FIL 320 Assignment

Dr. L Mabille

Ruan Lessing
Student Number: 28109962
 1) Discuss the constitutive role of history and language in the process of understanding.

I will now posit a discussion about the constitutive role of history and language in the process of
understanding. This point implies that we should have an understanding of hermeneutics, for;
hermeneutics is the art of understanding.
Wachterhauser begins his Hermeneutics and Modern Philosophy with a discussion, and so shall
I, on what he considers hermeneutics to be. Firstly he contends that hermeneutics does not have
one specific theory, such as we might come to know the paralogisms of Kant as a single critical
perspective. Hermeneutics is more readily understood as a compilation of perspectives with a
golden thread through it. This golden thread is described by Wachterhauser, firstly, as a means in
which philosophers of the hermeneutic tradition view the way they come to perceive what human
intellect is. They understand it as not being a timeless and wordless source of insight. To
understand what this implies I will focus your attention on the opposite. Merely that the human
intellect is most often busy with creating theories, and that these theories always occur within a
certain language, thus words, and a time, in history. The first golden thread or “Leitmotifs”
(Wachterhauser, 1986) are language and history. Therefore one may find that hermeneutical
thinkers have come to an understanding that history and language function as special
transcendental conditions for understanding. These conditions would be necessary conditions.
The second golden thread that Wachterhauser points out is the “quasitranscendental” nature of
hermeneutics. This means that hermeneutical thinkers would reject a Kantian view that human
intellect operates according to strict differentiated rules for clearly distinguishable realisms of
understanding, they are certain that the very essence of understanding is not that it necessarily
follows rules. The third golden thread that is identified by Wachterhauser is a difference between
the traditional transcendental ideas and those of hermeneutics. The traditional idea of
transcendental philosophy ground intelligibility in the private sphere of a pregiven and
essentially changeless subject and not in a public sphere of evolving, linguistically mediated
practice.
What are we to make of these golden threads? Wachterhauser concludes that they imply
hermeneutical thinkers try a three dimensional exposition, they try to be general enough in their
transcendental investigations to leave room for unforeseen changes but are specific enough to
give a convincing account of our actual experience of thinking and incisive enough to
demonstrate the critical power of hermeneutical reflection. Furthermore that history and
language, as we have seen in the first golden thread are essential to understanding.
I would now like to focus our attention on what Wachterhauser refers to as “transistory a
prioris”. Transistory in this sense implies that understanding is always different in different
contexts and therefore must necessarily always evade a final theoretical definition of how it
functions in terms of its transcendental capacity (Wachterhauser, 1986). This implies that
hermeneutical thinkers disagree with a foundationalist perspective that understanding can take
place in terms of conditions that are anywhere and always the same.
The next question arises, how does one set off to accomplish such a three dimensional account of
understanding that has history and language in its essence? Firstly I will address the question of
history or more precisely historicity. Historicity is the fact that all human beings live out their
lives in time. No one human being has ever lived outside of what we call time. From this we can
conclude that who we are is historical. Thus all our understanding must considered by who we
are and ultimately from our historical background. Hermeneutical thinkers would argue that we
cannot be reduced to the noumenal, ahistorical core such as a transcendental ego or an
indubitable truth that a human nature is the same in all historical contexts. History, then,
determines our possibilities for understanding ourselves and our world. I will now address the
question of language. Language goes out ahead of the reflective understanding and shapes our
grasp of the subject matter. This implies that everything we come to understand, or reflect about,
is expressed not only in our own minds but to others through language. Our expression after our
reflection therefore is subjected to our language, the way we might communicate our ideas. We
are not, however, imprisoned by language for we can transcend the way in which we speak and
understand something, but our communication will always depend on language as medium.
Language therefore is fundamental of our understanding. What this implies is that our grasp on
anything will never be free from all the limitations imposed on it by language from which it is
expressed. Thus one can accomplish the three dimensional account of understanding by
considering what role language and historicity play in understanding and then applying this
knowledge to all future critique.

I have made clear that the process of understanding is inextricably related to the role that history
plays in who we are and language from which we express our history.

2) Philosophical hermeneutics can be viewed as a contextualist and antifoundationalist

