ABSTRACT
This chapter sums up and synthesizes the many arguments and ideas presented in this book. Products of their cultural and historical worlds, Woolf’s fiction and Gadamer’s philosophy surfaced as an answer to the encroaching impersonality of scientific objectivity, an objectivity that can be directly linked to World War I, inequality, subjugation, and exploitation. As a retort to the notion that the world can be objectively understood, Woolf and Gadamer promote the idea that the world is understood uniquely and individually, according to the person who understands. Meaning is in constant evolution, dependent on the level of participation and engagement of the individual. This new picture of subjectivity-in its inherent limitedness and its capacity for change and expansion-directly refutes the impersonality of scientific objectivity, an objectivity that discounts the essential value and contribution of one’s fellow being. Many critics have chosen to interpret Woolf through a philosophical lens, but they fail to fully appreciate Woolf’s radical critique of objectivity, with these interpretations themselves dependent on the stability and permanence of the subject and object. This refutation of objectivity and emphasis on the nuances of subjectivity constitute the main thrust of this chapter and, indeed, this book.
