1.1.2 A hermeneutical position
The work with the empirical material
is about identifying the concept of shame and how it shows itself as a phenomenon
in a variation of ways within the context of a Norwegian Incest Centre, with
the perspective of expanding and verifying some of the theoretical aspects of
shame which I have chosen as significant in this dissertation. The analytic
strategy I have used is what Kvale (1997) calls a reflective and hermeneutical
inspired interpretation of meaning. This hermeneutical point of view is based
on Gadamer (1960/2004) who argues that the individual human being is a
historical individual being, present in the world, formed by prejudice and characterized
by traditions in a lived life. Prejudice is a part of our pre-understanding
with both pro’s and con’s, because we interpret the world we live in which we
have no or little knowledge of and therefore have difficulty to preceive.
Gadamer (1960/2004) argues that this pre-understanding becomes a horizon of
understanding which is re-evaluated every time we receive a new understanding
of something. He argues that we can only interpret ourselves,
our environment and stories of past experiences, through the joining together
of horizons. When horizons melt together they change the existing horizon, a
new horizon occurs. All understanding is, in my opinion, dependent of the
joining together of horizons and their relation to stories from the past. New
understanding is created in my opinion in an interaction between pre-knowledge
and what is shown to us.
Hermeneutic according to Gadamer,
seeks in my opinion to re-establish the importance of our preunderstanding,
prejudice and tradition in three steps. The first step is by re-reading Husserl’s
argument that all understanding of an object is an understanding of the object
as something. All understanding involves using a meaning which the object does
not have in it self. One can not see the back side of a tree, but through experience
one knows that the tree has one side one can not see. One internalizes each
side of the tree as a side. Being prejudice means having a judgement of
something before having all possible facts first. Prejudice can be confirmed or
weakened by putting it into play and through new experiences. The second step
in this re-establishment is done by using what Heidegger (1926/1962) calls the
pre-structures of understanding. Martin Heidegger (1926/1962) writes in Being and Time (chapter 5, §32) about
understanding and interpretation and says that even before one starts to
interpret a text one has placed it in a certain context (German: Vorhabe); one comes to the text with a
certain perspective (German: Vorsicht)
and perceives the text in a certain way (German: Vorgriff). Heidegger says that there is no neutral perspective one
can take in order to study the so-called “real” meaning of a text. Hans-Georg
Gadamer (1960/1975) also writes in Truth
and Method that the scientific way to approach data is to put it in a
certain context and that this involves having a specific attitude toward it. Heidegger’s
(1926/1962) calls this for being thrown into the world. This thrownness into
the world brings us to the third step in re-establishing our preunderstanding,
prejudice and traditions. Gadamer locates our understanding in the interest of
the subjective interpreters, or which Heidegger calls the structure of care
(German: Sorge). This caring
structure is situated in history. The elements we bring with us when we are
thrown into the world are developed within the historical tradition we belong
to. Our understanding is therefore conditioned by prejudice from both what can
be accepted immediately because it is well known for us, and in what is
disturbing because it is new for us. In both cases, what a generation believes
and presumes has its roots in what previous generations have formulated and
presumed. Our understanding is not just a product of individuals and society,
but also of history. This is what Gadamer calls the effect of history (German: Wirkungsgeschichte). This is a power which traditions have
upon those who belong in it, and is so powerful that is has an effect even
though we reject it. Our understanding is therefore not entirely subjective,
because it is grounded in the effects of history. Gadamer argues that all understanding
is always an interpretation, and that meaning is always a melting together of
horizons. The horizon of human beings in society and history melt together with
the horizon of individual histories, which make possible an understanding of
sexual abuse as an experience. This means in my opinion that each person’s
historical and linguistic situation does not represent a hinder for
understanding, but a horizon or perspective which makes understanding possible
when put in a historical context. The words one uses and the stories one tell
of the effects of ones past history (as with stories of shame in the context of
sexual abuse), does not make a limit of ones understanding, but instead
constructs an orientation which makes understanding possible in the first
place.
Kaare T. Pettersen
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