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2002 Holism, Hermeneutics, and : A Critique of 's George Fletcher University of North Florida

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Suggested Citation Fletcher, George, "Holism, Hermeneutics, and Heterophenomenology: A Critique of Daniel Dennett's Intentional Stance" (2002). All Volumes (2001-2008). 113. http://digitalcommons.unf.edu/ojii_volumes/113

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the The sprO ey Journal of Ideas and Inquiry at UNF Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Volumes (2001-2008) by an authorized administrator of UNF Digital Commons. For more information, please contact Digital Projects. © 2002 All Rights Reserved Holism, Hermeneutics, and of . Thus, researchers in Heterophenomenology: A Critique of soon found themselves Daniel Dennett's Intentional Stance turning to , who have been debating these deeper questions for some George Fletcher time now, for answers to the tough questions of the being of consciousness - Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Hans Herbert Koegler in hopes that they would be provided Associate Professor of Philosophy with a workable model and method to use for overcoming the enigmatic Introduction of consciousness. The intentional stance proposed by In his work over the last thirty years, Dennett is necessary to clear the way for the Daniel Dennett has one such coupling of model and method. articulated a philosophical attitude, the By this stance, Dennett suggests that in intentional stance, in hopes of providing a ordinary everyday life we treat others (the firm foundation for research efforts in the subject in our experiments and research) as interdisciplinary field of inquiry known as intentional systems; "that is, as entities cognitive science. Falling under the whose behavior can be predicted by the umbrella of cognitive science are those method of attributing beliefs, , and areas of computer science, linguistics, rational acumen" under the assumption that philosophy, anthropology, , and the other is rational like one's self (Stance neuroscience that, naively put, assume, in 49). This stance is proposed as an various shapes and forms, that the human alternative to the traditional, Cartesian, is a computer and that the subjective dualistic conception of and body that "mind" is a function of this physical permeates common assumptions about the machine. Various computational models of nature of self-consciousness, the , and consciousness based on this assumption the body. "Heterophenomenology" is a have been put forward in the past quarter method, based upon this behavioristic century - and, troubling enough, none stance, that Dennett contends transcends have yet to produce any program or the limitations of common-sense machine with results remotely resembling assumptions to support a computational human consciousness. model of consciousness. A major stumbling block in the Heterophenomenology downplays formative years of cognitive science was the reality of the internal experiential recognizing and defining the key element aspects of consciousness in deference necessary for producing an artificially to an intentional, -based model intelligent machine - namely, of consciousness that places emphasis consciousness. What is consciousness? on the neutral acceptance of the speech What are the defining features, after all, of reports of subjects as the basis for this that accompanies "cognitive consciousness - thus processing" (e.g., the mental addition of placing the foundations of consciousness numbers, pattern recognition, etc.)? These in a physical, monistic (physical sans considerations become especially soul), computational device (the brain). problematic when one asks - "How do I I shall argue that this methodology can be know that your are (generally) seen as a form of empathic extrapolation the same as mine?" Pushing this question of self-understanding onto the other in even further, one is then forced to ask how dialogue, akin to the work of early criteria established from the perspective of hermeneutics. 11 This methodology is the first-person can be generalized in a way closely tied in with a contemporary that can be utilized by an objective science connectionist conception of computability

100 Osprey Journal of Ideas and Inquiry that Dennett develops in his book I will close with a consideration of the . implications of hermeneutics for This essay has three major parts: heterophenomenology and similar research heterophenomenology, hermeneutics, and efforts in cognitive science. Although it is implications of hermeneutics for my main goal to articulate a view of heterophenomenology - the first two­ cognitive science and artificial thirds being, for the purposes of contrast from a hermeneutically sensitive position, I and comparison, mainly exegetical. I will will attempt to develop some of the initially be concerned with developing ramifications of careless objectification in more fully not only an account of Dennett's the human sciences. When we objectify our heterophenomenology but also the fellow humans in research under the object background that gave rise to it. I will also / subject dichotomy, we place significant explore in this part the relationship between dialogue in a precarious position. By Dennett's notion of phenomenology and treating the other in dialogue as an object, and the account of available for manipUlation and domination intentionality developed by Edmund (via the ), we run the risk Husserl in his Logical Investigations . This of alienation and termination of any fruitful will be necessary to draw the external dialogue that may lead to a deeper critique of heterophenomenology as method understanding of the nature of being developed in the second part of this essay and consciousness, and of the relationship and Dennett's model closer together for the of the self to language and other agents. sake of highlighting their common ancestry. In conclusion, I will consider the bearing I will next bring into question the notion of of this impasse for future studies in method in the human sciences by cognitive science. examining a strain of philosophical thought, which, at first glance, seems completely foreign to the concerns of cognitive Husserl and Dennett: science. Hermeneutics is the philological / Heterophenomenology as Method philosophical tradition concerned with the proper interpretation and understanding of Husserl's Proposal the voice of the other in dialogue and texts. We begin our study by developing a Hans-Georg Gadamer's hermeneutics, as conception of intentionality vis-a-vis the developed in his work Truth and Method, transcendental phenomenology of Edmund serves as a vehicle to bring into question Husserl. In an attempt to avoid what he the methods and goals of science and the considers the naiVete of objectivism in subject / object dichotomy upon which they psychologism and the "positivistic" are based. Working through Gadamer's sciences, Husserl grounds knowledge (in relationship, via , to the tradition of Kant but against the Husserl's phenomenology, I will bring to shortcomings of the "forms of knowledge" light, contra understanding as instrumental of the neo-Kantians) in a transcendental empathic transposition in not unlike Descartes' cogito; heterophenomenology, a competing view of i.e., the cogito posited to serve as the basis dialogue founded in the sustained, mutual for an eradication of deception in the agreement of interlocutors. The material world. Because of the rich hermeneutic vision of language as mutual structure of transcendental subjectivity agreement developed in this section of the developed in Husserl's writings, it is easy project will be informed and directed by the to lose oneself in . Nevertheless, it contemporary critical-hermeneutic work of will be instructive for us to understand Hans-Herbert Kogler. more fully Husserl's motivation for this attempt, both as a contrast to Dennett's

