Schleiermacher's General Hermeneutics 1809-10

67

The General Hermeneutics1

by Friedrich Schleiermacher

Edited and translated by Tim Clancy S.J.2

Introduction

1. Hermeneutics is based upon the factum of non-understanding within discourse. 3

Taken in its broadest generality, this includes non-understanding

even within the mother tongue and within common life.

2. Non-understanding is due in part to the indeterminacy of the content, in part to its

ambiguity.

That is to say, it is conceived of as prescinding from any fault of

the speaker.

1. Translator’s note: Delivered in Berlin, two hours weekly (Fridays and Saturdays), November

24 to December 16, 1809 and from January 12 to March 24, 1810.

2. The German text here translated is transcribed and edited by Wolfgang Virmond and can be

found in the Internationaler Schleiermacher Kongress, 1984, Kurt-Victor Selge ed. (New

York and Berlin: De Gruyter, 1985), vol 2, 1270-1310. The organization of the text into

thesis and explication are original. Page numbers to “aphorisms” are to Kimmerle’s text,

second edition.

3. Translator’s note: Scheiermacher uses the Latin “factum” in the literal sense of a deed. Cf.

“Aphorisms.” (1805): “If we regard understanding alone to be the task of hermeneutics and

we remain true to the intuition that thought is to be treated neither as something objective nor

as a thing, but as a factum , we avoid all of the false dialectical distinctions concerning

multiple senses.”

Dilthey claimed Schleiermacher’s use of “factum” in this aphorism was an allusion

to Fichte’s claim that the first principle of philosophy is not a fact (eine Tatsache) but an act

(eine Tat). Cf. also Kant’s argument in the Critique of Practical Reason that freedom is not

theoretically demonstrable but is rather “ein Factum der Vernunft” (A55-6; Beck trans., 48).

See also Wilhelm von Humboldt: “In itself, it (language) is no product (ergon), but

an activity (energeia).” On Language: The Diversity of Human Language-Structure and its

Influence on the Mental Development of Mankind, Peter Heath trans. (New York: Cambridge

University Press, 1988) 49 (Originally published in Berlin, 1836).

The General Hermeneutics of 1809/10 68

3. Thus the art of interpretation is the art of assembling all of the conditions

necessary for understanding.

4. Others also incorrectly include an exposition of the understanding of the text.

Thus, in Ernesti, we find a chapter on the writing of

commentaries. However, this is itself a kind of composition, and so

once more an object of hermeneutics. The reason lies in the Greek

etymology of the word.4

5. Explanation appears to include too much, however, because with respect to the

original reader and hearer, familiarity with the language and the subject matter is

presupposed.5

Thus hermeneutics directs us first to grammar and to other

scholarly and scientific disciplines; otherwise, it would have to

undertake to teach us everything itself.

6. However, we arrive at language itself and at a knowledge of immaterial objects6

only through an understanding of human discourse.

Thus hermeneutics is not constructed from linguistics rather,

there is a reciprocal relationship between the two of them that makes

their boundaries difficult to determine.

7. Since we employ interpretation in this sense from childhood on, one could

consider its theory to be superfluous.

4. Translator’s note: Hermes was the messenger or herald of the gods. Thus hermeneutics

could well be thought to include proclamation of the text’s message or meaning.

5. Translator’s note: Thus, in contrast to Ernesti, Schleiermacher distinguishes hermeneutics,

or the subtilitas intelligendi from the subtilitas explicandi.

6. übersinnlichen Dingen, by which Schleiermacher is presumably referring to thoughts.


More common discourse is self-evident while higher levels of

discourse is a matter for talent and genius, which could also manage

on their own.

8. Treatises [on interpretation] originate mostly from cases where a secondary

purpose prevails. --Theologians and jurists. 7

Among the latter, the principal concern is logical interpretation

that extends beyond the literal content of the discourse. 8

Among the former, treatises became necessary because authors

had been lumped together into a codex, leading to dogmatic exegesis

and other misuses. 9

9. The true philologists and connoisseurs of discourse have not produced such

treatises, but instead satisfy themselves through praxis.

They seek to narrow the hermeneutical sphere through a more

precise determination of linguistic usage and through the creation of

an historical apparatus. What remains left over is genius, for which10

analysis offers no help (see Wolf).

10. This relationship is as with all theories of art.

7. Translator’s note: As such, these disciplines constitute fields of application, the subtilitas

applicandi, and according to Schleiermacher are to be distinguished from hermeneutics

proper (contrary to Gadamer.)

8. “Aphorisms.” (1805): “On the relationship of the meaning to the increasing number of cases

under it within juridical interpretation ...On the difference between interpreting a text and

reading something into it.”

9. Translator’s note: Canonical and dogmatic exegesis are not appropriate for hermeneutics

for Schleiermacher precisely because they prescind from a consideration of the original

historical author and audience. They do have their place, however, as part of the subtilitas

applicandi.

10. Genie.


They do not create the artist. However, the more the interpreter

is an artist, the more interesting it is to observe the interpreter’s own

craft. –Clearly, an immediate specific need is better met through

practical direction.

11. The hermeneutical craft must first begin not where understanding becomes

uncertain, but from the very outset of the undertaking of wanting to understand a

given discourse.

For understanding usually first becomes uncertain

because it has already been neglected earlier.

12. The goal of hermeneutics is understanding in its highest sense.

Lower principle: We have understood everything that we have

actually grasped without encountering a contradiction.

Higher principle: We have understood only what we have

reconstructed in all of its relationships and within its own context.

This also involves understanding an author better than he

understands himself.

13. Understanding has a double orientation: to language and to thought.

i) Language is the embodiment of all that is thinkable within it,

because it is a self-contained whole and refers to a specific way of

thinking. Everything within it is capable of being understood from

this totality.

ii) Every discourse corresponds to some train of thought of its

speaker and must therefore be fully capable of being understood from

the nature of the speaker, his or her intention and purpose.11

11. Stimmung.


The former we call grammatical interpretation; the latter,

technical interpretation.

14. These are not two types of interpretation; rather, any interpretation must

completely accomplish both.

There has often been talk of types of interpretation. However, a

type is that which fully encompasses the concept of its species within

itself. This does not happen here.

Whoever would understand only grammatically always opts for

an artless understanding.

Whoever would understand only psychologically-which one can

also call, not unjustly, a priori, will always have a philologically

naive understanding.12

15. The compatibility of the two tasks becomes evident from the relationship of the

speaker to the language–the speaker is its voice, and it is the speaker’s.13

i) Language is a guiding principle for everyone, not only

negatively, in that we cannot escape from the domain of the thought

grasped within it, but also positively, in that the language directs how

we combine thoughts through the interrelationships that lie within it.

Thus we can say only what language wants, and we are its voice.

ii) A speaker whose discourse can become an object adapts

himself or determines his manner of thinking in an individually

distinctive way. The language itself is thereby enriched with new

objects and new potentials, that always proceed from the discursive

activity of particular people.

12. unphilologische.

13. Organ.


iii) Neither the language nor the individual who speaks

creatively can subsist otherwise than through the coincidence of14

both of these relationships.

16. Precisely because in every act of understanding both tasks must be accomplished,

understanding is an art.

Each particular task could perhaps be learned through rules, and

what is able to be so learned is mechanical. Art is that over which,

while there are certainly rules, their combinatory application no

longer stands under rules. So it is with this double construction, and

with the interlinking of both tasks.

17. On each side of interpretation one of these relationships predominates.

The grammatical side places the speaker in the background and

considers him merely as a voice of the language, while language itself

is seen as the properly generative principle of discourse.

Conversely, the technical side of interpretation considers the

speaker as the real ground of discourse and considers language merely

as a negative, limiting principle. 15

18. However, we cannot consider one side as being devoted toward a lower

understanding and the other toward a higher.

14. Productivsprechend.

15. Cf. “Aphorisms” (1805): “Grammatical interpretation is properly the objective, technical, the

subjective. Thus, viewed from the perspective of construction, the former is a merely

negative principle, setting boundaries, while the latter is the positive. They cannot always

coincide because that presumes full knowledge and perfectly correct linguistic use. The art

is merely to know where one should give way to which.”


Thus while there has been talk of a higher and a lower

interpretation, in which the grammatical is called the lower, this

grammatical side also uncovers much concerning which the author

himself is not conscious, and thus leads to the highest understanding.

Likewise technical interpretation often deals with objects that

only merit a lower understanding.

19. The two sides are not equally relevant for all subjects.

For all that merely seeks to reproduce perception, the speaker

withdraws.

For all that reproduces sensation or that presents itself as a

choice, the speaker comes to the fore.

In the highest subjects, philosophy and poetry, the two are

equally important, for both the highest subjectivity and the highest

objectivity are found in each.

20. In general, however, we must resolve to so thoroughly develop each interpretive

task as though the other were missing.16

The grammatical task, as if we knew nothing of the speaker, or

as if we could only get to know the speaker by performing this task.

The technical, as if we should first become acquainted with the

language from the given discourse, because of the reliability of this

side.

21. On both sides of interpretation understanding is two-fold, qualitative and

quantitative.

16. Cf. “Aphorisms.”(1809): “Even before grammatical interpretation begins, the two sides of

the work as a whole must be distinguished. (corrected from “...it must be distinguished from

the technical side”) Beginner’s errors from neglect of this. Circumspection with regards to

rare meanings.”


(i) Word and thing, utterance and thought, need to correspond

correctly.

(ii) Weight and content need to be correctly identified, not17

taking what is secondary for what is principal, what is significant for

what is insignificant, or what is higher for what is lower, and vice

versa.

This therefore is the principal division for each side.

22. [missing]18

23. Thus, first of all, no given discourse can be understood with reference to itself

alone.

For knowledge of the author, which necessarily informs

grammatical interpretation, must come from elsewhere.

Likewise, knowledge of the object, which necessarily informs

technical interpretation, must come from elsewhere.

24. Every discourse or text is to be understood only within a larger context.

Either I am engaged in a study of the author and I already include

the author’s understanding in my own or I am engaged in a study of

17. Währung.

18. Translator’s note: While this entry is missing, Schleiermacher proceeds to draw two

conclusions from it (#23 and #27) that suggest that he introduces here his distinctive version

of the hermeneutical circle in which understanding proceeds through an oscillation between

two interpretive procedures: one, an “immediate intuition” of the individual as a unique

whole (thus #27), the other, comparisons with related passages (thus #23). #29 of technical

interpretation below would then give us at least a paraphrase of the missing entry: “To

recognize individual distinctiveness of any type, two methods must be brought together, the

immediate and the comparative.”

This reconstruction is also suggested by the later 1819 “Compendium,” in which

Schleiermacher follows his introduction of the qualitative-quantitative distinction with a

“positive” formulation for hermeneutics in which he crosses “objective” and “subjective”

sides of interpretation with a dialectic between what he there calls “divinatory” and

“historical” methods. On his shift of terminology here, see my introduction.


the object and I already know enough about it that I can link my

understanding to a definite presentation.19

(i) When I first approach the speaker, I find him involved in

specific relationships. When I approach an author in the correct way,

I find him where he is differentiated from the mass of humanity by

specific relationships.

(ii) So too when I first approach an object, I must begin with

what is designed for an initial acquaintance as an instruction or I must

grasp the object where it originally develops, i.e. as its own sphere

separated from a larger one, e.g. as philosophy from poetry; and the

other types of poetry from the epic.

(iii) When only one of these has been done, we have to supply

the other.

25. There is no correct understanding except through a thorough, step by step study.

Any thorough study is historical and begins at the beginning. All

inadequate understanding has its root in the lack of such historical

thoroughness. Now when we proceed in this way, we must recognize

that we understand only partially and incompletely.20

26. When the historical sequence is interrupted, we must fill in the gaps in some

other way.

