Hermeneutics

• Hermeneutics is a philosophical reflection on interpretation: how people make meaning, for instance, when reading books or looking at pictures. This chapter first defines interpretation, explains why it is central to any reimagining of communication, and clarifies its relations to neighboring concepts like meaning, culture and communication. Then follows a discussion of key assumptions and themes of interpretation theory, including how to locate and reconstruct meaning. Third, a brief historical overview over different hermeneutic contributions traces the transition from the Romanticist tradition with Schleiermacher and Dilthey through Heidegger and Gadamer to the critical hermeneutics of Paul Ricoeur, which is particularly suitable for a theory of communication in the contemporary media age. The hermeneutic circle, expanded to a spiral of interpretation, is then presented as a model of how meaning is made – but also of how it is studied. The chapter concludes with some words on the limits of interpretation, responding to antihermeneutic challenges from posthumanists and new materialists.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Media and Communications (hsv//eng)

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

kap (subject category)