The new concept of hermeneutics was put forward by the German philosopher and art theorist Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911), who considered hermeneutics as a methodological basis for the humanities, which he attributed to the sciences of the human spirit. (Geistenwissenschqft). All of them deal with the understanding of human thought, art, culture and history. Unlike natural science, V. Dilthey pointed out, the content of the humanities, including history, is not the facts of nature, but objectified expressions of the human spirit, thoughts and feelings of people, their goals and motives. Accordingly, if for explanations phenomena of nature, causal (causal) laws are used, then for understanding actions and deeds of people, they must first be interpreted, or interpreted, in terms of goals, interests and motives. Humanitarian understanding differs significantly from the natural science explanation, because it is always associated with the disclosure of the meaning of people's activities in various forms of its manifestation.

Although V. Dilthey did not belong to the neo-Kantians, he put forward a program in the field of historical knowledge similar to that which I. Kant tried to implement in "Critique of Pure Reason" for the philosophical justification of the natural sciences of his time. The main efforts of V. Dilthey were aimed at "criticism of historical reason" on the whole, they coincided with the criticism of positivism in history, in which the neo-Kantians spoke. As we have already noted, the anti-positivist criticism of the neo-Kantian philosophers W. Windelband and G. Rickert in the last quarter of the 19th century was supported by German historians and sociologists I. Droysen, G. Simmel and others. All of them, as we already know, opposed the transfer of methods , models and methods of natural science research into historical and social sciences, as this leads to ignoring their specific features.

V. Dilthey also joined this anti-positivist trend, but he did not limit himself to a simple denial and criticism of the positivist concept, but set himself the constructive goal of developing a positive program in the field of the humanities. Why, as the main means, he chose the hermeneutic method, which in his philological, in essence, theory becomes the methodology of the sciences that study the spiritual activity of man.

In the process of working on the book "The Life of Schleiermacher" W. Dilthey thoroughly studied and mastered the methods of textual and historical interpretation of his predecessor, but gave them a more general methodological and philosophical character. He believed that neither natural scientific methods, nor metaphysical speculations, nor introspective psychological techniques can help to understand the spiritual life of a person, and even more so of society. The inner spiritual human life, its formation and development, V. Dilthey emphasized, is a complex process, where thought, feeling, and will are connected into a single whole. Therefore, the humanities cannot study the spiritual activity of people with the help of concepts alien to them, such as causality, force, space, etc. Not without reason, V. Dilthey notes that in the veins of the cognizing subject, constructed by D. Locke, D. Hume and I. Kant, there is not a drop of genuine blood. These thinkers considered knowledge separately not only from feelings and will, but also from the historical context of inner human life.

Being a supporter of the "philosophy of life", V. Dilthey believed that the categories of the humanities should be derived from the living experience of people, they should be based on facts and phenomena that are meaningful only when they are related to the inner world of a person. This is how understanding of another person is possible, and it is achieved as a result of spiritual reincarnation. Following F. Schleiermacher, he considered such a process as the reconstruction and rethinking of the spiritual world of other people, which can only be penetrated through the correct interpretation of the expressions of the inner life, which finds its objectification in the external world in the works of material and spiritual culture. Therefore, understanding plays a decisive role in humanitarian research, since it is precisely this that unites the internal and external into a single whole, considering the latter as a specific expression of a person’s inner experience, his goals, intentions and motivations. Comprehension of the unique and inimitable phenomena of human life and history is achieved only through understanding. In contrast to this, in the study of natural phenomena, the individual is considered as a means of achieving knowledge about the general, i.e. a class of identical objects and phenomena; those. natural science is limited only to the explanation of phenomena, which boils down to bringing phenomena under certain general schemes or laws, while understanding makes it possible to comprehend the special and unique in social life, and this is essential for comprehending spiritual life, for example, art, where we appreciate in particular for their own sake and we pay more attention to the individual characteristics of works of art than their similarity and commonality with other works. A similar approach should be taken in the study of history, where we are interested in individual and unique events of the past, and not in abstract schemes of the general historical process. Such a sharp opposition of understanding to explanation found its vivid embodiment in Dilthey's well-known aphorism: "We explain nature, but we must understand the living soul of man."

However, historical understanding is not reduced to empathy, or psychological getting used, of the researcher into the inner world of the participants in the events of the past. As we showed in the second chapter, it is extremely difficult to realize such getting used to the spiritual world even by an individual, and even more so, an outstanding personality. As for the motives of actions and intentions of participants in broad social movements, they can be very different, and therefore it can be very difficult to find a resultant of their general behavior. The main difficulty here lies in the fact that W. Dilthey, like other anti-positivists, overly exaggerates the individuality and uniqueness of historical events and, thereby, opposes generalizations and laws in historical science. However, the hermeneutic method of research that he promoted for the study of history deserves special attention.

The need to refer to the methods of interpretation and understanding of hermeneutics is explained by the fact that the historian-researcher works, first of all, with various kinds of texts. For their analysis and interpretation in classical hermeneutics, many general and special techniques and methods have been developed to reveal the meaning of these texts, and, consequently, their interpretation and understanding,

