Editing Hermeneutics (section)

==== Heidegger (1889–1976) ====
In the 20th&nbsp;century, [[Martin Heidegger]]'s philosophical hermeneutics shifted the focus from interpretation to [[Existentialism|existential]] understanding as rooted in fundamental ontology, which was treated more as a direct—and thus more authentic—way of being-in-the-world (''In-der-Welt-sein'') than merely as "a way of knowing."<ref>{{Cite book| publisher = Harper and Row | last = Heidegger | first = Martin| title = Being and Time | url = https://archive.org/details/beingtime0000heid | url-access = registration | orig-year = 1927| year = 1962 | isbn = 9780060638504 }} p. H125</ref> For example, he called for a "special hermeneutic of empathy" to dissolve the classic philosophic issue of "other minds" by putting the issue in the context of the being-with of human relatedness. (Heidegger himself did not complete this inquiry.)<ref>{{Cite book| publisher = Palgrave Macmillan | last = Agosta| first = Lou | title = Empathy in the Context of Philosophy | url = https://archive.org/details/empathyinthe_agos_2010_000_10406824 | url-access = registration | year = 2010 | isbn = 9780230241831}} p. 20</ref>

Advocates of this approach claim that some texts, and the people who produce them, cannot be studied by means of using the same [[scientific method]]s that are used in the [[natural science]]s, thus drawing upon arguments similar to those of [[antipositivism]]. Moreover, they claim that such texts are conventionalized expressions of the experience of the author. Thus, the interpretation of such texts will reveal something about the [[social context]] in which they were formed, and, more significantly, will provide the reader with a means of sharing the experiences of the author.

The reciprocity between text and context is part of what Heidegger called the [[hermeneutic circle]]. Among the key thinkers who elaborated this idea was the [[Sociology|sociologist]] [[Max Weber]].