Traditional Hermeneutics. The Thirteenth Hermeneutic by Algis Mickūnas and what after?

Abstract

In this paper traditional hermeneutical approaches are presented. Special attention is paid toward the thirteenth hermeneutic introduced by Algis Mickūnas. The thirteenth hermeneutics, by comprising an access to textual-cultural morphologies, can help articulate one major domain of interpretive encounters. Such hermeneutical approach presupposes that the new tradition has a total control of the production and preservation
of texts thus is insufficient toward integral Chinese tradition. The author of this paper discusses various hermeneutical approaches paying attention how they could be used in cross-cultural understanding and communication. By searching for the optimal approaches the author presents the fourteenth hermeneutics. The author analyzes why Western interpreters face the problem of understanding such aspects of the Chinese philosophical tradition as its integrity, traditionalism, lack of differences and division between the subject and the object. The author suggests that despite various differences the productive mutual communication between Western and Chinese philosophical traditions could be possible, and in some cases Western scholars might be even in a more favorable position.