Hermeneutics (Research Methodology)

Practice What You Preach by Corinna Guerrero

by Feminism and Religion

Originally published on the Feminism and Religion project

The underlying principle that links a feminist critique to every other critical lens since the rise of feminist... more The underlying principle that links a feminist critique to every other critical lens since the rise of feminist discourse is the “hermeneutic of suspicion.” Essentially,  a hermeneutic of suspicion identifies the disconnect between rhetoric and a lived reality. The lived lives of women are different than the pontifications espoused directly and indirectly by the traditionally patriarchal social, political, cultural, religious, and educational structures in which individuals participate.

I like to think that I live my life bucking these structures whenever possible because the roles a woman plays in her own life should: 1) be determined by her; and 2) if she negotiates more “traditional practices” (e.g. marriage, motherhood, etc.) then these practices do not limit her to traditionalist practices (e.g. staying at home, spousal servitude, etc.). Granted, I used the two most generic examples of traditional and traditionalist practices, but the point is still valid. When I go to holidays with my extended family there are very few questions or comments about my PhD program, but many comments about the fact that I do not make a plate of food  for my husband. 

My hermeneutic of suspicion was triggered at a Bible Study last week. I will refrain from listing the denominational affiliation of the Christian church, the ethno-racial configuration of the participants, and the economic background of the community. In this way, the Bible Study does not represent our denominational, ethno-racial, or classist prejudices (and we all have them). It represents a common scenario faced by women and men every day who are hopeful and eager for better religious education

Tracing the hermeneutic circle: Articulating an ontical study of moral conflicts

by Martin Packer

Entering the circle: Hermeneutic investigation in psychology.

by Martin Packer

Il n’y a pas de rapport sexuel: The Irresolvability of the Gadamer-Habermas Debate

by William J. Urban

class paper written Good Friday, April 6, 2012

(Mis)Appropriations of Gadamer in Qualitative Research, Part I

by Marc Applebaum

Published in the Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology, Volume 11 Edition 1, May 2011

Within the Husserlian phenomenological philosophical tradition, description and interpretation coexist. Teaching the... more Within the Husserlian phenomenological philosophical tradition, description and interpretation coexist. Teaching the practice of phenomenological psychological research, however, requires careful articulation of the differences between a descriptive and an interpretive relationship to what is given in qualitative data. If as researchers we neglect the epistemological foundations of our work, or avoid working through difficult methodological issues, our work invites dismissal as inadequate science, undermining the effort to strongly establish psychology along qualitative lines. The first article in this two-part discussion is a Husserlian investigation of the meaning of “method” for psychology as a human science. This investigation is undertaken in the light of some researchers’ appropriations of Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics in the service of non-methodical praxes. The second article will address some implications of the attempt to structure qualitative psychological research along “Gadamerian” lines, taking seriously the references to Gadamer’s work made by researchers such as van Manen and Smith.

Le sens des lois

by Benoit Frydman

Histoire de l'interprétation et de la raison juridique, Paris-Bruxelles, LGDJ-Bruylant, 2005; 2ème éd. 2007; 3ème éd. 2011

This book provides a history of legal thinking and reasoning. It focuses on the tools, methods and procedures to... more This book provides a history of legal thinking and reasoning. It focuses on the tools, methods and procedures to interpret legal texts. The book analyses 10 consecutive models : rhetorical; biblical-talmudic; patristic; scholastic; geometrical; philological-historical; sociological; economical; normativist-positivist and pragmatic (700 pages).

