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Bauman distinguishes between the \u201clegislative\u201d notion of reason found in Kant and other Enlightenment figures and the \u201cinterpretive\u201d rationality that characterizes much postmodern thought. The shift from the former to the latter was not accomplished all at once. Schleiermacher, for all importance in the rise of hermeneutics, was still aiming at \u201clegislative\u201d goals through legislative means: \u201cSchleiermacher\u2019s most pressing worry was not the lack of understanding, and the passage from the absence of understanding to its presence, but the danger of misunderstanding <\/em> : the suspicion (indeed, an unchallenged assumption) that without systematically codified methods <\/em> of interpretation a false <\/em> understanding may, and in all probability will result.\u201d <\/p>\n Gadamer is the first to break through to a thoroughly interpretive understanding of reason: \u201cthe discovery of the true meaning of a text or a work of art is never finished; it is in fact an infinite process\u201d (Gadamer\u2019s own words). Gadamer also challenged the earlier assertion that expert interpreters were needed to assure proper results: He denied \u201cthe special privilege claimed by professional hermeneutics\u201d (Bauman). Thus, as Gadamer said, the task of hermeneutics was \u201cnot to develop a procedure for understanding, but to clarify the conditions in which understanding takes place. But those conditions are not of the nature of a \u2018procedure\u2019 or a method, which the interpreter must of himself bring to bear on the text, but rather they must be given. The prejudices and fore-meanings in the mind of the interpreter are not at his free disposal.\u201d Gadamer rejected the twin goals of legislative reason: to find a \u201cprocedure that guarantees the validity of the result by the sheer fact that it has been scrupulously followed\u201d and \u201cthe principle that hte findings at the end of the methodological procedure carry superior validity no non-methodological effort can claim.\u201d <\/p>\n Two cheers for Hans, I say. <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Bauman distinguishes between the \u201clegislative\u201d notion of reason found in Kant and other Enlightenment figures and the \u201cinterpretive\u201d rationality that characterizes much postmodern thought. The shift from the former to the latter was not accomplished all at once. Schleiermacher, for all importance in the rise of hermeneutics, was still aiming at \u201clegislative\u201d goals through legislative […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hermeneutics"],"yoast_head":"\n
Thus, \u201cThe founding axiom of Schleiermacher\u2019s project was the unreliability and thus inferiority of understanding unaided by expert guidance. Hence Schleiermacher\u2019s major purpose was to establish grounds for the true representation of meaning; obversely, for the de-legitimation or refutation of all competitive interpretations.\u201d One suspects too that he did not consider the Quadriga a suitable method for modern interpretation. <\/p>\n