Practice: Literary Interpretation In Gadamer’s Perspective

Hans-Georg Gadamer is the key figure to promote the birth of hermeneutics of Ontology theory.He was influenced by Heidegger,thought that interpretation is not methodology,but our living practice.Later Gadamer developed hermeneutics into practical philosophy.He was dissatisfied with taking practice as the mechanical application of theory under the influence of modern scientific rationality,but regarded practice as our life style.Hermeneutics and practical philosophy are integrated.Interpretation is the practice,and practice is the interpretation.In the postmodern context,we can understand the significance of literary interpretation to human survival and social development by Gadamer’s practical philosophy.Gadamer established the status of literature and made it not become a symbol product in the age of technology.In the process of literary interpretation,we need listen to others with a good will and regard literature as our conversation partner.In the process of conversation,we can reflect on our own composition.Literature contains our original co-existence,so literary interpretation can make us realize that we are not alone,the world is a common world with others,so as to cultivate common sense.We not only feel that we are in the community,we also consolidate the community through dialogue and communication.Gadamer’s sense of commonality is not abstract,but the commonality that we realize in specific situations according to our own phronesis,which makes the community maintain multiple tensions.Finally,we need to reflect on Gadamer’s literary interpretation of practice and enhance the ability of dialogue between theories.Gadamer’s sense of commonality and community is questioned by social critical theory.At the same time,Gadamer pays attention to the historicity of practice and ignores creativity,which requires us to respond in theory.Gadamer’s theory also brings inspiration to the debate between practical aesthetics and post-practical aesthetics,and makes up for their defects.This paper is divided into three chapters,discussing the literary interpretation activities in Gadamer’s thought field.The first chapter discusses Gadamer’s hermeneutics as practical philosophy.Since 1970 s,Gadamer has turned from hermeneutics to practical philosophy and developed hermeneutics as practical philosophy.This chapter introduces the turn of practical philosophy and discusses the connotation of practical philosophy and hermeneutics as practical philosophy.The second chapter discusses the literary interpretation activities in Gadamer’s thought field —literary interpretation as practice.First of all,it reviews the loss of practical dimension of literatary interpretation in the post-modern context,while literary interpretation in Gadamer’s perspective takes literature as a means to reveal truth and increase practical wisdom.Secondly,it discusses how the dialogue of literary interpretation happens.Literary interpretation is based on good will,the interpreter and the text integrated.In this process,language events occur.It helps to build a community and clarifies the value and significance of literary interpretation as a practice to our own existence and society.The third chapter discusses the dialogue between Gadamer and postmodern theory.The first is the dialogue between Bourdieu’s theory and Gadamer’s theory,we can see how Gadamer’s theory can deal with the challenge of postmodern theory on the universality of the sense of common,and how to resolve the community of separation;the second is the dialogue between radical Hermeneutics and Gadamer’s hermeneutics.Gadamer’s theory ignores the construction ability of the subject,so it is necessary to supplement the theory.There are both fusion of horizons and rupture of Horizons in interpretation.