Hermeneutics Quotes

• In place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art.

  Susan Sontag

  Art, Needs

  Susan Sontag (2014). “A Susan Sontag Reader”, p.157, Macmillan

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• Although there has always been a hermeneutic problem in Christianity, the hermeneutic question today seems to us a new one.

  Paul Ricoeur

  Today, Problem, Good Christian

  Paul Ricoeur (1974). “The Conflict of Interpretations”, p.381, Northwestern University Press

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• What hermeneutics teaches is that progress comes from being exposed to different points of views because there's no point of view that is right for all situations and all times. And even if it's superior to the others, you can enrich it by drawing on others or thinking: "Why is that wrong and how do I improve my approach? How do I come up with a better approach?" So that's essential for innovation just like it is in technology.

  Charles Koch

  Technology, Thinking, Views

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

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• The hermeneutic consciousness, which must be awakened and kept awake, recognized that in the age of science philosophy's claim of superiority has something chimerical and unreal about it. But though the will of man is more than ever intensifying its criticism of what has gone before to the point of becoming utopian or eschatological consciousness, the hermeneutic consciousness seeks to confront that will with something of the truth of remembrance: with what is still and ever again real.

  Hans-Georg Gadamer

  Philosophy, Real, Men

  Hans-Georg Gadamer (2013). “Truth and Method”, p.35, A&C Black

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• Talk can neither be verified nor falsified in any rigorous sense. This is an open secret which hermeneutics and aesthetics, from Aristotle to Croce, have laboured to exorcise or to conceal from themselves and their clients. This ontological, which is to say both primordial and essential axiom (or platitude) of ineradicable undecidability needs, none the less, to be closely argued.

  George Steiner

  Secret, Essentials, Needs

  "Real Presences". Book by George Steiner, 1986.

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• I am firmly of the opinion that the Macintosh is Catholic and that DOS is Protestant. Indeed, the Macintosh is counterreformist and has been influenced by the methodical path of the Jesuits.... It is catechistic: the essence of revelation is dealt with via simple formulae and sumptuous icons. Everyone has a right to salvation. DOS is Protestant, or even Calvinistic. It allows free interpretation of scripture, demands difficult personal decisions, imposes a subtle hermeneutics upon the user, and takes for granted the idea that all can reach salvation.

  Umberto Eco

  Simple, Icons, Essence

  "Apple's holier-than-thou attitude may be its salvation" by John Naughton, www.theguardian.com. January 24, 2009.

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• A physicist friend of mine once said that in facing death, he drew some consolation from the reflection that he would never again have to look up the word "hermeneutics" in the dictionary.

  Steven Weinberg

  Reflection, Looks, Look Up

  Steven Weinberg (2012). “Facing Up”, p.141, Harvard University Press

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• How many times have you struggled with the interpretation of certain Biblical texts related to the time of Jesus' return because they did not fit with a preconceived system of eschatology? Russell's Parousia takes the Bible seriously when it tells us of the nearness of Christ's return. Those who claim to interpret the Bible literally, trip over the obvious meaning of these time texts by making Scripture mean the opposite of what it unequivocally declares. Reading Russell is a breath of fresh air in a room filled with smoke and mirror hermeneutics.

  Gary DeMar

  Jesus, Reading, Mean

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• How can this strange story of God made flesh, of a crucified Savior, of resurrection and new creation become credible for those whose entire mental training has conditioned them to believe that the real world is the world which can be satisfactorily explained and managed without the hypothesis of God? I know of only one clue to the answering of that question, only one real hermeneutic of the gospel: a congregation which believes it.

  Lesslie Newbigin

  Real, Believe, Training

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• By now they had mastered my own language, but they still made simple mistakes, like using 'hermeneutics,' when they meant 'heuristic'.

  Woody Allen

  Mistake, Simple, Heuristics

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• My faith, my hermeneutics does not demand that I correlate every verse. In other words, there are often verses that appear, I'm a John 3:16 Christian, I believe God so loved the world, I do believe that, and I believe that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish. But I also believe, you know, predestination from the foundation of the Earth. So to me, I'm able to hold tensions in my mind rather than having to explain them. To me, I don't fit in a real good box and I believe them both.

  Rick Warren

  Christian, Real, Believe

  "Rick Warren Clarifies Doctrine, Purpose Driven Life with John Piper - TRANSCRIPT". Interview with John Piper, www.christianpost.com. May 28, 2011.

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• Hermeneutics is a way of looking at Being as an inheritance that is never considered as ultimate data. Capitalism has always grown by considering, or forcing another to consider, as a 'natural' possession what is inherited. The great dominating families are really the inheritors of the strongest pirates, thieves, and bandits, and they consider themselves entitled to command through a divine or natural law, when they really are only the result of a forgotten 'violence'.

  Gianni Vattimo

  Law, Data, Pirate

  Gianni Vattimo, Santiago Zabala (2014). “Hermeneutic Communism: From Heidegger to Marx”, p.93, Columbia University Press

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• To a degree which is difficult to determine, the esoteric impulse in twentieth-century music, literature and the arts reflects calculation. It looks to the flattery of academic and hermeneutic notice. Reciprocally, the academy turns towards that which appears to require its exegetic, cryptographic skills.

  George Steiner

  Art, Skills, Degrees

  George Steiner (2010). “Real Presences: Is There Anything in What We Say?”, p.43, Faber & Faber

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• In using terms like patriarchy, hermeneutics, and sexual/textual, I do not wish to misrepresent the Qurn as a feminist text; rather, the use of such terminology shows my own intellectual disposition and biases.

  Asma Barlas

  Feminist, Intellectual, Wish

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• When we interpret nature, we refer phenomena that are rarely entirely unintelligible back to something that actually exists, but is equally unintelligible.

  Franz Grillparzer

  Nature, Science

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• My hermeneutics is when I see verses in Scripture that are "apparent" contradictions - I don't believe they are contradictions - I believe them both. I believe them both. I believe take up your cross and deny yourself and follow me, and I believe come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. They are different sides of the same thing.

  Rick Warren

  Believe, Giving, Scripture

  Source: www.christianpost.com

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• From Rome, now the nuncio is on the border where [Ukrainians] are fighting, helping soldiers and the wounded. The Church of Rome has sent so much help there. It's always peace, agreements. We must respect the Minsk accords and so on. This is the entirety. But, don't get scared by that phrase. And this is a lesson that a piece of news must be interpreted with the hermeneutic of everything and not just a part.

  Pope Francis

  Fighting, Agreement, Rome

  Source: www.catholicnewsagency.com

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• When it happeneth that a man signifieth unto us two contradictory opinions whereof the one is clearly and directly signified, andthe other either drawn from that by consequence, or not known to be contradictory to it; then (when he is not present to explicate himself better) we are to take the former of his opinions; for that is clearly signified to be his, and directly, whereas the other might proceed from error in the deduction, or ignorance of the repugnancy.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Ignorance, Men, Errors

  Thomas Hobbes, John Charles Addison Gaskin (1999). “The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic: Part I, Human Nature, Part II, De Corpore Politico ; with Three Lives”, p.77, Oxford University Press, USA

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