Specific features in the interpretation of texts, not only in the humanities and natural sciences, but also in historical and legal documents, undoubtedly exist. However, the interpretation of the whole takes place according to a general scheme, which in natural science is sometimes called the hypothetical-deductive method. Best of all, such a scheme should be considered as the derivation of conclusions, or consequences, from hypotheses that arise in the form of peculiar questions in the interpretation of texts. When a natural scientist sets up an experiment, he, in fact, asks a certain question to nature. The results of the experiment - the facts are the answers that nature gives. In order to understand these facts, a scientist must interpret them, or interpret them, for which they first of all need to be comprehended, i.e. give them a specific, specific meaning or meaning. Despite the fact that V. Dilthey, as we know, contrasted natural science knowledge with social and humanitarian knowledge, nevertheless, he recognized that any interpretation begins precisely with a hypothesis of a general, preliminary nature, which, in the course of its development and interpretation, is gradually concretized and to be specified. If, in setting up an experiment, a question is asked of nature, then in the course of historical research, this question is asked of historical evidence or the text of a surviving document. Thus, in both cases, certain questions are asked, preliminary answers to them are formulated in the form of hypotheses and assumptions, which are then verified using existing facts (in natural science) or evidence and other sources (in history). Such facts and historical evidence become meaningful because they are included in a certain system of theoretical concepts, which in turn are the result of complex, creative, cognitive activity. From a purely logical point of view, the process of interpreting and understanding the historical evidence of sources and authorities can be seen as a hypothetical-deductive method of reasoning that is really about generating hypotheses and testing them. Currently, many scientists believe that this method can be used in various branches of social and humanitarian knowledge. Some philosophers, such as the Swede D. Folesdal, even argue that the hermeneutical method itself essentially boils down to the application of the hypothetical-deductive method to the specific material that the social sciences and humanities deal with. However, the hypothetical-deductive method serves here rather as a general scheme, a kind of strategy for scientific search and its rational substantiation, and it is the stage of generating and inventing hypotheses that plays the main role in this search, associated with intuition and imagination, mental models and other creative and heuristic research methods.

The difference between natural science and historical interpretation lies first and foremost in the nature of the object of interpretation.

Interpretation and understanding based on it must take into account, on the one hand, all objective data related to historical evidence or the text of a document, on the other hand, no researcher, even in the natural sciences, and even more so in the historical and human sciences, cannot approach its object without any ideas, theoretical concepts, value orientations, i.e. without what is connected with the spiritual activity of the cognizing subject. It is to this side of the matter that W. Dilthey and his followers pay attention. We have already noted that interpretation in their view is considered, first of all, as empathy, or empathy, getting used to the spiritual world of the individual. But with such a psychological and subjective approach, the study of the activities of prominent historical figures is reduced to a hypothetical analysis of their intentions, goals and thoughts, and not their actions and actions. And there is absolutely no need to talk about interpretations of the activities of large groups and collectives of people.

Most often, historians deal with texts that are often poorly preserved and obscure; nevertheless, it is these texts that are in fact the only evidence of the past, hence some scholars claim that everything that can be said about past events is contained in the historical evidence. Similar statements are made by translators, historians of literature and art, critics and other specialists dealing with the problems of interpreting texts that differ in specific content. But the text itself, whether historical evidence or a work of art, in the exact sense of the word, represents only a system of signs, which acquires meaning as a result of an appropriate interpretation; how the text is interpreted depends on its comprehension or understanding. In whatever form the interpretation is carried out, it is closely connected with the activity of the cognizing subject, which gives a certain meaning to the text. With this approach, the understanding of the text is not limited to how the author understood it. As rightly emphasized by M.M. Bakhtin, “understanding can and should be the best. Understanding completes the text: it is active and creative. However, historical understanding should not be confused with ordinary understanding, which means assimilation the meaning of something (word, sentence, motive, deed, action, etc.).

In the process of historical interpretation, the understanding of the text of a testimonial or document is also associated, first of all, with the disclosure of the meaning that the author put into it. Obviously, with this approach, the meaning of the text remains something once and for all given, unchanged, and it remains only once to reveal and assimilate it. Without denying the possibility of such an approach to understanding in the process of everyday verbal communication and even in the course of learning, it should, however, be emphasized that this approach is inadequate and therefore ineffective in more complex cases, in particular in historical cognition. If understanding is reduced to the assimilation of the original, fixed meaning of the text, then the possibility of revealing its deeper meaning, and, consequently, a better understanding of the results of people's spiritual activity, is excluded. Consequently, the traditional view of understanding as a reproduction of the original meaning needs to be clarified and generalized. Such a generalization can be made on the basis of a semantic approach to interpretation, according to which the meaning or meaning can also give the text as a sign structure, i.e. understanding depends not only on the meaning given to the text by the author, but also by the interpreter. In an effort to understand, for example, a historical chronicle or testimony, the historian reveals the original author's meaning, but brings something from himself, as he approaches them from certain positions, personal experience, his own ideals and beliefs, the spiritual and moral climate of his era, its value and worldviews. Therefore, it is hardly possible to speak of one thing in such conditions - the only correct understanding of

The dependence of text understanding on the specific historical conditions of its interpretation clearly shows that it cannot be reduced to a purely psychological and subjective process, although the personal experience of the interpreter plays a far from the last role here. If understanding were entirely reduced to the subjective perception of the meaning of a text or speech, then no communication between people and mutual exchange of the results of spiritual activity would be possible. Such psychological factors as intuition, imagination, empathy, etc. are undoubtedly very important for understanding works of literature and art, but in order to comprehend historical events and processes, a deep analysis of the objective conditions of social life is necessary. However, V. Dilthey tried to build the methodology of historical and humanitarian knowledge solely on the psychological concept of understanding. “Any attempt to create an experimental science of the spirit without psychology,” he pointed out, “can in no way lead to positive results.” Apparently guided by this idea, in his last work on the history of philosophy, he reduces the study of this history to the study of the psychology of philosophers. Such an approach could not but arouse critical objections even from scholars who generally sympathize with his anti-positivist views on history and the humanities.

The process of understanding in a broad context is comprehensive problem, the solution of which requires the involvement of various means and methods of a particular study. The use of textual, axiological, paleographic, archaeological and other special research methods acquires a special role in historical knowledge.

Hermeneutics is a theory of text interpretation and the science of understanding meaning, which has received wide

distribution in modern Western literary criticism. Based on the principles of hermeneutics,

construction of the latest theory of literature.

Hermeneutics is traditionally associated with the idea of ​​a universal method in the field of human

sciences. As a method of interpreting historical facts based on philological data

hermeneutics was considered a universal principle of interpretation of literary monuments.

The function of interpretation is to teach how works of art should be understood.

va according to its absolute artistic value.

The instrument of interpretation is the consciousness of the person who perceives the work, i.e.

interpretation is considered as a derivative of the perception of a literary work.

