Structural Ism, Hermeneutics And Contextual Meaning

American Academy of Religion

Structuralism, Hermeneutics, and Contextual MeaningAuthor(s): Elizabeth Struthers MalbonReviewed work(s):Source: Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 51, No. 2 (Jun., 1983), pp. 207-230Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1463635 .Accessed: 27/04/2012 07:04

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Journal of the American Academy of Religion, LI/2

Structuralism, Hermeneutics, and Contextual Meaning

Elizabeth Struthers Malbon

erhaps one should begin by defining one's terms. But, were I to attempt to define "structuralism" and "hermeneutics" carefully, completely, and in a way that would satisfy all-or even most-

structuralists or hermeneuticists, I fear I would never move beyond this

beginning. Thus, although I shall not begin entirely in mediis rebus, I must assume some experience of the workings of structuralism and of hermeneutics. I regard structuralism and hermeneutics as approaches to meaning, as ways of investigating the significance of "things"-from individual texts to whole cultures-and the significance of significance. My present task is to compare and contrast these two approaches to meaning-structuralism and hermeneutics-by considering especially their goals, or end points, and their presuppositions, or beginning points. Although my references will be chiefly to approaches to meaning in biblical studies, I wish to understand in a more general way the contexts in which structuralism and hermeneutics seek meaning and seek to make meaning.

Relations between structuralism and hermeneutics are often implied in the characterization of either structuralism or hermeneutics. For example, Robert Culley, in characterizing structuralism, presents a model of the three focal points of scholarly approaches to biblical texts: author, text, reader./1/ According to this model, the author is the shared focal point of source criticism; the text is the focus of rhetorical criticism and structural analysis; the reader is the focus of biblical hermeneutics (167-69). Thus Culley's model indicates a fundamental difference between structuralism and hermeneutics. A model presented by Robert Polzin, on the other hand, suggests a fundamental similarity between structuralism and hermeneutics: self-conscious awareness of the role of

Elizabeth Struthers Malbon (Ph.D., Florida State University) is Assistant Profes- sor of Religion at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. She is the author of articles in Semeia, Catholic Biblical Quarterly, and New Testament Studies. This paper was first presented to the American Academy of Religion at its annual meeting in 1981.

208 Journal of the American Academy of Religion

the subject, the analyst, in the analysis./2/ Since Polzin's "subject" is related to Culley's "reader," Polzin's stress on this aspect of structuralism that is shared with hermeneutics undercuts Culley's suggestion that structuralism is distinguished by its focus on the text from hermeneutics with its focus on the reader. Perhaps Culley's model overemphasizes the distinction between structuralism and hermeneutics, whereas Polzin's argument overemphasizes their commonality.

What is needed is a way both to compare and to contrast structuralism and hermeneutics as approaches to meaning. Toward that end, the first step of my investigation involves an examination and classification of the respective-and various-goals of structuralists and of hermeneuticists. Goals are the projected end points of investigators, the "why" of investigations. Thus, a comparison of structuralist and hermeneutical goals should help us establish the scope of each of these two approaches to meaning. After a brief look at the basis of structuralism, we will turn to a systematization of several important goals of structuralists. Then we will repeat this procedure with regard to hermeneutics and the goals of hermeneuticists.

Structuralism, Structuralists, and Goals

Historically, structuralism, particularly literary structuralism, is rooted in Saussurean linguistics. Conceptually, structuralism is centered in concern for relations, or networks of relations, rather than isolated elements. Ferdinand de Saussure, Swiss linguist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, is acclaimed the "grandfather" of structuralism (Bovon:8), its "founding father" (Lane:27); and Saussure's Course in General Linguistics, first published in 1915 on the basis of the lecture notes of his students, is proclaimed "the magna carta of modern structural linguistics" (Polzin:17). The "crux of de Saussure's theory ... is the role of relations in a system . . ."; for signs, as for phonemes, "to be is to be related" (Wells:97). A linguistic sign itself is a relation-between a signifier, or "sound-image," and a signified, or "concept." Language is a system of signs. Before Saussure, traditional linguistics focused on diachronic analysis, the study of changes in language over time. Saussure's insistence on the priority of synchronic analysis, the investigation of the structure of language, revolutionized linguistics.

Also seminal for the history and the concepts of structuralism was Vladimir Propp, Russian folklorist, whose Morphology of the Folktale has quite rightly been termed "the exemplar par excellence" of syntagmatic structural exegesis (Dundes:xi). In his study of Russian fairy tales, Propp isolated thirty-one "functions" (or types of actions) and seven "spheres of action" (or character types) that remain constant amid the varying details of the stories. Although Propp did not discover every

Malbon: Structuralism 209

function manifest in every tale, he did find the order (syntagm) of the functions in the narratives to be invariable. Propp's "important contribu- tion" was, in the words of Susan Wittig, "his typically Formalist proposal that the description of a tale's invariant structural features is a more appropriate mode of analysis than the description of the variable content which manifests the structure" (152).

Whereas Propp serves as a representative of syntagmatic structural

analysis, the "champion of paradigmatic structural analysis is Claude Levi-Strauss" (Dundes:xii). It is the contemporary French cultural

anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss who is generally regarded as the "father" of structuralism (Bovon:8; Pettit:68), "the archetypal high priest of structuralism" (Polzin:41). To Levi-Strauss goes as well the dubious honor of being "perhaps the best-known and least understood structuralist" (Polzin:17). His work is heralded as "the most extended and systematic application of structuralist methods and the structuralist vision to human phenomena" (Lane:12). Levi-Strauss's work may be interpreted as both an extension of Saussure and a "correction" of Propp. Following Saussure, Levi-Strauss insists upon "the primacy of relations between terms" (Culler:23). These relations are underlying or implicit relations through which things can function as signs or as language and which the structuralist aims to make explicit (Culler:25). Yet the "language" to which Levi-Strauss applies this central concept is not natural language (the linguistic phenomenon of langue) but the "language" of kinship (Le"vi-Strauss, 1969) or the "language" of myth (1969-81). These cultural languages, like langue itself, have two dimensions: the syntagmatic and the paradigmatic. Against Propp, Levi-Strauss argues for (1) the greater significance of the paradigmatic dimension of narratives (tales, myths) over their syntagmatic dimension and (2) the importance of the ethno- graphic context of narratives to their overall significance and clarity (see Wittig:153-58).

