Hermeneutics and Truth

References

• Cf. Augustine, Confessions, 1. 8. and L. Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, London, Kegan Paul, 1922.
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• Quine argues that the analytic/synthetic distinction and the verificationist theory of truth are untenable because they presuppose a bogus distinction between semantics, language, and logic on the one hand, and practice, experience, and psychology on the other. (W. V.O. Quine, “The Two Dogmas of Empiricism” in From a Logical Point of View, New York, 1953.) In connection with this critique of epistemological atomism also see Wittgenstein's refutation of the ostensive theory of meaning. (L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, New York, Macmillan, 1953.)
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• M. Heidegger, Being and Time, trans, by E. Robinson, and J. Macquarrie, New York, 1962, pp. 21–4, 30–2.
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• Ibid., p. 258.
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• Ibid., pp. 96–102.
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• Ibid., pp. 182–88.
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• Ibid., pp. 102–7, 189–203. Clearly, everyday practical understanding and “know-how” does not get articulated in the mind in the form of explicit propositions—a point which Gilbert Ryle eloquently makes in The Concept of Mind (New York, 1949, pp. 25–61).
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• Ibid., pp. 114–124, 262–93. There has been much controversy generated by Heidegger's etymological derivation of aletheia understood as disclosedness. Cf. “Friedländer vs. Heidegger: Aletheia controversy,” by C. S. Nwodo in the Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, 2, 1979.
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• Ibid., pp. 261,269–73. Cf. G. Schufrieder, “Art and the Problem of Truth” in Man and World, 13, 1980, for a discussion of the different levels of truth in the Heideggerian corpus.
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• BT, pp. 174, 435–6.
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• Ibid., p. 192.
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• Ibid., pp. 434–6.
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• Cf. J. Fell, Heidegger and Sartre: An Essay on Being and Place, New York, 1979, pp. 395–8.
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• R. Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Princeton, 1970, p. 317.
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• For Peirce, the superiority of the scientific method of investigation resides in its capacity to generate an uncompelled and permanent consensus about reality. (C. Peirce, “The Logic of 1873”, VII, p. 319 in Collected Papers. Cambridge, 1931–35.) Kuhn and Feyerabend, however, deny that the methods, values, and standards which inform modern scientific research have any privileged claim over other methods of discovering the truth in this respect. Cf. T. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago, 1961, pp. 108–9, and Feyerabend “Against Method, Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge” in Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, IV. 1970.
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• Cf. L. Versenyi, Heidegger, Being, and Truth, New Haven, 1965, pp. 49–51.
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• J. Habermas, Knowledge and Human Interests, trans. J. Shapiro, Boston, 1971, p. 196. K.-O. Apel, “The A Priori of Communication and the Foundations of the Humanities” in Man and World, 1975, 3.
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• F. Nietzsche, Will to Power, trans. W. Kaufmann, Vintage Books, 1968, p. 272.
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• J. Derrida, Of Crammatology, trans, by G. Chakravorty Spivak, Johns Hopkins, 1976, p. 49.
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• Ibid., p. 70.
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• Rorty, loc. cit., pp. 315–6.
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• Ibid., p. 377.
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• H.-G. Gadamer, Truth and Method (TM), trans. G. Garret and J. Cumming, Seabury, 1975, p. 210.
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• W. Dilthey, Pattern and Meaning in History, ed. and trans, by H. P. Rickman, New York, 1962, pp. 72–4.
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• Ibid., pp. 167–8. Also see TM, p. 200.
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• TM, p. 158–9.
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• Ibid., p. 365. Though Gadamer states that true understanding is possible only when all relations to the past have faded away, this would, as he notes elsewhere, render understanding impossible. For the importance of sharing a common tradition and the possibility of cross-cultural understanding, see TM, p. 425.
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• Ibid., p. 265–6.
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• Claus von Bormann notes that there remains a residual element of Platonism in TM, (“Die Zweideutigkeit der hermeneutischen Erfahrung” in Hermeneutik und Ideologiekritik (HI), Frankfurt. 1971, pp. 93–4).
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• BT, p. 438.
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• TM, pp. 306–8. (TM, p. 15.)
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• Cf. Vernunft im Zeitalter der Wissensschaft, Frankfurt, 1976. p. 64.