The German scientist Friedrich Schleyer is considered the founder of modern hermeneutics.

A feature of the Schleiermacher method is the inclusion in the interpretation of the work of not only logical

"internal logic".

Another German scientist W. Dilthey wrote the book "The Origin of Hermeneutics", in which

called to comprehend the "inner reality" of the artist's spiritual life.

In literary hermeneutics, the conclusion is substantiated that a work of art cannot be understood

in itself as a single product of creative activity. A work of art is ma-

material objectification of the tradition of cultural experience, so its interpretation makes sense

only when it marks the way out into the continuity of cultural tradition (Gadamer). Artistic

a literary work is a factor of culture, and in its interpretation it is necessary to reconstruct

determine its place in the spiritual history of mankind.

Hermeneutical analysis is the reconstruction of a text. The interpretation of the work must be

If, in the process of text deconstruction, completely arbitrary and independent

its interpretation, then in the process of reconstruction of the text, which Hirsch defends, all created

Hirsch "center", "original core", which organizes a single system of meaning

in the paradigm of its numerous interpretations. "Principle of Authorial Authority" Hirsch

introduces as a basis by which one can judge the reliability or unreliability of the interpretation

The main thing in the hermeneutic interpretation is not only the historical reconstruction of the literary

text and the consistent averaging of our historical context with the context of the historical

literary work, but also the expansion of the reader's awareness, assistance in his deeper

awareness of oneself.

Hermeneutics is related to receptive aesthetics in that the latter complements the stated principles.

tsipy socio-historical ideas.

Basic concepts of hermeneutics

Hermeneutic circle - the paradox of irreducibility of understanding and interpretation of the text to logical

consistent algorithm. Many scholars see the traditional initial difficulty of germinal

tics precisely in the concept of Gadaner, in the understanding of the so-called "circle of part and whole." Most

This phenomenon is succinctly captured in the formulation

W. Dilthey, that any interpretation is characterized by such a forward movement that passes

from the perception of definitely indefinite parts to an attempt to capture the meaning of the whole, alternating

based on the attempt to define the parts themselves more precisely from the meaning of this whole. Failure of this

method is found in the case when the individual parts do not become clearer.

The double code is a concept of hermeneutics, which should explain the specific nature of the artistic

nyh modernist texts.

The French scientist R. Barth - as a theorist of post-structuralism and a forerunner of postmodern

nism, in any work of art he singled out five codes (cultural, hermeneutic,

symbolic, semitic, and pro-airetic or narrative). The word "code" should not be here

taken in the strict, scientific sense of the term. We call codes simply associative

la, supertextual organization of meanings that impose ideas about a certain

structure; the code, as we understand it, belongs mainly to the realm of culture; codes are

certain types of things already seen, already read, already done; code is a concrete form of this

"already". Any narrative, according to Barthes, exists in the interweaving of various codes, their constant

"interrupting" each other, which gives rise to "reader's impatience" in an attempt to comprehend the eternally

slippery nuances of meaning.

The Dutch scientist D. Fokkema notes that the code of postmodernism is just one

of the many codes governing text production. Other codes on which the writers are guided

tel, is primarily a linguistic code (natural language - English, French and

giving a high degree of coherence, a genre code that activates in the recipient a certain

expectations associated with the chosen genre, and the idiolect of the writer, who, to the extent

which it is allocated on the basis of recurrent features, can also be considered a special code. F.

Jameson put forward the concept of "double coding". According to him, all the codes highlighted

Barth, on the one hand, and the conscious installation of postmodern style on the ironic

comparison of various literary styles, genre forms and artistic movements - with others

goy, appear in the artistic practice of postmodernism as two large code supersystems.

Interpretation (interpretation) is the main term of hermeneutics, based on the idea of ​​Kant,

viewing consciousness as an object of the world. The world is understood as preceding all subjective

but objective relations. The true art is to learn to see the world again.

For hermeneutics, not only the phenomenon of understanding is important, but also the problem of correct presentation

understood. The fundamental connection between language and the world means ontological essence and orientation

understanding and interpretation. Since it is only in language that a person's personal experiences find their greatest

more complete, exhaustive and objectively comprehended expression, interpretation develops according to

advantage around the interpretation of "written monuments of the human spirit" (Dilthey). Inter-

The presentation of these monuments eventually became the starting point for philology.

For hermeneutics, interpretation is a certain type of knowledge that tends to

leans toward the scientific justification for what it represents. According to F. Schleiermacher, the art of inter-

preposition is to "from the objective and subjective side to bring oneself closer to the author

text". From the objective side, this is carried out through understanding the language of the author, from the subjective side -

through knowledge of the facts of his inner and outer life.

Only through the interpretation of texts can one reveal the vocabulary of the author, his character, circumstances.

the legacy of his life. The vocabulary and the historical and cultural layer of the author's era constitute a single

the whole, on the basis of which the texts are to be understood as elements, and the whole is understood from them.

Thus, the art of interpretation is directly related to the concept of the hermeneutic

circle, asserting that everything special can only be understood from the general, of which it is a part

itself is, and vice versa. Schleiermacher in his "Hermeneutics" displays a general methodological

rule for the interpreter: "a) one should start with a general idea of ​​the whole;

b) move forward simultaneously in two directions - grammatical and psychological; in)

give, give the same result; d) if there is a mismatch, go back and find the error.

So, in the variety of modern methods of studying literature, two main

new directions.

The first direction - scientistic - consists of methods that are related, first of all,

go, their desire to build a methodology for strictly scientific research, to give their concepts

form of exact science and exclude from the scope of consideration worldview, social and ideological

logical problems (formal, structuralist, intertextual, deconstructive method-

The second direction is anthropocentric. Supporters of the second direction, for example,

tiv, proceed from the fixation of the moral, psychological states of the creative and perceiving

personality. They believe that a work of art cannot only be experienced, felt

but, intuitively known (hermeneutical, phenomenological, mythopoetic, receptive-

aesthetic analysis). Traditionally, the idea of ​​a universal method in the field of humanitarian

scientific sciences was associated with hermeneutics. It is hermeneutics as a method of interpreting historical

facts based on philological data, was considered a universal principle for interpreting the

literary monuments. The function of hermeneutical interpretation is to teach,

how a work of art should be understood according to its absolute artistic value.