We turn now from this briefest of looks at structuralism's foundation on the concern for relations, or networks of relations, to a systematization of several important goals of structuralism's "adherents" or "practitioners."/3/ I employ the two terms "adherents" and "practitioners" advisedly, for structuralism in its broadest sense may aim toward either ideology or methodology. These two basic directions are not unique to structuralism, but common to intellectual movements generally; they represent what Michael Lane (13) refers to, although with somewhat different labels, as the two categories of "the means that men employ to order their universe."/4/ By ideology-or philosophy if its connotations are less abrasive/5/-is meant "any more or less consistent system of beliefs and values which describes and accounts for the relations of men to one another, and to the material, and not infrequently the immaterial, universe" (13)./6/ Structuralism as an ideology or philosophy is, in the words


of Robert Scholes, "a way of looking for reality not in individual things but in relationships among them" (4). By way of an example, Levi- Strauss's desire to understand the structure of the human mind from an examination of its cultural products, his discovery of "vast homologies" (Bovon:11), represents an ideological (or philosophical) goal of structuralism. By methodology is meant "any set of rules or regulations which describes and prescribes the operations to be performed upon any matter . . . with the purpose of ordering it and understanding its working" (Lane:13). Most structuralists view structuralism as a methodology, although they may recognize that its basic presuppositions are philosophical (Lane:13,17; Patte, 1976:14,19; Bovon:6-7; Ehrmann:ix; Via:1; Gardner:10). I offer this distinction between ideology and methodology as a descriptive one,/7/ not as an evaluative one, although "ideology," or its equivalent, generally serves as the negatively valued pole among commentators on structuralism./8/ In fact, neither ideology nor methodology is manifest concretely in total isolation-in structuralism or in any intellectual movement (Lane:13).

But, speaking abstractly, structuralism as a methodology may be said to focus upon either theory or analysis./9/ Structuralism as theory may be directed to various issues: a theory of Russian fairy tales (Propp), a theory of kinship or of myth (Levi-Strauss), a theory of narrativity (Grei- mas). In the field of literature, theoretical structuralism approaches not so much the meaning of individual works of literature as the meaning of meaning, that is, the presuppositions that enable literature to be written and to be read; theoretical structuralism seeks not so much to tell the meaning as to recreate the process of meaning (cf. Spivey:185; Culler:

30-85). From this description, the reverberations between theory and ideology should be loud and clear; in somewhat simplistic terms, ideology may be understood as theory (or theories) further abstracted and further generalized.

In the other direction, theory is resonant with analysis, for analysis is applied theory. In the field of literature, structuralism as analysis focuses upon the meaning of individual works, although this meaning must be considered (theoretically) as a subset of the meaning of meaning. Structural- ism as analysis is concerned not just with the what of individual meaning, but with the how of individual meaning. Observers have noted that structuralism as theory appears dominant over structuralism as analysis (e.g., Lane:38; Culler:34; Jacobson:157; Detweiler:118); some commentators have even identified structuralism as theory with structuralism per se./10/ Since theoretical hypotheses offer starting points for analysis, theoretical

dcminance may be a mark of structuralism's youth; if so, signs of matura- tion (or aging, depending upon the point of view) may be discerned in an increasing number of analytical studies. However, theory and analysis, like ideology and methodology, are separable only in the abstract./11/


Just as structuralism as methodology bifurcates into theory and anal-

ysis, so structuralism as analysis subdivides into structural exegesis and narrative hermeneutics. In relation to philosophy (or ideology), both

theory and analysis are forms of methodology./12/ In relation to theory, both structural exegesis and narrative hermeneutics are forms of analysis. As theory is, in a sense, applied philosophy, so structural exegesis is the-

ory applied to an "object" (a text) and narrative hermeneutics is structural exegesis applied to a "subject" (a reader). /13/ Edgar McKnight's book on the interrelationships of hermeneutics and structuralism, from which I have borrowed the term "narrative hermeneutics," well represents this goal of structuralism. Structural exegesis as a goal of structuralism has been the aim of much of my research (Malbon, 1979; 1980; 1982; 198?).

structuralist goals

philosophy methodology (or ideology)

theory analysis

structural narrative exegesis hermeneutics

These four-philosophy (or ideology), theory, structural exegesis, narrative hermeneutics-may be considered terminal goals of structuralism;/14/ a structuralist may choose any one of them as her or his ultimate goal, though she or he may reach it via another goal (or goals) as penultimate./15/ Thus, in the Mythologiques (1969-81), Levi-Strauss moves from an analysis of individual myths (structural exegesis) to a theory of myth to an ideological (or philosophical) understanding of what makes humanity human. In Structural Exegesis: From Theory to Practice, Daniel Patte and Aline Patte move from a semiotic theory to a structural exegesis of Mark 15 and 16 toward a narrative hermeneutic.

