Cultural understanding

pp. 125-152

in: , Hermeneutics. method and methodology, Berlin, Springer, 2004

Abstract

In archaic societies the tradition and the first-order interpretations as contents of the tradition has the function of a universal system of norms necessary for the survival of the culture. The authority of the tradition ought not to be challenged, and severe punishment is the consequence of deviations. The creative changes necessarily happening in the application of the primary interpretations are small, and if they happen, they are denied or repressed, immediately removed from consciousness. Creative freedom in secondary interpretation is possible only in later stages of the development of a written cultural tradition. This freedom includes partial rejection of a first-order interpretation in application, replacing it instead with new creations. It even includes the rejection of whole systems of first-order interpretations as false, and finally the rejection of the whole context of a cultural tradition as false. The presuppositions of a thorough analysis of the development of cultural tradition are (1) the analysis of the difference of cultures with and without written traditions; (2) the analysis of the possibilities of understanding in cross-cultural encounters; and (3) the analysis of the essential structures guiding the development of written cultural traditions.