Existence And Understanding

For hermeneutic criticism of literature, a science of interpretation of textual meaning, there is a problem of"validity"in textual interpretation. It is not only a theoretical problem but also a problem in the practice of literary criticism. Namely, it is a problem involving both validity and acceptability in meaning interpretation. According to a metaphor used by the American critic Eric Donald Hirsch,"Cinderella"(the indeterminate or vague meaning), who is hidden in the depth of the text, waits to be offered a pair of crystal shoes by the reader or the critic through interpretation and then comes out. However, what kind of crystal shoes is needed by Cinderella and meanwhile is suitable? This problem appeared very often in theory as well as in the practice of literary criticism. The so-called"hermeneutic conflict"of meaning or meanings between subjectivity and objectivity, homogeneity and heterogeneity, and singularity and plurality is, in fact, an argument about the validity of meaning interpretation. The cause of this phenomenon lies in the fact that different people have different opinions. As a result, there is still not a universal agreement on the solution to the conflict either on the theoretical level or in real practice.The focus of the above argument is on the different understandings of the relationship between the author, the reader and the text. In other words, the problem of the author-reader-text relationship constitutes the kernel part of the investigation of Western hermeneutics. From Friedrich Schleiermacher and Wilhelm Dilthey to Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer, and from Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer to Paul Ricoeur and Eric Donald Hirsch, so many masters of hermeneutics launched a long-lasting argument about the author-reader-text relationship in the course of textual understanding and interpretation. While Schleiermacher and Dilthey were author-oriented, Heidegger and Gadamer were reader-oriented with a hermeneutic turn. Later on, Hirsch and others still attempted to stick to the author-oriented position. However, Ricoeur went beyond the binary opposition of author-centrism and reader-centrism, and advocates a new hermeneutic return to the text from the reader with an obvious text-oriented position.The text is both the embodiment of the author's ideas and the object of the reader's understanding and interpretation. Only through textual reading can the reader start a special dialogue with the author over the time-space distance. Only through textual reading can a past truth enter the present life and a new meaning be produced. As a result, tradition can be formed and continued in a sense. As Ricoeur points out, if the major concern of hermeneutics is not to disclose an authorial intention hidden behind the text but to reveal a"proposed world"opened up in front of the text, genuine self-understanding is something that can be guided by"the content of the text". The relationship between understanding and textual world replaces the relationship between understanding and the authorial subjectivity. Meanwhile, the subjectivity of the reader is replaced as well. To understand a text is to disclose a possibility of existence pointed by the text.In fact, all arguments over the understanding and interpretation of literary texts can be summarized philosophically as the problem of existence and understanding, that is, the relationship between existence and hermeneutics. As early as in Dilthey's life philosophy, what he seeks in the cultural tradition of human history is the relationship between understanding and the"life expressions,"which represents the feature of human existence. Heidegger and Gadamer separately extend and develop the existence-understanding problem in their unique theoretical construction. Heidegger makes a direct study of human existence—"dasein"and gives an interpretation of the understanding of the significance of existence by dasein, and on this basis completes his elucidation of the ontological significance of dasein. The philosophizing of hermeneutics by Gadamer leads hermeneutic investigation onto the long road of exploring the ontological significance of the existence of human beings.According to Ricoeur, in order to reach the destination of the exploration, hermeneutics has to enter the language kingdom for various meanings that human reflection can discern, for the textual world or the language kingdom carries human experiences. After all, all human recognition and understanding, including the ontological understanding itself, are expressed in language. Although Heidegger makes a depth analysis on the essence of"language is the house of being"and extends the understanding problem onto the ontological height, he fails to return to methodology or epistemology, and to elucidate how the subject can understand being through language. Ricoeur assumes that the text-oriented hermeneutics, connected with the reflection philosophy, regards the difficult and repetitive long course of understanding the various literary texts as a sort of semantic elicitation, which is doubtlessly a detour of disclosing the significance of human existence. A purely semantic elucidation remains suspended until one shows that the understanding of multi-vocal or symbolic expressions is a moment of"self-understanding"; the semantic approach thus entails a reflective approach. But the subject that interprets himself while interpreting signs is no longer the"cogito"(Latin for"I think"): He is rather a"being,"who discovers, by the exegesis of his own life, that he is placed in being before he places and possesses himself. In this way, hermeneutics would discover a manner of existing, which would remain from start to finish a"being-interpreted". Reflection alone can reach the ontological roots of understanding. Yet this is what always happens in language, and it occurs through the movement of reflection. In the movement, the horizon of self-understanding of existence has been promoted constantly and marches toward the ontological significance and meaning of the existence of human beings. On the basis of understanding the existence of the"other", hermeneutics comes to the understanding of self-existence and the general existence of human beings. A new positive"hermeneutic circle"will be formed during this detour, and the reader's understanding of literary texts will be enriched and promoted.In the process of understanding a possibility of existence in the"virtual world"opened up in front of the text, the key is to understand the content of existence and the application of the content in concrete situations. Existence, in the proposed new theory of the present writer of this dissertation, is no longer regarded as the metaphysical being in Heidegger but the condition of human