What is the problem of hermeneutics?

Answer 1

If you're not careful, instead of "turtles all the way down" it becomes "hermeneutics all the way up."

Take any passage of text which reads significantly differently with two different hermenutics. How are we to discuss the two different approaches? Well, we need a framework within which to consider them. Might there be more than one framework? Yes, well, in that case how do we know which we should use?

The easiest and safest hermenutic is when people have not even heard of the term and are instinctively convinced there is only one way (theirs) to understand a text. This has *other* problems, but not hermeneutical ones.

Answer 2

Hermenuetics seeks to interpret.
So the problem of hermenuetics has always been interpretation.
Understanding and interpretation of a text "involves knowledge of the historical context of the text and the psychology of the author."

One contemporary philosopher (mentioned below) says that hermenuetics is an approach to interpretation rather than a method and that the central problem of hermenuetics is the analytic circle formed by the need to understand the text as a whole from its individual parts, but that the understanding of the individual parts requires understanding of the whole text.


Hermeneutics and its central problem:
"Hermeneutics may be described as the development and study of theories of the interpretation and understanding of texts. In contemporary usage, hermeneutics often refers to study of the interpretation of Biblical texts. However, it is more broadly used in contemporary philosophy to denote the study of theories and methods of the interpretation of all texts.
[...]
A hermeneutic is defined as a specific system or method for interpretation, or a specific theory of interpretation. However, contemporary philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer has said that hermeneutics itself is an approach rather than a method. He also believed the Hermeneutic circle to be the central problem of interpretation."
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeneutics

Hermeneutic circle:
"The hermeneutic circle describes the process of understanding a text hermeneutically. It refers to the idea that one's understanding of the text as a whole is established by reference to the individual parts and one's understanding of each individual part by reference to the whole. Neither the whole text nor any individual part can be understood without reference to one another, and hence, it is a circle. However, this circular character of interpretation does not make it impossible to interpret a text, rather, it stresses that the meaning of text must be found within its cultural, historical, and literary context.

With Schleiermacher, hermeneutics begins to stress the importance of the interpreter in the process of interpretation. Schleiermacher's hermeneutics focuses on the importance of the interpreter understanding the text as a necessary stage to interpreting it. Understanding, for Schleiermacher, does not simply come from reading the text, but involves knowledge of the historical context of the text and the psychology of the author."
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeneutics#Hermeneutic_circle

Answer 3

this is the applied science of (originaly) bibblical interpretation,now hermenutical study is applied to more than one field.
if your question is intended to shed a ray of light upon the interpretation of a biblical text, we need to know which passage, which version, LF