In actuality, both Levi-Strauss and Patte and Patte move back and forth between goals, or forms, of structuralism in the process of discovering meaning. However, their respective directions and ultimate goals are clear: Levi-Strauss moves toward ideology, Patte and Patte toward hermeneutics. Yet ideology and narrative hermeneutics are not as unrelated as they might appear from the diagram above. The desire to philosophize on the basis of


ethnography is not unlike the desire to theologize on the basis of

narratology. Ideology, in its philosophical aspects, and narrative hermeneutics, in its theological aspects, share a concern for the breadth of humanity and the depth of human beings./16/ It is true that the continuum might be represented as a line, running from ideology to narrative hermeneutics. But it might better be represented as a circle, in which ideology and narrative hermeneutics would not be poles apart but only ninety degrees apart. Furthermore, such a circle might better depict the movement among goals that often characterizes interpreters.

Thus, my typology of structuralist goals is not meant to pigeonhole scholars or to portray as static the dynamism of scholarship, but to clarify the basic thrust of various approaches. We turn now from this consideration of structuralist goals to a parallel consideration of hermeneutical goals, in our attempt to interrelate these two fundamental approaches to meaning.

Hermeneutics, Hermeneuticists, and Goals

Richard Palmer, James Robinson, and others open their discussions of hermeneutics with considerations of the various meanings of the Greek verb hermeneuein and its noun form hermaneia (Palmer:12-32; Robin- son:1-7; Achtemeier:13-14). The words share a linguistic root with the name of the Greek god Hermes, the messenger of the gods and the inventor or discoverer of language and writing. The three basic meanings of hermp- neuein are: (1) to speak (or express or say), (2) to explain (or interpret or comment upon), (3) to translate. As Palmer notes, "all three meanings may be expressed by the English verb 'to interpret,' yet each constitutes an independent and significant meaning of interpretation" (13-14). Since the ancient Greeks, each of these three meanings has found its applications by various hermeneuticists. Hermeneutics as speaking has included not only the oral recitation of Homer's epics but also the proclamation demanded by the new hermeneutic. Hermeneutics as commentary has a long and varied history in biblical exegesis, from third-century Alexandrian allegor- ization to nineteenth-century historical-critical method. Hermeneutics as translation may be seen not only literally in traditional philology but also metaphorically in Bultmannian "demythologizing." Yet one may note, with Palmer, that in all three cases "the foundational 'Hermes process' is at work: in all three cases, something foreign, strange, separated in time, space, or experience is made familiar, present, comprehensible; something requiring representation, explanation, or translation is somehow 'brought to understanding'-is 'interpreted'" (14). It is the new hermeneutic, claims Robinson, that has regained and reexpressed the "profound implication that these three functions belong together as interrelated aspects of a single hermeneutic" (16).


From these three definitions-and implications-of the ancient Greek hermaneuein, Palmer moves to six modern definitions of hermeneutics (33-45). "From the beginning," comments Palmer, "the word has denoted the science of interpretation, especially the principles of proper textual

exegesis, but," Palmer adds, "the field of hermeneutics has been inter-

preted (in roughly chronological order) as: (1) the theory of biblical exegesis; (2) general philological methodology; (3) the science of all linguistic understanding [Schleiermacher]; (4) the methodological foundation of Geisteswissenschaften [or "human studies"; Dilthey]; (5) phenomenology of existence and of existential understanding [Heidegger and Gadamer]; and (6) the systems of interpretation, both recollective and iconoclastic, used by man to reach the meaning behind myths and symbols [Ricoeur]" (Palmer:33). Furthermore, Palmer draws the important conclusion that "each of these definitions is more than an historical stage; each points to an important 'moment' or approach to the problems of interpretation" (33).

Thus the six modern definitions, in conjunction with the three ancient ones, seem to suggest various goals toward which particular hermeneuticists may aim. The basic shape of the typology of structuralist goals appears to serve also for outlining hermeneutical goals, thus facilitating our comparison of these two basic approaches to meaning. Hermeneutics as speaking (or proclamation) moves toward philosophy (or theology). Hermeneutics as commentary (or explanation) aims at methodology, either in a general sense as theory, or in a specific, analytical (applied) sense as biblical exegesis. Hermeneutics as translation-and this is particularly clear with the new hermeneutic-sets its sights on existential understanding.

hermeneutical goals

philosophy methodology (or theology)

theory analysis

biblical existential exegesis understanding

In relation to philosophy, both theory and analysis are forms of methodology. In relation to theory, both biblical exegesis and existential understanding are forms of analysis. As theory is, in a sense, applied


philosophy, so biblical exegesis is theory applied to a so-called "object" (a text) and existential understanding is biblical exegesis applied to a so- called "subject" (a reader). These four-philosophy (or theology), theory, biblical exegesis, existential understanding-may be considered terminal

goals of hermeneutics; a hermeneuticist may choose any one of them as her or his ultimate goal, though she or he may reach it via another goal (or goals) as penultimate.

As a check on the valididty and usefulness of this typology, let us consider the place within it of several important hermeneuticists. It would seem that the contrast between the work of Heidegger and Gada- mer on the one hand and of Schleiermacher, Dilthey, and Betti on the other represents a contrast between philosophy and methodology as hermeneutical goals. Palmer notes a "clear polarization" in contemporary hermeneutical thinking: "There is the tradition of Schleiermacher and Dilthey, whose adherents look to hermeneutics as a general body of methodological principles which underlie interpretation. And there are the followers of Heidegger, who see hermeneutics as a philosophical exploration of the character and requisite conditions for all understanding" (46, my emphasis). As a comparison of the thought of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Emilio Betti makes plain, however, having or not having philosophy as a goal of hermeneutics does not deliver a hermeneuticist from philosophical presuppositions; the conflict of Betti's "realist" presuppositions and Gadamer's "phenomenological" ones is in addition to the contrast of their methodological or philosophical goals (see Palmer: 46-65)./17/

The hermeneutical goals of archetypical new hermeneuticists Ger- hard Ebeling and Ernst Fuchs might be expressed as either philosophy or theology. "The proponents of the new hermeneutic," as Achtemeier notes, "in some instances, are quite prepared to invade the precincts of philosophy, so broad is their understanding of the implications of their approach. The new hermeneutic is therefore not limited to exegesis; it is a way of doing theology, and it will be better understood if that is kept in mind" (86-87; cf. Robinson:6,63,67). "Both Ebeling and Fuchs," Palmer observes, "have made the word event the center of their theological thinking, which has been labeled 'word-event theology'" (53). "The effect of the word event emphasis in theology," Palmer continues, "is to bring philosophy of language to the very center of hermeneutics" (54).

