Phenomenology & Hermeneutics

Question 1

Exegesis

Answer 1

(from the Greek “to lead out”) is a critical
explanation / interpretation of the Bible.

Question 2

Exegesis focused

Answer 2

on the written text

Question 3

Hermeneutics is

Answer 3

a “classical discipline concerned
with the art of understanding texts.”

Question 4

Typological reading

Answer 4

g interprets Old Testament events
as prefiguring the New Testament events.

Question 5

A typological theory of poetry…

Answer 5

rests on the idea that
great poems are not random in structure, but are
both meaningful and purposeful.

Question 6

Scripture operates on four levels of meaning.

Answer 6

1) literal (or historical); 2)
te allegorical; 3) tropological (or moral); and
4) anagogical (from Greek anagoge, meaning
“elevation, spiritual or mystical
enlightenment”).

Question 7

the literal or historical level refers

Answer 7

to the event
itself;

Question 8

the allegorical level relates

Answer 8

the literal event to
events in the New Testament;

Question 9

the moral level refers to

Answer 9

the fate of the individual
soul;

Question 10

the anagogical level refers to

Answer 10

universal history
and eschatology.

Question 11

Modern hermeneutics, as a theory of
interpretation

Answer 11

has its philosophical roots in
phenomenology.

Question 12

Phenomenology is

Answer 12

a school of philosophy which
studies the world’s phenomena as perceived by
the consciousness.

Question 13

Phenomenology is concerned

Answer 13

with the
examination of consciousness.

Question 14

Husserl

Answer 14

developed
phenomenology as a
philosophical method. The phenomenological
premise questions
our assumptions
about the world.

Question 15

Phenomenology is the study of

Answer 15

the essential
structures of experience.

Question 16

Husserl was interested in

Answer 16

what makes our
experience, our knowledge of objects possible,
what makes the necessary presuppositions of
experience possible.

Question 17

Consciousness is

Answer 17

intentional (i.e. oriented towards
the world); it is a consciousness of something.

Question 18

Phenomenology focuses on the issue of

Answer 18

perception
(i.e. the relationship between the individual
consciousness and the world).

Question 19

Intentional consciousness is consciousness in
relation

Answer 19

to the Other (e.g. things of the world,
human beings, etc.).

Question 20

In phenomenological reasoning

Answer 20

consciousness
constitutes the world and the world constitutes
consciousness.

Question 21

Constituting

Answer 21

denotes a process in which
consciousness not only reflects creation, but also
participates in it.

Question 22

The body is a meeting place for

Answer 22

self and the Other
(i.e. to be corporeal is to exist with others, to
understand one’s freedom and its limits).

Question 23

The Other is also experienced

Answer 23

as a bodily manifestation.

Question 24

Phenomenological reduction or epoche

Answer 24

Greek
epekhein “to pause, take up a position,” from epi-
“on” + ekhein “to hold.” - i.e. phenomenology
brackets off all preconceived ideas about the nature
of the world, suspends all judgment and simply
seeks to describe objects of experience.

Question 25

Phenomenology analyses

Answer 25

the immanent consciousness (cf. Formalism and Structuralism approach texts as an immanent structures).

Question 26

Phenomenology suspends objective relations...

Answer 26

and studies intentional, rather than empirical objects.

Question 27

Phenomenological analysis is concerned with

Answer 27

the essences of the human experience of the world, not the existence of things.

Question 28

To understand a phenomenon is to....

Answer 28

understand what is essential and unchanging about it.

Question 29

Phenomenology aims to

Answer 29

return to the world as it is before it is contaminated by either the categories of scientific inquiry or the psychological assumptions of the scientist.

Question 30

Phenomenological reduction

Answer 30

brackets off our assumptions about the world and inquires back into consciousness.

Question 31

Phenomenological determination of meaning

Answer 31

is always tentative, incomplete.

Question 32

Phenomenology is concerned

Answer 32

with possible human experiences by holding universality and particularity in tension.

Question 33

In Derridean terms, phenomenology is logocentric because

Answer 33

it is oriented towards essential meaning.

Question 34

Phenomenological analysis

Answer 34

lays bare the deep structures of the human mind and the phenomena they perceive.

Question 35

Heidegger

Answer 35

Heidegger formulates a hermeneutical ontology.

Question 36

The ontic dimension

Answer 36

is concerned with beings, i.e. entities.

Question 37

Ontology

Answer 37

is the study of Being as such, and it also includes the study of the being through which beings come into question

Question 38

Heidegger reflects on human existence as a

Answer 38

Dasein, man’s actual, historical being-in-the-world, being-there.

Question 39

Dasein

Answer 39

a place where being reveals itself (i.e. man exists by engaging with the world)

Question 40

Heidegger’s philosophy is interested in

Answer 40

what it means to be alive.

Question 41

Reality encompasses both

Answer 41

subject and object.

Question 42

Epoche is unproductive because

Answer 42

man is always engaged in the world.

Question 43

Dasein (man’s being) is

Answer 43

hermeneutical because in it and for it there unfolds the meaning of its being.

