(iii) The cycle of understanding is the great cycle between the wholes
The traditional loop, mainly the loop within the text advocated by Schleiermacher, can be called a small loop. There is no doubt that such a cycle also begins with the whole and ends with the whole. In this cycle, the whole and the part interact dialectically, each giving meaning to each other, and finally obtaining an understanding and interpretation of the text as a whole. In the face of a text structured by many independent words, the process of understanding is to first perceive the complete meaning of the whole work, and then further grasp the whole by chapters, paragraphs, sentences, and vocabulary. Thus, Palmer says, "when the reader reads a great writer, such as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, or Heidegger, he begins with an experience that his work cannot comprehend: the difficulty lies in gaining a grasp of the overall direction of the writer's thought, and without this grasp one does not know what the single assertion or even the whole work is saying." Sometimes, a single sentence clarifies and outlines everything that was not previously harmoniously integrated into the whole of meaning, precisely because this single sentence indicates what the author says about 'what is the whole'. But the cycle of interpretation doesn't stop there. The interpreted loop is within a larger system and is made up of more elements. There are three core elements: historical tradition, current context, and interpretive subjects. Although all three can each become a whole on their own, when combined, they still evolve into parts within a large system, interacting, and circulating infinitely. We call this the Great Cycle of Interpretation. The three constitute multi-directional interaction on a plane, collide, choose, and communion, construct a new understanding of the whole, project on the text from a high position, make a holistic interpretation that the interpretive community can unanimously accept in the infinite cycle with the text, and forge new classics and enter the human knowledge system through the test and confirmation of public reason. Tradition, context, and interpretive subjects, no single factor independently determines the overall meaning of the text. Similarly, no single independent factor, author, text, or reader, has the ultimate power to determine the meaning of the text. Only through the overall cycle between the elements, repeated struggles and reconciliations, and finally finding the so-called common vision, can a reasonable and accurate interpretation become possible. The cycle of interpretation is thus complete and positive, overcoming the shackles of the vicious circle and making the overall textual meaning appear to man. Only in this way can interpretation finally become a historical, objective process of reality, rather than subjective arbitrariness and arbitrariness, and even the conjecture and coercion of relativism and nihilism without rules.
Our emphasis on the cycle between the text maker and the interpreter, that is, the cycle between the text and the interpretation, is by no means abandoning the discernment of the starting point of interpretation. The author is the producer of the text, the text is the bearer of meaning, and the open interpretation starts from this, no matter how wide the meaning production of the interpreter is, its starting point and starting point are here, otherwise there is no interpretation at all. This, of course, means that there is no interpretation of this text. This is one of them. Second, it must be logically determined that the producer of the interpreter is the subjective production of the interpreter, and that its product is the product of the interpreter, which is not necessarily, and often is not necessarily, the product of the text, and does not have to be imposed on the text. Third, the production of the interpreter is secondary to the freedom of the text and the freedom of the meaning of the text. No matter how vast the reproduction of this text is, later interpreters still have to return to the text, take the text as the basis, compare the true and false in the countless regeneration products, and make new understandings and interpretations. Shakespeare has been reproduced by countless people, but how much is left? Later people interpreted Shakespeare as an understanding of the positioning of Shakespeare in the so-called regeneration product, or did they start a new production based on his original text? Interpretation is gray, Shakespeare lives on. Heidegger's interpretation of Hölderlin's famous poem "The Bell That Rings / Out of Tune for falling snow", including his own interpretation, reads as follows:
Perhaps any interpretation of these poems is indispensable to a snowfall on a bell. Whether one interpretation can be made or not, there is always a situation for this interpretation: in order for the pure poetic creation of poetry to be revealed a little clearly, the explanatory discussion is bound to always be fragmented. For the sake of poetic creations, the interpretation of poetry necessarily seeks to make itself superfluous. The final but also the most difficult step in any interpretation is that, as it is interpreted, it disappears in the face of the pure revelation of poetry.
There is no need to elaborate on this. Heidegger made it clear that the view of the relationship between interpretation and text, which is the interpretation of the text, relies on the text, and that interpretation dissolves in the face of the manifestation of the text.
