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The aim of this paper is to re-examine the hermeneutic in the ongoing discourse on methodology in African philosophy. The diverse understanding of hermeneutics is not only limited to Western philosophy; in the few decades of its history in African philosophy, hermeneutics has also assumed different meanings. This paper discusses not only the historical evolution and development of hermeneutists in the West, but also the African hermeneutists: Tsenay Serequeberhan, Okonda Okolo, Sophie Oluwole, Raphael Madu, and Bruce Janz. Through a comparative critical inquisition on the strengths and the problems involved in the conceptions of hermeneutics by these African philosophers, this paper argues that basic to hermeneutics is dialogue and its proclivity towards intercultural understanding.Keywords: Hermeneutics, African philosophy, intercultural understanding, Oral tradition.

El artículo desarrolla la concepción de Emmanuel Levinas sobre el lenguaje y su ubicación dentro del giro lingüístico-hermenéutico de la filosofía contemporánea. Se lo relaciona con los autores comprendidos en este esto giro (Heidegger, Gadamer, Ricoeur, Derrida) por la importancia concedida al lenguaje a la vez que se lo distingue radicalmente de ellos por su original transmutación ética del lenguaje. En la argumentación se recuperan las nociones filosóficas principales con que Levinas tematiza la cuestión del lenguaje: deseo, diacronía, decir y dicho, huella, ausencia, no-indiferencia. Levinas’ standpoint in the hermeneutic turn: language as ethics”. This paper develops Emmanuel Levinas’ conceptions about language and its placein the linguistic-hermeneutic turn of contemporary philosophy. It examines the relations with the authors associated to this turn (Heidegger, Gadamer, Ricoeurand Derrida) due to the importance given to language and, at the same time, it sets him apart from them for his original ethical transmutation of language. This paper also considers the main philosophical notions by which Levinas treats the topic of language: desire, diachrony, the said and the saying, trace, absence, no-indifference, otherness. Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. Departamento de Humanidades

This paper (see link below) explores the overlapping space between an internal conception of interreligious dialogue and models of conversational preaching and homiletical theology which embrace mutual critical-correlational theological method. At the heart of the paper is a close reading of a sermon focusing on John 5:31–47—preaching much influenced by interreligious hermeneutics. The analysis shows how preaching effectively may address some fundamental principles of interreligious dialogue, for example by offering space for open-minded, respectful, and attentive listening and learning from the religious other, or by encouraging curiosity as well as deep reflection on Christian gospel in the light of gospel resonant of voices from other religious traditions. In the concluding discussion, the implications of this research for the rhetoric of conversational preaching practice are highlighted, and further homiletical-theological reflection on the relationship between preaching and interreligious dialogue is encouraged, not only because it is possible but because it is desirable for Christian preaching and homiletics in particular. Article link: http://www.homiletic.net/index.php/homiletic/article/view/4472

MY AIM IN THIS PAPER will be to test an hypothesis. I assume that the primary sense of the word "hermeneutics" concerns the rules required for the interpretation of the written documents of our culture. In assuming this starting point I am remaining faithful to the concept of Auslegung as it was stated by Wilhelm Dilthey; whereas Verstehen (understanding, comprehension) relies on the recognition of what a foreign subject means or intends on the basis of all kinds of signs in which psychic life expresses itself (Lebensiiusserungen), Auslegung (interpretation, exegesis) implies something more specific: it covers only a limited category of signs, those which are fixed by writing, including all the sorts of documents and monuments which entail a fixation similar to writing. Now my hypothesis is this: if there are specific problems which are raised by the interpretation of texts because they are texts and not spoken language, and if these problems are the ones which constitute hermeneutics as such, then the social sciences may be said to be hermeneutical (I) inasmuch as their object displays some of the features constitutive of a text as text, and (2) inasmuch as their methodology develops the same kind of procedures as those of Auslegung or textinterpretation. Hence the two questions to which my paper will be devoted: (i) To what extent may we consider the notion of text as a good paradigm for the so-called object of the social sciences? (2) To what extent may we use the methodology of text-interpretation as a paradigm for interpretation in general in the field of the social sciences?