Philosophy (or theology) and methodology comprise the first branches of the tree of hermeneutical goals; the second branches are theory and analysis as forms of methodology. The theory/analysis option of my typology of hermeneutical goals appears to parallel what Palmer terms "the double focus of hermeneutics." According to Palmer, the "historical development of hermeneutics as an independent field seems to hold within itself two separate foci: one on the theory of understanding in a general


sense, and the other on what is involved in the exegesis of linguistic texts, the hermeneutical problem. These two foci need not be either self-

canceling or absolutely independent, yet they are best held in sufficient separateness for one to instruct the other" (67). By way of an example, we noted above that Schleiermacher and Dilthey are to be associated with the hermeneutical goal of methodology rather than philosophy; methodology, however, is not a terminal goal within the typology; and both Schleier- macher and Dilthey are to be associated with the theory option of

methodology rather than the analysis option. In Palmer's words, "hermeneutics is true to its great past in Schleiermacher and Dilthey when it takes its bearings from a general theory of linguistic understanding" (68, my emphasis). Theory, however, as a goal of hermeneutics, might be concentrated on a number of areas: a theory of language (Schleiermacher and Dilthey), a theory of approaches unique to the "human sciences" (Dilthey), a theory of literary interpretation (Palmer:220-53).

The direct alternative to theory as a hermeneutical goal is analysis. Analysis, however, does not represent a terminal goal in my typology of hermeneutical goals but suggests in turn the final option of biblical exegesis or existential understanding. Again my distinction is paralleled-in overall significance if not in specific terminology-by a distinction pointed out by Palmer. The distinction I see between biblical exegesis and existential understanding is comparable to the distinction Palmer observes "between the moment of understanding an object in terms of itself and the moment of seeing the existential meaning of the object for one's own life and future" (56). While the most traditional definition of hermeneutics is probably "the theory of interpretation," the most traditional goal of hermeneuticists in the field of religion throughout the long history of hermeneutics is probably biblical exegesis. By the opening of the nineteenth century, as Achtemeier notes, the terms "hermeneutics" and "exegesis" were often used interchangeably (Achtemeier:14). How- ever, in the twentieth century-to a certain extent with Bultmann and more fully with the new hermeneutic-the goal of biblical exegesis has been overwhelmed by the insistent emphasis on existential understanding, on biblical exegesis pro nobis, pro me. As John Cobb notes: "In the new hermeneutic what is interpreted is ultimately and decisively the existence of the hearer of the proclamation. The text, rather than being the object of interpretation, as with Bultmann, becomes an aid in the interpretation of present existence" (Cobb:229-80; cf. Robinson:52 and McKnight:77-78).

Bultmann serves as a good reminder, however, that the typology of hermeneutical goals is not to be viewed as static. Certainly Bultmann shares much with the philosophical hermeneutics of Heidegger (see Palmer:48-52; Achtemeier:53-70; Thiselton: especially 227-84; McKnight: 65-71) and with the methodological or theoretical hermeneutics of Dilthey


(see Thiselton:234-40; McKnight:65-71). Clearly, Bultmann the preacher and New Testament scholar is concerned with biblical exegesis (see Palmer:50), but, equally clearly, Bultmann the "demythologizer" and New Testament theologian aims at existential understanding of the biblical text (see Palmer:56). Thus, while theology (or philosophy), theory, and biblical

exegesis are for Bultmann penultimate goals of hermeneutics, the ultimate

goal is existential understanding./18/ Yet, as we observed analogously of the typology of structuralist goals, the continuum from theology (or philosophy) to theory to biblical exegesis to existential understanding might well be represented as a circle, with existential understanding moving toward theology. Certainly this movement is descriptive of Bultmann's exegesis of Paul and John for twentieth-century persons as part of a comprehensive theology.

The sketching out of parallel typologies of structuralist and hermeneutical goals suggests that, in terms of their end points, certain structuralists may have more in common with certain hermeneuticists than with other structuralists, and vice versa. For example, those structuralists most interested in narrative hermeneutics and those hermeneuticists most concerned with existential understanding might view each other as colleagues in a common endeavor as against their more "theoretical" associates on either side. Those very associates, however, whether structuralist or hermeneutical theorists, may welcome closer association as they aim at theoretical clarification rather than "simply" applied analysis. To remind us of what structural theorists have in common with structural exegetes, and hermeneuticists of one emphasis with those of another, we turn from a consideration of end points, or goals, to a brief consideration of beginning points, or presuppositions. We will concentrate on structuralist and hermeneutical presuppositions in two key areas: history and language.

The Historical, the Historic, and Historicity

Norman Perrin, in an aside to his discussion of the New Testament as myth and history, suggests three centers of meaning of the term "history" (27-29): (1) history as the historical, or "factual history" of the type "that would satisfy a court of law"; (2) history as the historic, or the significance of factual history "in the broader context of the totality of human experience"; and (3) history as the historicity of human existence in the world, or all those things, from historical circumstances and events to ideas and interpretations, that can change one's life. To borrow, and extend, Perrin's example: all the authentic speeches of all the U.S. presi- dents are historical; Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address" is historic; and the "Gettysburg Address" has had an impact on the historicity of all Ameri- cans, changing the lives of both northerners and southerners, both whites and blacks.


