The fourth engagement with Merold Westphal's Whose Community? Which Interpretation? Philosophical Hermeneutics for the Church comes from Cynthia R. Nielsen (part 1, part 2, & part 3). Cynthia Nielsen is a doctoral student at the University of Dallas and an adjunct professor of philosophy, Eastfield Community College. She blogs at Per Caritatem, where she currently has a 3-part introduction on the thought of Hans-Georg Gadamer.
Westphal, Chapter 7: “On Not Clinging to Prejudice Against Prejudice”
In the first part of chapter seven, Westphal discusses why Gadamer, given his positive view of tradition and understanding of the expansive “being” of texts and works of art, rejects an Enlightenment privileging of authorial intention coupled with a demand for proper “method.” For Gadamer, the interpreter does not merely re-produce the meaning of the text; rather, the interpreter, like a musical performer or an actor/actress performing a play, is a co-producer of meaning. Why? First of all, the interpreter always comes to the text with her own horizon, which includes her pre-judgments (Vor-urteile). Second, the text itself constitutes a socio-linguistic-historical horizon. The process of coming to an understanding of the text involves what Gadamer calls a “fusion of horizons.” This fusion often includes having one’s expectations and projections revised and sometimes significantly revised. For Gadamer, history and language constitute two conditions for coming to an understanding, and these conditions are always beyond our complete grasp. That is, neither history nor language can ever become completely transparent to us; yet, this is not to say that we can have no knowledge whatsoever of either. Nonetheless, it is to insist that our knowledge of both is partial, incomplete, finite. Hence, Gadamer’s emphasis on our finitude, as history and language are in a sense both always “out in front” of us, while simultaneously always “behind us.”
As Westphal observes, Gadamer’s project is not modeled after a scientific mastery of objects. Rather, the text is “a voice to be heard (a Thou),” (79) which we seek to understand. With this posture, we allow the text to put us as interpreters into question, and hence allow for the possibility of self-transformation. We are not, therefore, attempting to get inside the author’s mind (as if that were possible), but instead we want to understanding the subject matter (Sache) and ultimately the truth of the text. In other words, Gadamer stresses the public meaning of the text and rejects and inner/outer dichotomy so prevalent in modern philosophy. For Gadamer, the (human) author, as Westphal puts it, simply cannot be an “absolute author” (82) because she too is conditioned by effective history (Wirkungsgeschichte). Having been “created,” texts and works of art take on a life of their own—a life or “being” that allows for multiple, true meanings through the passage of time. Given this non-static character of the text, the sharp distinction between author and reader/interpreter becomes flexible and permeable. In fact, the human author himself may at some future time come to understand a new (true) meaning in his text or work of art of which he had previously not been aware (see, e.g., 81-82).
In the second part of chapter 7, Westphal discusses Gadamer’s views of method by way of his disagreements with Dilthey, Helmholtz and Hirsch. Helmholtz, for example, concluded that the human sciences were “epistemically inferior” to the natural sciences because they lacked latter’s “methodological objectivity” (83). All three (Dilthey, Helmholtz and Hirsch) believed that the “methodologcal ideal” of natural sciences ought to function as the standard for hermeneutical knowledge. Gadamer, in contrast, emphasizes that such a view is itself part of a tradition. As Westphal puts it, “this ideal has a history. It did not drop straight down from heaven but emerged in history at certain times and places and under certain circumstances. It is not and has not been the only understanding of knowledge and truth that the human race has had. It is one way among others, and its right to colonial hegemony over all others is not self-evident” (83). Enlightenment philosophy just cannot seem to find that Archimedean point upon which to stand, or stated in more Gadamerian vein—our historical conditioning is simply part of our finitude and cannot, nor need not be overcome.
Westphal, Chapter 8: “Art as the Site of Truth Beyond Method”
Though one might concede that certain truths of natural science do require a proper methodology, as Westphal observes, Gadamer wants to draw our attention to the possibility of other truths attainable “beyond method.” This latter group includes truths of classical texts and works of art. By classical texts, Gadamer has in view the texts of the humanist tradition—works by Greek tragedians, Homer, Virgil, Tacitus, Plato, Aristotle and the like. Though some scholars have interpreted Gadamer negatively on this point, claiming that his own horizon seems too confined to the Western literary tradition, Westphal claims that Gadamer is not advocating a closed canon. Rather, his hermeneutical model “is meant to be highly relevant to interpretation and truth in a rich variety of other contexts: legal and theological as well as aesthetic, Eastern as well as Western, popular culture as well as high culture” (90).