19. Cf. “Aphorisms.” (1809): “Any understanding of a given discourse is grounded upon

something prior of two sorts: a preliminary knowledge of people and a preliminary

knowledge of the object.” Schleiermacher’s note: “‘with’ a text, either in the study of its

author or the study of its object.”

20. Cf “Aphorisms.” (1809): “Whoever wants to begin to understand an object must begin with

what is written at its beginning, where the ‘particular’ sphere is first perceived from out of

a general one. This is a general canon for pure historical study.-It is also the rule for anyone

who wants to be understood-How this also holds true in common life.”


This, for example, is the proper purpose of all

introductions to the New Testament. These tend to suffer

from a detrimental preponderance of the critical aspect

coupled with a neglect of the hermeneutical. The purpose

would have to be, as far as possible, to portray the world

from which the New Testament immediately arose.

Everyone will feel the difference it makes whether they gain

this knowledge piecemeal through particular passages or

whether they start with this which affords them a

comprehensive overview.21

27. Thus, secondly, not only is understanding of the whole conditioned by our

understanding of the particular, but also conversely, understanding of the particular

by that of the whole.22

For if the particular is to be understood as a member of a

sequence, then also the manner, exponent, and tendency of the whole

must also be known, and if it is to be understood as a product of the

language, we must already know what type of linguistic usage we are

dealing with.

28. The whole is provisionally to be understood as a particular instance of a genre,

and the intuition of that genre, i.e., the formal understanding of the whole, must

precede a material understanding of the particular.23

21. Cf. “Aphorisms.” (1809): “Where this [thorough historical study] is lacking, the first

auxiliary aid. Idea of an introduction to the New Testament.”

22. Cf. “Aphormisms” (1809) “Every understanding of the particular is conditioned by an

underderstanding of the whole.”

23. Cf “Aphorisms.” (1809): “The whole is originally understood as a genre-New genres also

develop only from a larger sphere, ultimately that of life.”


Now clearly we can initially come to a knowledge of some genre

only by knowing a particular that belongs to it; and historically, only

by knowing its earliest instances. In these particular instances we also

see the genre emerging as something new from an older familiar

sphere. Arbitrary productions never become genres and are always to

be understood from a subordinate standpoint.

29. Materially, too, the whole is to be provisionally understood in rough outline.

That is to say, only under the assumptions mentioned above. In

actual speech, the more untrained the audience, the more the speaker

is obliged to provide this overview, while the less the speaker is able

to do this, the more he or she has to speak in such a way that

everything he or she says stays fresh in the mind of the audience so

as to make later understanding easier.-e.g., in preaching or in arguing

in a court of law.

Among written discourses this constitutes the cursory reading.

The first condition [for understanding].

30. Understanding emerges through both operations completing each other; the image

of the whole is made more complete through an understanding of the particular, and

the particular is always more completely understood the more we have an overview

of the whole.

This again proves that understanding is an art. If we only had to

connect one particular to another, understanding would be a

mechanical operation. However, we can learn from experience that

we do not get very far this way. Rather, we are always having to

retrace our steps.


First Part:

The Grammatical Side Of Interpretation

1. We must next begin with the grammatical side of interpretation.

Language is the sensory and external mediator between speakers

and hearers. Of itself, the technical side can but refer to the analogy

in the inner process of thought and thus can be only non-sensory and24

internal.

2. The task is to understand the sense of a discourse from the language.

The laws of language and the content of their parts must be

already given. What we are looking for is to grasp in our own minds

what the speaker wanted to express.

3. In language two elements are to be distinguished, material and formal.

Words and connectives. Particular phonemes do not concern us,

because these are not to be considered as signifying.25

4. If interpretation is to be an art in its own right, then the meaningfulness of the

elements of language must be indeterminate in and of themselves.

If every word or phrase could only be taken in one way then

nothing would be necessary other than to know the elementary terms

and operators; there would be only grammar.

24. unsinnlich.

25. Translator’s note: By contrast, Friederich Ast had begun his Grundlinien der Grammatik,

Hermeneutik und Kritik (1802) with what can only be called a fanciful Schellingian analysis

of the transcendental significance of the vowels and consonants. (See ibid., pp.1-61.)

Schleiermacher’s view here is also in contrast to that of Morus and Herder. Herder had first

argued for an onomatopoeic etymology for the first words in his seminal prize-winning essay

“On the Origin of Language” (1772). However, Schleiermacher will not simply ignore the

tonal element of language. Later he will return to consider how sound and rhythm within

discourse can communicate feeling and mood. See #31, below.


5. Interpretation always consists in determining the grammatically indeterminate

through the grammatically determinate.

This explanation is the same for the most opposed members of

the reciprocal relationship (see Intro., #5 and #6), for insofar as

discourse is the object of interpretation, the speaker develops the

language (see Intro., #15), and so every interpretation constitutes a

further understanding of the language. Thus, the principles of

interpretation must remain the same whatever degree of familiarity

with the language is presupposed. We can learn a great deal from the

hermeneutical operation of children. Here too, incremental progress

is the norm.26

6. The elements of language can be neither (i) wholly indeterminate nor (ii) wholly

determinate.

i) Otherwise, language itself would be neither a totality nor a

unity, and neither its acquisition nor the certainty of its usage would

satisfy the exacting requirements of scholarly or scientific endeavor.

ii) The latter we encounter immediately from experience. Even

when the elements of a language are self-explanatory, each reveals

itself as a plurality.

7. For each linguistic element then we must distinguish the plurality of its usages

from the unity of its meaning.

In most cases, words actually occur variously; the sense is

determined and colored through the context. However, there is a

26. Cf. “Aphorisms,” (1809); “At the beginning of grammatical interpretation, discuss once

more the reciprocal relationship between grammar and hermeneutics. Then for the first time,

discuss how every individual also builds upon the language; that every understanding of an

individual discourse is a furthering of our understanding of the language, hence that the

principle is the same for both..”


single sphere for the word under which all of its occurrences must be

comprehended in one way or another.

8. Each individual occurrence of a linguistic element is one from among the plurality

of its usages; the unity of its meaning nowhere appears in an individual case.27

The unity of meaning is properly the idea of the word; individual

occurrences are its appearances. These latter are always colored by

their context; in them something is already posited by virtue of the

other words present or an element’s full sphere is narrowed to a

smaller one.

9. This holds just as well for the formal elements of a language as for its material

elements.

Particles lie in between these two opposites. According to their

content, they belong among the formal elements of a language, but,

according to their form, they belong among a language’s material

elements. In between particles and empirical terms are other parts of

speech that closely resemble particles, such as pronouns and many

adjectives. These in turn also draw near the mere form in that the

form sometimes necessarily follows them, and sometimes is

synonymous with them.

10. The unity of a material element is an ever further determinable schema for some

intuition; that of a formal element, an ever further determinable schema for some way

of relating.28

27. Cf “Aphorisms” (1805) First Part: “Just as Ernesti can disinguish sense (Sinn) as nothing

other than a closer determination of the Bedeutung, a particular from out of the general

semantic sphere.” (See fn. 28 on the following page for more on this distinction)

28. Beziehungsweise. Cf. “Aphorisms” (1809): “The unity of a word is a schema, a mutable

intuition.”


This viewpoint is in contrast to the customary view according to

which every empirical term originally refers to a specific sensible

thing and all other meanings are said to be derived or transposed from

this meaning. However, such derivation and transposition would then

be an entirely arbitrary and inexplicable operation.29

11. In general, the plurality of usages rests on the fact that the same schema can occur

in wholly different spheres.

The opposition between space and time (to represent form

through movement), outer and inner (discourse and thought, desire

and attainment juxtaposed) theoretical and practical (opinion and

resolve), ideal and real, (knowledge and the operation of the senses);

[further in the first draft].30

12. No element occurs immediately from the beginning in all its different spheres.

Because language does not realize the identity of the schema

everywhere immediately. This even applies in the case of a word

where we can prove a definite empirical usage to be its first and

which occurs thereafter in empirical spheres. The schema latent31

29. By the “customary view,” Schleiermacher is referring to the empirical theory of lingusitic

development espoused by Condorcet and Locke and followed by Ernesti, according to which

the meanings of words are “arbitrary,” that is, determined by convention, and all words are

treated as originally empirical terms. Once a word is coined it was thought to then acquire

further abstract and figurative meanings. Schleiermacher will agree that linguistic meaning

is “arbitrary” and “conventional” in some sense, but he will reject the notion that words have

a plurality of meanings (Bedeutungen)-as opposed to senses or usages (Sinnen)-because this

would be to treat the meaning of any given word as a “mere aggregate” rather than as an

organic whole. He rejects the notion of synonymy as well for similar reasons (see #73-78

below.)

30. See “First Draft,” Grammatical Interpretation, #4, above.

31. Cf. “Aphorisms” (1809): “We must not confuse a term’s first use with its meaning. Just as

a word is affected by the inflections of its surroundings, so too is its meaning. We are to be

particularly hesitant in researching a word’s meaning when we want to affix it to something

sensible.”


within the word emerges more and more strongly until it becomes

predominant, and the individual case retains merely the force of an

example.

13. When the pattern of its usages takes a different direction, either a given word32

must become obsolete or its schema must shift somewhat.

For example: “Fremdling” (“foreigner”) and “Feindseligkeit”

(“hostility”) may have been joined together in one word as

precipitating cause and inner effect. When these separate either the

word must become obsolete or it can continue to mean only one of

the two.

14. Many words enter the language from the more common people through

misunderstandings of usage.

Actually, this is the domain of usus tyrannus, [the tyranny of

use,] when a usage becomes deeply rooted before it is properly

known. Corrective action from above remains a roll of the dice. In33

an individual case, it is rash to explain something as merely a manner

of linguistic usage until one can explain the reason for its emergence.

15. Thus in no discourse is the sense of any individual element clear in and of itself,

and so the grammatical side of interpretation is a true task.

For even if the inner essence of a word is known, although it

never actually appears, we must always identify the relationship of the

actual occurrence to the word’s inner essence first. However, this

must admit of being learned from the context, because the context

determines the sphere within which the word comes into play.

32. Combinationsweise

33. Wagestück.


16. What is to be determined in each case is the particular way in which a word is

used. This must be traced back to a unity that therefore is presupposed as already

known. However, we can only gradually arrive at the knowledge of this inner unity

through an understanding of individual acts of discourse. Thus, whenever the inner

unity is to be found, the art of interpretation is also presupposed.

Thus we return to the difficulty mentioned above in Intro., #6. It

can be resolved through the relationship of the speaker to the

language mentioned above (Intro., #15). Every understanding of

discourse is a further understanding of the language. To understand

language means to know the unity of the words. Thus, both are one

and the same operation.

17. We can be sure that we have found the inner unity only when we can

systematically compile the totality of all the ways the word is used. Such a

compilation, however, can never be closed. Thus the task is strictly infinite and can

be achieved only by approximation.

The first instances of this approximation are subject to the same

principles as the last, and thus the procedure must be essentially the

same.

Hence, hermeneutics has much to learn from the procedures

followed in childhood.

However, precisely because understanding is sequential, we can

arrive at an understanding of each subsequent link only through its

predecessor. Only by such a step by step progression is true

understanding possible.

18. Each individual element of discourse is oriented of itself toward a manifold.

Because for each word there is a plurality of usages equally

befitting that word.


19. Thus, the understanding of the particular is conditioned by the understanding of

the whole.

According to Intro., #27, this follows especially for the

grammatical side.

20. The whole for an individual element is first of all the entire discourse, then the

particular organic part in which it immediately occurs.

Canon: the grammatically indeterminate in the particular

elements must be determined by their context.

