Charles Taylor, Philosophical Papers 2
Questions & Answers #1: "Interpretation & the Sciences of Man"

1. What is hermeneutics, 15?

Hermeneutics turns attention away from the object of study & towards the methods used to do the study. Historically it referred to various methods used to study the Bible. The Christian could not do a neutral analysis because her very being was at stake. She had reasons to select methods or nuance processes. Posties have adopted the term to further illustrate their belief that neutral analysis is impossible. E.g., one cannot escape the judgments & processes that are built-into the language one speaks, whether it is a natural language (e.g., English) or a specialized one (e.g., "the sciences of man": anthropology, sociology, political science, etc.).

2. Explain the significance: "Is there a sense in which interpretation is essential to explanation in the sciences of man?" 15.

Perhaps this seems innocuous & obvious. Not to a philosopher. Unpacking the question ends up questioning the whole enterprise as self-serving (colonial), prejudiced (ethno-centric), & invasive. What gives one ethnic group of people the right to presume to explain what another ethnic group of people is doing, in the presumably superior language & methods practiced by the first group? The answer has been, science. The next question is obviously, "what is science." Historically the answer has been given by the logical positivist who defined science as a near cousin to Kant's transcendental Reason. But for the last 25 yrs. Thomas Kuhn's postmodern conception of science has been pretty much accepted: "The view . . . that there is an unavoidably 'hermeneutical' component in the sciences of man." If this is accepted, then it seems to destroy the "scientific" (neutral) presumption for anthropology, etc.

3. Explain the difference between "meaning" & "expression," 16.

Something like denotative / connotative. As T. uses it, "meaning" hopes to access a fairly neutral & nearly universal concept, which can then be variously (culturally) "expressed." We know that "meaning" cannot epistemologically go in the direction of Plato & absolutes. It must be grounded in universal embodied knowledge: what human beings, because they inhabit bodies, necessarily experience but variously express.

4. Follow the epistemological puzzles on 17. What is T.'s rhetorical goal here?

1. "What are the criteria of judgement [i.e., recognized as the Truth] in a hermeneutical science?"
2. "one which makes clear the meaning" that was initially unclear. This presumes a coherence model of truth.
3. "how does one know that this interpretation is correct?" The temptation is to throw in a correspondence model of truth (Plato's ladder, rungs 3 & 4: human concepts/theory validated as True when they correspond to the absolute Form). Obviously T. can't go in this direction - because he is a pragmatist.
4. "because . . . what is . . . [initially] puzzling . . . is no longer so." This test/standard appeals to "our understanding of the 'language of expression'" which is grounded, not in the universal, but in the particular ethnic or professional discourse community which seems relevant. How do you know a phrase is idiomatic? Grammar ("meaning," universals, formulas) cannot decide. One must have an ear for it; i.e., experience in the relevant discourse.
5. "But this appeal to our [local discourse community] understanding seems to be crucially inadequate" precisely because it is parochial & not universal.
6. Moreover, "what if someone [in another community] does not 'see' the adequacy of our interpretation"? The best you can hope for is tolerance for relativism.
7. We militate for our paradigm view; that it produces a gestalt pattern superior to that offered by her alternative cultural view. On what basis? Because ours is more True? Without absolutes/transcendentals, how can this be? Then on the basis of elegance/aesthetics? This would be the Confucian/Asian epistemological view. "We . . . show him how it makes sense" in our view.
8. "But for him to follow us he must read the original language as we do" i.e., convert from his local community to ours. There are at least 2 problems here. In the cases that matter (e.g., race, gender, religion), this is not realistically possible. And even if it were, where is the authority? -- our initial question. Why should I feel obligated to convert to your view? Why not the opposite?

"This is one way of . . . [defining] the 'hermeneutical circle," 18. We recognize it as the truth because it is (Descartes) clearly & distinctly authoritative or self- evident; it is idiomatic.

What is T.'s rhetorical goal? Relative to his presumed audience of anthropologists, certainly to shake them up in regard to their presumptions, esp. that they are scientists dedicated to discovering truth rather than spin control doctors or art critics.

5. Leaving Hegel's attempt to break out of the circle to the Romantics (18), how do the empiricists hope to break out of the hermeneutical circle to reach Truth?

Define Truth "in such a way that there is no need to make final appeal . . . [to absolutes] which cannot be checked," 19. They do this by focusing attention on the empirically sensed data which makes a measurable/discernible difference. Because this view hopes to dispense with judgment (meaning in the broad sense) by insisting on the discernibility/objectivity of empirical data (& inevitably sneaking in unrecognized judgments), T. says epistemological empiricism is "largely a thing of the past," 20.

6. On 22 T. provides a pragmatist view of "meaning," which, he says, requires 3 elements. Paraphrase them.

1. "Meaning is for a subject." Meaningfulness is subjective & human; it is a judgment necessarily grounded in a normative (ethical) view offered by a concrete discourse community.
2. "Meaning is of something." The key word is intentionality. In conjunction with the next point, meaning is the focal point of the context/field.
3. "Things only have meaning in a field . . . in relation to the meanings of other things."

