Modern Language Studies

An English Translation of Emilio Betti's "Teoria generale della interpretazione"

Author(s): Susan Noakes
Source: Modern Language Studies, Vol. 12, No. 4 (Autumn, 1982), pp. 35-37
Published by: Modern Language Studies
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3194528
Accessed: 13-12-2015 02:31 UTC

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 An English
Translation ofEmilioBetti's
Teoriageneraledella interpretazione
Susan Noakes

Increasinginterest in hermeneutics amongstudentsof literature in

thiscountryduringthelastfifteen years stimulatedfrequentallusionto
has
the name of Emilio Betti. But the substanceof his contributionto the
theoryof interpretation remainslittleknown and ill understoodhere,
because histwo-volumeTeoriageneraledella interpretazione, also made
available by Bettiina revisedand abridgedGermanversion,has notbeen
translatedintoEnglish. The NationalEndowmentfortheHumanitieshas
recentlymade available fundsforthepreparationofan Englisheditionof
thework.An excerptfromthistranslation is publishedhere forthefirst
tinme.
The Americantheorist withwhomBetti'snamehas been primarily
associatedis E.D. Hirsch,Jr.In hisValidityinInterpretation, Hirschnotes
thathe takestheterm"re-cognitive interpretation" fromBetti.Describing
the Teoria generaleas "by farthe mostsignificant recenttreatisein the
traditionof Schleiermacherand Dilthey," Hirsch emphasizes Betti's
importanceas a criticof Hans-GeorgGadamer'shermeneutics.2
The controversy betweenGadamerand Bettidoes indeedforman
important episode inthehistory oftwentieth-century hermeneutics. Their
differences aremultipleand fundamental. Withtheverytitleofhiswork,
Wahrheitund Methode,3Gadamerbeginsan ironiccritiqueof thenotion
ofmethodologyas an avenueto truth ininterpretation. Gadamer'sinterest
is, rather,in the phenomenologicaland ontologicaldescriptionof the
interpretive act. Betti,on theotherhand,seeksto elaboratea hermeneu-
tics which can serve as a comprehensivemethodologyforhumanistic
studies.In additionto his own fieldof legal interpretation, Bettitreats
philological,religious,philosophical,historical,musical,and dramatic
interpretation,as well as theprocessof translation.
A further fundamentaldifferenceliesin theirdiffering degreesof
emphasis on the subject and the object of interpretation. Gadamer is
concerned above all with the role of the subject in interpretation.
Althoughinterested inthesubject,Bettiacknowledgesmorefullytherole
and characterof the object of interpretation as well. He divides the
interpretive activityof the subject into threemain types (re-cognitive,
presentational,and normative),corresponding tothreeclassesofinterpre-
tiveobjects (historicaland literary, dramaticand musical,and legal and
sacred).
Gadamer,moreover,attributes to Bettia "strict
psychologismwith
itsromanticflavour."AccordingtoGadamer,Bettiderivesthispsycholo-
gismfromSchleiermacher.Because of it,Gadamer asserts,Betti's"her-
meneuticalpositionis constantlyin dangerof becomingvague."4There
can be no questionthatBetti'slanguagehas a strongly neo-Hegeliantone,

