Blackwell Reference Online

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“Hermeneutics” comes from the name of the Greek messenger god, Hermes – the patron of travelers, rogues, liars, and thieves. As the carrier of messages between gods and mortals, Hermes had to be fluent in both of their idioms. It was his task to build and maintain an interpretive bridge between alien worlds. Since he was also a trickster who could deliver messages in garbled form, the Greek verb hermeneuō meant to decipher cryptic or obscure meanings, and, more generally, to explain, translate, and express ( Gadamer 1971 ). The term hermeneutics descends from this root, via the Latin hermeneutica , and has been used in English and German since the late seventeenth century. Today hermeneutics has two main senses: the art of reading texts, and the philosophy of textual interpretation and human understanding. However forbidding or exotic the term may sound, hermeneutics is a fundamental mode of inquiry into communication and its conditions. Indeed, hermeneutics and communication theory alike focus on how messages span the gaps of human togetherness (→  Communication Theory and Philosophy ). Hermeneutics is traditionally understood as Biblical interpretation. However, it is an art relevant whenever a canonic text needs to be updated and applied to a concrete situation. Any tradition of practical judgment anchored in classic writings calls for procedures of interpretation, whether ... log in or subscribe to read full text