For this latter occurs in the descent from the whole through its

particular organic parts to its elements and vice versa. The

determination must begin from the whole, taken as that which is most

properly opposed to the element, because it is precisely in this

opposition that help is supposed to lie.

21. The general notion of the whole already circumscribes the diversity of particulars,

in that it embodies it in a specific genre.

For, material elements just as much as formal elements have a

different sphere in poetry and in prose, in scholarly or scientific

treatises, and in colloquial essays.

22. The general notion of the whole also circumscribes the diversity of particulars in

that it places the term in a definite period of the language.

This already follows from Intro., #12. We can assume three

periods in particular for any language that attains a full life:

i) a pre-scientific period, in which all oppositions are not yet

developed, and so where licence and vagueness predominate, and in

which its meaningfulness is not yet exhausted. [For example,] with

the Greeks until Socrates, due to the condition of philosophy.


ii) its proper flourishing. Evidence: philosophy and art alongside

one another. [For example,] among the Greeks until the Macedonians.

iii) a period of affectation, degeneracy, a predilection for what is

foreign.

The differences between these major periods also occur

on a smaller scale within each specific period, and at any

given time, specific domains bear the character of specific

periods.

In each of these cases, a unique circle of meaningfulness is

determined for each element.

23. Complete determination, however, can come to fruition only from the smaller

whole in which the element immediately appears.

For more precise delimitations must be added first here, and it is

first here that the different hermeneutical operations find their point

of convergence.

Determination of the Material Elements

24. The manifold (#18) is more fully determinate, if perhaps also more

encompassing, when the notion of a word’s essence is already closed.

Because then it is enclosed within the boundaries of a rather

definite schema.

25. The manifold is more indeterminate, although perhaps less encompassing , when

we have only a small number of usages.

Because we then feel our ignorance of the word more keenly.

However, we do not yet know in what directions to look for other

usages.


26. i) The fewer the particular types of use we have compiled, the less we ought to

venture lightly beyond what we already know.34

ii) The more certain we are already about the schema, the easier we may presume

what is to be subsumed under it.

Regarding i): Because unfamiliarity with the schema is precisely

what leads to indeterminacy. In such a case the force of the context

must be very strong; or one must enjoy outside assistance. Both are

usually the case in the learning of one's mother tongue and so are to

be imitated when learning a foreign language. It is dangerous to use35

dictionaries too early, when we do not yet know how to find the

principle that relates the various usages, or when we do not yet know

how to distinguish the different spheres.

“Fewer” is to be understood not in terms of the number of

usages, but in terms of the number of different types. Fewer types of

usage taken from opposed spheres lead more quickly to the true

schema than do more usages all taken from the same sphere.

The correct model for extrinsic help for beginners are indices,

which must be worked up in this sense.

Regarding ii) Occasionally, we can identify a still unfamiliar

usage with the greatest assurance from a single passage. However, the

less familiar we are with the schema, the more we ought to be careful

with regard to uncommon usages.--the usual interpretive errors made

by beginners.

When particular usages can be given only gradually, every step

forward is purely empirical. In that we adopt new usages from the

34. Cf. “Aphorisms ” (1809): “Regarding orientation to the indeterminate: the less sure we are

of the meaning, the more strictly we ought to keep to the given usage.”

35. Cf. “Aphorisms” (1809): “In our mother tongue we follow a natural progression within the

whole and within the individual linguistic sphere. In foreign languages, we ought to do

likewise and have dictionaries only to take the place of finding someone to ask.”


schema, this progress is constructive, a spontaneous imitation of the

gradual expansion of the language. We see how the two aspects

[empirical and constructive] reciprocally condition each other; how

in childhood the initial outset of the empirical already leads to the

constructive.

27. In order to draw as close as possible to the complete totality of usages, we ought

to supplement our own experience with dictionaries.36

These either proceed from an empirical perspective, as a

collection of usages, or endeavor to be constructive.37

At a minimum, we must be able to learn from them which usage

has flowed out of which spheres.

28. The notion of the whole even in rough outline restricts the manifold of particulars

insofar as it determines an object.38

Naturally thereby those elements that immediately designate the

principal object are assumed to be known (in accord with Intro., #24).

A specific sphere is then circumscribed by these elements into which

everything must be arranged.

29. A word that emerges as the subject can be determined in this manner when the

sentence in which it occurs deals with an aspect of the object itself.

For then it belongs in a relationship with the known principal

elements.

36. “Aphorisms,” (1809): “Dictionaries are to be used later [rather than earlier.]”

37. Schleiermacher’s note: “Usually only as in Part 1, #10. With usages we must bracket

everything that is a judgement [of a dictionary’s editors] as much as possible and undertake

the task of construction for ourselves.”

38. “Aphorisms,” (1809): “The orientation toward the manifold [of linguistic uses] is just as

essential as the orientation toward [specific] determination..”


30. When a sentence does not deal with such an aspect, then only its predicate can

be determined in that way.

For this alone can be the reason why the sentence has emerged

in the presentation.

31.The notion of the whole influences the determination of an element insofar as it

depends upon the relationship of the musical aspect to the grammatical aspect.

Language, as a totality of sounds, is a musical system. This

musical aspect is also operative in every discursive act. Moreover, as

its efficacy is grounded in something other than signification, the two

can come into conflict.39

The musical aspect of language operates in part directly upon

feeling and in part by making an impression on the memory. Thus

the more the speaker intends to evoke a feeling, or the more he or she

needs to appeal to memory, the more often the speaker will end up

sacrificing grammatical correctness for musical strength. The genre

must then determine where, due to the predominance of the musical,

such a deviation [from the grammatical] is to be presumed, and where

not.

On the prosaic side, the aphorism typifies the predominance of

the musical, while the mathematical formula typifies its withdrawal.

In higher, didactic addresses musicality can be merely a game and

must never interfere with grammatical correctness.

32. Every sentence originally consists in only two elements, subject and predicate.

This is the theory of Plato and certainly also of his predecessors.

Aristotle was the first to discover the copula. In intuition the linkage

39. Translator’s note: Cf. #3 above: “Particular phonemes ... are not considered as signifying.”


between them is not mediated but immediate. The verb alone is the

simple form of the predicate. Adjectives are originally derived from

verbs. After their derivation the mere form of the verb (the copulative

“to be”) is then left over as a caput mortuum [i.e., as an empty

placeholder]. Many primitive verbs have been lost in this way.

Resolving a verb into a participle together with the verb “to be” is a

perversion.40

33. The subject must get its ultimate determination through the predicate and the

predicate through the subject.41

For it is clear that after their spheres are already more narrowly

delimited only that part of the one sphere that can equally well be a

part of the other is admissible.

34. Every expanded sentence must be treated in the same way.

In an expanded sentence the two principal components are either

divided into several parts or more exactly set forth by secondary

determinations.

If the sphere of one of the components divides into several

smaller ones, it is that much easier to compare them with one another,

since they must be related to one another.

Secondary determinations can be resolved into sentences in

which they are the predicate. They thereby provide further resources

40. Cf. “Aphorisms” (1805): “The Harris-Wolfian theory of Greek verbs can hardly be correct

because it treats the matter too conceptually and abstractly and too little as something living.

It comes originally from Stoic dialectics. Also it does not fully resolve the task of

grammatical understanding and does not find full confirmation in inflection.

The theory of the absolute and the conditional [moods] that is applied to the more

recent languages can [also] hardly be correct for these languages which rely more on a

empowering [Potenzirung] of the main verb by means of a helping verb.”

41. Cf. “Aphorisms” (1809): “The subject is delimited from the whole, insofar as it is a part of

the object; the predicate is delimited insofar as the subject is a secondary association.”


[for understanding] such that what is more complicated is at the same

time an advantage.

35. Every complex sentence must be resolved into a simple one.

In the case of periodic sentences that constitute a true unity, this

is certainly difficult, but always possible. A sound understanding is

not possible without this.

36.The subject and predicate of a sentence are then also to be determined from the

subject and predicate of its corresponding opposite.

Both must be understood within the sense of the expanded

sentence as a whole.

In the complex sentence the form of opposition predominates

everywhere. Oppositions can range from parallelisms in which the

second sentence is merely an echo of the first and the opposition is

merely spatial, to a logically strict opposition; from partial opposition

(the subject with an opposed predicate and predicate with an opposed

subject) to total contradiction.

Differences of genre must be attended to as much as

differences of languages. Opposition does not play as large

a role in modern language as it does in ancient languages.

37. The above rules are not to be used in a piecemeal manner.

Only when taken together do they represent the rules relating to

the simple sentence (#33) and thus constitute a whole in themselves.

In practice, however, they presuppose an understanding of the

formal element, because only with this can the components of the

expanded sentence be correctly parsed and the complex sentence


correctly analyzed. This task is always only achievable by

approximation.

Also our judgment as to which of the many individual

components or parts is the most pertinent depends partly on induction

from the formal elements, partly on an artistic, hermeneutical sense

or feeling.42

38. The determination that emerges up to here suffices only for flawless composition.

Seldom do speakers fully place themselves in the position of

their audience, let alone beyond their immediate audience. Rather,

they believe that a great deal of what is clear only to them must also

be completely clear to their audience.

With regard to the two kinds of deficiencies, ambiguity and

indeterminacy, ambiguity tends to be more closely related to the

formal element, indeterminacy to the material element, for ambiguity

can cling to a word only insofar as we still waver between opposed

linguistic usages (#11). This is no longer possible after applying the

above instructions.

39. If indeterminacy remains, we must seek means of clarification outside the

sentence in which the element occurs.

Indeterminacy clings to a word when there still remains a

wavering between the general and the particular; when we do not

know whether the speaker has in mind the particular [semantic]

sphere as a whole or only a part of it; or when one does not know

42. Translator’s note: Corresponding to #24-37 see the summary sketch in “Aphorisms” (1809):

From whence arises the determination? First, the material element. The immediate context.

The essential components of the sentence. Contraction of expanded sentences. Subject and

predicate determined through each other and each through its appositions. All conditioned

through the formal element that must determine how everything fits together.


whether the speaker did not use a general word since he or she

intended to refer to only a few specific instances.

40. Even when the hearer does not reach an understanding through a step by step

progression, the immediate context may prove insufficient for him or her.

Such cases are very extensive, just as common in foreign

languages as in our own. Almost everywhere we reach understanding

through a leap.

41. The more unintelligibility clings to a specific discourse, the more we must seek

means of clarification from its context alone.

Because then a [specific] usage particularly determined by the context

is to be presupposed.

42. Canon for such a case: The closer a clarifying resource is to the passage to be

clarified, the more reliable its aid.

Closeness here is not to be understood mechanically. The rule

that a word in the same train of thought should be taken with one and

the same meaning is subject to a thousand exceptions and is very

limited.

43. Just as a periodic sentence is to be resolved into a simple sentence, so every

discourse as a whole is to be resolved into a periodic sentence. Passages that

correspond to one another according to the construction of the discourse as a whole

are naturally parallel.43

43. Cf. “Aphorisms.” (1809) “Hugo Grotius called parallel passages ‘coniuncta origine et loco’

[literally, “things conjoined by origin and by place”].”


The difference between the freest and the strictest composition

constitutes only a relative opposition. An analogue to rhythmic

construction exists in every whole, that does not fall entirely within

the bounds of speech.

On Parallel Passages

44. Parallels are of two types: word parallels and thought parallels:

i) Where the same word occurs in other contexts from which it

can be understood such that the parallelism either calls for the same

identical meaning or evokes a specific analogy.

ii) Where the word in question does not occur at all, but where

through the parallelism, the thought is recognized as the same or as

analogous in some specific manner.

45. In order to determine the parallels correctly, we must distinguish whether the

word to be clarified belongs to the subject or the predicate of the discourse as a

whole.

For the arrangement differs depending on the way in which the

object breaks down [into its constituent parts] and the way in which

the result [of understanding] is gradually produced.

