國立臺灣大學哲學論評

Abstract /

The goal of this essay is to give a textual interpretation and a comprehensive system-inherent analysis of the basic principle of the theoretical core from Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics, that is, to explore the historicity of understanding of “Dasein”, especially the first crucial element of this hermeneutical theory, the hermeneutical circle. The central part of Truth and Method, “Rudiments of a Theory of Hermeneutical Experience”, is the core of the theoretical exposition of Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics. He begins this part by transforming his first theoretical element, the “hermeneutical circle”, from Heidegger’s “circle of understanding”, and then develops this to the basic thought pattern of his hermeneutical thinking. This essay examines the following main points from this part of Truth and Method:1.The primary ground-presupposition of the philosophical hermeneutics; that is the historicality of understanding, Heidegger’s “hermeneutics of facticity” and Gadamers presuppositional absorption of it. First, this essay looks over the system-inherent context of Gadamer’s ontological adoption of Heidegger’s historical of understanding of Dasein as the first presupposition of philosophical hermeneutics.2.The “hermeneutical circle” as the “forestructure” of understanding, i.e., Gadamer’s philosophical-hermeneutical transformation of Heidegger’s “circle of understanding”. On the basis of Heidegger’s historicity of understanding as the primary Presupposition of philosophical hermeneutics, Gadamer introduces the “circle of understanding” from Heidegger’s Being and Time, and transforms it to his own theory of a “hermeneutical circle” as the “forestructure” of understanding. This circle concentrates no longer on the existential depth-structure of the Dasein’s understanding of itself in its Being, but first picks out the understanding of text in the ordinary “lifeworld” or academic activity on the horizon of human science as a central theme. Although there are some implied theoretical problems in Gadamer’s exposition, he describes the ever-present hermeneutical circle in the phenomenon of understanding as the concrete context of experience of “text-reading”. He points out the quasi-circular process that starts from the fore-projection of the text-reader to the penetration into the meaning of matter-of-factness in text, and leads to this new understanding, which finally repulses the fore-projection and corrects it. With this, he discloses the orienting pattern of his philosophical hermeneutics: first the awareness of the forestrucuture of understanding, and then the revelation of the matter-of-factness of the subject of understanding itself.3.The hermeneutical circle as the starting point of the exposition of philosophical hermeneutics. From this Gadamer develops the essential features of his hermeneutical thought, i.e. the description of the experience of “text-understanding” as the theoretical language and approach for the fundamental phenomenon of hermeneutics.