Gadamer and Wittgenstein on the Unity of Language: Reality and Discourse without Metaphysics 0754609693, 9780754609698, 2004005958

Table of contents :
Cover
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 Prejudices as Conditions of Understanding
Practical Difficulties with Gadamer's Use of 'Prejudice'
The Source of Gadamer's Peculiar Use of 'Prejudice'
A Technical Understanding of 'Prejudice'
Understanding as a Process
2 Historicity: Limit or Limitation?
'Universal History' as a Task
The Unity of History as an 'Experience'
The Epistemological Problem of Historicity
'Overcoming' the Epistemological Problem
3 Universal Hermeneutics
Gadamer's Path to Language
Gadamer's Theory of the Unity of Language
Theory and Phronesis
An Assessment of Gadamer's Theory
Human Experience as Openness
The World-in-Itself
The Game Analogy
4 Wittgenstein's Tractatus and the Unity of a Calculus
The Sense of the Tractatus
The Problem of Posing Philosophical Problems
Language as a Calculus
Difficulties with the Unity of a Calculus
5 Rush Rhees and the Unity of a Life
Wittgenstein's Language Game Analogy
The Contrast Between Gadamer and Rhees
Language and Life
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

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GADAMER AND WITTGENSTEIN ON THE UNITY OF LANGUAGE In this innovative comparison of Gadamer and Wittgenstein, the author explores their common concern with the relation of language to reality. Partrick Horn’s starting point is the widely accepted view that both philosophers rejected a certain metaphysical account of that relation in which reality determines the nature of language. Horn proceeds to argue that Gadamer never completely escaped metaphysical assumptions in his search for the unity of language. In this respect, argues Horn, Gadamer’s work is nearer to the earlier rather than to the later Wittgenstein. The final chapter of the book highlights the work of Wittgenstein’s pupil Rush Rhees, who shows that Wittgenstein’s own later emphasis on language games, while doing justice to the variety of language, does less than justice to the dialogical relation between speakers of a language, wherein the unity of language resides. Contrasting Rhees’s account of the unity of language with those given by Gadamer and the early Wittgenstein brings out the importance of understanding reality in terms of the life that people share rather than in terms of what philosophers say about reality.

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ASHGATE WITTGENSTEINIAN STUDIES Series editors: D.Z. Phillips, Danforth Professor of Philosophy of Religion, Claremont Graduate University, USA and Professor of Philosophy Emeritus and Rush Rhees Professor Emeritus, University of Wales, Swansea, UK Ludwig Wittgenstein was one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century, his work leading to a variety of differing readings which in turn had a diverse influence on contemporary philosophy. As well as exploring the more familiar Wittgensteinian themes in the philosophy of language, this series will be a centre of excellence for Wittgensteinian studies in mathematics, aesthetics, religion and philosophy of the mind. Wittgenstein’s philosophy has proved extremely fruitful in many contexts and this series will publish not only a variety of readings of Wittgenstein’s work, but also work on philosophers and philosophical topics inspired by Wittgensteinian perspectives.

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Gadamer and Wittgenstein on the Unity of Language Reality and Discourse without Metaphysics

PATRICK ROGERS HORN Claremont Graduate University, USA

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First published 2005 by Ashgate Publishing Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © Patrick Rogers Horn 2005 Patrick Rogers Horn has asserted his moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Horn, Patrick Rogers Gadamer and Wittgenstein on the unity of language : reality and discourse without metaphysics. – (Ashgate Wittgensteinian studies) 1. Gadamer, Hans Georg, 1900–2002 2. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 1889–1951. Tractatus logico-philosophicus 3. Language and languages – Philosophy 4. Phenomenology I. Title 149.9'4 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Horn, Patrick Rogers, 1964– Gadamer and Wittgenstein on the unity of language : reality and discourse without metaphysics / Patrick Rogers Horn. p. cm.—(Ashgate Wittgensteinian studies) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 0-7546-0969-3 (alk. paper) 1. Gadamer, Hans Georg, 1900–2002 2. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 1889–1951. Tractatus logico-philosophicus. 3.Language and languages—Philosophy. I. Title. II. Series. B3248.G34H67 2004 121'.68'0922—dc22 ISBN 13 : 978-0-7546-0969-8 ( hbk)

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To Maura

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Contents

Acknowledgements

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Introduction

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1

Prejudices as Conditions of Understanding Practical Difficulties with Gadamer’s Use of ‘Prejudice’ The Source of Gadamer’s Peculiar Use of ‘Prejudice’ A Technical Understanding of ‘Prejudice’ Understanding as a Process

5 7 11 14 19

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Historicity: Limit or Limitation? ‘Universal History’ as a Task The Unity of History as an ‘Experience’ The Epistemological Problem of Historicity ‘Overcoming’ the Epistemological Problem

31 32 36 39 45

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Universal Hermeneutics Gadamer’s Path to Language Gadamer’s Theory of the Unity of Language Theory and Phronesis An Assessment of Gadamer’s Theory Human Experience as Openness The World-in-Itself The Game Analogy

55 56 58 63 65 66 72 73

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Wittgenstein’s Tractatus and the Unity of a Calculus The Sense of the Tractatus The Problem of Posing Philosophical Problems Language as a Calculus Difficulties with the Unity of a Calculus

81 82 87 98 104

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Rush Rhees and the Unity of a Life Wittgenstein’s Language Game Analogy The Contrast Between Gadamer and Rhees Language and Life

111 111 120 128

Bibliography Index

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Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge the following that have given permission for the use of copyright material: The Continuum International Publishing Group for the extracts from Truth and Method by Hans-Georg Gadamer, 2nd edn, 2nd rev. edn, 1989, published by the Crossroad Publishing Company; D.Z. Phillips for the extracts from Wittgenstein and the Possibility of Discourse by Rush Rhees, edited by D.Z. Phillips, 1998, published by Cambridge University Press; Thomson Publishing Services for the extracts from Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1961, published by Routledge & Kegan Paul. I am also grateful to many people who assisted me throughout this project. As a doctoral student I began research into the question of whether Gadamer and Wittgenstein were interested in the same issues. The research became a dissertation and a lot of that material survives in this work. I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to D.Z. Phillips of Claremont Graduate University, who served as my dissertation supervisor and provided me with advice and counsel up through the completion of the present work. It is the sort of debt that I could only begin to repay by offering whatever services I might be able to render to my students and colleagues. To that end Professor Phillips serves as an exceptional model for me to follow. I would also like to thank the other three members of my dissertation committee: Professor Al Louch (Claremont Graduate University, retired), Professor Stephen Erickson (Pomona College), and Professor Dan Stiver (Logsdon School of Theology). As a student at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary I began a discussion with Professor Stiver about Gadamer. We continued that discussion for many years and I am grateful to him for the numerous ways in which he stimulated my thinking. In my years as a student at both Southern Seminary and Claremont Graduate University I was aided in my research by many discussions with fellow classmates. I am particularly grateful to Charles Hawkins and Brian Birch. Professor Birch read and helpfully commented on every chapter of my dissertation. More recently, I have incurred debts of gratitude to my colleagues and students at Claremont Graduate University. Robert Bolger was particularly helpful in the writing of Chapter 4 on Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. Hyun Kim helped me to organize Chapters 4 and 5 when I struggled with how to do that. Betty Clements proofread the entire work, which means that the current version is immensely better than it was before she gave it her attention. Karen Torjesen, dean of the School of Religion at Claremont Graduate University, was both friend and supportive administrator throughout my attempts to finish this work. All of these, and others besides, should be credited if this work has any scholarly merit. My deepest debt of gratitude, and the dedication of this book, is to my wife Maura. ix

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The value of this book to me can be seen in the life that I share with her and our son, Ian. Patrick Rogers Horn Claremont, California

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Introduction The days are long past when analytic philosophers could deride their continental counterparts as not worthy of serious attention. No doubt one can point to poor work in the continental tradition, but one can do the same in the analytic context. But one can no longer simply say that the continental emphasis on ‘being’ can be dismissed as a confused reification of a verb! The interest in ‘being’ is simply the concern with the nature of reality without which philosophy could hardly be itself. Central to this concern with reality is the question of whether we, as human beings, can be in contact with it. In this book I engage three philosophers who, I believe, have made remarkable contributions to the discussion of this question: Hans-Georg Gadamer, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Rush Rhees. On raising the question of the relation of language to reality, we might think that the most natural way of securing the issue is to show that there is a correspondence between language and reality. After all, it will be said, language is one thing, while the world is quite another. Thus the words ‘Mt McKinley’ are clearly not the same as the mountain to which they refer. If we go climbing, it is the mountain we climb, not the words! Who could deny that? And yet our understanding of the words ‘Mt McKinley’ includes grasping that we are talking about a mountain, that mountains are climbed, and so on. That is part of the reality our words have. So we are still faced with the task of showing how that reality involves a conception of the world. In the first three chapters of the book I discuss Gadamer’s instructive attempt at coming to terms with these issues. Gadamer, by concentrating on the nature of understanding in history and the social sciences, exposes the simplistic model of a correspondence between our words and the things to which they are supposed to refer. He shows that in our language we have the very conditions of our understanding of the world, such that there can be no simple correspondence between those conditions and the world. As I show in the first chapter, difficulties arise from Gadamer’s discussion of these conditions of understanding as ‘prejudices’. Clearly he is not using this term in its usual pejorative sense. Yet he does not succeed in freeing his use of the term from that sense. By ‘prejudice’ Gadamer means the interpretive preconceptions involved in our experience of the world. It is a use taken from Heidegger’s Being and Time, but it is not without difficulties of its own. Gadamer, in speaking of conditions of understanding internal to language, wants to bridge the skeptical gap between us and the world. But by talking about these conditions as ‘interpretations’ he opens up again the very skeptical gap he wanted to avoid. How do we know that our ‘interpretations’ do justice to reality? In the second chapter I show how Gadamer’s problems are related to what he calls ‘the historicity’ of our situation. At times he seems to be making the point that our 1

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understanding, rooted as it is in time and place, is the form taken by our engagement with the world. To try to drive a wedge between the form of the engagement and the world is a confusion. At other times, however, Gadamer argues that our historicity is an inevitable limitation in our engagement with the world, an engagement which, as a result, can never be complete and is open to unlimited revision. Here a radical skepticism seems to reassert itself. Furthermore, the insistence on an ever-present possibility of revision does not seem to do justice to our ordinary experience. In the third chapter I discuss Gadamer’s attempt to resolve these tensions. On the one hand, Gadamer wants to emphasize ‘the play of language’, which is independent of us. We are drawn into it by being born at a certain time and place. We are drawn into certain horizons of meaning. On the other hand, there are many such horizons and they are not given once and for all. They endeavor to understand and incorporate each other. For Gadamer this is a response to ‘Being’ itself, which never ends. It is not an approximation to something independent of language (Gadamer’s opposition to a correspondence theory of language and reality), but yet is not captured entirely by what is understood at any given time. I discuss to what extent this latter emphasis reintroduces the notion of correspondence between language and the thing (the world), which Gadamer wants to avoid. Many commentators have wanted to compare Gadamer’s hermeneutics with the work of the post-Tractatus Wittgenstein. Gadamer himself thought that there are grounds for comparison. The tensions in Gadamer which I have discussed, however, bear a greater resemblance to the difficulties that Wittgenstein grappled with in the Tractatus rather than to his work in the Investigations. That is why my fourth chapter concentrates on the Tractatus. Wittgenstein, by elucidating the logic of propositions, hoped to show that the metaphysical gap between language and the world is a confused one. Yet his very elucidation attributes to language the kind of unity which belongs to a calculus. Wittgenstein argued that language shares this logic with the world. In this way, like Gadamer, Wittgenstein falls into the trap of trying to show an epistemological correspondence between language and a metaphysical reality called ‘the world’. In my final chapter I turn to Wittgenstein’s use of the analogy between language and games, an analogy meant to show us that speaking is not one thing and hence that there can be no single account of the kind of reality language has. I argue that the emphasis on different language games does not do justice to the ways in which we speak to each other and to the growth in understanding which may occur thereby. It is the achievement of Rush Rhees to point this out in his important extension of Wittgenstein’s work. For Rhees, the unity of language is shown in the fact that if our language games were logically complete in themselves, they would not be instances of language at all. The various contexts in which we speak bear on each other in innumerable ways. But these ways are not related to each other as parts of a calculus are (the model of the Tractatus), nor do they represent, as Gadamer thinks, a common ground, uniting all who talk to each other. Our conversations involve misunderstandings as well as understandings, distances as well as proximities. Through a discussion of Rhees’s notion of the unity of language I show that unlike the early Wittgenstein and Gadamer, Rhees is not engaged in an attempt to get us to see the world aright – a vision to be prescribed by philosophy. Rhees’s discussions show how a realization of what philosophy cannot do in this respect both avoids

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relativism and formulates a disinterested philosophical contemplation of the world. The approach taken in this work will prove frustrating to those who wish philosophy to measure what is said against a universal reality that must be shared by all. However, philosophy is unable to support the weight of such an assumption. Understanding what is said means seeing its relation to the reality in which it is said. This establishes neither the existence of several realities, nor one reality, nor even the lack of reality. The philosophical issue concerns seeing what reality comes to in the life which people share together. It is not a matter of establishing the nature of a universal reality in which all concepts can be understood, compared, and contrasted. If indeed we can speak of a unity in this context, and I believe that Rhees shows that we can, it is not the type of unity which will answer ambitious questions about the nature of reality. Rather, the unity of language answers questions about what it means for language to be spoken and understood across a wide variety of contexts; that is, that in these various contexts people are saying something. In these answers, we discover the need for philosophy to cease its endless offerings of metaphysical paradigms and see the reality in what is said.

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Prejudices as Conditions of Understanding Gadamer uses the notion of prejudices as conditions of understanding both to explain why we must reject the search for an extra-linguistic reality and as a way to account for the unity of language. The notion is the central claim of his philosophical hermeneutics: ‘It is not so much our judgments as it is our prejudices that constitute our being. … They are simply conditions whereby we experience something – whereby what we encounter says something to us’ (Gadamer, 1976a, p. 9). Under normal circumstances, this claim would evoke puzzlement, incredulity and/or resistance. We usually think of prejudices as beliefs or ideas that should be overcome or abandoned because they lack a rational foundation. It seems odd to link a term that connotes a lack of understanding with the very conditions by which we understand and evaluate. If we think of our conditions of understanding as the context in which understanding has its sense, trying to conceive of another context that understands these conditions as prejudices is a bewildering proposition. Gadamer is clearly using ‘prejudice’ in an unusual sense. The conditions of understanding are not prejudices by virtue of another context which evaluates them as such; they are prejudices by virtue of the human situation. Our conditions of understanding are necessarily limited in scope, unable to encompass every aspect of every issue. This fact reveals that our initial orientation to experience and understanding is not impartial or disinterested. And yet Gadamer does not intend this to be a pessimistic assessment of human understanding. Prejudices, in this unusual sense, do not hold the negative connotations that are ordinarily ascribed to them. They are, strictly speaking, judgments made before all the facts and elements have been considered. Furthermore, making judgments before considering all the facts is said to constitute the human situation, and thus characterizes the nature of human understanding. Therefore our conditions of understanding are prejudices in the sense that we do not arrive at these conditions after a consideration of all the facts; we simply find ourselves already living under these conditions. I have only scratched the surface of Gadamer’s notion of ‘prejudice’. Before offering a more in-depth consideration and a critical analysis, let us consider what led Gadamer to this conception of the conditions of understanding as prejudices. It begins with his belief that there is a crisis in the Geisteswissenschaften, the humanities. He fears that scholarly activity in the humanities has been limited and reduced to the inductive method that is modeled on the natural sciences, that is, reasoning from particular facts to a general conclusion. Truth and understanding, according to Gadamer, are illegitimately restricted to this methodological means. He does not mean to imply that all uses of scientific method are confused; rather, he is taking aim at a particular way of thinking about and using the scientific method of induction. John Stuart Mill’s Logic illustrates this distorted use of method. Mill holds 5

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that the inductive method is the only method valid for scholarly work. Just as we have done in the natural sciences, the humanities ought to establish patterns which would make it possible to predict individual phenomena and processes. The more complete our knowledge of the facts, the more certain are our predictions. A scale of regularity determines what is true in a science of society. Gadamer’s problem with this sort of ‘science’ is that it distorts the nature of research in the humanities: The individual case does not serve only to confirm a law from which practical predictions can be made. Its ideal is rather to understand the phenomenon itself in its unique and historical concreteness. … [The aim is] to understand how this man, this people, or this state is what it has become or, more generally, how it happened that it is so. (Gadamer, 1989, pp. 4–5)

Thus Gadamer seeks a philosophical legitimation of scholarly work that does not restrict itself to the inductive method. His motivation is to show that the inductive method is not the only way to arrive at truths that are valid, certain, and scientific. The fundamental claim is that the humanities are on a ‘scientific par’ with the natural sciences. In other words, our certainty about truths in the humanities is as legitimate as our certainty about truths accounted for in the natural sciences. Gadamer participates in this tradition of attempts to philosophically legitimize the work done in the humanities; that is, to show that it has as much, if not more, scholarly validity than the work conducted in the natural sciences. As noted, his quest begins with the rejection of scientific methodology as the final arbiter of reality. When truth and reality are limited only to what can be determined by the inductive method, truths discussed in the humanities become distorted. For example, a historian uses data and arrives at truths in a completely different manner from the scientist. The legitimation of truths discussed in the humanities consequently must come from outside the natural sciences. Gadamer, in the introduction to Truth and Method, characterizes his own effort to seek the legitimation of truths beyond the limits of scientific method: Just as in the experience of art we are concerned with truths that go essentially beyond the range of methodical knowledge, so the same thing is true of the whole of the human sciences [Geisteswissenschaften]: in them our historical tradition in all its forms is certainly made the object of investigation, but at the same time truth comes to speech in it. (Gadamer, 1989, p. xxiii)

Thus Gadamer admits that historical traditions are objects of investigation, but he argues that it is from within a historical tradition that values arise and prejudices are formed. In that case, the object of investigation is also the source for the motivations of the investigator. Historical traditions are ill-suited for the scientific method because the scientific method assumes that the investigator is neither a concurrent component of the object of investigation nor prejudiced in any way towards the object. Gadamer argues for an alternative approach to that required by researchers like Mill. While Mill excludes prejudices, Gadamer charges that such a restraint on knowledge distorts the objects of research and is the result of a deep-seated bias, a bias against the inescapable influence of prejudices. In other words, the purveyors of scientific method rail against prejudices while disguising their own prejudice for the

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inductive method as an unquestioned prerequisite to knowledge. They succeed only in a pretension to objectivity. Thus the tradition of Mill is said to nurture a prejudice against all prejudices. In opposition to this tradition Gadamer offers a conception of knowledge and understanding that takes into account his contention that all our understanding inevitably involves prejudice. As already noted, Gadamer uses the term ‘prejudice’ in a very unusual sense. The real meaning is said to lie in an earlier usage that is no longer recognized: ‘The history of ideas shows that not until the Enlightenment does the concept of prejudice acquire the negative connotation familiar today. Actually “prejudice” means a judgment that is rendered before all the elements that determine a situation have been finally examined’ (Gadamer, 1989, p. 270). For Gadamer, a prejudice is not necessarily an illegitimate basis for judgments. While ordinary use suggests that one has unfairly assessed the object of discussion Gadamer’s use suggests that all assessments inevitably involve prejudice. Prejudices, in this unusual sense, are the preconceptions that are supposed to make up the entire structure of human preunderstanding. In Kantian language, Gadamer’s prejudices are the conditions for the possibility of understanding, not necessarily the false basis of a judgment. He intends to reform the ordinary concept by retracing its demise during the Enlightenment when the concept acquired this negative connotation. Prior to the Enlightenment, according to Gadamer, ‘prejudice’ was a legal term indicating a verdict before a final and methodical examination is made. He wants to replace the negative connotations with the idea that a prejudice could be good or bad, depending on whether it is confirmed as true or false. Thus a prejudice is a preunderstanding; that is, it serves as a basis for our understanding. As such, it has not yet been subjected to examination, but it nonetheless holds the possibility for understanding and is thus not to be denigrated. Practical Difficulties with Gadamer’s Use of ‘Prejudice’ The initial criticism is that Gadamer’s use of ‘prejudice’ in this unusual way leads to practical difficulties in the words that we use. This is the seemingly tedious and yet potentially devastating criticism that asks how we are to distinguish between the current, ordinary use of prejudice and Gadamer’s reformed usage. Even if we grant that Gadamer is using the term in an exceptional sense in order to make a philosophical point about the conditions of understanding, his use has connotations which are completely opposite to those ordinarily associated with its usage. The natural inclination is to use the word in its negative, ordinary sense, as Gadamer apparently does on at least one occasion. In the last paragraph of Truth and Method he says that ‘there is undoubtedly no understanding that is free of all prejudices, however much the will of our knowledge must be directed toward escaping their thrall’ (Gadamer, 1989, p. 490). In this particular passage it would seem that we are to try to escape prejudices. However, if prejudices hold the positive possibility of knowing, why would we want to escape them? Gadamer must mean prejudice in its usual negative sense. In that case, his use of prejudice is contradictory and unclear. We are to struggle against prejudices while recognizing that they make understanding possible. In this instance he fails to use the word in its revised sense, which shows the mundane confusion that can result from attempts to reform a word. If Gadamer

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himself has difficulty consistently employing his reformed use of prejudice, imagine the difficulties that the rest of us will encounter. The problem does not lie simply in the unusual use of a word. Words are often used in novel and creative ways to elucidate a particular problem or perspective. The problem lies in Gadamer’s attempt to reform a word. He denies the validity of the current usage, and calls for an employment that has completely opposite connotations from the ones that it has in ordinary usage. This creates all sorts of practical difficulties. How do we distinguish what we ordinarily call prejudiced from what we ordinarily call unprejudiced? Put in another way: If prejudice is present in every understanding, what do we call those understandings that are ordinarily called prejudiced? We normally distinguish the prejudiced from the unprejudiced. Does the ordinary use of ‘unprejudiced’ drop out as well? Is there now no such thing as an unprejudiced understanding, in its ordinary sense? For example, the ordinary use suggests some standard that would show a view, a comment, or an action to be a prejudiced one. In ordinary cases we should be able to say, ‘We seek an unprejudiced approach.’ We cannot do this with Gadamer’s use of the term because all our views about all subjects are prejudiced. In his reformation the term loses its ordinary capacity to distinguish one view from another. Thus he relegates the ordinary term to an impotent status and leaves no place in our vocabulary for the ordinary use of ‘unprejudiced’. Perhaps Gadamer can clear up these practical difficulties by showing how his positive, reformed notion is related to the negative, ordinary one. Earlier we noted that, on at least one occasion, Gadamer slipped back into an ordinary use of prejudice. Does this mean that there are both legitimate and illegitimate prejudices? Consider these remarks in which Gadamer uses the term ‘fore-meanings’ as a substitute for his concept of ‘prejudices’: Understanding realizes its full potential only when the fore-meanings that it begins with are not arbitrary. Thus it is quite right for the interpreter not to approach the text directly, relying solely on the fore-meaning already available to him, but rather explicitly to examine the legitimacy – i.e., the origin and validity – of the fore-meanings dwelling within him. … The important thing is to be aware of one’s own bias, so that the text can present itself in all its otherness and thus assert its own truth against one’s own fore-meanings. (Gadamer, 1989, pp. 267 and 269)

Since the fore-meanings, or prejudices, both make possible and manipulate the meaning that emerges from the text, it is important that the process of understanding includes some means of legitimizing the prejudices that are used to understand the text. Otherwise Gadamer fears that the meaning that one gleans from the text after reading it may be indistinguishable from the ideas and pictures that one had before reading it, in which case no understanding of the text has taken place. Gadamer’s essential quest is to describe the process by which our prejudices are legitimized whenever we understand something. Thus he does not deny that a person trying to understand may have prejudices in the ordinary sense which get in the way of the truth. His argument seems to be that a prejudice can either get in the way of truth or make possible an understanding of truth. The task is to abandon the former and legitimize the latter. This is where Gadamer’s concept of prejudice has some relation to the ordinary concept. He is trying to bring to our attention that a condition of

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understanding has the same epistemological status as an ordinary prejudice. In other words, just as a prejudice is a judgment that is made before all the facts and elements are known, a condition of understanding is operative before considering all the facts and elements of the issue at hand. Conditions of understanding, consequently, cannot be legitimized by means of an inductive methodology. Their legitimation must occur in the process itself, the process of understanding. In spite of the practical difficulties with his attempt to reform a word, Gadamer successfully and rightly focuses our attention on one aspect of the nature of the conditions of understanding: understanding is not simply a matter of considering all the facts. Now we are faced with another practical puzzle. How do we make sense of the distinction between a legitimate and an illegitimate prejudice? Consider an ordinary example. Suppose there is a common stereotype of people who live on the north side of town. It is said that they are lazy and dishonest. Forty dollars is missing from the petty cash drawer in an office of fifteen people. Jim, a Southsider, suspects Walter for no other reason than the fact that Walter is from the north side of town. We would ordinarily say that Jim is prejudiced in the matter. Gadamer would have us think that in the process of understanding, Jim will come to see whether his prejudice is a legitimate or illegitimate one. But suppose the evidence mounts against Walter until he finally confesses. Do we say that Jim’s prejudice is now confirmed, that indeed it is a ‘legitimate’ prejudice? Suppose that the evidence shows that Walter could not have taken the money. Do we say that Jim’s prejudice is now disproved and found illegitimate? Prejudices are ordinarily neither proved nor disproved; rather, a person is said to hold a prejudice precisely because they have given insufficient attention to proof or evidence in the matter. Gadamer wants to use the term to mean the conditions for the possibility of understanding because, like ordinary prejudices, these conditions are employed without worrying about whether the facts have been confirmed or not. His point is that a person who makes a judgment based on a prejudice does not worry with a consideration of all the facts. That much we can see. However, he also wants to speak of legitimate and illegitimate prejudices. This is much more difficult to see. We do not ordinarily speak of true and legitimate, or false and illegitimate, prejudices because it is the very nature of prejudices that they are improper foundations for judgments. It is often after a false judgment that we realize that our judgment was based on a prejudice and therefore not a legitimate judgment. In the example above, if Walter is found innocent, Jim might realize that he falsely accused Walter because of a prejudice. It would be senseless to say that his prejudice was illegitimate, or false, but we certainly might say that his prejudice led him to a false judgment. Nevertheless, even if Walter is found guilty, we do not ordinarily say that the outcome confirms the legitimacy of Jim’s prejudice. In ordinary usage prejudices are illegitimate grounds for any judgment, regardless of whether the judgment is true or false. Now it looks as if Gadamer wants to do more than just focus our attention on the epistemological status of conditions of understanding. He wants to speak of a process that legitimates those conditions. This is why he is compelled to initiate a reformation of a term. If he consistently employed the ordinary usage that a prejudice is necessarily illegitimate, then his thesis would mean that our conditions of understanding are illegitimate. Therefore, his reformation must insist that not all prejudices are illegitimate. This also commits him to some sort of means by which legitimate

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conditions of understanding are distinguished from illegitimate ones. Gadamer is, indeed, ‘a long way from our current use of the word’ (Gadamer, 1989, p. 270). John Connolly and Thomas Keutner defend Gadamer against the charge that his use of prejudice flies in the face of ordinary usage. They maintain that even a negative prejudice can enable us to understand by showing our commonality with the text (Connolly and Keutner, 1988, p. 31). In other words, prejudices are said to have the so-called positive consequence of helping us to identify a common subject of discussion, though our view of that subject is somewhat distorted. Connolly and Keutner defend this use of prejudice with an example borrowed from Gadamer (Connolly and Keutner, 1988, p. 31).1 In one of Rilke’s poems, reference is made to angels, but not in the sense of the familiar angels of Judeo-Christian theology. Our ‘prejudiced’ view of angels is said to come from that tradition. The Rilke example is supposed to show that a prejudice is positive because it can get us to see that the text is about something familiar, though not completely familiar. But such a response misses the point of my criticism. The point is that no one ordinarily speaks of prejudices having a positive sense. A philosopher’s declaration cannot change this fact. The response of Connolly and Keutner does nothing to address the confusion that results from the reformed use of the word. If we are able to see that Rilke’s text is about something familiar, we would ordinarily say that it is because we know what an angel is in Judeo-Christian theology, not because we have a prejudice about angels. To say that Rilke’s angels are familiar because we have a prejudice about angels makes it sound as if we have an illegitimate, or distorted, view of angels, regardless of whether that was the intention. This defense cannot clear up the sense in which a prejudice is said to be a distortion of the subject. In ordinary usage prejudiced views are distortions that can be distinguished from unprejudiced views; in Gadamer’s usage all views are prejudiced and may or may not be distortions of the subject. It is difficult to see how this distinction between legitimate and illegitimate prejudices elucidates conditions of understanding. Gadamer seemed to be using ‘prejudice’ as a way to focus our attention on the epistemological status of conditions of understanding; that is, that the conditions which make understanding possible are themselves not the result of a methodological consideration of all the facts. However, the attempt to distinguish legitimate and illegitimate prejudices makes it sound as if genuine conditions of understanding must, despite Gadamer’s claim to the contrary, entail some sort of reflection on the facts. An irresolvable tension has developed in Gadamer’s attempt to reform a word. On the one hand, he wants to emphasize that our conditions of understanding are not the result of reflective consideration, a brilliant insight that counters those who wish to secure an epistemological justification of knowledge. On the other hand, he wants to leave room for a process by which genuine conditions of understanding are distinguished from false ones. This latter emphasis forces him to argue for the reformation of a word and propels him back into the search for an epistemological justification of knowledge. Gadamer’s call for a rehabilitation of ‘prejudice’ is nothing short of a call to completely change the meaning and use of the word. He is not simply using a word in a creative way; he wants to change the meaning that it has for us. In fact, as we shall see in the next section, his ‘prejudice’ is a technical term that lacks a home in ordinary discourse. He tried to avoid this trap by giving its linguistic history and harking back

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to an earlier usage. In this earlier usage, a prejudice was a preliminary legal judgment, without either positive or negative connotations. But of course this early use of prejudice did not entail that all our views are prejudiced, as Gadamer maintains. The earlier usage was predicated on the possibility of a legal judgment after considering the facts of the case; that is, there were also judgments that were considered unprejudiced. It is clear that his use of the term is not like its ordinary employment in either the pre-Enlightenment or post-Enlightenment eras. This creates practical puzzles that cannot be solved. The essential point is that Vorurteil (prejudice) loses its ordinary meaning without some conception of vorurteilslosigkeit, knowing what it would mean to be free from prejudice, not in any illusive sense, but in the ordinary way that we speak of an unprejudiced view. In contrast to this ordinary usage, Gadamer says that the idea that our judgments could be free from prejudice is nonsense. He fails to appreciate that the ordinary use of prejudice does not trade on an illusion of some superhuman state of absolute perfection. Where ‘unprejudiced’ is used to indicate some superhuman view, then it is nonsense. But the ordinary use does not require a superhuman view. It serves to distinguish between judgments that are not based on sufficient evidence and judgments that are based on sufficient evidence. It is Gadamer who trades on an illusive use by claiming that all our judgments are prejudiced. For if all our views are prejudiced, then none of them are prejudiced. The sense of the word depends upon a notion of what it means to be unprejudiced. Without this distinction, ‘prejudice’ becomes a confused and meaningless term. The Source of Gadamer’s Peculiar Use of ‘Prejudice’ We have discussed some of the practical puzzles that arise in Gadamer’s attempt to reform the ordinary use of ‘prejudice’. It is difficult to see how this reformation could lead to anything other than confusion. But suppose for the moment that we set aside those difficulties and consider in more depth what drives Gadamer to initiate this project. In the previous section, I quoted a passage in which he used the term ‘foremeaning’ (Vormeinung) in the same way that he uses ‘prejudice’ (Vorurteil). The term ‘fore-meaning’ comes from Heidegger’s Being and Time (1962, p. 192).2 A closer look at the German helps us to understand why Gadamer would use ‘fore-meaning’ interchangeably with ‘prejudice’. Both German words begin with the preposition vor (‘before’), and Meinung (‘meaning’) is usually translated as ‘opinion’. If one thinks of a fore-meaning as an opinion that comes before a careful consideration of the issue, then the leap to ‘prejudice’ is not so implausible. Furthermore, while Vormeinung does not occur in ordinary German usage, ‘vorgefaßte Meinung’ does, and is another way of saying ‘prejudice,’ or ‘preconceived idea’. Thus, in Truth and Method, Gadamer introduces the rationale for his peculiar use of prejudice with a long discussion of Heidegger’s ‘fore-structure of understanding.’ Heidegger intentionally uses terms that do not occur in ordinary German usage. His purpose in this is to draw our attention to the a priori conditions which lie in advance of any understanding. These conditions are not like ordinary opinions or prejudices. They are not readily judged as are opinions and prejudices. Therefore, Heidegger employs technical terminology rather than ordinary language:

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Gadamer and Wittgenstein on the Unity of Language If, when one is engaged in a particular concrete kind of interpretation, in the sense of exact textual Interpretation, one likes to appeal (beruft) to what ‘stands there’, then one finds that what ‘stands there’ in the first instance is nothing other than the obvious undiscussed assumption (Vormeinung) of the person who does the interpreting. In an interpretative approach there lies such an assumption, as that which has been ‘taken for granted’ (‘gesetzt’) with the interpretation as such – that is to say, as that which has been presented in our fore-having [Vorhabe], our fore-sight [Vorsicht], and our fore-conception [Vorgriff]. (Heidegger, 1962, p. 192)3

Heidegger uses the technical term Vormeinung (fore-meaning) rather than the ordinary term Vorurteil (prejudice) because the ordinary notion of ‘prejudice,’ or ‘preconceived idea,’ would have suggested connotations that Heidegger wished to avoid, namely the idea that a priori conditions are illegitimate and readily susceptible to judgment. Gadamer thought that he could easily slide from Heidegger’s technical term, Vormeinung (fore-meaning), to the ordinary term Vorurteil (prejudice), as it was used in pre-Enlightenment Europe. However, we have already noted that Gadamer’s ‘prejudice’ is not the same as the pre-Enlightenment Vorurteil. PreEnlightenment usage did not entail that all our views are prejudiced. The true source of Gadamer’s unusual term is therefore Heidegger, not the pre-Enlightenment era. But ironically, the substitution of ‘prejudice’ for Heidegger’s ‘fore-meaning’ takes the reader away from the very thing that Heidegger wished to emphasize, the peculiar nature of a priori conditions of understanding. Gadamer tries to give expression to this peculiarity in an ordinary word. Yet, as he recognizes, such an attempt requires the extraordinary reformation of that word. In current usage, prejudice does not have the meaning that Gadamer thinks it should have. His use of the word is more closely related to Heidegger’s ‘fore-meaning’, the sort of technical term whose usage Gadamer would normally oppose: A technical term is always somewhat artificial insofar as either the word itself is artificially formed or – as is more frequent – a word already in use has the variety and breadth of its meanings excised and is assigned only one particular conceptual meaning. … Using a word as a technical term is an act of violence against language. (1989, pp. 414–15)

Perhaps Gadamer thought that by reclaiming the early use of prejudice, a common, ordinary term that could have either a positive or a negative value, he would avoid this act of violence. The failure of that retrieval means that Gadamer’s term is actually a technical one and leaves us with one route to understanding his peculiar use of prejudice: Heidegger’s technical terminology in Being and Time. Gadamer’s favorite context for discussing his thesis is the interpretation of texts. Here he spells out the hermeneutic process while noting the contribution of Heidegger: A person who is trying to understand a text is always projecting. He projects a meaning for the text as a whole as soon as some initial meaning emerges in the text. Again, the initial meaning emerges only because he is reading the text with particular expectations in regard to a certain meaning. Working out this fore-projection, which is constantly revised in terms of what emerges as he penetrates into the meaning, is understanding what is there. … The process that Heidegger describes is that every revision of the fore-projection is capable of projecting before itself a new projection of meaning. … This constant process of new

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projection constitutes the movement of understanding and interpretation. … Working out appropriate projections, anticipatory in nature, to be confirmed ‘by the things’ themselves, is the constant task of understanding. (1989, p. 267)

Our fore-projection is the collection of ideas and pictures that we have about the issues in a text before we read it. Thus Gadamer says that we have certain expectations concerning the content of the text. These initial ideas and pictures are essential to the initial meaning that we make of the text. If we are truly trying to understand the text, Gadamer says that we will allow the meaning that emerges from the text to gradually change our initial ideas and pictures. This is what he means by ‘working out’ the fore-projection. Furthermore, this ‘working out’ is an ongoing process because the changed fore-projection, our ideas and pictures of the issues in the text, elicits other meanings from the text, which, in turn, shape our foreprojection, and so on. Understanding involves using the meaning that emerges from the text to further shape our fore-meanings. One may recognize, in this discussion, the search for the conditions for the possibility of understanding. Gadamer himself puts the matter in this Kantian way, remarking that his investigation asks, ‘How is understanding possible?’ (Gadamer, 1989, p. xxx). Gadamer’s quest to answer this question begins with observations from Heidegger. In Being and Time, Heidegger speaks of the ‘thrownness’ of human beings. By this, he means that human beings can only relate to the world and to themselves by virtue of certain socially predetermined possibilities. Our ways of living and the various choices that we make are limited by what is a social possibility for us. Born in a specific time and place, we do not choose the circumstances that determine what is possible for us. For Heidegger, this means that the range of possibilities for our lives is determined even before we are born. We are ‘thrown’ into our particular set of circumstances. The conditions for the possibility of understanding must lie in the circumstances that determine all of our possibilities. In other words, if we understand anything, it will be within and by virtue of these circumstances. Thus we are predisposed to look at things according to the circumstances that brought us to this point. Or, as Gadamer puts it, we have ‘prejudices’ that govern the way we view the things around us. This means that whenever something is understood, that understanding is founded upon something that comes before the understanding. Peter Winch makes a similar point in ‘Text and Context’, an essay concerning the study of literary texts: ‘The line of thinking that I have been sketching … implies in effect that to speak of studying a text in isolation from any context would be to speak nonsense. Outside any context whatever (if that phrase has any meaning) there would be no text to study’ (Winch, 1987, p. 24). Understanding entails an a priori structure of understanding. Heidegger explores this structure in Being and Time and labels three aspects of it. These are the technical terms mentioned above: fore-having (‘something we have in advance’), fore-sight (‘something we see in advance’) and fore-conception (‘something we grasp in advance’) (Heidegger, 1962, p. 191). The terms are not intended to be systematic divisions of the structure of understanding, but serve only to give us some idea of the structure. The essential points about this a priori structure are: 1

understanding a particular object or issue involves understanding the broader surroundings of that object or issue,

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this broader understanding is rooted in the possibilities of our relations to things, and these possibilities are determined by the circumstances into which our lives have been thrown.