46. Greater or lesser certainty arises from the difference of genres and from the

perfection of the authors.

i) Even the freest of compositions, lacking even a single refrain,

has something cyclical about it, by which it forms an array of

relationships.

ii) The less the author adheres to the rules of composition, the

less we can depend on him or her.


47. The less what remains unclear pertains to the specific discourse, the more we are

driven beyond the discourse itself in our search for aid in understanding it.

For then the cause of the unintelligibility lies in some larger

sphere and must be grasped from this.

General indication: I could have encountered the same unintelli-

gibility just as well elsewhere.

48. What a discourse imports from a foreign sphere can be clarified from all the other

discourses the main object of which this is.

This is an intermediate case. The unintelligibility here can be due

either to the author or to the reader.

49. If what pertains to the essence of a discourse is objectively unintelligible, it can

be clarified from whatever pertains to the same sphere.

i) In this case it can be assumed that the unintelligibility is due to

the reader.

ii) The maxim for clarification remains the same, for all of these

do constitute, as it were, one logos.

50. As far as parallels are concerned, all authors who deal with the same object are

to be treated as one.

The canon in cases of scholarly or scientific unintelligibility.

However, we must not transgress its limits and apply it to purely

philological unintelligibility.

General schema for philosophy. While in each nation everything

together constitutes one culture, it is animated through a multitude of

individualities and relative oppositions.


The more an author is substantively rich and unintelligible, the

more this canon should be only a supplement to the others already

mentioned above.

51. Only those authors who offer the same type of treatment are really one.

i) Concept of the school in the schema of philosophy.

ii) The more varied the ways in which an object has been treated,

the more the former canon must be limited by this object, and the

more the smaller unity must prevail.

52. Only those authors who have treated it in the same period of the language are to

be regarded as one.

This refers in part to the principal periods of language in general

(i.e. the transition from poetry to prose, from undifferentiated unity

to pairs of contrasted opposites) and in part to specific periods of each

technical area of language in particular.

53. Authors who fall more into the artistic domain and who belong to one and the

same genre are to be regarded as one.

Canon for poetry, history, and oratory.

The unifying bond is in part the cycle of myth and aphorism, in

part a like participation in the musicality of a language.

54. Here too subcategories and periods are to be distinguished.

Periods do not proceed strictly chronologically. Rather, periods

of imitative retrieval are to be considered with the original period they

retrieve. For example, the Alexandrian poets and Homer.


55. Both perspectives come together when, in order to be sure, we proceed initially

only from the smaller unit and proceed beyond this only when it is insufficient and

when we seek to differentiate what pertains to each given sphere.

This latter presumes an accurate knowledge of the subject matter,

which can itself only be acquired hermeneutically. Thus the old circle

of interpretation.

56. Whatever remains unintelligible in a discourse viewed purely as language can be

clarified from all that belongs to the same sphere of language.

A general indication is the feeling that the same unintelligibility

could also be encountered elsewhere. A further intimation of its

sense can be gained from the context, to which, however,

grammatical considerations also apply and which thus requires

grammatical confirmation.

Here clearly the unintelligibility is due to the reader, except in the

case of completely uncultivated authors.

57. Here also, the same caution holds for both the larger and the smaller unit.

The smallest unit is a personal use of language, the largest, an

entire period of a language or a dialect. It is one-sided when one

concedes too much to the one or the other. Here too the rule holds

that each author is his or her own best interpreter, that is, that we

must begin by looking for parallel usages in the same author. The

field of larger units can be most reliably constructed by such efforts.

The Greeks offer the most fruitful example.

Even here the parallels need not always be literal; rather, we need

to construct gradually an analogy.


Determination of the formal elements44

58. In the case of the formal element it is far more difficult to attain a unified schema.

Practically the only exception here is the persons of the verbs,

which, however, do contain a disguised subject. Regarding cases,

prepositions, tenses, and moods, it is almost always very difficult to

find a unifying schema due to the wide variety of linguistic usages

involved.

59. However, this does not mean that we should deviate from a strictly grammatical

proof by simply drawing conjectures from the context (Cf. #9, #26.)

This is virtually the principal characteristic by which a

philological reading is distinguished from a non-philological one. It

is the principal source of superficiality.

60. The observations of grammarians provide assistance to our own experience.

However, these observations must first be hermeneutically constructed themselves.

Interpreters are often too hasty here. In the case of a sentence

with a perfectly clear meaning, it is all too easy to place something

that belongs elsewhere into a formal element. For this reason, no

unproven usages for any difficult cases.

61. The simple sentence has only one formal element: the manner in which the

predicate term, the verb, is related to the subject term, the noun.

i) Here there is only mood and tense to consider. Number and

person merely indicate the unexpressed subject or that which

corresponds to the expressed subject.45

44. Schleiermacher’s note: Opposed to the material element in virtually all hermeneutical

relationships.

45. Schleiermacher’s note: On sentences with an impersonal verb.


ii) The nominative, as the single natural element of the simple

sentence, is not to be considered a case at all, and thus presents merely

an apparent duality. Indeed, the article is formed only to accord with46

this apparent duality in analogy with the verbal article, or it pertains

merely to gender duality.

62. Thus with respect to the formal element, expanded and periodic sentences cannot

be reduced into simple sentences.

For the formal element is not expanded from inside outward, as

in the case of the material element, but is multiplied from the outside.47

All the more reason why the material reduction already

presupposes an understanding of all formal elements.

63. Thus additional elements indicate in part a relation of more exact determinations

to the subject and the predicate, in part to the relation of the corresponding sentences

to one another, and of subordinate sentences to the whole.

Insofar as the discourse in its entirety must be considered as

reducible to a simple sentence, the element connecting the larger

sentences also belongs here, since these sentences are likewise

coordinating and subordinating.

46. Translator’s note: Schleiermacher’s point appears to be that in the case of the simple

sentence (consisting only in a subject and a verb) there are two material elements, or terms,

joined by one formal element, the mood and tense of the verb. By considering all other

“oblique” cases to be declined from the nominative, Schleiermacher can treat the nominative

itself as not declined but as a noun’s “natural” form. The sentence that follows explains why

the nominative is nevertheless accompanied by an article and so treated as if it were another

case.

47. Translator’s note: That is, in the syntax of an expanded sentence, simple sentences are

extrinsically combined, whereas in their semantics, the meanings of their juxtaposed terms

intrinsically delimit one another to a concrete sense.


64. When difficulties that are not due to the fault of the speaker arise for a qualified

audience we certainly do not begin by seeking help from the context of the discourse

itself.

For nothing that pertains specifically to the particular discourse is

to be sought in the formal element, and, for just this reason, the

speaker too is less able to determine its sphere in this respect in an

individually distinctive manner. Just as the formal element in and of

itself is the more elusive element, so too, on the other hand, it allows

the least freedom to the individual.

65. The area of parallels stands in analogy with the whole language, bounded in

accord with its dialects, periods, and genres of discourse.

i) This demarcation, of course, is itself further bounded, for there

are many elements that occur without differentiation throughout the

language as a whole.

ii) We can divide all languages into three classes:

a) those that exhibit a pure unity of form, so that we can

just as well consider them to be a larger unit, a unique

language, as consider them to be a smaller unit, i.e. a dialect,

yet one remaining unmixed within a larger unit.

b) those that have emerged from a mixture of smaller root

dialects and perdure for a period of time as a chaos of

diverse, equally valid forms and then only gradually come to

form a determinate language. Model: Greek (originally from

Hellenic and Pelasgian, perhaps still interwoven.) Within this

class, three periods can be distinguished: the chaotic, the

transitional, and the mature.

c) those that first appeared as languages having already

absorbed languages of foreign root. Model: German (here the


periodic division gives way more to one between those

authors who seek to cultivate determinacy and those who

merely follow custom and the common ear.)

iii) With regard to genre, didactic and lyric constitute the two

extremes. In the former, the sense of the formal elements must be

determined as precisely as possible; in the latter, this is relatively

vague. In the former, the opposed meanings (Cf. Intro., #11.) that

come into question here are to be kept firmly apart; in the latter, they

flow into one another.

66. In the difficult part of the formal element, particles and inflection must only be

regarded as a single whole, and taken up through analogy.

The larger unities as such are difficult to determine, for example,

epi and pros or the subjunctive. Frequent mistakes occur here due to

seeking the schemata for these prematurely. Hence the correct maxim

here is temporarily to make the wholes as small as the nature of the

language allows. This, however, will be more or less possible for each

language.

67. Peculiarities among individual authors in the usage of the formal elements are

usually imperfections.

Because there is a lack of clear consciousness and spontaneity is

subordinate, we easily accustom ourselves to something. Or, as

children do, we follow an analogy that exerts a strong pull and yet is

not correct. The extent to which an author may be linguistically

creative pertains to this sphere (Cf. #14.)

Such indulgence largely accounts for the difference between

classical authors and non-classical authors. Even though an author


lacks a clear consciousness, the genius of the language still speaks

forth purely instinctively.

68. Even among the best authors, it is not possible to avoid hermeneutical difficulties.

Ambiguity predominates here just as indeterminacy does in the

case of the material elements. Causes of ambiguity:

i) grammatical homonyms, which occur to a greater or

lesser extent in every language

ii) when we cannot determine whether a connective

particle affects a subordinate part or a larger whole.

The more authors find themselves in an inspired state the easier

they can confuse subjective clarity with objective clarity. By virtue of

this, affected authors, lacking any content, can achieve an appearance

of the classical. Critical readers are more likely to encounter these

difficulties; others often overlook them in their reading without harm.

The freer the structure, the more difficulties accumulate.

69. For such difficulties the only resource lies in the context.

Parallels here are naturally out of the question. Assistance lies in

part in the combinatory grammatical understanding of the whole, in

part in the results of technical interpretation.

70. We must assemble all possible references and not rest until the superior facility

of one presents itself, together with the greater implausibility of all the others.

Otherwise, a feeling of uncertainty will remain. Familiarity with

the train of thought must do a great deal here. The less technical

interpretation can gain ground, the more difficult this remains.


71. The difference inherent in the languages themselves between a freer and a more

fixed structure is of lesser influence.

For the freer the structure, the fewer the grammatical homonyms,

and vice versa.

72. However, the more fixed the genre of the discourse and the less error- prone the

author, the surer the decision is as to which reading is correct.

For superior plausibility is always based on the fact that in the

other possible cases the expression would be less precise.

On the Quantitative Understanding of Both Elements48

73. [First Category:] With regard to all so-called synonyms, too much or too little

understanding is each possible.

Too much, if we emphasize the difference between the one and

the other when the author neglects it; too little in the opposite case.

Clarification over synonyms: everything is based on the principle that

there are no strict synonyms.

i) That in one and the same language, one and the same schema

is not expressed through two signs is just as necessary a principle as

that two schemata cannot ground one and the same word. No principle

to the contrary can be found.

ii) When a language has arisen from a multitude of dialects,

several signs appear to need to be brought together for the same

schema. However, in part the shared unity of the schema is then quite

soon divided, and there develops for each sign a particular

determination to a specific sphere, and in part, each dialect, just as

48. Schleiermacher’s note: Addition to #21 of the introduction. The difficulty rests on events in

the history of the language that need to be clarified.


each language, has its own perspective such that already from the

beginning the schemata are not identical.

iii) Synonyms usually arise from what were originally entirely

different relationships, often referring, however, to the same empirical

object, and hence ending up being interchangeable with each other,

admittedly always in a more or less indeterminate linguistic usage.

They resemble circles the centers of which are closer than the sum of

their radii. The outer part of their spheres thus overlap while their

inner parts remain separate.

74. We understand the relationship of synonyms to one another when we compare the

cases in which one can be substituted for the other with those cases in which they

cannot.