As mentioned in my discussion of chapter seven, Gadamer takes language to be one of the conditions (along with history) of our understanding. Given his view of the significance of language, when he turns to discuss works of art, he is concerned with the way in which works of art address us and make claims on our lives (90). This interest in language is one of three central features of the humanist tradition. The second is feature is
Bildung, which might be translated as “formation” or training for living in the community. As Westphal explains, “[t[his knowledge comes … is born by practices as well as by propositions, attitudes as well as articulations” (91). Gadamer explains a third feature of the humanist tradition by way of highlighting how it differs from Kant’s view of art. “Kant separated the Beautiful (and the Sublime) from the True and the Good. In other words, works of art are not bearers of cognitive significance (theory) or of moral significance (practice)” (91-92). If, on Kant’s view, works of art do not address us theoretically or morally, what purpose do they have for us? Here Kant introduces his notion of “disinterested” pleasure. That is, in contrast to bodily and other “lower” forms of pleasure, works of art “provide us with a certain kind of pleasure, a disinterested pleasure that does not seek to own or possess that which it pleases” (92). In short, for Gadamer, Kant’s account loses sight of what is most important, viz., that the work of art (like a text) address us and has the potential to transform us both morally and cognitively (i.e. it presents us with truth claims by “telling” us how things
are).
This is all fine and good but exactly how does a work of art address us as described above? Westphal begins to develop a Gadamerian answer by highlighting the tradition-context of the work of art itself. That is, it lives and moves and has its being in and from a particular socio-linguistic-historical horizon, and the same is the case with the reader/interpreter. The work then addresses us or “presents us with a world,” a particular world; yet, its world is not completely incommensurable with our world. Even though the two worlds have significant differences and perhaps even incommensurable particularities or contingencies, nevertheless, universal aspects of human experience break through and speak to us. As Westphal puts it, “[i]n Iago, Othello and Desdemona, we are shown ourselves, who we are and who we might become” (93).
In the final section of the chapter, Westphal turns to the play, the picture, and literature to further unpack how works of art and texts address us. Whether our focus is on texts, plays or musical pieces, Gadamer claims that the subject matter (
Sache) or reality of the work is revealed in the various (legitimate) interpretations and performances of the work. An interpretation or performance can, of course, be false and illegitimate. For example, if a jazz quartet plays the jazz standard, “All the Things You Are,” and neither the audience nor the professional jazz community is able to recognize the tune, then we have an illegitimate performance in which a kind of violence has done to the work.
[1] In other words, the alterity of the work—its voice as it were—has been silenced. For Gadamer, works of art and texts have an iconic function; they are not copies or mirror images of an “original.” To use theological language, they are not mere empty signs signifying something completely absent. Rather, through the text or image something of the reality is present and manifests itself. Gadamer, drawing from the phenomenological tradition, describes interpretations and performances as aspects of the thing itself. Thus, there is an essential belongingness between the subject matter or reality of the work and its various re-presentations that over time allows for the flexible “being” of the work to expand, or as Gadamer puts it, “
to increase in being” [
TM 140/135] (96).
Though somewhat lengthy, I close with the following passage, which summarizes the main themes of latter half of the chapter. (Notice that Gadamer does not shy away from “ontological” language).
In Gadamer’s view it belongs to the very being of things that can be pictured to show or manifest themselves, and for this reason the pictures that help them reveal themselves belong to their very being and bring them toward completion. This event of uncovering, of showing, of manifestation, of revelation is what Gadamer understands by the truth beyond method. […] To participate in this event by opening oneself to the work of art is to understand. It is to be nourished by truth. Of course, if our horizons are limited to science and entertainment, calculation and pleasure, we will have trouble understanding what Gadamer is saying. But if we look carefully we are almost bound to find moments where life has taken us beyond such an impoverished world (97).
[1] On Gadamer’s view, interpretation, performance and translation are completely separate acts; rather, they share close “family resemblances.”
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