By virtue of this a priori structure, what we understand is always already preapprehended by us. This means that all understanding has the logical character of a circle and does not rest on a ‘naked’ view of the object. Thus Gadamer argues that all understanding has the same epistemological status as a prejudice; it never has an unobstructed view of all the facts. Heidegger avoided the negative connotations of ordinary terms like prejudice, but he knew nonetheless, that many would take his observations to be a negative and disappointing outlook on the epistemological status of human understanding. For Heidegger and Gadamer, however, the fact that understanding has the logical character of a circle is not a disappointing discovery. On the contrary, the hermeneutic circle is prerequisite for human understanding. When historians and researchers, and others who rely exclusively on scientific method, regard Heidegger’s discovery as a loss of objectivity, a loss of scientific rigor, Gadamer claims that they misunderstand the act of understanding. For understanding, according to the philosophers of hermeneutics, is not a pure and simple apprehension of the ‘naked’ object by the subject; rather, understanding cannot take place without the preconceptions, or prejudices, that precede understanding. In short, for Gadamer there is no objectivity; there is no view without prejudices. Many questions are raised by this account of Heidegger’s description of, and Gadamer’s acceptance of, an a priori structure, questions that will be addressed in some detail in the next two chapters. For now, let us accept Gadamer’s philosophical background and consider whether this technical sense of prejudice can elucidate our conditions of understanding. A Technical Understanding of ‘Prejudice’ As a technical term, a prejudice is a condition for understanding, or in Heidegger’s language, a ‘fore-meaning,’ or ‘fore-conception’. In one crucial passage from Being and Time, Heidegger takes ‘understanding’ to be nearly synonymous with ‘interpretation’. This means that, whether we realize it or not, the a priori structure of understanding is the same as that of interpretation: The fact that when we look at something, the explicitness of assertion can be absent, does not justify our denying that there is any Articulative interpretation in such mere seeing, and hence that there is any as-structure in it. When we have to do with anything, the mere seeing of the Things which are closest to us bears in itself the structure of interpretation, and in so primordial a manner that just to grasp something free, as it were, of the ‘as’, requires a certain readjustment. When we merely stare at something, our just-having-it-before-us lies before us as a failure to understand it any more. This grasping which is free of the ‘as’, is a privation of the kind of seeing in which one merely understands. It is not more primordial than that kind of seeing, but is derived from it. If the ‘as’ is ontically unexpressed, this must not seduce us into overlooking it as a constitutive state for understanding, existential and a priori. (1962, p. 190)4

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Heidegger here draws a distinction between looking at a thing with its ordinary qualities and looking at a thing as a mere object without any qualities. The first kind of looking is, for him, more natural and thus more primordial. The second kind of looking involves a concerted effort on the part of the observer to block out the qualities of the thing. In other words, if asked to identify the objects around us, we ordinarily respond by saying, ‘That’s a pencil’, ‘That’s a computer’, and so on. It would be rather odd to respond by saying, ‘I see that thing as a pencil’, or ‘I see that object as a computer’. Heidegger’s point is that the more natural expressions, the ones used without ‘as’, are the most basic expressions of understanding. Because the ‘as’ is unexpressed, Heidegger says that we may be tempted to think that these expressions are not like interpretations; we might think that they do not have the same sort of character as interpretation. But, as a matter of fact, argues Heidegger, the most basic and primordial expressions of understanding have the same structure as interpretation. For Heidegger, however, it would be a misunderstanding of interpretation to think that it is simply a matter of assigning qualities to some purely foreign and naked object: In interpreting, we do not, so to speak, throw a ‘signification’ over some naked thing which is present-at-hand, we do not stick a value on it; but when something within-the-world is encountered as such, the thing in question already has an involvement which is disclosed in our understanding of the world, and this involvement is one which gets laid out by the interpretation. (Heidegger, 1962, pp. 190–91)

Interpretation never starts with a blank tablet. No matter what the thing in question is, we already have some sort of orientation to it. I hear a sound, for example. I’m not sure what it is, but it sounds like an early model car horn. In trying to determine what the sound is, I may consider all sorts of information. What time of day is it? Which direction did the sound come from? Could it be part of a scheduled parade? I am not at a complete and total loss about how to interpret the sound. The simple fact that I am investigating a sound, as opposed to some other object of investigation, say a strange object in the sky, provides some orientation for interpreting. This orientation to the object of interpretation is the a priori structure of interpretation, that is, the conditions for the possibility of interpreting the object. In the same way Heidegger and Gadamer claim that our orientation to an issue is the structure which constitutes the conditions for the possibility of understanding that issue. They are trying to get us to see that the relation between reality and language is not simply a matter of assigning names to nameless objects. A structure, or context, of understanding is already present, whether expressed or unexpressed, in all understanding. Therefore, if we wish to grasp the nature of understanding, we must grasp this structure of interpretation. For, as Gadamer says, ‘All understanding is interpretation’ (1989, p. 389). This claim, that all understanding is interpretation, lies at the base of Gadamer’s attempt to reform the use of prejudice. It concerns the nature of our conditions of understanding. I am interested in whether this correlation between understanding and interpretation can serve as a sort of justification for Gadamer’s technical use of ‘prejudice’. Heidegger and Gadamer want to emphasize that understanding is interpretation in the sense that it is rooted in something that is already a part of the way that we live our lives. This ‘something’ develops and is passed on to us without

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our input, and yet, gives sense to what we understand. It is there in the same logical sense that reference points are there when we make an interpretation. This ‘something’ is extraordinarily difficult to characterize, however, because it is present and operative without our reflecting upon it. In textual hermeneutics this something is a connection to the context of the text, without which a text would not be a text. In conversations this something is a connection to what is being said, so that talking is not just another noise. It is the conditions which make understanding possible. We can see that Gadamer’s ‘prejudice’, when looked at in this way, is supposed to point to the fact that our conditions of understanding determine the sense of what it is that we understand, and yet they are not conclusions that we arrive at after reflection. This is not the full extent of Gadamer’s project however. We noted earlier that the conditions of understanding are like prejudices in the ordinary sense that a prejudice is a judgment that is made without all the evidence. For Gadamer, all understanding involves prejudice because the conditions of understanding are said to be unconscious judgments which lack all the facts and elements of the issue at hand. Ironically, the sense of Gadamer’s thesis depends upon the skeptical assumption that we can never have all the evidence in any judgment. This is a crucial feature of the claim that all understanding has the structure of interpretation. It is assumed that whenever we understand, we are making an interpretation based on whatever elements are available to us, and that because our conditions of understanding are not based on a thorough review of all the elements, there may always be other elements that we do not see or understand. Thus understanding is always an interpretation, a judgment dependent upon prejudgments, whether we realize it or not. Gadamer’s claim that all understanding is interpretation moves him beyond his original observation that conditions of understanding are not subject to review and examination. Because the conditions of understanding are said to have the same character as the information that we use to make an interpretation, the philosophers of hermeneutics say that the process of understanding questions the legitimacy of those conditions. If Gadamer’s correlation between understanding and interpretation leads to questioning the legitimacy of our conditions of understanding, then there are philosophical problems with this correlation. We need to consider more closely what he intends by the claim that all understanding is interpretation. Is an understanding based on our preconditions in the same way that an interpretation is based on available information? When we interpret, we try to figure out the meaning. When we understand, in what sense did we ‘figure out’ the meaning? Are we trying to ‘figure out’ what we already understand? In what sense are we trying to ‘interpret’ its meaning? A friend writes out directions to her new house. I understand those directions. I show that I understand the directions by following them and finding her house with no trouble. If no question of interpreting the handwriting or the symbols arises, it would be very strange to say that my understanding of those directions is an interpretation that happened to be the one that helped me to arrive at my friend’s house without a hitch. Of course, a question of interpretation could arise in these circumstances, but that is not the same as saying that it always does. A simpler example illustrates the absurdity that can result when one takes all understanding to be interpretation. I see a pencil on my desk in front of me. Do I say that I ‘interpret’ what is in front of me as a pencil on my desk? It would be very odd

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for me to do so, but also quite misleading. In contrast to Gadamer’s account of understanding, consider Wittgenstein’s remarks on how we understand a phrase such as ‘living in the pages of a book’ and how reading a train schedule need not involve interpretation: What happens is not that this symbol cannot be further interpreted, but: I do no interpreting. I do not interpret, because I feel at home in the present picture. When I interpret, I step from one level of thought to another. … If I see the thought symbol ‘from outside’, I become conscious that it could be interpreted thus or thus; if it is a step in the course of my thoughts, then it is a stopping-place that is natural to me, and its further interpretability does not occupy (or trouble) me. As I have a time-table and use it without being concerned with the fact that a table is susceptible of various interpretations. (Wittgenstein, 1967, p. 43)

Wittgenstein shows that the use and understanding of an object, like a train schedule, may not involve interpretation. We may simply look at the schedule to see what time the train arrives from Los Angeles. On the other hand, we may look at the schedule and notice that someone else might interpret the schedule in a different way. The latter involves interpretation; the former involves no interpretation. In this simple example, Wittgenstein is able to provide a clear representation of understanding by maintaining the distinction between an understanding and an interpretation. But suppose Heidegger and Gadamer do not deny the sort of distinction drawn by Wittgenstein. Suppose the claim that all understanding is interpretation is intended only to draw our attention to the fact that our conditions of understanding are inadequate in a non-disparaging sense. In other words, when inadequacy is used in this context, it would be absurd and nonsensical to look for adequate conditions. That our conditions are inadequate is not a matter of debate or discussion; it is not a judgment of the human capacity to understand. Rather, it is a clue to the nature and constitution of our conditions of understanding. As Gadamer indicates, the essential matter is not one of possibility/impossibility: ‘Die eigenen Begriffe bei der Auslegung vermeiden zu wollen, ist nicht nur unmöglich, sondern offenbarer Widersinn’ [To try to escape from one’s own concepts in interpretation is not merely impossible but manifestly absurd] (1990, p. 401). The essential matter is that it is senseless to try to contrast our ‘inadequate’ conditions with ones that are ‘adequate’. ‘Inadequate’ is not meant to imply the existence of an illusion, that is, the existence of ‘adequate’ conditions of understanding; it is only meant to emphasize that conditions of understanding are not rational results. In that case, when one says that all understanding is interpretation, it brings out the fact that our conditions of understanding determine the sense of what it is that we understand, just as our preconditions of interpretation determine the nature of our interpretation. The only difference is that the conditions of understanding are not reflected upon while the object of interpretation is reflected upon. We have been able to follow a certain emphasis in Gadamer’s project: the conditions for the possibility of understanding are a priori and not subject to a careful and reasoned examination. Thus also we can see to some extent, why the conditions of understanding are characterized non-disparagingly as ‘inadequate’. Their nature is said to be ‘inadequate’ because they are not the results of a methodical and rational inquiry. That is one reason why Gadamer wants to call them prejudices. Such an analysis is grudgingly admissible as long as no attempt is made to explain their

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‘inadequacy’ by contrasting them with the illusive notion of ‘adequate’ conditions. In other words, the question of what ‘adequate’ conditions look like should not arise from this analysis. We can follow Gadamer to this point: it does not make sense to speak of the conditions of understanding as the products of a scrupulous investigation. It is much more difficult to follow the notion that our conditions of understanding, as prejudices, can be separated into legitimate and illegitimate ones. While Gadamer admits that a conscious separation is not possible, he argues nevertheless for a process in which such a separation occurs: The prejudices and fore-meanings that occupy the interpreter’s consciousness are not at his free disposal. He cannot separate in advance the productive prejudices that enable understanding from the prejudices that hinder it and lead to misunderstandings. … Rather, this separation must take place in the process of understanding itself, and hence hermeneutics must ask how that happens. (Gadamer, 1989, pp. 295–6)

It would appear that the conditions of understanding themselves have become interpretations. He holds to the original insight that they are not separated out in advance of understanding, and yet he wants to leave room for a process which can eventually dislodge conditions from their a priori status, allowing them to become objects of interpretation and understanding. The latter aspiration raises a very complex difficulty for Gadamer’s project. This is not exactly the same difficulty addressed in the previous section concerning the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate prejudices. There, the problem had to do with the fact that we do not ordinarily speak of legitimate and/or illegitimate prejudices. Here, we raise the issue of what it means to speak of legitimate and illegitimate conditions of understanding. Originally it seemed that Gadamer had wanted to emphasize the unreflective nature of our conditions of understanding; now it sounds as if he is saying that these preconditions are initially unreflective, but as the process of understanding develops they become reflective in nature and take on the character of interpretive judgments. Consider, for example, this passage from Hans Kögler, who opts to translate Vorurteile as ‘prejudgments’ rather than ‘prejudices’: That prejudgments should be made conscious as prejudgments suggests not so much that conscious judgments are to be identified as false but that the unconscious background should be brought once again into consciousness. Through the process of understanding, we again become aware of determinant ways of seeing (which we have been, as it were, blindly following) when the view expressed in a text on a particular subject matter fundamentally ‘contradicts’ our own ideas or notions. … Thus, the voice of the other is needed to call forth the silent features of the interpreting subject’s own preunderstanding. (Kögler, 1996, p. 28)

Kögler’s point, following Gadamer, is that the process of understanding involves bringing to consciousness the preconditions of our thought that have never been questioned before. When we encounter ways of living that are different from our own, we begin to see that our preconditions are actually prejudgments, that is, judgments that do not have access to all of the available evidence. Because all

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understanding is interpretation, different conditions of understanding serve different understandings of the same world. An understanding is simply one interpretation out of many. Someone else’s unconscious background may be different; they would have a different view of the same thing. When understanding is taken to be interpretation, in this way, it is difficult not to regard the conditions of understanding as interpretations that are themselves liable to evaluation. But what does it mean to subject the conditions of understanding to evaluation? Can we even make sense of trying to evaluate that which serves as the condition for all evaluation? Gadamer’s claim that all understanding is interpretation has led us into an entanglement concerning what constitutes a condition of understanding. If a condition of understanding has become an interpretation that is subject to some other standard of understanding, in what sense can we say that it is a condition of understanding? That which was said to make understanding and evaluation possible has now become subject to evaluation. When it becomes subject to review it logically cannot remain a condition of understanding. How then do Gadamer’s ‘prejudices’ retain the character of conditions of understanding in any sense? Understanding as a Process We have chronicled the practical difficulties encountered in Gadamer’s attempt to reform the ordinary use of ‘prejudice’. These difficulties were set aside in order to give closer attention to what concerns Gadamer. In doing so, we discovered that his ‘prejudice’ is actually a technical concept found in Heidegger and that it is closely related to the claim that all understanding is interpretation. When we traced the application of this claim in Gadamer, however, we encountered an entanglement concerning what constitutes a condition of understanding. At first we thought Gadamer was trying to emphasize that conditions of understanding are prior to any evaluation; but now we see that he contends that understanding is a process in which our very conditions of understanding are brought to judgment. Can Gadamer untangle this knot by further describing the process of understanding? Gadamer says that an understanding which is aware of its own process will bring to consciousness its anticipatory ideas, its biases and prejudices, ‘so as to check them and thus acquire right understanding from the things themselves’ (Gadamer, 1989, p. 269). In opposition to the idea that we need to protect ourselves against tradition and its prejudices, he says we need to uncover the prejudices that distort the tradition out of which the thing itself speaks: ‘It is the tyranny of hidden prejudices that makes us deaf to what speaks to us in tradition’ (Gadamer, 1989, p. 270). In other words, the thing itself carries within its tradition the prejudices that make it understandable and the hermeneutical task is to embrace these ‘legitimate prejudices’ while rejecting those that distort the thing itself. Thus we must distinguish the good and true prejudices from the bad and false ones by subjecting our prejudices to the things themselves. The things themselves will provide the criteria for judging the legitimacy of our prejudices. We grasp an understanding of the thing itself when we work out the a priori structure in terms of the things themselves. Let me attempt to summarize this process of understanding as described by Gadamer. The fore-meanings, or prejudices, that we bring to an examination of the

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thing itself are unexamined, and have been passed on to us by the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Some of these prejudices may be legitimate and others may be illegitimate. Gadamer says that knowledge of a thing is gained when the thing itself gradually shapes the a priori structure of our understanding by discrediting the illegitimate prejudices, confirming the legitimate ones, and replacing the illegitimate ones with other legitimate ones. Thus when we understand a thing in the light of the thing itself our prejudices are ‘examined’ by the thing itself. This, says Gadamer, is not a prescription, but a description of the way understanding is achieved: as interpreters we constantly revise our own a priori structures based on what emerges while remaining focused on the thing itself and penetrating into its meaning. Put briefly: 1 2 3

understanding initially proceeds with ‘unexamined’ prejudices that are placed in the light of the thing itself, these prejudices are either confirmed as legitimate or rejected as illegitimate, and illegitimate prejudices are gradually replaced by other, more suitable, prejudices.

According to Gadamer, the only ‘objectivity’ in this process occurs when the process itself confirms a prejudice as legitimate. Thus it is quite fitting that the first step in the interpretation of a text is for the interpreter to examine the legitimacy of those prejudices that he or she brings to the process of interpreting this particular text. Understanding takes place when we allow the things themselves to challenge our prejudices: ‘Methodologically conscious understanding will be concerned not merely to form anticipatory ideas, but to make them conscious, so as to check them and thus acquire right understanding from the things themselves’ (Gadamer, 1989, p. 269). Gadamer’s goal is not to rid us of all prejudices, but rather to identify and employ the ones that do justice to the thing itself. The person trying to understand expects the thing to reveal itself, and so he or she proceeds with questions that take into account and appropriate his or her own prejudices. Thus it is said that the truth of a thing is determined by ‘legitimate prejudices’. If Gadamer can show this to be the case, then he will have shown that truth in the humanities is just as certain and philosophically legitimate as truth in the natural sciences, according to a common notion of truth. In both arenas, truth is seen when we view the thing itself according to the prejudices that do it the most justice. This is why the philosophers of hermeneutics accuse the advocates of scientific method of narrowly confining the notion of truth: the ‘objective’ approach to knowledge fails to appreciate that it is by virtue of our ‘prejudices’ that we are able to know a thing. The systematic elimination of prejudices, far from enabling us to discover the truth, prevents us from getting at the truth of a thing. But Gadamer has not yet addressed the difficulties that arise when the conditions of understanding become subject to evaluation. He has made puzzling statements concerning conscious judgments, unconscious prejudgments and understanding. Why does the achievement of a ‘right understanding’ require that the conditions for that understanding be brought to consciousness? For example, it might be important for a psychoanalyst to help a patient become aware of certain feelings that lie in the ‘unconscious background’. But do I need to bring out my unconscious background in order to understand the pencil in front of me? By arguing that all understanding is

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interpretation, the philosophers of hermeneutics have placed themselves in the absurd position of claiming that one does not rightly understand a pencil, or a train schedule, without a process that brings to consciousness the conditions which make that understanding possible. Why does Gadamer claim that this bringing to consciousness of our conditions always occurs whenever we arrive at an understanding of something? One primary difficulty with Gadamer’s description of the process of understanding comes in trying to make sense of terms like ‘things themselves’. We need a clear conception of how Gadamer is using this phrase if we are to understand how conditions of understanding (‘prejudices’) become subjects of evaluation. Because all judgments occur within a process of understanding, we must first assume that any judgment made about our prejudices is also a part of the process of understanding, and not a separate process with a point of observation that is free from prejudices. We must rely upon the same a priori structure of understanding that we use in ordinary judgments to make judgments about our prejudices. This a priori structure can be characterized as our available vocabulary. As Lawrence Schmidt puts it, ‘any particular language establishes only a particular perspective of the Sachen selbst [things themselves]’ (Schmidt, 1987, p. 22). The things themselves can be viewed in many different ways. Likewise, Gadamer speaks of a ‘world-in-itself’ and of ‘human experience of the world’ as if ‘world’ can be viewed in many different ways. But there are significant difficulties here. Gadamer thinks that the difficulty lies in the fact that the pure, extralinguistic view of the ‘things themselves’ or the ‘world in itself’ is not accessible: This is of fundamental importance, for it makes the expression ‘world in itself ’ problematical. The criterion for the continuing expansion of our own world picture is not given by a ‘world in itself’ that lies beyond all language. Rather, the infinite perfectibility of the human experience of the world means that, whatever language we use, we never succeed in seeing anything but an ever more extended aspect, a ‘view’ of the world. (Gadamer, 1989, p. 447)

In other words, our view of the world-in-itself is always limited by our linguistic and historical context so that the world-in-itself is never an object to be viewed. Gadamer argues that because we do not have access to the world-in-itself, the world of our language is never anything more than a ‘view’ of the world. However, the real difficulty is not that we never have a superhuman view of the world; the real problem concerns what this thing is that Gadamer says we do not have access to, and yet we do have a ‘view’ of. Is it only another view? Does he leave us with an infinite process of views viewing other views? For Gadamer, the ‘thing itself’ and the ‘world-in-itself’ are projected intentions in which all the ‘views’ of the thing in question are melded together. Since our linguistic and historical limitations will not allow us to actually combine every view of an object, or every perspective on the world, we must intend the thing itself and the world-in-itself: In every worldview the existence of the world-in-itself is intended. It is the whole to which linguistically schematized experience refers. The multiplicity of these worldviews does not involve any relativization of the ‘world’. Rather, what the world is is not different from the

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Gadamer and Wittgenstein on the Unity of Language views in which it presents itself. The relationship is the same in the perception of things. Seen phenomenologically, the ‘thing-in-itself’ is, as Husserl has shown, nothing but the continuity with which the various perceptual perspectives on objects shade into one another. … In the same way as with perception we can speak of the ‘linguistic shadings’ that the world undergoes in different language-world. (1989, pp. 447–8)

The process of understanding requires that we intend a reference point, a thing itself or a world-in-itself, which is viewed from varying perspectives. We intend this reference point because in any understanding we are aware that there are differing points of view. As Kögler put it in a remark quoted earlier, we ‘become aware of determinant ways of seeing’ when confronted with different interpretations of world. But is this always the case? When faced with an interpretation that is different from our own, do we always come to accept that every understanding of something is simply one way of seeing the same thing? Consider Wittgenstein’s discussion of different ways of using and seeing a triangle: Of whom do we say that he is seeing the triangle as an arrow that points to the right? Of one who has simply learned to use it as such an arrow and has always used it like that? No. Naturally, that does not mean that such a one is said to be seeing it differently, or that we wouldn’t know how he is seeing it. Seeing this way or otherwise doesn’t come in here yet. – But what about a case in which I correct someone else and say ‘What is over there is not an arrow pointing to the right, but one pointing upwards’, and now I confront him with some practical consequence of this interpretation. He says: ‘I always took the triangle as an arrow pointing to the right.’ – Is a seeing in question here? No: for of course it may mean ‘When I have encountered this sign I have always followed it this way.’ Someone who says that need not have the least understanding of the question: ‘But: were you seeing it as an arrow pointing to the right?’ (1980, p. 7)

The philosophers of hermeneutics would have us think that understanding is a process that always includes the recognition that ours is simply one way of seeing a thing that could be seen in many different ways. By contrast, Wittgenstein shows that even when confronted with a different interpretation, persons need not revise their own understanding so that it is now one of several ways of seeing the same thing. On the contrary, bringing in the notion of interpretation may distort the way the sign is followed. ‘When I see the sign, I do this.’ No interpreting takes place; just follow the sign. Thus understanding need not include either interpretation or a postconfrontational revision in which one must take their understanding to be an interpretation. The sign may be fully understood without having anything to do with interpretation. Gadamer’s intentional referent, which implies different views of one thing, is therefore not a requirement for all understanding. But even if we allowed that it were, how can we make sense of the concept? If what the thing is or, what the world is, ‘is not different from the views in which it presents itself’ (1989, p. 447), how can it make sense to refer to different ‘shadings’ or ‘views’ of the thing or the world or the object of perception, as if these were objects of knowledge ‘outside’ of a linguistic context? Has Gadamer not opened up a skeptical gap between discourse and reality? The idea that we can check our prejudices against an inaccessible thing itself would seem to imply such a skepticism. The thing itself is said to carry within its tradition the prejudices that give it a sense. However, if the thing itself is inaccessible,

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Gadamer’s description of the process of understanding requires the appreciation of a concept, namely ‘thing itself’, that lacks a linguistic context of sense. Put in another way: if our language constitutes the limit of our world, then how can it make sense to speak of the things themselves as objects apart from our world, or of the ‘world-initself’ as something we either do or do not have access to? Why does Gadamer use a concept that is said to be on the one hand unattainable and on the other hand ‘intended’ in every worldview? Gadamer tries to hold that an extra-linguistic view of the world is impossible, while simultaneously holding that an intentional reference to the world-in-itself is needed to make sense of all the varying interpretations. Our problem is now twofold: (1) not only can we point to certain kinds of understanding that are not interpretations of an intentional referent, as we did with the help of Wittgenstein, and (2) we cannot find a linguistic context that would make sense of the notion of an intentional referent. What does it mean to say that everyone intends the world-in-itself? Is this a universally shared concept? This puzzle can be clarified by a discussion of the later Wittgenstein’s notion, ‘form of life’ (1953, p. 8).5 It is not uncommon for philosophers to give opposite interpretations of this notion. Some take the phrase to mean that we can arrive at a universally shared concept while others take the phrase to mean that we cannot arrive at a universally shared concept. Concerning the former, some authors have mistakenly interpreted Wittgenstein to have thought, along with Heidegger, that language is a sort of interpretation of the world. On this view, ‘form of life’ is taken to mean one view out of many that one could have of the world. Thus ‘form of life’ implies that there is a way of adjudicating between conflicting views of the world. Karl-Otto Apel, for example, pairs Wittgenstein with Heidegger: ‘Wittgenstein’s and Heidegger’s thinking … agree in a positive sense in their new emphasis on language taken as the medium of intersubjective understanding as well as an interpretation of the world’ (1994, p. 35). Similarly, critical theorist Jürgen Habermas takes ‘form of life’ and ‘worldview’ as synonymous expressions that indicate an interpretation of the world: ‘Language,’ ‘linguistically articulated worldview,’ and ‘form of life’ are concepts that refer on the one hand to something particular; for languages, worldviews, and forms of life appear in the plural. … Inasmuch as worldviews refer to totalities, we cannot get behind them as articulations of an understanding of the world, even if they can be revised. (1984, p. 58)

These readings of Wittgenstein’s ‘form of life’ misconstrue its pivotal significance. ‘Form of life’ is used by Wittgenstein to avoid the assumption that there is a common concept of ‘world’ that all humans share. Such an assumption leads one to think that epistemology is simply a matter of comparing all languages and actions to the ‘world’. This is the confused implication of the term ‘worldview’. The term tempts one to think that there is a ‘world’ to which we all refer, ignoring the fact that it is the meaning of ‘world’ that is in question. ‘Form of life’ is meant to avoid this trap by not implying that there is any one ‘world’ to which we all refer. It should not be taken to mean much more than ‘the way that some people live their lives’. This misunderstanding of the term ‘form of life’ also leads to confusion about what is ‘real’, ‘true’, and so on. Habermas, for example, accuses Peter Winch of failing to

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see the relation of worldviews to truth. He says that Winch does not take into account that worldviews ‘make possible utterances that admit of truth’ (1984, p. 58).6 In support of this criticism, Habermas makes this claim: ‘Whatever language system we choose, we always start intuitively from the presupposition that truth is a universal validity claim. If a statement is true, it merits universal assent, no matter in which language it is formulated’ (Habermas, 1984, p. 58). This passage shows not only that Habermas begs the question of what is to count as ‘truth’ (that it ‘merits universal assent’ settles nothing) but also that he has completely misunderstood Winch’s use of ‘form of life’. Habermas seems to think that even if we make different and contrary truth-claims, we all mean the same thing by the word ‘truth’, namely, that it is worthy of universal assent. But we must ask what Habermas means by ‘universal assent’. It is only in a form of life that one could talk sensibly about ‘truth’ or ‘universal assent’. In some contexts, it might not be enough to say, ‘I assent’. You might be required to perform some other ritual to show something like assent. Or yet still, whether a truth is worthy of assent may be of little importance in some contexts. But now all sorts of questions are raised about the difference in character between assent in one context and what only resembles assent in another context. These problems do not arise if one rightly appreciates the way in which Wittgenstein and Winch use the phrase ‘form of life’. If one takes the phrase to mean, as I suggested above, ‘the way that some people live their lives’, then one is less tempted to consider that there is some sense in speaking of universal concepts that are common to all forms of life. The notion of a concept that is common to the myriad ways that people live their lives lacks a context of sense. Put in another way: it makes no sense to speak of a universal common context of usage because all people do not share the same language, or even the same language use. The use of ‘worldview’, as noted earlier, tempts one to think that there is a ‘world’ to which we can all refer, that there are certain things like ‘truth’ and ‘universal assent’ that mean the same thing to everyone. When Habermas equates ‘worldview’ with ‘form of life’, he assumes that there are terms like ‘truth’ that have a universal validity and then criticizes Winch for having failed to recognize this. A proper understanding of what is meant by ‘form of life’, that it indicates a whole way of living and not just a way of looking at a common reference point, reduces Habermas’s criticism to nonsense. For it is in the language and the life together that we see what ‘truth’ and ‘worthy of universal assent’ mean. The idea that all language use presupposes such concepts fails to properly appreciate that concepts have their meaning in a form of life and logically cannot be presupposed by a form of life. Furthermore, because ‘form of life’ is mistakenly taken to be a way of showing that one can arrive at universal concepts, and thus adjudicate between conflicting views, much is made of the fact that Wittgenstein says very little about the crossing of language games and forms of life.7 Such criticism is rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of Wittgenstein. He had no philosophical interest in the crossing of forms of life because it is in a form of life that such bridges are constructed, not in some mediating universal realm. Any attempt by philosophy to show a universal ground or ‘world’ in which forms of life are bridged or communicate with one another is manifestly absurd for Wittgenstein. A philosophical notion of ‘the world’ is precisely that of which he wants to disabuse the philosopher. Such terminology assumes ground of which we can make no sense. If one takes a ‘form of life’ to be one view of the world out of many, then naturally certain questions may arise concerning

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the epistemological status of ‘form of life’. However, this is the path that Wittgenstein wanted to avoid (that is, the idea that one could provide epistemological grounds for a whole way of living). The phrase is not intended to serve as an epistemological guideline for comparing and contrasting various ways of living. Rather, it serves to remind us of the vast complexity of language, that to imagine a language is to imagine a whole way of living. Gadamer’s ‘world’ (based on his notion of a world-in-itself) seems to be just the sort of philosophical concept that I have been criticizing. For he assumes that it is one shared by all linguistic communities: ‘Reaching an understanding in language places a subject matter before those communicating like a disputed object set between them. Thus the world is the common ground, trodden by none and recognized by all, uniting all who talk to one another’ (Gadamer, 1989, p. 446). Some might say that my criticism makes a mountain out of a molehill: ‘We know what Gadamer means and he is simply using “world” in the ordinary sense in which we use it.’ I am suspicious of this use of ‘world’ in a philosophical analysis to mean something that everyone recognizes. Such a claim cries out for verification given that the ordinary concept ‘world’ has a context, a linguistic community, a form of life, in which it has its meaning. There may be some sense in my speaking about people of another culture and their ‘worldview’. There may even be sense in an attempt to compare and contrast different worldviews, but I have no reason at all to assume that every culture shares my concept of ‘world’. Some may argue that Gadamer’s concept of a world-in-itself resists my criticism because his is an intentional concept, not an object of investigation and comparison. The world-in-itself cannot be produced or delineated in any sort of detail. The concept is intentional in the sense that, while speaking, people assume the unity of the world without being able to specify how everything in the world is unified. While I have already criticized the notion that every understanding requires such an intentional concept, perhaps we can make sense of world-in-itself if we take it as a grammatical limit, an indication that humans cannot attain a view of the world that is beyond their linguistic reach. In other words, as an intention, the world-in-itself is built on the notion that no one can arrive at a universally shared concept; the concept of a world-in-itself entails awareness that it is only an intention. Therefore what we all share is not the same world, but the same intention that there is only one world. The intention of the concept is shared by all, even if the content is not. Thus, Gadamer’s world-in-itself is not supposed to be a universally shared concept of what the world is like, by virtue of which conflicting worldviews, or forms of life, could be arbitrated. On the contrary, its meaning depends on the recognition that such a universally shared concept makes no sense. I find this direction in Gadamer attractive except that he continues to speak of ‘world’ as if it were ‘like a disputed object set between them’ (Gadamer, 1989, p. 446). One may wonder what significance can be drawn from the claim that all humans intend one thing (world) when there is deep disagreement and disparity about what that thing is. This brings us to the second way in which some thinkers have employed Wittgenstein’s ‘form of life’. While some have taken ‘form of life’ to mean that there is a commonly held concept of the world, others have taken Wittgenstein to the opposite extreme, saying that ‘form of life’ indicates that one cannot get access to a universal referent. Connolly and Keutner, for example, quote the Philosophical

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Investigations: ‘Essence is expressed by grammar’ (1988, pp. 23–4).8 They label this a ‘constructivist’ approach, a label that they apply to Gadamer as well. They mean by this that each form of life follows arbitrary rules. Thus there can be no universally held concepts and conflicting interpretations between forms of life are said to be irresolvable. Similarly, Christopher Smith argues that Gadamer and Wittgenstein are alike in that they both reject the notion of a pre-linguistic reality which language is said to picture: ‘[Wittgenstein’s] criticism is virtually identical with Gadamer’s revision of Hegel and Husserl. For Wittgenstein too reached the conclusion that language usually does not chart or map a pre-given reality’ (Smith, 1979, p. 300). Smith supports his thesis with this passage from Gadamer’s Hegel’s Dialectic: ‘Where there is real language, the thing to be designated is not known prior to the act of designation. Rather within our language relationship to world, that which is spoken of is itself first articulated through language’s constitutive structuring of our being in the world’ (Gadamer, 1976b, p. 115). The last part of that last sentence, ‘language’s constitutive structuring of our being in the world’, seems particularly close to Wittgenstein’s view. Smith underscores the view: ‘This passage makes evident that for Gadamer there is no extra- or pre-linguistic reality which language could be said to picture. Language does not chart reality and give us information about it; it constitutes reality’ (Smith, 1979, p. 299). These commentators correctly note that Wittgenstein, along with Gadamer, emphasizes that reality is linguistically constituted, but they miss a crucial distinction between Wittgenstein and Gadamer. By speaking of the extra-linguistic view as something one cannot achieve, Connolly, Keutner, Smith and Gadamer all partake in the debate concerning an extra-linguistic point of view. Wittgenstein, on the other hand, took great pains to avoid speaking as if the extra-linguistic point of view were something one could or could not achieve. In the Philosophical Investigations, just six lines below the line quoted by Connolly and Keutner, we read: ‘The great difficulty here is not to represent the matter as if there were something one couldn’t do. As if there really were an object, from which I derive its description, but I were unable to shew it to anyone’ (Wittgenstein, 1953, p. 116). Connolly, Keutner and Smith fail to appreciate that Wittgenstein’s ‘form of life’ is no more a means for saying that one cannot access universally held concepts than it is a means for saying that one can access such concepts. Wittgenstein saw that some notion of an extralinguistic view must be held to in order to make sense of talk about ‘the thing’ that is not known prior to designation. The same is true for the phrases ‘relationship to world’ and ‘experience of the world’, quoted above. These phrases speak of ‘world’ as if we should all know what is the subject of discussion. They imply that we must be able to understand what ‘thing’ and ‘world’ mean prior to their designation in language, although they are not accessible and their meaning is only intended. But what is this ‘thing’ that is not known and is yet to be designated? What is this ‘world’ which we have a ‘language relationship to?’ Are these exceptions to the observation that concepts have their meaning within a linguistic community? Gadamer cannot escape these difficult questions even though he denies that we have access to a universally held concept of the world. In fact it is the denial of access to a world beyond all language that keeps Gadamer tied into the illusion of such talk. By contrast, Wittgenstein’s ‘form of life’ neither claims nor denies accessibility to a world-in-itself because such a concept is an absurdity. To what would he be denying

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access? It is absurd to say either that one can or cannot step outside the life that is his or her own. (Even reflection, or any other form of transcendence, occurs in a form of life, in this sense.) Thus ‘form of life’ neither implies an exterior measure against which one’s form of life could be justified nor attempts to trade on that illusion, as if we could demonstrate what keeps us from having access to an exterior measure. It is supposed to discourage the kind of phrases that Gadamer and others use: ‘we cannot get behind worldviews’, ‘one cannot step outside one’s worldview’, ‘articulations of an understanding of the world’. These phrases treat the matter of transcending a form of life as if it were something that one cannot do, rather than correctly treating it as a matter of absurdity. The point is that the whole notion of what is ‘world’, or what is ‘universal’, arises within a form of life. If we are interested in how and why various forms of life encounter others, then we should discover that the features of such encounters are as broad and diverse as the people involved in such encounters. But such interest is sociological, not philosophical. Gadamer’s failure to distinguish between what is impossible and what is nonsensical, or lacks a context of usage, can be elucidated by an example. Suppose that a friend tells me he is going to the stockyard to buy a unicorn. Consider two responses: (1) ‘You can’t do that, it’s impossible. When you get there you will discover that they have no unicorns.’ (2) ‘What are you talking about?’ The first response accepts the friend’s statement as having some sort of sense (it might if the friend is a five-year-old child), as if the friend needed to drive to the stockyard to discover that buying a unicorn is impossible. A response of this kind fails either to get the joke or to see that what the friend needs is some sort of counseling. It also leads the responder to make additional nonsensical statements (for example, ‘Unicorns are not domesticated’). However, the second response sees no sense at all in the friend’s statement and thus does not pursue the issue as if it were a matter of deciding whether or not unicorns can be bought at the stockyard. Gadamer fails to appreciate this distinction and accepts ‘thing itself’ and ‘world-in-itself’ as having some sort of sense. Consequently, he himself trades on an illusion that leads him to accept the nonsensical idea that all humans share an intentional view of the world. He misses his own point about the world not being ‘different from the views in which it presents itself’ (Gadamer, 1989, p. 447). When I look at the world what I see is the world. I do not ‘intend’ the existence of a ‘world-in-itself’ by virtue of which I could compare my view of the world; I see the world. How can it make sense for Gadamer to say, on the one hand, that concepts have their meaning only within the linguistic community in which they are used and, on the other hand, that ‘the world is the common ground’ which unites all who talk to one another? Now it sounds as if there is a concept, namely ‘the world’, which has a meaning that is recognizable in all linguistic communities. But if so, there must be some external source for this concept of ‘the world’, one that does not lie in any one linguistic community, since its intentionality is apparently shared by all. We discover that Gadamer does indeed think that there is such a source: ‘We can now see that this activity of the thing itself, the coming into language of meaning, points to a universal ontological structure, namely to the basic nature of everything toward which understanding can be directed. Being that can be understood is language’ (1989, p. 474). The idea that there must be a ‘universal ontological structure’ is a conclusion that is antithetical to the later Wittgenstein’s approach to these issues. It should be

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clear from the preceding paragraphs that Gadamer and the later Wittgenstein differ not only in their conclusions, but also in the way that they arrive at their observations. It is the difference between how one responds to an absurdity and how one responds to a mistake. Gadamer’s work can be traced to his belief that a theory of hermeneutic experience will explain why an extra-linguistic view is impossible while giving us an account of the unity of language. If, however, a view is an illusion, it makes as little sense to say that it is ‘incorrect’ as to say it is ‘correct’. One participates in the absurdity by trying to contradict the illusion. (Cf. ‘I own an abracadabra’ and ‘I own a car.’ Do we say that the first sentence is ‘incorrect’?) In his attempt to contradict an absurdity, the idea of a superhuman view, and replace it with an alternative view, Gadamer himself participates in an absurd illusion. Wittgenstein showed the absurdity of talk about an extra-linguistic view while he struggled to keep from saying that an extra-linguistic view cannot be achieved. Gadamer, on the other hand, is intent upon explaining, by reference to a concept of ‘being’, what cannot be achieved. This concept of ‘being’ is supposed to encompass what can and cannot be understood and it underlies the notion that our conditions of understanding are prejudices. They are prejudices in the sense that they can never encompass the whole of being. Thus, while Gadamer intended to emphasize that our conditions of understanding are prejudices in order to discourage the search for an extra-linguistic reality, we have come to see that this emphasis is itself dependent upon a concept of extra-linguistic being. In criticizing the philosophers of hermeneutics, it has not been my intention to defend an illusive objectivity. I agree with Gadamer that the idea that we can somehow escape our concepts in order to attain an unprejudiced state is ‘offenbaren Widersinn’ [manifestly absurd] (1990, p. 401). Yet Gadamer himself participates in this absurdity by employing a term that is supposed to transcend all understanding. In this chapter, we have seen three aspects of Gadamer’s use of ‘prejudice’ that bring to light this unwitting participation in a manifest absurdity. First, certain practical puzzles arise from the fact that Gadamer attempts to reform the meaning of prejudice. Second, the roots of his use of prejudice are traceable to Heidegger’s technical and problematic view that understanding is synonymous with interpretation. Third, Gadamer’s use of prejudice includes a description of the process of understanding in which he distinguishes between legitimate and illegitimate conditions of understanding. This leads him to employ terms like ‘thing itself’ and ‘world-initself’, terms for which we have been unable to find a context of usage. Furthermore, trading on the illusion of a world-in-itself requires a universal ontological structure with reference to a concept of being, which is supposed to transcend and encompass all linguistic communities. Far from helping us to see that the meaning of our words depends upon the community in which they are used, Gadamer tempts us to look for their meaning in a single, transcendent and metaphysical source: being. As we shall see in Chapter 3, this illusion of being that is prior to language serves as the foundation for Gadamer’s understanding of the unity of language. My contention in this chapter has been that Gadamer’s attempt to reform the term ‘prejudice’ reveals several confusions that are traceable to this illusion, but we have yet to investigate the full extent to which these confusions pervade his account of the unity of language.

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Notes 1 2 3

4

5

6 7 8

See Gadamer (1988, pp. 81–8). Macquarrie and Robinson translate Vormeinung as ‘undiscussed assumption’ (Heidegger, 1962). The translators note that Vorsicht is the only one of these terms that occurs in ordinary German usage, and when it does it usually means ‘caution’ or ‘care’ (Heidegger, 1962, p. 191). The ordinary German word for ‘foresight’ is not Vorsicht, but Voraussicht. The translators correctly convey that Heidegger is avoiding the use of ordinary language, but they were inconsistent when they translated the technical term Vormeinung (translated as ‘fore-meaning’ in Truth and Method) as ‘obvious undiscussed assumption’, as if it were an ordinary expression in German. Macquarrie and Robinson translate Heidegger’s ‘Auslegung’ as ‘interpretation’, but they note the difference from the German ‘Interpretation’: ‘Though in many cases these may be regarded as synonyms, their connotations are not quite the same. “Auslegung” seems to be used in a broad sense to cover any activity in which we interpret something “as” something, whereas “Interpretation” seems to apply to interpretations which are more theoretical or systematic, as in the exegesis of a text’ (Heidegger, 1962, p. 19). This means that, for both Heidegger and Gadamer, ‘Auslegung’ includes practically any cognition whatever. When Gadamer speaks of interpretation in this sense, he means that every cognition has the structure of an interpretation, even if it does not have the characteristics of what we ordinarily call ‘interpretation’. Wittgenstein does not frequently discuss what he means by ‘form of life’, but the following is the most famous reference: ‘It is easy to imagine a language consisting only of orders and reports in battle. – Or a language consisting only of questions and expressions for answering yes or no. And innumerable others. – And to imagine a language means to imagine a form of life’ (Wittgenstein, 1953, p. 8). See Winch’s essay, ‘Understanding a Primitive Society’ (Winch, 1964, pp. 307–24). See Susan J. Hekman’s Hermeneutics and the Sociology of Knowledge (Hekman, 1986, pp. 118–19) and Apel’s ‘Social Action and the Concept of Rationality’ (Apel, 1981, pp. 9–35). See Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations (Wittgenstein, 1953, p. 116).

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~ Taylor & Francis ~

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Chapter 2

Historicity: Limit or Limitation? We noted the practical difficulties to which Gadamer’s use of the word ‘prejudice’gives rise. Setting those aside, we traced other difficulties in the notion that all understanding is interpretation, the notion inherited from Heidegger that a structure of interpretation must lie beneath any understanding. The philosophical point of this notion is to undermine a prevalent, yet distorted, account of the relation between language and reality. Heidegger rightly wants to disabuse us of the assumption that reality determines our speech, as if speaking were a matter of attaching words to ‘naked’ objects. When Gadamer employed the notion that all understanding is interpretation, however, the conditions of understanding themselves were brought under evaluation. This lured him into defending the use of words and phrases that have no context, such as ‘thing itself’, ‘world-in-itself’ and a concept of ‘world’ that is said to be a universally held intention. After discussing the difficulties and confusions in Gadamer’s negative argument (‘Understanding cannot be free from prejudice’), I concluded in the first chapter that Gadamer initiated these difficulties by attempting to say that an extra-linguistic view cannot be achieved. From this criticism perhaps the reader thought that I was going to argue that an extra-linguistic view can be achieved. Instead I contrasted Gadamer’s argument with Wittgenstein’s approach, which emphasizes the absurdity of such a superhuman view. In other words, I maintained that both sides of the argument concerning an extra-linguistic view participate in an illusion, namely, the illusion that we can make sense of the concept of an extra-linguistic view. Though Gadamer rightly opposes a metaphysical claim to a superhuman view of the world, he combats this absurd claim as if it were sensible and thus contributes his own absurdities. His attempt to describe our conditions of understanding raises important questions about the unity of language, the relation of language to reality, and what it means to understand something that is said. Before delving into those questions, I will discuss, in this chapter, Gadamer’s attraction to the philosophical illusion that ‘all understanding is interpretation’. Why does he speak of the superhuman view as something that humans are unable to achieve? Why does he sometimes speak as if there is an extra-linguistic view, while simultaneously holding that humans cannot get access to it? And why does he sometimes treat human fallibility as a fact that calls into question each particular claim to knowledge? (‘Your understanding is only one of many interpretations.’) Answering these questions will involve us in the difficult task of trying to determine whether Gadamer is offering an epistemological justification of knowledge, or whether he is simply making observations about the nature of understanding. His discussion of history affords the best opportunity to determine whether his account of the unity of language is a conceptual limit of human understanding, that is, an account of what it means to say something, or a limitation on what humans can understand. 31

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‘Universal History’ as a Task An introduction to Gadamer’s approach to history must start with Heidegger. Speaking of his own appropriation of Heidegger’s remarks on history, Gadamer writes: He means that there is no position that we can take, distant, objective, over against the things we see. This supposed observer who only says that which is, is standing in fact in the Wirkungsgeschichte, to use my own notion. This is what I have called historically effected consciousness, a consciousness which partakes in history without being able to fully account for its participation. (1992, p. 127)

Following Heidegger, Gadamer emphasizes the historical situatedness of the individual; the human condition that makes it impossible for the individual to escape his or her own historical situation. In the parlance of philosophical hermeneutics, this condition is known as historicity, or the historicality of existence. Heidegger uses the term Dasein to emphasize the historicality of the individual and to distinguish human being from other types of being. Dasein is the being who belongs to history (1962, pp. 26–8). Thus, understanding historicity is paramount to understanding philosophical hermeneutics. Historicity is a fundamental category that underlies all understanding and experience. As David Couzens Hoy puts it, historicity is ‘the distinctive ontological mark of man, whose existence is always temporally and historically situated’ (1978a, p. 3). Furthermore, as noted by Hoy, the emphasis upon historicity has certain implications for Heidegger’s approach to philosophy: ‘He is a philosopher’s philosopher who denies that philosophy can begin with a presuppositionless starting point and work toward an unhistorical, eternal truth, and who accordingly follows his own dictum that philosophy must learn how “to conceive the possibilities prepared by its ‘precursors’ ” ’ (1978b, p. 329).1 Despite the ambiguity in learning how to conceive possibilities which are themselves the conditions of all conceiving, we can appreciate the element of modesty in Heidegger’s approach: philosophy is not a quest to discover eternal truths. On this account, the attitude with which philosophical hermeneutics begins appears to be a humble one; that is, one in which the task of philosophy is seen to be much lower than unlocking the secrets of existence. Perhaps, in appropriating Heidegger at this point, Gadamer wants to say nothing other than that all understanding must start with a ‘generally unacknowledged’ given, a limit that does not afford an explanation. In that case, maybe his purpose is to remind us of human fallibility and finitude by giving us a picture of the character and nature of this given. His reminders would then serve as warnings against those philosophers who seem intent upon proving that reason is the only authority worthy of acceptance. This seems to be Gadamer’s concern when he addresses the offenses of Enlightenment thinking: ‘We can know better: this is the maxim with which the modern Enlightenment approaches tradition and which ultimately leads it to undertake historical research. It takes tradition as an object of critique, just as the natural sciences do with the evidence of the senses’ (1989, p. 272). Here Gadamer begins his criticism of Enlightenment approaches that distort what is given to us in a tradition. For example, if it is argued that scripture can be nothing more than an object of historical investigation, one has already misunderstood the role of scripture in the life

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of the one for whom it is authoritative. As we saw in the previous chapter, Gadamer characterizes as a prejudice this tendency to subject every issue and object of investigation to the inductive method, what he calls ‘the prejudice against prejudice itself’. Leaving aside the problems with Gadamer’s use of the word ‘prejudice’, we can appreciate that his primary concern may be to remind us of our own finitude and the role that such an awareness should play in philosophy and history: ‘The overcoming of all prejudices, this global demand of the Enlightenment, will itself prove to be a prejudice, and removing it opens the way to an appropriate understanding of the finitude which dominates not only our humanity but also our historical consciousness’ (Gadamer, 1989, p. 276). If this were his single intent, we might say that Gadamer participates in the Kierkegaardian tradition of exposing the pretensions of those philosophers who bring forth grandiose and systematic explanations for ‘God’, ‘World’ and/or ‘Universe’. Such philosophers either forget or flout human finitude and fallibility. Thus they provide us with systems that cannot be lived in: ‘In relation to their systems most systematisers are like a man who builds an enormous castle and lives in a shack close by; they do not live in their own enormous systematic buildings’ (Kierkegaard, 1959, p. 156). Those who speculate about universal structures do not live in their speculations. Perhaps this is what Gadamer wants us to see. Or, perhaps his and Heidegger’s emphasis upon the historical situatedness of human beings has, like Kierkegaard’s, a deeper philosophical purpose. Consider, for example, the observations of Johannes Climacus, which show us the absurdity of a systematic view of existence: When an existence is a thing of the past, it is indeed finished, it is indeed concluded, and to that extent it is turned over to the systematic view. Quite so – but for whom? Whoever is himself existing cannot gain this conclusiveness outside existence, a conclusiveness that corresponds to the eternity into which the past has entered. (Kierkegaard, 1992, pp. 118–19)

In other words, it makes little sense to speak of reason apart from existence. Thus, reason could hardly grasp a ‘system’ that accounts for all existence. The deeper philosophical point is that our concepts are not separate from the lives that we live. At times, Gadamer seems to be giving the same sort of characterization of the nature and limits of reason: ‘The idea of an absolute reason is not a possibility for historical humanity. Reason exists for us only in concrete, historical terms – i.e., it is not its own master but remains constantly dependent on the given circumstances in which it operates’ (1989, p. 276). These ‘given circumstances’ are peculiar. We employ a particular sort of concept to invoke these given circumstances, concepts like ‘history’, ‘world’, ‘space’, ‘time’, ‘fallibility’ and so on. Wittgenstein says that with words like these and the questions they spawn, we arrive at the limits of language (1993, p. 167). The concepts that we use when we arrive at the limits of language seem to be more fundamental than other concepts because they indicate the conditions in which our doing and speaking have their sense. It does not make any sense to speak of these limits, or conditions, as if they were limited or conditioned by something else. They are not objects or facts of investigation; rather, they are the conditions that serve as the limit in which ‘investigation’ has its sense. However,

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because we are able to sensibly employ a concept that indicates a limit, there is a great temptation to speak as if there were a way to transcend the limit: As long as there is a verb ‘to be’ which seems to function like ‘to eat’ and ‘to drink’, as long as there are adjectives like ‘identical’, ‘true’, ‘false’, ‘possible’, as long as one talks about a flow of time and an expanse of space, etc., etc., humans will continue to bump up against the same mysterious difficulties, and stare at something that no explanation seems able to remove. … And this by the way satisfies a longing for the supra-natural //transcendental//, for in believing that they see the ‘limits of human understanding’ of course they believe that they can see beyond it. (Wittgenstein, 1993, pp. 185 and 187)2

Like Wittgenstein, Gadamer seems concerned to combat those who would argue for an ‘absolute reason’ that can transcend ‘historical humanity’, or the ‘historicity’ of human existence. Perhaps Gadamer wants us to see that the nature of reason is such that historicity is the limit, the given, of reason’s operation and, as such, it cannot make sense to speak of a reason which can ‘see beyond’ this limit. In light of his recognition of reason’s dependence upon given conditions, it might seem that Gadamer would also resist attempts to determine the limits of those conditions. That is to say, it seems as if Gadamer would not make a task of determining the limits of a ‘limit’ as if it were a fact that had a beginning and an end. In this particular case then it would seem that he would want to resist efforts to make ‘historicity’ an object of investigation because he recognizes that it is the given in which such investigations are performed. Suppose, for example, someone wanted to determine the meaning of ‘time’ by showing where time begins and ends. Such an attempt misunderstands the role of ‘time’ in our language. It is not a concept such as ‘afternoon’ or ‘Thursday’, which serve as limitations. We can sensibly speak of trying to determine whether the budget meeting occurred ‘Thursday afternoon’, but it is senseless to speak of trying to determine whether the budget meeting occurred ‘in time’. ‘Thursday afternoon’ serves as a limitation on the task, while ‘time’ serves as a limit, as the given in which ‘budget meeting’ has its sense. Absurdities result if ‘time’ is treated as a limitation on the task of determining when the meeting occurred. Similarly, ‘historicity’, if it has any meaning at all, is not a limitation on the tasks performed by historians; rather, it serves as the limit in which ‘historical research’ has its sense. The important point is that when philosophers speak of ‘historicity’, ‘time’, ‘world’ and so on, they are speaking of concepts. The meaning of these concepts still depends upon their use, not on some philosophical explanation. We have already seen that Gadamer barely hesitated to use the idealistic concept of a ‘world-in-itself’ as a universally held intention. In other words, we have seen Gadamer take the concept ‘world’, which we ordinarily use as a limit, and turn it into an object of universal intention. Does Gadamer demonstrate the same lack of restraint when attempting to elucidate the concept of ‘historicity’? Difficulties arise here because of the way that Gadamer employs the term, ‘universal history’. The concept is central to his discussion of the epistemological problems taken up by the German historical school (particularly Ranke, Droysen and Dilthey). Several pages into that discussion it looks as if Gadamer is simply highlighting the concept in order to criticize its use by the historical school: ‘We must ask how historians understood their work in terms of their own hermeneutical theory.