7. T. says that "the vocabulary defining meaning" moves "in a hermeneutical circle," 23. Explain how that works for the concept "shame."

The denotative definition of the concept necessarily refers to the subjective experience of feeling ashamed in some specific incident. Playing Socrates, one asks if this specific incident is equivalent to shame or invariably causes shame. And the answer is an awkward effort to bring background into foreground, saying, e.g., " you have to understand the situation (or audience expectations or what is normally done) - the context -- & how I failed to follow the script, which I acknowledged at the time to be valid." " 'shame' can only be explained by reference to other concepts which in turn cannot be understood without reference to" the experience of shame itself," 24.

8. How does the hermeneutical circle & the example of shame affect anthropology?

Confronted by puzzling, bizarre behavior, we assume that there is a pattern of coherence & that this pattern has meaning for the performer/subject. We then seek to enter her circle or to be temporarily & partially converted to the discourse community that produced the pattern. Notice that there is no presumption of universal/transcendental values. We have 2 hermeneutical circles: ours & the foreign culture.

9. If I understand "hermeneutical circles," it seems that T. Kuhn might be right about incommensurable discourse communities. Can we transition/translate from one community to the another?

Embodied knowledge provides points of transition located in meaning (courting, sex, having kids, eating, dying, etc.) for two different cultural expressions. "But does this mean that we can always embody the same meaning in another situation?" 24. Or can we be confident that there will always be points of transition between any two cultures? The answer refers us back to the hermeneutical circle rather than slipping back into the assumption that there are transcendental concepts which each culture expresses. Embodied experience is not conceptual until the resources of the specific culture articulate or express that experience. We cannot cheat by also assuming the existence of some neutral or absolute articulation or expression.

Notice what T. does at this point. He talks about texts; about how each culture elaborates meaning, typically by explaining it in a text so that we end up, e.g., with The Analects of Confucius & the New Testament. How do you compare these? Where are the points of transition? Certainly not at the conceptual level where the Christian might ask for the Chinese equivalent of The Last Judgment or Limited Atonement and stare blankly when asked, in turn, about hsiao or filial piety & deference to the emperor for bestowing the gift of culture. Actually David Hall & Roger Ames have illustrated exactly where points of comparison can be made between China & the West in two exemplary works of comparative philosophy: Thinking Through Confucius (SUNY) & Anticipating China (SUNY).

10. Instead of following the anthropology / comparative philosophy issue, T. predictably breaks off to consider how this epistemological & pragmatic thinking affects political science, which, as a discourse community, has not comparably reflected on its presumptions & methods. T. summarizes the epistemological model assumed by political science. What is it? See 31.

"What is objectively (inter-subjectively) real [for this discourse community] is brute data identifiable. * * * . . . The fact that such a belief is held is a fact of objective social reality. * * * Thus any description of reality in terms of meanings [like the "shame" example] which is open to interpretive question [about the adequacy of the whole endeavor] is only allowed into this scientific discourse if it is placed, as it were, in quotes & attributed to individuals as their opinion," 31. These, then, constitute the atomic bits for the empirical science. It should be obvious that T. finds this to be primitive because it "cannot allow for the validity of descriptions of social reality in terms of meanings, hence not as brute data [atoms], which are in quotation marks & attributed as [mere, partial] opinion," 32.

11. The presumption of political science, as T. illustrates it, is that it embodies &/or produces a transcendental or True account. On 33, T. (like Hall & Ames) points out that every "meaningful" "expression" arises from within a specific culture & that there are no intervening neutral terms. Perhaps "there is a social reality which can be discovered in each society [the transcendental concept differently expressed]"; or perhaps the transcendental "might exist quite independently of the vocabulary of that society," which would authorize substitutional accounts by anthropologists, behaviorists, & nearly every other discourse community that believes that it -- & it alone - has the resources/vocabulary to name that deep & otherwise unrecognized pattern, which, they assure us, is casually at work. T. says bluntly, "This is not the case. If there are no a priori transcendentals to offer points of transition between 2 cultures; & if T. also objects to T. Kuhn's incommensurable & mutually unknowable cultures; how are the transitions possible?

The magic word is pragmatism: "the realities here are practices [i.e., embodied knowledge]; & these cannot be identified in abstraction for the language we use to describe them," i.e., by recourse to our concepts, 33. Well then, aren't the practices mutually unintelligible? Not quite, because practices are not private/individual tastes. "The meanings & norms implicit in these practices are not just in the minds of the actors but are out there in the practices themselves, practices which cannot be conceived as a set of individual actions, but which are essentially modes of social relation,""36. One of the obvious places to look for meaningful practices is ritual & institutions: "Much of this common [social] language in any society is rooted in its institutions & practices." We are, e.g., Japanese only because we have recourse to Japanese language, identities & roles conferred by involvement in Japanese institutions, and because Japanese rituals & patterns express what is meaningful for us: "inter-subjective meanings could not be the property of a single person because they are rooted in social practice."

