Hermeneutics’ began as the theory of the interpretation of texts, particularly mythical and sacred texts. Its practitioners struggled with the problem of characterizing how people find meaning in a text that exists over many centuries and is understood differently in different epochs. A mythical or religious text continues to be spoken or read and to serve as a source of deep meaning, in spite of changes in the underlying culture and even in the language. There are obvious questions to be raised. Is the meaning definable in some absolute sense, independent of the context in which the text was written? Is it definable only in terms of that original context? If so, is it possible or desirable for a reader to transcend his or her own culture and the intervening history in order to recover the correct interpretation? If we reject the notion that the meaning is in the text, are we reduced to saying only that a particular person at a particular moment had a particular interpretation? If so, have we given up a naive but solid-seeming view of the reality of the meaning of the text in favor of a relativistic appeal to individual subjective reaction? Within hermeneutics there has been an ongoing debate between those who place the meaning within the text and those who see meaning as grounded in a process of understanding in which the text, its production, and its interpretation all play a vital part.. As we will show in Chapter 5, this debate has close parallels with current issues in linguistic and semantic theory. For the objectivist school of hermeneutics,2 the text must have a mean- ing that exists independently of the act of interpretation.. The goal of a hermeneutic theory (a theory of interpretation) is to develop methods by which we rid ourselves of all prejudices and produce an objective analysis of what is really there. The ideal is to completely ‘decontextualize’ the text. The opposing approach, most clearly formulated by Gadamer,3 takes the act of interpretation as primary, understanding it as an interaction between the horizon4 provided by the text and the horizon that the interpreter brings to it. Gadamer insists that every reading or hearing of a text constitutes an act of giving meaning to it through interpretation. Gadamer devotes extensive discussion to the relation of the individual to tradition, clarifying how tradition and interpretation interact. Any individual, in understanding his or her world, is continually involved in activities of interpretation. That interpretation is based on prejudice (or pre-understanding), which includes assumptions implicit in the language that the person uses,5 That language in turn is learned through activities of interpretation. The individual is changed through the use of language, and the language changes through its use by individuals. This process is of the first importance, since it constitutes the background of the beliefs and assumptions that determine the nature of our being. Understanding Computers and Cognition pp.27-29