Then even in the former cases all hidden differences must be

uncovered and the superficiality of their interchangeability brought to

light. The only systematic procedure is to follow these lines of diverse

usage from their common sphere out to the periphery of each circle

and then to construct the center of each from out of these.49

75. Within the inner core of every didactic discourse we must presuppose that usage

is exact.

The more everything here is constructed, the more each must be

referred to a certain inner core. Where everything is internal, as in

Aristotle, this must apply everywhere. In the case of something

external, however, such a separation must not be made, even if it is

49. Translator’s note: The result then would be a diagram in which the meaning of the two terms

would be designated by two overlapping circles. The area of the circles’ intersection would

delimit the extent of the interchangeability of the two terms. Were two terms absolutely

synonymous, one would be left with only one circle for both.


materially related to what is internal, as is frequently the case with

Plato.

76. The less technical the character of the discourse, the more we can assume that

differences [between relatively synonymous terms] are not being taken into account.

Thus, for example, in what occurs as merely ancillary, or what

approaches entirely the sphere of common life, where a simple

empirical referent suffices.

77. To the degree that the musical element predominates, it is also possible that a less

adequate term is deliberately chosen.

Because the rhythmic effect is then often of greater significance

than some small improvement in the precision of an expression.

78. The application of these rules is modified by our knowledge of the proficiency of

the author.

Even in the freest domain of poetry the good author uses this

freedom only where there is a clear basis for it in the musical character

and where the context offers a sure guide. The mediocre author is

always inclined to push the boundaries.

79. Second Category: Among all words that permit of a more or less and in which an

intensity inheres it is possible to read in them either too much or too little.

Virtually all words that do not express substantial forms belong

here to a greater or lesser extent. In one way or another they can all be

subsumed under the idea of an activity. (Verbs first of all, then

adverbs, adjectives, and lastly, substantives derived from adjectives.)

Each of these belongs to a range [of terms] the members of which

delimit various transitions or gradations of intensity. The force of each


member in such a range varies because some of them die out from

time to time as either too weak or as common and base.

Examples: especially formulaic expressions of politeness, and

poetic expressions. Corruption, however, is not always the reason for

such fluctuations.

Usually, what is treated here concerns only what belongs under

emphasis. However, emphasis is only the stress given to a particular

word for a particular case, not fluctuations in a word’s natural force.

80. We must have a notion of a word’s normal intensity and thus for each word have

in mind its entire range.

The normal intensity of a word differs, however, in different

periods of a language, and so too in different genres of discourse.

81. Every direct specific usage relates to the word's normal intensity either as an

elevation to a higher level or as an abasement to a lower one.

We can divide authors of any period and genre according to

whether the one or the other constitutes their principle and practice.

Moderation within the whole is the elevating principle for the

particular; forcefulness within the whole, the principle behind its

abasement.

82. Beyond this, there is also an indirect usage in which the highest approaches the

lowest and vice versa.

The lowest, expressed negatively, is often the greatest elevation;

this is virtually a rule among the Greeks. The highest can be ironically

equated with the lowest. We Germans are said to be particularly

incapable of understanding this latter. There must be something to this.


83. Each case can be recognized for sure only through accentuation.

To acquire an accurate feel for this requires hermeneutical

practice, beginning with inversion as the most tangible and most

primitive means and extending to the most refined rhythmic and

musical relationships.

In our language, rhythm is particularly suited to denote the

intensity of an expression. We see this, among other places, in the

comic effects that arise immediately from an inverted treatment.

84. What emerges from a return to the same schema under different potencies belongs

jointly under this and under the previous category [i.e. synonymy].

Potencies of the power of nature, of life, and of consciousness.

Since these potencies are only gradually discovered, the same

expressions are indiscriminately used for them. Fixed determinations

can be formed only very gradually, not everywhere all at once, and

remain valid for those who are able to have an overview of everything.

Herein lies, for the most part, the reason for misunderstandings in

philosophy. Everything here depends on the dominant notions being

accurately grasped from the context of the whole, if we are not to be

misled by similarities in sound.

85. Third Category: It can be doubtful whether secondary associations produced by50

the text are intended or not, and thus we can come away with too little or read in too

much.

To be sure, each word is bound up with the unity of what is

thought, but through the ordinary laws of combination notions that do

not belong to that unity can still be evoked through memory. In every

50. Nebenvorstellungen.


listening and reading we are full of such notions. Most of these can be

recognized as having arisen simply from our subjectivity, and these are

of no concern here, indeed they must be put aside. However, there are

others which we have reason to believe the author also had, but it

remains uncertain whether the author put them aside or had wove

them into the intent of the discourse.

86. Secondary associations that arise of themselves from the subjective sphere

common to both author and reader, are to be taken as intentional only when we can

demonstrate a specific encouragement to do so and when they produce a specific

effect.

For if authors want these associations, they also want to ensure

that they occur and so must do something for those who could be less

disposed to discover them for themselves. However, since they must

actually work against any other associations slipping in as distractions,

authors can intend them only in order to achieve something specific.

87. Under intended associations belong, first of all, figurative expressions, that besides

a general similarity, should also transfer a particular feature from one object to

another.

According to #11 and #12 above, we attribute a great deal to the

literal expression that for others is figurative. However precisely

because we claim that in “coma arborum” hair should actually be

represented at the same time, so the foliage should actually be thought

of under a foreign schema and all its characteristics should be applied

to it, thus not merely developed extremities, but also lushness,

ornamentation etc.


88. The force of figurative expressions diminishes with habitual use. For this reason

dissimilarity can arise in the notions of reader and author.

i) For example, concerning Augenweide, [feast for the eyes,

literally, “eyes-pasture”], no one thinks anymore of the original notion;

rather, all the associations have disappeared and only the generic

resemblance has remained. This happens gradually through usage, in

part by the speaker applying the expression where the associations do

not fit, in part by the hearers overlooking them, so that everything that

was said above about the waning of vivid expressions is to be applied

here.

ii) Thus, when the expression is still new for the hearer, but old

for the speaker, the former will read more into it than the latter intends.

However, the converse can also occur, that for later hearers the image

has already become old, and thus they take away less than the author

intended. Also the ways nationalities perceive reality can lead to

differences in effect, because what comes naturally to one appears hard

and forced to another. Thus an accurate understanding of particular

expressions can only be attained through familiarity with the whole

way of thinking.

Orientalism involves a doubly false procedure.

Also the decadent affectation by later authors who employ images

only as rhetorical flourishes impedes the understanding of those for

whom these actually arise in a natural manner.

89. In order to appreciate figurative expressions correctly, we must keep in mind the

whole series of transformations in the area in question as well as the character of the

author.

The first, in order to judge accurately the normal force of the

expression at the time of its usage (cf #80); the second, in order to


know whether it is elevating or abasing (#81) and whether it is affected

or natural (#88).

90. In a particular instance we have to judge how much the author intended to allude

to general similarities on the basis of such considerations and from the context.

Example: When we make “swarm,” which is hardly a figurative

expression at all for us, into one by deriving it from a swarm of bees,

we still only understand by it a disorderly moving mass; the Greeks

however, when they used sçmnos figuratively, also intended to connote

the desire to attack and to sting.

91. Further, that kind of allusion also belongs here, that is not to be explained merely

from the subjective combination of the speaker but which instead has an objective,

grammatical basis.

This belongs under technical interpretation. Grammatical

interpretation alone can only produce the intuition that there is

something here, but it cannot clarify it.

92. An objective allusion is always a hidden citation, either of a literary passage or of

a fact from a classical domain.

(i) Just as associations from a figurative expression could also be

placed alongside it, so that an orderly comparison arises, so too what

is to be elicited in memory could also be placed alongside, resulting in

a complete citation.

(ii) The classical domain is that which speakers can assume to be

familiar to everyone in their immediate audience, such as the Bible,

Homer, and a particular period of history.


93.Drawing too much from an expression is possible here only by confusing a

generality with a particularity, or through sheer fiction.

(i) Just as the power of a figurative expression is gradually lost, so

too is that of certain allusions through too frequent repetition.

Particular figures of speech from certain passages become proverbial,

as do memories of particular incidents. For example, when a man calls

his wife his "rib", this only gives the impression of an enduring sphere

in which such expressions can be customary. The incidents can even

be so forgotten that they seem mythical. For example, with “Ohrfeige”

[ a slap in the face, or box on the ear.] To look for the specific allusion

in this expression is to read too much into it.

(ii) The most complete schema for fiction in this sense is the

Cabbala, which seeks multiple senses. The actual reason for this lies

in an exaggerated belief in the content of a discourse such that we seek

a particular significance for everything in it. Virtually everyone

“cabalizes” their favorite author to a certain extent.

94. To come away from a discourse with too little is the natural case, because a

citation is something that is self-concealing.

Especially because everything is addressed to the eyes [of the

reader], we are used to the crassest means of recognition. Thus when

these are lacking, especially with the ancients, we are all too apt to

overlook them. Hence so many discoveries are still to be made here.

95. Every author must take into account, even within their immediate circle, those for

whom a connection does not come so easily and so point to it.


Where there is smoke, there is fire. Often a single particle can51

conceal a formulaic citation. Yet clearly, we must first have placed

ourselves in the same sphere with the speaker.

96. Since an allusion from the classical domain is always historically distant, some

indication must already be present in the language.

This clearly holds for the ancients more than for us, where

contemporary history and philosophy provide the context, and for

verbal allusions more than for allusions to actual facts.

New Testament Greek follows the Septuagint too slavishly. Here

an exact acquaintance with the text supercedes everything.

97. With this exposition, the essential components of the task of grammatical

interpretation as well as the repertoire of its resources are exhausted.

There are no other grammatical disputes beyond those treated

above, and with the last, we have already approached the domain of

the technical side of interpretation.

However because technical interpretation has to make a

contribution everywhere, even if remotely, the above must be

followed by a living treatment of the discourse as a whole.

51. Irgendwo muß die Hand mit dem Finger stehn. Literally, “The hand must always be with the

finger.”


Second Part:

The Technical Side Of Interpretation

1. The sense of the task is to understand the particulars of a coherent discourse in

terms of the specific train of thought of its author.52

Naturally, this means to know it not only as a possibility but just

as determinately from this ground, as it is known grammatically from

out of the language.

2. As proceeding from one particular to another, technical interpretation presumes the

grammatical.

For at least two sentences must be known in order to have one

combinatory element, and thus these together with their linkage must

be already understood grammatically.

3. To complete the grammatical side, the technical is presumed.

For in order to determine the grammatically indeterminate,

knowledge of the whole is presupposed. This whole is present

however only as a train of thought and can only be so understood. So

too with regard to ambiguity among particulars, the train of thought is

always one of the determining factors.

4. The technical operation therefore also embraces the whole business of

interpretation.

That is, it must begin at the same time as the task of interpretation

itself, and the task of interpretation is not complete until technical

interpretation is finished. The presence of the spirit of the discourse as

52. Cf. “Aphorisms” (1809): “Just as the first side is the inverse of grammar, so this side is the

inverse of composition.”


a whole is only arrived at through the technical operation, for if treated

merely grammatically, the discourse always remains merely an

aggregate.

5. The technical understanding of sentences is based on their intrinsic unity from our

knowledge of the author’s individual distinctiveness.

The universal logical rules of combination are only negative, the

limits beyond which nothing can be understood. So too the particular

technical rules for particular genres are only more narrow limits,

outside of which the work could no longer be understood in accord

with the initially grasped concept. From both of these sets of rules

nothing can be understood, because from these two nothing is

combined any more than with musical rules. The single positive

principle is the individual activity of the person, grasped in this

specific orientation.

