Understanding the Meaning of Events and Texts – Literary Hermeneutics

Author: Li Jiansheng
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-03-01
Features: The purpose of philosophical hermeneutics is to reveal a historical truth through the genuine reading of texts. However, the concept of the zero point is precisely what Derrida detested; he believed that reading could not grasp truth. For Derrida, the question of whether we can talk about the understanding of "truth" or whether truth can be attained in understanding is itself a metaphysical issue, one that requires deconstruction. Understanding and interpretation are shifts from sign to sign. It is impossible to obtain certain meaning or truth within the metaphysical form of presence. If meaning or truth exists at all, it is merely a temporary product of words or signifiers, something fluid and without fixed existence. How could such a thing be certain meaning or truth? Both Gadamer and Derrida are contemporary thinkers who place great emphasis on the game, but the purposes they achieve through it are quite different. Gadamer views the game as the ontological existence of artistic works, revealing artistic truth within its dynamic structure, while Derrida uses the game as a strategy to subvert texts, meaning, and truth. As for meaning or truth, Derrida no longer holds the "benevolent power intention" that Gadamer does. Gadamer seeks to preserve the truthful aspects of tradition through dialogue and understanding, whereas Derrida aims to subvert all that is called truth in traditional metaphysics through deconstruction. Perhaps for Western cultural traditions, both Gadamer and Derrida hold immense significance. As David C. Hoy stated after comparing the two: "Both Derrida and Gadamer reject the possibility and utility of planning the overall experience. Gadamer seeks to avoid Hegelian experience completion (absolute self-affirmation) and the concept of the end of history, while Derrida believes that totalization is impossible, not only because of the impossibility of experience but also because of the finitude of the game. Gadamer also derives his concept of openness from finitude. Both thinkers use the commitment to openness as a metaphysical antidote, particularly as an antidote to theological or eschatological thought, and as a critique of the practice of imposing order on history and thought development."
Of course, philosophical hermeneutics has a unique understanding of the self-existence of literary works, thereby granting it a different autonomous stance in literary works compared to formal structuralism. To insist that "literary works exist in themselves" does not mean that the existence of literary works is merely a form and structure of language. Rather, to insist that literary works exist in themselves means that they express the truth of human aesthetic experience through their autonomy, just as literary language witnesses the existence of humanity through its richness and perfection, literary works also reveal truth through themselves.
Objective formalism and structuralism argue that artworks are autonomous, realized through language as a form and structure, but they do not express truth. Unlike literary autonomy theories that aim to determine the linguistic form and structure of literary works, Gadamer's hermeneutics is not interested in the objectivity of literary works. He believes that our understanding of texts is always realized dialogically within language. Understanding the language, form, and structure of literary works is not to explore their form and technique, but to derive more from the understanding of the text.
Philosophical hermeneutics also views literary works as autonomous, but it insists on the dimension of the truth of literary aesthetic experience. Therefore, literary art works are not merely autonomous in form and structure but are an extended world of meaning. Unlike formal structuralism, which treats literary works as objective objects, philosophical hermeneutics understands the self-existence of literary works from the perspective of hermeneutics.
"Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that the concept of the text only constitutes a central concept within the linguistic structure of the concept of interpretation. Indeed, the special mark of the text concept lies in the fact that it only reveals itself in relation to interpretation, and only from the perspective of interpretation is it presented as a real given to be understood."
Literary works indeed obtain existence in their own way, but the autonomy of the literary work text is not an objective existence unrelated to the interpreter. It is an objective existence awaiting our recognition and validation, and it is related to our interpretation of it.
"From the hermeneutical perspective—i.e., the perspective of every reader—the text is merely a Zwischenprodukt (intermediate product), a stage in the event of understanding, and must include a certain abstraction, that is, the separation and specification within this event of understanding."
Clearly, literary works are fictional texts, imaginary works distinct from the real world, and it is precisely this fictionality and imagination that provide an open structure for reading and reception.
"The blank of fictional texts has a typical structure, its function being to provoke the reader's constructive activity, an activity that makes the intertextual content clear. The changing blanks produce sequences of conflicting images, which constrain each other in the process of reading. Discarded images themselves influence the formation of later images, even if the latter are intended to overcome the shortcomings of the former. In this regard, various images combine into a sequence, and it is through this sequence that the meaning of the text becomes active in the reader's imagination."
Iser's meaning blank arises from the uncertainty of the text, indicating that the supplementation of the blank within the entire system of the text creates mutual influence among text patterns. The blank of the text constantly disrupts the connectivity of reading imagination, demonstrating an ever-increasing possibility.
As a fictional imaginary work, the non-realization of the literary text produces blanks, which only provide possibilities for connection and constitute the "suspense" of reading. Blanks have aesthetic significance, playing a crucial role in the construction of reading images and producing strong effects during the construction and transformation of images. The blank of the text transforms itself into a stimulus for imaginative activity, and in the communication between the text and the reader, it plays a self-regulating structural role, which Iser calls the "" (). It is precisely this literary work's that becomes the "invitation" () of philosophical hermeneutics, inviting people into reading and reception.