A Hermeneutical Model for Research on the Evaluation of Academic Achievement

by Khosrow Bagheri Noaparast

The hermeneutic view, as a constructive approach in social sciences, is revived in last decades; Principles of this... more The hermeneutic view, as a constructive approach in social sciences, is revived in last decades; Principles of this view are applied to educational studies as well. In this essay, the application of these principles to the area of research on evaluation of academic achievement is discussed, In this discussion the main point of the hermeneutic view, namely the Hermeneutic circle, is highlighted within the framework of Heidegger's and Gadamer’s views, Accordingly, four steps are suggested for doing research on the evaluation of academic achievement. In the first step, the researcher traces to determine whether the teacher is aware of her pre-understandings in the process of evaluation, This is because evaluation, like any other cognitive activity, is not advanced with an empty mind, In the second step, the researcher deals with the question whether the teacher tries to enter into the intellectual horizon of the pupil In effect, in the third step, the researcher deals with the question whether the teacher confirms or changes the pre-understandings identified in the first step, Finally, in the fourth step, the researcher looks 10 see whether the teacher provides a 'fusion of horizons’; a fusion between the intellectual horizon of hers and that of the pupil's, This is to say that from the hermeneutic view, proper evaluation is far from being a one-directional activity of the teacher

Philosophical Pitfalls: The Methods Debate in American Political Science

by Nivien Saleh

Published in: Journal of Integrated Social Sciences, 1(1), 141-176. 2009.

Positivism dominates research in U.S. political science. I will show that even though critical realism is virtually... more Positivism dominates research in U.S. political science. I will show that even though critical realism is virtually unknown in the discipline, realist concepts have found their way into debates among qualitative methodologists. The analysis begins with a juxtaposition of positivist and realist foundations. Next, I will trace the methodology debate that has unfolded in the U.S., examining in what ways it reflects these foundational assumptions. Over the last number of years, I demonstrate, qualitative methodologists have engaged in philosophical hybridity, because they have drawn on realist concepts while continuing to adhere to an empiricist ontology. This kind of cherrypicking is a perilous strategy, and I suggest that methodologists examine their ontological assumptions, especially their views on causation. To do so, they need to engage critical realism. This exercise would benefit political science, because it would provide scholars with exciting new research possibilities. Moreover, critical realism is well-suited to support the discipline’s central quest: gaining insight into the world by using few examined cases to draw inferences to larger sets of unexamined cases.

“The Human” between the “life-world” and its theoretical (re) construction (English version)

by Cecilia Tohaneanu

The traditional split between rationality and historicity, concept and intuition, the form and content of knowledge... more The traditional split between rationality and historicity, concept and intuition, the form and content of knowledge has brought about an inappropriate approaching to humanities and social sciences. Presenting the main effects of such split, this paper aims at arguing the need to consider both the “empiric” and the “interpretive” as equally relevant for understanding our human world. It is eventually a meta-theoretical pleading for reconciling epistemology and ontology within a theory of humanities and social sciences able to avoid the two kinds of reductionism, foundationalist and textualist, related to traditional (empiricist) epistemology and respectively, to postmodernist hermeneutics.

"'The Right Chorale': From the Poetics of Biblical Narrative to the Hermeneutics of the Hebrew Bible."

by Bernard M. Levinson

Pages 129-53 (notes on pp. 242-47) in "Not in Heaven": Coherence and Complexity in Biblical Narrative. Edited by Jason P. Rosenblatt and Joseph C. Sitterson. Indiana University Press, 1991.

This essay is reprinted and significantly updated, with new introduction, as the title essay (chapter 1) of :
Bernard M. Levinson, “The Right Chorale”: Studies in Biblical Law and Interpretation (FAT 54; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 7-39.

The volume will be republished in paperback (Eisenbrauns, 2011).

“The Manumission of Hermeneutics: The Slave Laws of the Pentateuch as a Challenge to Contemporary Pentateuchal Theory”

by Bernard M. Levinson

Pages 281-324 in Congress Volume Leiden 2004. Edited by André Lemaire. Vetus Testamentum Supplements 109. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2006.

