ABSTRACT
Trials at interpreting ancient texts are traditionally termed "hermeneutics." Hermeneutics is the basic science of all sciences. It is an intercultural project, "culture" being a directive assumption of understanding. If all human sciences are devoted to knowing and understanding, and if hermeneutics is the science of understanding, then hermeneutics is the science of all sciences, whose tasks and difficulties concentrate thereon. Hermeneutics is an all-important venture of/in intercultural symbiosis—across space and time—towards such symbiosis. Chinese thinkers usually classify their critical writings in the genre of "commentary." The commentarial tradition in China thrives in deference to and for an enhancement of the Great Master. If all human sciences are devoted to knowing and understanding, and if hermeneutics is the science of understanding, then hermeneutics is the science of all sciences, whose tasks and difficulties concentrate thereon.
