The apparatus that is so critical to achieving/acquiring understanding in Gadamer’s case (see above) is specially designed to create a bridge between zero understanding and the final goal of complete understanding. The apparatus itself is specific to the task at hand. In the use of critical hermeneutics in the interpretation of texts (and text analogues), Harvey and Myers (1995, p. 20) quote Paul Ricoeur:
In critical hermeneutics the interpreter constructs the context as another form of text, which can then, of itself, be critically analysed so that the meaning construction can be understood as an interpretive act. In this way, the hermeneutic interpreter is simply creating another text on a text, and this recursive creation is potentially infinite. Every meaning is constructed, even through the very constructive act of seeking to deconstruct, and the process whereby that textual interpretation occurs must be self-critically reflected upon. (Ricoeur, 1974)
This research will create, analyse and seek to understand these additional texts on the original texts under investigation.
There are already further issues to consider. There is a substantial cultural difference between an English-speaking Californian (say) and a German speaking Berliner. What if we are engaging with text rather than a person? What if the text was written 200 hundred years ago about things that were important at the time, but have become obscure in the 21st century?
This ‘distance’ between the hermeneutist (the enquirer) and the author (and text) under investigation is referred to as ‘historicality’ by researchers such as Myers (1994b, p. 189).
Critical hermeneutics does emphasise the fact that social reality is historically constituted. And one of the key differences between a purely interpretative approach and critical hermeneutics is that the researcher does not merely accept the self-understanding of participants, but seeks to critically evaluate the totality of understandings in a given situation.[1] The researcher analyses the participants’ own understandings historically, and in terms of changing social structures. The hermeneutic-dialectic perspective, therefore, as an integrative approach, emphasises both the subjective meanings for individual actors and the social structures which condition and enable such meanings and are constituted by them.
This concept of historicality has also been called ‘contextualisation’ where Klein and Myers (1999, p. 73) refer to Gadamer’s (1976, p. 133) observation: ‘… the hermeneutic task consists, not in covering up the tension between the text and present, but in consciously bringing it out’.
The distance of the investigators from the source text can be manifold. It might be due to one or any combination of:
time : the months or years or even millennia since the original text was written;
language: where the language of the text is no longer in day-to-day use or has been substantially modified;
culture: where the original text was created by an author within a cultural context alien to the investigator;
intention: where the original text’s author set out intentionally to mislead, omit or twist events and facts to serve their own ends;
social milieu: where the prevailing social norms and accepted behaviours of that time and place of the text’s creation have become forgotten or have changed.
It is the investigator’s responsibility to acknowledge that they have a historicality factor to account for and that the text under investigation may well be a puzzle of many dimensions.
In addition to burdens that come with the text (historicality), there are burdens already surrounding the investigator – their prejudices that will colour their own interpretations of the text. These prejudices are actually ‘pre-judgments’, expectations of understanding. Butler (1998, p. 288) extends the notion of prejudice by including a reference to Heidegger’s (1976) notion of ‘tradition’ and suggesting that prejudice is actually a combination of lived experiences, tradition and a sort of socialised comfort zone he refers to as ‘das Man’. Butler (1998, p. 288) acknowledges the powerful influence exerted on individuals:
According to Gadamer (1975), tradition influences a social actor’s attitudes and behaviour through authority, and such authority is transmitted through time and history via cultural mechanisms. Heidegger (1976) argues that it is the quiet authority of das Man (roughly translated as ‘the they’ or ‘the anyone’) which provides reassurance in the face of existential turbulence. The state of being ‘situated’ or ‘tuned’ under the sway of das Man, (e.g. as operationalised through public opinion or group norms), provides one with familiar and comfortable surroundings; self-reflection precipitated by existential turbulence (a ‘breakdown’) shatters this tranquility and brings about an ‘unhomliness’ (Unheimlichkeit) of existence.
The suggestion espoused by Gadamer that prejudices are a natural attribute of individuals and should be accepted and dealt with has been thoroughly demonised by Wolin (2000, p. 45) although the basis for that vitriol is not the philosophical aspect.
Kidder (Kidder, 1997, p. 1194) on the other hand takes up the issue of the investigator’s prejudice as being a useful starting point for the enquiry. He quotes from Augustine that one should ‘identify the clear and obvious meanings first and then use this understanding to make sense of the more obscure and confusing passages’ (Augustine, 427). Kidder (1997, p. 1194) goes on to state that ‘what is clear and obvious to one in reading a text is likely to be a function of one’s own cultural orientation and one’s own prejudices rather than the function of some given accessibility of the text’. He goes on to say:
So where does one begin? If one cannot begin with the obvious, are we to somehow begin with the obscure? The answer is that either option is more or less viable, but the crucial thing is that one avoids allowing the starting point to control the enquiry. False assumptions can be excellent roads to genuine understanding, but only if one is open, in the course of interpreting, to the clues that reveal the inadequacy of those assumptions and point the way to needed revisions. Thus hermeneutic properly manifests a circular or cyclic pattern in its unfolding: the progress of the enquiry returns one to the beginning, and the new beginning sets a new course of progress; the interpretation of parts yields a conception of the whole, but that conception brings new meaning to the parts, whose reinterpretation may again require reconception of the whole, and so on, in a circle that would be merely vicious were it not propelled by concrete and cumulative acts of genuine understanding (Dilthey, 1990; Schleiermacher, 1819) (Kidder, 1997, pp. 1194-5).
Critical hermeneutics is often called the hermeneutic-dialectic. There is the dictionary definition of ‘dialectic’: the art of investigating the truth of opinions, testing of truth by discussion, logical disputation (Turner, 1987, p. 284). The accepted usage of this term is taken from the original Socratic dialogues. Kidder’s (1997, p. 1197) explanation of dialectic is eloquent:
In an ideal Socratic dialogue, no one is in it to win the debate, but everyone is engaged together in the search for the very best arguments in support of whatever opinion is being considered, along with the very best objections that can be set against those arguments. If in the context of a Socratic dialectic, I propose an argument to which no one can respond with a substantial objection, it may fall to me to become the objector (and Socrates is often put into this situation, particularly with his younger interlocutors). If I discover that my objection is more reasonable than my argument then I do a virtuous thing, from the point of view of the dialectic, if I immediately abandon my original opinion and seek a new one. This sort of reasoning process, then, has everything to do with persuasion, but it is not one person persuading another to hold a particular opinion; it is rather a matter of putting persuasion into a larger context of enquiry and discovery, allowing the power of argument to sway oneself along with the others, and in a way that is open and deeply attuned to the reasoning on all sides of an issue.
In this paper a critical hermeneutic philosophy of enquiry will be brought to bear on the selected case study into Denver International Airport (DIA) Baggage Handling System (Montealegre et al., 1999, pp. 553-4) to develop better understanding of the event itself through the supporting documents under investigation. This case study is commonly used in information systems departments to teach issues related to project management, risk assessment, information systems strategy, etc. The case is so well known that numerous prejudices and preconceptions about the DIA project have become firmly established in the information systems community. By re-analysing the case using critical hermeneutics, we were hoping to reveal, to ourselves but also to our colleagues and our students, new horizons of understanding into the roots of the DIA project failure.