Are All Interpretations Possible? :: Philosophy Essays

Are All Interpretations Possible? ABSTRACT: Two fundamental criticisms made by traditional hermeneutics against philosophical hermeneutics are that the latter deny the possibility of objectively true interpretation, as well as assert that all interpretations are possible on the basis that they cannot be measured. In my paper, I argue that the first criticism is well-founded, while the second is not. I contend that interpretations can be decided according to two relational criteria: (i) which interpretation has a more comprehensive horizon; and (ii) which one is derivable from the other. 1. The birth of the philosophical hermenutics and its hermeneutical novelty. Until now it seems to be the most widespread viewpoint about the philosophical turning of hermeneutics that it was realized by Martin Heidegger in his lectures in the 1920's, and in his work: Being and Time. Let me refer to the manuscript from the 1920's that Thomas Sheehan and Theodore Kisiel found and they published in the Dilthey-Jahrbuch (Phà ¤nomenologische Interpretationen zu Aristoteles /Anzeige der hermeneutischen Situation/) (1) and refer to the volume 61. of Gesamtausgabe (Phà ¤- nomenologische Interpretationen zu Aristoteles. Einfà ¼hrung in die phà ¤nomenologische Forschung) and to the volume 63. (Ontologie /Hermeneutik der Faktizità ¤t/). Although he hardly wrote more than half a page explicitly about hermeneutics (7. §.) in Being and Time, but its work in the book is not questionable. As to the secondary grounding of my statement I refer to two competent authors'opinion. Otto Pà ¶ggeler wrote the following about Being and Time in his 1963 monograph: "Weil der Se inssinn dessen, was Husserl als das transzendentale Ich faBt, von Heidegger als faktische Existenz bestimmt wird, die in sich selbst hermeneutisch ist, wird die transzendentale Phà ¤nomenologie Husserls bei Heidegger zur hermeneutischen Phà ¤nomenologie. Die hermeneutisch vestandene  »transzendentale Erkenntnis « ist ineins Frage nach dem Seinssinn des Daseins und nach dem Sinn von Sein und damit  »ontologisch «, ErschlieBung des Seins." (2) Hans-Georg Gadamer who completed the philosophical hermeneutics that was created by Heidegger, and who is the doyen of it in our age, also stated about Being and Time that "...as a result of the existential futurality of human Dasein, the structure of historical understanding appears with its full ontological background". (3) We can not doubt that Heidegger composed the existential hermeneutics with the fundamental-ontological, philosophical intention of radicalizing Husserl's phenomenology. Let us focus our attention on what are the most important ideas — for my topic — of the young Heidegger's philosophy and its hermeneutical novelty! As we know, Heidegger considered that the fundamental question of philosophy was the question of the meaning of Being.