Literally, " The thing, itself, speaks, at first
face. "
An ideal of hermeneutics which insists that the logical foundation for an interpretation should be the most straightforward, most obvious, most logical, most self-evident reading which one would most likely assume from a text when taking it as it comes to one, or reading it as it as, in it'
s own terms and in its own
words, at face value.
Ideally it is an attempt to read a text with
fresh wide-open eyes, free from prejudices and preconceptions and all outside influences; as if reading it for the first
time, with no foreknowledge, thereof. Ideal in theory but likely impossible in practice.
Further elaborations should be built upon this foundation if and only if sound, valid, objective, and logical reasons exist to support such deviations.
