4.1. The Interpretation of History
What are the conditions for a correct interpretation
of the past from the point of view of historical knowledge? To determine these,
we must take account of the complexity of the relationship between the subject
who interprets and the object from the past which is interpreted.65
First, their mutual extraneousness must be emphasized. Events or words of the
past are, above all, “past.” As such they are not completely reducible to the
framework of the present, but possess an objective density and complexity that
prevent them from being ordered in a solely functional way for present
interests. It is necessary, therefore, to approach them by means of an
historical-critical investigation that aims at using all of the information
available, with a view to a reconstruction of the environment, of the ways of
thinking, of the conditions and the living dynamic in which those events and
those words are placed, in order, in such a way, to ascertain the contents and
the challenges that - precisely in their diversity - they propose to our
present time.
Second, a certain common belonging of
interpreter and interpreted must be recognized without which no bond and no
communication could exist between past and present. This communicative bond is
based on the fact that every human being, whether of yesterday or of today, is
situated in a complex of historical relationships, and in order to live these
relationships, the mediation of language is necessary, a mediation which itself
is always historically determined. Everybody belongs to history! Bringing to
light this communality between interpreter and the object of interpretation –
which is reached through the multiple forms by which the past leaves evidence
of itself (texts, monuments, traditions, etc.) – means judging both the
accuracy of possible correspondences and possible difficulties of communication
between past and present, as indicated by one’s own understanding of the past
words and events. This requires taking into account the questions which
motivate the research and their effect on the answers which are found, the
living context in which the work is undertaken, and the interpreting community
whose language is spoken and to whom one intends to speak. For this purpose, it
is necessary that the pre-understanding – which is part of every act of interpretation
– be as reflective and conscious as possible, in order to measure and moderate
its real effect on the interpretative process.
Finally, through the effort to know and to
evaluate, an osmosis (a “fusion of horizons”) is accomplished between
the interpreter and the object of the past that is interpreted, in which the
act of comprehension properly consists. This is the expression of what is
judged to be the correct understanding of the events or words of the past; it
is equivalent to grasping the meaning which the events can have for the
interpreter and his world. Thanks to this encounter of living worlds,
understanding of the past is translated into its application to the present.
The past is grasped in the potentialities which it discloses, in the stimulus
it offers to modify the present. Memory becomes capable of giving rise to a new
future.
This fruitful osmosis with the past
is reached through the interwovenness of certain basic hermeneutic operations,
which correspond to the stages of extraneousness, communality, and
understanding true and proper. In relation to a “text” of the past (understood
in a general sense as evidence which may be written, oral, monumental, or
figurative), these operations can be expressed as follows: “1) understanding
the text; 2) judging how correct one’s understanding of the text is; and 3)
stating what one judges to be the correct understanding of the text.”66
Understanding the evidence of the past means reaching it as far as possible in
its objectivity through all the sources that are available. Judging the
correctness of one’s own interpretation means verifying honestly and rigorously
to what extent it could have been oriented or conditioned in any way by one’s
prior understanding or by possible prejudices. Stating the interpretation
reached means bringing others into the dialogue created with the past, in order
both to verify its importance and to discover other possible interpretations.
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