The distinctions among the historical, the historic, and historicity may, I believe, help to clarify and distinguish the presuppositions of structuralism and of hermeneutics regarding history. Traditional biblical criticism, based on the historical-critical method, has focused on history as the historical. This is clearly seen in form criticism's concern to establish the Sitz im Leben of the text and in redaction criticism's concern to illuminate the situation of each community by examining the theology of each synoptic gospel.

Structuralism has not infrequently been criticized by biblical scholars (and others) as being ahistorical if not antihistorical. But, as Dan Via more realistically observes, any adoption and adaptation of structuralism by biblical studies "will entail, not a rejection of the historical method, but a relegating of it to a more marginal position than it has been enjoy- ing" (2; cf. McKnight:239,242). Structuralism reacts against concentration on the diachronic by focusing on the synchronic. Structuralism responds primarily not to history as the historical but to history as the historic. For example, Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address" is recognized as historic, structuralists would point out, not primarily because of its place in the chronological syntagm of presidential addresses from George Washington to Ronald Reagan but because of its place in the paradigm of all presidential addresses, no matter when they were given. Likewise, the significance of a text, that which interests structuralists, is to be determined by its intertextual and intratextual relationships, not merely from its historical context. Oversimplifying in order to clarify our schema, we might say that fact is to significance as the historical is to the historic and as historical criticism is to structuralism.

Hermeneutics focuses on neither the historical nor the historic but on history as the historicity of human existence in the world. "For hermeneutic itself," states Robinson, "is rooted in man's historicness, namely, the call placed upon him to encounter the history of the past in such a way as not to deny his own existential future and present responsibility" (9). In fact, Heidegger's ontology, on which much of recent hermeneutical thinking rests, suggests that the historical is founded upon historicity. Paraphrasing Heidegger, Achtemeier states, "Time itself is grounded in the structure of the self, so that the possibility of temporal existence, i.e., history, is itself grounded in the structure of the self" (39-40). Or, as paraphrased by Thiselton (184), "history is what it is by virtue of the historicality (Geschichtlichkeit) of Dasein, rather than because of the mere pastness of historical events and objects. Hence the focus of history lies not in the past but in the present."/19/ Paul Ricoeur, in speaking for hermeneutics as over against structuralism, states explicitly, "I will reserve the term 'historicity'-historicity of tradition and historicity of interpretation-for any understanding which implicitly or explicitly knows itself to be on the road of the philosophic understanding of self


and of being" (55). For this reason, biblical exegesis in the Bultmannian tradition is primarily concerned not with the historical past but with the present and future historicity of human existence; it is not historical exegesis but exegesis pro nobis; it is, in the words of Ebeling, a "process from text to sermon"; it is "proclamation" (Ebeling:107; cf. Fuchs: 141)./20/

At least as applied in the field of biblical studies, both structuralism's focus on the historic and hermeneutics' focus on historicity may be seen as reactions against the excesses of the nineteenth and twentieth centu- ries' concern for the historical./21/ Structuralism has challenged traditional historical criticism to respect the integrity of the text and to appreciate the presuppositions that enable texts to be written and to be read (e.g., Via). Hermeneutics has challenged traditional historical criticism to bridge the distance between "the two horizons," the horizon of the ancient text and the horizon of the contemporary reader (e.g., Palmer). Structuralism has sometimes accused hermeneutics of ignoring the interrelations and the constraints of the text as a linguistic product (e.g., Kovacs). Hermeneutics has sometimes accused structuralism of analyzing the text in isolation from the living process of communication (e.g., Ricoeur).

Evidently, in the responses of structuralism and hermeneutics to historical criticism and in the responses of structuralism and hermeneutics to each other, we are sometimes dealing with overreactions to overreactions. In order to defuse this situation, it is helpful to remember Perrin's presentation of the historical, the historic, and historicity as three dimensions of history, three interrelated-not independent-ways of conceiving of history. Analogously, various approaches to textual meaning are to be viewed as interrelated; the focus of traditional biblical criticism on the historical is better supplemented than supplanted by the concern of stucturalism for the historic and that of hermeneutics for historicity./22/

For structuralism, the historic is determined by syntagmatic and especially paradigmatic inter- and intrarelationships of cultural phenomena, and syntagmatic and paradigmatic are the two dimensions of language. For hermeneutics, the bridge between an historical text and the historicity of a reader is formed by language. Yet structuralism and hermeneutics approach language, as they approach history, with different concerns and different presuppositions.

Langue, Parole, and Sprachereignis In somewhat oversimplified terms, we may say that structuralism

regards language as a system of signs and hermeneutics regards language as an event of disclosure. While these assumptions are not necessarily


contradictory or exclusive, they do represent opposing points of view on the appropriate starting point of a discussion of language.

The foundations of structuralism's presuppositions about language were set by Saussure. As we noted above, the "crux of de Saussure's

theory . . . is the role of relations in a system . . ." (Wells:97). A linguistic sign itself (a word) is a relation, a relation between a signifier and a signified; and language is a system of signs. In three key dichotomies, Saussure presented his answers to three questions concerning this language system: (1) what are the components of languages? (2) how should language be studied? (3) what are the dimensions of language? First, language in the broad sense (French langage) is comprised of the language-system (langue) and language-behavior or speech (parole)./23/ Langage is a social phenomenon; langue is its inherited or institutional element, parole its innovational element. Langue, language, is communal and passive; parole, speech, is individual and active. Second, according to Saussure, it is the task of the linguist to study langue and, primarily, to study it synchronically rather than diachronically, that is, as a system of "relations across a moment in time, rather than through time" (Lane:16-17). Diachronic analysis of language is the study of changes in language over time; synchronic analysis is the investigation of the structure of language.