4. General derivation of mandatory interpretation
We raise the question of coercive interpretation from the general approach of contemporary Western discourse and textual criticism. Because in the practice of literary criticism, the mandatory interpretation of literary texts is extremely common, even the norm. But, in the broader field of view, we truly experience that, as a means or method of interpretation, compulsion of interpretation is equally pervasive in other fields of the humanities and social sciences. In the field of philosophy, the interpretation of the classics is enforced from the standpoint of the philosopher's self, for example, Heidegger's existential interpretation of Kant that we mentioned earlier. In the field of historiography, the forced interpretation of history seems to have become the mainstream of historical interpretation, for example, under the banner of "all history is contemporary history", historians, with their strong subjective motives, subversively reverse interpretation of established history. In the field of economics and sociology, starting from a certain Western theory, it is mandatory to explain the economic and social phenomena and practices of other countries in order to prove the correctness of their theories. All this has amply demonstrated that compulsive interpretation goes beyond literary theory and literature and literature, and in its general form, is pervasive in all fields of humanities and social science research. How should such a phenomenon be recognized and commented upon in the hermeneutic sense? Under the phenomenon, there are many more complex reasons that should be carefully analyzed. In my opinion, the following four points are worth noting.
(1) Psychological instinct is the original driving force for forced interpretation
From the essence of interpretation, according to the analysis of psychology, interpretation is the self-confirmation of the interpretive subject. Interpret the self-schema constructed by the subject's long-term experience and rational thinking, and steadily portray the interpreter's self. In a definite context, the interpreter uses the self-schema as a template to perceive, understand, and recognize all phenomena, and strives to maintain and adhere to the consistency of self-perception with external evaluation. This is the crux of self-validation. Once the ego schema is attacked or dissented, the ego will react violently. The instinct of self-confirmation requires the self to prove itself without interruption, and its impulses and expectations never end. What is the relationship between interpretation and self-justification? Heidegger said: "Through interpretation, the true meaning of existence and the basic structure of this original existence are proclaimed to the understanding of existence that dwells in itself. "In the ontological sense, this declaration is the existence of this presence to other beings or this in declaring their true meaning in order to prove or confirm the existence of existence and this presence. As the interpreter's own self, his self-evident psychological desires and impulses force the self to constantly prove himself through interpretation, so that the self-existence can be manifested and attract attention. Self-proof is the only purpose of interpretation, or interpretation is for self-evidence. Self-confirmation is the fundamental motivation and means of existence and interpretation of this presence. In this light, it can be judged that because psychology is the innate form of the spiritual existence of the interpreter, the true starting point of all his cognition and interpretation, only by implementing the interpretation in his own psychology and its presentation, implementing it in his own self-justification attempts and behaviors, and explaining the meaning of existentialism or ontology, can there be a reliable basis for existence. However, there is a general tendency for self-confirmation: in general, "people like to feel good about themselves and try to increase their sense of self-worth." A basic term in psychology, "positive bias", that is, "people's judgment of themselves is not completely correct, and the general tendency is to evaluate themselves higher than they actually do", which illustrates this phenomenon. Psychology has also shown that once cognitive subjects produce definite conclusions, it is difficult for people with firm beliefs to change their minds. In the practice of interpretation, such a strong psychological motivation and force determines that forced interpretation becomes a universal way of interpretation. Especially those with the help of powerful theoretical traditions and ideological trends, their coercive motives become more impulsive and violent, and the interpreter consciously adopts various bizarre techniques driven by psychological motivation to force the object or text to obey its preposition and conclusion, and to achieve its psychological satisfaction, which becomes an inevitable necessity. From this point of view, coercive interpretation is not only a matter of interpreting ways or methods, but more fundamentally a problem of human psychology and psychological drive, which is often in an irrational state, and even swayed by the subconscious impulse of self-realization and promotion, falling into an endless cycle of coercion, regardless of the result, there is no truth or false right or wrong. Why is there a phenomenon of "a thousand readers, a thousand Hamlets"? Imagine if these thousand readers are professional critics or theorists, and the degree of positive prejudice of such people is much higher than that of ordinary people, in order to interpret and force interpretation of self-confirmation of their own judgment and cognition of the text, to produce meaning in a cyclical manner, and more importantly, to produce their own, which is the infinite motivation for interpretation to be in this way. This is why coercive interpretations stand out in all areas, even ubiquitous.
