A Study On Gadamer’s Hermeneutic Thought

Gadamer’s thoughs on hermeneutics have been controversial for a long time,and his talk about the "situation" and "different understanding" were once criticized by some scholars(such as Betty and Hirsch)as having a tendency of "relativity".Therefore,this article will be based on Gadamer’s hermeneutical thoughts,through Betty and Hirsch’s critique of it,clarify the difference between "relativity of interpretation" and relativism.Base on that,elucidating Gadamer’s transcendence over Relativism.This article has three parts except the introduction.The first part focuses on Gadamer’s effective-historical consciousness and the relativity of interpretarion.Gadamer’s hermeneutics is based on human living conditions.In this way,history is no longer the history of the composition of literary works,but the history of effects in which the interpreter is involved(that is,“the history of effects”).The openness of "the history of effects" leads to the "relativity of interpretation".The second part focuses on Betty and Hirsch’s critique of "relativity of interpretation".Based on this,Betty and Hirsch believe that Gadamer has fallen into relativism.But the author found that them criticized Gadamer’s existential hermeneutics from the epistemological standpoint of subject-object dichotomy.Such criticism cannot be established by itself.The thrid part focuses on the Gadamer’s transcendence of relativism.The "relativism of interpretation" is not relativism.Gadamer’s hermeneutics does contain relativity,but he didn’t move towards relativity.This is because in philosophical hermeneutics,Gadamer did not give up the pursuit of truth.Although his "things themselves" are not hermeneutic truth in the strict sense,but it effectively restricts the understanding of the interpreter,and in the end,it provides a belief in truth in the spiritual and scientific sense for interpretation.Although we cannot reach the truth here,we are always on the way to the truth.It is in this sense that Gadamer goes beyond relativism.Based on the existence situation of there-being,Gadamer completed thehistorical elaboration of hermeneutics.In this way,the interpretation is no longer the objective understanding of the interpretive subject to the interpretive object,but the fusion of the horizons between the interpreter and the interpretive subject,in which understanding occurs.The finiteness and historicity of the existence make understanding never happen overnight,but it is constantly approaching the truth.The finiteness and historicity of there-being make understanding never happen overnight,while it always approaching the truth constantly.But the openness of hermeneutical truth does not imply relativism,on the contrary,this is where the real interest of spiritual science lies.