The Historical Evolution and Latest Development of Western Hermeneutics

Schleiermacher introduces Hermeneutics into philosophy and turns Hermeneutics into a general interpretive tool and method,but it has its defect:it ignores the truth contained in the text to be comprehended and considers the comprehension activity as the reconstruction of the intention of the author,a kind of objective and static cognitive activity,which degenerates into the binary opposition of Descartes.Dilthey believes that spiritual science,based on human inner experience,better bears the name of science than natural science,so Hermeneutics is a necessary process and method by which we grasp the spiritual world.But the innocent adoption of Historical Objectivism,ignoring the historicity of a spiritually objectified man will lead to a clandestine positivism.Heidegger leads Hermeneutics to an ontological turn and he believes that the nature of man is existence which contains comprehension.Dasein possesses the existential structure of pre-understanding and hermeneutic cycle.Based on the thought of Heideger,Gadamer further summarizes the characteristics of philosophical Hermeneutics,which results in its becoming a kind of ontology.After Gadamer,Habermas develops hermeneutic theory,leading to a critical Hermeneutics or so-called Deep Hermeneutics.