Originally, hermeneutics was a technique for interpreting biblical and legal literary texts. The disputes after the Reformer attach great importance to it.
In Romanticism, it acquires the character of philosophical discipline. Schleiermarcher will say that this is a “theory of understanding”. In fact, hermeneutics aspires to a process of re-creation or repetition of the process of artistic creation of the text or of the work of art, the interpreter must identify himself with the author and agree with him.
Schleiermarcher therefore has a subjective and psychologizing view. Dilthley will depart from this point and transform hermeneutics into a method for the sciences of the spirit. Thus, in its last stage, understanding acquires an objective character since it is no longer based on “understanding psychology” but is directed towards the “objectivations of life”, that is, towards the cultural historical works and values that spring from “life” and that must be again captured through experience.
But it is with Heidegger that this discipline reaches true philosophical depth. He will say that “understanding” is a fundamental structure of the human being and no longer a particular form of knowledge. This means that understanding is what makes all knowledge possible. Interpretation is post-understanding.