Each particular, self-contained train of thought is only fully

understandable as an expression of this individual principle according

to some definite orientation. Knowledge of the necessity of the

particulars in a discourse occurs only to the extent that we reconstruct

this principle itself.

6. Considered even more closely, everything depends on the individual distinctive-

ness of the person’s thinking as it is immediately directed to the presentation.

Everything individually distinctive in a person hangs together, and

bears a single, communal character. However to be able to understand

and demonstrate this coherence, which is to be presupposed

throughout, is the highest test of our insight into individuality. Thus

we must first of all stay with the function the particular expression of

which we want to consider, and here this is what has been written, For


thought without reference to the presentation does not belong here,

because meditation can be inferred only very indirectly from

composition. Likewise presentations of some other kind that do not

proceed from thought are expressions of a very different function

lying outside the domain of hermeneutics, e.g., when someone is at the

same time an author and a painter.

What we already know of an author’s other individually

distinctive qualities is always to be used as well, however principally

only materially as a record of relationships that are merely external

with respect to what is to be clarified.

7. This individual distinctiveness we call the individual distinctiveness of style.53

The expression “style” is already common in other arts from the

whole manner in which the intrinsic paradigm of a presentation

gradually realizes itself, and so here too it is to be used in this higher

sense. Just as spirit is a manner of thinking, so style is a manner of

presentation.

8. The maximum for knowledge of the individual distinctiveness in its application to

the understanding is reconstruction.

Technical understanding itself is the reconstruction of what is

given. Now if in this process we are entirely sure that we have

correctly employed the principle of individuality, then we must also be

able to apply it by analogy to other givens. Imitation of extrinsic

idiosyncracies, however, is merely a play of fantasy.

53. Cf. “Aphorisms” (1809): “The unity reduces itself to that of style in the higher sense. The

maximum of knowledge here is imitation. Generality and individual distinctiveness must both

arise at the same time.”

Cf. also “Aphorisms” (1809): “Investigation into the individual distinctiveness of style relates

to this task just as the unity of words relate to the grammatical task.”


9. The style of a person must be one and the same in all genres, modified by the

character of each.

i) For what is individually distinctive to a person proceeds from

his or her intrinsic individuality and since the presentation in language

is in every case this same function, the individual distinctiveness must

then be the same. It is also a task to recognize an identity of style in an

author’s various works.

ii) On the other hand, when the particularities of a presentation

also occur unchanged in different genres, we criticize it as a

mannerism, as affectation or decadence, because they cannot have the

same meaning in different genres.

10. Every speaker has an individually distinctive style that appears everywhere.

In general literary activity this seems to disappear, but this is the

case with all individual distinctiveness. If we take the general first en

masse however, it in turn breaks into groups, revealing further

differences. Nevertheless, where these differences disappear too much,

clearly we must then stop at the next higher individuality.54

11. The individuality of a style is in part the individuality of the composition, in part

the individuality of the use of language.

The former constitutes the more intrinsic side, the selection and

arrangement of thoughts; the latter the more extrinsic. Both are limits,

because composition already begins with primitive sketches and

language already contains in itself all that is mimetic. However, they

do not constitute a dichotomy but rather flow into one another, for

there are thoughts that themselves belong to the expression and, on the

54. Translator’s note: We may stop for example, at the level of the school, genre or historical

period.


other hand, in every meaningful work there is a striving to determine

the language in an individually distinctive manner, to forge a

terminology; this striving immediately coheres with what is innermost

and constitutes the most individual thought.55

12. Knowledge of this individuality is itself in turn conditioned by our prior

understanding of particular trains of thought.

For to construct this knowledge from other expressions of

individual distinctiveness is even more difficult and perhaps the

ultimate test. Even less are such always available. A third alternative

does not exist, however.

For this reason knowledge of the individuality increases with the

study of an author’s particular works. However, only the first can give

the first concept of individual distinctiveness. The relationship is just

like that between the fundamental schema of a word and a particular

usage. Hence a technical understanding of a particular work and

knowledge of its author’s individuality must begin in a single act, and

then gradually, reciprocally determine each other.

13. A preliminary overview of the organization of the whole is the first step for both,

so that here too understanding of the whole and of the particulars begins at the same

time.56

From this organization, the idea of the whole is manifested, and

in this must lie the individual distinctiveness, because it is the

55. Cf. “Aphorisms” (1809): “We can say that the elements of the composition, the thoughts,

move into the sphere of expression, just as the elements of the expression, the words, move

into the sphere of composition only to the extent that each work more or less proceeds to

forge its own terminology.”

56. Schleiermacher’s note: “Through this overview the cyclical relationship between the

technical and the grammatical side of interpretation is simultaneously resolved, for each

indication of a more exact grammatical determination of the elements arises from here.”


particular manner in which the object is grasped. On the other hand,

the particular is technically understood only through its relationship to

the idea of the whole--reconstruction.

Now we must take the image that emerged in this way to be

revisable. It must first receive confirmation through the study of the

particulars. Successful hypotheses on the first try are the work of

hermeneutical skill. We need to be attentive therefore to every

contradiction that we uncover through ongoing study.

14. The preliminary overview can accomplish its purpose only when we approach it

appropriately prepared.

Only with related studies. Without knowledge of the genre, or57

of the linguistic period, we cannot discover the individual distinct-

iveness of a given production.

15. Considered from the technical perspective, every discourse is constituted from two

elements–one predominantly objective and one predominantly subjective.58

Even the most subjective discourse has an object. Even when it

concerns only the presentation of a mood, an object must be formed in

which it is presented. Even if originally freely produced in fantasy, it

hovers before the poet from then on as an object and binds the poet.

Now everything that immediately relates to the presentation of

this object, proceeding, as it were, from it, belongs to the objective

element; all compatible aspects whereby the speaker, in a different

way, expresses more himself or herself than the object, belongs to the

subjective.

57. Scheliermacher’s note: “See Introduction.”

58. Cf. “Aphorisms” (1809): “The author finds him or herself, on the one hand, in the power of

the object, the objective side, and, on the other, free, the subjective side.”


This opposition is also not a strict dichotomy, however. There is

nothing purely objective in discourse; there is always the perspective

of the speaker, and so something subjective in it. Nor is there anything

purely subjective in discourse, for it must be the influence of the object

that selects what is subjective.59

16. The overview is the selection of the most important objective elements in their

organic relationships.

For in comparison with these relationships, the subjective is only

secondary, and the objective particular is referred to the under-standing

of the individual parts. The organic relationships are the links in which

the main elements of the whole ought to be presented.

17. Reconstruction of the train of thought is conditioned by the general overview.

The speaker is in a two-fold function: one objective in which the

speaker is in the power of the object, and another subjective in which

the speaker is outside this power, bounding and interrupting it. This

latter constitutes the retarding principle in the presentation. The

reconstruction is especially based on understanding the relationship of

these two functions and how they operate within one another. Here

belongs, first, a general separation of the results of each function and

then a consideration of what ought to follow next objectively, so that

[subjective] deviations therefrom can be noted.

59. Cf. “Aphorisms” (1809): “The two principal parts of technical interpretation also stand in

reciprocal interrelationship to each other. The more grasping the total thought is at issue, the

more immediate aides for grammatical interpretation recede and vice versa.-When this

division generally occurs differently. For all assistance indeed comes from knowledge of the

train of thought. Marginal note: On the sense of the task. Relationship to grammatical

interpretation. Thus in a cyclical relationship with itself.”


Determination of the Objective Element60

[Qualitative Meaning]

18. The individual distinctiveness of the composition is manifested first of all from

the general overview.61

From the unity of the image, the more the objective dimension

itself already contains a subjective dimension, an individually

distinctive view.

From its organic arrangement, the more the treatment alone can

contain what is individual.

Both are never wholly separated from one another, but it is always

a matter of relative degree.

19. The more a discourse falls in the domain of theory, the more the individual

distinctiveness of the material use of language or word usage must be discovered

already in the general overview.62

For an individually distinctive intuition must then largely show

itself already in the overview, and the more clearly it begins to develop

itself, the more it can only express itself in an individually distinctive

use of words. The mid-point of this domain is that of transcendental

60. Translator’s note: This is my editorial heading to indicate the parallel to the division of

technical interpretation found in the “First Draft” (see p. 44 above).

Furthermore, at the end of Schleiermacher’s notebook of notes or “aphorisms” we

find a roughing out of the topics he planned to lecture on for the last three weeks of the

course. The notes are dated from Friday, March 2 to Friday March 23.For these days and

dates to coincide, they must refer to the year 1810. Thus we here have a rough outline for

Schleiermacher’s treatment of technical interpretation within the “General Hermeneutics.”

The notes correspond with theses of the “General Hermeneutics” beginning here with #18,

where Schleiermacher turns from a general overview of technical interpretation (#1-17) to

a more detailed presentation. I will include the text of this rough sketch in footnotes to their

corresponding entries in the “General Hermeneutics.”

61. Schleiermacher’s sketch: Friday, March 2 . From the overview proceeds knowledge of the

individually distinctive treatment of language.

62. Schleiermacher’s sketch: “Material distinctiveness “lies” in the extent to which the

presentation is theoretical. (Marginal note: Distinctive uses of language in other cases

coincide here but not in the general overview.)”


philosophy, from which it then extends through the empirical sciences

to every philosophical treatment of any object, even an empirical one.

In proportion to the perfection of the author, the individually

distinctive use of language must consist in the fact that the words in

a certain part of their sphere of meaning are used by way of some

definite analogy or objects are named by way of certain references not

yet taken up by ordinary naming at all. (Examples: the linguistic usage

of opposition for the electric poles.)

The more distant from theory, the more the individual

distinctiveness of the formal treatment of language can be shown only

in what is secondary and accidental for a given discourse. However, it

must belong as individually distinctive within some other theory.

20. Individual distinctiveness in the formal, rhythmic use of language is more manifest

from the general overview the greater the tension between the objective and subjective

elements. It is less manifest, the weaker that tension.63

The amount of tension rests, on the one hand, upon the strong,

always qualitative differentiation of the opposition. Where, for

example, the objective element already has a large element of

subjectivity, it is slight. On the other hand it also rests upon the one

element not being too quantitatively repressed, i.e. where a

qualitatively strong objectivity comes together with a quantitatively

strong element of subjectivity.

In the case where there is strong tension between them, the

mutually opposed members must also be rhythmically accentuated and

thereby must express how they are one in the speaker.

63. Schleiermacher’s sketch:”Formal distinctiveness lies in the extent to which the tension

between the objective and the subjective element is strong. Weak tension produces

uniformity; lyric, epic, Aristotelian; a strong tension produces distance; philosophical,

historical.”


Less tension manifests itself in rhythmic uniformity and in this the

individual distinctiveness cannot display itself in such a way that it

already emerges in the overview. For example, i) lyrical, high periods,

and the dystichal; ii) philosophically, in the Aristotelian manner,

[objective and subjective] elements are equably divided, due to a

wholly deficient subjectivity.

In contrast, strong tension exists in Platonic texts and in many

historical and philosophical works. The rhythm must then follow the

opposition between the two elements, and thus it does already emerge

in the overview.

21. Since the general overview does not always accomplish its goal, an error is

possible here that must be avoided.64

False views of oral works often prevail. However, when an image

of the whole has arisen through the general overview, we do not lightly

allow it to be refuted by singularities, but seek more to bring them into

agreement with that image. Incorrectness thus already begins with this

image.

22. The objective unity is necessarily found through the continuity of beginning and

ending.

Every beginning is in some way an announcement or at least from

the outset provides a general direction. The ending need not always be

the literal ending, for more elaborations may follow thereafter, so that

it may stand virtually in the middle as a culminating point. However,

a final look back to the beginning in whatever manner is always

decisive.

64. Schleiermacher’s sketch: “We often arrive at a false overview. This is a possible cause for

error.”


