Explanatory techniques are a hindrance to an understanding of the ‘deep meaning’ of a text—its existential significance—only if we allow ourselves to believe that they are an adequate substitute for interpretation.#
If, per impossible, we were able, in accordance with the objectivistic ideal, to divest ourselves of all of our culturally inherited presuppositions, we would find ourselves without anything to understand!#
The whole purpose of the theoretical social sciences . . . is to equip people with the capacity better to distinguish acceptable from unacceptable historical narratives.#