Philosophy of Being and Knowledge

Hermeneutics (Philosophy of Understanding)

Ancient Hermeneutics

The hermeneutic problem arises when there is a need to answer the question of meaning—when something must be interpreted. This need first emerged in the context of sacred texts. As time passed from the moment or period when religious texts were written, the necessity to interpret them became evident. This is why, in religions where sacred texts hold a central place, the hermeneutic tradition occupies a position of great importance. In fact, the theology of any religion is fundamentally the interpretation of its sacred scriptures. To fulfill its hermeneutic mission, theology has developed a set of rules and principles for interpretation. Alongside theological hermeneutics, legal hermeneutics also developed, for any judicial ruling involves the interpretation of law within the specific circumstances under consideration.

With the emergence of philosophy as a distinct science, the first attempts to reflect on the problem of understanding also appeared. These early efforts were not yet philosophical hermeneutics in the modern sense, but they laid the groundwork for its development. Philosophical hermeneutics as a discipline arose in the 18th and 19th centuries when philosophers, captivated by the problem of understanding, declared it to be the primary medium through which humans engage with the world. In antiquity, understanding was not yet viewed as the principal means of human interaction with the world, but its importance in knowledge and the search for truth was already recognized. Therefore, the analysis of understanding before the 18th and 19th centuries was not philosophical hermeneutics in the contemporary sense but rather an inquiry into the hermeneutic question within the broader philosophical discourse.

A significant contribution to the analysis of the ancient problem of understanding was made by Plato. Central to his philosophical system is the doctrine of Ideas. Plato argued that everything in existence is a manifestation of eternal and unchanging essences, which he called Ideas. Human beings can observe the things of the world, other people, and even themselves in order to know them. To know something means to grasp with the mind the Idea that is embodied within it. For example, in natural science, the result of knowledge is not merely the description of a particular thing or phenomenon but the discovery of a law that is expressed through every similar thing or phenomenon. Thus, the goal of knowledge is to ascend with the mind from the material world, which humans perceive, to the world of Ideas, which humans understand through reason. Plato demonstrated that knowledge is not merely the cataloging of what exists in the material world but the comprehension of the Idea embodied in it. He distinguished two processes: observation and understanding. The first is carried out by the senses but does not provide knowledge; the second is achieved by reason, and it is reason that is the source of true knowledge. One may observe a phenomenon indefinitely, but it will only be understood when one comprehends it. This applies to everything: the task of the natural scientist is to understand the laws of nature as expressed through natural processes; the historian's task is to grasp the patterns of change in historical events; the economist must comprehend the laws of economic processes. Understanding requires the activity of reason, not the senses, and this activity is directed toward Ideas—that is, toward that which cannot be perceived by the senses but without which the sensory world would not exist. Plato's contribution to hermeneutics lies in showing that the attainment of truth is based on understanding, which is the work of reason, not on observation, which is the domain of the senses.

Aristotle, in contrast to Plato, focused not on Ideas but on things that can be the subject of empirical knowledge. In the process of knowing things, humans express their knowledge in statements. The term "hermeneutics" (ἑρμηνεύειν) or "interpretation" was used by Aristotle to signify the expression of a thing in a statement. This means that, for Aristotle, to interpret is to know and express something in words. Therefore, while Plato and Aristotle shared a similar understanding of the concepts of understanding and interpretation, their objects differed: Plato believed that humans must comprehend Ideas, while Aristotle focused on things.

A major impulse for the development of ancient hermeneutics came from the Alexandrian school of Middle Platonism, with its most notable representative, Philo of Alexandria. Philo, like some others from this school, was a Jew raised in the Hellenistic environment. He admired Plato's philosophy, but for him, the greatest source of truth was the Old Testament. Philo’s entire philosophy is an attempt to demonstrate the significance of the Bible to the Hellenic world. No one before him had undertaken such a hermeneutic task. All those who interpreted sacred texts before Philo did so within the cultural context in which those texts were written. Philo, however, sought to explain the Old Testament, written within the Jewish tradition, to the Greeks. Since the Bible is rooted in events from Jewish history and describes God's actions within them, Philo had to show why these events should be of interest and importance to people from other cultures. In response to this challenge, Philo argued that every event described in the Bible has not only a historical meaning, tied to a specific fact, but also an allegorical meaning, a universal significance that is relevant to all. From this perspective, the history of the Jews is merely a collection of examples through which God instructs all nations.

Philo laid the foundation for the allegorical method of interpreting the Bible. This method was later adopted by Christian theologians, as they, like Philo, needed to explain why the Old Testament remained relevant to Christians, even though the events described within it pertain to Jewish history, and the majority of early Christians were not Jewish. In the early centuries of Christianity, the most prominent cultural and educational centers in the eastern Roman Empire were Alexandria in Egypt and Antioch in Syria. Two great schools of Christian theology emerged in these cities, differing significantly from one another. Their primary difference lay in the hermeneutic methods employed by the scholars of these schools. The scholars of the Alexandrian school used the allegorical method, believing that the Bible should be interpreted allegorically, in a figurative sense, by applying the descriptions of biblical events to a universal scale. The scholars of the Antiochian school adhered to the literal method, insisting that the primary meaning of any biblical statement is the explicit message conveyed by the text, rather than a higher meaning hidden from immediate view.