Mikaela Martinez Dettinger: Hayy Ibn Yaqzan's Ibn Tufeyl: The Exploration of Philosophical Hermeneutics before Gadamer

Hayy Ibn Yaqzan is a story written to answer the question: Is the knowledge of God inherent in humans? The story of Hayy Ibn Yaqzan, in summation, is a man that is born on an island, or floats there (depending on the version) and he goes through stages of increasing knowledge and awareness of himself, other creatures, and the concepts of life and death until he comes to the conclusion of a higher power through exploration and human reasoning. It was written in the 1100's far before Gadamer brought Philosophical Hermeneutics to the scene, yet this story seems to be the epitome of Gadamer's suggestions for the systematic examination of human understanding. 

Hayy Ibn Yaqzan discovers the simple concepts through exploration. For example he discovers that he is different from his mother antelope who nursed him from a child when he touches her body and looks at it and compares it to his own. Further, he discovers a more complex concept of death when his mother antelope dies by cutting open her body to see why she is no longer moving. From this he extrapolates the idea of a soul. He finds that everything she need to live is there, yet she is no longer inside the body. Through exploration such as this Hayy Ibn Yaqzan begins to understand the world around him. This is a prime example of what Gadamer suggests. Hayy Ibn Yaqzan has no preconceptions because he has no society or humans to communicate anything other than he experiences. He allows the life-world to present itself to him. 

This brought me to a question to contemplate: Does society or communication with other humans cause preconceptions?

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