Page 139 - Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Language

logical understanding' (of what the writer means by a sentence). The latter emphasized the difference between the natural sciences and the human sciences (Geisteswissenschaften). Karl-Otto Apel may be men- tioned as a modern representative of hermeneutics. Relying in part on work by Peter Winch, he has shown close similarities between many traditional her- meneutic themes and Wittgenstein's later philosophy.
Hermeneutics is naturally opposed to 'metho- dological monism' (also called 'positivism'). Accord- ing to this philosophical doctrine, there exists only one scientific method which applies equally well to all types of phenomena. Yet it is precisely within physics that this method has been most fully developed, with the consequence that all other sciences are supposed to imitate the example of physics in every respect.
As against this standpoint, hermeneutics adduces several nonmonistic arguments. First, while the causal relation between two physical events can only be exter- nally observed, it may be claimed that in the 'causation of human actions' the causal tie between reasons and actions is experienced directly, and that understanding actions by others is based on this kind of experience. This is the famous distinction between observation and understanding ( = Verstehen, also called 're-enact- ment' by R. G. Collingwood). This distinction goes back to the ancient distinction between 'observer's knowledge' and 'agent's knowledge' already employed by Plato and Aristotle.
Second, it is evident that the human world contains entities that are absent from the inanimate world, most notably 'norms.' And since norms, although directly known by intuition, are not reducible to the physical space and time, it follows that those sciences which analyze norms must remain qualitatively different from physics. This seems to be the case not just for grammatical theory (also called 'autonomous linguistics'), but also both for (formal) philosophy and for (philosophical) logic (see Itkonen 1978).
Third, the study of the social world may give rise to a (scientific) 'critique' of this very world. Again, this dimension is necessarily absent from (the study of) the inanimate world.
After stating (some of) the differences between the natural sciences and the human sciences, it is good to point out that there are similarities as well. In fact, the issue of 'similarity vs. difference' is relative to the level of abstraction: the higher the level of abstraction, the more similarities emerge between the sciences. At the highest level, all sciences (or 'academic disciplines') are similar insofar as they yield theoretical descrip- tions which are evaluated and ranked on the basis of (more or less) intersubjectivecriteria.
On a more purely philosophical level, hermeneutics continues the tradition of transcendental philosophy insofar as, rather than analyzing that which is known, it tries to explicate that which makes knowledge poss- ible in the first place. It rejects, however, the Kantian approach, which assumes the existence of some time- less and intraindividual framework. Instead, the his- torical and social (= interindividual) preconditions of knowledge are emphasized. As a consequence, her- meneutics is much concerned with the issue of 'rela- tivism vs. universalism.' This also shows the connection with Husserl's notion of Lebenswelt, and with Wittgenstein's notion of'form of life.'
See also: Husserl, Edmund.
Bibliography
Apel K-O 1973 Transformation der Philosophic. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt
Collingwood R G 1946 The Idea of History. Clarendon Press, Oxford
Itkonen E 1978 Grammatical Theory and Metascience. Benja- mins, Amsterdam
Winch P 1958 The Idea of a Social Science. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London
Holism, in the philosophy of language, is an approach which emphasizes the mutual interdependence of all the items of linguistic knowledge so that, for example, understanding the meaning of a given expression is said to require understanding the meaning of the sen- tences of a large sector of the rest of one's language (perhaps the entire language). Often such linguistic
holism derives from a more general holism with regard to the mind and its cognitive states.
1. Arguments for Linguistic Holism
One argument in favor of linguistic holism proceeds from a nativist account of language learning in con- junction with a form of holism in the philosophy of
Holism A. Weir
Holism
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