History and Hermeneutics Flashcards
Conception of time as though it were successive local movements.
Cosmological Time
Example:
Cosmological Time: ______
Psychological Time: Melody
Notes
Example:
Cosmological Time: Notes
Psychological Time: ______
Melody
Conception of time not as measurable local movement but as a span of duration experienced by a conscious subject, which endures in his consciousness or memory
Psychological Time
The emphasis is not on the _________, but on the ________________ who experiences time as a synthesis of past, present, and future.
duration; conscious subject
Time as a number or a measure?
Ex: November 24, 2005
Number
Time as a number or a measure?
Ex: 8 o’clock
Number
Time as a number or a measure?
Ex: One hour
Measure
Time as a number or a measure?
Ex: Twenty years old
Measure
It is not just about dates, persons, or happenings.
HISTORY
“_____ was almost certainly the first to formulate a completely new idea of truth and knowledge and who, in a piece of bold anticipation, coined in an absolutely inimitable precision the typical formula of the modern attitude towards truth and reality.” – Pope Benedict XVI (Introduction to Christianity, Ignatius Press, 1990).
Giambattista Vico (1668-1774) “Vico”
Human experiences as: __________, __________, and ____________ by our memory.
REMEMBERED
RE-PRESENTED
AND RECONSTRUCTED
VERUM ET FACTUM CONVERTUNTUR.
Truth and Fact are convertible. Truth is what we ourselves have made.
It was in Vico’s book “___________” (1725/1730/1744/1928) that he fully developed his notion of truth. He reformulated it thus:
Scienza Nuova
TRUE OR FALSE
It is a MEMORY when it remembers or recalls it functions as data storage.
TRUE
TRUE OR FALSE
A MEMORY when it does not re-present or make present functions as imagination or fantasy.
FALSE – it represents and make present functions as imagination or fantasy.
TRUE OR FALSE
It is a MEMORY when it revises (re-visioning) or reconstructs it functions as creative faculty or ingenuity.
TRUE
It is about human experiences that are remembered, represented, and reconstructed.
HISTORY
History is about human experiences that are ________, ________, and ________.
remembered, represented, and reconstructed
Implications of Vico’s Notion of Truth:
The task of the human mind is not to think about being in the _______, but being as we have made it. History is a _______________ for the study of any discipline.
abstract; fundamental prerequisite
Implications of Vico’s Notion of Truth:
The factual world is not an ___________________ but our world which we have constructed in history.
abstract metaphysical construct
Implications of Vico’s Notion of Truth:
History, previously despised as unscientific, became, alongside mathematics, the only ______________.
true science
Thus, Vico’s notion of truth eventually gave birth to the scientific method which is a combination of the ______________ and _______________.
primacy of mathematics; observable facts
__________, with his famous classical statement:”So far philosophers have merely interpreted the world in various ways; it is now time to change it” saw in history the arena for man’s self-transcendence.
Karl Marx (1818-1883)
According to Karl Marx, man is not just a ________________.
factum of history.
VICO: Verum est factum
MARX:
Verum est faciendum
VICO:
MARX: Faciendum
Factum
VICO: What we made
MARX:
What we can make
The concept of objectivity originated from the supposition that the mind is ________, that it copies objects outside it.
imitative
Why can we not totally exclude value judgements and creativity?
Because history is permeated with meaningful human relationships, understanding or which requires an element of empathy and sympathy which often resist strict methodological procedures.
TRUE OR FALSE
Objectivity in history cannot be thought of in this way because the past is gone, never to be repeated.
TRUE
______ is the exact correspondence between the mind and reality.
Truth
TRUE OR FALSE
Objectivity in history cannot be thought of in this way because although history requires the conscientious regard for the critical method and standards of history as a discipline, it never implies value judgment or creative reconstruction.
FALSE – it always implies
We not totally exclude value judgements and creativity because history is permeated with meaningful human relationships, understanding or which requires an element of _______ and _______ which often resist strict methodological procedures.
empathy; sympathy
According to this model, there is objectivity when what is in the mind conforms with reality.
VERUM EST ADAEQUATIO REI AD INTELLECTUM
Objectivity in History:
The historian’s heightened sense of his tendency to be _______________;
biased or mistaken
Objectivity in History:
A reasonable suspicion that bias, distortion, or error may be ________ in every historical document or narrative that he studies.
present
CAUSALITY IN HISTORY
A cause implies necessary connection. It tells us that whenever the antecedent occurs, _________________.
the consequent follows
Historical narratives are expected to establish the relation of cause and effect in their explanation.
CAUSALITY IN HISTORY
These narratives show that past events, conditions, and processes are consequences of prior conditions.
CAUSALITY IN HISTORY
The events of history are caused by the confrontation between the man who recognizes his limits and the man who is carried away by hubris (PRIDE). Man vs. Man vs. Gods
HERODOTUS (484-425 B.C.)
Added a personalistic and subjective element in his understanding of history, in such a way that the conversation of the individual, cuts right across the historical events in the world.
ST. AUGUSTINE
All history is biography.
