The Question Of Reasonable Prejudice In Gadamer’s

As an important founder in philosophical hermeneutics,Gadamer critically examined the history of hermeneutics’ history in Truth and Method. Along the existential interpretation on the question of understanding by Heidegger, Gadamer rethought the issue of understanding in hermeneutics, Gadamer also agreed with Heidegger’s fore-structure of understanding, which is transformed into the concept of prejudice by Gadamer. Then, Gadamer proposed two sharp questions:how can we distinguish reasonable prejudices from other prejudices? how can we recognize the prejudice that promoting understanding and those that impeding understanding. This paper rethinks this issue by analyzing the Philosophical Hermeneutics of Gadamer. At first, I will review Bacon and Descartes’ attitude on prejudice to show the opposition between prejudice and rationality and the negative judgement on prejudice in natural science. Then, I analyze the existential demonstration on prejudice of Heidegger and his restriction on prejudice, after that, I will show the discussion by Gadamer on tradition, authority and reason. I will point out the real function of "Things themselves" and "Temporal distance" in clarifying reasonable prejudices.I will introduce how it can realize in the course of understanding.