The instrument of interpretation is the consciousness of the person who perceives the work, i.e. in-

interpretation is considered as a derivative of the perception of a literary work. In traditional

rational hermeneutics, the conclusion was substantiated that a work of art cannot be understood by itself.

in itself, as a single product of creative activity. A work of art is mother-

objectivization of the tradition of cultural experience, so its interpretation makes sense only

when it marks the way out into the continuity of cultural tradition. Hermeneutic "understanding

ing" is aimed at reconstructing the meaning, deciphering the historical text in order to comprehend

for the continuity of the spiritual and cultural experience of mankind, for the familiarization of a new generation

and a new era to the past, to tradition.

In modern science, all of the listed methods for analyzing a work of art are used.

reference in various combinations, which are determined by the characteristics of the researched copyright

Purpose of the hermeneutic method

After analyzing the hermeneutic method in the interpretations of V. Dilthey, H. G. Gadamer, A. Demer, H. Yu. Habermas, E. D. Hirsch, V. K. Nishanov and others, V. N. Druzhinin summarizes: (almost mechanically) these interpretations of understanding, then we can say that understanding is used when it is required to know a unique, holistic, non-natural object (which bears the “imprint of rationality”) by translating its features into terms of the researcher’s “internal” language (diagnosing and interpretation) and receive in the course of it an assessment and an “experience of understanding” as a result of the process” (2, p. 83).

A professional psychologist sees in every work of art its creator with his own value-semantic sphere. Text, score, pictorial canvas, sounding fabric of a musical work - how great is the desire, in contact with them, not only to join the generally significant formulas, but also to enter the semantic world of the author! Where is the key to understanding? Hermeneutics is looking for an answer to this question.

The founder of the hermeneutic direction F. Schleermacher put forward the main goal of the method - to move from one's own thoughts to the thoughts of understood writers. He also separated the psychological interpretation of texts from the philosophical. W. Dilthey introduced a distinction between the sciences of the spirit and the sciences of the external world. The sciences of the spirit required a different research approach, and the method of understanding became the main one in his theory.

Hermeneutics of Gadamer

Gadamer considers hermeneutics not from the point of view of the theory of knowledge and the theory of science, but in the spectrum of ontological problems. “The preferred authorities of Gadamer in his research work are Heidegger and Hegel. From the former, he borrows the ontological task and interest in language as the “house of being,” from the latter, his struggle against the “hypertrophy of subjectivity” in philosophy; the latter, transferred to the analysis of art, excludes such an important aspect of artistic creativity as its subjective principle, eliminates, in the words of Gadamer himself, the mental structure of the one who creates a work of art or enjoys it. The creator, according to this logic, turns into a servant of the work he created” (2, p. 139).

Hermeneutics for Gadamer is a method of agreement. “The goal of any understanding is to reach agreement on the essence ... And the task of hermeneutics since time immemorial has been to seek agreement, to restore it. ... The miracle of understanding lies not in the fact that souls mysteriously communicate with each other, but in the fact that they are involved in a common meaning for them ”(3, p. 73).

Modifications of the hermeneutic method

Research psychologists and psychotherapists often use the method of understanding. “There are various modifications of the psychological hermeneutic method, the main ones are: the biographical method, the analysis of the results (products) of activity, the psychoanalytic method” (2, pp. 87–88). When it comes to art, man, understanding, empathy, one would like a softer presentation of thoughts, but the texts of hermeneutic philosophers are specific and often accessible only to a narrow circle of scientists.

Hermeneutic Circle of Understanding

“The movement of understanding is constantly moving from the whole to the part and from the part to the whole,” says Gadamer. - And the task is always to expand the unity of meaning that we understand by building concentric circles. Mutual agreement between the individual and the whole is every time the criterion for the correctness of understanding” (3, p. 72).

Schleermacher distinguished between the objective - "grammatical" and subjective - "psychological" sides of the interpretation of the text. The ratio of these sides characterizes the circular structure of understanding. Schleermacher preferred the objective side of interpretation over the subjective, therefore the personal-psychological aspect of interpretation for him is secondary in relation to the linguistic procedures of interpretation.

Hermeneutical circle of understanding in the interpretation of T.N. Grekova and N.L. Nagibina

T.N. Grekov and N.L. Nagibina in her work "Psychology and hermeneutics: the intersection of methods" (1999) focuses on the psychological side of the interpretation of texts. Their goal is to designate semantic and power fields in the hermeneutic circle, depending on the dominance of the position of the author, character, reader.

Three main models are possible.

Model 1. The position of the character dominates

The semantic network of the author and the reader is emasculated. The task of the author is to convexly show the character. The hierarchy of meanings of a character is possible in two versions: 1) it is built into generally significant meanings or significant for a given era. In this case, a tendentious transformation of the character's personality often occurs. The author takes a civil position, educating the reader;

2) has a unique, intrinsically valuable semantic network. This uniqueness is emphasized by the author and seen by the reader.

The author speaks in all the versatility of his own meanings. He constantly argues, analyzes from the angle of his semantic hierarchy. Often compares his point of view with the installation of his hero, compares, even imposes. He needs a character and a reader as a starting point for declaring his position or concept.

Model 3. The position of the reader dominates

The author builds and presents the character based on the reader's hierarchy of meanings. Thus, the reader pulls the semantic field onto himself. His tastes, predilections, level of intelligence, social status determine the choice of the character and his presentation.

The expansion of the sphere of understanding goes through the fourth member of the hermeneutic circle - the potential reader, who receives information about the book through the oral or advertising representation of the first reader. The meanings of the first reader involve the corresponding meanings of the second reader. Thus, one can speak of those "concentric circles that expand the unity of meaning" (Gadamer) through this fourth participant, bringing the hermeneutic circle into a new orbit of understanding.

