Robert J. Dostal
August Boeckh, in his posthumously published Encyclopaedie und Methodenlehre der philologischen Wissenschaften (Encyclopedia and Methodology of the Philological Sciences, 1877), provides an account of the methodology of philology (or what otherwise might be called methodological hermeneutics) that is the culmination of the development of the science of philology in the nineteenth century. Wilhelm Dilthey clearly considered this text to represent the state of the art for hermeneutics at that time. For this work, Boeckh puts to work his vast knowledge of classical sources and the humanistic tradition and takes into account and synthesizes the theoretical work of his more immediate predecessors, including Friedrich Schleiermacher, Friedrich Ast, and Friedrich August Wolf.
August Wilhelm Boeckh (1785–1867) was born in Karlsruhe and attended the local Gymnasium there. He began his university studies in theology at Halle but soon encountered the classicist and philologist Friedrich Wolf, who inspired him to study Plato and to change to classical studies. This interest in Plato was reinforced by Schleiermacher and became a lifelong study for him. Boeckh began lecturing as a Privatdocent (private lecturer) at Heidelberg in 1807 and within two years became an “ordinary” professor. In 1811, he was among the very first group of scholars called to the new university in Berlin, the Humboldt University, where he was appointed a professor of eloquence and classical studies. He remained there till his death in 1867. At various times in his long career in Berlin, he served as dean and as rector. In 1814 he founded the Philological Seminar at the University of Berlin. Though philology was almost exclusively devoted to the classical languages of Greek and Latin, Boeckh wrote that the principles of philology, hermeneutical and critical principles (as we will see), were relevant to all languages and texts. Boeckh was an influential teacher whose students included Adolf Trendelenburg and Georg Curtius.
His influence and importance were much larger due to his extensive publications. He published a work on the economics of ancient Athens: Die Staatshaushaltung der Athener (1817, published in English translation in 1828 as The Public Economy of Athens). He took on a massive project of collecting and editing the surviving inscriptions in ancient Greek (1825–1843). He also published an edition of the Odes of Pindar and an edition of Sophocles Antigone. He is considered one of the founders of historical metrology—the history of the science of measurement—because he wrote a work on ancient metrology: Metrologische Untersuchungen über Gewichte, Münzfüsse und Masse des Alterthums in ihrem Zusammenhange (Metrological Investigations of Weight, Coinage, and Mass in the Ancient Period, 1838).
Over the course of his career, he lectured often (more than 20 times) on the basic principles of the science of philology.1 These lectures eventuated in the posthumous publication of the Encyclopaedie und Methodologie der philologischen Wissenschaften (1877, 884 pp.). In 1862, five years before his death, he charged one of his students, Ernst Bratuscheck, with editing and publishing them. Bratuschek died before he could complete the task, and Rudolf Klussmann completed the work. A second edition appeared in 1886, which is the basis for the abridged English translation by John Paul Pritschard (1968). By “encyclopedia,” Boeckh meant to provide a comprehensive view of the science of philology. Dilthey builds on it and is critical of it. He considers it to represent not only the method for interpreting texts but for the historical human sciences generally. Boeck’s methodology comes to represent for Hans-Georg Gadamer the methodologism of nineteenth-century scientific hermeneutics of which he is so critical.
Boeckh importantly defines philology in relation to philosophy and to history, both closely related disciplines. Philosophy is the knowledge of the truth, gnosis, while philology is the knowledge of what has been known, anagnosis (Boeckh 1877, 16). To describe philology, he often uses the phrase “das Erkennen des Erkannten” (the knowing of the known) (Boeckh 1877, 10–11). This means that philology is a science of recognition, re-cognition, that is, re-knowing what others have known and expressed in language.2 As Pritchard summarizes it, philology for Boeckh is the “historical reconstruction of the whole of knowledge as well as of its parts” (Pritchard 1968, 13). In other words, it is the reproduction of tradition. Philology is, then, closely related to, if not identical to, history. History in the broadest sense is the knowledge that is attained through the interpretation of the documents that tradition has provided us. The science of the understanding of any document is philological. In a narrower sense, history is the knowledge of deeds and events (res gestae). But we know about what happened in the past through the documentation of the events. Understanding this documentation is a matter of interpretation, for which philology provides the methods.
Since any document that is given is necessarily a historical document, that is, it was previously written for it to be available for study and to be re-cognized, Boeckh asserts that the philological methods are appropriate for any document, including documents of modern or contemporary times. Boeckh was a classicist whose own research concentrated on ancient Greece, but he offered his account of the science of philology as an account of the understanding of any documentation. Philology is not to be limited to classical studies. Similarly, Boeckh denies any distinction between sacred and profane documents. He writes:
Since the principles under which understanding must occur, and the functions of understanding are everywhere the same, there can be no specific differences in hermeneutic theory corresponding to different objects of interpretation. The distinction between hermeneutica sacra and profana is therefore thoroughly untenable.
