Gadamer’s Comprehension And Exploration Concerning The Issue Of Human Nature

Hans-Georg Gadamer is the typical representative of hermeneutics. And the basicfeature of his philosophical hermeneutics is the illustration of understanding. ForHeidegger, understanding is dasein which is the basic way of human’s living. ForGadamer, understanding is the self-understanding which can be implemented byunderstanding the topics and texts. We need to pay attention to that thisself-understanding is not the self-implementation without rules. Understanding is thefusion of horizon under the traditional frame. In a other word,self-understanding is theway that dasein implement itself. And the process of implementation is the historicalprocess of texts, dialogue, tradition and bias. Different from Heidegger’s understandingwhich only points to inside self-occurrence, Gadamer’s understanding mainly points toself-occurrence outside the society and history. He concludes the historical and socialfactors of self, and considers them as inevitable factors which means tradition, bias andso on. All of those constitute a general self. His hermeneutics is the revelation ofhuman nature. On the other side, self-understanding is understanding self. Self canonly be explained as human that contains the meaning of individual and society. Thegeneral problem that Gadamer cares about is the self fusion of individual and society.Thus this passage concludes self to human nature, concludes Gadamer’s understandingtoward self to the understanding toward human nature. These human nature arerevealed by the activities of mind such as art scanning. He criticizes the alienation ofthe consciousness of beauty scanning which is on behalf of aesthetics of prior. And he provides the solution to the problem that depending on language and all factors ofhuman’s self understanding. At last, he attributes his philosophical hermeneutics topractice which is a necessary outcome and shows his focus on self understanding andhuman nature. Because practice is directed by utility and value which is closer tohuman nature than abstract theory. Obviously, this explanation of theory is moreappropriate to Gadamer. And his practice principal develops the understanding ofhuman nature.The first chapter investigates human’s self understanding which is the basicfeature of hermeneutics. This is according to Gadamer’s criticizing toward historicalalienation and consciousness of beauty scanning. Consciousness of beauty scanningand self consciousness contains the social history, the feature of languagecommunication, value of practice and so on. Thus, this is why this passage isreserching based on the book truth and method.The second chapter discusses the probability of the general problem ofhermeneutics and the problem of general human nature. There are some differentbetween Gadamer’s universality and common identity. His universality is theuniversality of language which is an inside universality. He deems that hermeneutics’suniversality can reveal and correctly understanding human nature only when wenwalk out of the modernism and the assumption of human and tradition.The third chapter discuss the relation between language and human nature.Gadamer’s view of language does not focus on the researching of the frame oflanguage and grammar pattern, but he focuses on the exploration of the process ofhuman mind such as the promoting of self consciousness, the co-exist with outsideworld. Gadamer’s view of language is based on the analysis and conquering ofsubject-object dichotomy in the history of western philosophy. And also he tries tomake subject-object as a union. The forth chapter discuss understanding and human nature from the nature ofpractice of philosophical hermeneutics. Gadamer emphasizes that philosophicalhermeneutics is practice philosophy’philosophical hermeneutics. At last he concludesphilosophical hermeneutics to practice. But his practice is different from the commonsense. He mainly points to the practice in language communication. His practicephilosophy is based on Aristoteles’s practice wisdom, and advocates the rationality ofpractice. Moreover, he find a conception of ancient friendship, and uses it as his coreof theoretical system.