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Their subject is not the individual text but universal history. It falls to the historian to understand the history of mankind as a whole’ (1989, p. 197). The historical school employs the hermeneutical principle that the detail can only be understood in terms of the whole and the whole only in terms of the detail. Thus, following the method of literary hermeneutics, the whole of history, universal history, is taken by the historical school to be a text that has to be understood in order to understand any of the details of history. But rather than criticize this use of ‘universal history’ as a confused attempt to turn a limit into a limitation, Gadamer himself employs the term in order to portray the epistemological problem that faced the historical school: Universal history is not a merely marginal and vestigial problem of historical investigation, but its very heart. Even the ‘historical school’ knew that fundamentally there can be no other history than universal history, because the unique significance of the detail can be determined only from the whole. But since the whole can never be given to the empirical researcher, how can he maintain his ground against the philosopher and his a priori arbitrariness? (1989, pp. 199–200)

Gadamer seems to be saying that because the historian cannot give an empirical account of universal history (the whole of history), the epistemological ground of historical research is undermined. When universal history is treated as an object of investigation, epistemological questions arise. Can a historian list all the events of history? How does one get behind this sort of given and, at the same time, in front of the future? What are the limits of universal history? These questions arise for Gadamer in the same way that the skeptic challenges our ability to know; that is, as the problem that must be overcome if we are to have a secure foundation for knowledge. But these questions can have another sense: not, ‘How can you do it?’ but rather, ‘How can you make sense of it?’ In other words, perhaps this attempt to determine the limits of a limit is not a demonstrable failing, but a senseless endeavor. Gadamer speaks of ‘universal history’ as if it were a concept whose limits need to be determined before one can do history in the correct way, as if he expects the historian to be able to determine the limits of the given so that she does not make a mistake. But how can one determine such a concept in such a way? If, for Heidegger and Gadamer, ‘historicity’ is a way of expressing that human reason encounters a limit, what sense could there be in trying to transcend such a limit, as suggested by the notion of a universal history that it is the ‘specific task’ of the historian to determine? (Gadamer, 1989, p. 197). On the one hand Gadamer emphasizes the historical situatedness of humans, an emphasis that expresses the absurdity of a reason that is ‘outside’ of existence. On the other hand he employs ‘universal history’ in a way that seems to require a reason that is ‘outside’ of existence, a reason that can ‘overcome’ the historicity of human existence. In the former usage ‘historicity’ is a limit; in the latter usage ‘historicity’ is a limitation on the historian’s task of ascertaining universal history. A limit and a limitation are, however, mutually exclusive sorts of concepts. ‘Historicity’ cannot sensibly be a condition of what it makes sense to say and simultaneously an aid to doing historical study in the ‘correct’ way. It is historicity that makes ‘I am a French peasant in 1789’ a senseless remark. We do not say that such a remark is a matter of doing history ‘incorrectly’, as perhaps we would say of relying too heavily on a king’s description of his own achievements. In portraying the epistemological problem of historical

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research as a problem of ‘the whole [that] can never be given to the empirical researcher’, Gadamer employs a limit as if it were a limitation on the task of the historian. Thus, he appears to be using ‘historicity’ as a way of justifying the historian’s knowledge and not simply as a way to speak of the limits of understanding. Can Gadamer rectify this contradictory employment of a concept? The Unity of History as an ‘Experience’ Suppose Gadamer could show that universal history is not a collection, or set, of events, but an experience. Would he not thereby show that the historian can overcome historicity by having the ‘experience’ of universal history? But such a demonstration needs a concept of unity which can hold together all of world history into a something that can be experienced: ‘If the reality of history is conceived as an interplay of forces, this concept is obviously not enough to make its unity necessary. … In the continuity of events there must be the something that emerges as a goal giving an orientation to the whole’ (Gadamer, 1989, p. 208). Gadamer is here again portraying the epistemological problems faced by the German historical school. My interest here is to note the way in which he frames these ‘problems’. Because there ‘must be the something’, as Gadamer claims above, the historian is not justified in proceeding with research without determining what this something is. Thus, he criticizes Ranke for assuming a unity of history without proving it is a necessary unity. Ranke’s problem, according to Gadamer, is that he does not recognize that the unity of history cannot be treated as just another fact about history: ‘That world history has produced Western culture in a continuous development is again not a mere fact of experience that historical consciousness acknowledges but a condition of historical consciousness itself’ (1989, p. 208). Gadamer thinks it misleading to consider a condition as something that might not have happened, but it is puzzling that he argues that we must prove the necessity of a condition in order to be able to proceed with research. He seems to think that an a priori condition of historical consciousness, namely, the unity of history, needs historical justification although this a priori condition of historical consciousness is the means by which historical justifications are made. Gadamer has worked himself into a philosophical quandary: How can one justify the conditions for justifying anything without falling into absurdity ad infinitum? Gadamer’s perceived need to justify the unity of history clearly reveals itself in his treatment of Dilthey. Dilthey separates experience in history from experience in the investigation of historical events. Judgments of history are therefore not a problem for Dilthey because subject (the observer) and objects (historical events) are homogeneous. In other words, both the historian and the event investigated are part of the same context, namely, the context of historical research. Gadamer rejects such an argument: ‘This, however, is no solution to the epistemological problem that Dilthey posed. Rather, positing homogeneity as its condition conceals the real epistemological problem of history. The question is how the individual’s experience and the knowledge of it come to be historical experience’ (1989, p. 222). In this criticism of Dilthey, Gadamer characterizes the difficulty of understanding a whole that comprises the experiences of many individuals: How can one individual, the historian, experience that which is a collection of experiences? Gadamer is concerned

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with the coherence, or unity, of history and how one can know this unity, rather than with the misleading notion that knowing universal history means knowing all the events in history. What bothers Gadamer is not how one can know a unity, but how one can know this peculiar sort of unity that no one has experienced: ‘For the real historical problem, as we have seen, is less how coherence is generally experienced and known than how a coherence that no one has experienced can be known’ (1989, p. 224). Gadamer here transforms the skeptical problem of history (that is, how can we know the events of history?) into the skeptical problem concerning experience (that is, how can we know what someone else has experienced?). He subtly suggests that if the German historical school could have epistemologically grounded claims concerning the unity of history; that is, proved how knowledge about nations, groups and eras cohere, then they would also have an epistemological ground for ‘universal history’ and thus would have overcome the problem of historicity. So Gadamer now asks, how can one know a whole culture, for example, or an entire era, when it is painfully obvious that no single individual could have experienced the whole? This question of experience, the historian’s experience of a whole culture, becomes the focus of Gadamer’s efforts. He admits that whole cultures and eras are not real subjects, but statements about them require epistemological justification nonetheless: The decisive step for Dilthey’s epistemological grounding of the human sciences is the transition from the structure of coherence in an individual’s experience to historical coherence, which is not experienced by any individual at all. … But for Dilthey there is no question but that statements can be made about this kind of subject. The historian does it constantly when he speaks of the deeds and the destinies of peoples. The question is simply how such statements can be justified epistemologically. (1989, p. 224)

In setting out the issue this way Gadamer has already created a skeptical gap between the knower and the known, between the historian and the historical event. He has accepted an illusive dichotomy between the collective experience of individuals in history and the historian’s knowledge of those experiences. He simply extends the old skeptical question concerning knowledge of another person’s experience to skepticism about having knowledge of a whole group of individual experiences. Thus he asks: How can we know what no single individual can experience? But what does Gadamer want an epistemological justification to do? Does he want it to show that indeed we can ‘experience’ a collection of historical experiences? Or, does he want it to prove that we can know something in spite of our not being able to experience it? (As if, up until now, we always had to ‘experience’ a concept before we were justified in using it.) Gadamer’s rendering of the epistemological problem illustrates what Wittgenstein called ‘a resolution to use a certain mode of expression’ (1993, p. 202). Gadamer seems intent upon discussing the historian’s account as if there must be an apprehensible something that is the causal link between what the historian experiences in giving an account and what the individuals in those accounts experienced. Without this link, historical knowledge is thought to be in peril. But perhaps the absence of such a link does not imperil historical knowledge; rather, perhaps it is the search for such a link that feeds skepticism about historical knowledge.

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Consider Wittgenstein’s cautionary remarks about separating a concept from the ‘experience’ of that concept: ‘The experience of fright appears (when we philosophize) to be an amorphous experience behind the experience of starting. … All I want to say is that it is misleading to say that the word ‘fright’ signifies something which goes along with the experience of expressing fright’ (1993, p. 202). Wittgenstein’s warning applies here. Gadamer speaks of a ‘something’ that must pass between the historical figures and the historian, something that goes along with the historian’s experience of history. This commits him to a particular way of looking at the matter, such that the historian is cut off from historical individuals and events. Again, our situation, or historicity, is taken to be a limitation that obscures our knowledge of a historical event. But what are these individuals and events that are in isolation from the historian’s views of these individuals and events? It is Gadamer who must assume a state of affairs that is independent of our historicity in order to isolate the historian from historical events. If we have a view at all of the experiences of individuals in history, and if the historian has ways of judging the correctness of those views, what epistemological significance lies in the recognition that our view is not the same as their experiences? I shall return to this question, but for now it should be noted that Gadamer’s characterization of the unity of history as an ‘experience’ further illustrates his confused employment of a limit as a limitation. It now looks as if Gadamer, for all his insistence upon ‘language’s constitutive structuring of our being in the world’ (1976b, p. 115), wants to refer to a ‘something’, an event or a phenomenon or a truth, apart from the situation in which we speak of an event or a phenomenon or a truth. Namely, he wishes to hold at a distance those ‘experiences’ of individuals in history, to keep us from thinking that they are the same as our knowledge of those experiences, while insisting that this distance creates problems for any claim to historical knowledge. But is this not a pseudo-problem manufactured by Gadamer’s manipulation of language? Has he not created a ‘straw historian’ by implying that the historian is subject to confusing his accounts with the experiences of individuals in history? In the context of giving a historical account, any historian who claimed that his account is the ‘experience’ of an event that occurred 200 years before his birth would surprise us. When we give accounts of historical events, we talk about certain actions and experiences of individuals in history. There is an absurdity in thinking that the accounts are the experiences of those individuals (as if my saying, ‘The peasants stormed the Bastille’ is the storming). As already noted, such absurdities are rarely encountered in historical research, but it is no less absurd to think that historians could speak of an experience that is separate from the account that they make of it (as if ‘The peasants stormed the Bastille’ and ‘The peasants stormed the Bastille’ were two completely different statements because the former expresses the peasants’ experience and the latter expresses the historian’s account of the peasants’ experience). The search for a link between an experience in history and the historian’s experience creates a frustratingly peculiar sort of doubt, which might be stated as follows: ‘We cannot know whether our account of peasants storming the Bastille is true because we cannot experience what they experienced.’ Historians are likely to throw up their hands in response to such a doubt. If we have to be French peasants in July 1789 in order to do this historical study, then we are at a loss. As already noted, the doubter confusingly employs ‘experience’ as if it were accompanied by a something, thus providing the

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language needed to doubt that historians can know the experience. It seems that historians need to apprehend this peculiar something in order to be certain of their knowledge. Gadamer also applies this notion of ‘experience as a something’ to his account of the unity of history. The unity of history is not a fact or an object of investigation, according to Gadamer, but an experience that historians are isolated from because of their historicity. If historians are not able to overcome the problem of historicity, they will never be able to be certain of their historical knowledge. Thus, although Gadamer shifts his analysis of the German historical school from a discussion of ‘universal history’ as a collection of events to ‘universal history’ as an experience, he continues to employ ‘historicity’ as a limitation on the historian’s ability to apprehend such experience: Dilthey himself has pointed out that we understand historically because we are ourselves historical beings. This is supposed to make things easier epistemologically. But does it? … How are things made easier epistemologically? Are they not, in fact, made more difficult? Is not the fact that consciousness is historically conditioned inevitably an insuperable barrier to its reaching perfect fulfillment in historical knowledge? (1989, pp. 230–31)

Gadamer is looking for an epistemological justification for what is called historical knowledge; that is, some sort of support that will aid and undergird the historian’s quest for knowledge. He fails to appreciate that if the unity of history is a condition of historical research then it is senseless to speak of it as a barrier to historical research that must be overcome. Ironically, Gadamer has turned historicity into an epistemological problem to be solved. The Epistemological Problem of Historicity For Gadamer the task of the historian is universal history. If universal history is conceived as a collection of all historical events, historicity prevents historians from performing their task. Even when Gadamer transformed ‘universal history’ into an experience, historicity prevented the historian from apprehending the experience. So why does historicity get in the way of historical knowledge at every turn? Why is historicity an ‘insuperable barrier’ to perfect historical knowledge? Gadamer’s answer to this question lies in an explanation of the principle of Wirkungsgeschichte (history of effects): If we are trying to understand a historical phenomenon from the historical distance that is characteristic of our hermeneutical situation, we are always already affected by history. It determines in advance both what seems to us worth inquiring about and what will appear as an object of investigation, and we more or less forget half of what is really there – in fact, we miss the whole truth of the phenomenon – when we take its immediate appearance as the whole truth. (1989, p. 300)

The past is not just the bearer of our historical knowledge, but also the bearer of both the way that we understand and our motivations for understanding. Therefore, historicity is thought to get in the way at every turn because it is the condition of our understanding.

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As Hoy explains, for Gadamer the historical effect of a text is inseparable from its meaning: Gadamer’s hermeneutics insists that the effect, or Wirkung, of a text is an important constituent of its meaning. Since this Wirkung differs for different ages, it has a history and tradition – what Gadamer calls a Wirkungsgeschichte. For a contemporary interpreter this history is still operant, moreover, since his own understanding of the text grows out of and is conditioned by it. (1978a, pp. 41–2)

This means that the historian’s researching of an event does not move closer and closer to the ‘real event’, but rather moves according to, and in relation to, past understandings of the event and the effect that these past understandings have on us in the present. Thus Gadamer insists that there is no objectively real perspective from which to judge the historian’s account of an event. There is only what has been passed on to us in the tradition of historical studies. Gadamer handles this observation about the lack of an objectively real perspective as a factor that must be taken into account by the historian. The effects of tradition must be taken into account in any attempt to validate our understanding: ‘Understanding is to be thought of less as a subjective act than as participating in an event of tradition, a process of transmission in which past and present are constantly mediated’ (Gadamer, 1989, p. 290). In other words, we do not determine history apart from our position within history. On the contrary, history determines us as well as what we understand about history. According to Gadamer, the historical school failed to appreciate this fact: historical studies are not independent of the effects of history. They failed to recognize that the historian’s own history participates in the meaning that historical events have for the historian. Georgia Warnke aptly summarizes Gadamer’s position: ‘To claim that we can understand history because we are ourselves historical beings means now not that both we and the objects we study are located in a history common to us both; it means rather that we determine our history from a position within it’ (1987, p. 39). The next big question for Gadamer concerns what such an observation means for our claims to ‘know’ history: ‘Does being situated within traditions really mean being subject to prejudices and limited in one’s freedom? Is not, rather, all human existence, even the freest, limited and qualified in various ways?’ (1989, p. 276). Gadamer’s observations lead to a particular rendering of the epistemological problem faced by historians. Since our conditions of understanding are themselves qualified, reason must exist for us only in concrete, historical terms and cannot exist outside of these terms. Thus the very means we have for understanding historical events could change at any time so that we cannot have absolute certainty about our accounts of those events. However, there are some plaguing questions about this picture of historical research. Is Gadamer saying that any possible development or change in our conditions of understanding means that we must ‘qualify’ our present claims to knowledge? For example, eighteenth-century modes of travel serve as a condition of my understanding the historian’s account of how Napoleon was stranded in Egypt, trapped by the British fleet and unable to return to France for a full year and a half. Is Gadamer saying that these conditions of understanding could change such that we must allow for the possibility that Napoleon could have returned to France in only a few minutes? Certainly changes in our conditions of understanding do occur, but it does not make sense to say: ‘These changes could occur at any moment so we cannot

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be absolutely certain of our historical accounts; we might discover that Napoleon had access to a transporter like those found in science fiction works and could have beamed over to France in a matter of minutes.’ Such a statement is absurd. It attempts to take seriously an imaginary condition of understanding eighteenth-century travel before such a change of conditions has occurred; that is, without ever having left the context in which statements concerning eighteenth-century travel have their sense. Our present conditions of understanding render senseless the claim that Napoleon could have traveled from Egypt to France in only a few minutes. How then could these same present conditions of understanding allow this absurdity to qualify our claims to knowledge? If our conditions of understanding were perpetually subject to such changes, the word ‘understanding’ would itself lose its sense. But perhaps Gadamer is not speaking of a perpetual and potentially radical dissolution of our present conditions of understanding. Perhaps he is speaking only of slight shifts in our conditions of understanding, shifts that would warrant a reconsideration of our historical accounts, but not a wholesale transformation. Suppose, for example, an archaeologist uncovered evidence of a French ship in the eighteenth century that was much faster than any eighteenth-century British ship already known about. The historian might need to consider this evidence in evaluating why it took Napoleon a full year and a half to get back to France. The historian might be in the position of asking, ‘Why didn’t Napoleon escape the British fleet by simply outrunning them?’ However, there is an important distinction between the possibility of the transporter mentioned above and evidence of a faster ship. What is important about the latter is that there is something that counts as evidence which shifts our understanding of eighteenth-century travel. Here there may be legitimate grounds for calling into question the original historical account. That is different from calling into question a historical account because someone might discover evidence of a faster ship. Concerning the historian’s conditions of understanding, ‘evidence’ plays a role in the shifting of those conditions, but the ‘possibility of evidence’ does not. Wittgenstein addressed the absurdity of philosophical responses that maintain that every ‘possibility’ influences or changes our knowledge claims: ‘Do not say: “There isn’t a ‘last’ definition”. That is just as if you chose to say: “There isn’t a last house in this road; one can always build an additional one” ’(1953, p. 14). In other words, our claims to know are not determined or influenced by every conceivable possibility. We know what would count as the last house on a road and furthermore we know what would count as evidence for the building of an additional house. It is senseless to think that because I can imagine that an additional house might be built, I am warranted in saying that there is no last house or in saying that I cannot be certain which is the last house. Thus, the possibility of even a slight shift in our conditions of understanding does not serve as grounds for doubting or qualifying certain knowledge claims. The archaeologist’s discovery of a faster ship plays a role, but ‘What if someone discovered a faster ship?’ does not. Again, that is not to say that shifts do not occur; it is only to say that shifts do not occur whenever someone imagines a possibility. There are further, related questions about Gadamer’s employment of ‘historicity’ and his particular rendering of the epistemological problem for historical studies. To what standard does Gadamer look in order to judge the ‘various ways’ in which ‘all human existence [is] … limited and qualified’? (Gadamer 1989, p. 276).3 What

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conditions of understanding are in effect when we say that we cannot be certain of our historical account because our conditions of understanding may change? These attempts to describe the ‘limitedness’ of the human perspective lead to the ironic implication that there is a perspective compared to which the human perspective is limited. Many commentators note the ‘situation’ or ‘position’ of the historian, which is supposed to indicate the view or understanding that a historian cannot have. Hoy’s analysis of Gadamer, for example, includes the observation that ‘man is a being involved in an ongoing history, and there is no way he can get out of history to view history as a whole’ (1978a, p. 70). Similarly, Warnke’s introductory remarks to her book on Gadamer note that his work serves as the basis for the recent emphasis upon ‘the utterly contingent character of our efforts to understand’ (1987, p. 1). My questions concern what serves as the basis for these judgments about all our efforts to understand. What is this view of history that we cannot have? What is this knowledge compared to which our knowledge is utterly contingent? What does utterly contingent mean in this discussion? Contingent to what? The phrase is nonsense if it is supposed to convey the idea that there is no context in which to evaluate all our efforts to understand. If there is no context, why talk of contingency? Does not this talk of contingency miss the fundamental importance of historicity as a limit? Is it not misleading to speak of the nature of our understanding as a matter of contingency? Is it not confusing to speak of all understanding as contingent to something; for this would presuppose a meaning that is not contingent and such a meaning lacks a sense if our situation is taken to be our fallibility, our historicity, the limit which marks the absurdity of attempts to indicate a meaning that exceeds human understanding. To say that both the meaning of the object in its own time and the meaning of the object in our time are always contingent to our situation is to participate in the illusion that the historian can make sense of some position that is not contingent to our situation, which is the very notion that historicity was to warn us against. We participate in this illusion whenever we assert that all understanding is contingent to our situation; that is, when ‘our situation’ is not used as a limit for what it makes sense to say, but rather as a means for showing the various ways in which all of human existence is qualified and limited. Gadamer’s emphasis on the contingency of human existence is intended to show that our ways of thinking do not rest upon a metaphysical necessity. We cannot escape our concepts. To that extent, his emphasis is helpful but he fails to distinguish between a logical, or grammatical, ‘cannot’ and a ‘cannot’ that is contingent upon the circumstances. What, for example, does it mean to step outside space and time? What does it mean to be subject to the limitations of time and circumstances? We often use the word ‘cannot’ when we speak of human limits. For example, when faced with a scheduling conflict we sometimes say, ‘I cannot be in two places at once.’ The ‘cannot’ is a grammatical one because its meaning is not contingent upon the possibility of being in two places at once. It is not like the ‘cannot’ in ‘I cannot drive to the store because my car has broken down.’ In such a case, it makes sense to say that the car might not have broken down (if I had put water in the radiator, for example). However, it does not make sense to say that I am a historian who might not have been subject to the limits of time and circumstances. What would it mean to use the word ‘historian’ in a timeless or metaphysical context? This is the nature of my difficulties with Gadamer’s account of the importance of recognizing our historicity.

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He treats the matter of historical situatedness as if there were means for sensibly speaking of humans who were non-historically situated. This leads to questions like, ‘How is it that we come to be born in space and time rather than …?’ Rather than what? This is the difficulty. We do not know what it would mean for a historian to be born outside of space and time. There is something very strange about trying to think of humans who are not subject to the limitations of space and time, or about trying to say that humans cannot step outside of space and time: what would they step into?4 This failure to distinguish between a logical ‘cannot’ and one that can be demonstrated is particularly noticeable in Gadamer’s criticism of historians who claim historical objectivity: Our actual experience of the historical consciousness in the last one hundred years has taught us most emphatically that there are serious difficulties involved in its claim to historical objectivity. Even in those master works of historical scholarship that seem to be the very consummation of the extinguishing of the individual demanded by Ranke, it is still an unquestioned principle of our scientific experience that we can classify these works with unfailing accuracy in terms of the political tendencies of the time in which they were written. (1976a, p. 6)

It is important to note again the sort of ‘objectivity’ that Gadamer initially confronts. For example, he recognizes the problems in the sort of objectivity attempted by Ranke, in which the individual historian’s goal is to extinguish his or her own background so that it does not get in the way of a clear account of history. Peter Winch notes that there is a point at which such ‘extinguishing’ becomes illusive: It would be an illusion to suppose that there could be a reader (viewer, listener, etc.) and a text (or picture, building, piece of music, etc.) without any presumptions at all. Unless the reader brings with him a great deal of knowledge and skill to the text, in an important sense there is no text for him to consider. (1987 , p. 20)

This is the same philosophical point that Gadamer wishes to make. However, there is an important distinction between the accounts offered by Winch and Gadamer. While Winch emphasizes that a reader without a context is an illusion, Gadamer trades on that illusion when he contends that there is no objectivity at all. He speaks as if claims to an ordinary sort of objectivity must also fail. For example, he says that knowledge of a historical tradition is ‘alienated’ from that tradition. However, such an ‘alienation’ is a pseudo-problem created by accepting a grammatical limit as if it could be otherwise. In other words, we cannot make sense of the notion that objective claims ‘fall short’ of an illusion (‘I’m not quite the man I should be because I cannot be in two places at once’). While it may be true that particular historians do not offer us a historically objective account of past events, it is not because historians are ‘alienated’ from historical traditions. If, indeed, these historians’ accounts are not objective, it is because they do not meet standards of objectivity shared by historians. Gadamer’s remarks make it sound as if the historian should not make a claim to objectivity because any claim to objectivity is a claim to an illusion. Thus, according to Gadamer, a historian’s claim to historical objectivity is an attempt to exceed the limits of human understanding. But Gadamer confuses ordinary historical objectivity with an illusive historical objectivity. While the former can be evaluated according to

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certain standards, the latter is not a matter of evaluation. We do not wait for an evaluation to determine if a particular historical account has been given outside of space and time, that is, in conditions other than human. Such an evaluation would itself imply access to a nonsensical measure. While Gadamer is correct to criticize the historical objectivist’s claim to timeless objectivity, few if any claims to historical objectivity are of this nature. But even if a metaphysical objectivist were to make such an absurd claim, the problem would not be that a non-alienated view of history cannot be achieved, but that we would not have any idea what was meant by such an achievement. The philosophical difficulty lies in claiming to know what it does not make sense to know. In which case, there is an equal difficulty in trying to explain why the metaphysical objectivist is unable to achieve such knowledge. The response that says that the objectivist ‘cannot know’ in a timeless manner because the standard of objectivity falls short of such a context only further participates in the illusion of timeless objectivity. The problem is similar to the one in which our fallibility is said to depend upon our being able to clearly see the mistakes we have made. This ignores the fact that persons are fallible by virtue of being persons. Persons are fallible even when not shown to be wrong, even when they cannot be making a mistake: ‘It would be completely misleading to say: “I believe my name is L.W.” And this too is right: I cannot be making a mistake about it. But that does not mean that I am infallible about it’ (Wittgenstein, 1969, p. 55). Likewise, the finitude of historians is not dependent upon showing whether their accounts are objective or not. Gadamer tries to make finitude the proof of the limited nature of a particular historian’s account. Yet, this fails to appreciate that whether historians can escape their concepts is not a matter of demonstrating how an account falls short of objectivity, or revealing the mistakes made in an account. Gadamer attempts to show why every account must fall short of objectivity, why it must have mistakes, and he wants the historian to take account of this fact. This is very odd because it sounds as if the philosopher has to show fallibility in order for a person to be fallible; as if one day, when faced with not being able to show why a certain historical account is mistaken, we would have to admit that the individual’s account was infallible. On the other hand, if we accept that a historian’s account is both objective and mistake-free, does that commit us to saying that the account is infallible? The illusion of infallibility rests on the whole notion of being able to determine in certain instances whether someone is fallible or not; the philosophical difficulty lies in the assumption that this is a matter awaiting confirmation. Gadamer’s attempt to show why the objectivist cannot know what is beyond human knowledge is closely tied to this assumption. As Matthew Foster explains, Gadamer tries to use ‘finitude’ to show how we know what we know: The hermeneutic ontology is based on a phenomenological inference: our finitude is not a barrier to knowledge and truth but is the concomitant of our participation in knowledge and truth. … Our finitude is defined then not so much by our inability to ever attain absolute knowledge of our finitude as by the impossibility of relocating ourselves outside of this world and its relationships where knowledge is already occurring. (1991, p. 115)

Foster puts Gadamer’s use of ‘finitude’ in the best possible light. Gadamer, quite rightly, wants to emphasize that human fallibility and finitude are constitutive of historical research. The problems and tensions arise where Gadamer allows for the

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demonstration of finitude in each particular case. Such demonstrations require that one trade on the illusion of knowledge that is beyond human access. Whether historians are finite is not a matter of showing how they cannot get ‘outside of this world’. An attempt of this kind is nonsensical because it makes it look as if ‘infinitude’ would be a possibility for human knowledge if we were unable to show why it is an impossibility. ‘Finitude’ serves as a limit to what it makes sense to say and for that reason it makes no sense to say ‘Humans are finite’ as if it were a proposal needing verification or a ground for doubting everything. Gadamer’s mode of opposition to the metaphysical illusion of a viewpoint with no context leads him to trade on the very illusion that he opposes. He needs this illusive and contextless viewpoint in order to demonstrate why each and every claim to knowledge is an interpretation. All understanding is interpretation because all claims necessarily fall short of objectivity. ‘Overcoming’ the Epistemological Problem To this point in our discussion we have observed that Gadamer seems chiefly interested in showing how historicity serves as a limitation on the task of the historian. Now we will notice that Gadamer’s use of historicity begins to shift toward the notion of a limit. This shift occurs in his description of how Heidegger ‘overcomes’ the epistemological problem of historical studies. The difficulty is that Gadamer never abandons the use of historicity as a limitation, so that now he moves back and forth between the two uses. This confusion is particularly noticeable in his ambiguous remarks about whether an awareness of historicity provides a justification for the historian’s historical knowledge. His remarks on Dilthey serve as an excellent introduction to this ambiguity. We have already noted Gadamer’s criticism of Dilthey, but let us look more closely at the epistemological problem that Dilthey is said to have failed to overcome. In the three previous sections of this chapter we have seen that Gadamer appears to be looking for some way to justify historical knowledge. In the last section particularly we saw that his rendering of the epistemological problem is made a matter of showing how and why a historian’s knowledge is limited and suspect. In addition we have seen Gadamer criticize claims to historical objectivity as incompatible with human finitude. For Gadamer historical objectivity implies stepping outside of history, a feat that he maintains cannot be achieved. Thus he portrays the epistemological problem of historical studies as the problem of justifying a knowledge that cannot be attained by stepping outside of history. Historicity will not allow us to do this, so how do we justify knowledge that is not separate from the object of knowledge? According to Gadamer, knowledge of history is itself historical and cannot be treated as separate from history. It is different from knowledge of physical things. When it comes to physical objects, we can conduct experiments and apply the scientific method to justify our claims to knowledge. Our knowledge of the physical object in question is said to be separate from the object, and thus we can check our claims against the object. However, according to Gadamer, our knowledge of history is not separate from history and so history cannot serve as a check against our historical knowledge in the same way that the object serves as a

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check against our knowledge-claims about the object. As Joel Weinsheimer notes, this is precisely the criticism that Gadamer leveled at Dilthey: ‘The central problem in Dilthey, as Gadamer understands it, is epistemological: Dilthey wants to justify epistemologically the particular methodology of the human sciences and thus raise them to equality with the natural sciences’ (1985, pp. 155–6). However, according to Gadamer, Dilthey failed to overcome the division between the historical object and the historian. Thus, in turn, as Brice Wachterhauser notes, Dilthey ‘failed to develop a conceptual framework that would have allowed him to develop a theory of understanding that went beyond’ his concerns about relativism and objectivism (1986, pp. 19–20). Heidegger tried to address this very paradox with a new term for human beings: Dasein. The term is supposed to emphasize the radical extent to which human beings are historically situated. For this reason, says Wachterhauser, Heidegger avoided using the philosophical concept ‘soul’ which he claimed expressed a misunderstanding of human beings who ‘are always deeply rooted in their historical circumstances’ (1986, p. 20). Dilthey, on the other hand, did not account for the radical nature of historicity in his portrayal of the historian: Dilthey seemed to ignore the role of historicity in his accounts of the historian’s own ability to comprehend the past. Dilthey argued that the historian could achieve ‘objective validity’ in her results through an act of ‘empathy’ (sich hineinfühlen) whereby the historian pulled herself out of her own immersion in history and transposed herself into the lives of others. (Wachterhauser, 1986, p. 18)

Wachterhauser says that the problem with Dilthey’s thesis is that if it is taken seriously, there is no way to guarantee that historians will be in a historical position which will allow for sufficient common ground between historians and their subject matter. Thus Dilthey is said not to have applied historicity to the historian and so Heidegger and Gadamer accuse Dilthey of failing to consistently think through the implications of historicity. Wachterhauser summarizes the significance of this difference between Dilthey and the hermeneutical philosophers: What we are cannot be reduced to a noumenal, ahistorical core such as a transcendental ego or, more broadly, to a human nature that is the same in all historical circumstances. Rather, who we are is a function of the historical circumstances and community we find ourselves in, the historical language we speak, the historically evolving habits and practices we appropriate, the temporally conditioned problems we take seriously, and the historically conditioned choices we make. (1986, p. 7)

Much of what Wachterhauser says here is of great philosophical import. We see that there are several sorts of metaphysical illusions that Gadamer wishes to avoid: the notion of a metaphysical absolute that grounds our knowledge; the idea that human nature is the same in all historical circumstances; the illusion of a metaphysical essence of human nature; and the concept of a contextless object. These are all worthy of attack. However, difficulties arise in the particular character of Gadamer’s attacks. For example, Gadamer has detailed what Dilthey fails to do: he does not give us an epistemological ground for overcoming the distance between the historian and the historical object, he does not give us a ‘conceptual framework’ in

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which a theory of understanding can be developed and he does not apply what he knows about historicity to the task of the historian. In short, Gadamer believes that an epistemological problem needs to be overcome so that a theory of understanding can be developed and historians can approach their task in the right way. He wants to oppose the illusion by trying to solve the very problems created by the illusion. Gadamer gives an account of how Heidegger overcomes Dilthey’s epistemological problem by showing that knower and known have the mode of being of historicity, the same mode of being of Dasein: [T]hat we study history only insofar as we are ourselves ‘historical’ means that the historicity of human Dasein in its expectancy and its forgetting is the condition of our being able to re-present the past. What first seemed simply a barrier, according to the traditional concept of science and method, or a subjective condition of access to historical knowledge, now becomes the center of a fundamental inquiry. (1989, p. 262)

Who we are and how it really was are parts of the same all-pervasive structure. This, according to Gadamer, ‘overcomes’ the epistemological problem of history effecting history because historicity is seen to be that which both creates the historical object of our understanding and the means needed to understand the object. Yet the primary question for historical studies and, for that matter, all claims to knowledge, remains obscure: Is this existential structure intended to be a means of justifying knowledge? Gadamer’s response to this question is ambiguous at best. We see conflicting notions about the influence of historicity upon the historian’s knowledge. Historical knowledge is said to receive its ‘justification from the fore-structure of Dasein’, but this is not meant to be an interference ‘with the immanent criteria of what is called knowledge’ (Gadamer, 1989, p. 261). This is a baffling proposal. Presumably, there are two different kinds of justification for historical knowledge: one that comes from ‘immanent criteria’ and one that comes from an existential structure. But what is the second justification supposed to do? What kind of ‘justification’ for knowledge does not interfere with ‘what is called knowledge’? If this justification does not interfere with what the historian calls knowledge, why call it a ‘justification’? What use can the historian make of this kind of ‘justification’? Does it not create a source of confusion concerning what one can legitimately call historical knowledge? Numerous other statements from Gadamer exhibit a far-ranging ambiguity about the significance of this existential structure and the ‘justification’ it offers. Does our awareness of historicity provide us with a guide for justifying our claims to knowledge? Or, does this awareness simply help us to see what makes sense and what does not? Consider this passage from the introduction to Truth and Method: ‘Fundamentally, the experience of historical tradition reaches far beyond those aspects of it that can be objectively investigated. It is true or untrue not only in the sense concerning which historical criticism decides, but always mediates truth in which one must try to share’ (1989, p. xxiii). Here also it sounds as if there are two kinds of truth in historical studies that parallel the two kinds of justification: one is determined by the methods of historical criticism and the other lies beyond methods. It is easy enough to understand what it might mean to ‘try’ to understand a tradition by means of historical criticism, but what does ‘trying’ amount to in the latter sense? How does one ‘try’ to share in the truth that is mediated by a tradition? Is it a matter of having the right sort of theory of understanding before beginning historical studies?