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• TM, p. 213. (TM, p. 272.)
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• TM, p. 318. (TM, p. 319.)
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• TM, p. 320.
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• Ibid., p. 245.
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• Ibid., pp. 259, 320.
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• Ibid., p. 324.
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• Ibid., pp. 233–4.
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• TM, p. 285.
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• Cf. H.-G. Gadamer, “Über die Möglichkeit einer philosophischen Ethik” in Kleine Schriften I, (Tübingen, 1967), p. 184–8.
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• H.-G. Gadamer, “Über die Planung der Zukunft”, in Kleine Schriften, Vol. I. Tübingen, 1967, pp. 172–4.
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• H.-G. Gadamer, “On the Scope and Function of Hermeneutical Reflection.” in Philosophical Hermeneutics, ed., D. Linge, (Berkeley, 1976), p. 32.
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• TM, p. xvi.
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• Cf. J. Habermas, Zur Logik der Sozialwissenschaften. Frankfurt, 1967, p. 291. It was the unresolved tension between axiology and ontology in Hegel's own philosophy that led to the controversy among his followers posing “conservative” right Hegelians against “critical” left Hegelians—a controversy which bears striking resemblance to the Gadamer/Habermas debate. Echoing the conservatives, Gadamer asserts that philosophical hermeneutics retraces the path marked out by Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, which describes the substance of social life from the vantage point of a retrospective synopsis (TM, p. 269). The problem for historical practice arises because understanding can only grasp the true meaning of history in its dead past, not in its living present or future. According to Habermas (and Marx), the contemplative objectivity of philosophy is contested by the fact that it, too, is an activity situated in practical life and therefore, anticipates the ideal fulfillment of that life. Hence, in contrast to the conservative's emphasis upon the justification of the present in terms of the past the radical is inclined to criticize the present in terms of its unfulfilled promises. Rudiger Bubner (“Theory and Practice in Light of the Hermeneutic-Criticist Controversy” in Cultural Hermeneutics, 2, 1975, pp. 240–2) and Paul Ricoeur (The Conflict of Interpretations, Evanston, 1974, pp. 13–14 and “Ethics and Culture” in Philosophy Today 17, 1973, pp. 153–75) attempt to bridge the hiatus separating the conservative and critical aspects of hermeneutical reflection.
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• TM, p. 289.
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• H.-G. Gadamer, “On the Scope and Function of Hermeneutical Reflection” in Philosophical Hermeneutics, trans. D. Linge, Berkeley, 1976, pp. 40–1.
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• The major shortcomings of Gadamer's ontological conception of dialogue, Habermas avers, is that it ignores the socio-economic constraints which covertly impinge upon the equilibrium of democratic checks and balances from outside the context of dialogue (KHI, pp. 314–5). Habermas's more recent attempts to combine philosophical hermeneutics and the speech act theories of Austin and Searle have led him to develop a consensus theory of truth which shows how our interest in an emancipated speech community constitutes an essential condition of human knowledge. The Ideal speech situation articulates the pragmatic conditions of rational discourse, which specify a symmetrical distribution of chances to select and employ speech acts without hindrance from external coercion (e.g., threats of violence, economic and political pressure, etc.) and internal ideological constraint. (J. Habermas, “Wahrheitstheorien”, in Wirklichkeit und Reflexion: Festschrift für Walter Schutz. Pfüllingen, 1973, pp. 245–58.
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• H.-G. Gadamer, Vernunft im Zeitalter der Wissenschaft, Frankfurt, 1976, p. 64.
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• H.-G. Gadamer, “Hermeneutics and Social Science” in Cultural Hermeneutics, 2, 1975. p. 314.
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• Knowledge and Human Interests, p. 284, (Cf. ft. 50). Also see Arthur Danto, Analytical Philosophy of History, Cambridge, 1965, p. 115.
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• H.-G. Gadamer, “On the Scope and Function of Hermeneutical Reflection” in Philosophical Hermeneutics, trans. D. Linge, Berkeley. 1976. p. 37.
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• H.-G. Gadamer, “Replik” in HI, p. 316.
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• See my dissertation, “Truth, Method, and Understanding in the Human Sciences: The Gadamer/Habermas Controversy.” University of California, 1980.
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• TM, p. 446.
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