Third, in focusing on langue synchronically, Saussure distinguished two dimensions of langue, two kinds of relationships that exist between the signs of the language-system: syntagmatic and paradigmatic./24/ Rela- tions of contiguity are syntagmatic; relations of similarity are paradigmatic. Principles of selection are paradigmatic; principles of combination are syntagmatic. Consider, for example, the sentence: "She wrote an essay." Here "wrote" is related syntagmatically to "She" by following it and to "an essay" by preceding it, while, paradigmatically, "She" is related to "He" and "essay" to "poem." While the syntagm concerns the actual sentence, the paradigm concerns the potential sentences over against which the meaning of the actual sentence is made clear. Both the paradigmatic dimension, the "axis of simultaneity," and the syntagmatic dimension, the "axis of succession," are essential if language is to "mean" (signify) anything.

Language as a system of signs, language as the interrelation of syntagmatic and paradigmatic dimensions, is a basic presupposition of structuralism. Thus, without reference to Saussure, Propp focused on the syntagmatic aspects of the Russian fairy tale. In a conscious application of Saussure's linguistic model,/25/ Levi-Strauss focused on the paradigmatic aspects of the "language" of kinship and the "language" of myth. Levi-Strauss's work has been heralded as "the model for all subsequent attempts at the extension of linguistic theory beyond the borders of its own discipline" (Robey:3), and with this extension has come the extension of the syntagmatic/paradigmatic distinction.


Whereas structuralism focuses upon the syntagmatic and paradigmatic dimensions of language (French langue) as opposed to speech (French parole), hermeneutics, and especially the new hermeneutic, con- centrates on language as language-event (German Sprachereignis). And whereas Saussurean linguistics is foundational for structuralism's view of language, Heideggerian philosophy is foundational for hermeneutic's view of language. For Heidegger, "language is the house of being"; "words and language are not wrappings in which things are packed for the commerce of those who write and speak. It is in words and language that things first come into being and are" (as quoted by Palmer:135). Language, then, is insufficiently accounted for as a system of arbitrary signs. Language originates not with human beings but with Being itself. Language is, in Achtemeier's paraphrase of Heidegger, "the response to Being, it is the act of being-open-to Being, of letting-be-manifest in response to the call of Being" (Achtemeier:48; cf. Robinson:48-49). Thus, for the new hermeneuticist Ernst Fuchs, "Language is not necessarily talk. Language is rather primarily a showing or letting be seen, an indi- cation in the active sense" (as quoted by Robinson:54). Language and reality, word and event, are inseparable, and it is their unity that is indi- cated by the term "language-event." To approach language as language- event is to presuppose that, quoting Achtemeier, "event and word are born together," "that an event needs the words, the language, it calls forth in order to be itself," and that "the language thus given birth illumines the reality that summoned it forth" (Achtemeier:90-91; cf. Robinson:46-48,57-58)./26/ Thus language as language-event is a living process of communication-or better, of illumination, since the "saving event" (Bultmann's Heilsgeschehen or Heilsereignis) is a "language event" (Ebeling's Wortgeschehen or Fuch's Sprachereignis) (Robinson: 57; see also 61-62). By contrast, language as a system of signs is a human product-though more an unconscious than a conscious one./27/

Structuralism's insistence on the importance of synchronic study of language, including cultural "languages," correlates with its concern for history as the historic. Hermeneutics' understanding of language as language-event correlates with its concern for history as the historicity of human existence in the world. For the new hermeneutic, language is the bridge between the historical and historicity. Central to Fuchs's hermeneutical program is the task of "exhibiting the historicness of existence as the linguisticality of existence" (as quoted by Robinson:55). Language, explains Achtemeier (91), "contains the possibilities of self-understanding, and therefore of human existence, as they have found expression in the past." "Language," summarizes Palmer (207), "is the medium in which the tradition conceals itself and is transmitted. Experience is not so much something that comes prior to language, but rather experience itself occurs in and through language. Linguisticality is something that permeates the


way of being-in-the-world of historical man." Thus, and not so surprisingly, presuppositions concerning language

are intertwined with presuppositions concerning history for both hermeneutics and structuralism. Furthermore, these presuppositions influence the goals generally pursued by structuralists and hermeneuticists. Although both structuralism and hermeneutics, as we suggested above, are open to four analogous goals, structuralism's approach to language as a system of signs predisposes structuralism to aim toward exegesis, while hermeneutics' approach to language as language-event predisposes hermeneutics to seek existential understanding and to develop a philosophy and/or theology. This would seem to be the reason why Ricoeur (27-61; see also 62-78), for example, recommends structuralism as a method (or "science") of exegesis and hermeneutics as a philosophy. This tendency of particular presuppositions to favor particular goals seems also to be behind Culley's observation that structuralism focuses on the text and hermeneutics on the reader, for structuralism's approach to history as the historic predisposes structuralism to focus on the text in its literary or linguistic context, whereas hermeneutics' approach to history as the historicity of human existence in the world predisposes hermeneutics to focus on the reader in the context of his or her lived experience./28/ For both structuralism and hermeneutics as approaches to meaning, the context is crucial.