(Boeckh 1968, 80)
In addition, Boeckh is keen to argue that philology should not be identified with linguistics, though it presupposed linguistics. One cannot understand the documents without understanding the languages in which they are written. As suggested here, Boeckh focuses on written documents as the proper material for philology. He considers the proper subject matter or material for philology to be what has been “handed down … or communicated” (Boeckh 1968, 46). He acknowledges that there are material objects that have been left behind which may provide evidence of what was known and done. He gives some consideration to the plastic arts but, with almost no discussion, he excludes archaeological evidence. “Archaeological interpretation is not treated here,” he writes (Boeckh 1968, 48). He states that archaeological hermeneutics is a special application of his general philological theory, but he explicitly excludes it. Later figures such as J. G. Droysen and Wilhelm Dilthey are concerned with the remains and traces of previous cultures and civilizations but can find little specific help in Boeckh.
We should recall that the nineteenth century saw the creation of the first set of critical editions of many ancient and medieval authors and the application of the “new criticism” to biblical texts. Boeckh saw his theory as making explicit the laws of the best practice of interpretation and criticism:
The value of theory consists not in any ability it has to make a man a good exegete or critic … but in its capacity to bring unconscious activity to the level of consciousness. The goal toward which interpretation and criticism strive, and the point of view by which they must be guided, are much the same as that which philology practices dimly and vaguely by mere empiricism, until it is elevated by theory to scientific clarity.”
(Boeckh 1968, 44–45)
One of the primary questions with regard to any text is whether it is authentic or not, whether, for example, a text belongs to Plato’s canon of works, whether a work is a later forgery (e.g., the donation of Constantine). Many classical texts had variant versions due to the history of the copying of manuscripts, and establishing which variations were original and which mistaken copying or later additions were basic problems for consideration.
In his philological theory, Boeckh carries forward to the two basic canons of modern hermeneutics as found in Schleiermacher and earlier writers. The first canon asserts that a text is to be understood in its own context, that is, out of the historical situation of the text and its original addressee and not the situation of the current reader who comes later. The second canon is the canon of whole and parts, which asserts that any part of a text is to be understood in terms of the whole of the text, and the text is to be understood in its context. This canon is sometimes referred to as the canon of the hermeneutical circle. Any aspect of a text may be considered to be a part of a variety of wholes: linguistic, historical, literary, and so on. Boeckh acknowledges the circularity of the interpretive process, but the methodology, as Thomas Seebohm writes, is “nothing other than the attempt to avoid possible vicious circularities in the application of this principle” (Seebohm 2004, 58). Time and again Boeckh speaks of escaping this or that “vicious circle.” For example, early in the work Boeckh writes that the task of the philologist or interpreter is to free the text or document that is to be interpreted and understood from “the vicious circle” that always presents itself:
To understand a literary work, for example, in every single instance knowledge of the language and literary history are requisite, and often history and history of art as well. … It is the task of the philological artist to free these materials from the vicious circle inherent in their situation.
(Boeckh 1968, 36)
It is of interest that Boeckh here appeals to the philological “artist,” and not the philological “scientist.” He writes that the philology is both a science and an art. As a science, philology follows logic, has a methodology, and is to be objective. The task of science generally is always an infinite task, a task of “approximation” (Boeckh 1877, 16). It establishes an understanding, however provisional, of the work. Yet understanding, Boeckh tells us, is “essentially an ability to judge, aided of necessity by imagination.” Imagination is what the artist brings.
Ensuring that the circularity of the process is not vicious is a matter of judgment and, accordingly, a matter of art, not science. The process of interpretation is always open-ended. The context can always be expanded or deepened. But this open-endedness is not the same as a petitio principii or vicious circularity. In order to avoid vicious circles, Boeckh divides his philological science into two parts: interpretation (or “hermeneutics”) and criticism. The task of hermeneutics is to understand or re-cognize what was known in a text. The task of criticism is to decide whether what is understood is appropriate.
These two basic procedures of philology, hermeneutics and criticism, which require one another, are each constituted by four ways of approaching the written work: the grammatical, the historical, the individual, and the generic. In addition, Boeckh distinguishes between the objective and subjective aspects of the work. He considers the grammatical and the historical to be objective. The “individual” and the generic concern themselves with the subjective conditions of the text.
The first task is grammatical, that is, understanding the literal meaning of what is written. This requires more than a superficial understanding of the language. It requires knowledge of the historical development of both the syntactical and the semantical aspects of the language. The interpreter may rely on grammars and lexica, but Boeckh would have us realize that these are established only on the basis of the reading and understanding the “sources.” There is here a circle: the reading of texts relies on lexica and grammars and these, in turn, rely on the reading of texts. As more texts are scientifically considered, the lexica and grammars are revised and improved. There is constant progress to more complete and more adequate lexica and grammars and accordingly better grammatical readings of texts. This constant progress in improving the understanding “breaks the circle” for Boeckh.
The context for grammar is larger than the language of the text. Words and concepts are often borrowed from other languages. This borrowing need not be straightforward. New meanings or new nuances of meaning are developed. Boeckh gives examples of the relation of Latin to Greek and of Greek and Latin to Hebrew. What happens when Greek civilization is “Romanized” or rendered in Latin? What happens when the Hebrew scriptures are translated into Greek and Latin (sometimes the latter from the former)? Or, even more complicated is the consideration of the texts of the New Testament, which were originally written in Greek but come out of the Hebrew religious tradition. In short, the understanding of any language requires the understanding of the other languages with which it is in contact.
