A Study On The Relationship Between The Thought Of Bildung And The Theory Of Verstehen In Gadamer’s Hermeneutics

My thesis is a study about the relationship between the thought of Bildung and the theory of Verstehen in Gadamer’s hermeneutics. As the two pillars of Gadamer’s hermeneutical thought, the concept of Bildung and the concept of Verstehen play a very important pole in constructing his philosophical hermeneutics, historicist hermeneutics and practical hermeneutics or philosophy of Praxis. Therefore, the study of this relationship has important significance in theory as well as in practice. Roughly speaking, I studied the intrinsic relationship between the thought of Bildung and the theory of Verstehen in Gadamer’s hermeneutics by means of the following four chapters in my thesis. In Chapter One, I conducted a preliminary discussion from three aspects:on the basis of Gadamer’s Truth and Method and his related works, Section One of this chapter discussed the problem of philosophical methodology used by Gadamer in the process of constructing his philosophical hermeneutics, namely the analysis method of the history of concept. Section Two of this chapter induced the four meanings of the concept of Verstehen from Gadamer’s research on the history of hermeneutics. And Section Three revealed humanist background of Bildung and provided the five basic meanings of this concept through the investigation of the history of concept. Essentially this chapter aims to explain that Bildung lays a hermeneutic foundation for the truth of Verstehen in the human sciences and the problem of Verstehen is solved thoroughly only if the human sciences are on the basis of the tradition of Bildung.In Chapter Two, I argued the relationship between Bildung and the ontologicalization of Verstehen. The reason that Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics is very different from the classical hermeneutics is because this kind of hermeneutics achieved the transformation from epistemology to ontology. In order to achieve this transformation, Gadamer must alter the concept of Verstehen ontologically. Moreover,Gadamer finished this change by the three intertwined steps which included the theory of Play, the text-centered theory established by the transformation from play into structure and the ontological analysis of the work of art exemplified by Bild. This point comes ultimately down to the etymological analysis among Bildung, Gebilde and Bild. Therefore, the conclusion of this chapter is that the thought of Bildung is the moment of the ontologicalization of Verstehen made by Gadamer.In Chapter Three, I investigated the relationship between Bildung and the historicity of Verstehen.The historicity of Verstehen or historical consciousness is a important feature of Gadamer’s hermeneutic thought and this kind of historicism is developed by Gadamer through criticizing and reflecting the western modern Enlightenment. Because of lacking historical consciousness, thinkers during the period of the Enlightenment hold a completely negative viewpoint for prejudice, authority and tradition. But in the process of rehabilitating them, Gadamer established the basic principle of Historically Effected Consciousness and gradually revealed and explained the universal structure of the activity of Verstehen, namely the conversational dialectic and the logic of question and answer. For Gadamer, the concept of Bildung is a necessary condition of all of the argument about the historicity of Verstehen and historical consciousness. Consequently,the conclusion of this chapter is that the thought of Bildung is the theoretical premise of the historicity of Verstehen argued by Gadamer.Finally, in Chapter Four of my thesis I analyzed the relationship between Bildung and the practicality of Verstehen. Based on the innovative interpretation of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Gadamer brought the hermeneutic element of application into the universal structure of Verstehen, so that hermeneutics as the trinity of Verstehen, Auslegen and Applicatio has the character of practical philosophy. Correspondingly, based on the analysis of Bildung in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, Gadamer also brought the concept of phronesis into the universal structure of Verstehen, so that practical philosophy has the basis of hermeneutics. Therefore both the practicality of Verstehen and the essence of Bildung formed the ultimate goal of later Gadamer’s practical philosophy or philosophy of Praxis.In summary, the final conclusion of my thesis is that Bildung and Verstehen are the two keywords in Gadamer’s hermeneutic thought. Gadamer united philosophical hermeneutics, historicist hermeneutics and practical hermeneutics or philosophy of Praxis as an organic body if only he integrated the concept of Bildung with the concept of Verstehen. Firstly, the concept of Bildung fulfilled the ontologicalization of Verstehen, so that Gadamer finished thoroughly the task of the process of philosophized hermeneutics. Secondly, the concept of Bildung also is the prerequisite of arguing the historicity of Verstehen, Gadamer reasonably derived the basic principle of Historically Effected Consciousness only from the concept of Bildung and then turn his hermeneutics into real historicism or historicist hermeneutics. In the end, the element of application contained in the concept of Verstehen and the phronesis contained in the concept of Bildung make Gadamer’s hermeneutics paint with the color of practical philosophy,conversely both make Gadamer’s practical philosophy possess with the foundation of hermeneutics.