Question 44

Dasein is hermeneutical

Answer 44

it interprets both itself and the world.

Question 45

World and Dasein

Answer 45

unfold their meaning in the hermeneutic circle.

Question 46

Language is that which brings the world to being,

Answer 46

the dimension in which human life moves. Dasein participates in language.

Question 47

Human subjectivity unfolds in and through

Answer 47

its intersubjective relations with the world.

Question 48

Consciousness becomes accessible to itself....

Answer 48

only by way of the Other: “consciousness has its meaning beyond itself.

Question 49

Gadamer (1900-2002)

Answer 49

rethinks Heidegger’s ideas. Hermeneutical interpretation shows how understanding takes place within tradition.

Question 50

Gadamer’s hermeneutical approach is

Answer 50

rooted in Heidegger’s observation that understanding is man’s way of being in the world.

Question 51

For Gadamer, hermeneutics is

Answer 51

an unfolding of and reflection on understanding rather than a method of ‘correct’ interpretation.

Question 52

Hermeneutics rethinks

Answer 52

Kant’s ideas about art.

Question 53

Rather than being a ‘purposeless purpose’ that renders aesthetic pleasure, in Gadamer’s reasoning...

Answer 53

art uncovers the truth about the world.

Question 54

Art presents

Answer 54

an autonomous world.

Question 55

Transformation into structure

Answer 55

raises the question of the meaning of representation as “transformation into the true”

Question 56

Interpretation participates in bringing to light

Answer 56

“the event of being that occurs in presentation”.

Question 57

Our interpretation is always historically situated,

Answer 57

thus entailing a horizon.

Question 58

Interpreting always involves

Answer 58

projections and preconceptions.

Question 59

Gadamer shows that the interpreter has a

Answer 59

horizon of understanding which is defined by his or her relation to the past.

Question 60

Interpretation is a process based on

Answer 60

the structures of pre-understanding (cf. Heidegger)

Question 61

In hermeneutics, the anticipation of meaning that shapes the understanding of a text is

Answer 61

rooted not in subjectivity, but in our binding relation to tradition.

Question 62

To understand a text is to understand it as an answer to a question, where the answer leads to another question, etc. Interpretation, thus:

Answer 62

1) explains meaning; 2) claims a certain truth; 3) reconsiders the thing that the text is concerned with.

Question 63

Our understanding of meaning conforms to

Answer 63

the logic of question and answer (i.e. meaning is never static, uniform, or foreclosed).

Question 64

A hermeneutic reading is

Answer 64

a process of question and answer.

Question 65

Understanding is based on that

Answer 65

which can be articulated, can be expressed, i.e. shared with the Other.

Question 66

Gadamer’s hermeneutics brings out

Answer 66

the dimension of trust

Question 67

Understanding is based on

Answer 67

he premise of the possibility of meaning (cf. deconstruction highlights the principle of misunderstanding).

Question 68

The hermeneutic circle

Answer 68

denotes a process of understanding where individual features are intelligible in terms of the entire context, and the entire context becomes intelligible through the individual features.

Question 69

To access the hermeneutic circle adequately

Answer 69

is to illuminate pre-understanding and use it in the course of explanation.

Question 70

The hermeneutic circle is not

Answer 70

a formal structure or a methodological gesture.

Question 71

Isotopy

Answer 71

a term referring to the semantic redundancy in texts (i.e. certain semantic elements are repeated in different variants).

Question 72

The fusion of horizons is

Answer 72

like a form of play in which the participants are absorbed.

Question 73

As a theory of interpretation, hermeneutics

Answer 73

has its roots in medieval exegesis, Husserl’s phenomenology and Heidegger’s philosophy.

Question 74

Phenomenological analysis focuses on

Answer 74

how the world unfolds its essence in the human consciousness through phenomenological reduction.

Question 75

Phenomenology postulates understanding as

Answer 75

an intersubjective relationship between consciousness and the world, the Other.

Question 76

Heidegger has shown that

Answer 76

human interactions with the world are mediated through language.

Question 77

Language has a hermeneutic function because

Answer 77

it is the medium through which the world becomes meaningful to humans.

Question 78

Language is intersubjective

Answer 78

(i.e. language is a place where we meet the Other).

Question 79

All interpretation is

Answer 79

situational, shaped and constrained by the historically relative criteria of a particular culture; there is no possibility of knowing the literary text ‘as it is’.

Question 80

Understanding is productive:

Answer 80

it is always understanding ‘otherwise’, making a difference to the text.

Question 81

Understanding entails a

Answer 81

fusion of the reader’s horizon with that of the text.

Question 82

Interpretation is an unfolding

Answer 82

of the text’s meanings in the course of our dialogue with it.

Question 83

For Gadamer, to understand a text is to

Answer 83

understand it as an answer to a question, where the answer leads to another question etc.

Question 84

Interpretation of a text is a gradual build-up of

Answer 84

understanding within the structure of the hermeneutic circle.

Question 85

The hermeneutic circle is a process of

Answer 85

understanding where individual features are intelligible in terms of the entire context, and the entire context becomes intelligible through the individual features.