The Socratic Paradigm of Objectivity

Thaning, Morten S.

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-18648-1_3

The Socratic Paradigm of Objectivity

Morten S. Thaning⁴

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Part of the book series: Contributions to Hermeneutics ((CONT HERMEN,volume 1))

Abstract

Vattimo’s conception of philosophical hermeneutics departs from the assumption that hermeneutics has become the koinē of the contemporary (Western) world, i.e. that there is a broad-ranging but implicit cultural and academic consensus that every experience of understanding has an interpretive character. He calls this consciousness of interpretation a hermeneutical koinē, because he regards it to be philosophically expressed in the tradition of hermeneutics, especially in Gadamer’s theory of understanding and language in Truth and Method. However, he thinks that our consciousness of interpretation in general, and Gadamer’s theory in particular, itself falls victim to a problematic, metaphysical interpretation if we attempt to ground it in a meta-theory through transcendental reflection. Vattimo avoids this transcendental interpretation of philosophical hermeneutics in his own conception, which I have suggested can be understood as Nietzschean historicism. He claims that our consciousness of interpretation is a result of the gradual weakening of our conception of the structures of reality in metaphysical terms – in other words, as a result of the gradual unfolding of nihilism – but he also emphasises that this account of the provenance of hermeneutics is itself only an interpretation. As we have seen, Vattimo cannot help but become entangled in paradox while putting forward his conception of hermeneutics. Furthermore, his conception does not help us to grasp why the basic idea of hermeneutics seems to have a legitimate grip on us, why it has indeed become something of a koinē. Since it rightly rejects the idea of a transcendental meta-theory, it cannot provide a grounding justification for our consciousness of interpretation. Further, its own alternative, the constructivist account of hermeneutics, is deprived of its explanatory power by being termed ‘only an interpretation’. If we look to Vattimo to clarify our confusion about the status of our consciousness of interpretation or its philosophical expression (i.e. Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics), all he can offer in response is an enacted scepticism. As has become clear, this answer reduces our intuition that our attempts at understanding are constrained by the subject matter to a ‘necessary illusion’, in the Nietzschean sense.

