Hermeneutics as a General Methodology of the Sciences of the Spirit

Emilio Betti

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781000365054
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Jurisprudence
• Index: Law

With a Foreword by Lars Vinx, this book is the first complete English translation of the Italian jurist, Emilio Betti's classic work Die Hermeneutik als allgemeine Methodik der Geisteswissenschaften, originally published in 1962.

Betti's hermeneutical theory is presented here as a 'general methodology of the sciences of the spirit', such as to allow the achievement of objectivity, however relative it might be. Its central focus is the tension between an object, to be considered in its autonomy, and the subjectivity of the interpreter, who can understand the object only by means of his or her own categories, historical-cultural conditions, and interests. Set against the work of Bultmann and Gadamer, Betti is concerned to limit the arbitrariness of subjectivity without diminishing the place of interpretation. Detailing the principles that govern, and therefore, guide any interpretation, Betti traces how interpretation in art and in literature, as well as in the fields of science, jurisprudence, sociology, and economy, can be said to be objective, albeit only ever in a relative sense.

This summa of Betti's key contribution to hermeneutic theory will be of interest across a range of disciplines, including legal and literary theory, philosophy, as well as the history and sociology of law.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Emilio Betti: A Short Biography
• Some Untidy Reflections on the Betti–Gadamer Debate
• Editorial Preface
• Chapter 1: Hermeneutical problematics in contemporary consciousness
• Chapter 2: Objectivations of the spirit
• Chapter 3: Representative forms
• Chapter 4: Representative function & expressive value
• Chapter 5: To interpret and to understand
• Chapter 6: The act of interpretation as a triadic process
• Chapter 7: Inversion of the creative process and transposition into one another subjectivity
• Chapter 8: The directives of interpretation
• Chapter 9: The canon of the coherence of meanings (The principle of totality)
• Chapter 10: Analogy and integrative development
• Chapter 11: Canon of the actuality of understanding
• Chapter 12: The vital rapport with the subject-matter & the direction of the inquiry
• Chapter 13: Is it possible to achieve the objectivity of the historical phenomena?
• Chapter 14: Function of the sensibility for the values proper of the historian
• Chapter 15: The answer to the proposed historical question
• Chapter 16: Meaning of a historical phenomenon and its significance in the present
• Chapter 17: Dialog and monolog
• Chapter 18: Historical interpretation and attribution of an eschatological meaning
• Chapter 19: The threat of denying the objectivity
• Chapter 20: Theological hermeneutic and demythologizing of the Kerygma
• Chapter 21: Recent turn toward the historicity of understanding
• Chapter 22: The prejudices as the conditions of the understanding
• Chapter 23: Existential foundation of the hermeneutic circle
• Chapter 24: The problem of the correctness of the understanding
• Chapter 25: Historical understanding as mediation of past and present
• Chapter 26: Claim of a practical application of interpretation
• Chapter 27: The mentioned claim is justified only if the interpretation is normatively oriented
• Chapter 28: The canon of the hermeneutical correspondence of meaning (Adequation of meaning in understanding)
• Chapter 29: The character as a work of historical forms of life
• Chapter 30: The technical-morphologic interpretation in rapport to the prospected problems of formation
• Chapter 31: Context of meanings and styles as products of the autonomy of the spiritual human faculties
• Index