As scientists/Westerners we remain nostalgic for a putative neutral, transcendental description. "But this means that we give up trying to define further just what these practices & institutions are, what the meanings are . . . . In order to get at them [understand them] we have to drop the basic premise that social reality is made up of brute data [atoms] alone. * * * We have to admit that inter-subjective social reality has to be partly defined in terms of meanings; that meanings as subjective are not just in causal interaction with a social reality made up of brute data, but that as inter-subjective they are constitutive of this reality," 38. This nearly opens the door for Heidegger. To avoid that, T. next illustrates a pragmatic social reality that is "not just shared [by individuals] but part of the common reference world," 39.

12. Many pages earlier we distinguished between "meaning" & "expression." Finally on 39 these terms graft unto the description of a social reality created by pragmatic forces. How so?

"Common meanings are the basis of community," 39. What is meaningful is not entirely & perhaps not even largely the decision of the radically isolated or independent ego. "Inter-subjective meaning gives a people a common language [perhaps we should say it provides the universal feelings that are produced by virtue of having a body & having it go through stages like Erik Erikson's development. We then find already made social terms & rituals to interpret or explain our newly felt experience] to talk about social reality & a common understanding of certain norms. * * * This is what makes community," 39. This is how we can talk to each other.

"What is required for common meanings is that this shared value [intention, focal point, term] be part of the common world [of social experience], that this sharing [not just occur conceptually, but] be shared" experientially, socially.

Now T. reminds us that most of our common experience is had in local discourse communities that vary ethnically, etc. with the result that "a common meaning comes to be lived & [consequently] understood differently. * * * This is the basis of the bitterest fights in a society, & this we are also seeing in the USA today," 39.

"What . . . social science lacks is the notion of meaning as not simply for an individual subject; of a subject who can be a 'we' as well as an 'I.' * * * . . . We are aware of the world through a 'we' before we are [or can be] through an 'I,' 40.

13. Part 3 of this long essay focuses all the foregoing on the Western Enlightenment era presumption of "self-evident" values that the rest of the world experienced as colonial exploitation. What can we do about the "ideology" of either our local discourse community or our national heritage? Will political correctness work? Are paradigm terms that easily erased & redefined?

Maybe for robots; not for people. "These ideas are embedded in this [social] matrix in that they are constitutive of it; that is, we would not be able to live in this [specific] type of society [e.g., capitalism] unless we were imbued with these ideas or some others which could call forth the discipline & voluntary coordination needed to operate this kind of economy" or society, 46.

Perhaps this essay is dated. Published in 1971, perhaps T. falls victim to the apocalyptic expectations of the hippies. From another direction, racial & ethnic Balkanization threaten. "The structures of this civilization, interdependent work, bargaining, mutual adjustment of individual ends, are beginning to change their meaning for many, & are beginning to be felt not as normal & best suited to man, but as hateful or empty. And yet we are all caught in these inter-subjective meanings in so far as we live in this society," 49. There are only 3 world historic cultures: The West, China, & India. On this scale, measured in millennia - where, e.g., in India key concepts like karma, dharma, ahimsa (non-violence) stretch from near the beginning 3,000 years ago until today - the continuity of Western society is hardly imperiled.

14. Answer T.'s question: "Why has this set of meanings gone sour?" 49. Consistent with the beginning of the essay, I think T. should have asked "why has the historically precedent expression of meaning in American society gone sour today?

Some would vehemently deny the observation - Bob Dole for one. T. considers several focal points to answer this question, but they all circle back to the central myth of radical individualism/atomism/Newtonian-mechanics. Cf. Util. consumerism, e.g.: "the notion of a horizon [of affluence] to be attained by future greater production (as against social transformation) verges on the absurd in contemporary America," 50. The kind of social transformation that T. has in mind is not merely to rearrange this or that law or institution. Strange as it may sound, his medicine is to better appreciate why pragmatism provides the most plausible epistemological answers & as a consequence of this, to better appreciate the social nature of reality. I can't help but see this as a turn towards Asia where both of these notions are considered self-evidently obvious. "We can only come to grips with this . . . breakdown by trying to understand more clearly & profoundly the common & inter-subjective meanings of the society in which we have been living. * * * But this we cannot do as long as we remain [mesmerized] within the ambit of mainstream social science, for it will not recognize inter-subjective meaning," 51.

15. At long last, T. returns to lecture the presumed audience of social scientists, 54. What does he advise them to do?

They should philosophically question the presumption of their methods. "Thus, in the sciences of man in so far as they are hermeneutical there can be a valid response to 'I don't understand' which takes the form, not only 'develop your intuitions,' but more radically 'change yourself.' This puts an end to any aspiration to a value-free or 'ideology-free' science of man."

On to #3: "Social Theory as Practice"
Oct. 96