Romanticism, Hermeneutics and the Crisis of the Human Sciences

📘 About This Book

The human sciences established and developed in the nineteenth century have slowly disintegrated. It is an ironic end. It was in the name of the greater legitimacy of more universal psychological criteria that its architects disavowed the traditional theological standard for valuing and evaluating human words and deeds. With hindsight, we can see that universality was indeed gained, but only at the cost of alienating any sense of common legitimacy. Harold Bloom, defending the canon largely in the humanising, 'moral sense' convention of critics operating since Matthew Arnold, has resolutely maintained the common legitimacy of aesthetic value against the claims of particular interest groups. But the very universality attached to aesthetic value is at odds with the world of common sense, and thus lies at the root of the problem. To complicate matters, this universality has been understood as a traditional criterion. A more radical treatment of the subject is needed. This study begins by surveying the field of modern hermeneutics. Noting its repeated crises of self-legitimisation, it traces these to circular beliefs bequeathed by Romanticism that human nature is self-begetting, and can thus be known intimately and autonomously. After providing a historical overview of how human nature had been understood, the focus shifts to the attack in Coleridge's Biographia Literaria on Wordsworth's 1802 Preface to Lyrical Ballads, and to a reading of some key Romantic texts. It reads Coleridge's famous definition of the imagination as an attack on Romantic hermeneutics, rooted in the traditional view that man has been created in Imago Dei.

📖 Summary

Romanticism, Hermeneutics and the Crisis of the Human Sciences by Scott Masson offers a deep and critical examination of how the human sciences have evolved, disintegrated, and lost their foundational grounding since the nineteenth century. Published in 2017 and spanning 393 pages, the book investigates the historical and philosophical trajectory that led to the current fragmentation of the humanities. Masson explores the ironic legacy of the nineteenth century, a period when architects of the human sciences sought to establish universal psychological criteria to evaluate human words and deeds. In doing so, these thinkers disavowed traditional theological standards that had previously served as the basis for valuing human action and expression. With the benefit of hindsight, Masson illustrates how this pursuit of universality was indeed successful in a narrow sense, but it came at a catastrophic cost. By stripping away traditional frameworks, the human sciences alienated any shared sense of common legitimacy, leaving modern disciplines untethered and vulnerable to ideological fracturing. The text engages with prominent critical traditions, examining figures like Harold Bloom, who has famously defended the literary canon within the humanizing, moral sense convention established by critics like Matthew Arnold. Bloom has resolutely maintained the common legitimacy of aesthetic value against the fragmented claims of various contemporary interest groups. However, Masson highlights a profound tension at the heart of this defense: the very universality attached to high aesthetic value often feels entirely at odds with the lived world of common sense. As aesthetic criteria become increasingly abstract or divorced from shared communal realities, they struggle to provide a unifying vision for human culture. Through rigorous literary criticism and hermeneutic analysis, Masson traces how romanticism and interpretive theory intertwine with this ongoing crisis. The book does not merely diagnose the symptoms of academic and cultural disintegration; it invites readers to reconsider the philosophical assumptions that govern modern intellectual life. By exploring the deep historical roots of our current predicament, Masson provides a sophisticated framework for understanding why the human sciences continue to grapple with crises of legitimacy, authority, and value. Scholars, students, and enthusiasts of literary theory, intellectual history, and cultural criticism will find this extensive volume to be a challenging and rewarding engagement with the foundational dilemmas of modern thought.

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