Structuralism, Hermeneutics, and Contextual Meaning

Structuralism, as a way of concentrating on the text, may be distinguished from hermeneutics, as a way of concentrating on the reader; this is the simple but powerful suggestion of Culley's model. Yet structuralism shares with hermeneutics an awareness of the relation of the reader to the text, of the interpreter to the interpreted; this is the recurrent theme of Polzin's argument. Thus, as we noted at the beginning, Culley emphasizes a fundamental difference between structuralism and hermeneutics, whereas Polzin emphasizes a fundamental similarity between them. It has been my aim to consider both differences and similarities, both distinctions and commonalities, between these two approaches to meaning. I have suggested that structuralism and hermeneutics share a similar range of goals: that four terminal goals of structuralism-ideology (or philosophy), theory, structural exegesis, and narrative hermeneutics-are analogous to four terminal goals of hermeneutics-theology (or philosophy), theory, biblical exegesis, and existential understanding. I have suggested that structuralism and hermeneutics differ, however, in their presuppositions concerning history and language: that structuralism approaches history as the historic and language as a system of signs, and hermeneutics approaches history as historicity and language as language-event. Because


of these presuppositions, literary or biblical structuralism focuses on intertextual and intratextual relationships and literary or biblical hermeneutics focuses on the text-reader relationship.

But, to borrow the terminology of Michael Polanyi, what is of focal awareness for the one is of subsidiary awareness for the other. Structural- ists know, sometimes more tacitly than explicitly, that to remove the text from its author-text-reader context is an abstraction; they insist, however, that this procedure is not arbitrary but essential, for it enables the reader to listen openly and fully to the text itself. Hermeneuticists know, sometimes more tacitly than explicitly, that, if the reader is to hear and respond to the text, the text itself-in detail and as a whole and as a system of relationships forming of details a whole-this text must be allowed to speak in its own voice. In their most thoughtful moments, both structuralists and hermeneuticists realize, with Robert Funk, that "the text cannot speak for itself if it is not painstakingly exegeted in its own context, and it cannot be interpreted if it cannot be brought into intimate relation with contemporary modes of thought and experience" (Funk, 1964:181; see also Foust; Scholes:9-10).

But one cannot focus on everything at once./29/ In this the scholar, whether a traditional historical critic, a structuralist, or a hermeneuticist, is no better off than a child at a three-ring circus-and no worse off either. We do not regard the circus as primarily a frustrating experience for the child, nor need we regard the scholarly world as primarily such for ourselves. Yet, like the child whose head spins at the circus, we would do well to shift our focus occasionally, to allow our work to be refreshed by tacit knowledge coming to explicitness.

Structuralism focuses on "meaning of," on meaning in the context of intertextual and intratextual relationships. Hermeneutics focuses on "meaning for," on meaning in the context of the text-reader relationship. Because both structuralism and hermeneutics appreciate the importance of context to meaning, these two approaches to meaning should manifest a "preunderstanding" of each other, or, to change the figure, should perceive a common structure between themselves, and thus establish a creative relationship. Structuralism might guide hermeneutics away from a premature application of the text to the reader. from an immature abstraction of the text from the reader. Both structuralism and hermeneutics affirm that all textual meaning is contextual meaning. Perhaps both structuralists and hermeneuticists need to reaffirm that all inquiry is interrelated.


NOTES

/1/ Compare (1) the model of a literary work (in the broadest sense of the term) as the interrelation of author, text, reader, world presented in Malbon, 1980:321-22; (2) the model of the "coordinates of art criticism" (work, audience, universe) presented by Abrams (especially 6); and (3) the "maps" for literary critics (central point: work; cardinal points: author, reader, information, lan-

guage) presented by Hernadi.

/2/ Polzin defines structuralism as an approach (1) to objects as whole, self-

regulating systems of transformations, (2) by means of hypothetical-deductive models, (3) with self-conscious awareness of the personal, operational structures of the subject making the approach (see especially 1-2). In his succeeding evalu- ations of what makes a structural analysis structural, however, Polzin focuses

primarily on the third element, the relationship of the analyzing subject to the

analysis (see especially 38,33-34). Polzin's purpose here-and his model-is "a structural analysis of structural analysis," not an evaluation of the relationship between structuralism and hermeneutics.

/3/ An earlier version of the following typology of structuralist goals was presented in Malbon, 1980:318-21.

/4/ Lane expresses these two categories not as ideology and methodology but as "theories" and "methods"; but note Lane's use of the terms "philosophies and methods" (17) and "ideology" (18).

/5/ I do not mean by this to ignore the possible distinctions between ideology and philosophy, but rather to refer, in general and with neutrality, to what Robert Scholes identifies and Robert Polzin affirms as "structuralism as a movement of mind" (Scholes:1; Polzin:iv,1).

/6/ Lane is here describing what he terms a "theory" as opposed to a "method." See note 4 above.

/7/ Cf. Scholes's discussion of "structuralism as a movement of mind" and "structuralism as a method" (1-12). See also Culley:169.

/8/ For example, Ehrmann:viii; Lane:17-18; Patte, 1976:19; Spivey:144; Wilder, 1974:11. Among the more positive, or at least neutral, discussions of structuralism as an ideology are Scholes:1-7; Gardner:213-47; McKnight: 295-312; Detweiler:202-4,207.

/9/ This distinction between theory and analysis is paralleled by, for example, Patte and Patte's distinction between "theory" and "practice" or "fundamental research" and "applied research" (1); Patte's distinction between the search for "universal structures" and the search for "structures which characterize each specific narrative" (1980a:7); Detweiler's distinction between "theory" and "application" (3-4,103,124); Barthes's distinction between "poetics" and "criticism," as discussed by Culler (30-35).

/10/ This appears to be the case with Spivey:135; Robey:3; Culler (following


Barthes):30-all of whom are commenting in the context of literary structuralism. Cf. also Calinescu:5,9,16, on "poetics" (see note 28 below).

/11/ See Polzin:34. Patte's discussion of "five types of structuralist research" (1980a:7-9) may be understood as a development of the various relationships between theory and analysis: analysis in disregard of theory (Patte's type 1), theory in isolation from analysis (type 2), analysis for the sake of theory, whether inductive or deductive (types 3 and 4), and analysis in the light of theory (type 5, "structural exegesis").

