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Created: April 4, 2002
Latest Update: April 4, 2002
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu
Hermeneutics and Verstehen
Copyright: Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata and Individual Authors, February 2002.
"Fair use" encouraged.I enjoyed yesterday immensely. I really needed Spring Break. I never imagined I could be so grateful for that Wednesday off, after retirement, for goodness sakes. Sometimes I think that we're all wrong with the way we approach higher education. It's nice to meet regularly nd plan discussions, but every now and then, I need time off to just sit and think and let my apperceptive mass simmer a little, as I described in the Verstehen letter.I spent a lot of time last week, in between trying to get the new computer programs to work, on reading Mueller Vollmer's Hermeneutics Reader. "Hermeneutics" is the modern term we seem to be using for "verstehen." Hermeneutics is the practice of interpretation, which means understanding on many levels. But essentially, the whole process of interpreting, explicating line by line, or detail by detail, and considering the interdependence of the text (which could be the Bible, the Koran, the theory, the painting, the symphony) with the one who is interpreting it, stands in opposition to positivism, which operates on the assumption that scientific investigation, objectivity, holds the key to truth. (For reference, see Honors Seminar: Hermeneutics and Postmodernism. Backup.)
My sense of sociology derives from an old description by Giddens, that sociology is meant to explain the social system to people so that they can more effectively function within it. But once people understand the social system, they do function more effectively in it, and change it to work better for them. But then we have to study the whole social system again, because their understanding has changed it, and we must reinterpret it for them, after which they will understand it better and change it again to make it more effective, and we'll have to study it further because they will have changed it. So the sociologist's job goes on and on as one of interpretation. Nice job if you can get it, hmmm? I think I read this in an old Turner theory book. I'll have to hunt for it one day when I find some discretionary time. Maybe you get to retire from retirement, and then there's lots of time, hmmm?
Just to make sure: that's:
- verstehen = fair - shtay' - en
- hermeneutics = hair - men - you' - tics
So one thing you've taught me this semester is to remember that there are lots of terms you've hardly ever heard us use and pronounce. And hearing me say it a few times in class doesn't always help when you're trying to remember how I said it.
I'll put up notes on hermeneutics as soon as I can, in between trying to get Dear Habermas up on the new equipment. But meanwhile, we'll continue to discuss the importance of interpretation and the interdependence of the text (in the broad sense) and the reader, or listener, or viewer.
On Wednesday, we talked about how this issue had recently come up for some of us on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. My family is Jewish. I can in no way view this conflict "objectively." Many of you have close ties with Islam and/or Palestine, and you can, no more than I, view the conflict "objectively." But isn't that the case with most of the major social and political problems we face today? We are a heterogeneous society with incredibly mixed up and conflicting ties to many groups. In our discourse we must find ways to hear one another, to help one another clarify and express the many validity claims before us. And we must recall that good faith discourse holds as its primary objective understanding, not judgment, not decisions of "right" or "wrong." In this objective, discourse differs from law. In the system of legal justice, we must make decisions, weighing the complexities, and all must obey those decisions. That is the system of law. But in civil discourse, we must interpret and reinterpret until we can understand the complexities and hear one another in good faith.
In both law and social justice we need the skills of advocacy. Presently, the US system of law tends to be categorical, to consider either/or questions. But advocacy is not limited to issues of duality. Advocacy can serve equally well to explore multiple complexities. California law has introduced such a concept in "contributory negligence." But the concept has been little explored in terms of advocacy. Civil discourse affords a better explored multiple complexity setting, especially on such issues as peacemaking. One important role for sociology today is to explore the role of advocacy in these different settings, to adapt advocacy more specifically to "verstehen."
This leads me to the topic of my next letter: what shall we expect of our Spring Performance of Moot Court?