Osprey Journal of Ideas and Inquiry 101 understanding of intentionality and as the Coupled with a Western of framework in which Heidegger and reason, exemplified in Hegel's Gadamer after him worked and struggled. understanding of absolute being, this When we come to grasp the full import of objectifying leads in various paths to this project, however, we will see that foundationally oriented structures of Husserl's equation of meaning with the and understanding that appear noetic bed of phenomenological being leads on further analysis to merely buttress the inevitably to a solipsistic that deep seated beliefs of our culture against makes a return to the world (the life-world views on the periphery of our objective of sensile hyle which was supposed to gaze. 12 The answer, Husserl maintains, support an ego-centric investigation of is to tum altogether from this naturalization intentionality) impossible (in contrast to the of spirit that science advocates to a new, Cartesian cogito) (Ideas §85, 227-230). To purified science of intentional analysis - this end, I will, after a brief outline of for "no objective science can do justice Husserl's project, take a look at two to the [very] subjectivity which peculiar aspects, or rather symptomatic accomplishes science" (10). results, of phenomenological reduction (epoche) which lead to the untenable nature To found knowledge, in hopes of of a "scientific" study of intentionality - establishing a "science of consciousness", namely, the alienation of self from Husserl must find a bedrock upon which community and the to found his science may be stabilized. His initial knowledge as constitutive of this loss. step is to differentiate between a "natural The "crisis" of the western mind that standpoint" and a more fundamental state Husserl speaks of in his Vienna Lecture is, of "Being" (Ideas §32). The natural in a sense, real. The trend towards standpoint is the practical one within which objectification (that is, the striving towards we operate on a daily basis as we attend to an explicating methodology in the human the affairs of non-philosophizing be-ing (to sciences that has marked the progress of foreshadow our Heideggarian exploration our intellect since the "Enlightenment") has of hermeneutics). It is the natural thesis that necessarily neglected both the qualitative we presuppose for every act we commit in (ineffable) aspects of subjectivity that are the community - the stance we take the hallmarks of consciousness (in the towards the world we find about us (§28). natural sciences and philosophy of He proposes that we bracket the natural language post-Frege) and the life-world standpoint of spatio-temporal existence background that orients us towards just (setting aside the of Dasein) - these notions of and subjectivity a suspension of rather than (in the dialogue stemming from hyperbolic doubt - to get to the basis of transcendental phenomenology). I say the being of consciousness: "necessarily" because science deals only with intersubjective experience - Consciousness in itself has a being of its experience that relies upon language and own which in its absolute uniqueness of the conceptualizing power of speech - nature remains unaffected by the communication with other humans in an phenomenological disconnexion. It therefore attempt to deal with each other and remains over as a "phenomenological interactions with a natural world. Science residuum," as a region of Being which is in can be criticized for trivializing or denying principle unique, and can become in the the existence of the individualistic and field of a new science - the science of historically situated aspects of experience phenomenology. (§33) in striving for objectivity.