(ii) The difference in the way of cognition between the spiritual sciences and the natural sciences provides the possibility of compulsory interpretation
In a period from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, marked by the "Great Debate on the Scientific Method", many philosophical schools and a large number of representative figures gave strong criticism to the backward state of ignoring the differences between natural science and spiritual science and conducting spiritual scientific research with natural science methods. There are two important people who should be mentioned. One is Ricellet, the central figure of the Freiburg school, and the other is Dilthey, known as the father of modern hermeneutics. Inheriting the axiologic philosophy of his mentor Wendelban, Lee Celtic transformed the focus of the study of the spiritual sciences into the study of value, distinguishing it from the factual study of the natural sciences. Thus, the cognition of spiritual phenomena is completely determined by man's subjective will, and the "yes" and "should" are determined by the cognition of the individual independently, and there is no truth or truth to speak of. The objectivity and certainty of the so-called natural science research have been completely disintegrated, and all judgments and conclusions have lost their possible consistency and measurement standards. In particular, in the cognition of historical facts and value judgments, there is a complete shift to relativism and then nihilism. Dilthey of the same period examined the difference between the spiritual sciences and the natural sciences from the standpoint of the philosophy of life. In his view, spiritual science must be based on man's inner experience, and must be based on the experience and understanding of life, and carry out the cognition and interpretation of spiritual phenomena, so as to distinguish it from the explanation of natural objective phenomena by logical and empirical methods. Thus, Dilthey declared, "We explain nature, we understand psychic life." From today's point of view, what is the core of Diltai's difference? We believe that, in the hermeneutic sense, it is ultimately a question of certainty. The conclusions of the study of natural phenomena are reproducible and verifiable. Individual cognitions can rise to universal truths, and the experiences of individual individuals can be naturalized into general experiences. The study of mental phenomena is the complete opposite, its conclusions are not repeatable and unverifiable, individual experiences and cognitions cannot and should not rise to universal truth, the experiences of individuals cannot be naturalized and should not be naturalized into general experiences, and it can even be concluded that there is no such thing as a general experience. A thousand readers have more Hamlets than a thousand, and the various experiences are incommunicable or unjust. Therefore, there is absolutely no certainty in the cognition of mental phenomena. The non-certainty of knowledge in the spiritual sciences is thus an iron law. These formulations, which have been taken to the extreme by postmodern doctrines, provide an excuse for the generalization of forced interpretation. Look again at Heidegger's interpretation of Van Gogh's shoes. We can imagine a dark night, he is independent of Van Gogh's works, staring at the pair of meaningless shoes, jumping in his heart with the same obscure existential ideas, the sky and the earth, people and gods, interlaced and changing, undulating and swaying, concentrated on the work, Van Gogh's creation of sensual, vivid artistic treasures become his abstract and obscure philosophical symbols. For him, is it repeatable? Is it accessible to others? It is unprofitable and falsifiable. More importantly, there is no need to prove it, nor is it falsified, heidegger is enough to say to himself. Such interpretations have no meaning to Van Gogh and to others. Therefore, arbitrary and crude coercion has become a general means for interpreters to reveal and assert themselves, to create theories and meanings, but they are not strange. What is important is the question of certainty. There is no definite explanation of the meaning of Van Gogh's work, but it is also true that there is no definite understanding of Heidegger's thought. For his interpretation of this sufficiently proves that any object can be a proof of his theory, and that his theory can be arbitrarily focused on any object. The goal of certainty and its pursuit were abandoned by Heidegger, and of course, he also gave up the definite self.