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As can be seen in the title of one important section of Truth and Method, ‘Elements of a Theory of Hermeneutic Experience’, Gadamer does seem to think that a theory of understanding is crucial for the humanities, and an awareness of one’s historicity is the primary element in that theory. Yet it is somewhat unclear what this theory is supposed to do: But at any rate we can inquire into the consequences for the hermeneutics of the human sciences of the fact that Heidegger derives the circular structure of understanding from the temporality of Dasein. These consequences do not need to be such that a theory is applied to practice so that the latter is performed differently – i.e., in a way that is technically correct. They could also consist in correcting (and refining) the way in which constantly exercised understanding understands itself – a process that would benefit the art of understanding at most only indirectly. (1989, p. 266)

It is puzzling to propose a theory that is not confirmed or refuted by its application to practice. Perhaps Gadamer is only saying that an awareness of finitude provides clarity about the kind of work that historical research is. In this sense, we understand the kind of understanding that we have with historical knowledge. This may not involve changing our techniques in historical research; rather, it may involve changing what we expect from our historical research. Thus we could sensibly speak of an awareness of historicity that ‘corrects’ our notions about the nature of knowledge without intending this awareness to provide us with a means for justifying our knowledge. But if ‘correction’ has primarily to do with confused philosophical conceptions about the nature of understanding, one puzzle remains: Why does Gadamer feel compelled to offer a theory of understanding? If his purpose is not to correct our techniques, but rather to correct our conceptions of knowledge, what role could an epistemological theory play in this effort? He seems unable to shed the desire to make an awareness of historicity the basis for an epistemological justification of historical knowledge. This desire for a justification of our knowledge is explicit in a passage about how one should approach a text that is to be interpreted: A person who is trying to understand is exposed to distraction from fore-meanings that are not borne out by the things themselves. Working out appropriate projections, anticipatory in nature, to be confirmed ‘by the things’ themselves, is the constant task of understanding. … But understanding realizes its full potential only when the fore-meanings that it begins with are not arbitrary. Thus it is quite right for the interpreter not to approach the text directly, relying solely on the fore-meaning already available to him, but rather explicitly to examine the legitimacy – i.e., the origin and validity – of the fore-meanings dwelling within him. … The important thing is to be aware of one’s own bias, so that the text can present itself in all its otherness and thus assert its own truth against one’s own fore-meanings. (Gadamer, 1989, pp. 267 and 269)

The practice of reading a text involves the inquirer in the tasks of ‘foregrounding’ and ‘appropriating’ fore-meanings and prejudices. These tasks are performed in order to determine the legitimacy of our conditions of understanding. It is not clear how these tasks are conducted, but once again Gadamer has shifted the role of historicity from that of a limit, the condition in which measuring has its sense, to that of a limitation, a

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means of measuring. He does this in spite of his recognition that an awareness of historicity is not a matter of being ‘technically correct’ (1989, p. 266). Once Gadamer begins to employ historicity as a limitation and to speak of the ‘legitimacy of fore-meanings’, he cannot avoid the implication that we have access to a standard that makes such determinations. When finitude and fallibility are made into an existential structure of prejudices, this structure becomes the ‘reality’ against which all else is measured: ‘That is why the prejudices of the individual, far more than his judgments, constitute the historical reality of his being’ (Gadamer, 1989, pp. 276–7). Instead of serving as a warning against absurd philosophical efforts, historicity becomes a means of speaking about ‘the historical reality’ of the individual. Where one might have thought that an awareness of finitude and fallibility would serve to temper universal claims about ‘the real’, we find Gadamer making this awareness an occasion for speaking of a hermeneutical structure that determines what is ‘real historical thinking’. Thus Gadamer is looking for more than just the recognition of a limit; he is looking for a justification that lies behind our immanent criteria of knowledge, one that can demonstrate the reality of history: We must here appeal from a badly understood historical thinking to one that can better perform the task of understanding. Real historical thinking must take account of its own historicity. Only then will it cease to chase the phantom of a historical object that is the object of progressive research, and learn to view the object as the counterpart of itself and hence understand both. … [We] more or less forget half of what is really there – in fact, we miss the whole truth of the phenomenon – when we take its immediate appearance as the whole truth. (1989, pp. 299–300)

Yet other passages seem to contradict this search for what is ‘really there’, an illusive search for a justification that lies behind our ordinary justifications. Near the end of Truth and Method, Gadamer writes: ‘In understanding we are drawn into an event of truth and arrive, as it were, too late, if we want to know what we are supposed to believe’ (1989, p. 490). Such a remark is a long way from ‘all understanding is interpretation’. Gadamer seems to be saying in these last pages of the book that if we understand something, then it is too late to look for a theoretical structure of interpretation that will justify our understanding. Understanding occurs without that sort of justification. Likewise, in an important passage from a supplement to Truth and Method, Gadamer insists that his work is not a proposal concerning what ought to be done, implying that it is not, after all, a theoretical epistemological justification: Fundamentally I am not proposing a method; I am describing what is the case. That it is as I describe cannot, I think, be seriously questioned. … In other words, I consider the only scientific thing is to recognize what is, instead of starting from what ought to be or could be. Hence I am trying to go beyond the concept of method held by modern science (which retains its limited justification) and to envisage in a fundamentally universal way what always happens. (1989, p. 512)

What is the practical value of Gadamer’s description? What difference does it make to note that all accounts are made ‘within’ history and that this is the way that it always happens? Would it be possible for two historians to give the exact same account of a historical event and yet say different things about the relation of the

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knower to the known? Suppose one says that the knower and the known are part of the same context (historical research) and thus there is no epistemological problem with the making of historical judgments. Suppose the other says that the knower and the known share the same mode of being and the fact that this mode of being is historicity means that there is no epistemological problem with the making of historical judgments. Both historians give the same account of an event but differ on their epistemological grounding for those accounts. What difference does the epistemological grounding make? Whatever difference it makes the epistemological grounding does not settle whose account is justified. The ambiguity about what Gadamer is trying to do is reflected as well in the many commentaries upon his work. Warnke maintains that Gadamer has conflated our ‘thrownness’ into historical conditions with a substantive agreement with those conditions. She argues, following Habermas, that Gadamer promotes ideological support of one’s tradition: ‘[Gadamer] slips from an investigation of the conditions of understanding to the basically conservative thesis according to which we are not only members of a tradition but also its ideological supporters’ (Warnke, 1987, p. 106). Against this view, Weinsheimer argues that Gadamer’s book is not about supporting anything, but is essentially about something we can do nothing about: Gadamer intends to correct not the ongoing practice of understanding, which is already in good order, but only the way we understand understanding. … Insofar as it is a book about what we can do nothing about – that is, insofar as it concerns itself with what happens to us beyond our wanting and doing – Truth and Method is, if correct, also inconsequential. Precisely to the extent that it is right, there is nothing to be done. (1985, pp. 164–5)

Hoy challenges this thesis: ‘Gadamer is not just presenting an ontology, however, but is also developing a hermeneutical theory of interpretation’ (1978a, p. 72). Hoy argues that Gadamer’s work is double-sided: Two concepts must be stressed to show why historical understanding is neither subjective nor impossible. These are Gadamer’s concepts of Horizontverschmelzung [fusion of horizons] and wirkungsgeschichtliches Bewusstsein [effective history consciousness]. The former is intended to explain the possibility of historical understanding, while the latter becomes a guiding ideal of proper interpretation. (1978a, p. 95)

Gadamer’s emphasis on the situatedness of a historical description is not just an observation about the nature of understanding. Wachterhauser agrees, explaining that Gadamer’s intentions are much grander than that: The thesis of historicity is central to a hermeneutical theory of understanding because advocates of philosophical hermeneutics insist that our historicity colors all our rational activities, that is, our ability to order and make sense of our world. … This implies much more than the trivial claim that any knowledge-claim will show certain ‘accidental’ traces of the historical context in which it was formulated, such as the language, grammar, and style of its author; it involves the more radical claim that the very meaning and validity of any knowledge-claim is inextricably intertwined with the historical situation of both its formulators and evaluators. (1986, p. 7)

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Gadamer’s intentions reach far beyond mere opposition to metaphysical illusions. Indeed, he has measured the epistemological status of all knowledge-claims and has found them all wanting: they are limited by their historical situatedness. Gadamer is not just offering a reminder; he is going to show us the ontological structure that makes all of our claims limited. As we have noted before, the difficulty lies in trying to determine what it means to make a claim ‘outside’ history. In other words, what would an unlimited, nonhistorical claim look like? Sir Isaac Newton’s claims to truth were presumably not ‘outside’ of his historical situation no matter what he said about them; neither are the claims of historians.5 There is a difference between Newton saying, ‘This will be true in 2003’, or ‘This is true for all time’, and his saying, ‘I am now saying this truth in 2003’, or ‘This is true “outside” of history’. The former phrases may demonstrate a lack of humility, depending on the circumstances in which they were made. The latter are just nonsensical. Even to say that something is true sub specie aeternitatis is not the same thing as saying, ‘I am now speaking the truth in the year 1700’, or ‘Now I am speaking the truth in every moment of time’. This confuses a claim to infallibility with a claim to truth. It is as if ‘You could be wrong’ precludes my having any right in any circumstance to saying that I am right. Concerning infallibility, there is no need to wait and see how it turns out, according to particular grounds.6 By contrast, a claim to truth is judged according to certain grounds. In other words, there are reasonable grounds for claims to truth and claims to be right, but it is senseless to speak of grounds for determining whether I am infallible. Thus, it is senseless to maintain that my fallibility is always a factor in justifying my claims to truth. Whether I am fallible or infallible is not a matter yet to be decided; whether or not I am right about a particular issue may be up for questioning. Every particular claim that I make does not become questionable when it is ‘discovered’ that I am fallible. Likewise, if a historical event or era does not have a separate context from the one in which it is discussed and described, what is the point of saying, with Gadamer and Wachterhauser, that the description is ‘colored’ by the historian’s particular historical situation? What other options do historians have? In this sense, the historical event that we view from our own historical situation is not separate from that situation. The storming of the Bastille does not occur when I reflect on it. I cannot experience it in its immediacy, but the ‘cannot’ here is a logical one, not a contingent one. If I truly thought that I was, at this moment, storming the Bastille, those around me might wonder what sort of medication I was on. While there is sense in saying that a certain view of an event may be ‘colored’ by the situation in which that view is being proffered, this only means that a historian has allowed personal prejudices and biases to interfere in the account offered. It does not mean that because the account is not the same as the experience, the account will always be ‘colored’ by the historian’s personal situation. The account is only deemed ‘colored’ if we can point to the particular prejudice or bias in the account that distorts the historical event or era described. This means that we have access to a view of the historical event that is not distorted in this way. If Gadamer and the philosophers of hermeneutics want to argue that all historical accounts are ‘colored’ on the basis that no historian could have access to the historical experience itself, then the philosophers themselves would need access to the historical experience itself, a feat that they explicitly claim to be an impossibility. Issues about the historical situation of the observer do not have the sort

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of epistemological significance that Gadamer thinks they have. The situation of the observer may certainly play a role in the account that we give of a historical event, but it cannot make sense to say, as Gadamer claims, that the situation of the observer always ‘colors’ the historical account. Otherwise, it would make as little sense to speak of an ‘observation’ or a ‘view’ as it does to speak of ‘escaping the human situation’ or accepting a ‘non-historical assumption’. I am trying to understand what it would mean to accept a non-historical assumption. What would it mean for a human being to offer or accept a ‘nonhistorical assumption’? Suppose we say that ‘God is omnipotent’ is a non-historical assumption. I suppose by that we would mean that God is not human, that God transcends human history. However, that does not remove what is important for the philosopher of hermeneutics: the assumption is accepted within history. But then it looks as if an assumption is historical by nature and that it is thus redundant to speak of a ‘historical assumption’. Then, of course, it is of little consequence to say that the humanities accept certain ‘historical assumptions’. That is only to say that they accept certain assumptions or conventions. Or better: they proceed according to certain conventions, which is not to say that they proceed according to arbitrary beliefs or standards. If these conventions were said to be arbitrary, that would imply a standard outside of space and time that would show them to be arbitrary, thus falling into the illusion of infallibility. One of the great philosophical insights of the twentieth century is Wittgenstein’s elucidation of what it means for language to be a limit. Wittgenstein struggled to avoid theorizing about that limit, as if it were an established boundary. He tried instead to describe what it means to encounter a limit where ‘limit’ is treated as a logical concept rather than an object of investigation or a standard of measure. On the other hand, the metaphysician theorizes about the ‘limit’ as if it were an object of investigation. The great temptation, said Wittgenstein, is to refuse to admit the role of the ‘limit’. We have a language for investigating ‘objects’ and we have a language for elucidating ‘concepts’, but we do not have a language for investigating ‘logical concepts’ as if they were ‘objects’. Gadamer wants ‘historicity’ to play the role of a limit and yet his insistence that all understanding is interpretation, that all historical observation is situated, turns historicity into a limitation that forces him to offer a theoretical justification for knowledge. The way Gadamer frames the epistemological issue commits him to using ‘historicity’ as both a limit to and a limitation on the task of the historian. Gadamer recognizes that historicity is a limit insofar as it is absurd to speak of ‘going beyond’ one’s historicity. However, he also speaks of historicity as a limitation to understanding. This commits him to explaining the metaphysical illusion in terms of human capabilities and reveals why he challenges the notion of ‘objectivity’. If historicity is a limitation on what historians are capable of achieving, then ‘objectivity’ is easily turned into an unachievable experience or state of existence. As noted at the beginning of this chapter, making such explanations led Gadamer into difficulties with the use of ‘prejudice’. If, however, historicity is employed only to indicate the limit in which our doing and saying have their sense, then the ordinary notion of ‘objectivity’ is left to function as it usually does: not as a claim to infallibility, but as a claim to have carefully observed the criteria that are the standards for objectivity in the field of discussion. If the ordinary use of ‘objectivity’

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is not an extraordinary claim to an infallible, metaphysical view, then it is senseless to maintain that all understanding is interpretation and all views are prejudiced ones. This characterization of understanding as interpretation has placed Gadamer in the awkward position of seeking a universal structure of being that offers a justification for knowledge. Rather than giving an account of historical claims in terms of historicity as a conceptual limit, Gadamer argues that historicity places limitations on human understanding, which forces him to seek an explanation for these limitations. He is caught in the trap of explaining what it does not make sense to explain. Notes 1 2

3 4 5

6

See Heidegger, 1962, p. 40. The editors of Philosophical Occasions explain the peculiar markings of this quote from one of Wittgenstein’s previously unpublished typescripts: ‘Broken underlining indicates Wittgenstein’s dissatisfaction or uncertainty with a word and he “used ‘// … //’ to enclose variant drafts of words or phrases’ (Klagge and Nordmann, 1993, p. xv). Wittgenstein’s dissatisfaction with ‘mysterious difficulties’ is quite telling. To think of this limit as a mystery that calls out for a solution, like a murder mystery, is misleading. Wittgenstein is concerned to emphasize that it is a mystery that is more like a religious mystery, that is, a mystery that does not cry out for a solution. To look for a solution is to misunderstand the sort of mystery that it is. The full quote is given above, p. 40. See Rush Rhees in ‘Where Does the World Come From?’ and ‘The Ontological Argument and Proof’ (1997, pp. 13–23). My remarks contrast with those made by Wachterhauser. He argues that the shift in historical circumstances, which makes our understanding of Newton different from the understanding held by Newton’s contemporaries, is paradigmatic of why our knowledge claims ‘do not necessarily move toward better and better ahistorical representations of reality’ (Wachterhauser, 1986, p. 8). The problem with this line of thinking is that no scientist or historian could ever make a claim to give an ahistorical representation of reality because such a claim does not make sense. It is not our grasp of Newton’s claims or anyone else’s that shows us this but rather our understanding of what it means to make a claim. See Wittgenstein (1969, p. 55) quoted above, p. 44.

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~ Taylor & Francis ~

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Chapter 3

Universal Hermeneutics The prejudices of individuals, far more than their judgments, according to Gadamer, constitute the historical reality of their being. In Chapter 1, I brought out some of the difficulties in Gadamer’s peculiar use of ‘prejudice’ while pointing to the sort of philosophical confusions that he wanted to avoid. Philosophical hermeneutics rightly opposes the idea of a superhuman view of reality, but practical difficulties arise with Gadamer’s reformation of ‘prejudice’. There is confusion between his more positive conception of ‘prejudice’ and the ordinary, negative use of ‘prejudice’. He tries to correlate his reformed use to a pre-Enlightenment legal term. We saw that this effort fails because his use of the word is a technical one in which all our views are said to be prejudiced. The pre-Enlightenment concept applied only to a particular legal judgment and did not imply, in any way, that all our views are prejudiced. In fact, we were able to trace Gadamer’s reformed use to Heidegger’s technical term ‘foreconception’. Finally, in Chapter 1, we saw that Gadamer’s peculiar use of ‘prejudice’ leads to the use of other words that lack a context. These include a notion of a ‘worldin-itself’. Despite his attempt to emphasize that our views of the world are constitutive of what the world is to us, he is unable to dispense with an intentional ‘world’ that is common to everyone, the ultimate source of which is (metaphysical) being. Thus the account of the preconditions of understanding that we find in philosophical hermeneutics has recourse to an underlying metaphysical notion of being that is prior to language. Having discussed the difficulties of Gadamer’s peculiar use of ‘prejudice’, I moved, in Chapter 2, to a discussion of what led him to this use. Why must all our views be prejudiced? Why is every understanding an interpretation? We saw that the answer lay in Gadamer’s reliance upon Heidegger’s concept of historicity. According to Gadamer, the nature of understanding is itself historical, in that both the knower and the known have the mode of being of historicity. Every understanding is necessarily prejudiced because it is necessarily limited by this mode of being. One cannot possibly have an understanding that is not conditioned by a historical context because it would lie ‘outside’ of the context in which understanding has its sense. We traced a deep tension in this use of historicity, however. At times, Gadamer rightly uses historicity to indicate a limit or condition of human understanding so that talk of a view that is ‘outside’ this limit is judged to be senseless. At other times, Gadamer uses historicity to indicate a limitation of human understanding, that is, a fact about understanding that must be accounted for in any genuine understanding. This tension raised questions about what he wants his philosophy to do. In this chapter we shall see that one side of this tension, taking historicity as a conceptual limit, leads Gadamer to the profound observation that ‘understanding … must take the form of language’ (1989, p. 378). In other words, we can see what we 55

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understand in the language we use. The other side of this tension, Gadamer’s tendency to take historicity as a limitation, a fact about human existence, leads him to posit a theory of the ontological structure of understanding. The theory purports to explain the unity of language while accounting for the metaphysical distinction between being that can be understood and being that cannot be understood. Understanding is thus accounted for by virtue of a concept that is said to precede language. How does Gadamer resolve this tension between an account of understanding that takes historicity to be a conceptual limit and an account of understanding that takes historicity to be a limitation? We have now arrived at the central issue of Truth and Method and the basis of Gadamer’s claim to a universal hermeneutics: the linguisticality [Sprachlichkeit] of understanding. Gadamer’s Path to Language Gadamer’s path from the historicity of the hermeneutic experience to a consideration of the centrality of language is swift. From Schleiermacher through Dilthey to Husserl and Heidegger, the centrality of language and the difficulty it presents for philosophy is a common thread. However, the important figure in Gadamer’s transition to language is Hegel. The last sections of part two of Truth and Method include an analysis of the nature of human experience. In that analysis, Gadamer argues that genuine experience is a process and must include a negative moment, that is, the realization that one did not initially see everything correctly. ‘We call this kind of experience dialectical’ and it is ‘Hegel who testifies to the dialectical element in experience’ (Gadamer, 1989, p. 353). According to Gadamer, Hegel shows that once we have had an experience, we become aware of our experience and realize that the object of our experience is an object ‘for us’.1 Gadamer agrees with this observation of Hegel that human experience includes an awareness of one’s own reversal of consciousness, that is, awareness that one has moved from an incorrect or incomplete view of an object to a correct or more complete view of that object. Thus the nature of genuine experience is a process that includes the recognition that we have a better understanding than we did before the experience: ‘If a new experience of an object occurs to us, this means that hitherto we have not seen the thing correctly and now know it better’ (Gadamer, 1989, p. 353). The lesson that Gadamer learns from Hegel is that genuine experience involves discovering that our knowledge is perpetually subject to the challenge of a new experience. But Gadamer forges his own path away from Hegel’s phenomenology. Hegel claims that the consummation of experience in absolute knowledge is needed as a criterion of experience. Gadamer, on the other hand, claims that ‘experience itself can never be science’ in the way that Hegel proposed because that does not do justice to hermeneutical consciousness. Experience is a process and not a collection of events or a body of knowledge. As a process, experience includes awareness that one’s own current knowledge is not genuine experience because it may be surpassed in knowledge by other experiences: ‘The nature of experience is conceived in terms of something that surpasses it; … Experience stands in an ineluctable opposition to knowledge and to the kind of instruction that follows from general theoretical or technical knowledge’ (1989, p. 353). Thus genuine experience is characterized by

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openness to new experiences because the truly experienced person knows that his or her current knowledge is limited. There is other, and other yet, knowledge that will give a person a better and more correct understanding. Every true experience then will undermine at least one expectation. For Gadamer, this means that the general nature of experience is the realization of human finitude: Experience is experience of human finitude. The truly experienced person is one who has taken this to heart, who knows that he is master of neither time nor the future. The experienced man knows that all foresight is limited and all plans uncertain. In him is realized the truth value of experience. (1989, p. 357)

This realization teaches one to acknowledge the way things are. The truly experienced person has insights into the limitations of human expectations and thus knows what is real: ‘Real experience is that whereby man becomes aware of his finiteness’ (1989, p. 357). A difficulty arises here that is nearly the same as that which we have encountered elsewhere. Gadamer’s remarks are deeply insightful but are entangled with misleading notions. In this particular case he rightly identifies the limitations of theoretical and technical characterizations of knowledge. And yet he ambiguously couches the discussion in terms of ‘real experience’, emphasizing that the recognition of finitude is central. His talk of what is ‘genuine’ and ‘real’ indicates his continued search for a legitimation of human experience and understanding. Consequently, his investigation is perpetually driven toward a transcendent source that can provide the criteria for the legitimation that he seeks, but we have yet to fully consider how this is manifested in his remarks concerning language. Gadamer takes these observations about experience in general and looks for their characteristics in hermeneutical experience. Since hermeneutical experience is concerned with tradition, it is tradition that is to be experienced. Here Gadamer moves closer to a discussion of the centrality of language: ‘But tradition is not simply a process that experience teaches us to know and govern; it is language – i.e., it expresses itself like a Thou’ (1989, p. 358). He analyses three forms of the I–Thou relation and relates them to hermeneutical experience. The first form is the pursuit of knowledge of human nature, in which the other is treated as a means to an end. The hermeneutical parallel makes tradition into an object, excluding everything subjective in the attempt to understand tradition via the methods of science. Gadamer rejects this form because the observer nullifies the effect of his own tradition, resulting in a flattened view of the nature of hermeneutical experience. The second form of the I–Thou relationship is the struggle for mutual recognition in which the I claims to understand the other better than the other understands himself. This recalls Hegel’s discussion of the master/slave relationship (1977, pp. 111–19). The dialectic is more clearly defined in this form than in the first, but it nevertheless keeps the claims of the other at a distance. In hermeneutics this form is known as ‘historical consciousness’. For Gadamer it reflects the shortcomings of the Enlightenment ideal: A person who believes he is free of prejudices, relying on the objectivity of his procedures and denying that he is himself conditioned by historical circumstances, experiences the power of the prejudices that unconsciously dominate him as a vis a tergo. A person who

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The third form is the parallel to the hermeneutical experience. It is the I–Thou relationship in which one experiences the Thou as a Thou, which means that the I is careful to hear the Thou speak. For the hermeneutical experience it means: ‘I must allow tradition’s claim to validity, not in the sense of simply acknowledging the past in its otherness, but in such a way that it has something to say to me. This too calls for a fundamental sort of openness’ (Gadamer, 1989, p. 361). This is the historically effected consciousness that Gadamer has tried so diligently to elucidate. It lets itself experience tradition by keeping itself open to the truth claims that are encountered in the tradition. Openness is the quintessential element of the hermeneutical experience. In an examination of openness Gadamer hopes to find a legitimation of the truths that are discussed in the humanities. Openness is said to have the same logical structure as the question. In other words, the openness that characterizes the hermeneutical experience is best described by what happens when someone asks a genuine question. Since a genuine question always occurs in a dialogue or conversation, Gadamer’s investigations lead him to the linguistic context in which conversation occurs: ‘Every conversation presupposes a common language, or better, creates a common language’ (1989, p. 378). Further investigation into the nature of language leads him to conclude that ‘Language is not just one of man’s possessions in the world; rather, on it depends the fact that man has a world at all’ (1989, p. 443). Gadamer, therefore, affirms the universality of the hermeneutical experience. For ‘in whatever tradition we consider it, it is always a human – i.e., verbally constituted – world that presents itself to us’ (1989, p. 447). In this way Gadamer began with Hegel’s emphasis on the dialectic of experience and ended with a declaration of the centrality of language for a philosophical understanding of human understanding. For Gadamer, in the universality of language resides the ontological constitution of all that can be understood. Gadamer’s Theory of the Unity of Language Part three of Truth and Method is the consummation of Gadamer’s quest to elucidate the ontological structure of human understanding. In this final part, ‘conversation’ becomes Gadamer’s chief model. Language is the medium in which agreement and understanding occur between people, and conversation is the context of that agreement. Genuine conversation involves accepting the validity of the other person’s point of view: Conversation is a process of coming to an understanding. Thus it belongs to every true conversation that each person opens himself to the other, truly accepts his point of view as valid and transposes himself into the other to such an extent that he understands not the particular individual but what he says. (Gadamer, 1989, p. 385)

There are questions concerning Gadamer’s use of ‘validity’ here, but let us focus on what he is attempting to do. He is trying to emphasize the importance of the other person’s opinion or point of view. In a genuine conversation, we do not assess the

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other person, but rather focus on how our opinion about the subject matter relates to the opinion of the other. It is in this way that two people in a conversation come to an understanding about the subject matter being discussed. This arrival at an understanding presupposes that both participants in the conversation are making a concerted effort to recognize ‘the full value of what is alien and opposed to them’ (Gadamer, 1989, p. 387). The roots of this recognition lie in the openness to experience that we discussed in the previous section. A common language is discovered or comes to fruition because both participants are open to each other. The common language is not ‘discovered’ prior to the arrival at an understanding. Both participants arrive at this common language and both share in its reality. Gadamer further explains this phenomenon of understanding in a conversation by use of the term ‘horizon’. This term indicates what Gadamer means when he says that ‘openness’ is an ontological condition of a conversation. The hermeneutical horizon is the horizon of the question within which the sense of the subject matter is determined: ‘A person who wants to understand must question what lies behind what is said’ (Gadamer, 1989, p. 370). In other words, the horizon of the subject matter necessarily includes other possible answers and one who seeks the truth will be open to these other possible answers. Put in yet another way, the notion of horizon, for Gadamer, logically entails other horizons. Thus, in a conversation, a person has an opinion about the subject matter, which is his or her own horizon concerning the subject matter, but the person recognizes that there are other possible opinions and so listens carefully to the other participant’s opinion, which is part of another horizon. When two people arrive at an understanding of each other in conversation, a ‘fusion of horizons’ has occurred within an even larger horizon, which is the horizon of the question that initiated the conversation. There are always other horizons outside of one’s own, and when we come to an agreement with another person, that agreement is enveloped in yet a greater horizon. Each encounter with another horizon requires one to interpret what he or she understands. This is supposed to further support Gadamer’s claim that all understanding is interpretation. Coming to an understanding of anything, just as in a conversation, always requires an interpretation of both the subject matter and the other’s opinion of the subject matter, or the other’s answer to the question, which entails the recognition that one’s own understanding is an interpretation. This entire process occurs in ‘a language that allows the object to come into words and yet is at the same time the interpreter’s own language’ (Gadamer, 1989, p. 389). Thus language is one all-encompassing horizon. Language is said to determine both the hermeneutic object and the hermeneutic act in the sense that the object is determined by the act of two horizons encountering one another in the horizon of the subject matter, all of which occurs in the all-encompassing horizon of language. Gadamer relies on Aristotle for an elucidation of the horizon that is language. According to Gadamer’s reading of Aristotle, the agreement that underlies language is fundamentally an ethical one: The convention according to which the sounds of language or the signs of writing mean something is not an agreement on a means of understanding – that would already presuppose language; it is the agreement on which human community, its harmony with respect to what is good and proper, is founded. Agreement in using verbal sounds and signs

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Gadamer and Wittgenstein on the Unity of Language is only an expression of that fundamental agreement in what is good and proper. (1989, pp. 431–2)

Gadamer will later appropriate his philosophical theory to this Aristotelian understanding of agreement in a community (ethos). Meanwhile he must make up for the lack of appreciation that Aristotle has for the radical plurality of worldviews. To that end he introduces Nicholas of Cusa’s explanation for the various expressions in the perception of the thing: ‘Such a theory of language presupposes not that the things (formae) to which the words are attached belong to a pre-established order of original models that human knowledge is gradually approaching, but that this order is created by differentiation and combination out of the given nature of things’ (Gadamer, 1989, pp. 437–8). For Nicholas of Cusa, different words and expressions can be in agreement with the thing that is expressed because there are variations of perceptions. In the relation of the word to the thing, there is an essential inexactness, though the word is not precluded from being a reflection of the thing itself. Only the divine infinite can overcome this inexactness. For Nicholas, language relates to the thing, though admittedly in an inexact manner. Gadamer modernizes Nicholas of Cusa’s approach by combining it with a notion of the ‘thing itself’ and applying it to a conception of ‘world-in-itself’. He discovers the means of modernization in Wilhelm von Humboldt, who teaches us that languages are worldviews. As such, what the ‘world’ is for a person is dependent upon that person’s language, an extraordinary insight, according to Gadamer: By this [that languages are worldviews] Humboldt means that language maintains a kind of independent life vis-à-vis the individual member of a linguistic community; and as he grows into it, it introduces him to a particular orientation and relationship to the world as well. But the ground of this statement is more important, namely that language has no independent life apart from the world that comes to language within it. Not only is the world world only insofar as it comes into language, but language, too, has its real being only in the fact that the world is presented in it. Thus, that language is originarily human means at the same time that man’s being-in-the-world is primordially linguistic. (1989, p. 443)

The linguisticality of all worldviews is what makes hermeneutics a universal hermeneutics. For Gadamer, it means that every view of the world, past, present and future, is a verbally constituted world. The different ‘worlds’ come to be, but all come to be in language. Gadamer wants this crucial observation from Humboldt to work in harmony with Nicholas of Cusa’s notion that all language is in an inexact relationship to that which it expresses. And, he wants to do so in a way that does not fall into modern relativism, that is, the idea that variations of languages means that all worldviews are relative. The crucial element in this attempt is Husserl’s ‘thing-in-itself’. Characterizing Husserl’s phenomenological approach Gadamer says, ‘the “thing-in-itself” is … nothing but the continuity with which the various perceptual perspectives on objects shade into one another’ (1989, p. 447).2 For example, the table in front of me is a conglomeration of the various perceptual viewpoints that I have of the table. In the same way, since the various ‘worlds’ are expressed in their particular languages, the world-in-itself is said to be a conglomeration of all these worlds. According to

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Gadamer, there is only one significant difference between his world-in-itself and Husserl’s thing-in-itself. The different perceptions of a thing are co-constituted to make up the thing-in-itself; whereas the verbal nature of each world means that ‘each one potentially contains every other one within it – i.e., each worldview can be extended into every other’ (Gadamer, 1989, p. 448). Language qua language has the capacity to adopt and accept a radically diverse range of worldviews. This does not mean that the world-in-itself can be made an object, like the objects of the natural sciences. But neither does it mean that the world-in-itself is relative to a particular language, for ‘whoever has language “has” the world’ (Gadamer, 1989, p. 453).3 Thus Gadamer believes that he allows for a full appreciation of the distinctiveness of a worldview without committing himself to relativism and without dropping the notion of a world that is common to everyone. He gives as an example the modern orientation to the sun. We know and understand the picture of the earth’s relationship to the sun in a scientific world while simultaneously living in a world where the sun sets each evening. These distinctive and seemingly contradictory worldviews have embraced one another in and through language. Gadamer takes these observations concerning the relationship of world to language as clues to the ontological structure of human existence. That having language means having a world serves as a starting place for the theoretical or speculative work that is central to philosophical endeavor. It is important to note that Gadamer uses ‘theory’ in a classical Greek sense and ‘speculation’ in a nonpejorative sense. I will return to a more thorough examination of this notion of theory in the following section, but for now let us summarize Gadamer’s theory of the ontological structure of human experience. Gadamer says that his inquiry revealed that language does not simply reflect the structure of being; rather, it is in language that our experience originates and constantly changes. This means that human finitude is radically realized in the nature of language because it is only in language that being can be understood. Our whole experience of the world-in-itself unfolds in language. Each discourse reveals the unity that is characteristic of the world-in-itself and every verbal expression resonates with the totality of the world-in-itself without being an expression of that totality. For example, a conversation between two people with different worldviews will show the linguistic unity that underlies all worldviews because coming to an understanding involves participating in language that can embrace both worldviews. Furthermore, this linguistic unity underlies all verbal expressions as seen in the capacity of every worldview to embrace every other worldview. As we observed in Chapter 1, the world-in-itself is not actually apprehended but is something that Gadamer says everyone and every worldview ‘intends’ (1989, p. 447). It is a theoretical assumption made by all who participate in language. In the context of hermeneutical inquiry into the meaning of a text, Gadamer has called this assumption the ‘fore-conception of completeness’: It states that only what really constitutes a unity of meaning is intelligible. So when we read a text we always assume its completeness, and only when this assumption proves mistaken – i.e., the text is not intelligible – do we begin to suspect the text and try to discover how it can be remedied. (1989, p. 294)

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In the same way, Gadamer uses ‘world-in-itself’ to designate a completeness that every person and every worldview assumes. Every language user anticipates or intends a world in which meaning is complete and unified. While no one can actually attain or apprehend this complete world, its anticipation is an exigence of reason. This anticipation correlates with what is said to be reason’s need for a unity of meaning (Gadamer, 1981, pp. 19–20). The concept of the world-in-itself is an attempt to fulfill this need. The world-in-itself is neither apprehensible nor ‘outside’ of language. It represents both what is potentially true for every encounter between worldviews and what is constitutive of language use: a common understanding of the world: Hence language is the real medium of human being, if we only see it in the realm that it alone fills out, the realm of human being-together, the realm of common understanding, of ever-replenished common agreement – a realm as indispensable to human life as the air we breathe. As Aristotle said, man is truly the being who has language. For we should let everything human be spoken to us. (Gadamer, 1976a, p. 68)

Gadamer’s investigation is now entirely focused on human experience in general; his journey in Truth and Method will be complete once he has made clear the ontological structure of human experience. He turns to Plato’s discussion of Parmenides and again to Hegel’s notion of dialectic to elucidate this ontology of human experience. He embraces the Parmenidean notion that thought is an element of being itself, but rejects the idea that the mind is in some sort of teleological relationship to being, à la Hegel. There is an ‘occurrence’, a movement of the thing itself and the knower, but it is not a metaphysical relationship in which the knower, slightly impeded by his or her prejudices, seeks the ‘real’ object. Rather, Gadamer argues that it is the movement of the thing itself in which the knower participates as the questioner, that is, as one who belongs to language and to the tradition of that particular question: This occurrence means the coming into play, the playing out, of the content of tradition in its constantly widening possibilities of significance and resonance, extended by the different people receiving it. Inasmuch as the tradition is newly expressed in language, something comes into being that had not existed before and that exists from now on. … This linguistic communication between present and tradition is, as we have shown, the event that takes place in all understanding. (1989, pp. 462–3)

The best description that we can give of this event, says Gadamer, is that language plays (or speaks) to us through tradition. It is not consciousness that decides what to make of the object; rather, it is the thing itself that is acting in tradition and in our participation in that tradition. This is the point at which Gadamer feels that he owes his greatest debt of gratitude to Hegel: ‘[Hegel] criticized the concept of a method that dealt with the thing but was alien to it, calling it “external reflection.” The true method was an action of the thing itself’ (Gadamer, 1989, p. 464). Each particular perspective or interpretation is an experience of only one aspect of the thing itself, which works itself out in a conglomeration of all of the particular perspectives. Based on these observations, Gadamer believes that he is able to give a clear formulation of his theoretical ontological structure: ‘We can now see that this activity of the thing

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itself, the coming into language of meaning, points to a universal ontological structure, namely to the basic nature of everything toward which understanding can be directed. Being that can be understood is language’ (1989, pp. 474–5). From this passage, we can see why Gadamer uses the language game analogy to emphasize that we are played when we use language, when we come to an understanding of anything. The individual alone does not determine what comes to have meaning. Therefore we do not express being by playing with language, or with an object of knowledge, or with the tradition in which it arrives; rather, we discover ourselves in a game in which we are the ones being played in the only medium in which being can be understood: language. Theory and Phronesis Before I can offer a thorough assessment of Gadamer’s theory of an ontological structure of human understanding, it is important to be clear about Gadamer’s distinctive understanding of what a philosophical theory is supposed to do. This issue is related to the one that ended Chapter 2: Does Gadamer seek a justification for knowledge or does he seek only to elucidate the conditions for the possibility of knowledge? I previously noted that Gadamer opposes the notion of a superhuman view. It is a notion that he thinks is deeply rooted in modern scientific methods. But I also observed a disturbing tension in this effort to oppose scientific methodology. A tension is present even within his first introduction to Truth and Method. On the one hand, Gadamer investigates human understanding in order to provide a philosophical legitimation of the humanities: ‘The current interest in the hermeneutic phenomenon rests, I think, on the fact that only a deeper investigation of the phenomenon of understanding can provide this legitimation’ (1989, p. xxii). On the other hand, he intends his philosophy to play a limited, descriptive role: ‘It is not my intention to make prescriptions for the sciences or the conduct of life, but to try to correct false thinking about what they are’ (Gadamer, 1989, p. xxiii). He reaffirms this limited role in the foreword to the second edition of Truth and Method: ‘My real concern was and is philosophic: not what we do or what we ought to do, but what happens to us over and above our wanting and doing’ (Gadamer, 1989, p. xxviii). I concluded in Chapter 2 that Gadamer does not restrict himself to this limited role. His employment of ‘historicity’ as a limitation, along with the misleading characterization of understanding as interpretation, leads to an ambitious role for philosophy, one that seeks a structure that will legitimize human knowledge and understanding. In this chapter I have noted the specific claims of Gadamer’s universal hermeneutics, which is said to reveal the structure that he seeks. We can already detect a tension between this theory and his intention only to ‘correct false thinking’ about the human sciences. However, Gadamer has a very distinctive understanding of theory that may resolve this tension in his efforts. That is our concern in this section: Why does Gadamer maintain that his theory to legitimize knowledge remains within the narrow, descriptive role that he claims for philosophy? Once we have considered his resolution to this tension, we can proceed to an evaluation of his theory. One of the major premises of Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics is that the methodologies of the natural sciences cannot adequately serve as a foundation for the

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human sciences. Gadamer views the triumph of the modern concept of science and its influence on the humanities as a travesty that must be remedied. It is necessary, he says, to seek ‘an epistemological self-understanding which is not based on the credence of the natural sciences and of the ideal of method as it was characteristically called at the beginning of the seventeenth century and as it dominates the research work and our academic activities in the humanities’ (1979, p. 74). The expression ‘human sciences’ is problematic because of the connotations of the modern concept of ‘science’. It is said that the prevalent notion of ‘science’ is equivalent to the notion of ‘method’ in the natural sciences. As noted in Chapter 1, Gadamer cites John Stuart Mill’s A System of Logic as the primary example of the attempt to make the humanities a methodical endeavor that aspires to the systematic precision of the natural sciences.4 This critical approach, says Gadamer, has dominated and continues to dominate the humanities. He also refers to a book by Viktor Kraft on the historical sciences (1979, p. 77).5 Kraft, a member of the Vienna Circle, remarked that at best there is only ten percent science in the historian’s work. Gadamer maintains that if one’s conception of science is equivalent to methods, then Kraft’s remark is somewhat adequate, but the remark is inadequate if it suggests that ninety percent of the historian’s work is fictitious or poetic. Gadamer calls for a redefinition of the term ‘science’: ‘Thus, the question for us is: How can we develop a concept of knowledge and science that really corresponds with what everyone is doing in the humanities?’ (1979, p. 78). He wants to develop a definition that includes ways of researching and analyzing that are not conducted along the strict lines of scientific method. Such a definition should be conducive to the knowledge that is gained in the humanities. Gadamer’s redefinition is actually an attempt to revive Greek conceptions of science and philosophy, for it is Aristotle ‘who defended for the first time a special approach to the subjects of human action and human institutions’ (1979, p. 74). Aristotle’s phronesis, or practical philosophy, can provide the humanities with ‘a new self-understanding under the point of view of science’ (1979, p. 77). His use of Aristotle has two important and related elements. First, ‘science’ is taken to mean theoria, or contemplation. In this sense, there is no distinction between science and philosophy. Aristotle’s designation, ‘first philosophy’, implies that what comes after is also philosophy. Second, contemplation about moral and political actions ought to have a morally good and practical influence on people. Thus, concerning Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics, Gadamer poses these two questions: In what sense do these books about ethics and politics present us with a science? And along with this there is a further question: How did Aristotle understand his own activity as a teacher in this field? … It is for Aristotle quite clear that to investigate the basis of the good life, of happiness, of virtue, of practical reason, should also contribute something to the goodness of human life. (1979, pp. 79–80)

Gadamer interprets Aristotle to mean that theory (in the classical Greek sense of theoria as opposed to the modern sense of a system) ought to serve a subordinate role to practical reasoning and application. Theory in this sense describes ‘what happens in human life and how we can [clarify] the foundations of our attitudes and of our institutions’ (Gadamer, 1979, p. 79). Concerning this relation between theorizing and practical behavior, Gadamer claims that Aristotle understood politics to be the

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highest of sciences in a system of sciences. Aristotle attempts to make clear the meaning and significance of politics as the highest of sciences. It cannot mean that politics and ethics are the highest techniques to be mastered. Rather, politics and ethics involve phronesis, ‘the application of more or less vague ideals of virtues and attitudes to the concrete demand of the situation’ (Gadamer, 1979, p. 82). Phronesis is not a matter of following rules or mastering a technique that could be taught in a classroom. And yet Gadamer holds on to the notion that practical philosophy is, in a peculiar sense, a teachable science: Not only is its object the constantly changing situations and modes of conduct that can be elevated to knowledge only in respect to their regularity and averageness. Conversely such teachable knowledge of typical structures has the character of real knowledge only by reason of the fact that (as is always the case with technique or know-how) it is repeatedly transposed into the concrete situation. Practical philosophy, then, certainly is ‘science’: a knowledge of the universal that as such is teachable. But it is still a science that needs certain conditions to be fulfilled. (1981, pp. 92–3)

Gadamer recognizes that there is a significant tension, if not contradiction, in his analysis. The distinctive uniqueness of each concrete situation would seem to nullify any attempt to theorize about political and ethical actions for teaching one how to act rightly. He uses Aristotle to resolve this tension, maintaining that theory has an important, though subordinate, role in practical moral situations. That is, theory serves as an aid to morality by helping one to see the elements that are not subjective in a moral situation (1979, p. 83).6 Thus, there are two very important lessons that Gadamer thinks we should learn from Aristotle. One is that theorizing, the contemplation that philosophy undertakes, helps to bring balance to the individual’s commitments. It provides an orientation or goal for the reasoning individual that prevents one from getting bogged down in dogmatic and provincial claims. The second lesson is that what makes theorizing possible is itself socially constituted and not an extra-social objectification. For Gadamer, then, philosophy participates in and reflects the conditions of a particular society (1979, p. 84).7 Claiming Aristotle as his model, he intends philosophy to serve the good of its own society, to learn from the practices of its society how to offer theories that will serve society’s best interests. While practical reasoning cannot be taught in the classroom, practical philosophy is responsible for raising an awareness of the human ability to reflect. It can make this awareness an object of its theory. Such consciousness-raising can take the form of either aiding the development of an orientation for preferring excellence (arete) or guiding actions through prudent deliberations: ‘The point is not to enrich theoretical insight for its own sake but to apply this knowledge in a reasonable way in the given circumstances of a given situation’ (Gadamer, 1979, p. 84). An Assessment of Gadamer’s Theory Now we have a picture of Gadamer’s theory and the role that he expects this theory to play. In the simplest of terms, the theory is that being comes to be understood only in language. The purpose of this theory is to orient us towards the values of society. Society includes a multitude of expressions whose intelligibility cannot be revealed

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by the strict methodological means which, according to Gadamer, dominate our thinking. Furthermore, society includes a number of academic disciplines (including the humanities) that continue the struggle to uncover the intelligibility of these expressions despite the overwhelming predilection of the natural sciences to dictate the conditions of ‘reality’. Gadamer’s theory is intended to legitimize the struggle by combating the notion that what is intelligible and deserving of the name ‘science’ can only be apprehended by a strict and narrow methodology. Opposing this narrow understanding of science, Gadamer’s theory is intended to be a general description of human understanding which serves to remind people that whatever comes to be in language is intelligible and a legitimate object of study by the sciences. It is a theory of the relation of language to reality, a theory of the unity of language. In this theory, Gadamer claims to have both ‘legitimated’ the work of the humanities and retained a narrow, descriptive role for philosophy. My interest for the remainder of the chapter is to examine whether Gadamer’s theory, keeping in mind his distinctive understanding of theory, provides a clear account of the unity of language. Gadamer’s theory of the unity of language is multifaceted and difficult to capture in its entirety. I will provide an evaluation of the theory as a whole by addressing three of its major aspects: 1 2 3

his characterization of human experience as openness, a characterization that arises out of his discussion of prejudices and the historicity of human existence, his concept of a ‘world-in-itself’ which is supposed to serve as an intentional reference point for all language users and his analogical use of ‘game’ to elucidate the ontological source of the world-initself.