The three manumission laws of the Pentateuch (Exod 21:2-6; Lev 25:39-46; Deut 15:12-18), along with their narrative... more The three manumission laws of the Pentateuch (Exod 21:2-6; Lev 25:39-46; Deut 15:12-18), along with their narrative reflex in Jeremiah 34, intrinsically raise the issue of the relative dating, literary relation, and direction of influence of the literary sources of the Pentateuch. They served among the key cases to develop the classical model of the sequence of the legal collections: Covenant Code (BC), Deuteronomy 12-26 (D), and the Holiness Code (H; Leviticus 17-26). More recently, scholars have used these laws to challenge the classical model. In particular, the pivotal position of Deuteronomy as standing between the Covenant Code and the Holiness Code has come under attack. Sara Japhet and Jacob Milgrom maintain that Leviticus 25 precedes rather than follows Deuteronomy 15, which implies the sequence BC, H, D. In turning to biblical law to defend the claim for a late Yahwist (J), John Van Seters maintains that the manumission law of the Covenant Code is derived from that of Deuteronomy. Still other scholars have challenged the validity of diachronic analysis altogether or have argued that the laws allude to biblical narratives. With the foundations of pentateuchal theory thus in flux, this paper investigates the methodological assumptions involved in both the classical model and its challenges. At a number of points, standard models of text composition that prevail in the discipline, whereby composition and redaction are viewed as mutually exclusive, obscure the sophistication of these texts. The importance of biblical law for contemporary pentateuchal theory is stressed. The conclusion demonstrates the extent to which, in the utopian social vision promoted by the author of Leviticus 25, the text amounts to a systematic rewriting of earlier laws (BC and D). In a sense, the chapter represents an example of “rewritten Bible” or “rewritten Scripture” within the Pentateuch itself.

Keywords:
Rewritten Bible; manumission laws; Holiness Code; Leviticus 25; Covenant Code; Deuteronomy; Exodus 21; Deuteronomy 15; Jeremiah 34; Sara Japhet; Jacob Milgrom; John Van Seters; Date of Holiness Code; Date of Priestly source; Date of H; Date of P; source criticism; pentateuchal theory; intertextuality in Bible; sabbatical year; jubilee legislation; Cholewinski; Chirichigno; die Freilassung von Sklaven im Pentateuch; Levitikus 25; Dtn 15; Ex 21; Heiligkeitsgesetz; Deuteronomium; relecture; Holiness Code; Covenant Code; Leviticus 25; abrogation; lemmatic exegesis; pentateuchal theory; source criticism; inner-biblical exegesis; manumission laws; slave laws of the Pentateuch; Exodus 21; Septuagint; textual-criticism; translation theory; Biblical manumission laws; slave laws Bible; lemma; documentary hypothesis; dating of H; dating of Priestly source; Sara Japhet; John van Seters.

"The Seductions of the Garden: The Genesis of Hermeneutics as Critique"

by Bernard M. Levinson

On Interpretation: Studies in Culture, Law, and the Sacred = Graven Images 5 (2002): 95-99. Reprinted and updated in:
Bernard M. Levinson, "The Right Chorale": Studies in Biblical Law and Interpretation (FAT 54: Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 40-47;
paper edition: Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2011.

“The Seductions of the Garden and the Genesis of Hermeneutics as Critique” explores the relation between narrative and... more “The Seductions of the Garden and the Genesis of Hermeneutics as Critique” explores the relation between narrative and law in the Bible. Recent years have seen renewed interest in the story of the “fall” narrative in Genesis 2–3, with two volumes published just in the last years. However, my own interest in the story was first awakened through John Milton, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and the fascinating Russian Jewish philosopher, Lev Shestov, who was influenced by both Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, and who deployed the narrative of the fall for his powerful, if eccentric, critique of the western philosophical tradition.7 For these thinkers, the narrative is not an account of the loss of grace. Rather, it represents a symbolic structure of experience, a moment that is enduringly present and that is repeated both within the lives of individuals and from generation to generation. Their readings draw powerful connections between the Bible and the tradition of western literature and thought. For Hegel, “Der Sündenfall ist daher der ewige Mythos des Menschen, wodurch er eben Mensch wird”; it represents “der ewige Geschichte des Geistes.” From this perspective, the fall is not a moment in past time but in literary history and the imagination, essential to human self-reflection.