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Notes

1.
Gadamer, H.-G. 2004. Truth and Method, 443. London and New York: Continuum; Gadamer, H.-G. 1990. Wahrheit und Methode, 450. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck).
2.
It should be stressed that it is frequently appropriate to reject the Socratic stance – indeed, such a rejection can even be in the interest of understanding itself. A shrug, an ironic answer or an outright rejection can be the most appropriate way of answering a misplaced demand to give an account. This basic fact should warn us against conceiving of the Socratic demand in terms of a moral commitment to discuss until some sort of agreement is reached, and also against speaking of a universal moral obligation to give an account whenever we are challenged. No doubt the Socratic demand to give an account can, as Nietzsche remarked, be an act of Depotenzierung, i.e. a way of asserting oneself by attempting to undermine the other person or render him powerless. Cf. ‘The problem of Socrates’ in Nietzsche, F. 2005. The Anti-Christ, Ecce Homo, Twilight of the Idols, 164. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Nietzsche, F. 1999. Sämtliche Werke. Kritische Studienausgabe in 15 Bänden 6: 70. Bonn: de Gruyter. Still, we can only make sense of Nietzsche’s attack on Socrates as an acknowledgment that the demand to give an account is a challenge that cannot be dispelled, and hence a condition with which we must learn to live in a manner that ensures it does not become a tyrannical moral obligation. Even Nietzsche’s critique of the Socratic tradition remains within its horizon, as a response to the challenge posed by the Socratic practice of questioning. We should therefore maintain that our legitimate rejection of the demand to give an account of our understanding also serves to confirm that we are constitutively responsive to this demand.
3.
Cf. Habermas, J. 1971. Der Universalitätsanspruch der Hermeneutik. In Hermeneutik und Ideologiekritik, ed. Habermas, J. et al., 120–159. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp Verlag; Apel, K.O. 1997. Regulative Ideas or Truth-Happening? An attempt to answer the question of the conditions of possibility of valid understanding. Translated by Sommersmeier, R. In The Philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer, ed. L.E. Hahn, 67–94. The Library of Living Philosophers (Vol. XXIV). Chicago: Open Court; Blumenberg, H. 1983. Säkularisierung und Selbstbehauptung. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp Verlag; Pippin, R. 2002. Gadamer’s Hegel. In Gadamer’s Century, ed. Malpas, J. et al., 217–238. Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press; Figal, G. 2006. Gegenständlichkeit. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck); and Gjesdal, K. 2009. Gadamer and the Legacy of German Idealism. New York: Cambridge University Press.
4.
Gadamer, H.-G. 2004. Truth and Method, 106. London and New York: Continuum; Gadamer, H.-G. 1990. Wahrheit und Methode 112. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck).
5.
Ibid.: 281.
6.
Cf. Pippin, R. 2002. Gadamer’s Hegel. In Gadamer’s Century, ed. Malpas, J. et al., 226. Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press.
7.
Gadamer, H.-G. 2004. Truth and Method, 405. London and New York: Continuum; Gadamer, H.-G. 1990. Wahrheit und Methode, 408. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck).
8.
McDowell’s transcendental philosophy is deeply inspired by Sellars. To what extent and on what specific points McDowell’s philosophy differs from Sellars’ thinking is a question with which McDowell still struggles. I shall not pursue this question in the following. My prime concern here is McDowell’s value for a reconstruction of Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics.
9.
Sellars, W. 1997. Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind, 76. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. As McDowell notes, Sellars ‘means to exclude an externalist view of epistemic satisfactoriness, a view according to which one can be entitled to a belief without being in a position to know what entitles one to it. Knowing things, as Sellars intends his dictum to mean, must draw on capacities that belong to reason, conceived as a faculty whose exercises include vindicating one’s entitlement to say things’ (McDowell, J. 2009. Avoiding the Myth of the Given. In Having the World in View: Essays on Kant, Hegel, and Sellars, 256. Cambridge: Harvard University Press). In the following account I assume that Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics is also incompatible with an externalist epistemology and thus shares McDowell’s internalist view on justification.
10.
McDowell, J. 2009. Kant, Sellars and intentionality. In Having the World in View: Essays on Kant, Hegel, and Sellars, 5. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
11.
McDowell, J. 1998. Functionalism and anomalous monism. In Mind, Value and Reality, 328. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
12.
McDowell, J. 2009. Experiencing the world. In The Engaged Intellect, 243. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
13.
Sometimes McDowell uses the term ‘mindedness’ instead of intentionality.
14.
McDowell, J. 1996. Mind and World, xi–xii. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
15.
McDowell, J. 2009. Kant, Sellars and intentionality. In Having the World in View: Essays on Kant, Hegel, and Sellars, 6. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
16.
McDowell, J. 1996. Mind and World, 5. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
17.
Brandom, R. 1979. Freedom and constraint by norms. American Philosophical Quarterly 16 (3): 187. Cf. McDowell, J. 1996. Mind and World, 5. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
18.
Brandom, R. 2009. Reason in Philosophy: Animating ideas, 58. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
19.
