The Hermeneutical Significance Of "Historically Effected Consciousness"

This article aims to examine the concept,"historically effected consciousness" in Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics, and its significance. Starting from Gadamer’s acceptance of Heideggerian ontological existentialism and later thought, as well as comparison between their differences, I will try to elucidate the thought foundation and principles that Heidegger’s philosophy laid for philosophical hermeneutics on ontology, temporality, art and truth as well as the process from "being-in-the-world" to historicity four aspects respectively. By means of it I want to clarify Gadamer’s wholly new definitions of experience and tradition, and to manifest the fact that he takes historicity as ontological base of understanding itself.In the main part, a systematic and comprehensive work of investigating and explaining the "historically effected consciousness" would be carried out. Firstly we will have a research and point out the narrowness and weakness of traditionally methodological and epistemological hermeneutics in the light of phenomenology, and examine how the concept of experience possesses the original function of explaining and characteristic of self-revealing. On this basis, we will provide a valid foundation for the tradition, and pave the way for subsequent investigation concerning the significances of "historically effected consciousness" on prejudice, temporal distance, ontological situation, fusion of horizons, structure of question and answer, and so forth. Through the elucidation which ontological structure of temporality makes for Having-being (das Gewesen) and "pre-structure" of understanding, we will point out that prejudice is a positive condition which makes understanding in Dasein come into being, then, the productive and filtering functions of temporal distance facilitate understanding’s happening and the continual movement and the expansion of "hermeneutic circle". Furthermore, the effects of this understanding movement born in the existential situation and historical distance show the specific procedure of understanding. On this basis, those ruptures and dogmatism of subjectivity stemming from the history of metaphysics would be overcome in the process of hermeneutical "fusion of horizons", and would realize its being mediated in the medium of language. In the meantime, the historicity of understanding which is stood out in this process not only consists of the possibility of Sein’s understanding, but also reveals the vital limitation of Dasein per se and the event of understanding, that is, our Dasein and its consciousness from understanding always have been situated in some hermeneutical situation and existential circumstances, and always are restricted by the historical effects and the medium of language.For philosophical hermeneutics, being conscious of this limitation and restriction is very important, because it comprises the reflective wisdom which makes effective history play right role and makes the "fusion of horizons" come true. To possess this sort of consciousness, Gadamer reveal further the structure of dialogue,"I-Thou" relation, and dialects of "question and answer" of "historically effected consciousness", thus shedding light on the openness of understanding of historicity. So to some extent, the historicity of understanding generated from "historically effected consciousness" not only comprises the motivation and conditional foundation of understanding, but becomes the restriction of Being and understanding, which Dasein’s understanding must be aware of to exert its subjective function.Through the intertexuality among above series of inner concepts, this article tries to make clear the deep and sophisticated significances of "historically effected consciousness", by means of which to manifest the characteristic of historic being of philosophical hermeneutics, and the openness of meanings’ generation, as well as the possibility of different meanings and understandings. This kind of ontological hermeneutics is not only a theory, but also a "disclosure" and "praxis". Undoubtedly, the investigation on ontological understanding of historicity will also help us to re-recognize the genesis and "nature" of literature and art, thus creating an illumination for our paradigms of literary research. At last, on the basis of analyzing the differences between Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics and Heideggerian thoughts, I will indicate that historicity is a great development and deepening Gadamer made for hermeneutical characteristic of ontology, in the meantime,"historically effected consciousness" has marched on in the reductive way of wholeness for the process of understanding of historicity.