The Naturality Of Goethe's Language From The Perspective Of Gadamer's Practical Philosophy

Practical philosophy is the theme through the whole philosophy career of Gadamer, his study of the concept of "practice" in hermeneutics field had extended to the ethics field, however, the substantial meaning was unchanged. In the book of "Truth and Method", Gadamer delineated an ontological picture through much metaphysical reflection to the problem of language,in which language was the not tools or equipment, but relationship between human and the world, and was also related to the expansion of our view of the world. This ontological picture consisted with the concept of "practice" that Gadamer later described. Facing the alienated "practice" of the scientific era, Gadamer traced the concept back to Aristotle's "praxis" and "phronesis", and urged people who indulged in science and technology to reflect their behavior itself and to attend to the human nature and the real "good", but not only to blindly chase results and purpose.When Gadamer set his sights to literary field, he found that the terrible permeation of science and techonology had obliterated the diversity, vitality and naturality,even in the daily newspapers and books were also filled standard German,namely "Beinahe-Deutsch". So, Goethe, the "genius" in the history of world literature, the prominent guardian of "naturality", came within Gadamer's vision. Gadamer regarded the "naturality" as the strength which would awaken the vitality of the twentieth century German literature and even the entire social. Gadamer found that, Goethe's reflection of the science and technology and his attention to the human nature had striking similarities with the ideas of Gadamer himself. The language in the works which were created by genius Goethe in his twenties was full of naturality, Goethe boldly argued against the autocracy and distained the works which were regarded as the tools of palace. Goethe's appeal for the natruality was almost throughout his whole lifetime, he differentiated naturality and artistry and also strengthened the connection between them, even fused them, then he illustrated that the real artistry was the naturality in a higher level and was the "second nature" beyond nature. In Gadamer's opinion, Goethe's naturality had relevance to his sociality. The dialect, the impure rhyme and the inconsistency were all the embodiment of Goethe's sociality. Goethe and his language were sociable in Gadamer's view, and gradually were put into the framework of his practical philosophy.In this paper, I look at Goethe through Gadamer's eye. Goethe let the characters of his works reflect, his questions about human nature were embedded into the narrative flow, as the same as Goethe's reflections, Gadamer reminded us to think about the motives and premises of our behaviors, but not to keep running following the steps of science and technology. The impure rhyme and the uncompleted chapters were both the embodiments of openness, the openness of the works could help readers achievement the completeness, the poetical completes should be given by the interpreters, which happened to coincide with Gadamer's openness. Goethe loved social conversation, in which a good deal of creation materials could be found, and more significant was to overcome isolation and to achievement the consensus of community. Similarly, in the ontological view of Gadamer, language was the view of the world and the openness of language achieved the conversation, the social role of language formed a vivid society. So, Goethe's social language was the very language in Gadamer's philosophical framework, we can clearly find the close echo relationship between the Gadamer's practical philosophy and the naturality of Goethe's language.