(iii) The postmodern way of generating theories has made compulsory interpretation popular
As far as literary theory is concerned, from the end of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century, its development path has roughly gone through three historical stages, from "author center" to "text center" to "reader center". In these three historical stages, many important theories and schools with obvious advantages and strengths have been differentiated and derived, which have negated and replaced each other, each leading the way, and taking turns to dominate. However, after the 1960s, marked by the rise of deconstructivism, the basic pattern of contemporary Western literary theory underwent profound changes, and the overall abandonment of the author-text-reader-centered pursuit embarked on a path of theoretical supremacy, opening up the era of theory as the center. Its basic signs are: theory rather than practice, is the starting point and growth point of all scholarship, theoretical production theory, theoretical domination practice, theory becomes the standard for testing practice, and practice is the annotation of theory. In textual interpretation, the theory deviates from the text, forcing the determination of the meaning of the text, and dissolving and resetting the textual proof theory. In just one hundred years, the central topic of Western literary and art theory has shifted and changed many times, from the vulgar society without literature to the literary theory without literature, providing a huge space and motivation for compulsory interpretation, so that it has expanded infinitely, converging into a surging tide of theoretical production theory and the supremacy of theory, which has influenced the basic trend of contemporary humanities and social science research. Since theory produces practice rather than practical production theory; text is based on interpretation, rather than interpretation based on text, theory is of course unscrupulous in the face of practice and text, and the holder of the theory can arbitrarily slaughter practice, take the theory as the purpose and standard, arbitrarily revise and even tamper with the text, and force the text to serve theory. How does theory govern the text? If the theoretical position and motivation are consistent with the text as a whole, there is no obstacle to interpretation. If the theory is contrary to, or even contrary to, the interpreter can only force interpretation in order to achieve its directivity goal, such as Heidegger's way of forcing Kant and Van Gogh. Sadly, in practice and texts, especially in the face of classical texts, theories are always weak, especially in the early stages of theoretical generation, weak theories always have to use the classics to glorify themselves, intimidate others, and resist stereotypes, so that the classics become the constant objects of compulsory interpretation, and the compulsory interpretation thus infinitely strengthens itself. Classics are historically tested carriers of truth cognition and value, with strong appeal and exemplary significance. Forced interpretation kidnaps the classics, dresses up and packages themselves with classics, making people indistinguishable from true or false. Most typical is the rise of the aesthetics of acceptance and reader theory in the 1960s, which created a plausible theoretical basis for compulsion. The general tendency is that the reader is the ultimate determinant of the meaning of the text, that the reader can make any understanding and interpretation of the text in accordance with one's own feelings or intentions, and that the reader independently produces the meaning of the text. In this way, the interpretive subject can ignore all rules and constraints, and make infinitely different interpretations and compulsory interpretations of the established text, which has become the highest realm and universal pursuit of literary interpretation. In this regard, Eagleton once criticized: "The work determines to a certain extent the reader's reaction to it, otherwise the criticism will fall into a state of total ownerlessness." "Desolate Hills" will simply become a thousand different and often conflicting interpretations that readers come up with, while the 'work itself' will be lost as some mysterious unknown. What happens if the literary work is not a definite structure with certain uncertain elements, if everything in the literary work is uncertain and depends on the method chosen by the reader to construct the work? In what sense can we say that we are interpreting the 'same' work? ”
(iv) Literary interpretation is confused with the interpretation of other humanities and social sciences, so that the universalization of compulsory interpretation is intensifying
Distinguishing between literary interpretation and interpretation from other disciplines is the fundamental point for reasonably constraining interpretation, especially the interpretation of other disciplines other than literature, so that it can enter the right track. We must make it clear that literature is different from other humanities and even more social science categories. In postmodern theory, literature has fallen into a literary fog without literature. But no matter how mysterious and superb, the unique form of literature, including its expression method and narrative strategy, is still the way literature carries literature. If we compare the two major categories of expression or speech, we believe that literature is non-cognitive, and its value lies in creating ambiguity; the perception of literature is experience, and ultimately seeks resonance; other categories, including history and philosophy, are cognitive, and their value lies in dissolving ambiguity, and their way of perception is understanding, and ultimately seek consensus. As far as literature, history, and philosophy are concerned, literature can speak the truth without saying the truth, and the description and unfolding of phenomena are a variety of literary techniques, metaphorical, imageful, distorted, refractive, and consciously produce ambiguity, forcing the audience to obtain multiple perceptions and experiences, resonating with texts, authors and readers in their own unique contexts, and realizing the meaning of literary production and existence. History and philosophy are different. History must discover and speak the truth, and philosophy must discover and speak the truth. The understanding and interpretation