ST. AUGUSTINE
History is the story of God’s initiative to enter into a covenant. The successes and reversals of history are phases of this covenant.
SALVATION HISTORY
Grace, sin, punishment, forgiveness, fidelity, and Divine Providence are the categories in which history is understood.
SALVATION HISTORY
I am my nearest neighbor.
TACITUS
Every man is the architect of his own fortune.
SALLUST
To someone seeking power, the poorest man is the most useful.
SALLUST
The higher your station in life, the less your liberty.
SALLUST
Roman historians and politicians. History, for them, follows the natural cycle of flowering and fading, birth, and events, brings about the senseless recurrence of rise and fall.
SALLUST (86 B.C. -34 B.C.) and TACITUS (55 A.D. - 117 A.D.)
Fate, being the main cause of historical events, brings about the senseless recurrence of rise and fall.
SALLUST (86 B.C. -34 B.C.) and TACITUS (55 A.D. - 117 A.D.)
Wrote the first history of Rome. History is the interplay of personal and impersonal causes (climate, geography, etc.). He demonstrated for the first time how the destinies of various nations are interwoven.
POLYBIUS (201-120 B.C.)
He wrote the history of the Peloponnesian wars. For him, history is the interplay of conflicts of interest, in which the stronger always impose his law as the right. Might is right.
THUCYDIDES (456-396 B.C.)
“Whom the gods wish to destroy…”
HERODOTUS (484-425 B.C.)
RENAISSANCE and HUMANISM, and later, the _________________ changed our view of history.
ENLIGHTENMENT
_________ proves that something must be the cause why something happened;
Deduction
_________ shows that something actually is the cause why something happened;
Induction
_________ suggested that something is the most likely cause why something happened.
Adduction
TRUE OR FALSE
The LOGIC of Historical Thought:
A formal logic of deductive inference.
FALSE – Not a formal logic
TRUE OR FALSE
The LOGIC of Historical Thought:
Consists inductive reasoning from the particular to the general and deductive reasoning from the general to particular.
FALSE – Consists neither in inductive reasoning from the particular to the general, not in deductive reasoning from the general to particular.
TRUE OR FALSE
The LOGIC of Historical Thought:
A process of adductive reasoning in the simple sense of adducing answers to specific questions, so that a satisfactory “fit” is obtained.
TRUE
TRUE OR FALSE
The LOGIC of Historical Thought:
The answers may be general or particular, as the questions may require.
TRUE
History is the process by which human freedom leads to self and social consciousness. This process is realized in the human struggle against nature and social inequalities.
KARL MARX
CAUSALITY IN HISTORY
There is a loose conception of causality in history. Rather than focusing on one basic cause generating an event, it is more appropriate to say that, in history, there is “______________” where each cause need not exclude the others.
causal pluralism
According to him, knowledge of history becomes a tool for this struggle.
KARL MARX
______________ – the ideology of buy and sell with emphasis on instantaneity and disposability.
CONSUMERISM
Adverse consequences of CONSUMERISM:
1.
2.
3.
4.
- “Throw-away mentality”
- Our monumental garbage problem
- Our tendency to discard traditional norms, lifestyles, stable relationships, and attachments.
- Trivialization of values
______________ (the hermeneutical framework which considers the world as self-explanatory)
We can understand history without any recourse to transcendent values of being.
SECULARISM
_________ and Progress have taken the place of Providence.
Reason
A problem-solving discipline.
HISTORY
_________: words can have meanings when considered outside of their use in a determined context.
Polysemy
Hermeneutics:
Noun: Any activity involved in making the obscure plain, and bringing the unclear to clarify.
hermeneia
Hermeneutics:
Verb: to interpret or to clarify.
hermeneuein
Can be oral, written, aural, visual, audiovisual, symbolic/signified, or incarnate
Language
Is indispensable to communication.
Language
Can have varied meanings, which depends on the context.
Language
Reveals and conceals at the same time.
Language
PERI HERMENEIAS
By _______
“___________ are the symbols of mental experiences, and written words are the symbols of spoken words. Just as all men do not have the same writing, so all men do not have the same speech sounds, but the mental experiences which these words directly symbolize, are the same for all, as also are those things of which our experiences are the images.”
Aristotle; Spoken words
The son of Hermes, is divine above and goat-like below to signify the ambivalence of language, the duplicity of words.
Pan
The messages of the gods were often oracular and ambiguous.
Pan
The inventor of language and the messenger of the gods.
Hermes
“Hermes is a thief, a liar, and a deceiver.” – Socrates
Hermes
Asks an open-minded question about past events and answers with selected facts which are constructed in the form of an hermeneutical paradigm.
HISTORY
UNDERSTANDING IN HERMENEUTICS:
1.
2.
3.
- Understanding the text
- Understanding the author
- Self-Understanding
THE QUEST FOR UNDERSTANDING LEADS US:
- From misunderstanding to __________
- From disagreement to __________
- From confusion to _________
- From indifference to __________
- understanding
- agreement
- certainty
- commitment
The Hermeneutic Circle operates in different levels:
- ______: understood in relation to its context; the word to the sentence, the sentence to the paragraph, the paragraph to the whole page of ideas, the page to the entire book.