In his consideration of the grammatical interpretation, Boeck considers what he calls the “allegorical” interpretation of texts. He notes that medieval hermeneutics considered four levels of interpretation: the literal, the allegorical, the moral, and the anagogical (or mystical). Boeckh argues that the last three may be considered as variations of the nonliteral—called allegorical by Boeckh. The literary and nonliteral interpretation of texts requires first a literal understanding. The allegorical or nonliteral understanding requires an understanding of historical context—cultural, religious, and so on. Boeckh gives examples from Homer and Dante and asserts that the interpreter should be clear about the difference between interpreting the text (the author’s expressed words) and the background myth (or cultural context).
Historical interpretation is required because the meaning is not exhausted in the words themselves but is constituted in part from its references to “actual conditions,” that is, “historically given circumstances” (Boeckh 1968, 77). Of course, the relation to historical circumstances need not be straightforward. Authors are sometimes wrong about historical circumstances or may rely on other texts that are incorrect.
“Individual interpretation” concerns itself with the “subjective essence of the speaker” which “mirrors itself in his language.” Boeckh writes that “it is the task of individual interpretation to understand meaning of words from this aspect” (Boeckh 1968, 89–90). One encounters here too a circle. We establish a view about the individuality of the author from his or her texts. Yet we bring to our interpretation of these texts a view about the individual author. Enlarging one’s understanding of the author by enlarging the number of texts by the author read by the interpreter is important. Comparison with other authors is also important but not sufficient for an adequate individual interpretation. Boeckh acknowledges that here as elsewhere in the interpretation of texts the goal of a full and adequate interpretation is only “approximately attainable” (Boeckh 1968, 106).
The generic interpretation is “as closely involved with the individual interpretation as is the historical with the grammatical” (Boeckh 1968, 106–107). The individual author does her creative work within some literary genre. The text cannot be understood without an understanding of its genre. Boeckh considers generic interpretation to be a subjective and not objective condition of the text because of the way that individual authors shape and even create genres. There is always already a literary form available for the expression of the author’s ideas but this literary form, genre, is reshaped with each of its uses, more or less.
Each of these modes of interpretation—grammatical, historical, individual, and generic—depends on one another. One cannot and, accordingly, does not complete any of these aspects of interpretation without involving all the others.
The task of interpretation or hermeneutics, according to Boeckh, is to determine the meaning of a text. The task of criticism is to determine whether the various aspects of the text are appropriate or true. E. D. Hirsch suggests that criticism for Boeckh is a matter of determining its significance (Hirsch 1967, 211). As already stated, criticism has the same four modalities as interpretation: the grammatical, the historical, the individual, and the generic. A model of the relation of hermeneutics and criticism might be the completion of the interpretation (hermeneutics) and then its criticism. But Boeckh acknowledges that this is often impossible, that the interpretation often requires criticism, such that interpretation and criticism are ineluctably intertwined with one another.
With regard to appropriateness, it is the task of criticism to investigate whether a work is “in keeping with” the grammatical usage, the historical basis, the individuality of the author, and the characteristics of the genre. A large task of criticism is to answer the question as to whether the text imparts historical truth. Boeckh provides a discussion of the various levels of truth (the true, the plausible, the probable, and the credible) which we cannot discuss here. Of course, the question of truth can only be addressed by criticism in conjunction with interpretation. Criticism presupposes hermeneutics.
Boeckh considers generic criticism particularly difficult in the case of the great author, the genius. Genius, he argues, is “completely individual” (Boeckh 1968, 157). This renders very difficult, if not impossible, the conceptualization of genre such that criticism can proceed with regard to genre. Boeckh is maintaining here the Kantian idea that genius makes its own rules. The interpreter of the text needs to divine what these rules are and give them voice. As Seebohm points out (but Boeckh nowhere acknowledges), since comparative methods are not available here, the circle between hermeneutics and criticism cannot be dissolved (Seebohm 2004, 60–61).
Boeckh’s Encyclopedia and Methodology of the Philological Sciences stands as perhaps the most important and thoroughgoing account of the science and art of interpretation in the nineteenth century. It was much adopted and promoted in its day. The most common criticisms at that time concerned Boeckh’s account of the individual interpretation and individual criticism. J. G. Droysen and T. Birt, for example, considered this to be part of the historical aspect of interpretation. Another critical concern was Boeckh’s failure to consider archaeological evidence and to take the science of archaeology into account. Dilthey, for example, saw such evidence as a fixed life expression on the model of a text.
Boeckh’s hermeneutics continue to be influential. His work provides the background for much of the theory and practice of the twentieth and twentieth-first centuries. Those who have looked for method in hermeneutics have looked to Boeckh. See, for example, the work of Emilio Betti, E. D. Hirsch, and Thomas Seebohm. Those, like Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur, who have been critical of the methodologism and scientism in nineteenth-century hermeneutics, have often considered Boeckh a leading example of these features which they would overcome.