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Abstract
We need to start from the approach to classical annotation of jingxue (Confucian classical studies), with its long history and experience, and to make use of the fine resources of contemporary Western hermeneutics, so as to build a universal classical hermeneutics that will bridge Chinese and foreign thought in the past and the present. This is a necessary path to opening up and innovating China’s fine traditional culture. To carry out this important academic project of universal classical hermeneutics, it is necessary to gain an in-depth understanding of the developmental history of Western hermeneutics and contemporary philosophical hermeneutics, and especially to fully grasp Gadamer’s hermeneutical thought and theories and their contemporary development. In addition, it is necessary to comprehensively organize the vast experience and long history of jingxue and its branches, such as exegesis, textual studies, philology, bibliography and hermeneutics, and to take the modernization of jingxue as a starting point for establishing a type of universal classical hermeneutics that is different from traditional Chinese jingxue but also superior to Western hermeneutics. Only in this way can we base ourselves on China, learn from foreign countries, excavate history and grasp the contemporary, so as to fully reflect the “Chinese style and manner” and characteristics in disciplinary, academic and discourse systems.
Notes
1 Quoted from Jing Haifeng, The Modern Interpretation of Chinese Philosophy, p. 34.
2 Sima Qian, Records of the Grand Historian: Hereditary House of Confucius, pp. 1935-1936.
3 Zhou Guangqing, Introduction to Chinese Classical Hermeneutics, pp. 11-12.
4 Feng Tianyu, The Spirit of Confucian Classics, p. 260.
5 Zhu Xi, Si Shu Zhang Ju Jizhu, p. 38.
6 Zhou Dunyi, Zhou Zi Tong Shu, p. 41.
7 Zhu Xi, Jin Si Lu, pp. 54, 67.
8 Historically and in terms of experience, classical commentaries in the ancient West number, for Aristotle alone, about three hundred, including those by Alexander of Aphrodisias, Philoponus, Porphyry and Simplicius, which come respectively from the Byzantine, Islamic, medieval and Renaissance eras. From 1987 to 2012, King’s College, London, published over a hundred volumes of Ancient Commentators on Aristotle; and Richard Sorabji subsequently edited a series of Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca (CAG). There are, in addition, some further collections of studies of ancient commentaries on Aristotle, such as The Philosophy of the Commentators, 200-600 AD; Aristotle Transformed: The Ancient Commentators and Their Influence; Philosophy, Science & Exegesis: In Greek, Arabic & Latin Commentaries: Greek and Roman Philosophy 100 B.C-200 A.D., etc.
9 Certainly, from the early years of the modern West on, classical interpretation did not disappear, but rather existed in divergent forms. In early modern German philosophy, for example, we can distinguish three traditions of classical interpretation. One is the classical interpretation undertaken in critical philosophy and German idealism, that is, the tradition running from Kant to Hegel and Schelling. Ancient Greek philosophy was revived in Germany and amalgamated with native German thought through Kant’s explanation of Plato’s theory of ideas, Hegel’s interpretation of ancient Greek philosophy, and Schelling’s commentary on Timaeus, which defined the nature of German philosophy. Another was the Romantic tradition of Schleiermacher and Schlegel. Schleiermacher’s universal hermeneutics derived from theological and jurisprudential hermeneutics but gave German classical interpretation a form that differed from that of philosophical interpretation: the hermeneutics of classical interpretation, as in Schleiermacher’s exposition of Plato in the course of translating the philosopher’s complete works and Schlegel’s annotations to the history of Greece, also reflect a new interpretative tendency, that of emphasizing the author’s original intention. And finally, the last of the traditions of classical interpretation was the school of historical philology first developed by Friedrich August Wolf and August Beck [Böckh]; the latter is best known for his Enzyklopädie und Methodologie der philologischen Wissenschaften.
10 According to the recent research of Professor Yang Naiqiao of Fudan University, shu ( 述 ) means “follow the bequeathed teaching.” See Yang Naiqiao, ed., China’s Classical Confucian Hermeneutics and Western Hermeneutics, p. 55.
11 Dong Zhongshu, Chunqiu Fanlu, p. 775.
12 Hans-Georg Gadamer, Gesammelte Werke 9, p. 144.
13 Hans-Georg Gadamer, “The Hermeneutics of Suspicion,” in Gary Shapiro and Alan Sica, eds., Hermeneutics Questions and Prospects, pp. 59-60.
14 Hans-Georg Gadamer, Gesammelte Werke 5, p. 286.
15 J.P. Eckermann, Conversations with Goethe, p. 213.
16 Ibid., p. 211.
17 Ibid., pp. 363-364.
18 Wilhelm Dilthey, “The Rise of Hermeneutics,” pp. 76-77.
19 Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method: The Basic Characteristics of Philosophical Hermeneutics, vol. 1, pp. 4-5.
20 Hans-Georg Gadamer, “The Hermeneutics of Suspicion,” p. 57.
21 Ibid., p. 64.
22 Ibid. Paul Ricoeur has another interpretation on Gadamer’s Aneignung: “‘Appropriation’ is my translation of the German term Aneignung. Aneignen means ‘to make one’s own’ what was initially ‘alien.’ According to the intention of the word, the aim of all hermeneutics is to struggle against cultural distance and historical alienation.” Paul Ricoeur, Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences: Essays on Language Action and Interpretation, p. 147.
23 Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method: The Basic Characteristics of Philosophical Hermeneutics, vol. 1, p. 3.
24 Ibid., pp. 393-394.
25 Hans-Georg Gadamer, “Hermeneutics Questions and Prospects,” p. 63.
26 Ibid., p. 64.
27 Leo Strauss, Return to Classic Political Philosophy, p. 415.
28 Paul Ricoeur, “Existence and Hermeneutics,” p. 249.
29 Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method: The Basic Characteristics of Philosophical Hermeneutics, vol. 1, p. 7.
30 Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method: Supplements and Indexes, vol. 2, p. 332.