Pol Vandevelde

I argue that the romantic notion of “understanding better,” as the ideal of interpretation according to Schleiermacher and Schlegel, is not a “meliorative” understanding, retrospectively situating the work in a broader conceptual or historical context and thus surpassing what the original author meant. The qualification “better” is ethical insofar as it indicates a future-oriented task of responding for the authors and contributing to the continued life of their work. What guides interpreters in such an ethical task is benevolence or love, both toward the object of interpretation—the work—and the author of the work. Love is a hermeneutic imperative that has two sides: first, interpretation “augments” the work or brings it to its “second power;” and, second, interpreters need to put themselves in a certain attitude of non-understanding so that the work will not be constricted in pre-established categories and, instead, susceptible to challenge interpreters.

Bringing together leading scholars from across the world, this is a comprehensive survey of the latest phenomenological research into the perennial philosophical problem of ‘truth'.Starting with an historical introduction chronicling the variations on truth at play in the Phenomenological tradition, the book explores how Husserl's methodology equips us with the tools to thoroughly explore notions of truth, reality and knowledge. From these foundations, the book goes on to explore and extend the range of approaches that contemporary phenomenological research opens up in the face of the most profound ontological and epistemological questions raised by the tradition. In the final section, the authors go further still and explore how phenomenology relates to other variations on truth offered up by hermeneutic, deconstructive and narrative approaches.Across the 12 essays collected in this volume, Variations on Truth explores and maps a comprehensive and rigorous alternative to mainstream analytic discussions of truth, reality and understanding.

Karl‐Otto Apel entertains a relationship with hermeneutics that is both somewhat marginal, because he does not consider himself part of the movement, and somewhat fundamental, because he has been deeply influenced by it and tries to retain the key acquisitions of hermeneutics while striving toward a transcendental project. While his first important work deals with how language has been treated in the tradition from Dante to Vico, his main work of 1973 involves, as the title states, a “transformation of philosophy” and challenges three language‐centered movements: those of Wittgenstein (language as mirror of the world and the philosophy of language games), Heidegger (philosophical hermeneutics), and Peirce (American pragmatism). The transcendental dimension of language as a corporeal a priori manifests itself in validity claims. The transformation of philosophy Apel initiated was in large part a rethinking of hermeneutic philosophy along the lines of Anglo‐American philosophy.

This book discusses the ethical dimension of the interpretation of texts and events. Its purpose is not to address the neutrality or ideological biases of interpreters, but rather to discuss the underlying issue of the intervention of interpreters into the process of interpretation. The author calls this intervention the "ethical" aspect of interpretation and argues that interpreters are neither neutral nor necessarily activists. He examines three models of interpretation, all of which recognize the role that interpreters play in the process of interpretation. In these models, the question of the truth or validity of interpretation is dependent upon the attitude of interpreters. These three models are: (1) the principle of charity in interpretation in the two different versions defended by Hans-Georg Gadamer and Donald Davidson; (2) the production of truth, as developed by Paul Ricoeur and Michel Foucault; and (3) the regulative principle in interpretation as formal validity claims-as presented by Karl-Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas-and as benevolence or love as an epistemic virtue-as defended by Friedrich Schlegel and Friedrich Schleiermacher. The critical discussion of these three models, which brings to the fore the different manners in which interpreters intervene in the process of interpretation as persons, lays the foundations for an ethics of interpretation. The Ethics of Interpretation will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in hermeneutics, 19th- and 20th-century philosophy, literary theory, and cultural theory.

The Task of the Interpreter offers a new approach to what it means to interpret a text, and reconciles the possibility of multiple interpretations with the need to consider the author’s intention. Vandevelde argues that interpretation is both an act and an event: It is an act in that interpreters, through the statements they make, implicitly commit themselves to justifying their positions, if prompted. It is an event in that interpreters are situated in a cultural and historical framework and come to a text with questions, concerns, and methods of which they are not fully conscious. These two aspects make interpretation a negotiation of meaning. The Task of the Interpreter provides an interdisciplinary investigation of textual interpretation including biblical hermeneutics, translation, and literary fictions. Vandevelde’s philosophical discussion will appeal to theorists of both continental and analytical/pragmatic traditions

I argue that the romantic notion of “understanding better,” as the ideal of interpretation according to Schleiermacher and Schlegel, is not a “meliorative” understanding, retrospectively situating the work in a broader conceptual or historical context and thus surpassing what the original author meant. The qualification “better” is ethical insofar as it indicates a future-oriented task of responding for the authors and contributing to the continued life of their work. What guides interpreters in such an ethical task is benevolence or love, both toward the object of interpretation—the work—and the author of the work. Love is a hermeneutic imperative that has two sides: first, interpretation “augments” the work or brings it to its “second power;” and, second, interpreters need to put themselves in a certain attitude of non-understanding so that the work will not be constricted in pre-established categories and, instead, susceptible to challenge interpreters.

While there are many books on the romantics, and many books on Heidegger, there has been no book exploring the connection between the two. Pol Vandevelde’s new study forges this important link. Vandevelde begins by analyzing two models that have addressed the interaction between literature and philosophy: early German romanticism, and Heidegger’s work with poetry in the 1930s. Both models offer an alternative to the paradigm of mimesis, as exemplified by Aristotle’s and Plato’s discussion of poetry, and both German romanticism and Heidegger owe a deep debt to Plato. The study goes on to defend the view that Heidegger was influenced by romanticism. The author’s project is thus both historical, showing the specificity of the romantic and Heideggerean works, and systematic, defending aspects of their alternative mode of thinking while also pointing to their weaknesses.

The essay is an examination of two models that have been used to think what “meaning” or “sense” is. Husserl offers the first model in which there is an exchange between the sense that is made in experience and the meaning that is articulated at the linguistic or logical level. The second model is offered by Paul Ricoeur in his theory of narratives. A narrative has a link to what took place that Ricoeur calls “représentance” or “lieutenance”: the narrative configures but at the same time does justice to what took place. The fiction involved in the “as” of “such as it was” is necessary for the “such” that guarantees an adequacy between the narrative and the action or event. I expand on these two models and offer a model of meaning that I call “translatability”.

As the founder of phenomenology, Edmund Husserl occupies a special place in the development of hermeneutics. He provided many of the concepts hermeneutics later used. The special relation between Husserl and hermeneutics explains why his connections to the movement have to do with how his views have been “interpreted”. Husserl took the discovery of the correlation between consciousness and object to be the breakthrough performed by his phenomenology. Such a correlation avoids the traditional problem of how an external object enters into consciousness or how a mental component (consciousness) can relate to a physical matter (object). Through Husserl's fundamental insights, which gave hermeneutics the means to find its own philosophical foundation and self‐justification, and through his complex conceptual apparatus, philosophical hermeneutics could move beyond a reflection on interpretation and become a full‐fledged discipline that sees human existence as anchored in understanding and interpretation.