Truls Ljungström’s Reviews > Hermeneutics and Criticism and Other Writings > Status Update

However, where they disappear to too great an extent one must admittedly rely on the next higher individuality,

11 The idiosyncrasy of style is partly idiosyncrasy of composition, partly
idiosyncrasy of linguistic usage.

10. Every utterer has an individuality of style which appears everywhere, In common writing it seems to disappear, but it is the same with this as with all individuality If one first takes what is common in large quantities it yet forms itself again into [recognisable] groups and in this way one still finds further differences.

18. Every individual element in any discourse gives a direction towards a multiplicity.
Because there is a multiplicity of manners of use for every element which immediately accrue to the word.
to. The understanding of the individual element is therefore conditioned by the understanding of the whole.
According to Introduction this is therefore also particularly the case for the grammatical side.

i. Hermeneutics rests on the fact of the non-understanding of discourse: taken in its most general sense, including misunderstanding in the mother tongue and in everyday life.
2. Non-understanding is partly indeterminacy, partly ambiguity of the content.
So it is thought of without any fault on the part of the utterer.

Början: Generell hermaneutik

The idea of the author vouches for his significance, not his individuality, but the way in which he presents the idea does vouch for his individuality. For this depends upon the particular organisation of his capacity for intuition.

1. Discovering the individuality in the composition
In general the procedure is as follows: The unity of the whole is grasped and then one sees how the individual parts relate to it overall. The former shows the idea of the author as a basis, the latter his particular way of taking hold of it and presenting it.

In the first of these one must include the state which the particular genre to which the work belongs was in before his time; to the second what w as usual in this particular and most closely adjoining area. Therefore no p re, cise understanding of this kind without knowledge of the contemporary related literature and of what was given to the author as an earlier example of the style.

Individual intuitions is not only never exhausted but also alw ays capabi of correction. One can also see this by the fact that the best test is und oubte edly imitation. But as this is so rarely successful and higher criticism is still susceptible to confusions, we must still be fairly far from our objective.