HISTORICITY AND OBJECTIVITY IN INTERPRETATION: A CRITIQUE OF GADAMER'S HERMENEUTICS [electronic resource]
說明
161 p
附註
Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-05, Section: A, page: 2170
Thesis (Ph.D.)--Northwestern University, 1981
This dissertation attempts to critically evaluate Hans-Georg Gadamer's theory of textual interpretation. For these purposes we focus on the middle portion of Truth and Method
The first chapter deals with some fundamental presuppositions and basic problems which Gadamer's work presents us with. It attempts to situate Gadamer's thought as a reaction to a tradition which sees man's involvement in history as essentially irrelevant to a philosophical definition of truth. Truth, for Gadamer, changes as we who apprehend truth change with the course of history. I argue that this position is contradictory insofar as Gadamer asserts that his own position is not subject to historical change. I argue further that if truth changes as man's historical situation changes, then truth itself is primarily 'subjective' in nature. Furthermore, Gadamer ignores the distinction between conditions necessary for the apprehension of truth, which are subject to historical contingencies, and the nature of truth itself, which is not necessarily historical
The second chapter characterizes Gadamer's position vis a vis Schleiermacher and Dilthey. It outlines his reasons for rejecting a hermeneutics of reconstruction of the author's semantic intentions which both Schleiermacher and Dilthey advocate. Gadamer thinks that the interpreter's own historical-pragmatic concerns preclude an objective reconstruction of the author's intentions. Instead of reconstruction, Gadamer argues for a hermeneutics of integration in which the subject-matter of the text "fuses" with the perspective of the interpreter
In the third chapter I argue that Gadamer's hermeneutics of integration leads to the subjectivization of understanding. Gadamer maintains that the interpreter's own historical commitments determine what the text will say. This is the case because Gadamer draws no distinction between the text's significance for us and its meaning as such. This means that every reading of a text can, at least in principle, bring about a new text. I conclude that Gadamer loses all meaningful notions of a text's identity and, as a result, he precludes the possibility of objective interpretation
