China Social Science Review

No.1, 2023

 

Public Hermeneutics, Effective Hermeneutics and Hermeneutic Flexibility: From Western Discourse to Chinese Discourse

(Abstract)

 

Lu Dan and Wang Ying

 

Interpretation is an independent socio-historical activity that aims to achieve recognition and consensus. As the distillation of the consensus of our day, the development of philosophy and the social sciences is a process in which private discourse is ceaselessly and effectively defined by public reason and integrated into history, generating influence. In the course of the formation and development of Western thought and theory, based on the premise of historical certainty and a common problem threshold at different times, Western philosophy and social sciences have made quite full use of the possible intervals of boundary constraints provided by the relative independence of social consciousness. They have thus developed quite strong hermeneutic flexibility and successfully elevated private discourse into a universal consensus within the broader scope of public reason, although its interpretation is not necessarily “valid” (in the purely hermeneutic sense), and its premise and content may not be “true.” As an intellectual and theoretical activity founded on great contemporary practice, philosophy and social science with Chinese characteristics must pay attention to the destiny of mankind on the basis of the laws of historical development and grasp the latest themes of the times while continuously innovating within the possible boundary constraints supplied by relatively independent social consciousness, so as to increase hermeneutic flexibility, expand hermeneutic territory, and obtain greater recognition of public rationality worldwide.