The Oxford dictionary defines hermeneutics as ‘of interpretation’, taken from the original Greek hermeneutikos (Turner, 1987, p. 284). Hermeneutics has been well documented as a philosophy of enquiry, with its roots already evident in late antiquity where ‘the Greeks, the Jews and the Christians had been reading and re-reading their vital texts, namely the Homeric epics, the Torah, Talmud and Midrashim, and the Holy Bible, respectively. In the process of their textual labour, these people revised their own idiosyncratic sets of rules for doing interpretation’ (Demeterio, 2001).
Demeterio (2001) gives a useful definition of hermeneutics as ‘a theory, methodology and praxis of interpretation that is geared towards the recapturing of meaning of a text, or a text-analogue, that is temporally or culturally distant, or obscured by ideology and false consciousness’.
Thus, the understanding that is sought is found within texts and text-analogues – records that have been created by authors. These records might be as prosaic as a report, or as interesting as a series of captured electronic mails (Lee, 1994), or even as a set of transcripts of interviews and case study notes (Montealegre and Keil, 2000; Montealegre et al., 1999). In any event, these documents purport to represent some sort of reality or truth.
This search for understanding is influenced by several interesting factors that rely on some assumptions that may or may not all be present and at work at any given time.
First, understanding can be viewed as an interpretive oscillation between several layers or perspectives. This is often referred to as the ‘hermeneutic circle or cycle’, where one examines a small fragment of knowledge and seeks to understand it, then looks at the ‘whole’ (whatever that means to the enquirer), and seeks understanding there as well – the smaller fragment being part of the whole, and the whole being composed of many smaller fragments. Understanding, then, is achieved when there is a consistency between the whole and all its component parts and vice versa. Or, as stated by Myers (1994b, p. 191): ‘This hermeneutic process continues until the apparent absurdities, contradictions and oppositions in the organisation no longer appear strange, but make sense’.
Second, if understanding can be described as a stable oscillation between the parts of a whole and each individual part exhibiting consistency, then the very act of ‘searching for understanding’ would be the actual oscillation or (hermeneutic) cyclic action. As one searches for understanding, one acquires a small new piece of knowledge or a minor fact, seeks to understand this new piece in itself and also in the context of the already acquired knowledge and existing understanding of the whole.
Third, how does one know that understanding has been achieved? The repeated cycling between the parts and the whole will eventually yield consistency that is driven by the sum of knowledge or data in front of the researcher. Should that knowledge be incomplete, the researcher would actually have no way of knowing that fact. The only really useful test would be to introduce yet more data or facts and test by hermeneutically cycling through again. If the number of resulting cycles is sufficiently small, or even zero, then one could say that there is understanding, or as Myers (1994b, p. 191) would have simply said – it ‘makes sense’.
But understanding and the processes of its acquisition must be something more than just the end product of a process. Kidder (1997, p. 1196) cites the seminal philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer on understanding:
If I am an English language speaker learning German, for example, I will very likely pursue a course of study in which I learn a linguistic apparatus that is neither spoken English nor spoken German. I will learn patterns of verb endings, noun cases, systems of adjective and noun agreement, and such – categories I may never have applied to language before, although I had been speaking language all my life. This apparatus is a third thing, a bridge to understanding a language that is not the same as understanding that language. When the understanding actually occurs, I recognise it because suddenly the apparatus falls away and I simply speak German. So it is with hermeneutic: the interpretive process creates something that is neither my horizon nor the others. This third thing is a necessary medium; but it is just as necessary that this medium fall away. At this point in transcending the apparatus we can say that understanding occurs. There is still, however, the quality of a kind of third horizon here; one has not dissolved into the other culture; one has not erased one’s own horizon; but one’s horizon has become entwined with another in a unique instance of fusion.
So it can be reasonable to assume, then, that understanding comes from applying an apparatus (or tool) repeatedly over some data until the apparatus or tool becomes superfluous – that is to say, some understanding has been reached because the apparatus is no longer needed.
Using the Gadamerian analogy, successfully engaging in a conversation with a German would validate one’s understanding of the newly learnt language – i.e. testing the understanding with new untried data. If the conversation is unsuccessful, by whatever criteria, then the apparatus is reapplied, learning restarted, and then another test is undertaken. This is the hermeneutic cycle in its simplest form. The act of understanding flows from understanding the whole to understanding all the little bits that make up the whole. Then when confronted by a new ‘little bit’ that purports to be part of the whole under consideration, if understanding has been achieved, then a consistency between the new knowledge and the context of the existing whole will be maintained without any conflict (Myers, 1994b, p. 191).