/12/ The term "methodology" is somewhat problematic. Whereas methodology does seem an appropriate term in opposition to ideology, that which subdivides into theory and analysis might more appropriately be labeled methodology/method.

/13/ Cf. Patte, 1976:3-6, on "exegesis" and "hermeneutic." See also Patte and Patte:vii,94; and Patte, 1980a:22.

/14/ My diagram of goals, although developed independently of Pettit's tree of options (54), may be fruitfully compared with it. However, Pettit's tree of options serves as an evaluative tool (54-64): according to Pettit, theory fails- generative theory more drastically so than descriptive theory, and straight analysis is uncontrolled, thus only systematic analysis is workable; there is only one real option for structuralism.

/15/ See Glucksmann's five levels of the "problematic," or conceptual frame- work, of structuralism-or of any theoretical system, listed according to "descending levels of abstraction rather than a hierarchy of determinacy" (10): (1) epistemology [cf. structuralism as an approach to meaning], (2) philosophy [cf. philosophy (or ideology)], (3) theory [cf. theory], (4) methodology [cf. analysis], (5) description [cf. structural exegesis]. Glucksmann stresses that "each coher- ent thought system includes the five mentioned in some form" (10).

/16/ See Patte and Patte's diagram of "the path taken by Levi-Strauss" and the path they follow to the "semantic universe" (15-16).

/17/ As an analogous example we note that, although Daniel Patte shares with Edgar McKnight the structuralist goal of "narrative hermeneutics," Patte (1980b) underscores a fundamental difference in their philosophical and theological presuppositions: McKnight, according to Patte, affirms the reality of the world as an extralinguistic reality and revelation as immanent, while Patte, following Greimas, affirms the reality of the world as a linguistic reality and revelation as transcendent.

/18/ Robinson (52), Cobb (229-30), and McKnight (77-78) would, presum- ably, consider existential understanding the ultimate goal of the new hermeneutic but biblical exegesis the ultimate goal of Bultmann. To be sure, exegesis of the text is more central (and essential) for Bultmann than for Ebeling and Fuchs, but Bultmann's approach to the text is motivated by his concern for the reader's (or hearer's) existential appropriation of it, and for Bultmann biblical


exegesis that does not result in existential understanding is incomplete. For further examples of penultimate and ultimate hermeneutical goals,

consider Heidegger (penultimate: textual exegesis, ultimate: philosophy; see Palmer:141,161) and Ebeling and Fuchs (antepenultimate: biblical exegesis, penultimate: existential understanding, ultimate: theology; see Achtemeier:85,87).

/19/ Cf. Achtemeier (125) on Fuchs and Palmer on Dilthey (Palmer:111, 116-18) and on Gadamer (Palmer:176-93) as well as Palmer's own "Thirty Theses on Interpretation" (242-53), especially theses 8 and 24-30. See also Ricoeur:16-19.

/20/ Wilder's critique of the new hermeneutic's concentration on historicity (1964:205), of its foundation "on a violent acultural and anticultural impulse" (1964:204), is well taken. See also Cobb's discussion of the existentialist (including the new hermeneutical) view of history (the historical) as external to faith.

/21/ From the point of view of the new hermenuetic, see Fuchs:237-39. On the reaction against historicism in twentieth-century literary criticism generally, see Calinescu:1-3,12,15-16.

/22/ As Funk notes in a warning to the new hermeneutic, "historical criticism as an integral element in the interpretation of the text is subject to preunderstanding. But the pre-understanding that is brought to the text is itself (both humanly and) historically situated and must itself be submitted to historical criticism" (1964:195).

/23/ The terms language-system and language-behavior are Lyons's expression (13) of Saussure's langue/parole distinction.

/24/ "Paradigmatic" is actually Louis Hjelmslev's term, but it is more com- monly employed (and less ambiguous) than Saussure's term "associative (Lyons:12).

/25/ Pettit (68) considers Levi-Strauss's work "as a development of the linguistic model rather than as an application of it." This evaluation appears to reflect Pettit's observation-and disapproval-of Levi-Strauss's move beyond interpretation to philosophy or ideology.

/26/ For a critique of the new hermeneutic's view of language (Does language express reality directly? Is existentialist language about language as abstract and objectifying, in another direction, as that which it rejects?), see Dillenberger (151) and Wilder (1964:211-12).

/27/ With this distinction between language "product" and language "process," compare Ricoeur's discussion of the word as "structure" and the word as "event" (79-96; see also 62-78). Patte suggests that both emphases are found within structuralism (1980a:9-12), and the inclusion of both structural exegesis and narrative hermeneutics within my typology of structuralist goals indicates my agreement at that level. However, at the level of presuppositions about language, I regard the language "product" orientation as more distinctive of structuralism and the language "process" orientation as more distinctive of hermeneutics.


/28/ See also Calinescu's discussion of "Hermeneutics or Poetics," in which what I have isolated as goals and as presuppositions are not delineated. At times Calinescu's discussion of poetics vs. hermeneutics appears to parallel my discussion of goals: poetics is opposed to hermeneutics as theory is opposed to analysis (5,9,16) or perhaps as structural exegesis is opposed to narrative hermeneutics (16-17). At other times Calinescu's discussion of poetics vs. hermeneutics appears to parallel my discussion of presuppositions: poetics is opposed to hermeneutics as structuralism's focus on language as a sytem of signs is opposed to hermeneutic's focus on

language as language-event (13-15) and as structuralism's focus on history as the historic is opposed to hermeneutic's focus on history as historicity (13,15-17).

/29/ The collection of papers and responses that comprises The New Herme- neutic (edited by Robinson and Cobb) illustrates the human drama of this state- ment.

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Structural Ism, Hermeneutics And Contextual Meaning