The Hermeneutical Circle
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The Blackwell companion to hermeneutics
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Wiley Blackwell
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The hermeneutical circle is one of the most fundamental and contentious doctrines of hermeneutical theory. In its most basic form in contemporary hermeneutics, it is the idea that we always understand or interpret out of some presuppositions. In a slightly different reading, which goes back to ancient rhetoric and hermeneutics, the circle is that of the whole and its parts: we can only understand the parts of a text, or any body of meaning, out of general idea of its whole, yet we can only gain this understanding of the whole by understanding its parts. In both versions, the basic idea is the same, namely that there is no such thing as an understanding without presuppositions. This text retraces the history of this notion and its meaning for contemporary philosophers in the Hermeneutical tradition, while stressing that it has for them both an ontological and epistemological moment. For thinkers such as Heidegger, Gadamer and Ricoeur, the hermeneutical circle is not a logical deficiency one should avoid, but the basic condition of understanding in which one should tread carefully.
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