Monday, August 3, 2009
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Hermeneutics!
The subscript for this blog daringly proclaims: "Adventures in Hermeneutics". But what is hermeneutics, anyway? I find it helpful to remind myself of this on occasion. No matter what discipline you're in, its always good to think about its premises as a totality from time to time, so that you don't miss the forest for the trees, as they say. I make that mistake all the time, but I'm working on it, among other things.
Thankfully, one of the many wonders of the internet is the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, an reliable, scholarly and academic source that is completely free. They define hermeneutics (in the "Hermeneutics" entry) this way: "The term hermeneutics covers both the first order art and the second order theory of understanding and interpretation of linguistic and non-linguistic expressions." So in a nutshell, hermeneutics is the art of interpreting anything that human beings have made, and includes theories proposing the most ideal ways to accomplish this (such as aesthetic theories advocating a particular approach, {e.g. Emotivism, the idea that a work of art is successful insofar as it conveys emotion effectively}). Hermeneutics started out as being the art of interpreting sacred religious texts (so, something like Biblical hermeneutics refers to a discipline in theology, usually) and later legal texts. These days, however, hermeneutics has expanded to include everything from ontology (the study of being) to semiotics (the study of signs and their meanings). I don't know nearly enough about the history of modern hermeneutics to make any sweeping statements about the last 200 years other than the fact that the expansion of the scope of hermeneutics has lead to some interesting ideas about what we can interpret and how.
In The Glass Bead Game, Hermann Hesse puts into the mouth of one of his characters: "We should be mindful of everything, for we can interpret everything"(p.67 of the Bantam ed.). That's my basic philosophy about the importance of interpretation. I originally became interested in it, although I had no knowledge of the discipline itself, from listening to Kate Bush records. I would listen & think "So, this woman is screaming about Houdini, but what the hell does it mean?" Like all philosophy, I suppose hermeneutics begins in wonder, a wonder at what a piece of music, a novel or a painting means. Consequently, most of my day-to-day thinking amounts to trying to figure out what various things mean, anything from TV commercials to works of installation art. But can we ever give a definitive interpretation of anything, beyond the most obvious things that can be said about it? This, like many other questions, remains open.
Thankfully, one of the many wonders of the internet is the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, an reliable, scholarly and academic source that is completely free. They define hermeneutics (in the "Hermeneutics" entry) this way: "The term hermeneutics covers both the first order art and the second order theory of understanding and interpretation of linguistic and non-linguistic expressions." So in a nutshell, hermeneutics is the art of interpreting anything that human beings have made, and includes theories proposing the most ideal ways to accomplish this (such as aesthetic theories advocating a particular approach, {e.g. Emotivism, the idea that a work of art is successful insofar as it conveys emotion effectively}). Hermeneutics started out as being the art of interpreting sacred religious texts (so, something like Biblical hermeneutics refers to a discipline in theology, usually) and later legal texts. These days, however, hermeneutics has expanded to include everything from ontology (the study of being) to semiotics (the study of signs and their meanings). I don't know nearly enough about the history of modern hermeneutics to make any sweeping statements about the last 200 years other than the fact that the expansion of the scope of hermeneutics has lead to some interesting ideas about what we can interpret and how.
In The Glass Bead Game, Hermann Hesse puts into the mouth of one of his characters: "We should be mindful of everything, for we can interpret everything"(p.67 of the Bantam ed.). That's my basic philosophy about the importance of interpretation. I originally became interested in it, although I had no knowledge of the discipline itself, from listening to Kate Bush records. I would listen & think "So, this woman is screaming about Houdini, but what the hell does it mean?" Like all philosophy, I suppose hermeneutics begins in wonder, a wonder at what a piece of music, a novel or a painting means. Consequently, most of my day-to-day thinking amounts to trying to figure out what various things mean, anything from TV commercials to works of installation art. But can we ever give a definitive interpretation of anything, beyond the most obvious things that can be said about it? This, like many other questions, remains open.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Ditat Deus
Ditat Deus is the state motto of Arizona & can be roughly translated as "God Provides". I have always found this strange: Arizona is primarily a desert state, a place that was sparsely inhabited before the arrival of the Spanish and the Americans. The Native American tribes who lived here lived off the land and cultivated crops. As much as their survival depended on the natural world, it was also ensured by their own ingenuity & construction. The Hohokam, for one, constructed an extensive system of irrigation canals that the modern canals of Phoenix are based on. It seems to me that it is human intervention in the natural world, rather than the world or God that provides for us these days, that allows us to survive out here, or at least in the style to which we have become accustomed. The motto probably refers to the fact that Arizona is (or was) rich in mineral resources. Copper has always been the most important, indeed, Arizona is referred to as 'the Copper State'.
Yet, it has been acknowledged that our mining practices are not ecologically sound (the copper isn't exactly just laying around out in the desert, after all). We've built a great city, Phoenix, in the midst of 'nothing', in the middle of the desert. We've rangled huge amounts of resources to make this paradise possible. The water we've redirected from the Colorado river has made lawns, golf courses & waterparks possible, things that God did not see fit to put in the middle of a desert. It is becoming more clear by the day (at least to me) how completely unsustainable this is. What will the face of our desert city look like in 50 years, if the drought doesn't let up, if we can't find the water to fuel the matastic growth of the far-flung suburbs, where there was scarcely a house 10 years ago? Our motto may soon be "Man Proposes, God Disposes", if we don't become more sensible very fast.