Therefore, regardless of how uncertain the meaning of the literary work's structure may be, it must rely on this . No matter what kind of blank and structure it has, it is first and foremost the structure that reading and understanding must rely on, a fundamental basis for the creativity of reading and acceptance to begin and proceed.
Since literary reading and acceptance are the reading and acceptance of literature, they cannot be unrelated to the limitations of the text. However, literary works are also fictional and imaginary texts, and they necessarily require active participation in reading and acceptance.
Hermeneutical literary theory views the text as an autonomous "intermediate product," though it has been questioned by radical hermeneutics, I believe that this hermeneutical concept of an autonomous "intermediate product" has placed the openness and creativity of reading and acceptance in an ontological position, a necessary specification of them.
Thus, in my view, the exploration of the text concept by formalism, New Criticism, and structuralism, as well as Ricoeur's structuralist-inspired thought, is not without meaning. While there are indeed shortcomings in treating literary works as independent and self-sufficient objects of study, it cannot be denied that understanding and revealing the literary and intrinsic structure of literary works is also an important aspect of literary hermeneutics that cannot be ignored.
Therefore, when highlighting the role of reading in literary reception, the ontological turn in contemporary literary theory and criticism still cannot discard the text as something unnecessary. The boundary of the concept of an autonomous "intermediate product" of the text is necessary.
The text concept of philosophical hermeneutics is concerned with what the text tells us, and its understanding of the text concept is derived from the hermeneutical concept. For philosophical hermeneutics, the concept of the text is an interpretive concept.
"From the hermeneutical perspective—i.e., the perspective of every reader—the text is merely an intermediate product, a stage in the event of understanding, and must include a certain abstraction, that is, the separation and specification within this event of understanding. However, this abstraction moves in the opposite direction of the abstraction conducted by linguists. Linguists do not wish to engage in discussions about the themes the text addresses; they explain how language functions as language, regardless of what the text says. They do not take what the text conveys as their theme, but rather, they ask how it is possible to communicate anything through the punctuation and symbols of the text."
Thus, the concept of the text in hermeneutical situations is not a pure object. The text exists within the event, serving as a partner in communication and dialogue.
First, positivist literary history views the methodology of natural science as the methodology of spiritual science. Positivist literary historians believe that literary history should have a method with universal validity like natural science, in order to establish a scientific view of literary history and objectively reconstruct the history of literary emergence and development. Positivist philosopher Auguste Comte (A. Comte) believed that the sole purpose of science is to discover natural laws or the necessary, constant relationships within complex facts and phenomena. Only knowledge verified by positivist science can be applied to all aspects of human practice, including the various fields of social and spiritual sciences.
This positivist philosophical thought is reflected in the positivist historical view of Ranke. Ranke believed that historians often task themselves with commenting on the past for the benefit of the future, thereby teaching the present. Such an approach actually goes beyond the task of historians, whose task is to describe history as it truly was.
In the field of spiritual sciences, while Dilthey recognized the vast differences between spiritual science and natural science, he attempted to provide a methodology suitable for the characteristics of spiritual science. However, by trying to establish a universally valid methodology for spiritual science like that of natural science, he did not escape the model of natural science methodology, fundamentally reinforcing the positivist methodology of spiritual science.
The positivist literary historical view was shaped under the influence of positivist philosophy, historiography, and the methodology of natural science.
Taine's literary and art history attempted to examine and analyze the objects of literary and art history as natural science examines its objects. Literature and art, like plants, grow and develop in specific historical and environmental contexts, and the study of literary and art history is also like the study of natural science.
In his work Philosophy of Art, he explicitly wrote: "Aesthetics itself is a practical botany, but the object is not plants, but human works. Therefore, aesthetics follows the current trend of advancing in the same direction as spiritual and natural sciences. If spiritual science adopts the principles, direction, and rigor of natural science, it will have the same solid foundation and progress."
His philosophy of art is based on an empirical study framed by the theory of the three great elements: era, race, and environment. His famous History of English Literature is also constructed based on the empirical methods of natural science. He regarded these three elements as the original creativity of literary historical development.
Bran?s creatively developed the theory of the three elements of literary history and the positivist historical spirit of Ranke, treating "science" and "positivism" as the research methods of literary history.
"Like scientists studying a physiological structure's evolution through the study of variations in different animal species, a literary critic examining the typical literary works of a period resembles a scientist."
For positivist literary historians, literature is not primarily viewed as a spiritual object but as a natural scientific object. They believe that the work of literary historians is like that of botanists observing plants or zoologists dissecting frogs—capable of thoroughly understanding the object of literary history through empirical methods and scientific analysis, and establishing a literary history as objective and effective as the history of natural science.