“Every interpreter labors under
the handicap of an inevitable circularity: all his internal evidence tends to
support his hypothesis because much of it is was constituted by his hypothesis.
This is another description of the relationship between an intrinsic genre and
the implications which it generates. An interpretive hypothesis – that is, a
guess about genre – tends to be a self-confirming hypothesis. Thus the
distressing unwillingness of many interpreters to relinquish their sense of
certainty is the result not of native close-mindedness but of imprisonment in a
hermeneutic circle.” (p166)
Annotation:
Hirsch criticises the hermeneutic circle’s circularity of thinking as an imprisonment of thought that can lead to self-confirming hypotheses in the interpreter.
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