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although this might be explained less by a direct dependence on
Schleiermacher thanby theintellectualmilieuin whichBettiformulated
histheory.Verylittlefromthismilieuhas takenrootin Americanliterary
criticismor philosophy.Betti may thereforeseem ratherdistantand
difficult toread today.Gadamer'stext,on theotherhand,developsoutof
Heidegger,interestin whose workhas been increasingon thisside of the
Atlantic.Moreover,theprominentrole of languagein his workcontrib-
utesgreatlyto his appeal amongstudentsof literarytheory.5
WhenBetti'sworkis availableto a widerAmericanpublic,itmay
be possibletore-evaluatetheBetti-Gadamer controversy and even,more
importantly, to re-alignthe situationin which Gadamer's work leaves
hermeneutics. Even inGermany,theresponseto Bettiseemstohave been
based above all on his brief,polemical "manifesto,"6 ratherthanon the
Germanabridgmentof the Teoria. Manyquestionsremainto be posed.
Like any descriptiveapproach,Gadamer's impliesa certainnormative
foundation,which it may be usefulto compare with Betti'sexplicitly
normativesystem.Gadamer'spredominantemphasison theinterpretive
subjectat the expenseof an extendedanalysisof the object leaves very
littleroom forthedevelopmentof an adequate conceptof thelinguistic
sign.Examinationof the sourcesof his account of the signsuggestsno
studyof modernlinguistics or languagephilosophy;he uses thenotionof
language (logos, verbum) a verygeneral,thematicway. His scope,
in
moreover,is limitedto thelinguisticsign.Betti,on theotherhand,pro-
vides an extendedanalysisof theinterpretive processin relationto sign
systemswhichare alinguisticor onlypartlylinguistic(music,drama). He
quotesextensively, throughout theTeoria,fromtheworkofAnglo-Saxon
linguists languagephilosophersof theperiodbetweenthewars.The
and
seriouscharacterof hisinterestin theconceptof thesignis suggestedby
his grapplingwithC.S. Peirce'sanalysisof it;he takesthetroubleto go
back to Peirce'stextratherthanremainingwithMorris'saccountof it,as
he mightmorereadilyhave done inItalyinthelatefortiesand earlyfifties.
His continuingreferencesto Peirce, and the extensionof his interest
outsidea strictly linguisticrealm,suggestnew possibilitiesforthedefini-
tionof therelationship betweensemioticsand hermeneutics. Indeed the
momentseems apt fora re-examination of the negativeconnotationof
Gadamer'sdescriptionof the"psychologism"of Betti'shermeneutics as
part of thelegacy of Schleiermacher. According to PeterSzondi, while it
has been commonto misinterpret Schleiermacher as a "psychologist,"his
mostimportantcontribution is hisneglectedconceptof language.7
The translatedexcerptfromthe Teoria whichis publishedhere
formstheopeningsectionofchapterix,a chapterwhichtreatstheological
interpretation as one of two typesof interpretation havinga normative
function(theotheris juridicalinterpretation). Normativeinterpretation is
an act of understandingwhich findsits end neitherin itself(purely
re-cognitive interpretation, as in thestudyof philologyor history)norin
thereproductionof itsobject (representative as in transla-
interpretation,
tionofdramaticormusicalperformance)butratherina decisionwhichis
tolead to action.One ofthebasic principlesofBetti'sgeneraltreatment of

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 inthechapterprecedingthisone is thenecessity
normativeinterpretation
ofkeepinginmindwhathe callsthe"dialecticalnexus"betweenlanguage
and thought.

of Kansas
University

NOTES

Editore,1955).The German
1. Teoriagenerale... (Milano:Dott.A. Giuffre
als MethodikderGeisteswissen-
editionis entitledAUgemeineAuslegungslehre
(Tibingen:J.C.B.Mohr,1967).
schaften
Press,1967),p. 24n.,pp. 245-246n.
2. (New Haven:Yale University
3. (Tiibingen:J.C.B. Mohr,1960). The second edition(1965) containsan appen-
dix,"Hermeneutikund Historismus," in whichGadamer explicitlytakesissue
withBetti.This essayalso formspartof Gadamer'sEnglishtranslation, Truth
and Method (New York:The SeaburyPress,1975),pp. 460ff.
4. These remarksappear in theappendixcited in thepreviousnote.
5. To my knowledge,the fullestaccount in Englishof Betti'shermeneuticsis
RichardE. Palmer,Hermeneutics(Evanston:Northwestern UniversityPress,
1969), pp. 54-60. Now see also David Couzens Hoy, The Critical Circle
(Berkeley:Universityof CaliforniaPress,1978),passim.
6. Zur GrundlegungeinerallgemeinenAuslegungslehre (Tibingen: J.C.B.Mohr,
1954),reprintedfromFestschrift ErnstRabel (Tibingen: J.C.B. Mohr,1954),
brief(64pp.)polemicalworkby Bettiwhichis fre-
II, pp. 79-168.Another
quentlycitedis Die Hermeneutikals allgemeineMethodikder Geisteswissen-
schaften.Philosophieund Geschichteseries,PamphletNos. 78-79.(Tiibingen:
J.C.B. Mohr,1962).
7. "L'hermeneutiquede Schleiermacher," Poetique 1 (1970),pp. 152-53.

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