living. The content of existence, in the proposed new theory, is no longer defined as the problem of"desire and effort"in Ricoeur, but the problem of"suffering and freedom". In contrast with desire, suffering enjoys a preference; in contrast with effort, freedom points to a destination. On the one hand, the understanding and interpretation of the suffering of the"other"can help the reader understand his own problem of suffering. As a result, the horizon of self-understanding of the reader can be broadened and the condition of his living can be promoted. On the other hand, the understanding of the textual description of the freedom of the"other"and the interpretation of the aesthetic projecting of the freedom of the"other"can help the reader obtain a more rational expectation for his own freedom.Thus the task of hermeneutics is no longer to seek the author's intention, but to travel in a"virtual world,"opened up in front of the text, to understand the mysterious truth of existence and the implied meaning of"suffering and freedom"in the text. Only by grasping this clue can the reader obtain a genuine understanding of the secret of human existence, the implicative of the literary text and the aesthetic essence of literary criticism. Then literary criticism, which takes meaning reading as its major task, is facing a problem of turn from"meaning study"to"implicative study"for promotion. The construction of"ontology of literary implicative"from a hermeneutic perspective is, in fact, a direct result of such thinking.To support the new model of the"ontology of literary implicative", it is necessary to advocate a"semantic archeology": During the detour of reflection, human understanding digs deeper and deeper in the depth of the text; human interpretation brings more and more new discoveries of existence (implicative) into expressions. On the macro level of literary criticism, the dialectic of"suffering and freedom"involves, in fact, the great cause of human beings to advance from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom. Thus the new hermeneutic circle of"existence and understanding", characterized by"suffering and freedom,"can be regarded as a"grand narrative", and the new model of"ontology of literary implicative"can become a workable reading strategy for any reason. Such ontology explores a relationship, the complex relationship between existence and understanding. The boundary of"ontology of literary implicative"is existence, and beyond which is darkness and emptiness. Since human existence is characterized by historicity and temporality, the readings of literary texts in such a model are surely plural, multi-vocal and even contradictory.Finally the"suffering and freedom"structure of human existence is concretized into six theme modes in a reductive way: competition, power, money, love, desire, and identity. The offered examples of case study are designed to prove the validity and acceptability of the new reading strategy. The task of hermeneutics in the new model of"ontology of literary implicative"is, in essence, to disclose the"human wisdom of existence"hidden in the literary texts.The"ontology of literary implicative"from a hermeneutic perspective has already become a necessity, and its appearance is a problem of time rather than one of subjectivity. If the reader can be inspired and enlightened in this mew model, then the three-year arduous study and research of the present writer in Henan University will gain a new meaning or life in this written assembly of signs of the dissertation. I am, therefore I understand. I understand, therefore I am. The difficulty of existence lies in the difficulty of understanding and the difficulty of understanding lies in the difficulty of existence. The problematic of"existence and understanding"will never disappear from the human world.This dissertation is composed of seven chapters. Chapter 1 is the introductory part. In this part the reader is given a brief introduction of what hermeneutics is, the present situation of hermeneutics, reasons for further research, and the involvement between hermeneutic philosophy and literary criticism. The guiding principles and major methodology of this research are also provided in the first chapter.Chapter 2 provides a"combing"of the origin and development of Western hermeneutics as a sort of philosophic investigation. The reader can expect to obtain a clarified review of the theoretical development of this branch of philosophy. This part covers the origin, the early stage, the ontological turn, and the most recent study of Western hermeneutics. The aim of such a"doing"is to provide the reader with a clear grasp of the philosophical foundation of hermeneutic criticism.Chapter 3, Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 are the kernel parts of this paper. These parts offer a detailed study of traditional hermeneutics, modern philosophical hermeneutics and Paul Ricoeur's reflective hermeneutics. The essence of their ideas, the theoretical limitations, and their impact on the paradigm of literary criticism are analyzed and commented with a justified judgment. While traditional hermeneutics is discussed in Chapter 3, and modern philosophical hermeneutics is studied in Chapter 4, Paul Ricoeur's reflective hermeneutics is talked about in Chapter 5.Chapter 6 is the deepened part of the study of the above three chapters in this dissertation, in which the new model of"ontology of literary implicative"from a hermeneutic perspective is proposed and constructed on the basis of Ricoeur's"double meaning"and Xu Shenghuan's"ontology of implicative"with the help of a perspective of an"archeology of meaning". In the new model the hermeneutic circle between existence and understanding is promoted to a"grand narrative"and the dialectic of"suffering and freedom"replaces Ricoeur's"desire and effort". The six theme modes are designed to disclose the content of existence enclosed in concrete situations of individual texts, and the examples of case study are provided to prove the validity and acceptability of the new reading strategy. It is expected that such an attempt can help the reader grasp the truth content of"human wisdom of existence"in the literary texts from the height of existence and understanding.Chapter 7 is the concluding part of this paper. In this part, hermeneutic criticism as a school of literary criticism is placed in the field of art criticism for a broadened horizon. The task of literary criticism and the essence of literary discourse are reconsidered: Literary discourse is an aesthetic delineation and projecting of a possibility of existence; the task of literary criticism is to disclose"human wisdom of existence"implied in the possibility in an aesthetic way. Finally some valid principles of textual interpretation are set forth for hermeneutic criticism.