Human Experience as Openness Gadamer begins his theory of the unity of language with a notion of human experience in general: ‘The experienced person proves to be … someone who is radically undogmatic; who, because of the many experiences he has had and the knowledge he has drawn from them, is particularly well equipped to have new experiences and to learn from them’ (1989, p. 355). There is an obvious objection to this characterization of an experienced person. Many people live long lives and have numerous experiences, but not all who do can be characterized as ‘radically undogmatic’. However, as with many of the terms that Gadamer employs, ‘experience’ in this discussion has an atypical meaning.8 It is not intended to indicate an event that one has collected and added to one’s memory for reference. Here Gadamer explicitly does not mean: an experienced person is an older person who has had many life experiences. If that were what Gadamer means, then anyone who has lived a long number of years would be an experienced person. Rather, ‘experience’ here seems to be more indicative of an attitude that one has toward the people and events that one encounters in life. It appears to be an attitude of openness and readiness for what life has to offer. Such an attitude is thought to be a necessary condition of any genuine understanding or experience: ‘Genuine experience is experience of one’s own historicity’ (Gadamer, 1989, p. 357). As one commentator notes, ‘The condition of true understanding is the same as that of genuine

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conversation: a recognition of one’s own lack of knowledge and willingness to learn’ (Warnke, 1987, p. 102). Thus, Gadamer points to a readiness for experience that distinguishes the experienced man from the man captivated by dogma. This readiness is what distinguishes historically effected consciousness. Experience, in this sense, is very circular because when one has experiences of this kind one becomes more qualified to have new experiences of this kind. With this account of experience, another problem has arisen. Is Gadamer giving an ontological account of experience, that is, one true of any experience? On the contrary, Gadamer describes a particular sort of experience: The person who is situated and acts in history continually experiences the fact that nothing returns. To acknowledge what is does not just mean to recognize what is at this moment, but to have insight into the limited degree to which the future is still open to expectation and planning or, even more fundamentally, to have the insight that all the expectation and planning of finite beings is finite and limited. (1989, p. 357)

But if this experience is a particular sort of experience, an attitude, or approach to life, how can it also be ontologically true of human experience, that is, a description of experience in general? Gadamer appears to have distorted the multifarious nature of human experience. Not all human experience involves an attitude of trying to understand or being open to learning something. In many human experiences, learning something may not be of any importance. The judge says to the condemned man, ‘May God have mercy on your soul.’ The bride and bridegroom vow, ‘’til death do us part’. The mourner retorts, ‘Don’t talk to me about God’s grace.’ The frustrated golfer screams, ‘I hate this game.’ The President says, ‘I will stay the course.’ All of these expressions occur in the context of human experience and yet it is not necessary that the participants be open to learning and understanding. That will of course depend on the particular attitude of the participants. The philosopher or humanities scholar who wants to understand these remarks must appreciate how little they may have to do with an attitude of openness or willingness to understand something. If Gadamer is describing a particular attitude that one must have in order to have an experience, then he is no longer making a claim about the logical or ontological character of human experience. He is making a claim about a particular sort of human experience, which emphasizes the importance of understanding. Nevertheless, suppose Gadamer does not intend this radically undogmatic openness to be an attitude. Suppose the characteristics of the ‘experienced person’ are only intended to be analogous to all human experience. In spite of the misleading tendencies of this analogy, perhaps Gadamer is still trying to make a logical point about human experience. That Gadamer is indeed trying to make a logical point can be seen in this passage from Truth and Method: It is clear that the structure of the question is implicit in all experience. We cannot have experiences without asking questions. Recognizing that an object is different, and not as we first thought, obviously presupposes the question whether it was this or that. From a logical point of view, the openness essential to experience is precisely the openness of being either this or that. (1989, p. 362)

Gadamer is using ‘logical’ here in much the same sense that Wittgenstein used

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‘grammatical’. The point is that the context of one’s experience determines the sense that such an experience can have. His use of ‘logical’ should be distinguished from the notion of logic often employed by philosophers for whom a ‘logical possibility’ is any one that can be put into a well-formed proposition. Gadamer opposes the sort of logical openness that could propose a multitude of ridiculous possibilities. Thus he speaks of a logical openness, but not of the kind that is open to anything that could be made a logical proposition. In an experience something happens that has particular boundaries of meaning. Those boundaries are supplied both by the one who asks the question (that is, the one who undergoes the experience) and the subject matter of the question (that is, the experience itself). Gadamer is here criticizing on the one hand, the notion of relativism because he correctly anticipates that his own project will be accused of relativism, and on the other hand, a notion of propositional logic. His point is that not just any question is legitimate. Not just any understanding of the experience can have sense. The true and genuine question is open to the horizon of the object in question and is limited by that horizon: Posing a question implies openness but also limitation. It implies the explicit establishing of presuppositions, in terms of which can be seen what still remains open. Hence a question can be asked rightly or wrongly, according as it reaches into the sphere of the truly open or fails to do so (Gadamer, 1989, pp. 363–4). Gadamer’s notion of a horizon is supposed to indicate that there are boundaries to what one experiences. This horizon is made up of the presuppositions, the conditions of one’s experience. Thus, as Susan Hekman notes, the sort of openness that Gadamer describes is not a boundless openness: ‘Horizons are particular vantage points which, although they encompass a range, are exclusive as well’ (Hekman, 1986, p. 105). So Gadamer’s openness is not boundless. But what kind of boundaries does a horizon have? What does it mean to ‘obviously presuppose’ the question that an experience must be either this or that? What does ‘presupposed’ mean here? Is the question presupposed in the sense that the person must have been thinking of it as a possibility? Is it presupposed in the sense that the question does not contradict the logic of the context? Is it presupposed in the sense that the one having the experience is not predisposed against other possibilities? Here again we are faced with a difficulty concerning the ordinary use of a term. Many examples count against the notion that one presupposes all of one’s experiences. The wife’s shock at her husband’s infidelity would not have the sense that it does if her shock was presupposed. We could hardly even call it shock. If Gadamer’s ‘presupposition’ is a possibility considered before the experience, then, of course, examples of shock and surprise disprove the notion that all experience is presupposed. Some experiences are obviously not considered before they occur. Gadamer anticipates this criticism by claiming that ideas for the solution to a problem do not occur to us ‘entirely unexpected’ (1989, p. 366). He knows that some observers will take occurrences of shock and surprise as evidence against his notion that every experience presupposes the question. To counteract this criticism he shifts the ground back to the ontological and away from ordinary experience. He says that unexpected ideas ‘always presuppose an orientation toward an area of openness from which the idea can occur – i.e., they presuppose questions. … Every sudden idea has the structure of a question’ (1989, p. 366). What he means to say is that our surprises

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and sudden ideas occur within certain contexts. They do not just float in from a metaphysical nowhere. However, he obscures the issue by saying that our ideas do not occur to us ‘entirely unexpected’, as if he could use ordinary language to capture the confused notion of ideas originating outside a context. What is ‘entirely unexpected’ occurs within a context as much as does a ‘sudden idea’. What we mean by ‘entirely unexpected’, a perfectly natural phrase, is determined by our surroundings. Gadamer’s analysis makes it sound as if there were something illegitimate in the use of such a phrase as, ‘The solution to this word puzzle came to me entirely unexpected.’ In trying to combat the muddled notion that ‘sudden ideas’ originate outside of any context, he makes a mess of the ordinary sense in which we say that what occurred was ‘entirely unexpected’. Gadamer should have distinguished between those who confusedly suggest that an idea can come from a metaphysical nowhere and those who simply express surprise in ordinary language. Making this distinction begins with the recognition that one cannot logically use language to say in a sensible way something that does not make sense. The phrase ‘presupposed question’ is supposed to emphasize that every statement that can be understood has a context. When Gadamer says that the question is presupposed, he does not mean that the question arises before the experience occurs. He means that the question is already a part of the larger horizon in which one undergoes the experience. A troubling dilemma results when all of these facets of Gadamer’s notion of experience are brought together. We have seen that for Gadamer real experience is characterized by a questioning that reaches a state of openness in which one becomes aware of one’s own finitude. Yet clearly, in some experiences the ‘questioning’ does not reach a state of openness. How does Gadamer address the obvious complaint that not all experience is characterized by openness? ‘We use the word “experience” in two different senses: the experiences that conform to our expectation, confirming it, and the new experiences that occur to us. This latter – “experience” in the genuine sense – is always negative’ (1989, p. 353). Gadamer has divided human activity into two kinds of experiences. One is legitimate and the other is not. He wants to maintain a descriptive role for philosophy and yet moves philosophy into the arena of determining what would count as a legitimate experience. For him, every genuine experience includes an openness to understand something. A genuine experience will pursue an understanding of the other by setting aside one’s prejudices and presuppositions to let the other speak. In this description/ legitimation of the humanities, Gadamer makes openness a characteristic of all genuine experience, thus restricting experience to one particular sort of experience. Against the criticism that his theory is not an ontological one – that is, not a general description of human experience because it excludes a large portion of human experiences – Gadamer implies that those other experiences are not real. But what are we to make of these ‘unreal experiences’? Perhaps Gadamer wishes to retain ‘openness’ as a logical element in any human encounter by saying that even a lack of openness is an open encounter with the other. He hints at this in the following admission: ‘Questioning too is more a passion than an action. A question presses itself on us; we can no longer avoid it and persist in our accustomed opinion’ (1989, p. 366). When Gadamer is pressed to consider the difficulties of holding that all experience presupposes openness, he concedes that the genuine question is often unconsciously forced upon the questioner. Yet, he realizes

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that this conflicts with the Socratic–Platonic notion of dialectic as a ‘conscious art’. He tries to resolve the tension by maintaining that Platonic dialectic is not a method that can be taught and learned, but an art with peculiar characteristics. It is an art of questioning. This hardly resolves the matter since now we are squarely back to a particular attitude or approach on the part of the questioner: As the art of asking questions, dialectic proves its value because only the person who knows how to ask questions is able to persist in his questioning, which involves being able to preserve his orientation toward openness. … To conduct a conversation means to allow oneself to be conducted by the subject matter to which the partners in the dialogue are oriented. It requires that one does not try to argue the other person down but that one really considers the weight of the other’s opinion. (1989, pp. 367–8)

For Gadamer conversation is more than just a metaphor for language. Conversation as dialogue exhibits the ontological structure of language, so that any genuine and legitimate use of language must have the dialogical character of a conversation. The problem with this is that not all human experience and understanding has this dialogical character. Gadamer’s remarks shift the discussion back to a particular sort of understanding and away from a general account. Gadamer’s work here is remarkably close to that of Rush Rhees, a student and friend of Wittgenstein. I will consider Rhees’s work in some detail in Chapter 5; for now it is enough to note that he speaks of these matters in terms of ‘what it means to understand something that is said’ or ‘what it means to say something’. Both Gadamer and Rhees emphasize that language has the unity of a conversation. How it goes cannot be predetermined. For Gadamer the goal is to be clear about what one is discussing and to make every effort to understand the other on its own terms. If Gadamer had indeed limited the scope of his inquiry to a general account of understanding as aspired to by the humanities scholar, my criticisms would barely be germane. The problem is that he couches his investigation in terms of ‘genuine human experience’. While there is great value in much of what he says concerning understanding, it is simply not adequate as a general account of human experience. When Gadamer moves to describe the sort of openness that should characterize any effort to understand, he therefore falls into an absurdity: the conditions for the possibility of understanding are said to define the nature of real experience. In other words, the openness that is said to be essential for every human experience is the openness of a specific human experience, namely, trying to understand. Now we see the full consequence of the unfortunate use of ‘openness’ to describe human experience in general. An external standard for what will count as human experience is forced upon all accounts of particular experiences, distorting and confusing those experiences. Many experiences cannot be characterized by openness, and yet we still call them experiences. Does Gadamer wish to say that a dogmatic encounter with the other is not an experience? Should the humanities simply not bother with experiences that do not measure up to this standard of openness? Much of what we occupy ourselves with in the humanities does not fit Gadamer’s standard of openness. In his attempt to legitimize the work of the humanities, he has inadvertently limited experience to a certain sort of experience and thereby shut out a great deal of that which is of interest to the humanities.

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There is also a potential difficulty in Gadamer’s strict correlation between openness and understanding. Gadamer’s account entails a sense of agreement with the other that requires acknowledging the validity of the other person’s remarks. ‘Thus it belongs to every true conversation that each person opens himself to the other, truly accepts his point of view as valid’ (1989, p. 385). I suspect that Gadamer here means ‘valid’ only in the very narrow sense that we can expect the other person’s point of view to be understandable. If that is indeed what he means, then ‘openness’ is a very misleading characterization of what takes place when two people understand one another. Openness also evokes the idea of suspending beliefs and opinions. Such suspension does not occur in every instance of understanding. There is a type of understanding, for example, which includes knowing to what a person should not be open. Consider the Holocaust survivor who says in response to sociological explanations used to account for German policies in the 1930s and 1940s: ‘I understand completely what you are saying and I am not open to further discussions on the matter.’ Understanding, in this sense, is neither undogmatic nor open to the other. Does Gadamer wish to say that a person who makes such a remark has not experienced the other perspective and does not really understand the other perspective? He comes very close to saying just that: ‘The important thing is to be aware of one’s own bias, so that the text can present itself in all its otherness and thus assert its own truth against one’s own fore-meanings’ (1989, p. 269). Gadamer’s openness to the other includes more than being open to the intelligibility of another’s remarks. Since openness requires agreement, it discounts those occurrences of understanding where no agreement can be found. What it means to understand certainly includes an openness in the sense that one is open to seeing what is intelligible in another’s remarks, but that is a far cry from an openness that allows one’s beliefs and opinions to be challenged by those remarks.9 Gadamer’s use of ‘openness’ implies that all genuine human experience is new. Yet even new and unfamiliar experiences may have little to do with openness to understanding the other. Consider the following new experiences: a first lover, a first child and a first encounter with a person of a different religious or cultural background. One does not have to address this newness with openness in order for it to be a human experience. Gadamer has restricted human experience to undogmatic encounters with the other, but it is quite clear that many experiences with the other may have little to do with openness. My point is not that the language of all experience is useful and therefore validated, but that the language of all experience is not always characterized by openness. By implying that an experience in which one is closed to the other is not a real experience, Gadamer has created a pseudo-problem that disregards what the language expresses. Sometimes language may include being closed to a person or idea, and at other times whether one is open or closed may be of no concern whatsoever. When the believer praises God in song, there may not be any openness whatsoever in this experience. Yet it is expressed in language. Gadamer’s ‘openness’ only leads to a confusion of how some ordinary phrases are used. We must ask: Is not the simplest experience, one that has no pretensions to understanding or learning or being open, something that occurs in a human life? Something expressed in language? Something that is, after all, human experience?

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The World-in-Itself Gadamer’s general account of human experience is closely related to the second aspect of his theory that I wish to examine, his concept of the world-in-itself. We noted already that Gadamer intends this concept to indicate a conglomeration of worldviews. Each worldview is able to participate in this conglomeration and to have the world-in-itself by virtue of the fact that every worldview potentially contains every other worldview. The fact that every worldview presents itself in language means that every worldview can potentially understand every other worldview. Unfortunately, Gadamer chose to characterize this potentiality as ‘openness’. His theory has already begun to unravel in light of the difficulties with this notion. We have seen that many experiences are not concerned with openness to understanding nor is every notion of understanding characterized by openness. Although Gadamer’s description is intended to be an ontology, it is unable to maintain this stance of a general description because of the specific character of his notion of openness. The world-in-itself is said to be constitutive of every worldview being open to every other worldview. It should be clear from the preceding analyses that not every worldview is ‘open’ in the way that Gadamer claims. This situation creates ineluctable problems for the concept of the world-in-itself. Difficulties with ‘world-in-itself’ are not limited to Gadamer’s use of ‘openness’. A further difficulty is encountered in that this concept is said to be common to everyone and to every worldview. Gadamer recognizes that what one takes the world to be arises in language: The agreement about things that takes place in language means neither a priority of things nor a priority of the human mind that avails itself of the instrument of linguistic understanding. Rather, the correspondence that finds its concretion in the linguistic experience of the world is as such what is absolutely prior. (Gadamer, 1976a, p. 78)

In other words, one cannot have a world (i.e., an understanding of world) without language nor language without a world. Gadamer is very clear about this in his opposition to those who wish to posit a common ‘reality’ to which various language groups subsequently attach appellations. Such a notion of ‘reality’ distorts the way in which ‘world’ comes to be world for us. We noted in Chapter 1 that Gadamer’s interchangeable employment of ‘understanding’ and ‘interpretation’ led to his positing of this commonly held concept of a world-in-itself. We noted as well that the primary difficulty with such a concept is that it appears to lie ‘outside’ of one’s view of the world and a fortiori ‘outside’ of language. We have seen in this chapter that Gadamer introduced this concept to elude the charge of relativism. With the assertion of a universal concept of the world, he could hardly be accused of relativism. But what is the status of Gadamer’s world-in-itself? A concept that is said to be common to every worldview would seem to contradict what Gadamer has already said about the world not being different from the view in which it presents itself. Is it a matter of seeing the same thing in a different way? What does Gadamer mean in saying that every worldview potentially contains every other worldview? We are now deep into the theoretical and speculative aspects of Gadamer’s account of the unity of language. Given what we have already learned about Gadamer’s

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concept of theory, we can see that the world-in-itself is a sort of goal at which one aims. As noted in Chapter 1, it is by no means intended to be an object that could be studied by methodological means. Gadamer is trying to say that all language users intend one world, though the content of that world varies from context to context, but even if we were able to grant that such an intention has a sense, his claim does not change the fact that world-in-itself is a concept through which one’s understanding of ‘world’ is mediated. It is language, too. The notion that the world is one thing is not a concept that is found in every language and culture. Many Eastern religious traditions speak of reality as a plurality of worlds. Gadamer’s world-in-itself cannot have content without excluding these various ways of speaking. How, then, can every worldview be said to share in this concept of a world-in-itself? How can a worldview participate in a view of the world it does not have? In other words, if a worldview is closed to another worldview and demonstrates no interest in understanding the other, what does this ‘potential to understand’ amount to? Is it not equally true that language use is such that every worldview can potentially misunderstand or refuse to understand every other worldview? If Gadamer’s ‘world-in-itself’ is only a marker for the possibility that people with different worldviews can come to understand one another, then it cannot be an ontological marker of human existence because there are other possible ways of relating: ignoring, hating, loving, distorting, some of which require no understanding. Gadamer’s problems began with an extraordinary use of ‘prejudice’. In saying that all understanding involves prejudices, he put himself in the position of having to provide a standard that would distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate prejudices. This involved him in promoting certain ethical assumptions, a course that contravenes his intention to hold to a descriptive role for philosophy. What was intended to be an ontology of human experience and understanding began to look more like a description of a specific sort of experience. The concept of a world-initself likewise reveals a particular sort of understanding of the world, one in which every worldview is ‘open’ to every other. Still this does not account for worldviews that are not characterized by openness, especially those that are best characterized as closed to others. To put it ironically, Gadamer is closed to certain understandings of world. Furthermore, because his general description of how things are is actually a particular understanding, he fails to appreciate that ‘world-in-itself’ is a concept through which one’s world may or may not be mediated. Even an awareness of what this concept means does not entail its application to one’s existence. One could very well be aware of one’s finitude and certain ‘bad prejudices’ and have no interest in struggling against them or eliminating them. Even if there were a world-in-itself that shows itself in language, this is still only a conception through which individual thinkers may or may not mediate an understanding of their own lives. Thus it is neither a conception that can be found in every worldview nor a conception that is lived by everyone in whose worldview it can be found. The Game Analogy The third and final aspect of Gadamer’s theory that I wish to examine is his use of the game analogy. He provided a thorough analysis of this analogy in an early section of Truth and Method called ‘Play as the Clue to Ontological Explanation’ (1989,

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pp. 101–33).10 In that analysis, he distinguishes between the subjective playing of the player and the aspect of play that is independent of the player. For example, ‘playing with possibilities’ indicates self-conscious reflection on certain choices while ‘lost in play’ evokes a sense of disconnectedness to everything but the play of the game. Gadamer accentuates the latter sense of play to call attention to that which occurs in a game that is independent of the conscious choices of the player: ‘This is the point at which the mode of being of play becomes significant. For play has its own essence, independent of the consciousness of those who play. … The players are not the subjects of play; instead play merely reaches presentation (Darstellung) through the players’ (1989, pp. 102–3). Play, in this sense, is not something people do, but rather something that occurs in our doing. In other words, playing is an event that occurs apart from the initiative of the players. It is like the light that moves back and forth on the waters, the to-and-fro movement that has no goal. Gadamer argues that this is the primordial sense of playing. It suggests that the players have submitted themselves to something that they cannot completely control. Here lies the defining characteristic of play: ‘All playing is a being-played. The attraction of a game, the fascination it exerts, consists precisely in the fact that the game masters the players. … What holds the player in its spell, draws him into play, and keeps him there is the game itself’ (1989, p. 106). For Gadamer what is characteristic of play is that it is not separate from the event of playing; it is self-presentation. In other words, play is present and is what it is only when there is playing. Its reality lies in the playing. Gadamer depends upon the game analogy to emphasize this notion of self-presentation, which holds together his theory of the unity of language. It is intended to bring to light the nature and character of human understanding, that understanding occurs in a language in which the participants find themselves being played: ‘The analogue in the present case is neither playing with language nor with the contents of the experience of the world or of tradition that speak to us, but the play of language itself, which addresses us, proposes and withdraws, asks and fulfills itself in the answer’ (1989, p. 490). We language users are the ones being played. And in this playing, there is no measure outside the ‘game’ which could tell us what is really real: ‘Someone who understands is always already drawn into an event through which meaning asserts itself. … In understanding we are drawn into an event of truth and arrive, as it were, too late, if we want to know what we are supposed to believe’ (1989, p. 490). If we could end our analysis of Gadamer’s game analogy here, we should be able to conclude that Gadamer has used it to refocus our attention upon the ordinary. He is clearly motivated by the notion that what we have, in having language, is the world. There would be no sense in looking beyond language to discover the really real. In Gadamer’s own words: ‘What unfolds before us is so much lifted out of the ongoing course of the ordinary world and so much enclosed in its own autonomous circle of meaning that no one is prompted to seek some other future or reality behind it’ (1989, p. 128). Unfortunately, Gadamer’s use of the language game analogy is not confined to emphasizing that what reality comes to is seen in language. For his language game analogy is also closely tied to a concept of being: ‘Being that can be understood is language’ (1989, p. 474). This invites many difficulties. The trouble lies in Gadamer’s heavy emphasis upon the play as distinct from the players. For the players, this means that there is something else occurring apart from

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their actions: ‘The player experiences the game as a reality that surpasses him’ (Gadamer, 1989, p. 109). This reality is a closed world, in the sense that it has its own structure and rules. When play becomes a work of art, such as a drama, Gadamer calls this ‘transformation into structure’ (1989, p. 110). So far, there is little to worry us. We can appreciate the sense in which speaking is related to a context which is prior to the speaker just as a playing is related to a game that is prior to the player. The tension occurs when Gadamer attempts to fit a concept of being into his discussion of art and play: My thesis … is that the being of art cannot be defined as an object of an aesthetic consciousness because, on the contrary, the aesthetic attitude is more than it knows of itself. It is a part of the event of being that occurs in presentation, and belongs essentially to play as play. (1989, p. 116)

It is apparent here, and in other places, that Gadamer does not intend ‘being’ as an object that is distinct from what is understood in language: ‘To come into language does not mean that a second being is acquired. Rather, what something presents itself as belongs to its own being’ (1989, p. 475). Clearly, what we understand in language is not different from being. And yet there is a tension here between the idea that there is nothing ‘outside’ of the game and the notion of an essence (being) that is represented in the game. There is implicit in all of Gadamer’s remarks concerning language and understanding the notion that being is more than the presentation of itself in the game of language. Here lies the source of many problems. If Gadamer’s use of ‘being’ sounds remarkably similar to Neoplatonism, that is because he has relied heavily upon this ancient philosophy. In his discussion of the ontological significance of the concept of play for aesthetics and hermeneutics, Gadamer distinguishes a presentation from a copy. A presentation is more than a copy because it is said to have an autonomy not found in a copy. For example, a picture has its own reality; it is an overflow of the being that it represents. Gadamer does not hesitate to credit this characterization to Neoplatonism: Essential to an emanation is that what emanates is an overflow. What it flows from does not thereby become less. The development of this concept by Neoplatonic philosophy, which uses it to get beyond Greek substance ontology, is the basis of the positive ontological status of the picture. For if the original One is not diminished by the outflow of the many from it, this means that being increases. (Gadamer, 1989, p. 140)

The major difficulty with this notion of being is that it does not cohere with the nature of language as elucidated by Gadamer himself. For what we understand is seen in the language that we use. In the notion of ‘being’ we have the use of a concept that is supposed to include what has not yet come to language. Gadamer went to great lengths to focus our attention upon the idea that reality is not different from what it comes to in language, only to undermine his efforts with a metaphysical concept that suggests there is more to reality than can be seen in everyday language. For all his efforts to the contrary, Gadamer still thinks of language as mediation. In fact, it is the ‘universal medium’ (1989, p. 475). It mediates a universal ontological structure: ‘We can now see that this activity of the thing itself, the coming into language of meaning, points to a universal ontological structure, namely to the basic nature of everything

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toward which understanding can be directed. Being that can be understood is language’ (1989, p. 474). We are left to wonder and puzzle over the use of a concept that purportedly speaks of something that does not come to language. That there is a term in use, namely ‘being’, would seem to indicate that it has come to language. In other words, what is this thing that has not yet come to language? There is no solution to this puzzle. Either ‘being’ is understood in the language we use or it is a useless appendage that tempts us to look for a further reality ‘behind’ the ordinary one. We can now see that the sort of thinking that is characteristic of Gadamer’s notion of a world-in-itself is also found in his concept of ‘a universal ontological structure’ and in the claim that ‘Being that can be understood is language’. It is evident that Gadamer wishes to oppose a systematic account of the unity of language, an account that assumes that language is a representation of another object. And yet his characterization of all experience as openness, his notion of a world-in-itself shared by all and his reliance upon a metaphysical notion of ‘being’ push him in that very direction. The idea that a single system, built around a particular type of experience, could encompass the entirety of human experience and understanding seems wholly consistent with an aspect of modern scientific method that Gadamer seems to have overlooked. The problem lies in the way that Gadamer arrives at his rejection of scientific method, as the final arbiter of what is real. Consider, for example, this same rejection from an entirely different philosophical tradition: The difference between the respective aims of the scientist and the philosopher might be expressed as follows. Whereas the scientist investigates the nature, causes and effects of particular real things and processes, the philosopher is concerned with the nature of reality as such and in general. … [The] sense in which the philosopher asks ‘What is real?’ involves the problem of man’s relation to reality, which takes us beyond pure science. … Now to think that this question … could be settled by experimental methods involves just as serious a mistake as to think that philosophy, with its a priori methods of reasoning, could possibly compete with experimental science on its own ground. For it is not an empirical question at all, but a conceptual one. It has to do with the force of the concept of reality. An appeal to the results of an experiment would necessarily beg the important question, since the philosopher would be bound to ask by what token those results themselves are accepted as ‘reality’. Of course, this simply exasperates the experimental scientist – rightly so, from the point of view of his own aims and interests. But the force of the philosophical question cannot be grasped in terms of the preconceptions of experimental science. It cannot be answered by generalizing from particular instances since a particular answer to the philosophical question is already implied in the acceptance of those instances as ‘real’. (Winch, 1958, pp. 8–9)

There are significant differences between Winch’s rejection of scientific method for philosophy and Gadamer’s rejection of scientific method. Winch emphasizes that a philosophical discussion of what is real is a conceptual investigation. A philosophical investigation traces the implications of the way we use concepts like ‘reality’, whereas the purely scientific investigation draws general and theoretical conclusions about real things from particular instances of those real things. But Gadamer rejects only one aspect of scientific investigation for philosophy, the exclusive use of scientific method to arrive at truth. He refuses to relinquish another central aspect of scientific investigation, the drawing of general and theoretical conclusions from particular instances. Such theories have their place in the sciences

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but are ill-suited for addressing the philosophical question of reality because reality is not a particular instance of anything. Thus he relies upon the modern scientific practice of inference from the particular to the whole and upon theories to explain the way humans understand. Gadamer gives up the use of scientific method in the humanities but retains a firm grip on the use of scientific theory. This puts him at odds with the Greek conception of theory that he has tried to revive. Theoria, in Aristotle, has more the character of what we call contemplation. It is the divine element in humans and is quite distinct from the particularity of human existence (Aristotle, 1987, pp. 470–71).11 Rather than a conceptual investigation that would elucidate the unity of language as it stands, Gadamer’s investigation proposes a thesis that is built on a particular sort of human experience. Rather than asking what are the implications of our use of the word ‘understanding’, he seeks to discover a theory that will legitimize its use. In this way he confuses a factual investigation with a conceptual one because on the one hand he wants to take certain observations about human understanding together to form a theoretical conclusion while on the other hand he wants this conclusion to constitute the a priori conditions for understanding. Nevertheless Gadamer does not see that his use of theory is not an elucidation of the unity of language; rather, it posits its own universal definition of the unity of language by inferring the whole from the particular. He fails to see that one cannot give a general account of the unity of language as if it were a thesis. The positing of a theory which infers from part to whole in order to elucidate the nature of a priori conditions will fail because it regards a conceptual limit as if it were established on a collection of facts. The difficulties ramify beyond this theory, as seen in the implication that there is ‘being’ that cannot be understood. Because the unity of language, the relation of language to reality, has been treated as a factual concept, we are now faced with the difficulty of something that is spoken of in language but cannot be understood. Of course this entirely contradicts Gadamer’s insightful remarks about the relation of world to language. A something must get its sense in the language in which it is used and if it is used in language, it must have a sense; it must be intelligible. Gadamer’s theory drives him back into a dependence upon metaphysical terms that ‘speak’ of things that are not intelligible to us. With these ideas (that genuine experience is openness, a ‘world-in-itself’ shared by all language speakers, and a ‘universal ontological structure’ in which we are played by being which cannot be understood) Gadamer has betrayed his own most incisive philosophical analysis. He moves from a clear understanding of the relationship between language and world to the positing of concepts that breach that very relationship. Gadamer recognizes difficulties in these concepts, but he believes these difficulties are resolved by the peculiar speculative structure of language. Language is for Gadamer an event, or a game. This observation is intended to be the razor’s edge between relativism and essentialist metaphysics. Gadamer wants to disabuse us of the notion that language is the correspondence between a word and a metaphysical object. He also wants to show us that when we abandon this illconceived notion, we are not left on a sea of relative meanings. What occurs in language has neither the open-endedness of arbitrary choice nor the immutability of numerical correspondence. What comes to be in language is codetermined by the tradition of the subject matter and the seeking human subject. What is codetermined

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is the thing itself, which is in fact indistinguishable from its self-presentation in language. There is a great deal of disagreement concerning whether Gadamer’s theory of the unity of language is a return to traditional metaphysics via Hegel and Plato or the liberation of human understanding from the confines of traditional metaphysics.12 Most of the debate centers on the degree to which Gadamer relies upon Hegel, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, Socrates, Plato and/or Aristotle, a useful discussion in the struggle to determine what Gadamer intends. Yet we are still left with the question of what Gadamer actually achieves. He wants openness to be the characteristic description of real human experience. And while his intent is to avoid making a distinction between being (the real) and appearance (the unreal), Gadamer fails in that he presents a theory that employs the very metaphysical notions which occasion that distinction. Being is still more than what is found in language. We can now see more clearly how Gadamer got himself into this predicament. It began with the peculiar notion that the conditions of understanding are prejudices and the corollary notion that all understanding is interpretation. These notions put Gadamer in the unenviable position of seeking a structure that would distinguish legitimate and illegitimate conditions of understanding. A standard was needed by which the ontological conditions of understanding could be judged. All the while Gadamer contended that this structure would itself be ontological, that is, a descriptive account of human experience and understanding. However, now Gadamer had backed himself into a corner. He needed a general, descriptive account that would also distinguish good prejudices from bad prejudices. Since his account was intended to be an ontological one, the distinction between good and bad prejudices shifted to a distinction between the real and the unreal. Despite his brilliant account of the relation of world to language, Gadamer was forced to turn to a particular sort of experience, openness, as a guide for determining what is real and unreal human experience. This turn to the particular, presaged by Gadamer’s understanding of historicity as a limitation on human endeavor, epitomizes metaphysics as described by Wittgenstein: ‘Philosophical investigations: conceptual investigations. The essential thing about metaphysics: it obliterates the distinction between factual and conceptual investigations’ (1967, p. 82e). Gadamer’s universal hermeneutics attempts to capture the unity of language as if it were a fact that could be isolated into a single predominant characteristic, namely, openness. However, if language does indeed have a unity, it is not elucidated by the notion of openness because, as we have seen, all human experience and language use does not exhibit this characteristic. Openness is not the basis upon which the concept of the unity of language is put to use. Gadamer narrowly redefines the unity of language as openness and does not bring us closer to an understanding of it. When his redefined notion of the unity of language is applied to the particular, it excludes and/or distorts large portions of human experience and understanding, implying that some experiences are, in fact, unreal. Thus Gadamer’s account of the unity of language turns particular instances of human activity into universal characteristics of human activity and preserves the very sort of metaphysical distinction that he had hoped to dislodge: ‘Thus everything that is language has a speculative unity: it contains a distinction, that between its being and its presentations of itself, but this is a distinction that is really not a distinction at all’ (Gadamer, 1989, p. 475).

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Notes 1 Gadamer cites ‘Hegel, Phänomenologie, “Introduction,” ed. Hoffmeister, 73’. 2 See Edmund Husserl’s Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology (1962, pp. 117–20). 3 One can begin to detect the confusion in this usage. Gadamer sometimes uses ‘world’ to mean that which is co-extensive with one’s use of language and sometimes he uses ‘world’ to mean this concept of a ‘world-in-itself’. 4 See above, pp. 5–6. 5 There are no citations in this essay by Gadamer. I am unsure to which of Kraft’s works that Gadamer is referring. 6 Gadamer makes this same defense and explanation of practical philosophy in Reason in the Age of Science (1981, pp. 134–5). 7 It is telling to note that for Gadamer society includes ‘patterns of self-evident solidarity between human beings’ (1979, p. 84). ‘Solidarity’ is an unfortunate choice of words because it makes it sound as if societal activities are marked more by agreement than disagreement. This does not leave enough room for the lack of solidarity that we often find in societies and turns the concrete situation into a theoretical condition, namely, that solidarity is more characteristic of society than is discord. 8 In the ‘Translators’ Preface’ of the 1989 revised edition of Truth and Method, Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall are careful to distinguish the senses in which Gadamer uses the terms Erfahrung and Erlebnis, both of which are translated into English as ‘experience’: ‘Erlebnis is something you have, and thus is connected with a subject and with the subjectivization of aesthetics. Erfahrung is something you undergo, so that subjectivity is overcome and drawn into an “event” (Geschehen) of meaning. Gadamer typically uses the term Erlebnis with a critical overtone, and the term Erfahrung with a positive one’ (Weinsheimer and Marshall, 1989, pp. xiii–xiv). In the discussion described Gadamer is employing Erfahrung. 9 This is the weakness in Gadamer’s characterization of understanding as openness when compared to Rush Rhees’s account of understanding, which allows for deep disagreement. Rhees’s account, as we shall discuss in Chapter 5, distinguishes understanding from agreement, allowing a person to understand another’s remarks while simultaneously denying the validity of those remarks. 10 It is important to note that the German Spiel can be translated as either ‘play’ or ‘game’. The aspects of Spiel that Gadamer is trying to emphasize in his analogy are related to both English concepts. 11 The entire passage from Aristotle reads as follows: But such a life [a life of contemplation] would be too high for man; for it is not in so far as he is man that he will live so, but in so far as something divine is present in him; and by so much as this is superior to our composite nature is its activity superior to that which is the exercise of the other kind of excellence. If intellect is divine, then, in comparison with man, the life according to it is divine in comparison with human life. But we must not follow those who advise us, being men, to think of human things, and, being mortal, of mortal things, but must, so far as we can, make ourselves immortal, and strain every nerve to live in accordance with the best thing in us; for even if it be small in bulk, much more does it in power and worth surpass everything. (Aristotle, 1987, pp. 470–71) 12 John D. Caputo criticizes Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics because it departs from Heidegger and is ‘an attempt to block off the radicalization of hermeneutics and to turn it back to the fold of metaphysics’ (Caputo, 1987, p. 5). Jean Grondin defends Gadamer’s departure from Heidegger, noting Gadamer’s emphasis on the ‘speculative’ nature of

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Gadamer and Wittgenstein on the Unity of Language language, an emphasis that accounts for what is not said in language (Grondin, 1995, pp. 150–55). James Risser defends Gadamer against Caputo’s charge that philosophical hermeneutics holds to a traditional ‘metaphysics of actuality’ (Risser, 1995, pp. 111–28). Kathleen Wright also denies that Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics remains traditionally metaphysical, arguing that Gadamer’s emphasis on the ‘speculative’ in language means that language is not transcended by a realm of infinite absolutes (Wright, 1986, pp. 193–218).

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Chapter 4

Wittgenstein’s Tractatus and the Unity of a Calculus I have traced the development of Gadamer’s thought concerning the unity of language. His insightful notion that having a language means having a world is derailed by his preoccupation with the nature of being. This preoccupation leads Gadamer to posit a reality that includes more than what we can see of reality in our everyday language. He relies on metaphysical distinctions while simultaneously revealing their impotence. Thus in Truth and Method Gadamer valiantly struggles to give an account of the unity of language but fails by the standards of his own criticisms of metaphysics. In this chapter and the next I shall consider Wittgenstein’s work on the question of the unity of language. My interest in the current chapter is Wittgenstein’s approach to this issue in the Tractatus. His worry was the same as Gadamer’s, namely the question of the relation of language to reality, or the sort of unity that language has. He, like Gadamer, recognized that the philosopher must struggle against the inclination to treat the unity of language as if it were a factual concept that one can delimit. The question is whether he escaped the metaphysics that he hoped to dislodge by elucidating the logic of our language, the logical form of the proposition. The primary purpose of the current chapter is to achieve a clearer understanding of the sort of struggle that is involved in giving an account of the unity of language. But there is also a secondary purpose: to emphasize a minority reading of the Tractatus. This reading comes primarily from Rush Rhees and Peter Winch.1 A re-visitation of this reading is necessary to combat the prevalent impression that in the Tractatus Wittgenstein was giving us one of many possible accounts of how language relates to reality. This impression depends upon the assumption that language and reality are two different things that relate to one another and is maintained only by ignoring the importance of Wittgenstein’s peculiar style. Rhees lamented this neglect: Maybe too much has been written on the Tractatus: when it becomes a subject for commentaries, Wittgenstein’s own expressions of his thoughts are muffled, and students will hardly sense what he is doing. If you do not see how style or force of expression are important you cannot see how Wittgenstein thought of philosophical difficulties and of philosophical method. (1996, p. 38)

The account of the Tractatus given here, though critical of the work, will attempt to draw the attention of the reader to Wittgenstein’s peculiar philosophical style. Crucial to this task is understanding what Wittgenstein thought was the logical status of the propositions in the work and what he valued about the work as a whole. Emphasis on 81

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these under-appreciated aspects will help us to see more clearly the extraordinary philosophical challenge involved in giving an account of the unity of language. The Sense of the Tractatus ‘The whole sense of the book might be summed up in the following words: what can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must consign to silence’ (Wittgenstein, 1961, p. 3). Aside from what Wittgenstein said is the sense of the book, it is important to note that he thought that the book has a sense.2 He understood the work to have a clear sense, though its standing as a work with a sense is unique. It is a philosophical work, which means that the work itself is an activity, not a body of doctrine. While the topics mentioned in the Tractatus may tempt us to think that Wittgenstein has written a metaphysical work, Rhees reminds us of the peculiar status of the propositions: When Wittgenstein said ‘Meine Sätze erläutern dadurch, daß sie der, welcher mich versteht, am Ende als unsinnig erkennt, wenn er durch sie – auf ihnen – über sie hinausgestiegen ist’ – he was not saying [his propositions] were metaphysical. Otherwise they would not ‘erläutern’, nor could anyone understand them – as he must, before he can see them (in the special sense suggested) as nonsensical. (1996, p. 41)3

The Tractatus is intended to be neither a work of the natural sciences nor a work of metaphysics. The propositions in this work are nonsense in a special sense, not like the propositions of metaphysics, which are mere nonsense. The propositions of the Tractatus are philosophical elucidations, which for Wittgenstein meant that they are neither everyday language nor metaphysical language. Everyday language says things are this way or that while metaphysical language cannot specify the meanings of its terms in everyday language. By way of contrast, philosophical propositions do not make claims about this or that and yet they are also distinct from metaphysical language in that philosophical propositions use only terms whose meanings can be specified in everyday language. The following statement from the preface supports the notion that Wittgenstein intended the Tractatus as a work of philosophical elucidation, and not metaphysics: ‘If this work has any value, it consists in two things: the first is that thoughts are expressed in it’ (1961, p.3). It would be very strange to say this in the preface only to commence the book with metaphysical claims that Wittgenstein did not think could be expressed.4 And it simply boggles the mind to think that Wittgenstein would intentionally write metaphysics in most of the work only to dismiss at the end all that he had written. In that case, the only thoughts expressed in the work would be the ones at the very end. What makes considerably more sense is the notion that Wittgenstein held to a special view of philosophical inquiry, the elucidation and clarification of everyday language. Primary support for this view comes from the text itself. For example, Wittgenstein states in 4.112: ‘Philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity. A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations.’ And then in 3.263, Wittgenstein says that elucidations are propositions

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that both contain the primitive signs and explain the meaning of primitive signs. As a result, an elucidation ‘can only be understood if the meanings of those signs are already known’ (1961, prop. 3.263). And finally in 6.124, he writes: We have said that some things are arbitrary in the symbols that we use and that some things are not. In logic it is only the latter that express: but that means that logic is not a field in which we express what we wish with the help of signs, but rather one in which the nature of the natural and inevitable signs speaks for itself. (1961)

As Peter Winch notes in Trying to Make Sense, we seem to be faced with a vicious circle: how can elucidation provide an explanation of something that must already be known in order to understand the elucidation? Winch answers: But the circle is not vicious. The point is that one cannot learn the meanings of names separate from each other; to learn their meanings is to learn how they combine in sentences. In order to learn that, one has to be presented with sentences and learn to distinguish them from senseless strings of words. To have come to grasp the sense of a sentence is to have come to grasp the meanings of the names of which it is composed. More than that: because grasping those meanings involves appreciating the countless further combinations into which the names may enter, it is something that comes only with the mastery of a whole calculus, a calculus which it is one of the main concerns of the Tractatus to describe. (1987, p. 11)

Wittgenstein thus distinguished the propositions of the Tractatus from metaphysical propositions because his propositions are elucidations whereas metaphysical propositions are not. There is no new or additional information in an elucidation. There is only the use of a primitive sign in a proposition in such a way as to bring out and clarify what is already understood. Thus Wittgenstein’s remarks at the beginning of the work are not intended to be cryptic or mystical or ontological. They are antimetaphysical attempts at elucidation. As we shall see, the ‘world’ for Wittgenstein is just the ordinary world about which it would be strange to say that there are some facts it does not contain. The everyday meaning of the term is that all the facts make up the world. Wittgenstein was trying to elucidate what we already understand. The world is all that is the case. It is the totality of facts, not of things, as some logicians and metaphysicians would have us think. The everyday meaning of ‘world’ is not a collection of things or objects. The world also includes events, emotions, relationships, and so on. These are not things. But they are facts. And if one has a picture of the totality of facts, it would be quite ordinary to say that one has a picture of the world. Furthermore, Wittgenstein’s employment of philosophical elucidation fits the intention of the decimal notation in the Tractatus. The logical progression of the work is from an account of the everyday notion of the world to the work’s final word: ‘Whereof one cannot speak one must remain silent’ (1961, prop. 7). This is what elucidation of the logic of our language expresses: philosophy can only be silent on matters of religion, ethics, and value. There is nothing more that philosophical elucidation can say. This is not a conclusion arrived at like an ordinary deduction. Each proposition is a logical development, not to or from something more fundamental, but logical in the sense that each proposition elucidates both preceding

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and succeeding propositions. Thus the concluding sentences in 6.54 and 7, concerning the status of the propositions in the Tractatus and the logical demand for silence, were for Wittgenstein not sayable, but they do express the thoughts of philosophical inquiry into the logic of our language. The Tractatus is supposed to be a book of elucidations. Wittgenstein was trying to elucidate the distinction between what can be said and what can be shown. This is nonsense in a special sense: It is not everyday language, but it is not metaphysics either. It is elucidatory language, which meant for Wittgenstein that because it attempts to say what is already shown in everyday language, it does not say anything at all. Prevailing interpretations of the Tractatus rest upon the assumption that the opening remarks are metaphysical and/or logically dependent upon remarks in the middle of the work. Both new and old works on Wittgenstein make this assumption. Elizabeth Anscombe’s introduction to the Tractatus contains the following observation: ‘if we want to find the ground for its contentions, we must look in the middle and not at the beginning’ (1971, p. 18). Likewise, in his well-known 1973 work on Wittgenstein, Anthony Kenny writes of the Tractatus: ‘Both historically and logically the theses about the world follow those about language, but their dependence is masked by their presentation at the beginning of the book’ (1973, p. 72). And only recently, Eli Friedlander writes: ‘The force of the opening propositions is surely connected to their ontological tenor’ (2001, p. 21). The assumption in these remarks about the text is that Wittgenstein made claims at the beginning of the book that are not supported until the middle of the book. I think this reading shows a lack of appreciation for what Wittgenstein took philosophy to be and ignores what Wittgenstein wrote in the text itself. The propositions of philosophy, the only kind of proposition that Wittgenstein wanted to include in the Tractatus, serve to elucidate other propositions of philosophy and the propositions of our everyday language. They have a status that is very similar to logical propositions: ‘It is the peculiar mark of logical propositions that one can recognize that they are true from the symbol alone’ (Wittgenstein, 1961, prop. 6.113). In other words, one does not have to consult something else to see if a logical proposition is true. Likewise, an elucidation explains the meaning of a primitive sign, and the truth of the elucidation is seen without consulting something other than the primitive sign itself. Elucidations do not give us information that is not already understood when we properly use our everyday language. Philosophical propositions are also similar to logical propositions in that they are all of equal status: ‘It is not the case that some [propositions of logic] are essentially primitive propositions and others essentially derived propositions’ (Wittgenstein, 1961, prop. 6.127). Wittgenstein assigned logical importance to the propositions of the Tractatus by his decimal notation but this does not mean either that early propositions ground later ones or that later ones are essential derivatives of early ones. As Wittgenstein said of proof in logic, one might also say that the notation is used merely as ‘a mechanical expedient to facilitate the recognition of tautologies in complicated cases’ (1961, prop. 6.1262). Understanding the logic of our language is an extremely complicated case and calls for an emphasis upon certain propositions, not because they are more fundamental to the logic of our language, but because more is elucidated by these propositions. These are the propositions with single digit notations in the Tractatus. If you can see the logic of these propositions you are more

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apt to see the logic of the other propositions in the work and the logic of our language. Thus Wittgenstein’s propositions are definitive and unassailable, varying only in logical importance by virtue of the breadth of their elucidation. All are not equally elucidating but all are equally certain. Philosophical propositions can vary only in logical importance and cannot serve as the ground for other philosophical propositions. An elucidation cannot ground another proposition; it can only clarify what is already sufficiently grounded. One may certainly use any proposition in the work as an aid to understanding other propositions in the work, for each proposition has a related sense to every other proposition. And it is important to note which propositions that Wittgenstein thought elucidated the most about the logic of our language, those with single digit notations. Thus the comments that follow the single digit propositions do not cover as much ground. Nonetheless, according to Wittgenstein one could logically begin with any single proposition in the work and come to see the unassailable truth of all the propositions in the work. Readers may find it helpful to begin with the middle propositions but only if they appreciate that the middle propositions can in no sense be taken as more fundamental than the first or last propositions. It is a complete misunderstanding to think that Wittgenstein intended to give an ontological framework with the so-called picture theory, which can then be used to interpret the early propositions concerning the world, objects, things, and facts. In fact, an ontology, or a metaphysical account, attempts to picture the world, a picture that could be either true or false. Wittgenstein intended to write only propositions that are true a priori, that is, propositions that logically cannot be false. Therefore he did not provide the reader with some competing picture of how reality corresponds to language. Rather, he meant to say what logically cannot be disputed, that is, the things that are true whenever we speak and whatever we say. Thus proposition 4.01 (which contains the oft-quoted sentence, ‘A proposition is a picture of reality.’) is no more or less fundamental than proposition 1 (‘The world is all that is the case.’). Wittgenstein was not theorizing about the nature of propositions in 4.01 or the nature of the world in 1. He was simply trying to elucidate what we mean whenever we speak. He was not saying that a proposition is a picture of reality as opposed to anything else. He was not saying in proposition 1 that the world might have been something else but just so happens to be ‘everything that is the case’. He was saying that this is what we mean whenever we talk about the world being this or that. What we mean when we speak is, ‘This is the way the world is; this is how things stand.’ For Wittgenstein, we could not logically mean anything else. Nothing else would make sense. Wittgenstein intended every sentence in the Tractatus to be of this sort, that is, that one would have to say of each sentence: ‘nothing else would make sense’. There are no alternatives to the sense of the Tractatus because nothing else would make sense. One could only be more or less elucidating, saying the same thing in a different manner. For Wittgenstein, at the time of its publication it was logically impossible to contradict the Tractatus. Wittgenstein’s first remark in the preface concerning what is valuable about the Tractatus supports the notion that he did not think that it would make sense to contradict it. Though someone might better express the thoughts that are expressed in the work, the truth of those thoughts is definitive and unassailable, giving the final solution to the problems of philosophy (Wittgenstein, 1961, p. 3). How could