I will discuss the idea that philosophical hermeneutics can be viewed as a contextualist and
antifoundationalist theory of understanding.
I prefer to start this discussion by what we know, broadly and generally, foundationalism is.
Plainly put, it is the idea from ancient Greek philosophers that true knowledge-claims are
dependent on certainty. From this point it has been argued that certainty is only obtainable by
establishing “first truths”. These truths would then be considered as a foundation from which all
other knowledge can be deduced. When one reflects on the history of how the latter argument
has developed and view claims to such first truths, such as Descartes’ cogito, or Kant’s
categorical endeavors, it is clear that we can criticize them from our current, modern perspective.
One might ask why this is possible, and why have philosophers not been able to supply us with
these first truths? Hermeneutic philosophers would believe that they have an answer. They argue
that the ideal of grasping reality “in itself” presupposes that we can make sense of what reality
would be like independent of its relation to time. But do we have an idea of such a reality?
Hermeneutics would argue that we do not. Therefore hermeneutical thinkers have adopted a
contextualist view of understanding and reality. This view is understood as the meaning of any
phenomenon depends on the “whole” from which it is a “part” (Wachterhauser, 1986). They
understand that the whole will never fully be grasped, due to the limitations imposed on it by
language for example, but we can grasp the parts in terms of a limited whole. What one learns
from this is that we need to understand phenomenon in terms of its historicity and the limited
whole of which it was a part. Now returning to my question I posed earlier. Within the context
and time that Descartes posited his cogito that might have been a first truth, but time changes,
language changes and culture changes making his effort mostly irrelevant to our time. Not
irrelevant in the sense that we cannot learn from it but irrelevant in the sense that we can no
longer consider his cogito as a first truth and therefore it is easy for us to criticize his intellectual
effort. Put simply, the efforts of past philosophers simply do not completely fit in to our
understanding of current things and they do not consider what we need to consider in our time, in
our context with the language we have created. Therefore a contextualist perspective, such as
hermeneutics is far more accurate in understanding not only our current time, but because it is
contextual it is appropriate for any time.

I have discussed how philosophical hermeneutics is a contextualist theory of understanding as

3) Explain the following statement: “…hermeneutical thinkers such as Heidegger and

I will discuss the statement “…hermeneutical thinkers such as Heidegger and Gadamer are
concerned to rule out a kind of ‘foundationalism of the subject’, or what has been called
‘methodological silopsism’.” Firstly I must begin to qualify ‘methodological silopsism’. This
refers to a Kantian/Cartesian idea that seeks a basis for the knowledge in the thinking subject.
This implies that the thinking subject should be able to provide all knowledge and ultimately
create a set of rules that it can follow to deduce all other knowledge. Furthermore it would imply
that knowledge is a free subject separated, unlike the body, from the external world and is not
influenced by it. If this were true then one could understand that it might have privileged
knowledge of itself and could then determine these rules of itself, for itself. This view would be
challenged by hermeneutical thinkers. They would argue that the Kantian/Cartesian attempt at
knowledge misplaces the consciousness (thinking subject) outside of its context. Its context
being the social world or the same world that the body might find itself in, and that the mind and
understanding is not free in the Kantian/Cartesian sense but is finite and contingent upon the
nature of language and historicity.
Returning to the statement I claimed to discuss it is evident that hermeneutical philosophers such
as Heidegger and Gadamer are determined to rule out this ‘methodological silopsism’ because
they believe, as I have argued, that one cannot not misplace the thinking subject in such a way
that one seeks, what is to hermeneutics, an elusive first truth of knowledge created by a
consciousness of freedom.

4) According to Gadamer the rise of historical consciousness in the 19th century has played a
seminal role in the development of hermeneutics, Discuss briefly in this regard the
contributions of
a) Hegel
b) Marx, Nietzsche and Kierkegaard
c) Dilthey

I will briefly discuss the seminal influence that Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard and Dilthey
had on the development of hermeneutics.
Hegel posited in his Phenomenology of Spirit that the “the truth is the whole”. From this
statement one can already witness the contextualist position found in hermeneutics. For if the
truth is the whole their must also be parts of this whole, these parts we can understand separately
in relation to the limited truth. Hegel also posited that reason cannot be understood apart from its
past or in isolation from the historical mediated languages that it speaks in (Wachterhauser,
1986) .This too is a contextualist train of thought found in hermeneutics. The context, according
to hermeneutics, is a multidimensional concept. On the one dimension it posits that
understanding should be understood as part of history or historicity. Another dimension would
contend that understanding should be understood as part of language. Note that the dimensions
that I am referring to here are related, they do not stand loose from each other, and that all of
them contribute to what hermeneutics is. The third dimension argues that all truths are in relation
to a greater truth, the greater truth, together with history and language constitutes the context.
Thus one must consider the context when making knowledge claims. The final dimension of
hermeneutics that Hegel had a seminal role in is that he argued that Reason has no true starting
point. For Hegel this meant that knowledge could be foundational. This implies that knowledge
cannot be manifest in indubitable truths. Knowledge would not have a foundation from which all
other knowledge could be deduced. For Hegel, however, there was an end to knowledge. He
would call this point absolute knowledge. Absolute knowledge meant that humans would have
come to understand the deep immanent logic of the Western mind and it has worked itself out.

Marx and Nietzsche responded to Hegel claiming that the mind is rooted in nature and history
and not history and nature rooted in the mind. This implies that knowledge changes. If history
and nature change so must our knowledge of it as well. Thus there could not be an absolute
knowledge, except perhaps if we could gain this knowledge for the time we are in. This
knowledge would change however and never be universal. Kierkegaard posited that Hegel forgot
the existing individual and his or her relation to time. This argument ties in to the latter. Hegel’s
absolute knowledge does not consider an individual in relation to time, and that time (historicity)
may differ, influencing the individuals’ relation to it and thus his or her knowledge of it.

