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Signposts Through the Hermeneutical Labyrinth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2024

Peter Mann O.S.B.
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Extract

It is a pity that theological communication so often gets bogged down because a key concept is never satisfactorily and clearly explained. The key idea then degenerates to a kind of magical word, periodically invoked, temporarily perhaps exciting, but ultimately mystifying. A few years ago the word ‘existential’ underwent this process of degeneration. Although the word had a clear meaning in Heidegger’s early philosophy, and indeed, as ‘existential analysis’, signified an enduringly valuable method, the basic insight represented by it failed to shape and illuminate the popular theological discussion. (A fine example of the kind of communication that should have taken place on a much wider scale regarding this word is still Cornelius Ernst’s 1961 Introduction to Karl Rahner’s Theological Investigations.) Instead, the word ‘existential’ became used indiscriminately for anything remotely ‘relevant’ or ‘concrete’. This inflation ended by making the word worthless and unusable—where everything had to be ‘existential’, nothing could be any more. And the mystifying communicators and the befogged hearers concluded about the same time that the word had become meaningless. This need not have been the case: as so often before, a chance had been missed.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Blackfriars , Volume 22 , Issue 251 , February 1941, pp. 82 - 89
Copyright
Copyright © 1941 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

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References

page 84 note 1 Cf. James M. Robinson, ‘Hermeneutic since Barth’, in The New Hermeneutic (New Frontiers in Theology, Vol. II), Harper & Row, 1964, pp. 1–77, esp. 1–19; H.‐G. Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode (J.C.B. Mohr Tubingen, 1960), pp. 295–307 (on Aristotle).

page 84 note 2 Gadamer, op. cit., 172–185 (Schleiermacher), 205–228 (Dilthey); J. Habermas, Erkenntnis und Interesse (suhrkamp, 1969), 178–203; id: ‘Zur Logik der Sozialwissenschaften’ in Philos. Rundschau, Beiheft 5, Tbg. 1967, pp. 124ff.

page 85 note 1 On Phenomenology, cf. Herbert Spiegelberg, The Phenomenological Movement, A Historical Introduction Vol. I and II (Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1960). On Husserl, esp. pp. 73–167 (lit.); on Heidegger, pp. 271–357 (lit).

Apart from Husserl's and Heidegger's own writings (esp. Being and Time, SCM, 1962. E.T. of Heidegger's Sein und Zeit), recommended are W. J. Richardson's Heidegger book Through Phenomenology to Thought (Haag, 1963); Vol 1 of New Frontiers in Theology, The later Heidegger and Theology, (Harper & Row, 1964); Gadamer, op. cit. 240–250; Ricoeur, op. cit., pp. 222–232, ‘Heidegger et la question du sujet’.

An introduction to aspects of Husserl's thought is given by Quentin Lauer in his edition and translation of Edmund Husserl, Phenomenology and the Crisis of Philosophy (Harper Torchbooks, 1965).

page 86 note 1 On Ricoeur, apart from the essay already mentioned, ‘Existence et herméneutique’, cf. also the concluding section of his Freud book, Freud and Philosophy (Yale, 1970), ‘hermeneutics: the Approaches to the Symbol’, pp. 494–552. also the conclusion to his book, The Symbolism of Evil (Boston, 1969), ‘The Symbol gives rise to Though’, pp. 347–357.

page 89 note 1 On Lonergan, Insight (Longmans, 1958), esp. pp. 562–594, ‘The Truth of Interpretation’; Collection (Darton, Longman & Todd, 1967), esp. 14; ‘Cognitional Structure’, pp. 221–239 and 16; ‘Dimensions of Meaning’, pp. 252–267. Cf. also David W. Tracy, The Achievement of Bernard Longergan (new York, 1970), also Philip McShane, S. J. (ed.), Foundations of Theology (Gill and Macmillan, 1971), Papers from the International Lonergan Congress, 1970.