Hermeneutics Circumstances, "the Ontological Implication

Alfred White, a well-known British philosopher, once commented that throughout its whole history western philosophy was making footnotes for Platonism. Assuming the generation and development of new philosophical issues are normally the restoration and retrospect of some old propositions, the one being explored shall be considered as the development and deepening of the issue underlying in Socrates' philosophy. The issue expresses itself as the contradiction and opposition between two entirely opposite philosophical conceptive tendencies that derived from the two propositions of "knowledge of oneself" and "knowledge of one's own ignorance", whereas in our domain it manifests itself as conspicuous tension between "historic consciousness" and "transcendental subjectivity".This thesis maintains that "transcendental subjectivity" is a dominant philosophical concept which was naturally born as a result of the awakening of introspective consciousness of philosophy. However, the increasingly exposed limitations and unreasonable properties compelled modern philosophy to develop from "triumph of subjectivity" to "twilight of subjectivity", from ultimate probe into subjectivity to concern over "historic" consciousness. Therefore, it's not coincidence, to some extent, that modern philosophy started all its transcendence over its past with the critical introspection on "transcendental subjectivity". Niche, Scheler, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Jaspers, Sartre and Freud, etc., all pondered over the issue from their respective theoretical angles, in different degrees and in their peculiar ways, and achieved transcendence over "transcendental subjectivity" to different extents in their particular theoretical domains.Gadamer, a famous modern German philosopher, followed the leading conceptive orientation and contributed helpful consideration to the issue on the basis of predecessors. This thesis, starting with the implication of ontology, attempts to explore how Gadamer realized the transcendence over "transcendental subjectivity" within the theoretical frame of his philosophy and to make an overall introspection on his conceptive orientation. This thesis includes three parts:Part One is to table the issue. After reviewing the sprout and development of subjective concepts, the thesis lays its emphasis on the description of the track along which subjective concepts evolved transcendentally from Descartes to Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, at last to Husserl. On these grounds, the thesis strives to unveil five theoretical plights contained in the concept of "transcendental subjectivity".Part Two discusses how Gadamer solved the issue in his hermeneutic. Proceeding with the discussion of "hermeneutic circumstances", the thesis expounds the structure and connotation of ontology involved in "hermeneutic circumstances". Based on this, the thesis tries to make an analysis of the relationship between "hermeneutic circumstances" and transcendental introspection. Finally, the thesis attempts to outline the conceptive thread of the transcendence of hermeneutic over "transcendental subjectivity" by analyzing how Gadamer eliminated the five theoretical plights with the implication of ontology and historical connotation of his "hermeneutic circumstances".Part Three are comments. The thesis points out two paradoxes that exist in Gadamer's hermeneutic theory, i.e. historic connotation and objective concept in "hermeneutic circumstances"; consciousness of "hermeneutic circumstances" and limits of introspection. Hereby, the thesis makes a tentative comment on how Gadamer achieved transcendence over "transcendental subjectivity" with implication of ontology in his "hermeneutic circumstances".