Hermeneutics (irech. ermhneutich - explain, interpret) is an influential trend in the phenomenological tradition in the methodology of science.

It is a direction of modern thought that is most actively developing the problems of interpretation, questions of the theory of language, including in relation to the fundamental problems of jurisprudence.

Hermeneutics is one of the most important sources of modern methodology in the field of social phenomena, based on the recognition of the fundamental role of language for their adequate interpretation and understanding. It is for hermeneutics that one of the main prerequisites for the objectivity of understanding is the awareness of the historical conditionality of the researcher and his subject. In the 20th century, the hermeneutic methodology was developed by M. Heidegger, H.-G. Gadamer, E. Betgi, P. Ricoeur, E. Heintel, G Kuhn, A. Appel, E. Koret.

Traditionally, hermeneutics means the art of text interpretation. The word "hermeneutics" - literally means explanation, exposition, interpretation (there is another meaning: the gift of the word, speech). Sometimes the concept of hermeneutics is traced to the hermetic texts known in the first centuries of Christianity, as well as in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the authorship of which is attributed by tradition to the god Hermes. Hermes was not only the god of merchants and thieves, but the messenger and interpreter of the gods, their will and the laws that they gave to people. Therefore, hermeneutics, in one of its original meanings, means "to convey and interpret laws." Hermeneutics is the science of semantic understanding, understanding of statements, according to the German scientist of the early 20th century W. Dilthey, it is “the theory of understanding life statements recorded in writing” and, moreover, “the fundamental method for all further operations of the humanities”. In domestic and foreign science, there are several approaches to the study of this problem. So, already initially it was considered within the framework of the hermeneutic tradition. To understand the essence of this approach, it should be noted that the basic concepts of hermeneutics are: "understanding", "meaning", "language", "text", "interpretation", "tradition", "hermeneutical circle", "part and whole", "explanation". Philosophical, linguistic, religious, legal, etc. hermeneutics stands out.

Hermeneutics acquired special significance not in ancient Greek philosophy and philology, where it denoted the art of interpreting, understanding and interpreting various literary works, but only in the era of Christianity. At the same time, it was precisely in peripatetic and Stoic philosophy that the basic principles of interpretation were developed, which were assimilated and supplemented by Philo of Alexandria, Origen, Tertullian and Augustine the Blessed. For Christian theologians, hermeneutics (exegetics) was understood as the art of interpreting the Bible.

But if in the initial period of Christianity the main thing for exegesis was the agreement of the Old and New Testaments, then in the future the task is to clarify the meaning of the Bible and the works of the Church Fathers. It was during this period that hermeneutics first received an ontological status, which was lost in the era of the secularization of Christianity. The task of knowledge is not to discover something new, but to correctly interpret what has already been said. If what was said did not lend itself to an unambiguous interpretation, or if separate parts, separate moments in the Bible were contradictory, then various hermeneutical techniques were used (for example, the symbolic-allegorical method). Why can we talk about the ontological status of Christian hermeneutics? Hermeneutics, as the study and interpretation of the only true reality, has replaced both science and philosophy, etc. All theological "sums" can be considered as commentaries and interpretations of the Bible. In addition, the horizon of human knowledge turned out to be closed, the growth of knowledge was impossible.

With the secularization of Christianity, the ontological status that hermeneutics acquired in the Middle Ages also disappears. However, this did not happen immediately. As M. Foucault notes, even in the 16th century, the word, through a system of various kinds of likenesses, turned out to be identical with things, it was inscribed as an equal member in the system of likenesses of the universe. Consequently, hermeneutics, as the art of interpreting signs, had a privileged position.

But already in the 17th century, the situation changed dramatically. True knowledge can be acquired either in a self-certifying representation of cognition, or in an experience that verifies cognition. Scientific knowledge replaces hermeneutics. Interpretation and knowledge are based from that time on the scientific, primarily mathematical method. It will take more than one century to restore the significance of hermeneutics. The place of hermeneutics as a means of finding and restoring truth was taken by scientific knowledge. Hermeneutics was relegated to the realm of art. It was from these positions that the restoration of the significance of this method of comprehending reality and truth as a method of interpreting artistic, and later scientific and legal texts began.

Hermeneutics acquired special significance thanks to the work of Schleiermacher. If in the teachings of Kant and Hegel one can see only a kind of preparatory work that separates comprehension in the field of art from other forms of human cognition, and also forms the conceptual apparatus of hermeneutics, its problematic field, then in the works of Schleiermacher, hermeneutics, as comprehending the activity of the human spirit, acquires its own myself. The methodologies of Kant, and Baumgarten, and Hegel, as it were, outline, define a place that is not fully controlled by either science or philosophy, but also has as its goal a kind of comprehension of the essence of the culture of an individual, society, state. The next step is to try not only to see this place controlled by scientific knowledge, but also to identify and formulate a certain methodology for the behavior of human knowledge in this area. This is the problem that hermeneutics tries to solve. And the first is Schleiermacher. It isolates the problem and the procedure of understanding and develops a methodology for hermeneutic cognition. Understanding is subject not only to the literal meaning of what was said or written by this or that author, understanding must also understand the creator of the text. Any text, any speech can be comprehended and transformed into an act of understanding. The method of understanding addresses both the general and the singular: both the text and the context of the work itself and the author must be comprehended. Understanding must overcome the time barrier and find itself in the position of the so-called "initial reader". At the same time, such a position turns out to be an identification with the author himself. Thus, the goal of the intelligible procedures of hermeneutics is to comprehend, through the analysis of the work, the author himself, and the goal is to understand the author better than he understood himself.

Summing up, we can say that it was with Schleiermacher that the restoration of the significance and ontological status of hermeneutics began, because the problem of understanding and interpretation captures not only the work of art itself, but also turns out to be a way of comprehending a person, an author and all human reality. Here, however, it should be noted that the classic of the phenomenological school M. Heidegger traced the origins of hermeneutics in the modern sense of this concept to R. Descartes, the founder of the methodology of scientific analysis based on the principle of unity and difference between subject and object.

