"Ý thức chủ thể" theo Gadamer và nguy cơ khủng hoảng của ý thức thời hiện đại / Gadamer on the 'Subjective Consciousness' and the Danger of a Crisis of the Consciousness of Modern Age

Abstract

The notion of “subjective consciousness”—the self-understanding of oneself as a historical and relational being—constitutes the central tenet of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s concern. For him, the development of subjective consciousness is necessarily determined by “humanistic rationality”, i.e., hermeneutical rationality within its historical and communal context. This idea is, first of all, based on his theory of hermeneutics, which was developed based on Martin Heidegger's vision that hermeneutics is fundamentally philosophical: interpretive understanding is an act of being, rather than merely a cognitive act of knowledge acquisition. In other words, interpretive understanding belongs to the process of the development of self-consciousness (or subjective consciousness). Gadamer then goes on to argue that the decisive factor in the construction of an individual’s subjective consciousness is the humanistic rationality, which has been preserved and developed throughout history or tradition thanks to its dialogical nature. It is through the humanistic rationality that our consciousness can be cultivated to be a historical and relational one. Thus, Gadamer seeks to restore the central role in determining subjectivity to the Other, understood as a historical, collective, shared consciousness of human society. And for that reason, Gadamer argues that hermeneutics is primarily a matter of "listening," rather than merely reasoning. This implies that the condition for interpretation is sensus communis. To be "awakened" by historical and relational rationality, we need a capacity to connect, sense, and share in it with others. Gadamer’s theory of “humanistic rationality” makes us think about a phenomenon that we are, to some extent, currently experiencing: the fragmentation and discontinuity of consciousness in the modern era. In fact, under the influence of the scientific and technical mindset, we are at risk of actualizing the Enlightenment’s rationalist conception of consciousness, wherein consciousness is detached from community and history and becomes an individual capacity. Consciousness as such is confined to isolated forms; and as a result, we are at risk of losing sensus communis, i.e., the ability to be in touch with the commonly experienced rationality of humanity. This rupture manifests in at least three dimensions: (1) the rupture in the communicative aspect of consciousness; (2) the break in the ability to sense the historical and relational aspect of consciousness; (3) the existential rupture—the loss of consciousness’s disclosive motivation and capacity for self-understanding. In that case, we develop a form of “scientific consciousness”, rather than “subjective consciousness”.