The Hermeneutic Cycle of Postmodernism
The Hermeneutic Cycle of Postmodernism

Summary/Abstract: Hermeneutics deals with the problem of understanding and interpreting texts, teachings, events, etc. It raises the following questions: Does the interpreter reproduce what he is interpreting, or does he participate creatively in his interpretation? Does the interpreter introduce their own assumptions when interpreting an artistic work, a philosophical text, or a historical event? Every understanding (interpretation) is always more than mere reproduction. Understanding is possible only if one introduces one’s own assumptions into the process, both individual and socio-historical. The understanding of modernity eludes hermeneutics. Modernity emerged at the end of the eighteenth century as an Enlightenment idea. The concept of social development that emerged during the modern period is based on the belief in a linear, progressive development of society according to its own laws. Postmodernism arose in the twentieth century and does not represent a break with modernity but develops alongside it as its critique. As a ‘strategy of forgetfulness,’ postmodernity abolishes any proper perspective for interpreting modernity, thereby preventing the so-called hermeneutic situation.

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