The development of hermeneutics took place along the path of "saturation" of its problematic field with a historical dimension. It is historical continuity that forms culture, language, and law as forms of human interaction. The most important condition of historical science is the phenomenon that history is investigated by the one who creates it. The hermeneutic problem of understanding phenomena and relations in the sphere of social life requires, first of all, its separation from the cause-and-effect relationships that dominate nature and are subject to study by the natural sciences. Life, which is comprehended as a fundamental fact of history, acquires an ontological status. At the same time, culture comprehends itself and completes itself precisely in the historical comprehension of its most important phenomena: the economy and economic culture, the life of society, the legal and political culture of society and the individual. Historical knowledge is a way of self-knowledge. Hermeneutics, comprehended as the comprehension of historicity, turns out to be the basis of the sciences of the spirit, for the historical process is conceived as a text to be deciphered.

Further expansion of the hermeneutic horizon is associated with the name of M. Heidegger. This happens primarily due to the special language in the "existentialism" of the German thinker: "Language does not simply convey in words and sentences everything obvious and everything hidden as a matter of course, so-and-so, but for the first time brings into the open spaces of the open - the existent as such- that being... Language for the first time gives a name to the being and, thanks to such naming, for the first time brings the being into a word and a phenomenon. Language turns out to be the historical horizon of understanding, and understanding itself (hermeneutics) becomes the accomplishment of being. Of particular importance is the significance of the work of art. That is what gives the truth. “Art lets truth flow. Being a constitutive protection, art exudes the truth of being in creation.

Heidegger extrapolates such an interpretation of language in the context of the interpretation of scientific meanings to social, political and legal issues, and at a very high level of scientific generalization. The central point in Heidegger, as in other representatives of classical philosophy, is the concept of freedom.

Based on the principles of hermeneutics and phenomenological analysis, Heidegger develops the concept of individual freedom, fundamental to the philosophy of law. The theoretical form of this development was a polemic with the founder of classical German philosophy I. Kant.

Heidegger distinguishes between two meanings of freedom in Kant's philosophy (his 1930 work "On the Essence of Human Freedom" is devoted to this). One is connected with the possibility of freedom, that is, with the affirmation of the very idea of ​​transcendental freedom. Another - with reality

342 - freedom, that is, it raises the question of practical freedom. According to Heidegger, the most significant achievement of Kant, which he himself did not fully comprehend, was that by means of dialectical antinomies he substantiated the fundamental unsolvability of the ordinary understanding of freedom. The dispute about whether any action is completely subject to natural laws or it is completely free, Kant attributes to a completely natural error for the mind as a whole to confuse definitions relating, on the one hand, to things as they are, and on the other, to the phenomena of these things. us in the form of knowledge. Distinguishing these two orders allows, as Kant believes, to see behind the antinomy of freedom only a visible contradiction (or a dispute of reason with itself). However, such a decision testifies, according to Heidegger, that the transcendental dialectic itself bears the imprint of the previous metaphysics. To understand freedom in this sense, it is not its actualization (the reality of an act) that is decisive, but the idea of ​​the unconditional causality of events. Thus, the meaning of individual freedom is determined within the same concept of causality, which is also present in the natural sciences, that is, in the theoretical field of knowledge of nature. Or, as Heidegger himself says: "Freedom is established in the sense of the transcendent concept of nature." Therefore, the conclusion of the third antinomy is simply a theoretical possibility of the unity of the empirical causality of nature and the non-empirical, intelligible causality of reason.

However, it is this conclusion that points, as Heidegger believes, to the need to formulate the second meaning of freedom in Kant's philosophy.

How can this real or practical freedom be designated? Heidegger explains the problematic nature of this second sense of freedom on the basis of an aporia in Kant's practical philosophy. In his philosophy of law, expounded in The Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant explains that the concept of freedom cannot be an experiential concept. This freedom cannot be "... proved even in ourselves and in human nature as something real". But if the reality of freedom cannot be theoretically (metaphysically) proven, then what, in general, can be the meaning of this reality? Five years later, in the Critique of Judgment, Kant argues that the idea of ​​freedom is found among the facts: “It is the only one of all the ideas of pure reason whose object is a fact ...” The problematic nature of freedom, its realization, that is, the very idea of ​​​​the practical application of reason , as Heidegger explains, is not only whether there are examples or facts of their own

343 good deeds.

The fact that freedom, on the one hand, is not an experimental concept, but, on the other hand, is a fact, needs to be explained: “how can and should one ask about the real freedom of a person, in contrast to the question of the possibility of freedom of the essence of the world in general.”

In the Critique of Pure Reason, "experience" and "reality" are limited to the area of ​​theoretical (objective) knowledge (of nature). Kant's reference in the third Critique to freedom as a fact means that here he is talking about "experience" and "reality" in a different sense. The fact of freedom is not equated by him either with the experience of an object or with the states of natural things. Since Kant himself speaks in this passage from the Critique of Judgment about the reality of freedom, which can be proved "in actual actions, therefore, in experience", it is obvious that Kant is facing a new concept of experience, which Heidegger terminologically comprehends as "facticity". ".

So, the practical freedom of the individual in the sphere of legal relations is a fact, and, proceeding from this, it must be understood, but not in the sense of objective experience. But how? Kant explains in the Critique of Judgment that the reality of freedom "...can be proved by means of the practical laws of pure reason, and in accordance with them, in actual actions." The freedom of the individual, therefore, must be revealed as a fact in the practical application of pure reason. “This proposition,” Heidegger further asserts, “establishes its own task and, at the same time, the specific problems of the second path, i.e., the second meaning of freedom.” To clarify this facticity of practical freedom, Heidegger relies on Kant's assertion that "we are directly aware of the moral law (as soon as we posit for ourselves the maxims of the will)". According to Heidegger, this means that the fact of obligation is manifested only in actual (practical) volition: “actual volition is the basis of determination that clarifies itself, must always be clarified in itself.” Here, of course, one could object, from the point of view of immanently following the very logic of the analysis of individual freedom, that in Heidegger's interpretation it is not about the ability of judgment, that is, not about the application of practical law (morality), but, first of all, about the essence of the most practical reason as the source of this law. Formulated negatively, it consists in the fact that the will is determined by the representation of that which is not received from experience and does not relate to it, being its own ground, and in this sense - pure will. The purpose of this interpretation of Kant's philosophy is not so much to define the moral law as to clarify

344 the facticity of pure volition, which is not identical to any inner world being. Heidegger is precisely trying to show the fallacy of identifying the facticity of pure practical reason with any psychological state.