of truth and truth must be certain in order to overcome and dissolve ambiguity. Otherwise, there would be no rational progress and intellectual evolution of human beings. The pursuit and guarantee of certainty in the cognition of all disciplines other than literature is the fundamental rule to which all doctrines must be observed. This includes a deconstructivism that strongly advocates that the text has no definite meaning and that the meaning of the text is independently produced and given by the interpreter, and that it does not accept and allow others to misread and misinterpret the exact meaning of deconstructivism, and misread and misinterpret the exact meaning of the words and thoughts of the deconstructivist thinker himself. Compagnon, not without irony, recorded: "There are also the theoreticians who are eager to correct the misunderstanding of their original intentions, for example, Derrida once replied to Searle: 'This is not what I want to express.' "I ask you, does deconstructivism have a definite meaning of non-deconstruction, and can't it be understood and constructed at will by the reader?" Is Derrida's meaning interesting? Relativism and nihilism in history always confuse literature and history, and elevate literary and aesthetic perception and experience to the cognition and grasp of all objects, replace history and philosophy with poetry, squeeze rational history and philosophical cognition with fanatical literary and artistic experience and indoctrination, promote literary interpretation that may be boundless to the field of history and philosophy, make compulsory interpretation a universal and general way of interpretation, and create the dilemma of chaos and nothingness that today's postmodernism cannot extricate itself. Such vices seem to be particularly acute in the realm of history. Russell famously lectured on "History as an Art.". He agreed with the "literary technique" of historical narratives under the premise that "historians should not distort the facts", and although many expositions often caused others to misunderstand, thinking that he advocated history as art, on the whole, he still recognized historical facts and scientific methods of history. Other historians, on the other hand, went further, directly advocating literary methods, such as intuition, imagination, and empathy, taking poetry as history and poetry as history, confusing historical interpretations that should have been scientific with romantic literary interpretations. "The central problem of historical methodology and epistemology is that an objective understanding of the past can only be obtained by the subjective experience of scholars." "Theoretically, most historians accept the idealistic stance, strictly distinguishing history from science, emphasizing that intuition (Erlebnis) is the historian's ultimate means of dealing with history." Thus, subjective experience, intuition, imagination, empathy, interest, and such literary rather than historical methods become the basic methods of historical narrative, and the compulsory interpretation of literature inevitably becomes the compulsory interpretation of history. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand that the general expansion and expansiveness of compulsory interpretation have become the universal means of interpretation in the humanities and social sciences. However, it must be clear that the purpose of literary interpretation is to seek resonance, and resonance can be, there is no truth or falsehood to speak of, it is unverifiable, it is difficult to falsify, and in the extreme, there is no need to confirm and falsify, resonance. The study of history and other disciplines is very different. History is ultimately to be confirmed, or it needs to be confirmed, and the so-called "history of faith" is also. In the face of reliable historical data and evidence, all imagination, empathy, and intuition will be destroyed. Only after proven history can the intellectual wealth in the genealogy of human knowledge be passed down from generation to generation. In the field of history and philosophy, coercion of interpretation is ultimately not the right path.
conclusion
In a psychological sense, coercion has a reason for its natural occurrence, but it does not mean that it is reasonable and insurmountable. Just as a fallacy is unavoidable, it does not mean that it is reasonable and insurmountable, nor does it mean that it is the truth. The rise of postmodernism, especially the malignant expansion of relativism and nihilism, provided an opportunity for the expansion of forced interpretation. The general art of coercive interpretation prevails not only in the field of literary theory and criticism, but also in other disciplines of the humanities and social sciences, especially in the study of history, represented by Hayden White, and the emergence of historical fiction, compulsory interpretation has become a universal technique of historical interpretation and the theoretical production of other disciplines, which seems irresistible. However, no matter how prevalent coercive interpretation, the emptiness of its ontology, that is, the hollow speculation that has fallen into metaphysics; the fallacy of its methodology, that is, the abandonment of attention to the phenomenon itself; and its logical confusion, that is, its self-contradiction and self-denial due to subverting the rules of legitimate cognition, have repeatedly hit a wall in the practice of interpretation. Interpretation is self-validation. Interpretation is motivational interpretation. However, interpretation does not have to be enforced. Interpretation is rational behavior. Rational interpretation should be vigilant against the irrational factors in the impulse to interpret and consciously regulate rationally. Legitimate and legal interpretation, adhere to the rational reflection on self-evidence and motivation, not driven by blind self-proof and motivation, insist on starting from the identified object itself, adhere to the holistic pursuit in the sense of hermeneutics, adhere to the multiple multi-directional cross-cycle of interpretation of the subject and the actual context and historical tradition, less theoretical indulgence, more field nuance, less psychological impulse, more intellectual reflection, obey the facts, obey the truth, obey the rules and constraints, and give the interpretation a more pure explanatory power.
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