This paper is intended to be both a discussion of the interpretation of particular texts from the New Testament, the parables ofJesus and the Gospel of Mark, and also a contribution to the general discussion of hermeneutics that is so real an aspect of the study of the humanities today. I speak as a New Testament scholar, but I have tried to take some account of the discussion as it is being carried on by philosophers of language, literary critics, and historians of religion. I am going to address myself to the interpretation of the parables of Jesus and the Gospel of Mark because I believe it is always more helpful to discuss the interpretation of specific texts than it is to discuss general principles, although of course the two necessarily go hand in hand. From all the texts within the New Testament, I have chosen the parables of Jesus and the Gospel of Mark because they are both highly original and very important texts. Moreover, their particular nature and the subsequent history of their interpretation and reinterpretation in the New Testament and in the church are such as to make them particularly good vehicles for a discussion of what the Germans call das hermeneutische Problem, the problems necessarily involved in any act of interpretation. Let me begin therefore by saying a word about each of those texts. In speaking of the parables ofJesus, I intend to speak of the parables as Jesus actually taught them, that is, of the parables of Jesus as reconstructed from the gospels by modern New Testament scholarship. This reconstruction is indeed one of the triumphs of that scholarship, and work upon the parables remains a major preoccupation of contemporary New Testament scholars.' As originally delivered by Jesus, they were

The biblical faith tradition prides itself as foremost in gender relations, which a close reading of the biblical text assents. Some scholars, however, argue that women in the Hebrew Bible were totally beholden to the men and as such played little or no part in Israel’s faith history. A critical reading of the Scriptural texts highlights an array of women whose active participation in salvation history remained largely unsung. Shrouded in anonymity, the liberative role of biblical women as well as women in church history continued to be inaccessible to the ordinary reader because of entrenched androcentric interpretation of the religious texts, which tends to minimize women’s unique role repeatedly. Scripture and church tradition present women who from the beginning of the Jesus Movement and down through the centuries have collaborated with men as well as stood on their own, in church ministry. This expository paper draws insights from scripture, church history and cultural studies, and with hermeneutics of acknowledgement as critical tool, shows women’s active engagement in church ministry. The Lucan text (24:22-23), provided the platform from which to tease out the assertion of women participation for the optimal engagement of contemporary Nigeria women in church life and ministry.Key Words: Ministry, Women, Service, Asceticism, Diaconate

This paper tries to give an answer to the question why the Neopositivist "Logic of Science" has not been able to cope with the peculiar interests and problems of the Iiumanities (i.e. Philologies, History and critical humanistic Social Science), to speak more precisely: why Neopositivists conceive of "understanding" only as an heuristic auxiliary function in the service of "covering law explanation" and thus cannot account of Hermeneutics, that is the methodology of interpreting the meaning of symbols (texts, works, actions, institutions etc.). The answer given starts from the thesis that Methodological Solipsism that is the assumption that, in principle, one person alone can practice science by objectifying the whole world without presupposing a complementary hermeneutic knowledge by communication with human Co-subjects belongs to the secret metaphysical presuppositions of Logical Positivism. As an alternative a transcendental foundation of Hermeneutics (and of Critique of Ideology) is proposed which presupposes the Apriori of Conmmunication.

SASSUME IN THIS PAPER that the main problem of hermeneutics is that of interpretation. Not interpretation in any undetermined sense of the word, but interpretation with two qualifications: one concerning its scope or field of application, the other its epistemological specificity. As concerns the first point, I should say that there are problems of interpretation because there are texts, written texts, the autonomy of which (as regards either the intention of the author, or the situation of the work, or the destination to privileged readers) creates specific problems; these problems are usually solved in spoken language by the kind of exchange or intercourse which we call dialogue or conversation. With written texts, the discourse must speak by itself. Let us say, therefore, that there are problems of interpretation because the relation writing-reading is not a particular case of the relation speakinghearing in the dialogical situation. Such is the most general feature of interpretation as concerns its scope or application field. Secondly, the concept of interpretation occurs, at the epistemological level, as an alternative concept opposed to that of explanation (or explication); taken together, they both form a significant contrasting pair, which has given rise to many philosophical disputes in Germany since the time of Schleiermacher and Dilthey; according to that tradition, interpretation has specific subjective implications, such as the involvement of the reader in the process of understanding and the reciprocity between text-interpretation and self-interpretation. This reciprocity is usually known as the "hermeneutical circle" and has been opposed, mainly by logical positivists, but also for opposite reasons by Romantic thinkers, to the kind of objectivity and to the lack of selfinvolvement which is supposed to characterize a scientific explanation of things. I shall say later to what extent we may be led to amend and even to rebuild on a new basis the opposition between interpretation and explanation. Anyhow, this schematic description of the concept of interpretation