23. The objective unity is, however, not always the thesis of the work.

The thesis is that which the speaker desires to bring forth in those

for whom he or she is making a presentation and seldom is this only

to acquaint them with the work's objective unity.65

This latter only happens:

a) in purely objective technical presentations in which

everything must proceed from their object, and there is no

external purpose to the presentation,

b) in purely empirical presentations in which one is merely

presenting experiential data for others to build upon.

Now of course, there is no absolute object and no absolute

objective unity. Every object arises for someone, and thus the law

according to which it has arisen for him or her lies necessarily within

the presentation. However, when the presentation is only one with the

object for him or her, then object and thesis coincide.

At the same time, however, every object can be treated as a

schema in which something else is presented. This is always in a

certain sense the principle of its emergence. However, to the degree

that something particular emerges from it, the objective unity and the

thesis also diverge from each other. For example, Schiller's dramatic

portrayals as examples of his theory of the sublime, etc. Many66

65. Translator’s note: Thus the thesis (Thema) of a work is what the author intends to

communicate to his original audience. As this is often more than merely the objective unity

or “idea” expressed, we must attend to indications of the author’s subjectivity as well.

However as he argued explicitly earlier in the 1805 First Draft Schleiermacher does not

intend to thereby conflate an author’s thesis with some ulterior goal or purpose (Zweck) that

the author may hope to achieve through how his audience understands what he says, what

would today be referred to as an author’s perlocutionary intent (for example, to impress his

audience with how eloquently he can present his material) On the latter see First Draft Part

2, #27. For an example of these distinctions see the following footnote.

66. Translator’s note: In this case, then , Schiller’s dramatic portrayals would constitute the

“objective unity;” Schiller’s thesis on the other hand would constitute all that he intends to

communicate, which would include his audience’s experience of a sense of the sublime.

Creating a successful play or winning the acclaim of critics may be a further goal or purpose


historical works as examples of great events arising from small causes,

or in order to give some political doctrines or to elucidate moral

truths. This even happens with philosophical presentations: the

objective unity can be a sequence of concepts or from a subordinate

empirical domain, and the thesis, a higher intuition or a method-

ological law.

24. If we have not found the thesis behind the object, we have a false overall

impression.

The thesis is often deliberately hidden, in part to avoid

inconveniences and thereby to persuade more surely, in part so that the

presentation might achieve the more distinguished appearance of a

pure objectivity.

Mistakes are so much the more dangerous here because the

relationship of secondary matters to the main issues cannot be known

if we overlook that which for the speaker is most properly the main

issue.

25. One who is oneself caught up in some special opinion easily seeks a particular

thesis where there is none, or finds a false one.67

The latter case, already involves a serious blindness and is

virtually only possible when the subjective is reified through some

artificial kind of explanation. The former very easily occurs with

purely objective presentations.

of Schiller, but this latter venture into the subjectivity of the author’s own life is not relevant

for hermeneutics unless it appears as an element in the text itself. (See Part 1, #86)

67. Schleiermacher’s sketch: In the case of familiar themes, the interpreter must guard against

a personal bias, for or against.–Translator’s note: There are no further remarks

corresponding to #22-26 in which Schleiermacher elaborates upon the nature of a work’s

“thesis” and its relationship to the work’s objective unity.


There is an interpolation of our own view out of predilection, or

its opposite out of suspicion. Here the explanation must become

totally false because we are forever seeking in the secondary material

and in its combination with the objective what is not there.

26. Each particular thesis can be recognized, in part through the way in which it

governs the subjective domain, in part through polemical references.

The former, because if it wishes to conceal itself and remove

suspicion that it has clouded the objective dimension, it must come out

somewhere, namely in the subjective.

The latter, because for every particular view another stands

polemically over against it, and the more the former desires to operate

unnoticed, the more it must occur explicitly in order to keep the latter

[its opposite] at bay.

27. The individual distinctiveness in the composition of a work is attained when we

recognize the subjective in the objective.68

Namely, what is individually distinctive in the spirit, in the

arrangement.--If one thinks of a pure object, it is an infinity of possible

presentations, for everything, as visible, is to be intuited as one, but is

to be reproduced successively, as infinitely divisible. Thus, the

principle whereby something is selected to represent the whole is a

subjective one.

This always holds no matter how far we descend in the division

of the two elements and in the grasp of the objective

68. Scheleiermacher’s sketch: Friday, March 9. “The object is theoretical; grasping of the

subjective principle.” Translator’s note: This is elaborated in #27-30 in our text.


28. The next test as to whether we have recognized the individual distinctiveness is

when in the particular, organic parts of the whole we can recognize it as the same as

in the general overview of the whole itself.

Since every organic part in which one of the already found main

points is an objective unity, the center, is related in just this way, so

too the subjective element in both the parts and the general overview

must be related in a like manner. Where this does not happen, the

author shows great imperfection, and his or her work is merely a mass

thrown together or at least put together from heterogenous imitations,

or the reader has taken something as a main point which is not such.

This danger arises especially from out of large, piecemeal subjective

masses, episodes, digressions, etc.

29. To recognize individual distinctiveness of any type, two methods must be brought

together, the immediate and the comparative.

One usually wants to manage with the latter alone. However, there

is actually never anything immediately there to compare; rather

everything in two works of the same type is heterogenous, for the

organism is determined in each by the subjective principle. Thus what

is an organic part in one, corresponds only to something inorganic in

the other. Thus, either the one is taken as fundamental and is preserved

while the other is dismembered or only inorganic details from both are

compared.

The immediate method is that in which we seek to recognize the

subjective principle physiognomically through the juxtaposition of69

69. Translator’s note: The use of the term “physiognomy” to refer to knowledge of individuality

was popular in the eighteenth century. Lavater claimed to be able to grasp individual

character from a study of a person’s outer appearance, especially from their face or profile.

Wilhelm von Humboldt also uses the term in On Language to refer to the object of

interpretive “divination.” In the Compendium of 1819 and thereafter, Schleiermacher will

refer to “divination” rather than “immediate intuition.” While the material included in On


the work and the pure idea of its genre. For the pure idea of the genre

is purely objective, under which all individuals are implicitly

contained as more proximate determinations.

This latter produces a feeling that can be reliable enough, but70

which of itself cannot be raised to the clarity of communication. Hence

both methods are to be combined, that is to say, to compare the

particulars of a physiognomically intuited work with one another under

the common idea of the genre.

30. Thus individual distinctiveness is not to be recognized without thorough study.

i) Only to the extent that we compare many works of the same

type can knowledge of the individual be perfected.

ii) When one author composes in several genres we must also

compare his or her works in these different genres and must discover

therein the identity of the structure’s subjective principle. This is one

of the most difficult tasks yet also one of the best exercises.

Language was widely disseminated by the 1820's (and was likely known to Schleiermacher

as von Humboldt was also closely connected to the University of Berlin from its inception)

it was only published in 1836 as the introduction to his magnum opus, Über die Kavi-

Sprache auf der Insel Java (Berlin, 1836-40).

70. Gefühl.


Determination of the Subjective Element71

[Quantitative Meaningfulness]

31. Individual distinctiveness shows itself not only in the material side of authorial

intent but also in its formal side.72 73

All that has been dealt with up to now therefore is only half, and

the treatment of the objective element alone proceeds no further. The

formal side shows itself only through the relationship of the objective

to the subjective.

32. Discrimination of the objective elements is the basis for the reconstruction of the

train of thought.74

We see the author only to the extent that the author finds him or

herself in the power of the object. (cf. Pt.2 #17) Every step from one

objective element to another is the product of this function. This is to

be thought of as the active force to which all interruptions from the

subjective function must submit and which therefore determines the

return from the subjective to the objective element. Thus during the

interruption, we must think of the active force only as bounded.

71. Translator’s note: Again this is my heading. It corresponds to the second division of

technical interpretation in the “First Draft:” “Application of our Knowledge of an Author’s

Individual Distinctiveness to the Work of Interpretation” (see p. 56).

72. schriftstellerischen Gesinnung.

73. Schleiermacher’s sketch: Saturday, March 10: “The objective element alone indicates only

the material side of authorial intent.”

74. Schleiermacher’s sketch: “With respect to the train of thought, the objective combination,

which must be conceived of as the enduring element, is preparatory.”


33. All subjective elements in a discourse have their ground in the flowing individual

combination that bounds the objective process.75

See Pt.2 #15- The objective process is, at it were, the fixed in

opposition to the flowing. Each is conditioned through the other. Every

objective process unfolds only from out of the flowing [subjectivity],

in which the initial idea of every presentation arises. When the

objective process is introduced, then the flowing [subjectivity] is

subordinated. All production of thought is a living unity of both.

34. What occurs as the subjective element in a discourse cannot be considered as

either accident or caprice.76

For then there would be no technical interpretation at all.

Nonetheless this opinion is rather universal. It arose through the great

dominance of imitative and affected authors from whose practice a

superficial theory abstracts its rules.

35. The subjective elements are understood only insofar as their objectivity is

known.77

For why from all that is possible does just this occur, other than

because the object, in accord with the individual distinctiveness of the

author, leads there?

This understanding in general means understanding the individual

distinctiveness of the author in this respect; in application to particular

cases it means reconstructing the train of thought.78

75. Schleiermacher’s sketch: “Subjective element of itself:”

76. Schleiermacher’s sketch: “Connected to the explanation.”

77. Schleiermacher’s sketch, marginal note: “ What actually occurs is understood from the

totality of possibilities in that we understand its objectivity.”

78. Cf. “Aphorisms” (1809) “Just as the [objective] unity appears gradually through specific

types of usages, so the individual distinctiveness first appears through the specific exploration

of the train of thought.


36. The first condition is knowledge of the totality of all that can occur to an author

as a subjective element.79

This is naturally in opposition to the objective. There we first had

to grasp the unity, here, the totality of the manifold, in order to

understand the author's choice as also an exclusion.

The negative side of this condition is that we not unknowingly or

indirectly think of something as a possibility for the author that is only

possible for us, interpolating our material for his. Common mistakes.

The subjective elements among the ancients and among foreigners

often appear rough to us because for us much that was not there for

them at all lies between them and the objective.

The positive side of this condition is therefore knowledge of the

author's historical period, his or her personal relationships, all that he

or she had to know even when it does not actually occur.

37. The degree to which the material of someone’s consciousness interests someone

else is elucidated by the manner in which it appears as a subjective element. i)80

That is to say, some material either does not occur at all or only because of

compelling, virtually unavoidable circumstances. This is thus neglect or lack of

interest when there are not specific reasons to regard it as intentional avoidance.

ii) Other material occurs often or seldom (for this can depend

purely on the objective element) but always for easily explicable

reasons. This is the general element of consciousness that presents

79. Schleiermacher’s sketch: The first step is to expand our idea of the totality of possibilities:

a) Negative side: Caution. Prove its necessity; b) Positive side: Study the period.

80. Schleiermacher’s sketch: “Orientation toward the construction of the individual unity and

of the train of thought reciprocally condition each other. Thus they must both be pursued

together at the same time.

In order to construct the individual unity:

i) what does not appear;

ii) what requires a special stimulus;

iii) what appears simply only under easily explicable [circumstances];

iv) what appears too under difficult [circumstances].”


itself of itself as the need arises, or which one can very easily use when

it does present itself.

iii) Other material likewise occurs often or seldom, but appears as

having been sought, and is the cause for [...]. These are the objects81

that almost always intrigue consciousness only at a certain time.

38. The degree to which the objective and the subjective functions (art in the narrower

sense and life in the wider sense) differentiate themselves from each other for an

author is elucidated by how often or rarely, relative to the genre, the subjective

element enters in.82

i) Relative to the genre: For different genres tolerate different

degrees of subjectivity: strict and graceful [genres]. However, each

allows some room to maneuver toward either side. Thus, it is the

character of the author that inclines to one side or the other within this

maneuvering room within any work.

ii) Art and life: Now those who keep this difference most sharply

before their eyes also tear themselves away the most from the

subjective combination operative among the components. Common-

place authors are those who cannot do this at all.

