The Hermeneutic Circle and Virtual Reality: Issues of Transformation

Drawing on the methodology of traditional hermeneutics, the article examines various interpretations of the hermeneutic circle. The introduction presents the concepts of Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer, while analyzing the viewpoints of contemporary representatives of digital hermeneutics and their perspectives on the functioning of the hermeneutic circle in digital space. The research aims to identify modifications of the hermeneutic circle as the fundamental method of hermeneutics in virtual reality. Due to the emergence of new objects in the modern world of the Internet and information technologies, such as electronic texts, online communications, digital databases, and various types of artificial intelligence, hermeneutic categories and the hermeneutic circle are influenced by new trends. In order to analyze the processes of interpretation and understanding on the Internet, this article considers the concepts of the hermeneutic circle, as presented by Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer, to be the most applicable in the context of virtual reality. Digital hermeneutics in cyberspace faces challenges such as the elusive whole of the hermeneutic circle and its parts; user anonymity and the uncertainty of pre-understanding; and the blurring of tradition, prejudice, fusion of horizons, anticipation of perfection, and time dimension. In the conclusion, the author points to the heuristic nature of the hermeneutic circle for achieving understanding in electronic communication. Despite the dominant exchange of digital data and messages on the Internet and the proliferation of information technologies and digital databases, hermeneutics continues to study social interactions and assert the priority of humanistic values.