On the face of it, one interpretation of the meaning of an action or a text is as good as another. The solution offered to this problem is the 'hermeneutic circle' mentioned above. The most distinguished recent writer to advocate this solution is H. G. Gadamer, who insists that hermeneutics has to understand the part in terms of the whole, and the whole in terms of the part. The interpreter, in judging a book, for example, has to recapture the perspective within which the author formulated his or her views. For Gadamer, the spatial and temporal gap between author and interpreter is bridged by tradition and by what he calls a 'fusion of horizons'.
Interpretations are therefore always tentative and subject to revision in the hermeneutic circle.
Geisteswissenschaften Penguin Dictionary of Sociology 2. Positivism Penguin Dictionary of Sociology 3. Verstehen Penguin Dictionary of Sociology 4. World View Penguin Dictionary of Sociology 5. All rights reserved.