39. Every work belonging to art in the wider sense is at the same time an action,

belonging to life in the narrower sense. The more it appears to the author in

81. Translator’s note: A word is missing here.

82. Schleiermacher’s sketch: “Both orientations are conditioned by the character of the genre,

whether strict or loose, allowing for little or much of the subjective element. “

Cf. “Aphorisms” (1809): “Free [composition] is, in general, either popular, when

free for the sake of others, or lyrical, when free for the author’s own sake.”


accordance with the genre, the more the subjective element acquires secondary

references that should effect something in life.83

i) Relative to the genre: There are some genres that tolerate

engaging in life at the same time far less; these are works of general

validity. Genres in which references to life predominate are occasional

pieces. Works that have a thesis in addition to their objective unity

often belong in the middle, between these two, though lying on the

objective side.

Besides genre, the relationship of art and life is also affected

according to the times. Public life draws itself closer to art. The84

difference between Plato and Aristotle.

In general, however, here too there remains some maneuvering

room for the author.85

ii) Secondary references to life also include everything that

characterizes a piece of writing as popular; i.e. all considerations and

use of particular attitudes in order to achieve the purpose of the work.

Indeed, with every word the author has a certain audience in mind with

whom the author finds him or herself more or less in dialogue.86

However, to keep in view what is of passing concern for the audience

always means engaging in life.

83. Schleiermacher’s sketch (continued from previous note) ... “however, to be sure, what can

be determined only through distance or objective, general validity and what is popular and

subjective, either allowing for a particular purpose or not.”

84. Translator’s note: Cf. Schleiermacher’s analysis of the conversational dynamics of salon

society in “Towards a Theory of Sociable Conduct” (1799) Jeffrey Hoover, translator, New

Athenaeum/Neues Athenaeum 4 (1995): 20-40.

85. Schleiermacher’s note: “This division and that in #38 are not to be confused with one

another. Each member of the one can belong to each member of the other.”

Schleiermacher’s sketch (1810): “These two oppositions are not to be confused; each

element of the latter can just as easily be an element of the former.”

86. Schleiermacher’s sketch: “The general public is certainly also a specific audience though

one not conditioned by anything passing.”


This opposition is not a strict one either, for to the extent that the

author presents something new, new truths, he or she must also bring

in popular elements.87

40. An individually distinctive use of language that does not proceed immediately

from the objective element cannot be decided with certainty from the totality of the

subjective element. 88

A comprehensive grasp of subjective elements can uncover much

in the language that appears individually distinctive. Sometimes

however, especially with ancient or foreign works, we can never know

whether it does not hold generally for the period or the genre. Also if

something only reveals itself as such among the subjective elements,

and so arises sheerly from the personality of the author, we can note

it only as a mannerism.

41. What is to count as subjective distinctiveness in the use of language must be able

to be grounded in an objective distinctiveness.

What pertains to the objective element in one work occurs again

as a subjective element in others the more it contains an individually

distinctive perspective and thus also grounds a particular linguistic89

usage. However, everything that is individually distinctive in a use of

language must arise from an individually distinctive perspective that

in most cases has already constituted something objective, perhaps in

a lost work. However, even when it is actually exhibited only in such

a fragmentary manner, we must still be able to find an analogy

87. Schleiermacher’s sketch: “Even in serious works, popular elements must appear when the

author discovers new insights for which he first needs to make his audience receptive.”

88. Schleiermacher’s sketch: “Often nothing at all can be concluded from newly invented

words”.

89. Anschauungsweise.


between its individual elements, and this is its sole true

demonstration. 90

42. Language is itself an intuition. So too an individually distinctive use of language

can be grounded only in a personal intuition of the language.91

Most of what, as the result of a feeling, we hold to be individually

distinctive in a use of language without being able to give an exact

account of it is based on this. A personal intuition of the language is

mostly a particular view of the interrelation of its organic parts and can

concern the relation of the formal and material elements to one another

as well as that between the musical and the grammatical elements in

the language. Individual authors appear determined to bring the power

of certain turns of language to consciousness:92

i) ennobling or softening words in order to transplant something

from one sphere of language into another;

ii) a prevailing inclination to use words a particular way or to

generalize words belonging only to a specific sphere of language,

rhythmic plays and combinations, word plays, and non-sequiturs.

In general we must regard as an element of this individual

distinctiveness whatever has the appearance of linguistic deviance and

seems to others to be difficult to find and to follow. However, if it is

90. Schleiermacher’s sketch: “What is an objective element in one presentation becomes

subjective in others. Thus the material treatment of the subjective element conforms to that

of the objective. This holds especially for words with somewhat divergent meanings. (For

what is misunderstood here pertains to mannerism.) Saturday, March 17: The linguistic

usage in a given passage must be found from the subjective element. -Much that is taken for

this was customary to a time or a class for which we have only a single representative.”

91. Eigne

92. Schleiermacher’s sketch: “Rhythmic “peculiarities” that are difficult to maintain, are almost

always individually distinctive.”


to be completely free of any charge of mannerism, we must be able to

find its common principle and be able to develop it to some extent.93

43. The lively joint operation of all the previously mentioned moments begets a full

understanding.94

The joint operation of all moments is necessary, for strictly taken,

no passage can be understood through the application of one procedure

alone. When we overlook where the objective and the subjective

appear only minimally, errors increase more and more. It is for this

reason that often there is a very clear understanding of individual

passages without a true comprehension of the whole.

Conversely, obscurity in regards to individual passages within a

correct comprehension of the whole will always have its ground in

defective knowledge of something outside the work itself.

44. Complete understanding at its ultimate means to understand the speaker better

than he himself or she herself.95

That is to say, because it is an analysis of a speaker’s procedure,

an analysis that in part brings to consciousness what was unconscious

to the speaker him or herself, and in part also grasps the speaker’s

relationship to the language in its necessary ambiguities that the

speaker him or herself does not distinguish. So too speakers do not

distinguish between what arises from their own individuality or their

93. Schleiermacher’s sketch: “One comes to a feeling for what is individually distinctive, but

to account for it is difficult, for something general in the subjective use of language must

correspond to the objective linguistic usage. What allows itself to be ascertained rhythmically

is actually only relations of rhythms to one another. -Difficulties and violations of rules, word

plays, non-sequiturs.”

94. Schleiermacher’s sketch: Friday, March 23: “i) Combining the objective and the subjective

elements so that interpreters can put themselves ‘inside’ the author.”

95. Schleiermacher’s sketch: “(ii) On understanding authors better than they understand

themselves; a) increasing our understanding, (b) correcting that understanding.”


own stage of cultivation and what is an accidental deviation that they

themselves would not have produced had they noticed it.

From this there arises the fact that when an author becomes his

own reader, he gets in line with the others and another may arrive at a

better understanding than he himself; at least in the case of difficulties

and obscurities that arise from the unconscious element of his work.

45. The distinction between easy and difficult authors arises only because there is no

complete understanding.96

That is to say, a complete understanding, that at the same time

would begin with all necessary conditions having been perfectly

fulfilled would have to transcend this distinction, for neither is

anything individual, as a language, more difficult to understand than

any other if the language itself is fully given, nor is any subjectivity in

and of itself more unintelligible than any other.

Prescinding from the incomplete givenness of languages,

especially ancient languages, in all their periods and forms, the

inability to ever overcome this distinction [between easier and harder

authors] lies:

i) in part in the authors themselves. That is to say, the difficult

authors are the confused authors who, in part did not grasp purely the

idea of their genre, in part did not have the language sufficiently within

their power, and in part did not work out their individualities

sufficiently. With these we cannot arrive at a rule because of the

number of exceptions. It is not possible to understand these authors

completely or with certainty.

96. Schleiermacher’s sketch: “iii) On the difference between difficult and easy texts. Objective

and subjective causes.”


ii) in part in the readers. That is to day, not everyone has the same

affinity for all fields; but rather, just as in composition itself, so too

the understanding in most people is inclined to one side, or even when

it is equally oriented to all sides, it better comprehends the

grammatical side than the technical.

Thus understanding in its totality is always a common enterprise.

CONCLUSION

46. The rules of interpretation are more narrowly determinable when they are related

to a specific given. This gives rise to special hermeneutics.97

In every individual case, all of the rules given here are applicable

and so must reciprocally determine each other. This always remains a

task that can be resolved precisely only immediately in practical terms,

but which in theory and analytically can be resolved only by

approximation. Consequently, there already lies in the nature of every

whole both a negative principle for excluding certain reciprocal

determinations and a positive principle for raising certain others to

prominence. To comprehend these beforehand eases the applicability

of the general rules and is therefore a virtually indispensable

intermediary between these and the working out of the interpretation

itself.

47. On the grammatical side, the special hermeneutics involve the various languages,

on the technical side, the various genres.98

97. Schleiermacher’s sketch: “iv) The relationship between specialized and general

hermeneutics: a) different relationships in both parts.

98. Schleiermacher’s sketch:b) differences in the writing.


Since for the former, the languages are the highest given unity,

under which their dialects and periods are subordinated. For the latter,

the ideas of the genres are the highest given unity.

In interpretation itself both must again be combined in reference

to a given individual.

48. The special hermeneutics are capable of a less strict scientific form.99

Because they essentially contain an empirical part. For neither the

particular languages in their individual distinctiveness, nor the actually

existent genres are deducible. Insofar as the empirical part

predominates, the special hermeneutics appear only as an aggregate

of observations. However, insofar as one tries to find a unity in the

given and to resolve it into a pure intuition, everything is likewise said

with necessity.

Both manners of proceeding must be combined in the idea that

they ultimately coincide, which, however, of course never [fully]

happens.

49. As the grammatical side of hermeneutics concerns itself with the theory of

language, so the technical side concerns itself with the theory of art.100

That is to say, the former become reciprocally conditioning with

and through each other as do the latter. That is to say, the theory of art

is drawn from the art of speaking. The neglect of hermeneutics must

produce errors in both. Grammatical observations become too

generalized when we ascribe to the elements themselves what holds

only through and for a specific context, and they become too timid

99. Schleiermacher’s sketch: c) difficulty with the scientific form.

100. Cf. “Aphorisms” (1805): “Were every discourse a living reconstruction there would be no

need for hermeneutics, but only for art criticism.”


when we do not recognize the objectivity of individual examples. The

same holds for the theory of composition, for it is indeed

reconstruction that assumes that the components have not been

properly understood as such.

Examples from the theories of the French who have almost

everywhere confused the subjective and the objective element in the

classical works of art.

50. Criticism, with its two corresponding branches, is grafted onto the two sides of

hermeneutics and the disciplines corresponding to it.101

101. Translator’s note: By “criticism” Schleiermacher means the evaluation of a text that we have

read and understood in terms of some set of norms. As the full understanding of a text is an

infinite task, criticism must begin while our understanding of the text is still incomplete, and

thus criticism can also help improve our understanding of the text. In Scheiermacher’s

address before the Berlin Academy of Sciences in 1830 “Über Begriff und Entheilung der

philologischen Kritik,” the two main branches of criticism are identified as philological

criticism proper which evaluates the letter of the text in close cooperation with grammatical

interpretation, and “doctrinal” [i.e., form] criticism, which evaluates the spirit of the text in

cooperation with technical interpretation. As with grammatical and technical interpretation,

he acknowledges that these are usually referred to as “lower” and “higher” branches of

criticism, while resisting any implication that either is more valuable or important than the

other.

Schleiermacher's General Hermeneutics 1809-10

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