102 Osprey Journal of Ideas and Inquiry By returning our to the This is quite a leap of to take. "" of consciousness, this epoche of How do we "set up in common" the natural the natural thesis will hopefully allow us to world? By Husserl's own admission, the avoid the trivialization of spirit that occurs strictness of "science" allows for empathy when we place all our focus on the natural and acknowledgment of an other as merely world (§34). representative activities of the ego (Ideas When we deal with "pure" phenomena §42). Yet, the bogey of , he as presented to the self when we turn our maintains, is merely an - a gaze inwards, we no longer presuppose or transcendental illusion that can be dispelled concern ourselves with or even have with a pinch of faith (Formal and recourse to the objective-external referents Transcendental §96.b). Again in of intentionality - we loose certainty, in Phenomenology: the end, of the things in themselves which The reductive method is transferred our thoughts necessarily depend upon to be from self-experience to the experience of intentional (be conscious of) - the others insofar as there can be applied to the fundamental relationship between the envisaged mental life of the Other the cogito and its cogitatum. I3 With this loss, corresponding bracketing and however, we open the possibility of according to the subjective 'How' of its studying the pure meaning-bestowing appearance and what is appearing ... thus relationship that holds between pure ego results the perfect expansion of the genuine and its sphere of pure experience psychological of 'inner experience' (Erlebnisse) (Ideas §33). The "being" of ... the reduced intersubjectivity, in pure consciousness has as its essence the form and concretely grasped, is a intentional relationship, and this essence community of pure 'persons' acting in the becomes the focus of phenomenology.14 intersubjective realm of the pure life of Immediately one asks - "what become of consciousness ... (18-19) the 'others' out-there that form the community we are part of, those other This, too, seems questionable. How subjects that exist in the social world we can we apply/expand 'inner experience' to bracketed in the phenomenological the Other without presupposing the epoche?" They cannot escape the reduction; supremacy of Self? To understand otherness they cannot serve in our search for a in the study of the transcendental ego as "science of consciousness". This paints a absolute subjectivity, the Other in dialogue lonely, desolate, and truly antiseptic picture becomes first and foremost alien - a non­ of the individual ego searching for ego that only through painful admission foundations, floating out beyond the becomes an alter-ego. 15 When the smoke community. Are the others, in a sense, clears, we see that: encompassed by the master-self as acts of idealistic instantiation? Husserl seems to As this absolute ego, considering notice this problem early on, yet does not myself henceforth as my exclusive thematic recognize the significance of this solipsism: field, I carry on all my further sense­ investigations ... I reflect upon what I can Despite all this [the possible find purely "in" myself ... I separate that contradiction of "others"], we come to which is primordially my own and that understandings with our neighbors, and set which is constituted in me at different up in common an objective spatio-temporal levels as something "alien": that which is fact-world as the world about us that is constituted, in me, as real or ideal; there for us all, and to which we ourselves constituted, in me, as Nature, as nonetheless belong. (§29) psychophysical being, as a human community, as a people or as a state, as

Osprey Journal of Ideas and Inquiry 103 reified culture, as science, ... by the effort Dennett's Proposal of my own thinking. (Formal and Transcendental Logic § 104) As we move our discussion to the contemporary reflections of Daniel Dennett Can the Other become a personal found in his books The Intentional Stance fiction? Surely not - how do we speak of and Consciousness Explained, we must otherness in the first place? Yet, on this reorient ourselves to accommodate a new account it surely seems so. Or is this set of and new understanding of troublesome route to community merely the the problems of consciousness. Although it by-product of a failed attempt to found will initially help to view his instrumental knowledge in the Self? view of phenomenological research within This suggests the second peculiarity I the Husserlian framework originating in would like to touch upon before we move modem Cartesian philosophy, we must on to Dennett's heterophenomenology­ eventually overcome a century's difference namely, Husserl's lack of rigorous self­ in development and reconfiguration that criticism of the presupposition of the informs Dennett. In this section I will cogitator / cogitatum distinction necessary recapitulate the time-lapse between these to undertake the phenomenological epoche two thinkers while developing an which, in the final analysis, points to the understanding of Dennett's methodological constructive nature of pure ego. He does stance and goal. In the conclusion of this not consider critically approaching his own essay, I will move to develop a critical understanding of "self' as a socially reevaluation of Dennett's thought through a organized and acquired conception (which hermeneutic conception of understanding can fundamentally motivate his very and dialogue in the human sciences by inquiry ).16 In light of the intentional carving out a space for understanding as a relationship between pure ego and its mutual discovery between agents of representational constructions that makes significance in a space of historical-cultural the epoche possible, a void opens between background oriented self-discovery. the "self' and other - a void that seems to Following , Anglo­ be incommensurable. How can he be concerned itself certain of the concreteness, so to speak, of mainly not with questions of intentionality the "self as subject" as the firm basis for and phenomenological structures, but rather the intersubjective transcendence of with those of the supposed logical, consciousness? Cannot our conception of propositional and sentential structure of an autonomous "self' be a socially, belief and understanding. This focus on the culturally, and historically situated, given, logic of language over the situatedness of and directed one? At this point, we can communication, typified by the early work criticize Husserl for taking this conception of Wittgenstein, quickly settled into an un­ ("self' as an a priori - "necessary" truth) insightful dead end that eventually led to for granted without considering the Wittgenstein's rejection of the mathematical relationship of subject to community. conceptualization of belief and Later, we shall see worked out in intentionality. This rejection was initiated Gadamer's hermeneutics not only a by Wittgenstein's insight that meaning is response to just these questions but also a not necessarily oriented always towards consideration of the bearing of truth (propositional truth-sentences) - hermeneutics on any methodological truth being a key component of any explication of being and consciousness. positivistic inquiry. Carried through by Donald Davidson's work (stemming from Willard Quine) on translation (viz., translation as correlation of truth-sentences)