5) Discuss briefly Heidegger’s ontology of understanding. Pay attention to basic concepts

I will briefly discuss Heidegger’s ontology of understanding, with special attention to some of
his basic concepts.
Martin Heidegger attempted to create an ontology, which is very close to a hermeneutical
perspective, which would surely ground our understanding within “being-in-the-world”. I will
provide a clear concept of what “being-in-the-world” means, but for now this implies that the
unique interests that humans have in this time makes our understanding intelligible, but as time
changes so does our conception of what interesting is and therefore also what is intelligible.
Heidegger denied the foundationalist accounts of what knowledge is. Understanding, for
Heidegger and many other hermeneutical thinkers could not be reduced to certain categories of
truth or some first principles. Instead Heidegger would argue that these categorical constructs are
nothing more than a “distorted” (Wachterhauser, 1986) attempt to ignore or explain a way the
influence of historicity on understanding. The fallacy is then that foundationalism attempted to
reach an indubitable knowledge by removing historicity from it. This resulted in what may seem
to some as a timeless account for what foundationalists believe to be knowledge.

The language that was created through the centuries for what humans are and how they come to
understand was very much influenced by the foundationalist attempt. Heidegger therefore tried
to create a new vocabulary for the human nature, one that keeps the idea of historicity grounded
in our understanding. The first word of this vocabulary I would like to focus on is Dasein. Dasein
was explicitly meant to refer to our situatedness in time and space. The term translated from
German to “there-being”. This implies that if we refer to Dasein then we cannot exclude the
ontological characteristic of Dasein in the sense that it must be contingent to relation of a certain
time and space. Heidegger would go further and claim that we are “thrown” into this world. This
would imply that we are not only rational agents but that we are dependent on the world that we
are thrown in. Thus we are part of a natural world and we cannot be separated from it. For
hermeneutics this would also imply that we are part of a history, which is part of a natural world.
For Heidegger this is the main reason why we cannot simply explain away historicity, for if we
are born into a world of historicity we cannot simply explain it away. And that we would find
that the world changes, and if it changes then historicity changes which means that our
understandings must change and adapt to it. It seems that over the centuries philosophers have
tried to find a simple truth that would be the same no matter where you are or in what context
throughout time. In fact there is no such knowledge except perhaps for the fact that everything
will change. Heidegger goes on to argue that even though everything will change there remains a
loose temporal continuity throughout history.
One may argue that if we claim that our understanding of the world changes how can we ever
understand it, even in our own time and space? To answer this Heidegger explains his notion of
preunderstandings. A preunderstanding is an understanding that we are born with and that is
relevant to historicity. As I have explained we are “thrown” into the world, we therefore find
ourselves in a situation characterized by historicity and nature. The preunderstanding, according
to Heidegger, helps us quickly understand something about historicity. It is through mediated
culture that we understand ourselves and the natural world, therefore historicity comes first in
our preunderstandings. Furthermore, Heidegger contends that these preunderstandings are a
necessary condition for all understanding, and that if this is true, preunderstanding can change as
we change our historical situations.
This implies what is known as the “hermeneutical circle”, the clam that the parts can only be
understood in terms of the whole, and that the whole could only be understood in terms of the
parts. Wachterhauser contends that this implies understanding means having to do two things.
The first is to place the phenomenon within a larger context where the phenomenon still has a
function. The second is the phenomenon must help one grasp something of the larger context.
The circle would then have knowledge added to it and grow more comprehensive.

I have discussed Heidegger’s ontology of understanding with specific reference to key linguistic
concepts that he uses to describe it.

6) Discuss the following statement: “Heidegger’s position amounts to a perspectivism not a

I will answer this question by first defining what is meant by relativism as Brice Wachterhauser
explains it, and then I will refer to how he proves that Heidegger’s position on ontological
understanding amounts to perspectivism instead of relativism.

Wachterhauser defines relativism as an opinion. He argues that relativists contend that the
relations that we have with objects are merely a relation to the appearance of that thing and not to
the thing itself. Relativism is also in a position where it makes our preunderstandings
“roadblocks” (Wachterhauser, 1986) for understanding reality. The problem Heidegger has with
this view is that, if it were true, we would have a relation with “reality” but we would be shut off
from reality by our thoughts. In essence the argument from Heidegger is that reality is not
projected from within our thoughts, rather our thoughts are found within reality, reality being the
greater context than the thought. The second problem that Heidegger found was the claim that
preunderstandings act as roadblocks. Heidegger maintains that preunderstandings are not
something that we must avoid but they are more of a medium for understanding the relation we
have to things given their “situatedness” in the world. Finally Heidegger’s ontological position
gives us a way of understanding our thought within reality. It does not lead to a skeptical
relativism as it may appear at first.

I have contended that Heidegger’s hermeneutical claim is not the same as relativism because of
the difference he has in his understanding or preunderstandings.

Bibliography

B. Wachterhauser, Hermeneutics and Modern Philosophy, Albany: SUNY Press,