Hermeneutics Flashcards
Phenomenological reduction
To establish certainty, we must reduce the external world, so we can come to it with no knowledge or preconceptions in hand - suspending judgment about the natural world to instead focus on analysis of experience.
Phenomenology
Study of pure phenomena, to grasp any phenomena surely, must grasp what’s essential/unchanging about it.
Pure perception is the very essence of things
How is context dealt with in phenomenology?
It is ignored in all forms, the text should be reduced to a pure embodiment of the author’s consciousness. The stylistic and semantic aspects of the text are grasped as organic parts of a complex totality, whose unifying essence is the author’s mind.
In phenomenology, where are ‘deep structures’ of an author’s mind to be found?
Recurrent themes or patterns of imagery
Lebenswelt
Reality as organized or experienced by the individual subject. World of literary work isn’t an objective reality, but is organized and experienced by the subject.
Describe the basic foundations of a phenomenological mode of analysis
Complete objectivity and disinterestedness. Aims not to pass judgements, but to demonstrate what if felt like for the author, to provide a pure transcription of mental essences, in a non-evaluative passive reception of a text.
Significance over meaning
Hirsch’s idea that significances vary throughout history and are assigned by readers and that meanings remain constant and reflect the author’s intention.
Intrinsic genre
Hirsch’s idea that critics should seek to reconstruct the conventions and perceptions that would’ve governed and author’s meaning.
Hermeneutic circle
Understanding of the text as a whole is established by reference to the individual parts and one’s understanding of each individual part by reference to the whole. Moving from part, to whole, back to whole and so on.