104 Osprey Journal of Ideas and Inquiry under a principle of charity, a general the other as rational (from our own notions sensitivity developed to a conception of of sense and rationality) and hence highly speaking as a purely social activity in fonns­ predictable, just as we nonnally do in our of-life as well as to the interdependency of daily non-philosophical activities in the conceptual schemes, under which life-world. In this fonnulation, we have a interpretation is always perfonned, and its theory of mental content that sets aside target content-matter. Dennett takes as his ontological considerations by working point of departure Wittgenstein's under a natural ontological attitude; i.e., Philosophical Investigations and this general that of the "disinterested" natural scientist; insight into a practical, instrumental, and i.e., acceptance of the materialistic holistic view of language and belief mainstream Western conception of Being. fonnation / actualization (CE 463). Setting aside concerns about physical Dennett likens the bulk of design or implementation, we use this contemporary of stance to fonn a theory of competence - language to the planetary epicycles studied that is, a theory of what it takes to be an by pre-Copernicans astronomers. We are intentional system conceived of in holistic, caught up in the quandaries of "" and instrumentalistic, and nonnative tenns - the "intrinsic qualities of inner-life", not "a sort of holistic logical " as because of an essential structure of Dennett calls it (Stance 57-58). consciousness that dictates ontological Interpreting the beliefs and belief talk distinctions, but rather because of our use of an other is taken to be merely an of the traditional metaphors inherited from instrumental self-projection of self on to the epistemological, metaphysical, and subject - where the other's beliefs are ontological (eidos oriented) investigations taken, with a grain of salt, to be "real" and that infonn the way we speak of "true" for purely useful, predictive goals consciousness (CE 455). On this account, (72-73). However, Dennett still stresses the the debates between idealism and dualism fact that, under this stance, we do not are moot; Dennett feels that the ways in commit ourselves to any metaphysical which the metaphors of mind / brain and claims and that such "neutral" and arbitrary soul/body infonn our talk of "reality" ascription of reality and truth-values is to effectively halt any progress towards a be taken as a strategic maxim rather than as theory of consciousness.17 Instead, we a binding epistemological principle (75). should highlight the pragmatic nature of It is important for this discussion, and dialogue in fonns-of-life. particularly for understanding Dennett, to Liberated from the constraints of the mention the profound effect evolutionary traditional dialogue, Dennett sets himself explanations of general phenomena have on the task of developing a productive method contemporary discourse. Dennett, as many of intentional research that coincides more intellectuals are, is enamored with the closely with the aims of natural science. predicative and productive capacities of the Dennett, desiring to uncover the possibility mathematical-naturalistic sciences. The use of developing a computer model of of Darwin's ideas to "reveal" the "true" consciousness, is concerned with how we nature of all social and natural events is can systematically study "subjective", currently in vogue. Dennett, feeling that the intentional experience - and the basic inherent practicality of these ideas is in message of several hundred pages of tune with his instrumental view of dialogue, analysis amounts to a simple, pragmatic is eager in his development of a theory of justification of naturalized consciousness. consciousness to abide by the dictates of We begin, on this account, from an evolutionary explanation. intentional stance grounded in common On the path to a productive theory of sense , whereby we treat consciousness, Dennett's primary task is to

Osprey Journal of Ideas and Inquiry 105 develop a new methodology for research computational , using the latest founded on this intentional stance. With a ideas of parallel distributed processing, Wittgenstein-Davidsonian pragmatic neural networks, and , to "explain" understanding of interpretation (reinforced consciousness in his interesting work with Darwinian tools), he has a fmn footing Consciousness Explained. The details, to uncover just what such a method entails. although quite interesting and well What is a believer in this stance? developed, are of little significance for our present essay. [A]ny object - or as I shall say, any system - whose behavior is well predicted Auto- vs. Hetero- phenomenology by this strategy [the Intentional Strategy] is At this point I will undertake a more in the fullest sense of the word a believer. direct comparison of Husserl and Dennett. What it is to be a true believer is to be an Through this, we shall clarify the intentional system, a system whose similarities of each and gain an overall behavior is reliably and voluminously better understanding of their projects. It predictable via the intentional strategy [an will be helpful here to adopt Dennett's interest relative cross of realism and terminology whereby he distances himself interpretation ism]." (Stance 15, 27) from traditional phenomenology; an ego­ centric investigator in the Husserlian In the Heterophenomenological tradition I shall label autophenomenologist; method, we approach the verbal, behavioral the pragmatic scientist I shall term the report of a subject on her experiences much heterophenomenologist. 18 To streamline this like an anthropologist would the reports of process further, I will work under four members of another social group in headings that will hopefully delineate their investigating their . Individuals, essential differences: goals, views on under this method, are the authors of their intentionality, methodology, and attitudes "fictional worlds" (notional worlds, towards realism and the life-world. alternatively) of experience, and it is the role of the investigator to maintain "a Goals. The main contrast between the constructive and sympathetic neutrality, in auto and hetero phenomenologists lies in the hopes of compiling a definitive description overall aims of each project. For the auto, of the world according to the subjects" as a science of consciousness is sought which they record the 'texts' of the authors (CE in the end will support a grand foundation 83). These neutrally compiled texts (as for all knowledge. This traditional "theorists '" fictions) allow the investigator philosophical ideal is immediately evident to interpret the phenomenological world of from the start in Husserl's transcendental an individual, as reported, as one would phenomenology. We aim, in this schema, to interpret a novel to be read. "Maximally replace previous foundations at hand with extended, it is a neutral portrayal of exactly an ultimate bedrock: what it is like to be that subject - in the subject's own terms, given the best In opposition to all previously designed interpretation we can muster" (98). In this objective sciences, which are sciences on light, the concept of selfhood and soul are the ground of the world, this would be a "abstractions rather than nuggets of science of the universal how of the mysterious stuff ... they're exquisitely pregivenness of the world, i.e., of what useful fictions" (367). makes it a universal ground for any sort of The heterophenomenologist can now objectivity. (Crisis §38) turn to the task of developing a naturalistic causal account of how these fictions are Unlike those before him, Husserl boldly created. Dennett elaborates a detailed attempted to overhaul our understanding of

