E Betti General Theory Of Interpretation

This book is part Seven of a series on general and specific interpretation. It particularly deals with the Juridical, Theological, and Psychological interpretations, which are the most useful for the life in the modern civilized societies. Though these three interpretations are concrete and practical, the theoretical parts are developed in the first four books of the series.

Chapter Six of this Series deals essentially with interpretation and Translation.

With a Foreword by Lars Vinx, this book is the first complete English translation of the Italian jurist, Emilio Betti’s classic work Die Hermeneutik als allgemeine Methodik der Geisteswissenschaften, originally published in 1962. Betti’s hermeneutical theory is presented here as a ‘general methodology of the sciences of the spirit’, such as to allow the achievement of objectivity, however relative it might be. Its central focus is the tension between an object, to be considered in its autonomy, and the subjectivity of the interpreter, who can understand the object only by means of his or her own categories, historical-cultural conditions, and interests. Set against the work of Bultmann and Gadamer, Betti is concerned to limit the arbitrariness of subjectivity without diminishing the place of interpretation. Detailing the principles that govern, and therefore, guide any interpretation, Betti traces how interpretation in art and in literature, as well as in the fields of science, jurisprudence, sociology, and economy, can be said to be objective, albeit only ever in a relative sense. This summa of Betti’s key contribution to hermeneutic theory will be of interest across a range of disciplines, including legal and literary theory, philosophy, as well as the history and sociology of law.

This is volume six in the series of the General Theory of Interpretation and offers an insight into Drama and Music

Chapter Five of the General Theory of Interpretation is certainly the most intriguing for the interpreter. The description and the nature of several fields in which the hermeneutical interpretation is an excellent means for the understanding. The fields introduced and described by Betti in this chapter are the artistic, the literary, the psychological, the sociological, the juridical, and the economical. Technology and history are the two parallel lines within which all this presentation in included. No one ever has done so much as practically explained and given examples in every one of these fields.

The General Theory of Interpretation is a theory of knowledge first and of action thereafter for the acquisition of understanding in those cases when the reality around us is not wholly clear, or is obscured, or is foggy, or is of something never seen before, or yet we never faced it before, and come from things that we call historic, artistic, moral, esthetic, ethical, and unknown. It is a theory structured on reliable bases and supported by the greatest individuals we read about in the histories of philosophy, art, morality, laws, and religions. Interpretation is within the sciences of the spirit (our interior mental life). It is not a physical science, but it is based, as a theory, on solid bases of experience nonetheless. What is it a piece of art? What an artist created. How do we understand this piece of art? By trying to penetrate deeply into it, in order to understand it in its totality of meaning. But that is not enough! The spirit of the artist is made flesh in that piece of art. Knowing the artist's spirit will make us to interpret the piece of art and its creator and thus understand in full the object (piece of art) and the subject (the artist's spirituality when he made the object). Emilio Betti was one of the greatest interpreter, including our social customs and law. The theory of interpretation is also called hermeneutics and the volumes in this series explain, in technical words, how Betti built this important science and adapted it to link history and jurisprudence, in order that all societies could live with a spirit of tolerance and in peace, together.

This third volume offers to the readers Chapter Four in English of the 1990 edition of the Teoria Generale dell'Interpretazione by Emilio Betti

This is the most modest but most important introduction to Emilio Betti's GENERAL THEORY OF INTERPRETATION. Parts of the few essays here presented were previously made known in the journal NEW VICO STUDIES of 1988. Betti presented to the academicians of Europe the central and fundamental nucleus of his methodology for the study of all the products of the human spirit. In a way, his theory is like the theory of G. B. Vico, which Vico revealed in a flow of three levels in his NEW SCIENCE. Vico began from the consideration of the historical origins and developments of the human kind, the so called "institutions," through philology and philosophy and told to his contemporary of the immensity and infinity of the human mind's faculties. Betti accepted Vico and looked at the practical and actual effectiveness of all the human expressions in all sciences and arts. That is interpreting in order to understand, comprehending the whole of what humans have done and left behind through the century, like lost fragments of our many cultures. Nothing truly has been lost. We must learn each in our own way to see what is not open to the naked eye. The methodology of Betti is made of carefulness, sympathy, humbleness, love for beauty, truth, sincerity, and, in one word, the humane spirit of the past, the present, and of what it will be.

This book presents a comprehensive theory of legal interpretation, by a leading judge and legal theorist. Currently, legal philosophers and jurists apply different theories of interpretation to constitutions, statutes, rules, wills, and contracts. Aharon Barak argues that an alternative approach--purposive interpretation--allows jurists and scholars to approach all legal texts in a similar manner while remaining sensitive to the important differences. Moreover, regardless of whether purposive interpretation amounts to a unifying theory, it would still be superior to other methods of interpretation in tackling each kind of text separately. Barak explains purposive interpretation as follows: All legal interpretation must start by establishing a range of semantic meanings for a given text, from which the legal meaning is then drawn. In purposive interpretation, the text's "purpose" is the criterion for establishing which of the semantic meanings yields the legal meaning. Establishing the ultimate purpose--and thus the legal meaning--depends on the relationship between the subjective and objective purposes; that is, between the original intent of the text's author and the intent of a reasonable author and of the legal system at the time of interpretation. This is easy to establish when the subjective and objective purposes coincide. But when they don't, the relative weight given to each purpose depends on the nature of the text. For example, subjective purpose is given substantial weight in interpreting a will; objective purpose, in interpreting a constitution. Barak develops this theory with masterful scholarship and close attention to its practical application. Throughout, he contrasts his approach with that of textualists and neotextualists such as Antonin Scalia, pragmatists such as Richard Posner, and legal philosophers such as Ronald Dworkin. This book represents a profoundly important contribution to legal scholarship and a major alternative to interpretive approaches advanced by other leading figures in the judicial world.