TEXT
The Hermeneutic Circle operates in different levels:
- ______: understood in relation to their life and times, and by situating their ideas within the contexts of the history of ideas.
AUTHOR
The Hermeneutic Circle operates in different levels:
- ______: way of understanding must be situated within the context of the community to which they belong and the tradition which shapes the understanding of their community.
READER
The process of understanding is not linear but circular and spiral.
The Hermeneutic Circle
States that:
- In order to understand the parts, it is necessary to understand the whole.
- In order to understand the whole, it is necessary to understand the parts.
The Hermeneutic Circle
States that understanding consists in endless recapitulation and reassessment of previous meanings.
The Hermeneutic Circle
_________– a uniquely human activity that deals primarily not with information but with that elusive category called MEANING.
Understanding
MEANING is
_________: It is related to my present or ultimate concern.
RELEVANT
MEANING is
________: Something/ someone whose worth or value I appreciate.
VALUABLE
MEANING is
_________: I can own it.
APPROPRIABLE
EVOLUTION OF THE USAGE
Hermeneia as ________:
A proclamation of the messages of the gods.
A recitation or artistic elocution of Homeric poems.
language
Hermeneia as production and retrieval of meaning:
- Refusal to assume the ___________ and the primacy of the subject who decodes a text.
continuity of meaning
EVOLUTION OF THE USAGE
Hermeneia as ______________:
- Hermeneia not decoding a prior meaning that must be reconstructed, but letting oneself be regulated by a chain of signifiers with the hope that meaning will emerge through the opposition of these signifiers.
production and retrieval of meaning
EVOLUTION OF THE USAGE
Hermeneia as commentary:
- Synonymous with ________ – clarificatory or exploratory explanation about an obscure utterance or text.
EXEGESIS
EVOLUTION OF THE USAGE
Hermeneia as __________:
Hermeneia broadening of one’s understanding through a fusion of temporal and cultural horizons.
commentary
EVOLUTION OF THE USAGE
Hermeneia as translation
- ________ – (latin) movement from one place to another (infinitive: transferre)
translatio
EVOLUTION OF THE USAGE
Hermeneia as ________:
The movement of meaning from one cultural or temporal context to another.
translation
EVOLUTION OF THE USAGE
Hermeneia as ________:
Hermeneia bringing an obscure, foreign language into the clarity of a known or familiar language.
translation
EVOLUTION OF THE USAGE
Hermeneia as language:
LANGUAGE ITSELF IS ALREADY _____________.
INTERPRETATION
Procedure - Moment - Task at Hand - Result
Research - ________ - Discovery - Data/ Question
Heuristic
Reconstruction → Arranging the evidences as interpreted to answer the original question posed.
Synthetic → ______________________
Interconnection → Actual composition of my own text
Hermeneutical Paradigm → Opus Magnum
Putting back the parts into a whole
Investigation → _______________________
Analytic → Looking at the parts
Re-vision → Is my way of looking at the evidences valid/ accurate/ logical?
Matrix of interpretation → Insights/ contexts, meanings
Examination of evidences selected
Selection → Is it relevant to the question I asked?
Ecstatic → ec-stasis = to stand aside
Refinement/ Criticism → Does the evidence refine my question? Is it authentic?
Result → _________________________
Actual evidence/ Authentic sources perspective
Research → Re - search
Heuristic → ‘Eureka → I found it!
Discovery → _______________________
Data/ Question → ?
To see something/ To uncover
Procedure - Moment - Task at Hand - Result
Selection - Ecstatic - ____________ - Actual evidence / authentic sources perspective
Refinement/ Criticism
Procedure - Moment - Task at Hand - Result
Investigation - Analytic - Interconnection - _________________
Matrix of interpretation
Procedure - Moment - Task at Hand - Result
____________ - Synthetic - Re-vision - Hermeneutical Paradigm
Reconstruction
HERMENEUTICAL PARADIGM:
- ___________________
- A Narrative
- Statistical Generalization
- An Analogical Model
- ___________________
- ___________________
Causal Model;
Predictive Mode;
A Combination of the Above
ELEMENTS of Time
A span of duration
Curious subject and it’s memory
Memory of a person
Both the pleasant and the unpleasant memories
Psychological Time
HISTORY is not just a study of a ___________.
dead past
We want to know all causes, all factors that led to this happening.
Causality in History
Class struggle
Inequalities
KARL MARX
Why is there a revolution? Why did this happen? Class struggle.
KARL MARX
YOU ARE NOT A _________________ OF INFORMATION
PASSIVE RECIPIENT
Salvation history
A cycle
Based on the Providence
Sallust & Tacitus
____________– we can comprehend history without the basis of religion.
Secularism
__________ → every action results to an event
Cause
____________ – what are the other factors affecting history?
Polybius
_____________ – father of history
Herodotus
Truth & fact are ___________.
Truth is what we, ourselves, __________.
convertible; have made