106 Osprey Journal of Ideas and Inquiry self and the world. Like those before him, "reality" through acts of self-projection, the however, he boldly asserted the supremacy hetero holds a limited sense of "rationality" of his own culturally acquired for her research subjects.2o presuppositions and failed to break with the "enlightenment" he criticized and the Method. The epoche, as the auto's circularity of the dichotomies cherished by main method, is taken to be a self-evidently its method. effective tool that allows investigation into The hetero, on the other hand, tempers the world-constructing essence of being: any yearnings for universality with an appeal to pragmatic holism. She seeks an Every opinion about 'the' world has its "objective" science of consciousness ground in the pregiven world. It is from this supported by her productive method. very ground that I have freed myself through the epoche; I stand above the world, Intentionality. In pure phenomenology, which has now become for me, in a quite the auto investigates the essence of the peculiar sense, a phenomenon. (Crisis §41) intentional correlation; the phenomenological field of experience is Responding to Heidegger's Being and between an ego-pole and a world-pole and Time, the auto recognizes the background therein lies the intentional correlation that that orients her epoche (the main gives rise to meaning in experience: methodological tool), yet still maintains its efficacy.21 Essential intentionality For the hetero, her method is just that J, of modem science coupled with a I-pole <=:::> World-pole predictive strategy. The determination of the efficacy of this approach is left to the Thus posited, the auto circumscribes normal means of the scientific community.22 any infmite regress by placing the self in Attitude towards realism and the relationship to the lifeworld, while at the lifeworld. What kind of realism about the same time also negates the significance of lifeworld do each of these projects entail? others in giving supremacy to the The world,for the auto, is a fundamental conscious-ego as meaning giver-endower. 19 realm of life before objective science in the form of a structured horizon. "The world is The hetero views this system-building pregiven to us, the waking, always as ludicrous. Intentionality is a place-holder somehow practically interested subjects, borrowed from folk psychology (which is not occasionally but always and necessarily unfortunately reified/deified by as the universal field of all actual and autophenomenology) that can be used as possible praxis, as horizon." (Crisis §37) a tool for predicting and controlling the The hetero, on the other hand, views other - specifically: the world as "the objective, materialistic, third-person world of the physical sciences" We must treat the noise-emitter as an (Stance 5). This view is coupled with the agent, indeed a rational agent, who harbors pragmatic / productive holistic intentional beliefs and desires and other mental states strategy in an ironic use of the that exhibit intentionality or 'aboutness,' Wittgensteinian insight into forms of life to and whose actions can be explained (or overthrow significant dialogue. It must predicted) on the basis of the content of always be remembered that "deviation from these states. (CE 76-77). normal interpersonal is the price that must be paid for the neutrality a science As intentional systems, bestowed with of consciousness demands." (CE 83) a self-similar (to the hetero's) experience of