Keywords:
Genesis 2-3; Eve; Bonhoeffer; Kant; O felix culpa; the fall story; literary hermeneutics; narrative hermeneutics; narrative theory; fall upwards; serpent; philosophical hermeneutics; literary approaches to Bible;Garden of Eden; Milton; relation between narrative and law; law and narrative; der Sündenfall; fall of man; die Paradieserzählung; Kenneth Burke; on the first three chapters of Genesis; "free to stand"; Deut 30:19; Dtn 30:19; Gn 2-3; Deut 5:3; Dtn 5,3; covenant of life; eternal life; mise en abyme; Adam.

"Hartmann, Schutz and the Hermeneutics of Action"

by Robert Jordan

published in  in 'Axiomathes,' 12 (2001) 327-338

Hartmann's way of conceiving what he terms "the actual ought-to-be (aktuales Seinsollen]" offers a fruitful... more Hartmann's way of conceiving what he terms "the actual ought-to-be (aktuales Seinsollen]" offers a fruitful approach to crucial issues in the phenomenology of action. The central issue to be dealt with concerns the description of the "constitution" of anticipated possibilities as projects for action. Such these are termed "problematic possibilities" and are contrasted with "open possibilities" in most of the works published by Husserl as well as those published by Alfred Schutz. The description given by Alfred Schutz emphasized that the projecting of possibilities is thoroughly conditioned by the agent's habitual beliefs and interests. Schutz, however left open the possibility that other factors might affect the projecting of courses of action and the choosing of one in preference to others. In particular, he left open the possibility that the agent come to take an interest in possibilities in which she had no prior interest. More recent interpretations of his position on this issue have left this possibility undiscussed or else excluded it altogether. The result has been that a sort of value nihilism (subjectivism, sociologism, lingualism, anthropologism, historicism, psychologism, etc.) came to prevail in the phenomenological description of actions.

A quite parallel development occurred in interpretations of Heidegger's account of actions (of "explication [Auslegung]" in the vocabulary of Being and Time). Heidegger expressly and emphatically rejected most ways of conceiving values in discussing the forms of action (circumspection and assertion in the vocabulary of Sein und Zeit). it came quite generally to be assumed that he subscribed to some variation of nihilism regarding values despite his insistence in the "Letter on Humanism" that he meant no such thing. The literature' on this subject has concentrated on Scheler's work to the complete exclusion of Hartmann's axiology — as happened in Parvis Ermad's Heidegger and the Phenomenology of Values, His Critique of Intentionality, foreword by Walter Biernel (Glen Ellyn, Illinois: Torey Press, 1981). Scheler's view entails the radical separation of ontic traits from axiotic traits, of what-is from what-ought-to-be. However, for Hartmann, the set of ontic traits that becomes actual when laws about what-ought-to-be are satisfied is identical with the set of traits that ought-to-be,

Hartmann's way of conceiving the ought-to-be, the actual ought-to-be, and the three-fold structure of the finalistic nexus seems entirely compatible with Heidegger's way of thinking about actions. They are also an enlightening supplement to Schutz's description of "Choosing Among Projects of Action" (in Collected Papers 1, 67-96). That description requires that choice and action be thoroughly conditioned by psychological, social, and historical facts about the agent. However, nothing of this vital determination of actions is sacrificed when these concepts that are so central to Hartmann's "absolutism" with respect to values are introduced into the description.

Their introduction provides an elaboration that Schutz himself neglected, perhaps due to pragmatic deference to biases which were prevalent then in the intellectual climate of philosophy and sociology in the U.S. Still, the transformation they bring is a significant improvement. It shows decisively that being conditioned linguistically, psychologically, socially, and historically does not enclose the choice among projects within a "Hermeneutical Circle" such as would exclude the possibility that agents be open to previously unfamiliar values. Hartmann's conception of the plurality as well as the absoluteness (or "objectivity") of primary goods allows: put in Kantian terms, that an agent may, however rarely, take an interest in possibilities such as she may never before have been interested in at all; or, put in Heideggerian terms, that she may come to care about possibilities such as have never concerned her before.