The Centre of Hermeneutic Studies is a space of academic research and formation in the field of philosophical hermeneutic. Its central axis is the study of philosophical perspectives concerning the theory of comprehending. By virtue of the universalization of the understanding of linguisticity that the philosophical hermeneutic considers for the human existence, this philosophical theory- regarded as theory of understanding- becomes indispensable for the dialogue between all disciplines and the knowledge characteristic of the university.
The Centre of Hermeneutic Studies of the Universidad Nacional de San Martín was created by the Superior Council in its fourth regular session on June 26, 2017 through the resolution CS N° 149/2017.
The Centre of Hermeneutic Studies has the purpose of constituting a space of academic research in the multidisciplinary and practical framework of hermeneutic.
- The core of its work lies in the study of comprehension seen as the set of processes of meaning appropriation.
- That implies facing the claim of the unrestricted extension of the technique mastery and science for the conception of truth.
- That is why the centre in its multidisciplinary scope attempts to be a realm to approach the elementary ways of “being in the truth”. That includes not only the different disciplinary fields, but also -and fundamentally- the (practical operational) world of life.
- In other words, it is about working relying on the openness to the notion of truth in order to favour a realm of broader signification in the immediate and pre theoretical access to the world of life.
- If meaning -seen as the axis of all hermeneutic- is an occurrence of sense, an experience of sense implies that it is also an experience of “truth”.
- To this effect, it involves seeking -from various angles- an openness to different possible forms of truth understood as manifestation (aletheia), as an occurrence of sense.
- It covers the entire operational practical world, the world of the arts, the phronesis, the difficult field of dialogue. In all these experiences, the challenge will always be the recognition, the respect and the attention to the implacable factor of alterity.
- It ultimately deals with a dialogic model based on a hermeneutical ethos as a theoretical and pragmatic tension towards comprehending.
- The conceptual framework and the defining axis of its disciplinary articulation will be given by the studies devoted to hermeneutical philosophy.
- To that effect, it will focus on the study of the problems concerning a theory and a praxis of “comprehending”, attending to the universality of its scope.
- The objective of this theoretical effort will be to study the universality of the hermeneutical experience, which should be available from any point of departure, either theoretical or practical.
- Universality that lies in the essential and ubiquitous character of “comprehending” and of “making sense” characteristic of every human experience.
- For that purpose, the substance of the hermeneutical reflection consists of having to stem from the hermeneutical praxis itself.
That praxis includes in an essential and constituent way the challenge of shaping and approaching pragmatic situations, which allow us to live the experience of the dialogic structure of comprehension and understanding. It involves stimulating the need of the gathering of diverse experiences to approach the comprehending of the creative power of human life and its potential encounters and disagreements among human beings in their claim for “truth”.
- The constitution of a specialized area in the study of hermeneutic aims at claiming for a hermeneutical universality.
- Having stated these considerations, it can be seen that the theoretical conceptual starting point of the centre of hermeneutic studies will be the reflexion on the common way of inhabiting the world by the human being. Namely, it is about comprehending as an inherently human sense experience of universal nature.
When considering “comprehending” no longer as one competence more of the human knowledge – reducing it to a merely cognizable subject - but as the primary way of being specifically human by virtue of which man establishes and shapes the world of life beyond the specificity of the different disciplines and knowledge that make up the wide array of its theoretical practical endeavour, hermeneutical philosophy shows the multiplicity and universality of comprehending.