Osprey Journal of Ideas and Inquiry 107 Gadamer's Hermeneutic Critique of thought. This move towards a Interpretive Method transcendental subject, however, does not lead to a satisfactory understanding of When we follow the trajectory of Being; in fact, as we have already seen, the thought from HusserI to Gadamer, we find positing of the solipsisticly situated self in a common theme and purpose. Each turns HusserI's reduction ultimately opens an from the objectifying tendencies of unbridgeable void between the subject and modernity in search of a more satisfying the bracketed community of Others out in account of Being - each building upon the the life-worId. 23 That he noticed the former while responding to the post­ shortcomings of the methods of modernity Nietzschean episteme (incredulity towards and attempted to reconcile them with the tradition) that marked the thought of the "ineffable" aspects of consciousness is of 20th century and continues to influence great importance. Unfortunately, his desire philosophical dialogue. In this section, I to ground knowledge in an ultimate develop an account of Gadamer's thought foundation (and to develop an a priori in relation to this arch of discourse and see science of phenomenology) led to other if we can be justified in finding satisfaction problems that make questionable the in his onto-linguistic hermeneutics. To that extent to which we can be satisfied end, it will be necessary to gain some with his conclusions. understanding of Heidegger's use of the Heidegger points out that this phenomenological method in explicating solipsistic move is a result of anxiety - Being, as Dasein, and language - not to that is, the natural stand-point is but one of develop a criticism, but to better understand the possibilities that is open to the self - what Gadamer is hoping to achieve. After' being-in-the-worId as 'fallen' - focusing outlining his thought, I will briefly entertain on the stand-point (constituted by the drive some criticisms of the linguistic idealism in objectification), and thus causing the that Gadamer's hermeneutics suggests and inauthenticity which gives rise, ultimately, explore whether or not Gadamer attends to individuating anxiety (BT §40). to the influence that society has on Heidegger took the results of HusserI's discourse - as has been highlighted by phenomenological investigations and shed critical theory. I will then tie together these light not only on the limiting (inauthentic) thoughts to show that the tum from nature of the reductive method (a modernity to language is not, at core, anti­ narrowing of focus) but also on its anything in orienting towards Heideggarean contextual (and historical) aspects. 24 phenomenology. On the contrary, the In , Heidegger brings out suspension of awe before the positive the "fore-knowledge" - the backdrop, so methodology of the scientific program to speak - the historical nature of is urged by the need not to destroy or essentialism, of which HusserI's to leave it by the wayside but rather by phenomenology serves as crown, in some the need to develop a wider, more regards - in his criticism of Enlightenment pluralistic (vs. dichotomous) account inquiry. Interpretation, in this account, of humanistic understanding. comes into playas explication rather than It is reasonable to see Heidegger's self-projection; i.e., "meaning" only makes working-out of Dasein, in part, as an sense in specific contexts and against a attempt to recover the most useful parts of holistic background of shared, pervasive HusserI's phenomenology. HusserI, in practices. The possibilities open to Being grounding knowledge in a transcendental for understanding in the worId are more subjectivity via the phenomenological wide-open than that allowed within the epoche, hoped to avoid what he saw as consciousness of modernity (the naIve objectification in Enlightenment consciousness of rational, eidetic

108 Osprey Journal of Ideas and Inquiry dichotomies). It is in a temporal act, rather, what all of the thinkers after Husserl have that meaning becomes possible: been dealing with - trying to balance, on one hand, the problematic nature of In interpreting, we do not ... throw a that highlights the need for 'signification' over some naked thing which a reassessment of positive methodology and is present-at-hand ... when something metaphysical inquiry with, on the other, the within-the-world is encountered as such, contradictions we run into when, in the the thing in question already has an light of this reassessment, we try to support involvement which is disclosed in our in some way any claims we may make, understanding of the world ... (§32) without resorting to essentialism. Gadamer, while hoping to avoid Before any conceptualization, before Heidegger's claims of goal-driven any knowledge, there is a "fore-ground", a methodology, emphasizes the historical­ "fore-structure", a "fore-knowledge" that linguistic ground of Dasein in his working makes the act possible. Husserl's self­ of hermeneutic consciousness. Whereas criticism failed in this regard. We become Heidegger saw language as but one of the aware, after Heidegger, that the possibilities of Being, Gadamer places transcendental subject is not possible Being and understanding fully in language without the bracketed life-world.25 - thus bringing together Heidegger's two Through his critique, Heidegger brings themes (the fore-structure and open out the two very important points from possibilities of being) in the space of which Gadamer departs: 1) the fore­ discursive activity. Language, in this structuring of experience - Dasein as the account, is the fundamental mode of "historical being" and 2) the possibilities of operation of our being-in-the-world and the being in time (over and against anxiety)­ all-embracing form of the constitution of both of which together have made the world (Reader, 111) and the goal of Enlightenment thought (or any, for that hermeneutics thus becomes to reconnect the matter) possible. We cannot, however, objective world of technology, which the break out of the 'circle' of our sciences place at our disposal and understanding to attain the 's eye view discretion, with those fundamental orders of of the metaphysician - the "independent being that are neither arbitrary nor standpoint of the observer". In fact, it is manipulated by us, but rather simply within the circle that meaning lies: demand our respect. (111)

What is decisive is not to get out of the The world, for conscious being, is an circle but to come into it in the right way endless linguistic creation, the instantiating .. .in the circle is hidden the positive source of which lies in our shared traditions possibility of the most primordial kind of and 'prejudices'. 26 It is in this tum to knowing ... our first, last, and constant task language that he hopes to find safety from is never to allow our fore-having, fore­ any methodological (ahistorical) claims. sight, and fore-conception to be presented So, just what is contemporary hermeneutics to us by fancies and popular conceptions, (as opposed to traditional)?27 As Gadamer but rather to make the scientific theme works it out in his essay "Hermeneutics as secure by working out these fore-structures practical philosophy", it is, at base, an art in terms of the things themselves. (§32) of understanding that moves beyond methodology - and so we have to come to The difficulty in "securing" this, see hermeneutics as a "dimension of human however, lies in trying to develop an ability ... [having] to do with what is each account that does not make any universal, individual's due as a citizen ... " that trans-historical claims. This, in a sense, is inevitably comes out of practice (327).

