Hermeneutics and the Rhetorical Tradition: Chapters in the Ancient Legacy and Its Humanist Reception

Yale Studies in Hermeneutics

by Kathy Eden

This book poses an eloquent challenge to the common conception of the hermeneutical tradition as a purely modern German specialty. Kathy Eden traces a continuous tradition of interpretation from Republican Rome to Reformation Europe, arguing that the historical grounding of modern hermeneutics is in the ancient tradition of rhetoric.

Genres: Philosophy, History

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 31, 1997

Reviews

[Charlie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The ancient hermeneutical tradition emerged from grammarians explaining poetry and orators contesting the meaning and application of documents in forensic contexts. In each case, the demand was for an equitable reader, that is, one who knows how to move from a strict interpretation to one that respects the particulars of the case at hand. Problems refer either to intentionality or signification. That is, either there is a proposed discrepancy between the written word and the supposed intention of the author, or the words themselves have multiple possible meanings. These frequently overlap.

Resolution calls for investigation of historical context (circumstances surrounding the author's life and the composition of the document) and/or textual context (what passages come directly before or after, or otherwise impinge on meaning). Both end up subsuming problematic passages into a whole that is posited to be greater than the passage and determinative of its meaning.

The book starts in the ancient period, with Cicero, Quintilian, and Plutarch, then moves to the late antique church fathers, Erasmus, Melanchthon, and Flacius. It is strongest at the beginning, where the problems are being framed and the terminology identified. The last few chapters are fairly schematic, mostly just identifying the persistence of previously discussed themes into new documents. However, even there the footnotes are a treasury.

In all, this tightly focused monograph sheds significant light on the fundamental dynamics of ancient and Renaissance interpretation. It also outlines a compelling intellectual history for pre-Schleiermacherian hermeneutics.

[Kevin Fitzpatrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Consisting of six all-too-brief chapters (plus an added conclusion and much needed introduction), Kathy Eden's "Hermeneutics and the Rhetorical Tradition" is an essential foray into the nature and characteristics of the hermeneutics tradition through much of the Ancient, Medieval, and Pre-modern world, and this heritage's subsequent link to the long history of rhetorical appeals. As so succinctly asserted by the author, the tradition of hermeneutics reaches back to the writings of Cicero and his acolyte Quintilian, who first articulated the division between 'scriptura' and 'voluntas,' or words and authorly intention; these two profound, original thinkers also asserted that 'equity,' a spirit of what Augustine (whose contributions are also addressed in the book) would term 'caritas,' or charity, should temper all analyses of texts. Also, what has also been already suggested, Basil of Caesura and Augustine of Hippo advance this model of textual analysis to the Christian age, where they advocate this selfsame template in the context of a propaedeutic use of Pagan literature first in the education of young Christian scholars. Particularly interesting here, and wonderfully and cogently explained by Mrs. Eden, is how these early Christian authors viewed reading, its method and its technique, as analogous to the journey the classical hero Odysseus made on his way home from the Trojan War. (Snippets like these, illustrative of the author's deep appreciation and association with the material at hand, populate the book, making the exegesis of this book easy to come 'home' to.)Moreover, similar to Italian philosopher Giorgio Abamben's treatment of the same term in his wonderful "The Kingdom and the Glory," Eden goes on to illustrate how 'oikonomia,' or home 'form,' conditions how the text, in this wonderfully delineated tradition, must become 'home-like' for the reader. This term, so essential to understanding the method and 'feel' of the textual exegesis suggested by the authors, complicates and expounds the palette of ideas discovered by the reader, creating a portrait of the world of hermeneutics and rhetoric that is at once complete and attractive. This goes a long way in making the subject matter, which could be dry and banal, alive and palpable. Finally, as the book progresses onto the present (our 'home'), the author takes up the thoughts of Erasmus, Melanchthon, and Matthias Flacius Illyricus on hermeneutics, discovering that these thinkers too differentiated in the same manner the methods in which one should analyze texts. In addition, the gradual complication of the essential distinctions outlined by Cicero (equity, oikinimos, voluntas, etc.) adds appreciation and deeper understanding to the reader's own reading 'journey' into this essential text.
However, the content of this small but essential tome is not only not dry and technical in nature, for the content of the theories presented consistently emphasize a humanist tradition that deserves to be furthered in a time where theories of constitutional analysis like 'originalism' seek to destroy the gentle, humane emphasis of this fine tradition of textual exegesis. For, behind the details, the theory of reading and analysis posited by this tradition consistently emphasize, particularly in the ideas of 'caritas' or equity, an approach that is the foe of cant and hidebound thinking. The appeal, specifically, to the 'spirit' of the author of a text, lends hope to the role hermeneutics, and its twin science of Rhetoric, can play in the restoration of hope and humane values in our present world. Part of a tradition which is as humane as it is long, Hermeneutics and Rhetoric, as presented in this wonderful book, offers hope even now, long after Cicero has become only a footnote in our shared, collective intellectual history. This book, its perusal and study, brings to life that same humane tradition, and when studied correctly, in light of equity and okimonos, promises a resurrection of these selfsame traditions. For that reason this book, a slight but dense read, deserves our careful consideration.