Spontaneity comes from sponte (Latin), which means ‘of free will’ or ‘voluntarily’. Brandom also emphasises the importance of the Kantian notion of spontaneity (Brandom, R. 2009. Reason in Philosophy: Animating ideas, 59. Cambridge: Harvard University Press).
20.
Kant, I. 1929. Critique of Pure Reason, A 68/B 93. Translated by N.K. Smith. London: Macmillan. Kant, I. 1911. Kritik der reinen Vernunft, A 68/B 93. In Kant’s gesammelte Schriften III. Berlin: Königlichen Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.
21.
Ibid.: A 51/B 75.
22.
McDowell, J. 1996. Mind and World, 124f. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
23.
Ibid.: 125.
24.
Brandom, R. 2000. Articulating Reasons: An introduction to inferentialism, 6. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. McDowell approves of this principle but also attempts to extend the notion of the conceptual beyond that for which we already possess language. In other words, he does not read the principle in an exclusive way (McDowell, J. 2009. What Myth? In The Engaged Intellect, 318f. Cambridge: Harvard University Press). Cf. Sects. 7 and 8 in Chap. 5 below.
25.
McDowell, J. 1996. Mind and World, 125. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
26.
McDowell, J. 2008. Responses. In John McDowell: Experience, norm and nature, ed. J. Lindgaard, 250. London: John Wiley.
27.
McDowell, J. 1996. Mind and World, 6. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
28.
McDowell, J. 1996. Mind and World, 7. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. This description echoes a central passage from Sellars’ Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind: ‘The idea that observation “strictly and properly so-called” is constituted by certain self-authenticating nonverbal episodes, the authority of which is transmitted to verbal and quasi-verbal performances when these performances are made “in conformity with the semantical rules of the language”, is, of course, the heart of the Myth of the Given. For the given, in epistemological tradition, is what is taken by these self-authenticating episodes’ (Sellars, W. 1997. Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind, 77. Cambridge: Harvard University Press).
29.
McDowell, J. 1996. Mind and World, 12. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
30.
As we shall see in Sect. 7 in Chap. 5, there is also room for gestures of ‘pointing’ in McDowell and Gadamer’s approach. However, such behaviour is interpreted as the application of so-called demonstrative concepts to content that is always already conceptually presented to the subject, rather than as instances of immediate contact with non-conceptual elements of the Given.
31.
McDowell, J. 1996. Mind and World, 8. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
32.
Ibid.: 13.
33.
McDowell, J. 2009. Experiencing the world. In The Engaged Intellect, 252. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. He adds the following comment: ‘(It would make no difference if we replaced that image with some sophisticated physiology.) […] [T]he Myth of the Given, in the relevant form, is the hopeless attempt to make a mere dent in the tablet of the mind – not a fact about the dent but the dent itself – into a rational consideration’ (ibid.). Cf. Plato. Theatetus, 191c. In Platonis Opera I, ed. J. Burnet 1901–07. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
34.
‘Da hat nun Heinrich von Kleist beschrieben, wie ein Examen vor sich geht; wie da der Professor wie aus der Pistole geschossen eine Frage stellt, und dann soll der Kandidat wie aus der Pistole geschossen eine Antwort abschießen. Nun wissen wir doch alle: Eine Frage, auf die jeder die Antwort weiß, können nur Dummköpfe beantworten. Eine Frage muß sich stellen, und dass heißt, dass sie eine Offenheit von Antwortmöglichkeiten einschließt. Daß die gegebene Antwort vernünftig ist, das ist die einzige mögliche Examensleistung, die man bewerten kann. Eine “richtige” Antwort können Computer und Papegeien mit weit größerer Schnelligkeit finden’ (Gadamer, H.-G. 1999. Wie weit schreibt Sprache das Denken vor? [1972]. In Gesammelte Werke 2, 205. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck)).
35.
McDowell, J. 1996. Mind and World, 13. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
36.
Ibid.: 206.
37.
Sellars, W. 1997. Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind, 39. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
38.
Ibid.: 69.
39.
Brandom, R. 1997. Study guide. In Sellars, W.: Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind, 139. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
40.
Sellars, W. 1997. Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind, 21. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
41.
Ibid.: 22.
42.
Ibid.: 78.
43.
Ibid.
44.
McDowell, J. 2009. Kant, Sellars and intentionality. In Having the World in View: Essays on Kant, Hegel, and Sellars, 9. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
45.
Sellars, W. 1997. Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind, 79. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
46.
McDowell, J. 1996. Mind and World, 136. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
47.
Gadamer, H.-G. 2004. Truth and Method, 269. London and New York: Continuum; Gadamer, H.-G. 1990. Wahrheit und Methode, 271. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck).
48.
Gadamer regards his account of the hermeneutic circle to be Heideggerian (Gadamer, H.-G. 2004. Truth and Method, 268ff. London and New York: Continuum; Gadamer, H.-G. 1990. Wahrheit und Methode, 270ff. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck). Cf. Heidegger, M. 1993. Sein und Zeit, 152f. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag).
49.
Soffer, G. 2003. Revisiting the Myth: Husserl, Sellars and the Given. The Review of Metaphysics 57 (2): 315.
50.
The main target of Gadamer’s criticism in the first part of Truth and Method is Kant’s aesthetic and its history of effect (Gadamer, H.-G. 2004. Truth and Method, 37–101. London and New York: Continuum; Gadamer, H.-G. 1990. Wahrheit und Methode, 48–106. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck)).