Osprey Journal of Ideas and Inquiry 109 Acknowledging the historical idealism, however. To vouchsafe consciousness (wirkungsgeschichtliches knowledge in universal discourse seems, in bewusstsein) as the base of the linguistic a sense, to be a step backwards. Gadamer "space" of discourse, so to speak, would respond to this, not with a counter argument, but rather an appeal to our Henneneutics can designate a natural understanding of language. The move to capacity of human beings ... it refers to the solipsism is not possible, he would contend, human capacity for intelligent interchange in light of the fact that "there is absolutely with one's fellows. (328) no captivity within a language" - This interchange builds upon discourse is the on-going creative act that Heidegger's notions of the situated, makes experience possible (Reader, 120). temporal consciousness - in a way, This assertion does carry its own weight in fleshing out his ideas with the body of Gadamer's conception of Being­ language. The relation between the self and "Language goes beyond the consciousness other that was severed in Husserl's of the speaker and is in this respect more transcendental subject - the relationship than a subjective behavior" (Foreword, between self and a discursive text - is 348). To cry idealism is to misunderstand now reconnected in an understanding of the goal of henneneutics - the their inextricable co-dependence - down­ broadening-of-horizons. playing the autonomy of the Western self On the other hand, we can criticize (the "I", the Dasein). Gadamer for not attending to the insights The purpose of developing some of our of the critical theorists and Foucault's ideas about the universality of this analysis of the role of power in discourse. linguistic space is, as Gadamer states in the It seems that he is a bit of an optimist, in forward to the second edition of Truth and that he supposes (necessarily) that all Method, not to prescribe "what we do or individuals will pick up the torch of what we ought to do" but rather to bring to (and human solidarity). The light "what happens to us over and above only consolation (to counter this criticism) our wanting and doing" (339). Through would be to consider the play of power to henneneutic inquiry, Heidegger's 'circle' of be an element of the discursive creation of understanding is never ending - non­ being that is at a level less abstract than the teleological spirit that is worked out further articulation of henneneutics itself, deferred through discourse when the depth of being to latter discussion; although critical theory is brought to light, escaping reduction to an is a tonic in many ways, we must still object of knowledge. This escape from the return to the question of why just such an "leveling" of modernity, Gadamer feels, is orientation towards power structures in the the "universal human task" - body of language is refreshing to our sensibilities. A Gadamerian conception of Genuine speaking, which has something to prejudice may possibly overcome say and hence does not give prearranged Enlightenment ideals that still lie donnant signals, but rather seeks words through in our post-Marxean episteme. which one reaches the other person ... Gadamer's henneneutics is responding to (Reader, 121) the shortcomings of Husserl and the suggestions of Heidegger in an attempt to When we leave behind the inherited, liberate Being from categorization and written tradition (Weitersagen) - we make 'mechanization' (to use Gadamer's word). a move to disarm anxiety (significance of In the spirit of Derrida's differance, life, etc.). Gadamer suggests that liberating "play goes We can question Gadamer about his beyond the consciousness of the player and commitments in this seemingly linguistic is in this respect more than subjective

110 Osprey Journal of Ideas and Inquiry behavior" (Foreword, 348).28 Gadamer is willingly concedes. attempting to open a space for ethical self­ In the essay "Holism and Hermeneutics," creation after-modernity; i.e., he is Hubert Dreyfus elucidates a distinction attempting to prevent conversation from between practical and theoretical holism degenerating into inquiry, into a research that further highlights the inadequacy of program, not to eliminate the role of methodological studies of consciousness. scientific inquiry.29 Science is not ultimately Viewing interpretation as translation discarded, but rather 'put in its place' as a between theories and understanding as an non-final arbiter of 'reality'. Gadamer has epistemological problem, the theoretical not given us a thorough system of inquiry holist is guided by the Heideggerian or universal-schematic metaphysical concept of vorsicht - our conceptual account. Rather, through the eye-opening schemes. The practical holist, in contrast, is hermeneutic move, he has given us ideas to sensitive to our vorhabe - the totality of help broaden the closed horizon of the our cultural practices. She views world of Enlightenment thought in which interpretation as explication; i.e., meaning we labor and to open our ears to the arises only in specific contexts and against unclosed, non-teleological, "infinite a background of shared practices that are dialogue [that] is opened in the direction of not theorizable because they are pervasive the truth that we are" (Reader, 120). and involve skills (6-7). This distinction leads Dreyfus, after considering the role of Conclusion non-technological micro-practices of Being in understanding, to argue that the human For some readers sensitive to holism, sciences are incommensurably different the hermeneutic ideas developed in this from the physical sciences: essay will strike either a positive or negative chord. This gut-reaction lies at the [S]ocial science might, indeed, heart of an important split in philosophical establish itself, only ... by leaving out the discourse surrounding holistic conceptions social skills which make the isolation of of language. While Dennett relies on some features or attributes possible. But such holistic view of understanding and dialogue skills and the context of everyday practices as support for the intentional stance, they presuppose are internal to the human hermeneutics also relies on a practical sciences, just as the laboratory skills of holistic conception of interpretation and scientists are internal to the history and understanding. As we have seen, however, sociology of science, for if the human each view has a different orientation sciences claim to study human activities, towards its interlocutor, the other in then the human sciences, unlike the natural communication. The heterophenom­ sciences, must take account of those human enologist builds theories, the hermeneutist activities which make possible their own seeks significance and self-unfolding. disciplines. (17) Theory-building and methodological inquiry are not, as such, futile endeavors, The theoretical holism developed by however; I do not make this claim. On the , a view that supports and is contrary, the linguistic ability to support most closely aligned with Dennett's alternate modes of explanation is central to intentional stance, does not attend to this the nature of our being. In the Fregean distinction.30 Furthermore, Kogler has tradition, we still engage in dialogue. argued persuasively that Dreyfus' practical However, the positivistic intent and holism itself puts one in an untenable orientation that support its "success" in tum ethnocentric situation. 31 Addressing the lead to "deviation from normal shortcomings of practical and theoretical interpersonal relations," as Dennett holism in dealing with power structures in

