Towards a Cross-Cultural Hermeneutics

A New type of hermeneutics is in urgent need for cross-cultural understanding and explanation,which is different from the hermeneutics applied inside a single culture.Raimon Panikkar,one of the most eminent advocator of cross-cultural studies,has offered valuable resources for the establishment of such a cross-cultural hermeneutics and its methodology through his theoretical approach and practical exploration.The author tries to describe a cross-cultural hermeneutics as follows: cross-cultural hermeneutics departs in a radically new way,accepting human's currently cross-cultural existential predicament as its external pressure,and a cross-cultural belief about human's self-understanding as its internal impetus.It is a kind of diatopical hermeneutics in nature,for it has to overcome the distance between different cultures.Its main method is dialogical dialogue,distinguished from and transcending dialectic dialogue.Its final aim is to make the mutual renewal and the enrichment of different cultures possible.