H.-G. Gadamer, following Heidegger, continues the line begun in cultural studies by Dilthey to substantiate the methodology of cultural and historical knowledge of the phenomena of social life. Dilthey convincingly showed that the self-determination of the humanities goes in line with overcoming the "model of the natural sciences" and the expansion of natural science methodology into the field of humanitarian knowledge. If, when studying an object of nature, a person opposes himself to it, abstracting from his own characteristics, which allows him to avoid subjective distortions and achieve objectivity of knowledge, then when referring to social phenomena, a person will never be able to free himself from the influence of those ideas that culture imposes on him. Therefore, the question arises of the extent to which one can speak of the objectivity of knowledge in relation to the entire complex of the humanities that study the sociocultural phenomenon.

The conclusion suggests itself that such a specificity of the subject of research requires a fundamentally different method of research and a different idea of ​​objectivity and general validity. Therefore, Dilthey separated explanation and understanding as methods, respectively, of the natural sciences and the humanities. Continuing this line, Gadamer emphasizes that “the sciences of the spirit are approaching such methods of comprehension that lie outside of science: with the experience of philosophy, with the experience of art, with the experience of history itself. All these are such methods of comprehension, in which the truth proclaims itself, which is not subject to verification by the methodological means of science.

The use of the category "understanding" in relation to research in the field of society allows us to show, firstly, that in this field it is correct to speak not only about the increment of knowledge (as is the case in explanation), but about an event for a person who studies something in the field of sociocultural phenomena , his involvement in the study, because it is “a way of knowing and a way of being at the same time”, and secondly, that any object of study in the sphere of society (as opposed to a natural object) is already meaningful. The universal meaningfulness of the sphere of society allows us to speak of universal comprehensibility - the "hermeneutical universe", in Gadamer's terminology.

Thus, for Gadamer, philosophy and hermeneutics are inherently deeply connected with each other. Iadamer relies on all the experience that the hermeneutic trend has accumulated in the study of the specifics of humanitarian knowledge, but especially on the development of Heidegger's "fundamental ontology", which open up the possibility of transferring hermeneutics into an ontological layer, the possibility of comprehending active-participatory knowledge.

The essential characteristic of any object of study in the field of culture is its uniqueness and atypicality; here there is a completely different relationship between a separate phenomenon of culture and the whole of culture than in the mechanical relation of the whole and parts. In the study of this phenomenon, for Gadamer, the “experience of art” seems to be the most significant, in which, as in a prism, the features of the experience of communicating with culture and its various phenomena are manifested. Gadamer connects the universal aspect of hermeneutics with art. In a work of art, as Dilthey pointed out, the spirit of an era, the essence of a given culture as a closed formation, is objectified and expressed. In this sense, the activities of a lawyer preparing a legal text have a number of common points with the activities of a writer, stylist. Let us dwell on this issue in a little more detail.

The experience of art is opposed by Gadamer to "aesthetic consciousness" as limited and equally subject to the traditions of "methodological consciousness". “... The cultural form of aesthetic consciousness faded in our eyes in the same way,” writes Gadamer, “as the cultural form of historical consciousness, which thought in “worldviews.” On the contrary, everything expressed both by art and by great philosophers claimed its rights to truth, and this claim of its rights, however chaotic, could not be rejected - no “history of problems” could neutralize it, it could not be forced to bow before the laws of methodical scientificity. » . The experience of art is wider and deeper than what can be said about it, it breaks out of the historicity and situational nature of its creation to eternity, carrying elements of the true life of society. Having considered the significance of hermeneutics in the field of art, Gadamer turned to the question of its role in science.

An important problem for classical hermeneutics, which determined the formation of hermeneutics itself as a science, was the problem of the adequacy of the interpretation of another culture - foreign or ancient (antique), which is part of modern culture as an element (for example, the role of Roman law in the legal culture of the 19th century). The main condition for such adequacy was the rejection of the historical position of the researcher. Gadamer, developing Heidegger's idea of ​​the fundamental and irresistible historicity of man, debunks the illusions of such "historical objectivism". “Such a requirement,” he writes, “is rather a premise of historicism, stating that we must immerse ourselves in the spirit of the era under study, we must think

346 - with its concepts and ideas, and not at all with their own, in order to achieve historical objectivity in this way.

The position of complete abstraction from the historical and cultural conditions for the development of socio-cultural phenomena in which the researcher exists is impossible and unnecessary: ​​you cannot understand what you have nothing to do with. “In reality, it is about knowing the distance in time as a positive and productive possibility of understanding. It is not at all a yawning abyss, but a continuity of custom and tradition, in the light of which every tradition appears to us. It will not be an exaggeration to speak here of the true productivity of accomplishment. Thus, for Gadamer, it is important to emphasize that tradition does not oppose research as a set of information or facts, it requires active participation. That is why Gadamer speaks of "active-historical consciousness." In addition, he argues that “in the field of the sciences of the spirit it is impossible to speak of an equal object of study in the sense in which we rightfully speak of it in relation to the sciences of nature ... Concerning the sciences of the spirit, it should rather be said that research interest, turning to tradition, is each time motivated in a very special way by modernity and its interest.