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Wittgenstein say on the one hand that someone might better express the things that he says in the Tractatus, and on the other hand claim that the truth of those thoughts is unassailable? He means that someone might have done a better job of elucidating the logic of our language but what is expressed there cannot be sensibly attacked because it is a work of logic. Assailing the propositions of the Tractatus would be tantamount to assailing mathematical equations; it simply would not make sense to say that 3 plus 2 does not equal 5. It would likewise make no sense to deny the truth of the Tractatus. Furthermore, the account given of the logic of our language shows that traditional philosophical problems do not make sense. The Tractatus is the ‘final solution’ to these problems in the sense that the problems cannot be sensibly stated in the first place. Skepticism (prop. 6.51) can never get off the ground because its questions cannot sensibly be asked. Solipsism (props 5.62 and 5.64) ultimately needs a metaphysical self that is outside the world, and thus outside anything language can say. Talk of such a self will always be nonsensical. Immortality (prop. 6.4312) pushes the mysteries of this life into another life beyond. Such talk again leaves behind the world in which our language has its sense. The question of whether ethics and aesthetics (prop. 6.421) are objectively true fails to appreciate that value itself must lie outside the world. Addressing the problem of God (prop. 6.432) also requires nonsense because whether such a being exists cannot be determined in this world. The riddle of life (prop. 6.4312) fades away as a philosophical question when one realizes that the logic of our language will not allow us to sensibly state such a riddle. All of these problems were thought to meet a ‘final solution’ in the Tractatus because Wittgenstein’s elucidations were to show that such problems cannot be sensibly raised in the first place. The second remark in the preface concerning the value judgment that Wittgenstein places on the Tractatus is his most important: the whole sense of the book has ethical value for him because it shows philosophers where value lies. Wittgenstein said that the book’s ‘final solution’ of the traditional problems of philosophy accomplishes very little. In other words, when these problems are ‘solved,’ one is left with nothing of value. There are no remaining propositions concerning what is of value because such propositions would need to be ‘higher’ than other propositions, but the nature of propositions is such that all are of equal value. While he understood that this was a certain kind of nonsense, that is, that elucidation is like writing tautologies, he wrote the Tractatus because he thought he could get philosophers to see what was really important, what was higher. He wanted to help them to ‘see the world aright’ (Wittgenstein, 1961, prop. 6.54). He thought he could use philosophy in this way. This is why he said in other places that the Tractatus is an ethical work.5 When one arrives at the essence of language, the logical form of the proposition, one sees how little has been accomplished because there is nothing of higher importance in it. It is a ladder that can be thrown away for two reasons. First, the elucidatory propositions of the Tractatus are no longer needed because the logic of language is now understood. Restating the logic once it is understood is like stating a tautology: it sounds ridiculous. This is the peculiar use of ‘nonsense’ that Wittgenstein ascribes to the propositions of the Tractatus. Second, elucidatory philosophical propositions are like the propositions of natural science: they cannot say what is of higher importance. Philosophers will need to leave behind these propositions if they should ever wish to see what is higher, to see the world aright. Wittgenstein’s philosophical method,

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elucidation, which is distinct from the natural sciences, is supposed to have shown this. The ladder must be thrown away because one can now see that what is higher is not found in logic, or in philosophy, or even in the natural sciences. One sees what is higher (God, ethics, and that which lies beyond the world) only by transcending Wittgenstein’s philosophical propositions. Of course, this observation itself is nonsense in Wittgenstein’s special sense because where else would one find what is higher but in those things that are higher? The Problem of Posing Philosophical Problems Wittgenstein thought that the Tractatus would show philosophers that value necessarily lies outside the world. But how did he think it would do this? He wrote, ‘The book deals with the problems of philosophy’ (1961, p. 3). These ‘problems’ are the traditional fundamental problems of Western philosophy, and Wittgenstein talked about many of them: skepticism, solipsism, immortality, the foundations of ethics and aesthetics, whether God exists, and the riddle of life. All of these, and others besides, make up the subject of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, but not in the sense that Wittgenstein offered a solution to each problem as it is posed. Rather, he denied that such problems could be sensibly posed at all. ‘The reason why these problems are posed is that the logic of our language is misunderstood’ (1961, p. 3). If we had a proper understanding of the logic of our language, these problems would not be posed. The precise subject of the Tractatus is the logic of our language because misunderstanding this logic has led to the posing of these problems in philosophy. Wittgenstein thought that if philosophers could see this, they might also see that value lies beyond the world. What did Wittgenstein mean by ‘logic?’ He held to very strict principles concerning logic, which can helpfully be defined as the study of the structures of sense. Chief among Wittgenstein’s principles is the idea that ‘logic must look after itself’ (1961, prop. 5.473). He made this point in several different ways in the Tractatus, the first being 2.012: ‘In logic nothing is accidental’ and ‘Logic deals with every possibility and all possibilities are its facts’ (1961). Logic, wherever it is manifest, is systematic. It is a calculus like mathematics. The sum of 6 plus 3 in mathematics has only one possibility; 9 is the logical sum of this equation because it is the only possible sum. Similarly, the mathematical system of algebra expresses every possibility in mathematical equations. There are no new discoveries to be made in such systems. If some new element is recognized and used that was not already present in the system, then the new usage constitutes a new and different system altogether. The new usage is emphatically not the same system with a new element. The problems of a logical system are always resolved internally. A logical problem logically cannot be resolved externally. The elements of the system itself express the solution. The system speaks for itself. Thus, logic must take care of itself. This is essential to what Wittgenstein meant by logic. And what did he mean by ‘the logic of our language’? Long before writing the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein recognized that the logic of our language is an extremely complicated matter. It means trying to see what is systematic about our language, that is, what accounts for every possibility in language. It is reasonable

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to ask why Wittgenstein would assume that this is possible at all. The historical answer concerns the influences of Frege, Russell, and others but the philosophical answer is that language must have a logic because it expresses sense. Wherever there is sense there is logic. Understanding the logic of language means understanding the structure of its sense, which our language must already possess. And thus also, if language has a logic, it must be as systematic as any calculus. Our language is important. Wittgenstein meant the everyday language that is shared across a broad community as opposed to the philosophical language that fails to understand the logic of our language (1961, props 4.002–4.003). Even children are able to grasp the logic of addition and subtraction. Once the practice has been learned, what counts as correct and incorrect is readily agreed upon. But nonsense is often more difficult to identify in our speaking than in our use of mathematics. With everyday language, what counts as an incorrect use of language can easily escape recognition. Wittgenstein admitted that the logic of ordinary language is ‘enormously complicated’ (1961, prop. 4.002), but the goal of the Tractatus is not to fix everyday language by making it less complicated and more logical. On the contrary, ‘the propositions of our everyday language … are in perfect logical order’ (1961, prop. 5.5563). The goal of the Tractatus is to understand the logic that is tacitly occurrent with language use. The logic is hidden by the complexity of language; but it must be in the language because language is ‘capable of expressing every sense’ (1961, p. 5). How then did Wittgenstein propose to identify the logical system that is our language? If the subject of the Tractatus concerns showing that traditional philosophical problems are posed on the basis of a misunderstanding, it would have been wildly irrational for Wittgenstein to begin the book with metaphysical claims in the traditional order of philosophy. This sort of activity is precisely what he wished to counter. The issue is not that philosophy has done a poor job of solving the problems and now Wittgenstein will solve them. The issue concerns the problem of posing the problems at all. Whatever else Wittgenstein might have been doing, he had no intention of providing us with a metaphysical answer to the problems of philosophy. As discussed in the previous section, his answer to the problems was that they cannot sensibly be posed in the first place. This is the ‘final solution’ he spoke of in the preface (1961, p. 5). By contrast, metaphysics assumes the sense of the problems. Thus the opening remarks of the Tractatus concerning the world, facts, states of affairs, objects, and so on are not intended to be metaphysical in any sense. It is simply ludicrous to think that Wittgenstein’s account of the logic of our language depends on the very practices that he believed arise from misunderstanding the logic of our language. If not by means of metaphysics, how did Wittgenstein think that we come to recognize and understand the logic of our language? The answer may be dissatisfying to many: by virtue of logic and our language. Logic must take care of itself. Whatever problem is posed by the system of language, the system of language must provide the answer. This is the only logical approach to language. Wittgenstein was faced with the problem of understanding the logic of our language. The only legitimate resources for solving the problem were everyday language and the principles of logic. If there is any metaphysics in the Tractatus, and I will show later that there is, it was completely unintentional. Contrary to accepted interpretations, the opening line of the Tractatus is intended

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to be less complicated that one might think. ‘The world is all that is the case’ is what we mean when we use the word ‘world’ in our ordinary language. Wittgenstein had in mind the ordinary meaning of ‘world’, which he thought would be elucidated by the logical analysis that begins here in proposition 1. The opening statement of the book is supposed to be understood by anyone who uses the word ‘world’ in its ordinary sense. The temptation is to try and understand the more difficult logical analysis that follows before clearly seeing the relation of proposition 1 to ordinary language. Proposition 1 is a philosophical statement that is not itself a part of our ordinary language and would not arise in ordinary conversations concerning the world. Only philosophers and sophists speak this way. However, it is a statement that elucidates how we ordinarily use the word ‘world’. There is no intention of metaphysics here. As demonstrated in the previous section, the style of the entire work is elucidatory. Wittgenstein was trying to elucidate what we mean when we use the word ‘world’ in ordinary language. And the first elucidation is, ‘The world is all that is the case.’ The world here is not some reality posited prior to everyday language, the nature of which Wittgenstein was going to make plain. The world in this proposition is the concept ‘world’, what we mean by ‘world’ when we speak in everyday language. Wittgenstein wanted to make clear the logic of our everyday language, that is, to show us the sort of relation there is between language and the world. But the world he began with is not a metaphysical one; rather, he began with the only world we have, the one that has everyday meaning for us. Whatever relation language has to reality, it will be a relation to the world we understand in everyday language. He never arrived at ontology because it is only ‘in language that the limit can be set’ (Wittgenstein, 1961, p. 3). For Wittgenstein the world is all the facts, or everything that is true in an ordinary sense without the slightest intention of metaphysical speculation or even a hint of sophistry. The world in ordinary language is quite simply what we take reality to be; it is the way things are. So proposition 1 is not an ordinary statement, but it tries to make plain what we mean when we speak of the world in ordinary language. The first problem one might raise with the Tractatus is that there is more than one use of ‘world’ in everyday language. Wittgenstein did not give us an example or tell us which use of ‘world’ he was analysing, but he seemed to be interested in ‘world’ as the whole universe or as a synonym for reality. As he wrote in 2.063, ‘The sum-total of reality is the world.’ It is important to note, however, that there are many uses of ‘world’ for which this analysis would not be applicable. In fact, Wittgenstein’s analysis applies only to world as a conception of ‘everything that is the case’. Such usage is relatively rare in everyday language. When it is used, it is almost always used as a rhetorical flourish: ‘Where in the world did you find this?’ or ‘This is the finest spaghetti sauce in the world!’ It is difficult to think of examples in everyday language of this use of ‘world’ that is a substantive remark about ‘everything that is’ and not some sort of rhetorical flourish. It seems that Wittgenstein would have been better served by the word ‘reality’. However, the German ‘Welt’ in ordinary language may have greater connotations of ‘universe’ and ‘reality’ than does the English ‘world’. Furthermore, ‘world’ is more at home in everyday language than is ‘reality’. The latter implies more philosophy than Wittgenstein wanted to address at the beginning of the Tractatus. Whether ‘world’ or ‘reality’ is the better choice, it is clear that Wittgenstein was trying to elucidate a conception of ‘the real’ based on ordinary usage.

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Even if we grant that ‘world’ here means ‘reality’, could Wittgenstein have made the case that this is an ordinary usage and not a philosophical one? Sometimes we speak of reality in contrast to fantasy. We describe movies and books as true to reality as opposed to escapes into fantasy. While this has some relation to Wittgenstein’s use of ‘world’, it is not exactly the same concept because ‘world’ presumably includes movies and books that enable us to escape into a fantasy. Reality then is not opposed to fantasy in this sense. Fantasy entertainment is a part of the reality or world that we share. Sometimes we also use the word ‘reality’ to refer to a particular fact or event in order to emphasize that life can be harsh or unfair or filled with responsibilities: ‘That’s reality.’ But here again the point is to emphasize a contrast. In this case the contrast is with activities that are frivolous, undisciplined, or unimportant, having nothing to do with ‘the real world’. Wittgenstein’s use of ‘world’ is supposed to encompass both kinds of activities, not just the important ones. Perhaps an everyday usage for this concept may be employed in the same terms I have just been writing: ‘Movies and books that enable us to escape into fantasy are a part of the reality that we share with others’ and ‘Reality includes both frivolous and important activities.’ In these uses, ‘world’ and ‘reality’ are very similar to ‘life’. In fact, Wittgenstein wrote in 5.621: ‘the world and life are one’. Thus we can proceed with this ordinary usage of ‘world’ as the same concept that Wittgenstein attempted to elucidate in the Tractatus. ‘The world is all that is the case’ simply means that the world is everything that is a part of life. The next proposition – ‘The world is the totality of facts, not of things’ – is a heavily anti-metaphysical statement. Granted, it is a strange sounding text, but I think it sounds strange because it is not something that one would ordinarily say in conversation. And yet, Wittgenstein was trying to make a logical point about our ordinary use of ‘world’ in everyday conversation. His audience consisted of metaphysicians and logicians. Their explanations of the nature of the world usually began with either simple empirical objects or basic logical units. Wittgenstein began with neither. Instead, he began with what we mean by ‘world’ in ordinary language. And what we mean is ‘the totality of facts, not of things’. We do not start our philosophical analysis of ‘world’ by identifying it with a collection of things because this is not how we use this concept in our language. When we talk about the world we are talking about all the facts, not simply all the things. The world does include all empirical items (things); but the world is not limited to the totality of empirical items. The world is all that is true, all that is reality, all that is a part of life, which includes more than all the objects or things in the world. But the world is not something that is additional to the facts; the world is not itself a fact or a part of life. The world is fixed or set by the facts in the sense that what we mean by world is the facts, all the facts. If it is raining, then the fact that it is raining is a part of the world. If anything is a fact, then it must be a part of the world and whatever the world is, it must be all the facts. This is how we use this ordinary concept ‘world’ in our everyday language. The world here is all the facts. It is all the facts in two senses: (1) there can be no fact that is not part of the world, and (2) there can be no world that does not include all the facts. There are difficulties with this notion of ‘facts’ because there are certain aspects of life that we may hesitate to call ‘facts’. Is Juliet’s love for Romeo a fact? Are there different kinds of facts? And if so, which kinds of facts are real and which are not?

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Wittgenstein’s attempt to elucidate an ordinary conception of ‘world’ thus runs into difficulties because some ordinary uses of ‘fact’ suggests that life is much more complex than ‘the totality of facts’ (1961, prop. 1.1). But we have already noted that Wittgenstein’s elucidation of ‘world’ was intended to be a logical one. In other words, he was not trying to tell us what the world is; he was trying to give an account of this ordinary conception of ‘world’ without adding anything to the concept. In that case, we should take ‘fact’ in an ordinary sense that also fits with the concept that is being analysed. A ‘fact’ is any part of the world in the sense that it is any part of a life that people share together. Our understanding of what Wittgenstein meant by a ‘formal concept’ will also help us to understand the opening lines of the Tractatus. He said in 4.1272 that it is very important not to treat formal concepts as if they were proper ‘concept-words’. If one treats a formal concept as if it is an ordinary concept, one will end up with nonsense. Formal concepts include the word ‘fact’ as well as ‘complex’, ‘object’, ‘function’, ‘number’, and so on. There is not a class for each of these concepts nor could one sensibly ask whether such concepts exist. So while it makes sense to say, ‘There are two objects such that … ’, it does not make sense to say, ‘There are objects’, or to ask, ‘Is there such a thing as an object?’ Wittgenstein’s language at the beginning of the work, ‘The world is the totality of facts, not of things’, may be misleading. One might easily think that Wittgenstein was saying that the world is comprised of the total number of facts as opposed to the total number of things. But for Wittgenstein ‘fact’ is a formal concept and one cannot sensibly speak of the total number of a formal concept. Consequently, when he said ‘totality’, he must either have meant something other than ‘total number’ or he fell into the sort of nonsense that the work is meant to inveigh against. Wittgenstein was consistent if the reader takes the opening proposition in the way that I outlined above. That is, if he was merely attempting to elucidate what we mean when we use the word ‘world’, then he did not intend to offer a theory of the nature of facts, which we could then identify and number. ‘Totality’ in 1.1 is a logical, or formal, completeness. It is not a numerical completeness. It simply means that if something is a fact then it is part of the world and that what is meant by ‘world’ logically cannot be something that does not include all the facts. If we can identify a fact outside of what we call the ‘world’, then our concept of ‘world’ is nonsensical because what we mean by ‘world’ is all the facts, all the parts of life. 1 1.1 1.11 1.12

The world is all that is the case. The world is the totality of facts, not of things. The world is determined by the facts, and by their being all the facts. For the totality of facts determines what is the case, and also whatever is not the case. (1961, props 1–1.12)

Taken together, the first four propositions of the work may be summed up as follows: The world is both all that is the case and that which determines whether something is the case. This is either philosophy or sophistry. It is a pure piece of circular sophistry if Wittgenstein is trying to give us information about the world: what the world is is determined by the facts and what the facts are is determined by looking at the world. If one tries to use propositions 1.11 and 1.12 as a procedure for determining the basic features of the world, one will end with nothing but absurd definitions that go round

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and round. These propositions must be understood as logical remarks if they are to have any merit, as Wittgenstein claimed they do in the preface (1961, pp. 3–5). Wittgenstein was practicing philosophical elucidation. These remarks show us what we mean by ‘world’ in ordinary language but they do not give us any information that is not already in the use of the concept ‘world’. The world is both that which we take to be all that is the case and that which determines for us what is the case and what is not the case. The world includes everything that happens, and we look to the world to determine if any particular thing is happening. If it is raining, then that is part of the world, and if we want to determine whether it is raining, we look to the world. The world is a concept that shows us the limit of language. Its use in our language does not provide us with additional information. We might say that it determines what determines it. And for Wittgenstein the only thing that keeps this remark from being useless nonsense is that it demonstrates the logic of our language. That is, the remark shows that our use of the word ‘world’ is not dependent on checking to see how things are. Our use of the word ‘world’ simply is ‘how things are’. The world is all that is true, all the facts, but not because we know all the facts; the world simply is what we mean by ‘all the facts’. By contrast, what is true, what is a fact, is determined by the world, something we check by looking at the world to see how things are. A fact is something we do know because we have looked at the world to determine that the fact is true. What we mean by a fact is an empirically existing circumstance or condition, an identifiable part of life. It does not require enormous imagination to conjure trouble for Wittgenstein’s account to this point. People would argue about what counts as a fact. Is the hand of God an identifiable part of life? Some would answer that it is nonsense while others would say that it could not be otherwise. But, for Wittgenstein’s purpose, what is important is undisputed agreement about what a fact is, not which things count as facts. No matter how much people wrangle about what is real and what is not, it is indisputable that a fact is a part of life. Wittgenstein was drawing a distinction that was intended to elucidate the logic of our language. It is the distinction between propositions that show us something and propositions that say something. The use of the concept ‘world’ in ordinary language shows us something about the world but it does not say anything about the world, that is, it does not give us any more information about the world that is not already in the concept ‘world’. Thus the remark, ‘Books and movies are parts of the world we share’, does not give us information about the world that can be determined to be true or false. The concept ‘world’ already includes books and movies; it would be odd to try to determine whether the world includes books and movies. But this remark, which is an example of the way we use ‘world’ in everyday language, does show us that the concept includes books and movies. Yet ordinary propositions give us information that can be determined to be true or false, for example, ‘It is raining.’ This is what Wittgenstein meant when he said that such propositions ‘say something’: they give information that can be determined to be true or false. Wittgenstein intended to draw our attention to an important contrast between language that shows us something in its use and language that says something in its use. The former includes talk of the ‘world’; we simply mean how things are and we do not look to anything to determine that. If we began to look to something to determine the world, we would have to look to all the facts, which in turn would mean looking to the world to determine what is a fact.

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We would end in a circular absurdity: looking to the world to determine what the world is. Thus we do not look to anything to determine what the world is; we simply mean the way things are (or everything is). By way of contrast, language that says something concerns facts or factual claims. We mean something that is true in the world and we look to the world to see if something is a fact. Wittgenstein focuses our attention on a fundamental contrast present in the logic of our language: some propositions can only show something, their meaning is internal to their use, while other propositions can say something, that either this or that is the case. There seems to be a very significant practical difficulty with Wittgenstein’s saying/showing distinction, however. The ordinary use of the verb ‘say’ is not limited to propositions which say that either this or that is the case. We ‘say’ things in ordinary language that Wittgenstein did not want to count as saying. He gave this example: ‘There are laws of nature’ (1961, prop. 6.36). Wittgenstein said that this cannot be said, but it is obvious that he has just said it. He was using ‘say’ in an unusual way to make a logical point. The problem with this is that it requires the reformation of an ordinary term. In ordinary language there is nothing wrong or inappropriate about the use of ‘say’ that Wittgenstein wanted to eliminate. Other examples of things that cannot be said include logical propositions, such as the logical disjunctive, ‘p v ~p’. ‘The light is on or the light is off’, does not say anything, according to Wittgenstein. While we can imagine a context in which this may be a perfectly ordinary remark, we can also appreciate the logical point that Wittgenstein was trying to make: There is a difference between remarks whose truth is determined by looking at the world and remarks whose meaning is internal to their use. Setting aside the problem of trying to reform a word, we can proceed with the logical point that Wittgenstein wanted to make. Wittgenstein introduced logic and its relation to his subject, the logic of our language, at 1.13: ‘The facts in logical space are the world’ (1961). But this adds nothing to the world. He has already said that the world is the totality of facts. That these facts are in logical space is not intended to be an external characteristic of facts. He was only trying to elucidate what we mean by facts, that they are logical, that they have a sense. Logical space, or having a sense, is independent of being the case, or being true. The ordinary notion of a fact entails that it must have a sense that is not dependent on what is or is not the case. In other words, we can understand a fact before we even know whether it is true. Thus its ordinary use depends upon its status as something whose sense is independent of its truth, which is determined by the world. Having a sense is the logical character of a fact, and this is seen in the possibility that it may or may not have been the case. This is what is meant by the logical space of a fact, the possibility of its being the case or not being the case, a possibility that is not itself a fact and that does not add anything to the world. Wittgenstein emphasized the lack of empirical content in logical characteristics when he introduced logical division in the next proposition: ‘The world divides into facts’ (1961, prop. 1.2). This remark is directly related to the observation above that facts are in logical space. It is not about the empirical relation of facts to the world. Logical space allows facts to be logically divided from one another. They can be divided in logical space because their sense is independent of the way things go. Dividing facts from one another in this way does nothing to change the world. It is simply a logical procedure. Every fact can be separated from every other fact as

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something that may or may not have been the case. This means that something can be true or false, and the logical space, the sense, of every other fact will remain the same. The sense is independent of how things go, what is the case. Thus proposition 1.21 – ‘Each item can be the case or not the case while everything else remains the same’ – is not a commentary on whether there is causality in the world.6 It was intended to be an elucidatory remark about the sense of the world and facts, that is, what we mean when we talk about the world. What we mean is all the facts, but these facts are in logical space, a space that is not dependent upon whether something is the case or not. Whether something is the case or not, it says the same thing; its having a sense, or logical space, does not change. He did not mean that whether something is the case does not causally affect other cases. He meant that whether something is the case does not affect the logical space of other cases. ‘Everything else remains the same’ means that the sense of other cases does not change. He might also have said, ‘The logical nature of the world remains the same.’ Wittgenstein was fully committed to the notion that what is logical is necessary. Whether a particular case holds does not change the logical nature of the world precisely because what is logical is necessary, but he was also trying to bring this out by showing us what we mean by ‘a fact’ in our ordinary usage. Proposition 1.21 simply emphasizes that an ordinary fact is logical in that it has a sense that is independent of whether it is the case or not. Furthermore, no particular case can change the logical nature of the world, which is that each fact has its own sense. In the propositions beginning with the number 2, Wittgenstein’s meanings become more difficult. And yet one should not forget that Wittgenstein introduced the technical language, the more difficult meanings of ‘world’ and ‘fact’, after beginning with elucidations of ordinary meanings. The trap of the Tractatus is to think that there is something by which the logic of our language is determined and that the Tractatus will show us what this is. So, as explained in the first section of this chapter, it is very often assumed that in order to appreciate the first propositions of the Tractatus one must have a thorough appreciation of the technical terminology, the so-called logical atomism, developed in the succeeding propositions. But this does not do justice to the philosophical style of the work. Wittgenstein began with propositions that we ought to be able to understand without the later propositions. In fact, the aim of the work depends upon it, for as Wittgenstein wrote in the preface: it will only be in language that the limit can be set (1961, p. 3). To think that the later propositions detailing a logical atomism make it possible to speak of the world is to turn Wittgenstein’s project on its head (Rhees, 1996, p. 24). It is in fact the propositions concerning material objects, our ordinary language about facts in the world, which make it possible to express logical propositions. We can speak about the logic of facts because the language of ordinary facts is logical. The question that concerned Wittgenstein in propositions 2 through 2.225 is, ‘What is the logical nature of a fact?’ Its logical nature is such that absolutely simple situations must exist. Wittgenstein thought that logical analysis is complete analysis, breaking things down into simpler and simpler elements. Logical analysis means considering every possibility, accounting for a fact’s most basic elements, which cannot be reduced any further. A logical account must be completely irreducible. If an account is not given in terms of the simplest elements, it is not complete, and one has not identified the logical status of that which is analysed. He began with elucidations

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of ordinary notions like ‘world’ and ‘facts’, but in the propositions that follow he gave accounts of these notions in terms of their logically simplest elements (‘states of affairs’ and ‘simple objects’). The temptation is to think that we must now understand the empirical existence of these elements if we are to understand properly the concept of the world introduced in proposition 1. Anthony Kenny, a typical commentator on the Tractatus, recognizes that these simple elements are logical elements and yet insists that Wittgenstein requires their empirical existence in the world (1973, pp. 72–5). Such readings miss the more subtle point: that there is a world with simple elements at all is shown in the sense that our propositions have. One cannot then turn around and argue that these elements must exist. Their existence is logically tied to the sense of language. To insist upon their existence (or non-existence) puts the philosopher in the nonsensical position of using language to insist that language has sense (or does not have sense). Wittgenstein is elucidating ordinary terms with observations about the logical nature of those terms, which has nothing to do with their empirical status. Logical atomism does not begin before proposition 2. Logical atomism begins here because this is the first place that Wittgenstein used the term Sachverhalten (‘statesof-affairs’ or ‘atomic facts’). It is a technical term used with the intention of further elucidating our ordinary use of ‘fact’. A fact is the existence of these Sachverhalten. The use of existence here may lead one to inquire into the empirical status of these logical units, most often translated as ‘states of affairs’, but sometimes translated as ‘atomic facts’ or ‘atomic states of affairs’. Wittgenstein was not interested in their empirical status, however. It is logic that shows that they must exist; the nature of their empirical status is irrelevant for establishing their existence. In fact attempts to delineate their empirical features lead only to nonsense. Wittgenstein asserted their existence as a matter of logical analysis; the nature of their existence is of no importance, except to say that their existence is of the sort that cannot be sensibly challenged. Thus, if a state of affairs exists, there is no sensible way to challenge this existence. Wittgenstein did say later in the Tractatus that an elementary proposition asserts the existence of an atomic state of affairs (1961, prop. 4.21), but it is an assertion that cannot be sensibly challenged. Because of the logical status of elementary propositions and states of affairs, an elementary proposition can be true or false but its contradiction cannot be another elementary proposition. This means that if an elementary proposition is true, there is no sensible way to contradict it. Therefore, the existence of an atomic state of affairs, asserted in the true elementary proposition, cannot be sensibly challenged. The actual value of this analysis is purely logical, having nothing to do with empirical verification. Elementary propositions are logically necessary because our language is capable of sense. If they are logically necessary, then they also have a priori existence. However, that there are elementary propositions is shown only in language use. Thus an elementary proposition is an a priori element whose existence cannot be given a priori, that is, logically prior to language use. This explains why the philosophical style of the Tractatus is so important: How will Wittgenstein make clear the logic of our language given that logical analysis shows that one cannot say what that logic is? Elementary propositions are the logical conditions of language use and therefore cannot be separated from language use. They are the possibilities of empirical characteristics and therefore cannot be subject to empirical analysis. Any

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non-logical use of this technical language will lead only to nonsense. One cannot say what the conditions of language use are; one can only recognize that the limits are shown in the language use. Wittgenstein intended elementary propositions to be a logical expedient that helps us to see this. This logical expedient shows us that there is a limit to our language, that is, that there are some questions that cannot be asked because attempts to ask them violate the bounds of sense. This limit is an absolute limit, the limit of my life and my world. Questions about the nature of life and the world would have to exceed the limit and thereby exceed what counts as sense. Such are the traditional questions of Western philosophy. They are logically equivalent to asking about the empirical nature of states of affairs (Sachverhalten). They are nonsensical because asking a question, indeed language use itself, is logically dependent upon the existence of Sachverhalten. A fact means the existence of states of affairs, how things are. This is what we mean when we say anything: how things are. This is not empirical information about the nature of facts. This is logical analysis pointing out that a fact includes its logical conditions, what Wittgenstein calls logically simple states: What I once called ‘objects’, simples, were simply what I could refer to without running the risk of their possible non-existence; i.e. that for which there is neither existence nor nonexistence, and that means: that we can speak about no matter what may be the case. (1975, p. 72)

Each logically simple state, a state of affairs, is a combination of objects which also have logical conditions. This is what we mean by ‘empirical objects’, things: it is essential to empirical objects that they may or may not be present in a certain set of logical states. In dramatic contrast to the accidental nature of empirical objects, Wittgenstein emphasized that in logic nothing is accidental. The logical conditions of an object include all its possibilities (all of the possible ways that it can be present) and all these possible ways are part and parcel of the object. From an empirical perspective, in which an object may or may not exist in a certain set of logical states, we can move to a logical perspective, in which the object includes all of the possible ways that it can be present. The object submitted to logical analysis leaves nothing to accident. The object submitted to empirical analysis may or may not be present in a certain set of logical states. We must look to see. From an empirical point of view, objects are independent because they can occur in an array of possibilities. But from a logical point of view, this array of possibilities is a form of dependence because it is the only way objects can appear, as one of these possibilities. All possibilities are written into what a thing is. These possibilities are its internal properties, what could not be otherwise concerning an object. The external properties are empirically observed while internal properties are all the possibilities of a thing. The external properties of objects enable us to inquire about the internal properties of objects, the logical status of objects: What are all the possible states, or logical states, in which an object may be present? These logical possibilities are just what we mean by an object. Clearly Wittgenstein did use a technical language to elucidate everyday language but the technical language is not more fundamental or more perfectly ordered than everyday language. It simply elucidates what is already there in everyday language. The technical terms (objects, states of affairs, elementary propositions) are logical

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elements that are neither empirically derived from ordinary facts nor serve as the empirical foundation for ordinary facts. As logical elements, they are constitutive of what we mean by a ‘fact’. For Wittgenstein, they are not external properties. The existence of states of affairs (atomic facts), for example, is a logical given. It is not a particular existence; it is merely a logical one. Wittgenstein thought that only a technical term could express such analysis, which also explains why he agreed to the English translation, ‘atomic fact’. It is not a fact in any ordinary sense, that is, one that is determined to be the case or not the case by the world. It is ‘a logical simple’ (an object) that is given in the ordinary use of ‘fact’. Wittgenstein discussed it only as a means for elucidating what is given. He did not mean to introduce a new empirical property of facts, or even identify an old empirical property that has heretofore gone unnoticed. A state of affairs is not an empirical property of anything. Likewise, the logical status of an object, all the possible ways in which the object can relate to other objects in states of affairs, is not itself an empirical property of the object. These are logical terms used to make logical points. This is Wittgenstein’s logical atomism. It is not an explanation for how language relates to reality. In other words, logical atomism in the Tractatus is not intended to be an empirical account of how our language connects to the world. It is a means, a style of philosophical elucidation, intended to help us see the logic of our language, that is, that language says how things are and logically entails that the world determines whether things indeed stand as said. It is supposed to help us to see that our language will not support certain questions about the fundamental nature of life and the world because the world is logically tied up with language use. Saying something means saying how things are, which is determined by the world. Thus it is nonsense to try to ‘say anything’ about the world, in the sense of an empirical claim, because saying something requires being able to compare what is said to the world. The world cannot be compared to itself. Language use logically entails that questions concerning what is the case and what is not the case are only asked of facts, and the concept of the world cannot itself be a fact. (The world cannot be a fact in the world.) Therefore, the world logically cannot be subject to the sort of questioning that one can make concerning a fact. The world is all that is the case. If we start trying to say what kind of case the world is we end with nonsense. According to Wittgenstein, traditional philosophy has misunderstood this logic, resulting in problems that cannot sensibly be posed. This is the subject of the Tractatus: that the logic of our language is that language says how things are in the world while traditional philosophical problems ask questions and seek answers that exceed the world. The logic of our language will not even allow us to say these problems. Manuscripts from Wittgenstein’s middle period, between the Tractatus and the Philosophical Investigations, published only after his death, shed some light on his Tractarian understanding of the logic of our language. The material that chronologically follows the Tractatus was published as Philosophical Remarks. The very first remark in this work shows both the continuity and the shift in Wittgenstein’s thinking: ‘A proposition is completely logically analysed if its grammar is made completely clear: no matter what idiom it may be written or expressed in’ (1975, p. 51). Just as in the Tractatus, Wittgenstein is very much interested in what it means to analyse a proposition completely. Furthermore, he still believes that complete analysis means making clear the grammar of a proposition.

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The difference lies in what will count as ‘logical grammar’. In the Tractatus, Wittgenstein was worried about the confusions that can arise in everyday language. For example, the same word can have different symbols or two different words can have a confusingly similar meaning. Wittgenstein, like most logicians, thought that he could avoid these confusions by employing symbolic logic. This was his justification for its use while also taking the symbolic logic to be ‘governed by logical grammar’ (1961, props 3.323–3.325). At the time of its publication he failed to recognize that implicit in the use of symbolic logic was the notion that everyday language is confused and is not governed by logical grammar. He had unintentionally undermined his own position, namely, that everyday language stands in perfect logical order (1961, prop. 5.5563). Writing several years later he realized his mistake: How strange if logic were concerned with an ‘ideal’ language and not ours. For what would this ideal language express? Presumably what we now express in our ordinary language. … Logical analysis is the analysis of something we have, not of something we don’t have. Therefore it is the analysis of propositions as they stand. (1975, p. 52)

It is important to emphasize that the Tractatus was not an attempt to arrive at an ideal language. Nevertheless, Wittgenstein’s heavy reliance upon technical language and symbolic logic gives the unintended impression that it was. And the extent to which the logic of the Tractatus diverts our attention away from everyday language, Wittgenstein has only managed to confuse the philosophical activity of making clear the logic of our everyday language. In the later remarks quoted above we see that Wittgenstein was beginning to realize the mistake he had made. Language as a logical system had become a distraction. In order for logic to truly take care of itself, it cannot use the symbolism of a system to represent propositions as if there is something gained in the use: ‘I do not believe that Logic can talk about sentences [Satz] in any other than the normal sense in which we say, ‘‘There’s a sentence written here’’ or ‘‘No, that only looks like a sentence, but isn’t’’, etc., etc.’ (1975, p. 61). In forcing language to take on the logical terminology and symbolism of a calculus, the Tractatus exceeds the logical role of logic.

Language as a Calculus Wittgenstein had intended to show that the problems of traditional philosophy cannot get off the ground because the logic of our language will not support the posing of these problems. His later criticisms of this attempt raise the question of why Wittgenstein thought that language must have the form of a logical calculus. The short answer is that, for Wittgenstein, sense must be determinate. It cannot be unclear. A sense cannot have more than one meaning, more than one possibility. And if language has sense, then a completely analyzed proposition cannot be irresolute. Sense must be understood, without possible alternative meanings, or it is not sense. There must be objects with names, in their simplest forms (without further division), if language has sense. Again, Wittgenstein’s emphasis was logical: It is a logical characteristic of language that it has simple signs. Because language is capable of sense, its elements must have a form that cannot be

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further divided. The possibility of a further division would indicate a lack of clarity, that is, that the element might still be this or that. The notion of simple signs, the indivisible element, expresses the logical point that the logical form of language, the general form of the proposition, cannot itself be one possibility among others. This is what Wittgenstein meant when he said that what can be said can be said clearly. He did not mean that there cannot be differences of interpretation or disagreements in language. He meant that any particular proposition can only have one sense; a different sense would be a different proposition. Language has sense, so its simplest logical elements must be determinate; language must have the form of a calculus, or a system. Sense logically must have the form of a system, so language, too, must have it. We can get a better appreciation of Wittgenstein’s insistence upon this point from two passages written several years after the Tractatus: When I built language up by using a coordinate system for representing a state of affairs in space, I introduced into language an element which it doesn’t normally use. This device is surely permissible. And it shows the connection between language and reality. The written sign without the coordinate system is senseless. (1975, p. 79) It isn’t enough to say that p is provable, what we must say is: provable according to a certain system. … Further, the proposition doesn’t assert that p is provable in the system S, but in its own system, the system of p. That p belongs to the system S cannot be asserted, but must show itself. … You can’t say p belongs to the system S; you can’t ask which system p belongs to; you can’t search for the system of p. Understanding p means understanding its system. If p appears to go over from one system into another, then p has, in reality, changed its sense. (1975, p. 180)

Connected with this notion that language has the form of a system is the status of Wittgenstein’s own propositions in the Tractatus. The propositions in the Tractatus do not have the same form as ordinary propositions. They cannot say that either this or that is true. Like sense itself, the propositions of the Tractatus cannot have alternate meanings; they are logical propositions. Wittgenstein’s logical propositions, all of the propositions of the Tractatus, are therefore not interpretations of language and reality that might be disputed. This is how Wittgenstein’s logical atomism is supposed to show that sense is determinate. Logical propositions show that sense is determinate in that they cannot be contradicted. Wittgenstein’s style is one that allows him to say in the preface that ‘the truth of the thoughts that are here set forth seems to me unassailable and definitive’ (1961, p. 5). The point is not that his thoughts are unassailable because he has stated them so perfectly. On the contrary, he says that he ‘is conscious of having fallen a long way short of what is possible’ (1961, p. 5). The point is that his thoughts are unassailable because it would not make any sense to assail them. How can one assail logical truth? The nature of the propositions themselves are such that contradicting them would be illogical, like trying to argue that water is not wet. What can be said at all can be said clearly because sense is determinate, as is shown in the nature of logical propositions. There are not alternate senses to what one says. So what is said can be contradicted, but its sense cannot be contradicted. An alternative sense could not be a contradiction. Thus one could sensibly argue with someone else about whether it is raining outside but, according to Wittgenstein, one could not sensibly argue about the ‘It is raining’/‘It is not raining’

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argument itself. The sense is determinate because the logic of our language shows us that it is logically impossible for sense to be disputed. Logic can be misunderstood but it cannot be disputed. Another way to express the same point: sense is distinct from truth. At first glance, this distinction seems trivial. I can understand the sense of many statements that might not be true. However, it is very tempting to tie the sense of a proposition together with its truth or falsity. Furthermore, the distinction that Wittgenstein makes between sense and truth is crucial to the logical atomism of the Tractatus. He intended to make clear this distinction with the notion of ‘picturing’. What a picture pictures is either true or false. Its picturing is its sense. But, of course, whether the picture is true or not does not determine its sense. A picture has the same sense whether it is true or false. So, for example, the proposition, ‘It is raining’, may be true or false depending upon whether it is raining or not, but in either case the sense of the proposition does not change. Rather, it is in the form of the world, the picturing, that one can see the sense of a picture, that is, that it could be raining or not. The temptation to identify sense with truth arises in the attempt to picture sense, or to determine whether sense is true or false. If one could picture sense, then one could determine whether it is true or not; one could determine whether the form of the world is true. But logical form, the form of the world, is not itself something that can be pictured. A challenger to this observation might reply, ‘The world is such that it can either be raining or not raining.’ Yes, but this reply does not picture the form of the world; it only elucidates what is already shown in the proposition, ‘It is raining.’ In other words, one does not look to the world to determine if the challenger’s statement is true; the statement is already contained in the concept ‘world’. The point is easily made in the nonsense that results from trying to contradict the challenger: ‘The world is not such that it can either be raining or not raining.’ ‘It is raining’ and ‘It is not raining’ are pictures because they share pictorial form with the world; they can say what is the case. Pictorial form is the logical function of picturing. Attempts to determine the truth of the form of the world would have to picture pictorial form. But in order to picture, there must be the possibility of a correlation between the picture and what the picture pictures. And one cannot picture picturing because picturing requires a distance between the picture and what the picture pictures. Sense itself cannot be true or false because being able to determine truth and falsity requires a distance from the sense. It is the possibility of each individual case that discloses something about the essence of the world, that is, that the world has pictorial form, logical form, and each fact in the world can therefore be pictured. Each case can share in this form because it can say: ‘This is how things stand.’ But the form, which displays the sense, is distinct from whether things actually do stand in this way. And the form cannot be subject to such a determination. Wittgenstein intended his propositions to show this by their nature and character, not by what they say. They are logical propositions, which means that they must all be obviously true. Their truth is unassailable, like the logic of the world that they display. For Wittgenstein, we see the logic of our language when we see our ordinary propositions as picturing.7 He intended to bring this out by means of the logical atomism spelled out in his propositions. The propositions of the Tractatus express the same sense as the form of the world, but sense cannot be said. Consequently, the unity of language is shown in the expressions given in the Tractatus; it is not said. And

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what is shown through Wittgenstein’s propositions is not supposed to be different from what ordinary propositions show. Confusion comes easy because the sense of a proposition is independent of the facts, yet the sense is given when we give the conditions under which a proposition is true and the conditions under which it is false, that is, the conditions under which it is a fact. This makes it look as if the sense of a proposition is its relation to the facts. In other words, because the conditions under which a proposition is a fact are given to show the sense of a proposition, one may become confused and think that the sense is the relation of the proposition to the facts. Thus, it is easy to think that a proposition has two different relations to reality: true and false, or p and ~p. The point is that we understand propositions independently of their truth or falsity. We understand a proposition because it says something, and saying something is independent of the facts. Wittgenstein was concerned with what it means for a proposition to say something apart from the facts. When I say, ‘The light is on’, I am not saying one thing when the light is actually on and another when it is actually off. Whether the proposition is true or false, I am saying the same thing. If this were not how our propositions are used we would never know how to distinguish true and false. Likewise, if you say, ‘The light is off’, you are not saying the same thing I said in a different way. ‘The light is off’, says the opposite of ‘the light is on’. Both of these statements correspond to the same reality, that is, the same logical situation or space, which gives both their sense. But what makes ‘The light is on’ true is not what makes ‘The light is off’ true. The logical space that gives these two statements their sense is not itself a fact, which could be determined to be true or false. The identification of sense with truth leads to statements that do not say anything: ‘It is true that the light is either on or off.’ For Wittgenstein, if ‘The light is on’ is true, the truth is not a relation between the light being on and what is said when someone says, ‘The light is on.’ If ‘The light is on’ is true, then what it says is a fact. What it says is not an additional element that corresponds to the fact. Thus also, if ‘The light is on’ is false, it is not a fact but it has the same sense as if it were a fact. Wittgenstein’s version of logical atomism is a calculus that is supposed to enable us to emphasize that saying something is not an achievement that accords with the facts, a correct statement for example. Saying something has to do with sense; it is not dependent upon being correct or incorrect. On the contrary, being correct or incorrect (as opposed to nonsensical) depends upon making sense. This is what Wittgenstein thought that his calculus, logical atomism, shows. If traditional philosophical problems exceed the bounds of sense, then they cannot sensibly be subject to questions of correctness or incorrectness. But how is it possible to show whether something exceeds the bounds of sense? Wittgenstein tells us that the aim of the Tractatus is to set a limit to the expression of thoughts (1961, p. 3). This sounds odd, as Wittgenstein himself indicates in the distinction that he makes between setting a limit to thought and setting a limit to the expression of thoughts. Setting a limit to thought is nonsensical because it would require thinking things that lie outside thought. Setting a limit to the expression of thoughts is his aim, which is restricted by language. His point is that we certainly cannot think what cannot be thought but we can recognize the limit that language sets to our expression of thoughts. In other words, language is the limit of what can be expressed and we can set that limit by recognizing, according to the logic of our everyday language, the boundaries of sense. We set that limit by paying attention to

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and elucidating what is shown rather than to what is said in everyday language. The limit is not something you can say because that would require thinking what cannot be thought, but the limit is something that can be seen, something that is shown in the language. The aim of the Tractatus is to set this limit by recognizing that it is there. The means that Wittgenstein employs to set the limit is logical atomism. The logically simple unit of the proposition is the elementary proposition. An elementary proposition is a logical expedient used to elucidate the logic of ordinary language. It is not an ordinary thing, a fact, or even a sentence. It is a technical term that expresses the work of logical analysis. That which is subject to logical analysis must be completely analysed, that is, broken down into units that cannot be divided any further. We have already noted the nature of a logical simple, which by logical necessity cannot be material or physical because wherever there is physical remainder there is possible further division. We have also determined what Wittgenstein means by a ‘state of affairs’ (atomic fact): another technical term, used to express a logical analysis of facts. A ‘state of affairs’ is a logically simple fact, which cannot be broken down any further. It cannot be a physical fact for the same reason that a logical simple cannot be a physical object: whatever remains can be further divided. An elementary proposition asserts the existence of a state of affairs, but this assertion does not concern the existence of a particular thing. Again, these technical terms are used only to express the work of logical analysis that, according to Wittgenstein, cannot provide us with missing information. Thus these technical terms were not meant to indicate the existence of either physical realities or some metaphysical realm revealing additional information about language and reality. They were to serve only to elucidate the logic of our ordinary language. The important point is that an elementary proposition has no other possibilities than true or false. Elementary propositions are the logical conditions for the complex propositions of ordinary language. These propositions express the limit of language because, like sense, which cannot be contradicted by an alternative sense, an elementary proposition cannot contradict another elementary proposition. There is no additional proposition that could determine the truth or falsity of an elementary proposition. This is language at its logical limit. It is also important to emphasize that what elementary propositions share with states of affairs (atomic facts) is form and not meaning. There is no a priori meaning. Thus the question of the relation of language to reality never gets off the ground. One cannot understand the objects of reality without their appearance in propositions (language). Apart from language, there is no ‘reality’ to which language could be related. This also makes apparent what Wittgenstein meant with his remark about ‘how much truth there is in solipsism’ (1961, prop. 5.62). What I can understand, my world, is marked by the limits of my language. Nothing can make sense to me apart from the language I use. In this sense, the world is my world, the only world I can know. However, as Wittgenstein noted, this is equivalent to pure realism because even the solipsistic self, the ‘my’ in ‘my world’, is a limit of the world, not something in the world. If one attempts to give extension to the solipsistic self, it becomes a posited ‘reality’ outside of language, outside of the world and outside of sense. Thus solipsism faces the same logical dilemma as metaphysical realism: the metaphysical self can only be a limit of the world, not an undisputed object in the world. And

