The concept of hermeneutics

Abstract

The concept of Hermeneutics has undergone an evolution since classical times until our days, coming from its pristine meaning as interpretation, explanation, translation or understanding, in a wide sense, to its development as a way of understanding a text of the past, carried out in a cultural, temporal and spacial context quite different from that of the nowadays reader. Its textual paradigm is the sacred text. One of the higher meaning of the concept of Hermeneutics is its philosophical and litterary sense is this: Hermeneutics as historical, actualized and open manner of Reading a text and been understood by it, and a way of Being which is carried out in the language. Less striking is the understanding of Hermeneutics as a method of reaching knowledge.