We Always Take Ourselves Along

Remember the trio from How-to-Study-the-Bible class: observation, interpretation, and application. They were the holy trinity of Bible study. The thought was (at least in my head) that these were three distinct operations. They followed in logical order. When one was done, you moved on to the next. "Wrong!!" says Gadamer. "It is not the case that there is first a pure, objective understanding of meaning, to which special significance accrues when it is subsequently applied to our questions. We always take ourselves along whenever we understand, so much so that for Gadamer understanding and application are indivisibly fused."Never thought of it that way before: "We always take ourselves along whenever we understand." I believe that is true. At least, I don't recall every leaving myself locked up at home (shutters pulled) when out understanding the world - or the Bible.

Quote from Jean Grodin, Introduction to Philosophical Hermeneutics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994) 115.

On Heidegger's Mode of Being as Basic Way of Knowing

Heidegger's understanding of fore-understanding is worthy of our understanding. He believes "human understanding takes its direction from the fore-understanding deriving from its particular existential situation, and this fore-understanding makes out the thematic framework and parameters of every interpretation." Heidegger calls this fore-structure (or, fore-understanding) existential "because it is a way of existing, a fundamental mode of being, by the power of which we deal with and try to find our way around in the world. Understanding means less a 'kind of knowledge' than a 'knowing one's way around.'... This everyday understanding almost always remains implicit. As a 'mode of being' it is not consciously thematized. We live too much within it for it to need to be made explicit. Nevertheless, all the 'things' and events that we deal with in our life-world are pre-interpreted by this anticipatory understanding." Hmm, a "mode of being" (an implicit, not-consciously-thematized, lived-in, pre-interpreted way of existing) as the basic way of knowing - anything and everything. Interesting.

Quotes taken from: Jean Grodin, Introduction to Philosophical Hermeneutics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994) 93-94.