August Boeckh, Classical Philologist and Hermeneut

Abstract

August Boeckh is one of the most important classical scholars of the nineteenth century. His vast and varied oeuvre forms an excellent starting-point for reflecting concepts, fields, methods, and epistemological limitations (and nowadays the intercultural dialogue) of Classical Philology or Classical Studies. In addition, Boeckh was an influential methodologist and an early theorist of hermeneutics. On the grounds of Friedrich Schleiermacher’s work, he built a branching system of philological methodology, defining the aim of philology as “the recognition of something already recognised before.” Particularly typical of his theory is the emphasis on the role played by human individuality both in the creation and explication of texts. Rather than conceptually, individuality can be known and defined only through intuition (durch lebendige Anschauung). This idea is of historical importance, for individuality had a major role in the phenomenological and psychological interpretations of literary works in the twentieth century, including in reception theory. In contemporary anthropological, cognitive, and social-science models of literature research, however, it is losing its purpose and meaning, which necessarily affects the prevailing apprehension of literature.