Hermeneutics Texts - Being and Time by Martin Heidegger (1927)

Heidegger covers a lot more ground than specifically hermeneutic matters, but his description of the hermeneutic circle effectively “de-psychologized” it, moving the hermeneutic focus from the inner life of others to the basic structures of our being in the world.

For example, when distinguishing ourselves from the objects of our study, we frame our relationship to them in terms of subject and object, terms that set the stage for how we think and act. Heidi says that we inhabit the world and cannot therefore understand the world as if we’re separate, entirely detached observers. Objectivity? Pie in the sky.

Have you ever had the experience of feeling something so intensely that it affected how you interpret what’s going on around you? How could that affect the way you interpret a book, or a movie, or a conversation with your roommate who accidentally left the lid off the blender on Smoothie Tuesday?