The basis for the possibility of understanding is, according to Iadamer, the "common cause" - agreement on what the legend says, the document of the era, for example, the text of the law. But since Gadamer is aware that one cannot speak of the preservation of a “living tradition” that connects us, for example, with ancient culture, that “the connection with this matter cannot be that self-evident and undoubted unity that takes place in the case of an uninterrupted tradition” , then another premise is required to ensure this unity. Gadamer considers language to be such a prerequisite. Gadamer, following Heidegger, defines the language as a universal environment in which both a person and his culture exist, in which historical tradition is carried out. The universality of the language predetermines the universality of understanding the phenomena of culture, if culture is presented as a text.

Gadamer's language, like Heidegger's, has that environment, that space where conversation, interpretation, dialogue takes place. The text lends itself to interpretation, interpretation and understanding precisely because “language is a universal environment in which understanding itself is carried out. The mode of this realization is interpretation. This universality of language reflects its original involvement in the nature of meaning. Language, moreover, is not some original and inviolable whole that cannot change. The language is saturated with experiences and spiritual experience of previous generations. In language, the reality that rises above the consciousness of individuals becomes visible. In itself, the linguistic experience of culture, according to Gadamer, is absolute, it rises above our concrete existence and embraces any relationship, any social relationship. Language experience precedes everything that we know and express: “The fundamental connection between language and the world does not mean, therefore, that the world becomes the subject of language. Rather, what is the subject of knowledge and expression is always already surrounded by the world horizon of language.

Despite the fact that language, as a universal medium, has universality and, consequently, a subordinating individual character, the process of understanding in Gadamer retains a certain freedom of the individual. The mutual imposition of horizons of understanding, which is carried out in the process of hermeneutical reading of a text (say, the text of a law), is comprehended by him as an open event, as an ongoing dialogue that can never be completed. Thus, according to Iadamer, hermeneutics has a certain methodological status, which allows it to act as a kind of methodology of knowledge. It is not only the understanding and interpretation of this or that textual material, but it is the knowledge and self-knowledge of the individual and society. Hermeneutics “controls” that body of knowledge (humanities and art), which cannot be comprehended and comprehended on the basis of the exact sciences. And this area of ​​human knowledge is provided by its own completely unique methodology. Hermeneutics is the knowledge and self-knowledge of a person, his place in the universe, his history, his culture, it concerns the most significant areas of his existence for a person. From this point of view, hermeneutics makes it possible to take into account that irrational moment that always takes place in social relations and which the humanities, including the science of law and the state, must reflect in their own way.

HERMENEUTICS- 1. Art, theory, tradition and ways of interpreting texts that are ambiguous or not amenable to clarification. 2. The art of understanding, interpreting, interpreting allegories, polysemantic symbols, etc.

HERMENEUTICS PSYCHOANALYTICAL- one of the psychoanalytically oriented currents of modern philosophy - a certain set of modified ideas of Z. Freud and philosophical hermeneutics. The creator of the current is the German researcher Alfred Lorenzer, who sought to develop the hermeneutic functions of psychoanalysis. In his opinion, the formation of symbols occurs not in the unconscious, but in the mind. At the same time, one should clearly distinguish between symbols that correspond to conscious representations and stereotypes that correspond to unconscious representations. Psychoanalytic hermeneutics also explores the problems of linguistic communication and the processes of socialization in which symbolism is supposed to be formed.

(Golovin S.Yu. Dictionary of practical psychologist - Minsk, 1998)

HERMENEUTICS(from Greek. hermeneutike- interpretive art; named after the god Hermes, who performed, according to ancient Greek. mythology, the role of the messenger and interpreter of the messages of the gods to people) - (originally) the doctrine of the interpretation of texts, mainly ancient (primarily biblical), understanding the meaning of which is difficult due to the insufficient safety of the sources and supplementary information. Understanding was achieved by sequential opening of all aspects accompanying the text (from studying language and the opening of hints to the analysis of the historical context and psychological characteristics personalities author). Formally, geometry can be considered by analogy with the ideology known in mathematics for solving "inverse problems" (such as, for example, restoring images from noisy measurements). A feature of the hermeneutic procedure is an iterative approach, in which the analysis of each part of the text is carried out in accordance with and taking into account the features found in the previous stages.

G. is widely used in humanitarian research to solve various problems: it is restored thought the author, the event described by the author and the meaning of the problem posed by him are reconstructed, etc. This problem has been intensively studied in philosophy since the middle of the 19th century. (F. Schleiermacher, G.G.Shpet, H.-G. Gadamer). If traditional (philological) grammar was primarily the "art of understanding" oriented towards the interpretation of texts, then Schleiermacher raised the general question of the fundamental conditions for the possibility of understanding. For Gadamer G. already deals with the general problem of the universality of understanding and interpretation. The main question of philosophical G., according to Gadamer, is that understanding is a “kind of a circle” - a repeating structure, where any new interpretation refers to pre-understandings (a prerequisite of understanding determined by tradition) and returns to them. In such an interpretation, understanding is an open evolutionary process in which any potential interpreter and any potential interpreter can. included in the common tradition of understanding. Thus, the questions of the typology of pre-understanding (in the statistical interpretation of inverse problems it would be about the methods of specifying a priori probability) acquire a particularly important role. IN.Dilthey identifies 3 main types of pre-understanding (fixed in cultural attitudes): naturalism (focused on the cognitive search for the most objective laws), idealism of freedom (focused on the maximum volitional disclosure of the priority of subjective freedom of interpretation of the personality) and pantheism (focus on the harmony of the personality and the world). In a discussion with J. Derrida on the comparison of G. and deconstruction, Gadamer comes to the problematic of the boundaries of hermeneutic procedures (actually limiting them to independent corpora of texts, the presence of tradition and the possibility and value of a hermeneutic dialogue). This manifests one of the most important provisions of Gadamer himself, who, following M. Heidegger, considers the interpretation of the phenomenon of understanding not as an instrumental-logical act, but as a way of human existence. (B. N. Enikeev.)

(Zinchenko V.P., Meshcheryakov B.G. Big psychological dictionary - 3rd ed., 2002)