The Cambridge Companion to Hermeneutics Quotes

“What is required of philosophical research is that it be a critique of the present. In disclosing the past in an original manner, the past is no longer seen to be merely a present that preceded our own present. Rather, it is possible to emancipate the past so that we can find in it the authentic roots of our existence and bring it into our own present as a vital force. Historical consciousness liberates the past for the future, and it is then that the past gains force and becomes productive.”
― Michael N. Forster, The Cambridge Companion to Hermeneutics

“Although Droysen denies that causal explanation is a sufficient condition for the understanding of a human action, he does regard it as a necessary condition. In his Grundriß der Historik he distinguishes between four different forms of interpretation or understanding.15 First, there is pragmatic interpretation, which reconstructs causal context behind an event (§39). Second, there is the interpretation of conditions, which analyzes the specific conditions – whether physical or moral – that make an action possible (§40). Third, there is psychological interpretation, which determines the motives for a person’s action (§41). Fourth and finally, there is interpretation of ideas, which determines the general principles or ideals behind someone’s action (§42). Although Droysen writes of them as different kinds of interpretation, it is clear that he thinks all of them are necessary for a full understanding of human action. Dilthey,”
― Michael N. Forster, The Cambridge Companion to Hermeneutics