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furthermore, since we can only say something about things in the world, we cannot speak about this metaphysical self. This fits perfectly with what Wittgenstein said is the whole sense of the Tractatus, that what can be said can be said clearly and what cannot be said must be passed over in silence. This is another way of saying that the work sets the limit to what makes sense and what does not make sense. What makes sense can be said clearly and what does not make sense cannot be said at all. However, Wittgenstein believed that there are things that are shown and not said. What can be shown is shown in the Tractatus through philosophical elucidation. As discussed earlier, elucidation is neither everyday language nor metaphysical language. It is a particular kind of language primarily needed to show philosophers where they have misunderstood the logic of everyday language. After they have used Wittgenstein’s philosophical language to arrive at a proper understanding of the logic of everyday language, they will have no further use for philosophical language except to show others where they have misunderstood the logic of everyday language. It is in this sense that one who really understands Wittgenstein will eventually recognize his propositions as a certain kind of nonsense and why they must put them aside like a ladder that is no longer needed. The propositions of the Tractatus help us to see the logic of our language. But they have no other use and once they have been successfully used for that purpose they are nonsensical because they are no longer needed. They become senselessly and needlessly repetitious like someone telling you that you need a horse in order to ride a horse. A child is told that she needs a horse in order to go horseback riding but once she learns the ‘logic’ of horseback riding it would be utter nonsense to tell her that a person needs a horse in order to ride a horse. Even a very young child would laugh at such nonsense. Likewise, once a person understands the logic of everyday language, which Wittgenstein’s propositions serve to show or elucidate, those propositions become utter nonsense. As Wittgenstein said in a letter to Bertrand Russell, the distinction between what can and what cannot be expressed by the propositions of language is the central aim of the Tractatus. This is the distinction between saying and showing. Russell thinks that the main point of the book is that logical propositions are not true in the same sense that substantial propositions are true (Wittgenstein, 1995, p. 121). Wittgenstein impatiently replies, ‘the whole business of logical prop[ositions] is only a corollary’ (1995, p. 124). That logical propositions are tautological shows us not simply that they are different from other kinds of propositions. More radically, the tautological nature of logical propositions shows us the logic of the world, just as equations in mathematics show us the logic of the world (Wittgenstein, 1961, prop. 6.22). If one tries to say this, it comes out nonsense because it sounds as if one has some information about the world: ‘The logic of the world is shown in the propositions of logic.’ Such a statement is analogous to ‘Allow me to let you in on a little secret: you need a horse to go horseback riding.’ That the logic of the world is seen in tautologies and mathematics cannot be a piece of information. If you understand what horseback riding is, you do not need to be told that you need a horse. Likewise, if you understand the logic of the world, you do not need to be told that it is shown in the propositions of logic and the equations of mathematics. Such remarks are nonsensical, in Wittgenstein’s unusual sense, to one who already understands the logic of the world. If one does not understand the logic of the world, these remarks can serve as

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elucidations that may help one to come to an understanding of the logic of the world. But after reaching that understanding, these remarks appear nonsensical. ‘The propositions of logic say nothing’ (1961, prop. 6.11) and ‘showing that the propositions of logic are tautologies is not at all essential to logic’ (1961, prop. 6.126). Wittgenstein thought he had added nothing when he showed that the propositions of logic are tautological. And finally, there are yet other things that are utter nonsense in any circumstance. Metaphysics falls into this last category. These are propositions with terms that have not been defined but are nonetheless used, as if the terms have meaning, by those who misunderstand the logic of everyday language. This is the point at which philosophy exceeds language. A name means an object but a name has a meaning only in the nexus of an elementary proposition, the most basic logical unit of everyday language. Traditional philosophy often attempts to name objects independent of everyday language use. For example, the philosophical skeptic may ask whether the world is real. But the ordinary use of ‘world’ will not sustain such a question. The world is what we mean by that which is real. Does it make sense to ask whether the real is real? The skeptic uses a term, ‘world’, as a name for an object whose meaning cannot be specified because the object lies outside of everyday language use. For Wittgenstein, such a practice can only result in nonsense. Difficulties with the Unity of a Calculus I have already hinted at difficulties in the notion that language has the unity of a calculus. But what exactly is wrong with this notion? The development of Wittgenstein’s thought has important bearings on this discussion. From the Tractatus through the Philosophical Remarks, Philosophical Grammar, The Blue and Brown Books, and up to and including Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein’s relentless pursuit of clarity on this issue reveals both continuity and changes in his thinking. In the Tractatus we see the desire to show the unity of language by elucidating the general propositional form, a form that is seen (with the aid of logical symbolism) when we recognize that our propositions are indistinguishable from facts. That is to say, the logic of our language pictures the essence of the world. This is what it means to say something. The middle material (Philosophical Remarks, Philosophical Grammar, and The Blue and Brown Books) moves away from logical symbolism to emphasize more strongly the ordinary use of language. Thus, he criticizes the notion of a logical form and the accompanying technical language of logical atomism. Nonetheless, Wittgenstein makes the same logical point that he made in the Tractatus (though he had begun to employ the language-game analogy in this middle material): the logic of our ordinary language pictures the essence of the world. Whatever unity language has, whatever it means to say something, can only be shown, not said, in the course of everyday speech. The Philosophical Investigations reveals Wittgenstein’s awareness of a logical problem in his previous employment of terms like ‘world’ and ‘language’. He derogatorily refers to these as ‘superfacts’ and exposes his own propensity to sublime the logic of language in his earlier work:

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We are under the illusion that what is peculiar, profound, essential, in our investigation, resides in its trying to grasp the incomparable essence of language. That is, the order between the concepts of proposition, word, proof, truth, experience, and so on. This order is a super-order between – so to speak – super-concepts. Whereas, of course, if the words ‘language’, ‘experience’, ‘world’, have a use, it must be as humble a one as that of the words ‘table’, ‘lamp’, ‘door’. (1953, p. 44)

Thus the logical point in the Investigations is almost exactly the same as in the Tractatus: ordinary language use shows the logic of our language. The primary difference concerns the unity of language, what it means to say something. In the Tractatus Wittgenstein thought that seeing the logic of our language would be the same as seeing the unity of language and the essence of the world. In the Investigations he employed the language-game analogy to make the point that the logic of our language may vary from one context to the next. For the later Wittgenstein it makes no more sense to show the unity of language or the essence of the world than it does to say what those are. One cannot give a general account of language as a single phenomenon. ‘Language’ and ‘world’ are words, too, and consistency with regard to the logic of our ordinary language requires that we pay attention to how these words are used if we wish to see their meaning. If meaning is only in the use, as he had claimed in the Tractatus, then a super-meaning does not underlie use itself. The later Wittgenstein realized that in the Tractatus he had fallen into the very difficulties he had so desperately wanted to dissolve. His rigorous use of logic and logical symbolism had inadvertently created super-concepts of the same status as metaphysical concepts. He had tried to sustain a logical connection between ordinary language use and the essence of the world and thereby show the unity of language. But these super-concepts arose from his insistence that ‘language’ and ‘world’ must share the logical form of a calculus; they did not arise from the ordinary use of language. He had thus reversed an essential principle of his work: meaning is in the use, not prior to use. Whereas one can see the logic shared between ‘a gramophone record, the musical idea, the written notes, and the sound-waves’ in the ordinary use of those terms, Wittgenstein had insisted that ‘language’ and ‘world’ share a logical form apart from how those terms are used in ordinary language. Such an insistence requires that language and the world have meanings that are independent of their ordinary use. That is, the logic of ‘gramophone’, ‘music’, ‘notes’, and ‘sound’ is seen in the use of these terms, while the logic of ‘language’ and ‘world’ is seen with the aid of technical terminology and logical symbolism and not in the everyday use alone. Certain ‘logical’ observations concerning facts, states of affairs, objects, propositions, elementary propositions, and so on are made about language and world. These observations come without a tie to ordinary use. Wittgenstein thought that he had maintained the tie to use by starting with the ordinary concept of ‘world’ at the beginning of the Tractatus, but he limited ‘world’ or ‘life’ to the form of a calculus made up of logical units. The insistence that language must be a system led to the introduction of technical terminology, which moved the project further and further away from ordinary use. For example, it is difficult to show the relation of an elementary proposition to ordinary language use. The introduction of these technical terms puts Wittgenstein in the unenviable position of having to say that these are internal characteristics of ordinary terms whether

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people know it or not. He admitted in the Tractatus that knowing the technical terminology is not necessary for ordinary language use because ‘the nature of the natural and inevitable signs speaks for itself’ (1961, prop. 6.124). One might ask: Then what is it for? Wittgenstein thought he needed it to bring out, or elucidate, the logic of our language. He wanted to elucidate ordinary language without adding anything to it, but he failed. He thought that seeing the logic of language would be like a ladder that would get us into a position to ‘see the world aright’. He later recognized the problem: ‘if the place I want to get to could only be reached by way of a ladder, I would give up trying to get there. For the place I really have to get to is a place I must already be at now’ (Wittgenstein, 1984, p. 7). He added the superconcepts of ‘world’ and ‘language’ when he sublimed the logical form of a supercalculus to account for the unity of language. The ordinary use of language in a shared life, the place we are already at now, does not accord with a super-calculus. Wittgenstein was also very critical of the Tractatus idea that logical analysis and the use of a symbolism will discover something hidden in the language. He asked in the Philosophical Grammar whether a logical product can be hidden in a proposition: What kind of method would bring it to light? If discovering a hidden logic is not already part and parcel of the language, then we cannot speak of logic being hidden at all. And if there is a method of discovery in the language, it can only be along the lines of a mathematical problem the solution for which has not yet been calculated. In other words, we cannot invent methods for discovering logical products; if there are logical products hidden in the language, then the method for discovering them is already evident in the language. The criticism is leveled against the Tractatus notion of elementary propositions. These propositions cannot be truth-functions of other sentences since the logical method that Wittgenstein used to arrive at them is not already used in the language: ‘The idea of constructing elementary propositions (as e.g. Carnap has tried to do) rests on a false notion of logical analysis. It is not the task of that analysis to discover a theory of elementary propositions, like discovering principles of mechanics’ (1974, p. 210). Wittgenstein failed in the Tractatus to appreciate the implications of his own words. A hidden logic, discussed in 4.002, would require a method of discovery. Such an idea is inconsistent with the central claim about logic in the Tractatus: logic must take care of itself. If the logic of language needs a method of discovery, then it is not taking care of itself. In fact, Wittgenstein writes that he, like Carnap, ‘thought that logical analysis had to bring to light what was hidden (as chemical and physical analysis does)’ (1974, p. 210). What he thought was hidden were completely analysed elementary propositions that would form a calculus that would remove all misunderstanding from the language: I used to believe that philosophy had to give a definitive dissection of propositions so as to set out clearly all their connections and remove all possibilities of misunderstanding. I spoke as if there was a calculus in which such a dissection would be possible. … At the root of all this was a false and idealized picture of the use of language. (1974, p. 211)

Wittgenstein’s idealized picture led him to a single form that would account for the unity of language. That is, the relation between language and reality was thought to share a form, the form of the proposition. He came to see that the idealized picture led him away from ‘the use of a word as it really is’ and toward ‘inventing the use for the

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word’ (1974, p. 212). The unity of language in the Tractatus emphasized the pictorial character of language but reduced it to the form of a particular calculus: What gives us the idea that there is a kind of agreement between thought and reality? – Instead of ‘agreement’ here one might say with a clear conscience ‘pictorial character’. … But is this pictorial character an agreement? In the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus I said something like: it is an agreement of form. But that is an error. (1974, p. 212)

In one sense, Wittgenstein had the right idea in the Tractatus, that is, that language is analogous to a picture in the sense that it has pictorial character, which cannot itself be pictured. But the picture analogy can quickly mislead. One thinks too easily of a correspondence between a picture and what the picture pictures. However, Wittgenstein’s point was not correspondence; rather, he wanted to emphasize the picturing and the pictorial character of both language and the world. This observation is not so bad, says the later Wittgenstein. The problem is that he thought in the Tractatus that the pictorial character had a single form reducible to a calculus. The calculus turns the everyday ‘world’ into a metaphysical one (context independent). Wittgenstein dissolved the meaning of life as a philosophical problem, that philosophy cannot answer these questions as if they were matters of a scientific investigation and thus cannot answer them at all. But he thought he had gained access to an unadulterated view of language in the process. Of course, he understood that this view must itself be a kind of nonsense. But it was nonetheless supposed to be ‘the final solution to the problems’. Wittgenstein needed, at least in some sense, for this nonsense to have its purchase as a legitimate part of the work of logic and philosophy. He clearly thought ethics had a purchase. Likewise, he thought that a logical view of language had a purchase. What he failed to appreciate at the time was that his calculus depends upon metaphysical super-concepts: ‘world’, ‘language’, and so on. These super-concepts were needed to maintain the notion that Wittgenstein had ‘discovered’ a solution to the problems of philosophy and that one can use philosophy to arrive at a point of seeing the world aright. Wittgenstein recognized (and called on readers to do the same) that such a solution depends upon nonsense, upon propositions that are not propositions of natural science. But he thought that he had escaped metaphysics with this view of language. Thus the final solution is that the essence of language (the ultimate quest of analytic philosophy) does not answer the questions we thought it would. There is little that is accomplished in this final solution because all things of value lie outside the purview of both science and logic. As Lynette Reid rightly notes, the common metaphysical reading of the Tractatus ‘gets a foothold precisely because the method of the Tractatus, and the ladder image … provide it one’ (1998, p. 100). Consider elementary propositions. Reid recognizes a contradiction here. Wittgenstein says that analysis ends in elementary propositions. In other words, when we seek the truth-conditions of a proposition, we arrive at certain elementary propositions that cannot be broken down any further (1961, prop. 4.221). Several commentators have noted that this is a metaphysical commitment in the Tractatus, that is, that there are such propositions that underlie, as it were, the meaning and sense of our complex propositions. But Reid rightly claims that an opposing position can also be found in the Tractatus. Elementary propositions are usually taken to be like all other propositions in that they ‘must restrict reality to two

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alternatives: yes or no’ (Wittgenstein, 1961, prop. 4.023). But as Reid demonstrates, and as discussed already in this chapter, the elementary propositions show us that looking for further truth conditions lacks a sense, the elementary propositions play a more fundamental role. They are like Gadamer’s ‘prejudices’ in the sense that their meaning does not depend on our thoroughly checking out some theoretical truth conditions. They are given and do not require further analysis. As Reid says, ‘there is a point at which the attempt to further specify truth conditions expresses a misunderstanding of the proposition’ (1998, p. 112). Reid rightly claims that the Tractatus contains a contradiction that is never satisfactorily resolved: on the one hand Wittgenstein claims that analysis comes to an end in elementary propositions, while on the other hand he claims that philosophy does not give us a result, that is, elementary propositions, but rather brings us to see that our ordinary propositions are already in order as they stand. In a remarkable piece of philosophical analysis, Reid explains in a footnote why James Conant’s attempt to resolve this contradiction will not work: Conant tries to save Wittgenstein from contradiction here by saying that the use of a correct logical notation in presenting a thought does nothing but ward off philosophical confusion and does this by ensuring that the true logical structure of the thought is presented perspicuously in the notation (‘The Method of the Tractatus’). But the philosophical mistake Wittgenstein is making in the Tractatus, surely, is to think of logic as something to be gathered from the notation at all. If the logic of our language is perfectly in order as it is, it is not something that needs to be laid bare by notation (which marks the object/concept distinction, for example); logic just is the pattern of human life with language and warding off philosophical confusion means removing the philosophical blinders that prevent us from seeing patterns of human life and that lead us to look instead at ‘logic’ or the ‘world’. Even if Wittgenstein understands his use of symbolic notation in the Tractatus to be merely elucidatory, the idea that clarity is achieved through the notation laying out the logical form, rather than through moving our attention away from the bare notation and towards the patterns of human life in which languages have their home, panders to this confusion and does not cure it. Insofar as Wittgenstein is committed already in the Tractatus to the idea that ordinary language does not need to answer to any logical scruples – that looking at logic just means looking at patterns of human life with language – this commitment is at odds with the Tractatus idea that we might achieve philosophical clarification through notational reform. (Reid, 1998, p. 112)

Wittgenstein tried to be explicitly anti-metaphysical in the opening line: ‘The world is all that is the case.’ It is in our ordinary propositions about the world that Wittgenstein wanted to show the relation of logic to reality. There is no hidden or ironic agenda in these remarks. There is only the supposition that the world is neither more nor less than the sum total of ordinary facts. And it is this commitment to antimetaphysical ordinary facts that blinds Wittgenstein to the metaphysics inherent in his own position, that is, that the only way to show the relation of language to reality is with a calculus that underlies our language. If the propositions of the Tractatus are mere nonsense, we are unable to satisfactorily account for how Wittgenstein thought he could help us to see the world aright. If, however, we take the propositions of the Tractatus to be qualified nonsense, as opposed to the mere nonsense of metaphysics, we can give an adequate account of both his explicitly anti-metaphysical remarks and the unintended but implicit metaphysics of his position. We can take Wittgenstein at

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his word when he said that the Tractatus is supposed to give us a clear picture of the nature of the relation of language to reality. Once we clearly view that picture, he thought we would see how little is accomplished with it because it gives us nothing of value. The unintended but implicit metaphysics in this position is the notion that the logic of language and the world must share the form of a calculus if they are to have sense. Notes 1 See Rush Rhees’s essays, ‘Miss Anscombe on the Tractatus’, ‘The Tractatus: Seeds of Some Misunderstandings’, ‘ “Ontology” and Identity in the Tractatus à propos of Black’s Companion’ and ‘The Philosophy of Wittgenstein’ (1996, pp. 1–54). See also Peter Winch’s essays, ‘Language, Thought and World in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus’, ‘Text and Context’, ‘Im Anfang war die Tat’, ‘Facts and Superfacts’ and ‘Wittgenstein: Picture and Representation’ (1987, pp. 3–80). 2 Some have challenged this notion, emphasizing that Wittgenstein says at the end of the work that those who understand him eventually recognize the propositions of the Tractatus as nonsense. Thus they argue that Wittgenstein wrote the Tractatus knowing that he was writing complete and utter nonsense, what Cora Diamond calls ‘mere nonsense’. See Cora Diamond’s ‘Ethics, Imagination and the Method of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus’ (2000, pp. 149–73) and James Conant’s ‘Elucidation and Nonsense in Frege and Early Wittgenstein’ (2000, pp. 174–217). 3 The sentence that Rhees quotes in the German from 6.54 is translated as follows: ‘My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them – as steps – to climb up beyond them’ (Wittgenstein, 1961, prop. 6.54). 4 For Wittgenstein metaphysical remarks include signs which have not been assigned meaning. Such remarks, therefore, cannot express meaning. 5 Most notably in a letter to Ludwig von Ficker, whom he hoped would publish the work (Wittgenstein, 1971, pp. 15–16). 6 Joachim Schulte, arguing that 1.21 is a statement about causality, takes the proposition to mean that the ‘world’ of the Tractatus is ‘not a world of causal descriptions and consequently, not – or not essentially – a world in space and time’ (1992, p. 48). 7 The following account of Wittgenstein’s so-called ‘picture theory’ owes much to Rhees’s essay, ‘Miss Anscombe on the Tractatus’ (1996, 1–15).

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Chapter 5

Rush Rhees and the Unity of a Life Given my criticisms of both philosophical hermeneutics and Wittgenstein’s logical atomism, the reader might assume that I am dismissing altogether a concept of the unity of language. That is not my intent. On the contrary, in this chapter I wish to pursue an elucidation of the unity of language in contrast to Gadamer’s reliance upon a metaphysical concept of ‘being’ and to Wittgenstein’s calculus-like notion of language. We have seen that Gadamer’s concept of ‘being’ plays havoc with his attempt to show ‘language’s constitutive structuring of our being in the world’ (1976b, p. 115). We have also seen that Wittgenstein’s logical atomism undermines his own philosophical position that everyday language is in perfect logical order. In these criticisms of Gadamer and the early Wittgenstein I have relied heavily upon Wittgenstein’s later writings in spite of the recognition that Gadamer shares certain affinities with the later Wittgenstein and that the later Wittgenstein holds many of the same notions held by the early Wittgenstein. Among these shared notions are the centrality of language and the struggle to elucidate its unique epistemological status. Gadamer attempts to elucidate the epistemological status of language with a theory of the unity of language in which an analogy with games serves as the linchpin. Language is like a great game in which we participants find ourselves played by ‘being’. We have seen that the analogy fails because it requires the positing of a metaphysical entity that is supposed to be prior to language. Such a supposition contradicts Gadamer’s own observation that language is constitutive of our being in the world. How can we make sense of that which is said to be logically prior to our being in the world when the sense of discourse depends upon our being in the world? We are forced to consider another path to a clear concept of the unity of language. The early Wittgenstein attempted to show us the epistemological status of language by making clear its logic. Language must have the logic of a calculus if it has sense. We have seen that this effort fails because it requires the positing of metaphysical super-facts and super-concepts which are supposed to underlie our world and our language. Such a supposition contradicts the early Wittgenstein’s own observation that expressions have meaning only in the propositions of everyday language. How can we make sense of concepts that underlie our language when sense itself is seen in language use? The Tractatus carries us away from a clear concept of the unity of language. Wittgenstein’s Language Game Analogy Having rejected both Gadamer’s analogy with games and the early Wittgenstein’s attempt to elucidate the logic of our language, let us consider whether Wittgenstein’s 111

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famous language game analogy elucidates the sort of unity that language has? Wittgenstein introduced the parallels between games and language in remarks critical of Augustine’s description of language, which characterizes only one portion of language: ‘It is as if someone were to say: “A game consists in moving objects about on a surface according to certain rules … ” – and we replied: You seem to be thinking of board games, but there are others’ (1953, § 3). The language game analogy is supposed to emphasize that language cannot be characterized as only one sort of activity. If we think of the term ‘language’ in the same way that we think of the term ‘game’, then we can appreciate that the various contexts in which we find language do not have a common form any more than games have a common form. While there is a logic to a particular context of language use, just as there is a set of rules for a particular game, there is no logic of language in general. We know of the later Wittgenstein’s opposition to a general logic of language: ‘We see that what we call “sentence” and “language” have not the formal unity that I imagined, but are families of structures more or less related to one another’ (1953, § 108). He came to see that there was confusion in his early approach because language is not one thing; that is, all specific instances of language use do not have a calculuslike relation to all other language uses. Nevertheless, Wittgenstein was never able to completely free himself of the notion that language is a sort of calculus, although he did abandon the notion of language as one great calculus and embraced the idea that language is a collection of different calculi. Thus it seems that Wittgenstein’s language game analogy will not get us very far in our attempt to elucidate the unity of language, for it moves us away from the notion of language having any sort of unity. Rush Rhees says that the reason that Wittgenstein opposed a general logic of language is that it implies that ‘we should have decided already a great deal about the logic of any future development of language’ (1998, p. 43). However, Rhees notes that many of Wittgenstein’s statements about language, particularly the notion of a ‘family of language games’, were of a general nature. Wittgenstein rightly wanted to show that there is no sense to the question of whether our language could be wrong. Yet the language game analogy does not preclude the sense of language in general; it only precludes the matter of language in general being correct, one way or the other. Consequently, from the analogy we learn that there is nothing about language that proves its relation to reality, an observation that does not necessarily impede our quest to clarify the concept of the unity of language. In fact, there is another aspect of Wittgenstein’s language game analogy that may give us hints about the nature of language in general. This concerns the notion that all language use has a governing set of rules. Not the same set of rules for all language, but a different set for each context of use, just as different games have their own sets of rules. Wittgenstein attempted to illustrate the way in which rules govern particular contexts of language use with the example of the primitive builders. One builder gives orders and the other follows those orders, and Wittgenstein says that we could imagine that this is ‘the whole language of a tribe’ (Wittgenstein, 1953, § 6). Now it would appear that we could conceive of the unity of language by reference to the notion that all language follows the rules of the context in which it is spoken. There are problems here, which Rhees discusses thoroughly. Rhees believed that the game analogy preserves the idea that Wittgenstein wanted to abandon in later work, namely the idea that ‘we can give an account of what the rules of logic are if we consider the

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structural rules of the symbolism’ (Rhees, 1998, p. 61). In other words, a game has rules that give it an underlying structure, and thus we can understand the game if we understand the rules and their various relations to each other. When this notion is applied to language, as it is in the concept of a language game, Rhees complains that it makes learning to speak too much like learning a technique. Thus, while Wittgenstein abandoned the notion of a logic of language in general, he continued to hold on to a close association between language use and the application of rules. In noting that this association makes learning language too much like learning to follow certain steps or more specifically, learning to apply words, Rhees wanted to emphasize that speaking is not the application or simply the use of words (Rhees, 1998, p. 71). Learning the rules of a game does not capture what it means to speak. The game analogy leaves out the unique contribution of the speaker in what is said. Rhees does not deny the value of the analogy in dissuading philosophers from divorcing what is said from the context in which it is said. In other words, the game analogy helps us to see that we cannot understand what is said unless we have some appreciation for the surroundings in which it is said. For example, in order to understand the phrase, ‘I will pray for you’, one must have an understanding of prayer as a religious activity. And in a sense this requires an appreciation for the rules that are followed in such an activity; that is, the circumstances under which it makes sense to make such a remark. However, ‘following the rules of the game’ leaves out what the woman was saying when she said, ‘I will pray for you.’ If she was saying something, then she was not just following rules. A particular person was saying a particular thing to another particular person at a particular time. To say that she was following rules does not account for what it means for her to have said something. One could have a thorough appreciation for the rules regarding talk of prayer, and even understand that the woman seemed to be following those rules, without understanding what she said. ‘Following the rules’ leaves out the lives of those who are speaking. Rhees says in this way that the game analogy limps because it takes Wittgenstein right back to the sort of language calculus that he was trying to avoid. Rhees notes that the game analogy rightly brings out the connections between language and the activities in which one uses it. Nonetheless, the game analogy ‘fails and is misleading’ when it emphasizes that the connection between different areas of language is not important (1998, pp. 68–71). What is misleading is the notion that an expression is a part of language in the same way that a move is part of a game. The intelligibility of a remark does not depend solely upon recognizing the sort of remark that it is in the game. Rather, its intelligibility also depends upon whether it is the sort of thing that people say; that is, the sort of thing that people who speak the same language together would be familiar with. The idea that they speak the same language in different activities and situations is an important one: If there is a confusion here, it would appear in the idea of having a language which they used only for this or that purpose, or only in connexion with this or that job or activity. I find something unnatural in speaking of a language which they used for this or that. Especially since it suggests that they might have another language which they used for something else. (Rhees, 1998, p. 71)

Rhees helps us to see that the relation of language to our lives is very different from

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the relation of a game to our lives. The use of jargon or argot may be analogous to a game because technical terminology is only a part of our lives, but language permeates our lives. The game analogy may lead one to mistakenly think that language is an association of various parts of a life, leaving out that in all those parts we speak the same language. By contrast, one could hardly make sense of the claim that in every game we play the same game. Wittgenstein himself said, ‘to imagine a language means to imagine a form of life’ (1953, § 19). But a form of life is not so structurally constituted and rule-governed that one could draw comparisons between forms of life on the basis of a set of paradigms: The differences between one form of life and another, are not like the differences between one form of some institution (say marriage customs, or property or financial institutions) and another. That would be like saying that a language is a game, like chess. Whereas a language is something that can have a literature. This is where it is so different from chess. It must be a language of people; and in which people develop; in which people develop their own lives, their own ideas and their own literature. (Rhees, 1998, pp. 73–4)

Furthermore, Rhees says that we can distinguish between being able to follow a discussion and taking part in a discussion (1998, pp. 89–90). If a person takes part, it is not just a matter of being able to take part. The question here concerns what it means to understand in that way, in taking part in that with which we are concerned. It cannot be just a matter of watching a pointless discussion. If I can understand the discussion, then it interests me and involves me. Discussing entails interest and involvement. Consider what is meant by ‘going through the motions’, following certain rules of discussion: wide eyes, intent looks with a wrinkled forehead, muttered agreements, truisms uttered here and there, and so on. One could perform all of that without understanding what is being said. One might say that such a person is able to follow the discussion, knows the rules of discussion, but is not saying anything or understanding anything. A certain capacity is exhibited, but not understanding. In order to understand the discussion there must be something about the discussion that interests the listener, something that makes a difference, something that is bound up with some area of the listener’s life and engaged by the listener: If you cannot see what difference it makes, then you cannot see what the discussion is about, I suppose. But then you cannot understand what is being said, either. And that is not because you do not know the language. I want to say: understanding what is said in a discussion is not a matter of capacities: not in the sense in which knowing Welsh or knowing arithmetic is a capacity; or being able to read. (1998, p. 90)

This brings out the weakness in Wittgenstein’s example of the builders, who display only a capacity to participate in a certain activity. As noted above, Wittgenstein claims that we could imagine this activity as the entire language of a tribe (1953, § 4). Rhees challenges this notion, asserting that if Wittgenstein’s builders are truly speaking a language when they give and receive orders, then they must live with non-builders as well and speak about matters other than building (1998, pp. 134–8). Speaking in one setting requires being able to speak in other settings. Rhees contrasts, for example, the difference between humans receiving

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orders and dogs receiving orders. The former involves being able to speak while the latter does not. In other words, the difference between the human and the dog, in this case, is that the human understands the relation of the stone to the life he shares with other people. If humans are receiving orders in a language that they understand, then they will be able to talk about how the stone slabs relate to other areas of life, in a way that a dog does not. Rhees’s point here is to elucidate what speaking is so that we can appreciate that it is much more than past associations and correct reactions. Teaching a child to speak is not like teaching the multiplication table. One of the first things that a child learns about speaking is that it is done with people. Saying something is connected with the life that you share with others: ‘If you are able to speak, that has something to do with the whole way in which you live, and it cannot be part of something that you are doing just on one particular occasion’ (1998, p. 138). If language is involved, then understanding is involved. Moreover, if understanding is involved, then understanding people and the life they share is involved. Rhees is concerned that the language game analogy, or even the notion of a form of life, is misleading because it makes understanding what is said into a matter of understanding accepted routines. If ‘form of life’ is taken to mean a way of living, in the sense of an institution or system of rituals, then it leaves out the particularity of what is said: Other people may repeat what Leonidas or Caesar or Napoleon or Bismark said on a particular occasion. But they are not making the remark themselves. Even where similar situations recur and people say the same thing (‘Will you marry me?’), then in one sense it is not the same remark. (1998, p. 213)

Rhees does not deny that understanding what is said involves understanding the institutions and routines (the way of living) which surround what is said. He only wants to emphasize that understanding what is said cannot be limited to that. And if he is right about that, then a general account of language cannot be limited to the notion of a way of living; it cannot be reduced to a collection of routines. It must include the notion that people are saying something when they speak that is not just a part of the routine of their lives. The idea that language is concerned with more than just routines means that there are several aspects of language and speaking which simply cannot be captured by an analogy with games. For example, Rhees considers the question, ‘Have you anything more to say?’ (1998, pp. 107–108). By analogy with a game, we might ask, ‘Would you like another game?’, that is, to play the same game again, but it seems very strange to ask, ‘Would you like another conversation?’, that is, to repeat the same conversation again. Having something more to say exemplifies how one’s understanding can grow in a way that cannot be captured by analogy with games. With another game, there is only the possibility of increasing one’s skill. With another conversation, there is a possibility of increasing one’s understanding. In a sense, with conversation one can continue the ‘game’ well after it has ended. However, playing another game of chess is not like continuing a discussion. Nothing is carried from one game to the next in the same way that an issue is carried from one conversation to the next. In a conversation we can ask for explanations; the notion of a move in a game cannot capture the sense of asking for or giving explanations of

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what has been said. One reason for this is that being interested in an explanation is not like following a rule or a plan. You can follow rules or directions without being interested in what you are doing, but you cannot sincerely ask for an explanation without an interest in that which you are asking about. The unity of language depends upon a unity of such common interests, a unity of understanding about a variety of ideas. In other words, all of the different things that can be said in a language depend upon common stakes and concerns. These stakes and concerns make up a way of living, as long as we do not take ‘way’ to mean following a set of rules. What we say is tied up with what concerns us. The language game analogy fails to convey this sense of interest and concern reflected in our attempts to say something more. The language game analogy is also unable to elucidate the importance of the growth of understanding (Rhees, 1998, p. 117). Suppose, for example, I am trying to teach an Englishman certain phrases that are used when Americans talk about baseball. In this instance, I teach him what is meant by ‘He doesn’t have his best stuff tonight.’ This means that the pitcher is not pitching well and his pitches are not working the way he wants them to. Suppose I explain about curveballs, fastballs, sliders, split-fingered pitches, knuckleballs and change-ups. Then I give him examples of situations in which one might make the comment above: a pitcher who is known for having a hard-breaking curveball cannot get his pitch to break, a fastball pitcher cannot seem to throw over 85 miles per hour, and so on. The language game analogy leads one to believe that the Englishman now understands what is meant by the phrase, ‘He doesn’t have his best stuff tonight.’ However, this leaves out what the phrase brings to a particular conversation at a particular time. Teaching the meaning of the phrase does not insure understanding because of what the phrase may bring. It may remind us that the pitcher had similar trouble in the last game he pitched, that the ‘best stuff’ of this particular pitcher is sliders and change-ups, that this pitcher rarely struggles the way he is struggling on this night, that it is not uncommon for this particular pitcher to struggle, and so on and so on. Understanding the meaning of a phrase is not the same as understanding what is said because the latter requires a growth in understanding that is not required by the former. Suppose, for example, I catch the last few remarks of a conversation between friends. I know the meanings of words and phrases they are using but I do not know what they are saying because I missed the first part of the conversation. Understanding the last part of the conversation requires a growth in understanding from the first part. The language game analogy cannot account for this growth: ‘You have to understand the point of it here and now if you are to understand it at all’ (Rhees, 1998, p. 122). Another example can bring out additional differences between knowing the rules of a language game and understanding what is said. One difference lies in the recognition that a person can know the rules concerning a certain subject and still misunderstand what is said. For example, one can have a thorough knowledge of the Roman Catholic Church’s sacrament of penance and not understand a particular confession. In such a case, we might say that the observer is blind to what that particular confession has to do with the rest of the life of the penitent. The observer does not see the difference that confession makes to the life of that particular penitent. Perhaps someone would object that its relation to the rest of life is a part of the ‘rules’ of the sacrament. Then we might find ourselves in the untenable position of allowing opposing rules in the same game, so to speak. Suppose one penitent bitterly weeps

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after confession and another penitent weeps for joy after confession. If we limit understanding the confession to understanding the rules of the sacrament of penance, then it looks as if the two penitents are playing the same game with different rules. We are forced into one of two superficial inferences regarding these confessions: either the sacrament of penance is an unintelligible practice or one of the penitents is not a genuine participant in the sacrament of penance. What this overlooks is the relation of the confession to reality. The one who rejoiced may have lived with the guilt for ten years. The one who wept in sorrow may have only yesterday committed the sin. Both were genuine participants in the sacrament, but understanding their confessions (what they said when they confessed) meant understanding the relation of what they said to reality. Thus, persons can know the rules, but if they do not see the relation of what is said to reality, they will not understand what is said. Consider also the distinction between learning to speak and learning how to play a game. As Rhees notes, the latter does not include the ‘idea of really wanting to know something’ (1998, p. 243). In other words, learning to speak involves wanting to know something or to say something, a desire that cannot be accounted for in the notion of learning how to proceed within the rules of a game. Rhees points out that proceeding within the rules of a game is closely related to Wittgenstein’s earlier thought that one proposition could be translated into another. Wittgenstein later recognized that one of the difficulties with this calculus model concerned the fact that sometimes what is said cannot be said in another way. He brings this out in the following exchange between him and one of his students in a published lecture on religious belief. The student’s remark is preceded by his name, Lewy: Suppose someone, before going to China, when he might never see me again, said to me: ‘We might see one another after death’ – would I necessarily say that I don’t understand him? I might say [want to say] simply, ‘Yes. I understand him entirely.’ Lewy ‘In this case, you might only mean that he expressed a certain attitude.’ I would say ‘No, it isn’t the same as saying “I’m very fond of you” ’ – and it may not be the same as saying anything else. It says what it says. Why should you be able to substitute anything else? … He couldn’t just as well have said something else. (1967, pp. 70–71)

We see here that Wittgenstein had come to reject the notion that one proposition can always be translated into another. However, he failed to recognize that his early calculus model is also misleading because it does not take note of the peculiar sort of bearing that remarks have upon one another. The discussion with Lewy sheds little light on the question of whether ‘We might see one another after death’ says anything at all. If it does say something, then it must have a relation to other remarks, at least in the sense that all remarks say something. Wittgenstein does not help us to see what it means to say something, in a general sense. The relations of remarks cannot simply be accounted for by the rules governing particular areas of discourse. The language game analogy is still too similar to the calculus model in that it suggests that the relations between remarks must be governed by rules. If that is the case, when faced with a remark that cannot be translated into another, we might well wonder whether the remark says anything at all. Rhees, on the other hand, directs our attention to what it means to say something. When something is said in one context, it hangs together with things that are said in other contexts; the force of what is said is held together by what is said in other contexts. Thus the connections between what is said in one

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context and what is said in another are the connections that one finds in the course of a life. These connections give import to what is said. This is not a matter of being able to say something in a different way. Concerning the example above, the meaning of ‘We might see one another after death’ is determined by a context of certain spiritual concepts, and it may not be sensible in other contexts. However, the import of the expression relies upon the various connections that it has to things said in other contexts (things said about death, friendship, farewells, and so on). That is not to say that one should be able to explain the expression in these other contexts. Rather, without these other things having been said, the expression would not have the force that it does. Wittgenstein is correct to note that the reality in ‘seeing someone after death’ is lost or shoddily replaced when one renders the expression according to a proposed set of rules regarding the kinds of things that people say to each other when parting for the last time. ‘I am very fond of you’ reflects the paucity of meaning in a rule-governed rendering. However, Wittgenstein’s elucidation, ‘It says what it says’, does not bring out the importance of connections with things said in other contexts. His response to Lewy leaves out the sense in which the vitality of a remark depends upon things said in other contexts. The primary criticism that Rhees makes of the language game analogy is that it gets us away from understanding the role of what is said (1998, p. 148). In other words, when one compares language to a game, we are helped to see the meaning of a remark but the reality of the discussion is left out. A game may go on without any connection to the rest of life, but speaking does not. The important point that Rhees is trying to make is that a common set of rules for doing things is not what enables people to converse with one another. That is why we must be careful with the notion of a ‘form of life’. A ‘way of living’ is not a form in the sense that there are established rules that must be followed. If the notion of a ‘form of life’ is to make sense, we must see the connection between language and life not just in the sense that we see that when X is said, people do X1, and when Y is said, people do Y1. Rather, we must see the relation of what is said to the rest of life. We must be able to understand what is said here and now. In short, ‘the unity of the language is not the unity of a system. … It is the unity of a common intelligibility’ (Rhees, 1998, p. 160). It involves being able to understand what is said in a particular situation, not just knowing what a word or phrase means and the imaginative circumstances under which it could make sense. Since language is something that people speak together, understanding it means understanding the kinds of things that people say together, not just vocabulary, grammar, and so on (one must already know how to speak before learning any of that). The idea of the rules of a language game does not help us to understand that people say all sorts of things together with one another. Our struggle to elucidate the unity of language by virtue of Wittgenstein’s language game analogy appears to have reached another dead end. However, there is one other possibility we have not yet fully considered: ‘family resemblances’. Can this notion salvage the language game analogy as an aid in our struggle? Wittgenstein writes: And the result of this examination is: we see a complicated network of similarities overlapping and crisscrossing: sometimes overall similarities, sometimes similarities of

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detail. … I can think of no better expression to characterize these similarities than ‘family resemblances’; for the various resemblances between members of a family: build, features, colour of eyes, gait, temperament, etc. etc. overlap and criss-cross in the same way. – And I shall say: ‘games’ form a family. (Wittgenstein, 1953, § 67)

Is there not a clear notion of language in general in ‘family of games’? It seems that with the idea of resemblances we can give an account of the unity of language without falling into the trap of trying to identify a single characteristic that is true of every game. Again we turn to Rush Rhees for help in this evaluation. Why do we call them all language games? What is the nature of language in general such that we can call all these different discourses language? Rhees agrees with Wittgenstein that speaking is not just one thing. Nonetheless, all speaking does involve our being able to understand one another in these various contexts. There is an important connection in that: ‘The question of the way in which language hangs together, or the ways in which the different ways of speaking or different language games are connected with one another, is important if one is to see what speech and understanding are: at least as important as the diversity is’ (1998, p. 142). The connection between language and what people are doing is essential. Furthermore, this connection is not a formal one. The unity of life and language is not the unity of a form or a game. The resemblances between games are characteristics, qualities or aspects of the forms of those games. The unity of language, on the other hand, is observable even where such resemblances are not present, even when a remark does not translate well into another. Here the notion of ‘reality’ returns. For one must understand the peculiar connection between reality and language in order to see what speech and understanding are. Rhees says that this involves understanding what is meant by ‘the growth of culture’ (1998, p. 145). In other words, speaking assumes not only a culture, but also an understanding that speaking may ‘augment or alter’ the ideas that are in a culture. The connection of language to reality is such that speaking may contribute to what one takes reality to be. The widely differing kinds of things that people say and understand are united in that what is said assumes both a culture of ideas and the potential growth of those ideas. That unity is not one of family resemblances: Rules which belonged only to one game, or to one dance, for instance, would probably not be called laws of thought. They are that when they go all through our life. And here the notion of ‘our life’ seems to be the central one; the unifying one, if you like. If we say that for the unity that there is in that, there are various games, activities, and institutions – I do not think you could say that their cohesion, their being of the same life, was a matter of family resemblance or similarity. (Rhees, 1998, p. 237)

Some language games have no resemblances between them. Are we going to say that both games are language based on a family resemblance? The question remains: What makes them both language? The point here is that the language game analogy tends to leave out the reality of the discussion. A fundamental problem with the language game analogy is that it is unable to account for the distinction between an imaginary conversation and a real one. An imaginary conversation is static and follows a set of rules; learning and

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growth of understanding do not occur within an imaginary conversation. In a real conversation, what is said is said in the course of a life; what is said gets its import from the place it holds in a life. That is to say, a real conversation cannot be severed from its connections to a life without tending to reduce speaking to a capacity or an ability. The playing of a game involves something of aptitude, skill and success within the rules; but learning and growth of understanding cannot be attributed to aptitude alone. It is not just a matter of deftly applying the rules. The issue of what it means to say something arises once more. It concerns a connection between language and reality that does not conjure up a notion of correspondence between words and their objects: If we are thinking of ‘the reality of the discussion’ – the difference between taking part in a discussion and imagining one, or even passively following one, for instance – the notion of really saying something: the notion of understanding what is said as seeing the reality of what is said – then the relation of discourse to reality, or the relation of what is said to reality, does not seem to be a matter of ‘accordance with fact’. (Rhees, 1998, p. 105)

Seeing the relation of discourse to reality means seeing the relation of what is said to the life which surrounds what is said. The notion of family resemblances between language games does not draw our attention to this relation. The Contrast Between Gadamer and Rhees The foregoing analysis of Rhees on Wittgenstein brings us to the following conclusion: Wittgenstein’s language game analogy does little or nothing to elucidate the concept of the unity of language. Some might argue that at least Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics offers us an opportunity to speak of language in general, whereas Wittgenstein, after abandoning logical atomism, offers no such recourse. Have we not also glimpsed some similarities between Gadamer and Rhees that together would strengthen the concept of the unity of language? For example, we have seen the emphasis that Gadamer places upon the importance of time, particularly in his concept of historically effective consciousness. At first glance it might seem that Gadamer and Rhees share the same view concerning time. Rhees notes that understanding has an intrinsic relation to time (1998, p. 30). In other words, when a person learns something (not just how to do something), he or she does not just repeat or follow a set of steps. We do not say that children have learned something until they express themselves in the appropriate circumstances without mimicking an adult. Likewise, for adults, understanding occurs in the flow of life. This sounds very similar to Gadamer except that Gadamer characterizes understanding as openness. Rhees, on the other hand, does not insist that understanding has the character of openness. What is required, if anything, is relation to a life. Whether that relation has the character of openness to understanding is a further issue. When one understands something, one understands the relation of what is discussed to the rest of one’s life. Such a connection is not made in a timeless manner so that a person could say, ‘From the discussion, you should learn that … ’. What is learned depends on the peculiar relation that the discussion has to a life;

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whether the learning or the discussion manifests an attitude of openness is a separate matter. What is learned in a discussion is not learned apart from that discussion as if learning were only a matter of repeating certain predetermined steps. One cannot simply put oneself in an attitude of openness and expect that understanding will result. Rhees says that what Plato meant by the ‘growth of understanding’ includes the notion that one cannot decide in advance the direction of a genuine conversation: ‘The unity of discourse must be a unity in time’ (1998, p. 31). The understanding that occurs in a discourse is a growth that has connections with other discourses of the same time and circumstances. Because growth is something that can occur only in time, understanding is disanalogous with a set approach that resists the influences of time. Even the understanding of a ritual from a foreign culture requires more than mere openness to a different way of thinking; namely, it requires an appreciation for the peculiar relationship that the ritual has to a particular life in time. One has not understood the ritual just by being open to it. One has not understood until one has understood its relation to a life. Another seeming area of agreement between Gadamer and Rhees is their emphasis upon the personal. Indeed, Rhees admits the importance of seeing how philosophical problems are personal. He credits Plato with this observation and notes that its importance lies in the recognition that a solution to a philosophical problem will not be a calculus, or a theory, or a very general sort of physics. Rather, a solution to a philosophical problem will appreciate that understanding is something that grows in a life in a particular time and in particular circumstances. It is unavoidably personal in that sense: ‘‘‘The value of its results’’ cannot be divorced from the value of philosophy itself’ (Rhees, 1998, p. 38). However, Gadamer’s emphasis upon the personal nature of philosophical problems does not discourage him from offering theories for their solution. Rhees speaks of ‘personal’ in order to stress that philosophical problems concern issues that are bound up in a life in time and are, by their very nature, not theoretical problems. Gadamer wants to say something similar, but he also wants to add a consequence to this observation about time: theories are not limited to systematic problem solving. For Gadamer this levels the playing field when it comes to the use of theories. Since all theories are said to be historically conditioned, and thereby unable to achieve precision, the theoretical approach is viable in any understanding. One need only recognize that all theories are limited by their historicity. The difficulty here is that Gadamer has distorted the ordinary use of ‘theory’. Simply because all theories are historically conditioned does not entail that they are legitimate for use in any field of study. Gadamer, as he does on many occasions, overlooks the ordinary role of a term. The ordinary use of ‘theory’ is limited to certain fields and does not involve attempts to circumvent historicity. Nonetheless, the most important difference between Gadamer and Rhees concerns the relation of language to reality. Gadamer speaks of reality in terms of being. All genuine discussion is characterized as openness to being. One difficulty in this characterization is that it is tempting to think that all discussion is about one thing: being. Rhees says that Plato seemed to be saying in the Sophist, ‘all discussion is concerned with reality or what is’ (1998, p. 27). However, says Rhees, this is a strange way of putting the matter because two different discussions are more often than not about different questions. Plato’s way of putting the matter is confusing if it is taken to mean that every discussion is about the same thing or that all discourse

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concerns one notion, namely reality. Plato makes more sense if he is just saying in another way that in all discussion we are trying to understand. In trying to understand, discussion is not just a matter of getting an answer to one question. A discussion may involve several questions, in addition to comments, criticisms, interjections, and all sorts of varied responses. To say that discussion is about one thing, whether ‘reality’ or ‘the facts of the matter’, distorts that variety. For Rhees the question of whether understanding is possible is the same question as whether living has sense. ‘To see this is the same as seeing how discourse is possible’ (1998, p. 33). A philosophical puzzle is one that threatens the possibility of understanding anything. That is the understanding that is sought in philosophy. It is distinct from the understanding that occurs in a conversation. It is not an understanding about this or that, an understanding about some particular problem; rather, it is the struggle for an understanding of how any understanding is possible. When one realizes this, one realizes the peculiar nature of the understanding sought by philosophy: But the understanding that is sought, and the understanding that may be reached – the understanding that has been achieved if the philosophical difficulty has really been resolved – is not something one could formulate; as though one could now give an account of the structure of reality, and show how language corresponds to it; and to show the possibility or reality of discourse in that way. (Rhees, 1998, p. 34)

Rhees’s account of the possibility of understanding is thus not a formulated answer to a particular problem. His account appreciates that the varieties of discourse have a peculiar sort of connection that does not lend itself to elucidation by the formulation of a theoretical system. The contrast with Gadamer is substantial. We have seen that Gadamer seeks a legitimization for understanding. This search forces him to attempt a separation of language and reality (being), so that he can show a sort of correspondence between them. Having ‘separated’ them, his effort to legitimize understanding becomes a theoretical account that tries to resolve a problem of his own invention. The attempt to use language to prove its relation to reality is inherently flawed: ‘If what you say has something to do with things, this does not mean that language has something to do with things’ (Rhees, 1998, p. 46). In other words, if a person says something, then certainly what is said will have some relation to reality, but that is no demonstration of the relation of language to reality. Language is something that is spoken. If what is spoken is understood, then it is seen in its relation to a life in time. Language is something ‘that people carry on together’. For this reason, says Rhees, language is not a theory about which one could make judgments of correctness. The question of language in general is not that because people speak there is something which they all have in common which could be theoretically delineated; rather, the question of language in general concerns the notion that speaking is speaking in a language shared with others: ‘Whoever says anything, says it in a language. And those who speak the language can understand him. If people speak together, they have a common language. And I can at least try to understand remarks if they are in the same language as I speak’ (Rhees, 1998, p. 48). What we all have in common is that when we say something, we are saying it in a language that is shared with others.