Osprey Journal of Ideas and Inquiry 111 dialogue (e.g. ethnocentricity and social breached a broad area of knowledge structures), Kogler has developed a broader fonnerly unknown to me and basked in the conception of henneneutic competence beauty of ideas finely interwoven and then (acknowledging the role of empathy in wove my own thread - this essay. understanding) that incorporates both Through the exchange of ideas, I aspects of holism and strives to overcome discovered the true of my Liberal the deficiencies of these approaches in Studies work. Dialogue, in whatever fonn, understanding consciousness in his work can not be denied; it leads to outward The Power of Dialogue and more recently growth, occasional retreat and refonnation, in his lecture "Language and the and to the discovery of significance and of Perfonnativity". All of these holistic meaning in a lifeworld populated with so variants hinge on the examination language many fresh other voices. The ethical and on a conception of dialogue as the consequences of methodological inquiry in basis for inquiry and explication of the the human sciences will be balanced by a human condition and consciousness. growing of multiculturalism and Having considered the human sciences holistic discourses that mark the beginning in general, I will close with a discussion of of our new century - marked with the the positive implications for promise of a grand continuation of the heterophenomenology and other similar dialogue of humankind. efforts in cognitive science regarding the limited and misguided nature of interpretive methodological inquiry. Dennett's work, as Works Cited a case study for cognitive science and as a bridge between the analytic and continental Dennett, Daniel. Consciousness Explained. strains of philosophical thought, has mainly (CE). : Little, Brown, and Co., 1991. served as a vehicle to launch our discussion. If research in cognitive science -- -.The Intentional Stance. is to continue while maintaining sensitivity (Stance).Cambridge: MIT Press, 1987. to the insights of post-modern visions of language, how will it refonnulate its goals? Dreyfus, Hubert. "Holism and What is the future role of cognitive Henneneutics" in Review of science? In discussions with Professor 34,3-23. Kogler, I have considered possible technological worst-case scenarios Gadamer, Hans-Georg. "Henneneutics as involving (AI). As in Practical Philosophy" in After Philosophy. the case of old science fiction, the future Eds. Baynes, Bohman, and McCarthy. usually seems better (or worse) than it Cambridge: MIT, 1987. actually turns out to be. Artificial intelligence will continue to be a -- -.Truth and Method. (TM). New York: technological handmaiden to objectifying Seabury Press, 1975. inquiry - work in cognitive science and its offspring will go on as long as the dialogue "The Universality of the of psychology continues. When I began this Henneneutical Problem" in The study a year ago, I was strongly against the Reader. Eds. of AI; my instinct was reactionary. In Kearney and Rainwater. London: the course of thinking and reading about Routledge, 1996. henneneutics and the , I became deeply involved in an internal dialogue, in effect internalizing a dialogue within our Western tradition. I

112 Osprey Journal of Ideas and Inquiry Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. (!IT). -- -."The Vienna Lecture." in The Trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Continental Philosophy Reader. Ed. R. Robinson. New York: Harper and Row, Kearney and M. Rainwater. London: 1962. Routledge, 1996. 7-14.

-- -.Being and Time. (BT 2). Trans. Joan Kogler, H.-H. "Language and the Paradigm Stambaugh. Albany: SUNY Press, 1996. of Performativity". Keynote lecture delivered on Jan. 22, 2000 at the Univ. of Husserl, Edmund. Crisis of European South FL, Tampa, (Conference on Sciences. (Crisis). Evanston, Illinois: Continental Philosophy / Ethics / Social Northwestern University Press, 1984. Theory).

-- -.Formal and Transcendental Logic. -- -.The Power of Dialogue: Critical Kluwer Academic Press, 1978. Hermeneutics after Gadamer and Foucault. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996. -- -.Ideas. Trans. W.R. Boyce Gibson. New York: Collier, 19?? Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations. Trans. G.E.M. Anscombe. -- -.Logical Investigations. Atlantic Oxford: Blackwell, 1997. Heights, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1970.

-- -."Phenomenology." The Continental Philosophy Reader. Ed. R. Kearney and M. Rainwater. London: Routledge, 1996. 15- 22.

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