51.
Cf. Grondin, J. 1994. Der Sinn für Hermeneutik, 55f. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
52.
Gadamer, H.-G. 1999. Die Idee des Guten zwischen Plato und Aristoteles [1978]. In Gesammelte Werke 7, 131. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck). Cf. Plato. Phaedo, 99e. In Platonis Opera I, ed. Burnet, J., 1901–07. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
53.
Plato. Phaedo, 98b8–c2. In Platonis Opera I, ed. Burnet, J., 1901–07. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
54.
Ibid.: 98e1–4.
55.
Ibid.: 99a5–b1.
56.
Ibid.: 99d1.
57.
Ibid.: 100b.
58.
In a passage earlier in the Phaedo, it is emphasised that what we think of as learning is in reality ‘the recollection of congenial knowledge’, which we, as it were, already possess. Ibid.: 75e2–7.
59.
Ibid.: 99e–100a.
60.
Cf. Plato. Theatetus 99e; Sophistes 263e, 264a. In Platonis Opera I, ed. Burnet, J., 1901–07. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
61.
Gadamer, H.-G. 1999. Die Idee des Guten zwischen Plato und Aristoteles [1978]. In Gesammelte Werke 7, 151. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck).
62.
Ibid.: 131.
63.
Grondin, J. 1994. Der Sinn für Hermeneutik, 67. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
64.
Cf. my interpretation of the relation between dialogue and dialectics in relation to Plato’s Lysis. Thaning, M.S. 2012. Dialectic and dialogue in the Lysis. In The Development of Dialectic from Plato to Aristotle, ed. Fink, J. L., 115–138. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
65.
Gadamer, H.-G. 1999. Die Idee des Guten zwischen Plato und Aristoteles [1978]. In Gesammelte Werke 7, 152. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck).
66.
Ibid.: 151.
67.
Gadamer, H.-G. 1999. Sokrates’ Frömmigkeit des Nichtwissens [1990]. In Gesammelte Werke 7, 83. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck). Cf. Plato. Apologia Socratis, 38a. In Platonis Opera I, ed. Burnet, J., 1901–07. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
68.
Gadamer, H.-G. 1999. Sokrates’ Frömmigkeit des Nichtwissens [1990]. In Gesammelte Werke 7, 106. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck).
69.
Ibid.: 107.
70.
Gadamer, H.-G. 1999. Platos dialektische Ethik [1931]. In Gesammelte Werke 5, 38f. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck).
71.
Ibid.: 26–27.
72.
Gadamer, H.-G. 1999. Die Idee des Guten zwischen Plato und Aristoteles [1978]. In Gesammelte Werke 7, 146. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck).
73.
Gadamer, H.-G. 2002. Die Lektion des Jahrhunderts. Ein philosophischer Dialog mit Riccardo Dottori, 59f. Münster: LIT Verlag. Cf. Plato. Gorgias, 503a–b. In Platonis Opera III, ed. Burnet, J., 1901–07. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
74.
Gadamer’s connection between phronesis and rhetoric harks back to Aristotle’s remarks on the exactness of his investigation in the Nicomachean Ethics (Aristotle. Ethica Nicomachea, ed. Bywater, L. 1962, I 3 1094b, 11–28. Oxford: Oxford University Press). He contrasts the expectations of exactness in mathematics with those in rhetoric. It is implied by his argument that the domain of ethics is closer to the latter.
75.
Gadamer, H.-G. 2002. Die Lektion des Jahrhunderts. Ein philosophischer Dialog mit Riccardo Dottori, 61. Münster: LIT Verlag.
76.
Gadamer, H.-G. 1999. Die Idee des Guten zwischen Plato und Aristoteles [1978]. In Gesammelte Werke 7, 221. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck).
77.
Gadamer, H.-G. 1999. Praktisches Wissen [1930]. In Gesammelte Werke 5, 241. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck).
78.
McDowell, J. 2010. Autonomy and its burdens. Harvard Review of Philosophy, Vol. XVII: 12.
79.
McDowell, J. 1996. Mind and World, 79. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
80.
Although he suggests that Aristotle himself may have been ‘less than duly sensitive’ to these possibilities in his philosophical practice (ibid.: 81).
81.
Ibid.: 82.
82.
Grondin, J. 1994. Der Sinn für Hermeneutik, 57. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
83.
McDowell, J. 1996. Mind and World, 79. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
84.
Ibid.
85.
Cf. his programmatic statement in the discussion with Habermas: ‘Woran sonst sollte sich auch die theoretische Besinnung auf das Verstehen anschließen als an die Rhetorik, die von ältester T[r]adition her der einzige Anwalt eines Wahrheitsanspruches ist, der das Wahrscheinliche, das eikos (verisimile), und das der gemeinen Vernunft Einleuchtende gegen den Beweis- und Gewißheitsanspruch der Wissenschaft verteidigt? Überzeugen und Einleuchten, ohne eines Beweises fähig zu sein, ist offenbar ebenso sehr das Ziel und Maß des Verstehens und Auslegens wie der Rede- und Überredungskunst […]’ (Gadamer, H.-G. 1999. Rhetorik, Hermeneutik und Ideologiekritik. Metakritische Erörterungen zur Wahrheit und Methode [1967]. In Gesammelte Werke 2, 236. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck)).
86.
Gadamer, H.-G. 2004. Truth and Method, 309–321; 355–363. London and New York: Continuum; Gadamer, H.-G. 1990. Wahrheit und Methode, 317–329; 368–375. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck).
87.
This is the diagnosis suggested by Robert Pippin. Pippin, R. 2002. Gadamer’s Hegel. In Gadamer’s Century, ed. Malpas, J. et al., 217–238. Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press.

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Department of Politics, Management and Philosophy, Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark
Morten S. Thaning

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Thaning, M.S. (2015). The Socratic Paradigm of Objectivity. In: The Problem of Objectivity in Gadamer's Hermeneutics in Light of McDowell's Empiricism. Contributions to Hermeneutics, vol 1. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18648-1_3

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