Yet, it has been acknowledged that our mining practices are not ecologically sound (the copper isn't exactly just laying around out in the desert, after all). We've built a great city, Phoenix, in the midst of 'nothing', in the middle of the desert. We've rangled huge amounts of resources to make this paradise possible. The water we've redirected from the Colorado river has made lawns, golf courses & waterparks possible, things that God did not see fit to put in the middle of a desert. It is becoming more clear by the day (at least to me) how completely unsustainable this is. What will the face of our desert city look like in 50 years, if the drought doesn't let up, if we can't find the water to fuel the matastic growth of the far-flung suburbs, where there was scarcely a house 10 years ago? Our motto may soon be "Man Proposes, God Disposes", if we don't become more sensible very fast.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
World Without End: An Explanation
I chose this as a title for a number of reasons. First among them is that it is a line from a Catholic prayer that I get stuck in my head from time to time. The prayer is called The Glory Be nowadays, but it is sometimes referred to as the Doxology (from the Greek 'doxa' meaning 'belief', roughly + 'logos' meaning roughly 'the word' or 'the truth'). The prayer is said as follows:
Glory be to the Father,
And to the Son,
And to the Holy Spirit
As it was in the beginning
Is now and ever shall be
World without end
Amen.
It got me thinking as to what is this 'world without end'? Its always puzzled me, ever since I was a child. In the prayer, it refers to the eternity in which God resides as Trinity; the prayer thus functions as an affirmation of this reality. Yet in my way of thinking, it has another meaning for us.
Since I have been introduced to Heidegger's theories about contexts, or 'worlds', I have not ceased to be intrigued. He posited that, throughout the course of history, there have been a succession of contexts, or worlds. Each would succeeds another, and different possibilities are present in different worlds or ages (however you want to think about it). Some possibilities in one age are not possible in others. For example, one can't be a Victorian lady in this current age. You can dress like one, act like one, even identify as one, but you won't be a Victorian lady in the same way that Victorian ladies existed in the Victorian age, simply because the context has shifted, and the circumstances are different. Now, in some of his writings about technology (which I cannot in good faith claim to fully understand, this is just my crude interpretation) Heidegger posited that in the current age, predominated by technological thinking, we run the risk of not enabling the context to shift. This is because technology is not just artifact for Heidegger, but instead a way of knowing. Being is a kind of third party in his later philosophy and Being interacts with humans in such a way so as to shift contexts, or allow the next world to come to pass. Human beings must 'make a home for Being' in order for this to occur. Heidegger thought that our way of looking at the world now runs the risk of not allowing that to happen. Thus, the context may never shift again. That is, if we don't re-evaluate our way of thinking and prioritize reflection, among other things. It may even be the case that this has come to pass, & we are now living at the "End of History" a kind of "world without end".
It is still an open question, one that I think about frequently. Yet, I have still come to no conclusions. But the phrase, uttered by itself as a kind of prayer, can be a call to reflection, a call to interpretation. In an age where we ask so much to be spelled out for us, where we demand pre-packaged interpreations for our consumption, whether it be in the form of a self-help book, a TV commercial or a predicable movie, such a phrase invites us to explore a mystery. "What does it mean?" I ask myself & there is no one to tell me. So I must find out for myself.
Glory be to the Father,
And to the Son,
And to the Holy Spirit
As it was in the beginning
Is now and ever shall be
World without end
Amen.
It got me thinking as to what is this 'world without end'? Its always puzzled me, ever since I was a child. In the prayer, it refers to the eternity in which God resides as Trinity; the prayer thus functions as an affirmation of this reality. Yet in my way of thinking, it has another meaning for us.
Since I have been introduced to Heidegger's theories about contexts, or 'worlds', I have not ceased to be intrigued. He posited that, throughout the course of history, there have been a succession of contexts, or worlds. Each would succeeds another, and different possibilities are present in different worlds or ages (however you want to think about it). Some possibilities in one age are not possible in others. For example, one can't be a Victorian lady in this current age. You can dress like one, act like one, even identify as one, but you won't be a Victorian lady in the same way that Victorian ladies existed in the Victorian age, simply because the context has shifted, and the circumstances are different. Now, in some of his writings about technology (which I cannot in good faith claim to fully understand, this is just my crude interpretation) Heidegger posited that in the current age, predominated by technological thinking, we run the risk of not enabling the context to shift. This is because technology is not just artifact for Heidegger, but instead a way of knowing. Being is a kind of third party in his later philosophy and Being interacts with humans in such a way so as to shift contexts, or allow the next world to come to pass. Human beings must 'make a home for Being' in order for this to occur. Heidegger thought that our way of looking at the world now runs the risk of not allowing that to happen. Thus, the context may never shift again. That is, if we don't re-evaluate our way of thinking and prioritize reflection, among other things. It may even be the case that this has come to pass, & we are now living at the "End of History" a kind of "world without end".
It is still an open question, one that I think about frequently. Yet, I have still come to no conclusions. But the phrase, uttered by itself as a kind of prayer, can be a call to reflection, a call to interpretation. In an age where we ask so much to be spelled out for us, where we demand pre-packaged interpreations for our consumption, whether it be in the form of a self-help book, a TV commercial or a predicable movie, such a phrase invites us to explore a mystery. "What does it mean?" I ask myself & there is no one to tell me. So I must find out for myself.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
