Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.7, 2014

Textual Understanding, Self-Understanding and Self-Fashioning

(Abstract)

Pan Derong

Hermeneutics is a branch of learning concerned with “textual understanding,” “self-understanding” and “self-fashioning.” A reader achieves self-understanding by means of textual understanding, thereby acquiring a new existence. In this sense, self-understanding is just the embodiment of the educational function of hermeneutics, i.e., its nature as praxis. Textual understanding is the starting point for self-fashioning, which can be constructed on a sound basis only when the text is understood as “correctly” as possible. Hermeneutic exploration itself is a twofold task involving both theory and practice; this highlights its practical character. In terms of the methodology of understanding, Western hermeneutics has provided a systematic methodological system, but it is still far from adequate. Today’s hermeneutic research is not only based on our own tradition and our reflection on tradition, but at the same time involves the digestion and acceptance of heterogeneous cultural and intellectual resources; from these developed the modern consensus on “virtue.” We must take the initiative in drawing on Western hermeneutics’ rich intellectual resources regarding methods of understanding in order to reflect on and put in order our own hermeneutic experience, with a view to building a Chinese hermeneutics.