of opposition, but of complementarity, having interpreted the profane as a
hierophany. The hermeneutics of the myth is a part of the hermeneutics of religion. Myth should not be interpreted as an illusion or a lie, because there is truth in myth to be rediscovered. Myth is interpreted by Eliade as 'sacred history'. He introduces the concept of 'total hermeneutics'. The term was notably used in 2005 by
Pope Benedict XVI saying the
Second Vatican Council needs to be viewed through the lens of a "hermeneutic of reform" rather than a "hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture". In subsequent discourse, this has become a "hermeneutic of continuity" contrasted with a "hermeneutic of rupture," and applied to dissident tendencies questioning recent church teaching in general and the teaching of
Pope Francis. Following this, the term is now widely used: e.g.
of suspicion, of tradition and
kenosis, and of synodality. Benedict also spoke of the "hermeneutic of the cross", "
of faith" necessary for exegesis, "of unity", while deploring a "hermeneutic of politics". Francis has warned against a "hermeneutic of conspiracy". Pope John Paul II taught a "hermeneutic of the gift".
Safety science In the field of safety science, and especially in the study of
human reliability, scientists have become increasingly interested in hermeneutic approaches. It has been proposed by
ergonomist Donald Taylor that
mechanist models of human behaviour will only take us so far in terms of accident reduction, and that safety science must look at the meaning of accidents for human beings. Other scholars in the field have attempted to create safety
taxonomies that make use of hermeneutic concepts in terms of their categorisation of
qualitative data.
Sociology In
sociology, hermeneutics is the interpretation and understanding of social events through analysis of their meanings for the human participants in the events. It enjoyed prominence during the 1960s and 1970s, and differs from other interpretive schools of sociology in that it emphasizes both context and form within any given social behaviour. The central principle of sociological hermeneutics is that it is only possible to know the meaning of an act or statement within the context of the discourse or
world view from which it originates. Context is critical to comprehension; an action or event that carries substantial weight to one person or culture may be viewed as meaningless or entirely different to another. For example, giving the "thumbs-up" gesture is widely accepted as a sign of a job well done in the United States, while other cultures view it as an insult. Similarly, marking a piece of paper and putting it into a box might be considered a meaningless act unless it is put into the context of an election (the act of putting a
ballot paper into a box).
Friedrich Schleiermacher, widely regarded as the father of sociological hermeneutics believed that, in order for an interpreter to understand the work of another author, they must familiarize themselves with the historical context in which the author published their thoughts. His work led to the inspiration of Heidegger's "
hermeneutic circle" a frequently referenced model that claims one's understanding of individual parts of a text is based on their understanding of the whole text, while the understanding of the whole text is dependent on the understanding of each individual part. Hermeneutics in sociology was also heavily influenced by Gadamer. == Criticism ==