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The generality of language is not a generality of understanding as proposed by Gadamer, namely, that anyone who speaks can understand any other speaker. Rather, the generality of language is that when something is said, it is understood in a language shared with others. Whether a person can understand depends on whether she shares the same language, a common intelligibility, with the one speaking. (It is important to note that sharing a common intelligibility is not entirely reducible to sharing the same native tongue. What a person says can be translated into a different tongue and understood by the one listening or reading, a matter of a common intelligibility shared by those who do not share a native tongue. Nonetheless, sharing a native tongue goes a long way toward sharing a common intelligibility. For example, two people who share a native tongue will know when one has asked a question of the other. While that is no guarantee of understanding, the questioning and answering can continue; they can try to understand one another.) The question of the relation of language to reality is not resolved in examples of the relation of things about us to what we say. That is, this particular question is not resolved by showing my neighbor the diseased tree that I had spoken to him about on the telephone. Showing him the tree may remove his doubts, or confirm his suspicions, or help him to understand more clearly what I was talking about, or any number of other things, but it does nothing to resolve the skeptical/philosophical question of whether language is related to reality. One might even be inclined to ask, ‘How can we even begin to address such an issue?’ Rhees suggests that the nature of this relationship between language and reality ‘has its clearest example in conversation’ (1998, p. 53). When two people are conversing, they are talking about something; there is a relationship between what they are saying and what they are talking about. It is tempting to suggest what is the nature of this something in every instance. But given what has already been noted concerning the growth of understanding in time, we must concede that the nature of the something being spoken of is determined by the discourse and the life in which it comes. When people speak, there is a connection between what they say and reality. Yet it is utterly confusing to think of this connection as a reference to reality, that is, a rulegoverned correspondence between the general (what we say) and the particular (what we are talking about). It is confusing because it tempts one to think that the contrast between what one says and what one is talking about is a contrast between what is inside language and what is outside language, when in fact, the contrast is a contrast within language. The sort of connection that there is between reality and language is onerously difficult to grasp because of the ordinary use of reference. We refer to all sorts of things. And then it looks as if reality must be one of those things to which we can refer. The problem is that reality gives sense to our referring and cannot be an additional thing to which we refer without another reality that will give sense to such a referral, and so on, ad infinitum. Rhees’s general account of language emphasizes the importance of the connection between language and reality, but not in the direction of a reference to reality, or of a correspondence theory, or even in the direction of accepted grammatical rules. When someone speaks, they are talking about something, and that is not just a matter of applying a rule (1998, pp. 224–7). Suppose, for example, that two commuters living in the same town are talking about the daily drive into Los Angeles. One says, ‘It is such a difficult drive to make.’ He proceeds to explain why it is so difficult. The other commuter responds, ‘Oh, I don’t

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know, it’s not so bad.’ Then she proceeds to explain how she enjoys driving her car, listening to the radio, being alone, and so on. In this conversation, the two commuters are talking about something that is real, namely, the drive from their town to Los Angeles. The notion that these two are following rules regarding conversations about driving entirely omits the fact that their discussion concerns reality. What they say makes a difference because it concerns reality. A general account of language that exclusively accentuates rule-following neglects all of that. On the other hand, a general account of language that depends on a correspondence between language and reality fails to appreciate that what reality comes to is seen in the language; it is not seen in a thing that is somehow separate from language. Nevertheless, we notice something about language in general when we see someone trying to tell someone something or asking a question. We see that speaking and questioning display belief in the relation between language and reality: ‘To believe in language is to try to tell somebody something; to believe that it makes a difference what you say, and therefore that you can tell somebody something. Or we might say equally: to believe in the reality of language is to ask somebody a question’ (Rhees, 1998, p. 53). The nature of the relationship between language and reality is distorted by the notion that it is like pointing to an object in the backyard to confirm what is meant by ‘tree’. Nonetheless, the nature of the relationship is evident in that when I speak, I believe that what I say has a relation to reality. The difficulty here concerns the temptation to stipulate the terms of reality apart from a discourse and its life. This is what philosophical hermeneutics does with the offering of a theory of the unity of language. The nature of language in general – that it is spoken in a life in time – precludes such a theoretical offering. Stipulating the terms of reality by means of a theory, as Gadamer does, makes language a static and closed system that must depend upon something else to account for its change and growth. Gadamer appeals to being that is prior to language, an appeal that leaves us talking about something that cannot be said. Rhees, on the other hand, does not appeal to a metaphysical entity to account for the growth of language and its relation to reality; rather, he enables us to see that what we say has a relation to reality in the sense that reality concerns a life. We believe our words relate to reality in the sense that we believe our words have some sort of bearing on life. This is not a relationship between language and a metaphysical entity; nor is it a relationship between language and a super-category called ‘reality’. One might question whether it is a relationship at all. Put succinctly: speaking displays the belief that what is said matters. Of language in general we can say that saying something displays belief in the relation between language and reality, but we are able neither to specify a general nature of reality nor to delineate its relation to language. Being able to relate language to reality involves ‘making yourself understood’, rather than the delineation of a system of connections (Rhees, 1998, p. 54). If others can understand what a person is saying, then seeing the reality of what that person is saying goes with their understanding. In that sense, speaking together with others is a display of belief in the relation of language to reality. When arguing with a philosophical skeptic one must therefore accept that the relation between reality and language is a matter of belief in language. Nothing will force the skeptic to accept the validity of language. The skeptic seems to want irresistible proof, but the relation of language to reality is something that persons believe as they speak. To think otherwise is to already suppose a skeptical gap

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between language and reality. The skeptic’s problem might be resolved or dissolved if we did not take ‘representation of reality’ to mean a sign that takes the place of an object or relation: ‘To say that a proposition is an Abbildung der Wirklichkeit (representation of reality) means that a proposition can be understood. We do not mean that someone can understand what it is a picture of; we mean that he can understand what it says’ (Rhees, 1998, p. 55). Rather than in correspondence or some metaphysical theory, the relation of language to reality lies in understanding what someone says. In that case, I might ask the skeptical neighbor if he understands what is being said in the remark, ‘The tree in the backyard is diseased.’ The skeptic generally replies that he understands the statement but how can we know there are such things as trees, backyards and diseases. One might ask the skeptic what he understands in the remark. Perhaps he will reply that people respond in different ways to trees, backyards and tree diseases, but again he asks, ‘How can we know these things are real?’ Rhees suggests that all the various responses that people make to diseased trees are possible because ‘The tree in the backyard is diseased’ says something. If it did not say something, if it were not related to reality, we would be unable to understand it and would have no idea of what response to make to it. For example, the remark, ‘Aliens put a computer chip in my head’, might be said in jest, but what if someone was to make the remark in complete sincerity. How would we understand it? The relation of the remark to reality is seen in the understanding that we have of the remark. If the skeptic understands the remark, then he already sees its relation to reality. This does not give the skeptic the irresistible proof that he seeks, but it may help to dislodge the notion that reality is somehow separate from the language one speaks. What is real is seen in our understanding what is said. These distinctions are very important for understanding the nature of language in general because reality concerns saying one thing rather than another. As Rhees says, if speaking did not have a relation to reality, then you would be ‘saying nothing at all’ (1998, p. 163). Again, this relation is not the relation of names to objects. What is real cannot be separated out from what is said and what is said cannot be separated out from what is real. This is the importance of understanding here and now. In order to speak, one cannot just utter anything. Reality bears on what can be said and understood. Nevertheless, one cannot set out the nature of reality (its form, its rules, etc.) in anticipation of what is said. Its nature concerns its connection with life and it is believed in as one speaks. This is why Wittgenstein’s builders are not saying anything unless there is some connection between their orders and reality, the rest of life. If one responds that Wittgenstein’s description is just the way the builders live, then their giving and receiving orders has nothing to do with understanding language. The relation of language to reality has to do with what one believes in, with what one takes seriously. Understanding is inextricably linked to morality in the sense that one must see the point of what is said, its relation to what is serious, in order to understand it. This is even true of games and perhaps even especially true of jokes. One could hardly see any humor in a joke, particularly a distasteful one, unless one had an understanding of its relation to what is serious. There would be nothing to understand without this link to morality: ‘Language without morality would be a wallpaper pattern or a formal habit (not even a ceremony)’ (Rhees, 1998, p. 176). That is just the sort of language uttered by Wittgenstein’s builders; one cannot get a sense of what is important in their lives.

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Rhees’s observations have extraordinary implications for the metaphysical accounts of reality offered by philosophical hermeneutics. Consider, for example, what it means when a child learns to speak. It would be misleading to say that the child is learning English. For, of course, the child that is learning to speak in France is not learning English. We say of children, both in England and in France, that they are learning to speak. The later Wittgenstein tried to account for this through the notion that a child is learning various language games, so that ‘anything is a significant expression if it has a role in some language game’ (Rhees, 1998, p. 181). As we have seen, the problem with Wittgenstein’s account concerns its lack of appreciation for the relation of language to reality. Imagined language games are not related to reality. However, this also pinpoints the difficulty of metaphysical accounts and explanations of the nature of reality. Such accounts are like games with their own rules and vocabulary, never connecting with life outside the discipline of philosophy. Metaphysical expressions have a role in the game of metaphysics, but are not related to the lives that people lead. For example, when Gadamer speaks of an ‘ontological structure’ which underlies the language that we speak, we may be able to see the role that such an expression plays in the language game of metaphysics. Yet, its intelligibility is limited to those who play the game of metaphysics (in the same way that the intelligibility of a particular move in chess is limited to those who play chess). Remarks about metaphysics have no connection with other things that people say and do. I suppose some philosophers could say that if there was no underlying ontological structure, life would lose meaning for them and it would not matter to them if a person said or did one thing or another. In that case, we would have to concede that ‘ontological structure’ is a part of the reality that they believe in as they speak. However, the concept of an ontological structure does little or nothing to elucidate the nature of the relation between language and reality. It is, at most, a belief about the nature of reality, a belief that some philosophers use to account for the meaning of life, but few except professional philosophers know the role that it plays. It is not a general account of language and the relation of language to reality. By contrast, Rhees’s account shows that what one takes reality to be is seen in the language one speaks and the life one lives. This avoids ‘reality is … ’ claims while giving a general account of the relation of language to reality. Suppose, however, that a philosopher argued that an ‘ontological structure’ is the reality that people believe in as they speak. In that case, we may wonder why there is any need to speak of an ontological structure. Why not just speak of ‘reality?’ The game of metaphysics and the notion of an ontological structure move us away from the reality about which people speak. When we understand what people say, we can see the nature of the relation between language and reality. Talk of ontology takes the philosopher further from what people say, and consequently, further from understanding reality. To the extent that metaphysics attempts to delineate the nature of reality apart from what people say, it is only a word game. If, on the other hand, metaphysics is speech about the same reality of which people speak, then the vocabulary of metaphysics should reflect its participation in that reality. The point here is that in order for expressions to share in a common intelligibility, they must be in use elsewhere. Rhees quotes this passage from Wittgenstein’s Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics to clarify this point: ‘ “I want to say: it is essential to mathematics that its signs should also be used in mufti [civil life]. It is their use

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outside mathematics, in other words the meaning of the signs, that makes the signgame mathematics”’ (1998, p. 184).1 Likewise, if the expressions used in the game of metaphysics are to have meaning, a connection with reality, they must have a use in everyday language. If these expressions are limited to one particular standard of procedure, namely the professional conversations of philosophers, then it is difficult to see why we should call it speaking as opposed to just playing a game: Their uses elsewhere have to do with the point or bearing of them in what we are saying now. It is the way we use them in other connections that decides whether they make sense together here, for instance: whether one can be substituted for another, whether they may be combined or are incompatible and so forth. What the expressions mean, even in this game, is not to be seen just in what we do with them or how we react to them in this game. (Rhees, 1998, p. 185)

While Wittgenstein helps us to see that it makes no sense to speak as if language were one thing, his language game analogy does not elucidate why speaking is not like playing a game. He shows us that one major problem with metaphysics is that it tries to force all speech into one system, distorting what is said. However, Wittgenstein does not help us to see the other problematic tendency of metaphysics: talk of ontology is not tied up with the reality of what people say. The language game analogy fails to illustrate the weakness of a philosophical position that does not share and participate in a common intelligibility, a life. The difficulty here concerns identifying ‘life’. Rhees helps us to get our arms around this concept by emphasizing that a life is something people have together and that shows itself in that people are able to speak together: ‘If people are living together, that means that they are able to carry on conversations. The idea of “having something to say”. As opposed to “just babbling”, I suppose’ (1998, p. 97). Furthermore, carrying on conversations depends upon sharing common ideas. Rhees’s point is that understanding a way of life is not just a matter of understanding how the people use the language. In addition to knowing the language, one must understand the ideas that they share with one another, ideas that ‘(1) have developed through discussion, and also (2) can be discussed’ (1998, p. 98). Speaking together is not just a matter of knowing how to say so and so; it is also a matter of knowing when you would say it. For example, contrast practicing conversational German and asking for a room while traveling in Germany. When people say they speak a bit of German, one expects them to be able to ask for a room. While the repetition of German phrases is certainly helpful in being able to ask for a room in Germany, understanding what it means to ask for a room involves shared, common ideas that extend beyond just being able to repeat a phrase in the right situation: ‘Understanding what is said is not quite the same as knowing what it means’ (Rhees, 1998, p. 103). Understanding what is said means seeing what is interesting in it, or the point of it, or what is important about it; and that requires seeing its place in the life as well as the language. The metaphysical concept of ‘being’ fails here because it has no place in life other than in the game played by philosophers.

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Language and Life If speaking and discussing were a capacity, a capacity to be open to the other for example, then there would not be so much trouble in drawing up a metaphysical system with its own universal rules of grammar, as Gadamer has done. The impossibility of delineating universal rules of grammar goes together with the notions that speaking is not a capacity and learning to speak is not learning a capacity. Does that mean that we must give up the quest for a clear account of the unity of language? Can we get at the question of why all these games are called ‘language’ without resorting to metaphysics? Rhees goes to great lengths to emphasize that simply because there are no universal rules of grammar does not mean that we can say nothing about language in general, about understanding and the intelligibility of discourse. In fact, to deny that we can talk in a general way about the growth of understanding is to deny the reality of discussion (1998, p. 103). As noted earlier, the reality of a discussion is something that is believed in as a person speaks. The reality is something believed in as people speak together. Speaking together requires that language has a unity, a unity which is displayed in that what is said on one occasion is bound up with what is said on other occasions. This unique unity is fundamental to the growth of understanding. The unity of language is its relation to life, its reality. If one denies our being able to speak in this general way, then one denies the reality of discussion. Without distorting the variety of discussions, we can say of any discussion that in it the participants are trying to understand. Rhees is worried that such a claim may sound empty (1998, p. 28). And yet there is, in this arid observation, a unique sort of connection that gives a sense of unity to all discourse: in every discussion, there is something to be understood. There is something to be learned, which has a relation to a life. In order for there to be a discussion, that which is discussed must have a relation to a life. The importance of this observation concerns attempts to think of discourse as isolated and/or self-sustaining. Rhees argues that discourse, even when it is about something as cold, precise and systematic as geometry, brings understanding to life: We might see our way through all the proofs and sequences of proofs in geometry, and we should still have nothing we could understand, if it brought no understanding. We could not understand geometry unless we could understand the discourse in which geometry comes. For that is what geometry should help you understand – that discourse. Or in other words, if you do learn from geometry, then you are learning … [Rhees’s ellipsis] we might say ‘about life’. Or about understanding – that is probably how Plato would put it. For that is what geometry teaches you. You will not know what understanding is from geometry alone, but you will not know much without it, either. (1998, pp. 28–9)

The understanding that is brought by a discourse is the connection that it has with the rest of life. What a person understands in a conversation is that connection between what is discussed and other matters of discourse. Rhees is interested in the question of how language hangs together. In the example from earlier in the chapter in which the woman says, ‘I will pray for you’, we see that Wittgenstein’s game analogy does not account for the other things that the woman

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talks about and the relation of those to the remark, ‘I will pray for you’. It is the general nature of that relation which Rhees struggles to elucidate: How is it that if you understand one part of language you understand others; if you understand when I ask you certain things, you will understand when I ask you other things; if you can say something now, you can say something on other occasions? This is not like saying that if you understand one part of a technique you will be able to understand others, or you will be able to understand the rest. (1998, pp. 63–4)

On the other hand, we have seen that a metaphysical theory of reality would tend to explain the remark, ‘I will pray for you’, by reference to an entity that is not part of a life that people live. Philosophical hermeneutics, for example, attempts to place the remark in a theoretical system of reality in which being plays its participants in one great game. Rhees uses the example of conversation to bring out the difficulty of game analogies: ‘Describing a conversation is not like describing a game’ (1998, p. 65). One does not have to understand how a game fits into the lives of the participants and observers in order to understand how the game is played. That is just a matter of learning the rules of the game. By contrast, one could not begin to understand a conversation without understanding its place in the lives of the participants; that is, its relation to other areas of life. A general account of language is not like giving an account of an activity, a practice, or a social institution. Each of the latter has a sort of logic to it, which can be more or less systematically displayed. But language is not restricted to a set of rules of engagement. Thus an account of the activity of prayer shows various contexts in which talk of prayer has a sense, but it does not account for the woman having said something when she said, ‘I will pray for you’. She said something that was intelligible to the person she spoke to because he was able to appreciate, in addition to the rules regarding talk of prayer, that what she said had a place in her life and a related interest to his life, a relation to other areas of life. Furthermore, if what she said is intelligible to us, we must see some relation to our own lives as well. A general account of language emphasizes the importance of the relation of what is said to other areas of life in a way that the account of an activity cannot. A general account of language brings attention to what Rhees calls a ‘common intelligibility’. He explains that a common intelligibility is not the same thing as what Wittgenstein meant by an ‘agreement in reactions’ (1998, p. 234). An agreement in reactions concerns an agreement about what movement and actions can be sensibly repeated in a certain type of situation. In other words, when a person is at the office there are particular sorts of activities that have a sense. Similarly, when a person is at home there is a different group of actions and movements which have a sense. Wittgenstein’s point is that we rarely confuse these activities and we agree together with others in our participation in those settings. Rhees is emphasizing that although the activities are different, the language is not. The language used at work is the same language used at home because language has a common intelligibility. The connection between what is said at work and what is said at home does not exist between what movements are made at work and what movements are made at home (Rhees, 1998, p. 192). One obvious example is that, while at home, a person can talk about what happened at work and the person listening can understand what is being

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said. A common intelligibility is required for this that is not accounted for in the notion of an agreement in reactions. A common intelligibility or understanding includes being familiar with the sorts of things that people say. This includes being able to see what is sincere, ironic or humorous in what is said. It also includes being able to ask questions and hold a conversation. For example, a common intelligibility allows a person to talk about last night’s baseball game with the store clerk, though the two have never spoken about baseball before. They are able to speak together, not just because they both know English, or because they know the rules of baseball, or because they know the rules of a conversation. They are able to speak together and understand one another because they know what it means to say something, to bring something to a discussion. When one attempts, as Rhees does, to give a general account of this common intelligibility, one must try to show how things that are said bear on one another. In other words, one must try to show what makes it possible to speak and hold a conversation. Even when one does not understand an issue, one understands how to ask a question. Why is it that people can participate in a conversation even when they know nothing about the topic of the conversation? There is a shared understanding that allows people to learn and grow in their understanding. It is something that cannot be accounted for in the language game analogy. The language game analogy can account for identifying the meaning of words and phrases, but it cannot account for being able to explain the point of a particular remark. Contrast, for example, recognizing certain foreign words and being able to understand the point of their being said here and now. The latter is not simply a matter of learning the language or sharing a common way of living, though those are essential, too. Being able to understand the point of a remark means seeing the reality of what is said and its relation to what is said and who said it. This takes us ‘away from the learning of rules, and much nearer to the understanding of people’ (Rhees, 1998, p. 208). Rhees emphasizes that understanding people is something that is additional to being familiar with their way of living. The challenge lies in elucidating this notion of reality without doing so in terms of application: ‘If you think of the relation of language to things, if you think of talking about something, as an application of language; and especially if you have as an analogy there the application of mathematics, I expect there is a whole nest of troubles you have brought with you’ (Rhees, 1998, p. 233). We can avoid these troubles by focusing on the notion of trying to see what people mean when they have said something. This is not a matter of trying to see how their words apply to objects. It is a matter involving questions and trying to see the point of what has been said: ‘I would not try to understand him if I thought what he was saying was just stupid and pointless’ (Rhees, 1998, p. 236). Trying to understand includes the assumption that the speaker is making a point of some kind if the speaker is saying anything at all. That people can understand one another is fundamental to a general account of language. That they understand one another means that what they say belongs to a language and the language they use belongs to their lives. What is intelligible for people is much more closely related to what they understand than to a formal set of rules that would govern the relation of language to reality as the rules of a game govern the relation of what is done in the game to the game itself. The fact that the intelligibility of one expression depends upon being able to say other things in other contexts suggests the very sort of internal connection that one

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finds in a game. If one remark is necessarily connected with other remarks, then we should be able to trace those connections the way we trace the rules in a game. However, for Rhees the relations that remarks have to one another are not pre-set logical relations. One reason for this is that remarks have a temporal order that a set of rules does not. Wittgenstein teaches us that the role of symbols in a game does not change from one game to the next and that saying something is inextricably linked to the context in which it is said. Rhees goes further. The link between what is said and its context is not only a matter of the role of that which is said, but also a matter of the time at which it is said. Saying something is not a matter of uttering words that play a certain logical role because saying something is tied up with the temporal order in which statements are made (1998, p. 245). As Rhees puts it, ‘We might even want to say that temporal connections cannot be internal’ (1998, p. 246). That is not the same as a general skepticism about what we can know, given that we cannot predict the future; rather, it is a recognition of the nature of understanding. Understanding occurs in the flow of life and therefore is not a matter of logical prediction, but neither is it a matter of all knowledge being uncertain. The unity that Rhees is speaking of is a unity that occurs in time. It is the unity of the life that people are leading, but not the unity of a way of life (1998, p. 247). In other words, it is not the unity that one finds where there is conformity to an assemblage of rituals and practices. Certainly, one cannot understand what is being said without some knowledge of surrounding rituals and practices, but the unity of language is a unity concerning speaking in time. One can have a knowledge of common rituals and practices and see the place of certain phrases in that context, but that is different from understanding what someone has said in that context. The unity of language is that which makes it possible to understand that something is being said and, a fortiori, what is being said. The sort of unity, the connection between remarks, that Rhees is speaking of is not ‘something that all language has in common’ (1998, p. 248). Rhees is not challenging Wittgenstein’s successful struggle against the notion of a universal logic of language: ‘Wittgenstein wanted to say that there are not any all-pervasive axioms or all-pervasive rules, as regards language and understanding. And that that is not what makes it saying something. I do not question any of that’ (1998, p. 249). And while Rhees admits that one cannot talk of one all-encompassing language game, he does not think that the intelligibility of speaking can be accounted for in the notion of ‘correctly’ following the grammar. Intelligibility does not lend itself to such general terms. For the meaning of what someone says is ‘not its place in the system or its “role” in the language’. Similarly there is nothing that we can call ‘the point of living with people’ (1998, pp. 251–5). Living with people is not a task assigned with some purpose in mind which we are to fulfill, such as openness to others. But this does not mean that there is no point to be found in a shared life: there is a point in the lives which the people are leading together (even though there is nothing which is the point for everyone ‘otherwise he would not be there’. There is nothing like my station and its duties). But it is not just that people happen to be interested in this game now, tomorrow it may be another, and so on. More important, perhaps: living together is not playing a game together. (Rhees, 1998, p. 255)

The important point is that living together and understanding one another is not a

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matter of understanding how a game is played, whether it is one game out of many or one great metaphysical game. It is, rather, a matter of a shared life. And that is the sort of unity that language has: the unity of a shared life. Note 1

This is Rhees’s translation though it is very close to Anscombe’s translation in the published English version (Wittgenstein, 1978, p. 257).

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Bibliography Anscombe, G.E.M. (1971), An Introduction to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus: Themes in the Philosophy of Wittgenstein, South Bend, Indiana: St Augustine’s Press. Apel, Karl-Otto (1981), ‘Social Action and the Concept of Rationality’, Philosophical Topics, 12, 9–35. Apel, Karl-Otto (1994), Karl-Otto Apel: Selected Essays, ed. Eduardo Mendieta, vol. 1, Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press. Aristotle (1987), A New Aristotle Reader, ed. J.L. Ackrill, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Caputo, John D. (1987), Radical Hermeneutics: Repetition, Deconstruction, and the Hermeneutic Project, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Conant, James (2000), ‘Elucidation and Nonsense in Frege and Early Wittgenstein’, in Alice Crary and Rupert Read (eds), The New Wittgenstein, London: Routledge, pp. 174–217. Connolly, John M. and Keutner, Thomas (1988), ‘Introduction: Interpretation, Decidability, and Meaning’, in John M. Connolly and Thomas Keutner (eds and trans), Hermeneutics versus Science?: Three German Views, Essays by H.-G. Gadamer, E.K. Specht, W. Stegmüller, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, pp. 1–67. Diamond, Cora (2000), ‘Ethics, Imagination and the Method of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus’, in Alice Crary and Rupert Read (eds), The New Wittgenstein, London: Routledge, pp. 149–73. Foster, Matthew (1991), Gadamer and Practical Philosophy: The Hermeneutics of Moral Confidence, American Academy of Studies in Religion, ed. Lawrence S. Cunningham, vol. 64, Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press. Friedlander, Eli (2001), Signs of Sense: Reading Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gadamer, Hans-Georg (1976a), Philosophical Hermeneutics, ed. and trans. David E. Linge, Berkeley: University of California Press. Gadamer, Hans-Georg (1976b), Hegel’s Dialectic: Five Hermeneutical Studies, trans. P. Christopher Smith, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Gadamer, Hans-Georg (1979), ‘Practical Philosophy as a Model of the Human Sciences’, redacted by James Risser, Research in Phenomenology, 9, ed. John Sallis, 74–85. Gadamer, Hans-Georg (1981), Reason in the Age of Science, trans. Frederick G. Lawrence, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Gadamer, Hans-Georg (1988), ‘Mythopoetic Inversion in Rilke’s Duino Elegies’, in John M. Connolly and Thomas Keutner (eds and trans), Hermeneutics versus Science?: Three German Views, Essays by H.-G. Gadamer, E.K. Specht, W. Stegmüller, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, pp. 79–101. 133

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Gadamer, Hans-Georg (1989), Truth and Method, 2nd rev. edn, trans. W. GlenDoepel, translation revised by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald Marshall, New York: Continuum. Gadamer, Hans-Georg (1990), Wahrheit und Methode: Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik, Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr. Gadamer, Hans-Georg (1992), Hans-Georg Gadamer on Education, Poetry, and History: Applied Hermeneutics, eds Dieter Misgeld and Graeme Nicholson, trans Lawrence Schmidt and Monica Reuss, SUNY Series in Contemporary Continental Philosophy, ed. Dennis J. Schmidt, Albany: State University of New York Press. Grondin, Jean (1995), Sources of Hermeneutics, SUNY Series in Contemporary Continental Philosophy, ed. Dennis J. Schmidt, Albany: State University of New York Press. Habermas, Jürgen (1984) The Theory of Communicative Action, trans. Thomas McCarthy, vol. 1, Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Hegel, G.W.F. (1977) Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A.V. Miller, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Heidegger, Martin (1962), Being and Time, trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson, New York: Harper & Row. Hekman, Susan J. (1986), Hermeneutics and the Sociology of Knowledge, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Hoy, David Couzens (1978a), The Critical Circle: Literature, History, and Philosophical Hermeneutics, Berkeley: University of California Press. Hoy, David Couzens (1978b), ‘History, Historicity, and Historiography in Being and Time’, in Michael Murray (ed.), Heidegger and Modern Philosophy: Critical Essays, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, pp. 329–53. Husserl, Edmund (1962), Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology, trans. W.R. Boyce Gibson, New York: Collier Macmillan. Kenny, Anthony (1973), Wittgenstein, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Kierkegaard, Søren (1959), The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, ed. and trans. Alexander Dru, London: Oxford University Press. Kierkegaard, Søren (1992), Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, eds and trans Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Kierkegaard’s Writings, vol. XII, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Klagge, James and Nordmann, Alfred (1993), ‘Editorial Conventions’, in Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Occasions 1912–1951, Indianapolis: Hackett, pp. xiv–xvi. Kögler, Hans (1996), The Power of Dialogue: Critical Hermeneutics after Gadamer and Foucault, trans. Paul Hendrickson, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Reid, Lynette (1998), ‘Wittgenstein’s Ladder: The Tractatus and Nonsense’, Philosophical Investigations, 21 (2), April, 97–151. Rhees, Rush (1996), Discussions of Wittgenstein, Bristol: Thoemmes Press. Rhees, Rush (1997), Rush Rhees on Religion and Philosophy, ed. D.Z. Phillips, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rhees, Rush (1998), Wittgenstein and the Possibility of Discourse, ed. D.Z. Phillips, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Risser, James (1995), ‘Hermeneutics of the Possible: On Finitude and Truth in Philosophical Hermeneutics’, in Lawrence K. Schmidt (ed.), The Specter of

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Relativism: Truth, Dialogue, and Phronesis in Philosophical Hermeneutics, Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, pp. 111–28. Schmidt, Lawrence Kennedy (1987), The Epistemology of Hans-Georg Gadamer: An Analysis of the Legitimization of Vorurteile, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Schulte, Joachim (1992), Wittgenstein: An Introduction, trans William H. Brenner and John F. Holley, Albany: State University of New York Press. Smith, P. Christopher (1979), ‘Gadamer’s Hermeneutics and Ordinary Language Philosophy’, The Thomist, 43: 296–321. Wachterhauser, Brice R. (1986), ‘Introduction: History and Language in Understanding’, in Brice R. Wachterhauser (ed.), Hermeneutics and Modern Philosophy, Albany: State University of New York Press, pp. 5–61. Warnke, Georgia (1987), Gadamer: Hermeneutics, Tradition, and Reason, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Weinsheimer, Joel (1985), Gadamer’s Hermeneutics: A Reading of Truth and Method, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Weinsheimer, Joel and Marshall, Donald G. (1989), ‘Translators’ Preface’, in HansGeorg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2nd rev. edn, trans. W. Glen-Doepel, translation revised by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald Marshall, New York: Continuum, pp. xi–xix. Winch, Peter (1958), The Idea of a Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy, London: Routledge. Winch, Peter (1964), ‘Understanding a Primitive Society’, American Philosophical Quarterly, 1, 307–24. Winch, Peter (1987), Trying to Make Sense, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1953), Philosophical Investigations, trans. G.E.M. Anscombe, New York: Macmillan. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1960), The Blue and Brown Books, New York: Harper & Row. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1961), Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans D.F. Pears and B.F. McGuinness, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1967), Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief, compiled from notes taken by Yorick Smythies, Rush Rhees and James Taylor, ed. Cyril Barrett, Berkeley: University of California Press. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1969), On Certainty, ed. G.E.M. Anscombe and G.H. von Wright, trans Denis Paul and G.E.M. Anscombe, New York: Harper & Row. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1971), Prototractatus: An Early Version of Tractatus LogicoPhilosophicus, eds B.F. McGuinness, T. Nyberg, and G.H. von Wright, trans D.F. Pears and B.F. McGuinness, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1974), Philosophical Grammar, ed. Rush Rhees, trans. Anthony Kenny, Berkeley: University of California Press. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1975), Philosophical Remarks, ed. Rush Rhees, trans Raymond Hargreaves and Roger White, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1978), Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, eds G.H. von Wright, R. Rhees, and G.E.M. Anscombe, trans. G.E.M. Anscombe, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1980), Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, eds G.E.M. Anscombe and G.H. von Wright, trans. G.E.M. Anscombe, vol. 1, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

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Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1982), Last Writings on the Philosophy of Psychology, vol. 1, Preliminary Studies for Part II of Philosophical Investigations, ed. G.H. von Wright and Heikki Nyman, trans C.G. Luckhardt and Maximilian A.E. Aue, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1984), Culture and Value, ed. G.H. von Wright in collaboration with Heikki Nyman, trans. Peter Winch, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1993), Philosophical Occasions 1912–1951, eds James C. Klagge and Alfred Nordmann, Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1995), Cambridge Letters, eds Brian McGuinness and Georg Henrik von Wright, Oxford: Blackwell. Wright, Kathleen (1986), ‘Gadamer: The Speculative Structure of Language’, in Brice R. Wachterhauser (ed.), Hermeneutics and Modern Philosophy, Albany: State University of New York Press, pp. 193–218.

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Index

absolute reason 33–4 agreement in a community 60 Anscombe, Elizabeth 84, 109, 132 Apel, Karl-Otto 23, 29 Aristotle 59–65, 77–9 atomic fact 97, 102 Augustine 112 being 1, 27–8, 32, 53–6, 61–5, 74–8, 81, 111, 121–4, 127 belief in language 124 Caputo, John D. 79, 80 causality 94, 109 common intelligibility, 118, 123–30 common interests 116 Conant, James 108–9 Connolly, John M. 10, 25–6 contingency 42 conversation 58–61, 67–71, 90, 115–30 copy 75 Dasein 32, 46–8 dialectic 57–8, 62, 70 Diamond, Cora 109 Dilthey, Wilhelm 34–9, 45–7, 56 dogma 67 Droysen, Johann Gustav 34 elementary proposition 95, 102–5 elucidation 52, 59, 77, 82–92, 97, 103, 111, 118, 122 Enlightenment 7, 11–12, 32–3, 55, 57 epistemological ground 35, 37, 46 epistemological justification 10, 31, 37–9, 48–9 epistemological problems 35–41, 45, 47, 50 essence of the world 100, 104–5 evidence 9, 11, 16, 18, 32, 41, 68 experience 5, 6, 21, 26, 28, 32, 36–9, 43, 47, 51–2, 56–62, 66–79

extra-linguistic view 21, 23, 26, 28, 31 facts 83–97, 101–5, 108, 111 fallibility 31–3, 42, 44, 49, 51 family resemblances 118–20 following rules 65, 113, 124 form of life 23–9, 114–15, 118 form of the world 100 Foster, Matthew 44 Frege, Gottlieb 88, 109 Friedlander, Eli 84 fusion of horizons 50, 59 Gadamer, Hans-Georg 5–79, 80–81, 108, 111, 120–28 grammar 26, 50, 97, 98, 118, 128, 131 Grondin, Jean 79, 80 growth of culture 119 growth of understanding 116, 120–23, 128 Habermas, Jürgen 23–4, 50 Hegel, G. W. F. 26, 56–8, 62, 78–9 Heidegger, Martin 11–15, 17, 19, 23, 28–9, 31–3, 35, 45–8, 53, 55–6, 78, 79 Hekman, Susan 29, 68 historical consciousness 33, 36, 43, 57 historical criticism 47 historical knowledge 47 historical research 32, 34–6, 38–40, 44, 48, 50 historically effected consciousness 32, 58, 67 history 7, 10, 31–40, 42–7, 49–52, 67 Hoy, David Couzens 32, 40, 42, 50 human sciences 6, 37, 46, 48, 63–4 humanities 5–6, 20, 48, 52, 58, 63–4, 66, 67, 69, 70, 77 Husserl, Edmund 22, 26, 56, 60, 61, 79 immortality 86 interpretation 12–23, 28–9, 31, 45, 49–50, 52–3, 55, 59, 62–3, 72, 78, 99 137

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I–Thou relationship 57–8 justification 10, 15, 36, 45, 47–9, 52–3, 63, 98 Kenny, Anthony 84, 95 Keutner, Thomas 10, 25, 26 Kierkegaard, Søren 33, 78 Kögler, Hans 18, 22 Kraft, Viktor 64, 79 language and reality 31, 81, 99, 102, 106, 120, 122–6 language game 63, 74, 111–13, 115–20, 126–27, 130–31 language in general 112–13, 119–20, 122, 124–5, 128 learning to speak 113, 117, 126, 128 linguistic unity 61 logic of our language 81, 83–8, 92–5, 97–8, 100, 103–6, 108, 111 logical atomism 94, 97, 99–102, 104, 111, 120 metaphysical illusions 46, 51 metaphysics 77–82, 84, 88–9, 107–8, 126–28 Mill, John Stuart 5–6, 64 Neoplatonism 75 Nicholas of Cusa 60 nonsense 82, 84, 86–8, 91–2, 95–97, 100, 103–4, 107–9 objective 20, 32, 43–4, 46 objectivity 7, 14, 20, 28, 43–5, 52, 57 objects 6, 15, 18, 22–3, 31, 33, 36, 40, 45, 52, 60–61, 83, 85, 88, 90–91, 94–98, 102, 104–5, 112, 120, 125, 130 openness 57–9, 66–73, 76–8, 79, 120–21, 131 ordinary language 11, 29, 69, 88–90, 92–4, 98, 102, 104–8 Parmenides 62 phenomenology 56 philosophical propositions 82, 85–7 philosophical style 81, 94–5 phronesis 63–5 pictorial form 100 Plato 62, 78, 121–2, 128 play 33, 48, 52, 62–3, 65, 74–5, 79, 108, 114–15, 117, 126, 131 practical philosophy 64–5, 79

presentation 74–5, 78, 84 problem of God 86 Ranke, Leopold 34, 36, 43 reference 10, 16, 22–4, 28–9, 66, 112, 123, 129 Reid, Lynette 107–8 relativism 46, 60, 61, 68, 72, 77 Rhees, Rush 53, 70, 79, 81, 82, 94, 109, 111–32 riddle of life 86, 87 Rilke, Ranier Maria 10 Risser, James 80 Russell, Bertrand 88, 103 saying something 111, 113–31 saying/showing distinction 82–4, 86, 91–4, 97, 99–104, 107, 109 Schleiermacher, Friedrich 56 Schmidt, Lawrence 21 Schulte, Joachim 109 scientific method 5–6, 14, 20, 45, 64, 76 sense 81–3, 85–91, 93–105, 107–9, 111 silence 82, 84, 103 skeptic 35, 104, 124, 125 skepticism 86 Smith, P. Christopher 26 Socrates 78 solidarity 79 solipsism 86 speaking together 127–8 speculative structure of language 77 states of affairs 88, 95–7, 102, 105 super-concepts 105–7, 111 symbolic logic 98 tautologies 84, 86, 103, 104 technical language 94, 96, 98, 104 temporal order 131 theoria 77 theory 28, 34, 46–8, 50, 56, 58, 60–61, 63–6, 69, 72–4, 77–8, 85, 91, 106, 109, 111, 121–5, 129 theory of understanding 46–8, 50 things themselves 19–21, 23, 48 time 6, 13, 15, 17, 33–5, 40, 42–4, 51–2, 57, 59–60, 64, 85, 98, 107, 109, 113, 116, 118, 120–24, 131 transcendence 27 unity of history 36–9 unity of meaning 61–2

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Index universal history 32, 35 universal ontological structure 27–8, 63, 75–7 value 12, 15, 49, 57, 59, 70, 82, 83, 86–7, 95, 107, 109, 113, 121 von Humboldt, Wilhelm 60 Wachterhauser, Bruce 46, 50, 51, 53 Warnke, Georgia 40, 42, 50, 67

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Weinsheimer, Joel 46, 50, 79 Winch, Peter 13, 23–4, 29, 43, 76, 81, 83, 109 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 17, 22–29, 31, 33–4, 37–8, 41, 44, 52–3, 67, 70, 78, 81–111, 112–14, 117–20, 125–9, 131–2 Wittgenstein’s builders 114, 125 world-in-itself 21–3, 25–8, 31, 34, 55, 60–62, 66, 72–3, 76–7, 79 worldview 21, 23–5, 27, 61–2, 72–3 Wright, Kathleen 80