Sunday, October 5, 2008
Explanation and Understanding: Text in Positivism and Critical Hermeneutics
Without any pretense of being exhaustive, one could synthesize the main features of the positivistic tradition as follows: science is the highest form of knowledge; there is one scientific method common to all the sciences; and metaphysical claims are pseudo-scientific. The common denominator of all the different schools within the positivist tradition is the search for an “a priori universal” scientific method as well as the identification of fundamental structures (and the relations among them) applicable to all domains of the natural world including human behavior. Levi-Strauss describes it as the “quest for the invariant, or for the invariant elements among superficial differences” (1978: 8).
Such an approach has been adopted also in the study of language and text. To study language from this perspective, analysts must describe a linguistic system, which consists of structures not content. For structuralism, the crucial point is that the object of analysis is not the corpus of utterances identified as “parole,” but the underlying system (“langue”) – that is, a set of formal elements defined in relation to each other and which can be variously combined to form a sentence (Saussure 1983).
The language-speech (langue-parole) distinction is fundamental in order to give linguistics a homogeneous object that is both a-temporal and composed of “units devoid of proper meaning” (Ricoeur 1981: 153). In this light, language and text become systemic objects that can be investigated scientifically under the assumption that in any state of the system there are no absolute terms but only relations of mutual dependence. In other words, structuralism treats the collection of signs as closed and autonomous system of internal dependencies (Ricoeur 1981: 8).
Two major implications of the positivistic approach are the treatment of the text as a “worldless and authorless object” – that is, to be explained in terms of its internal relations (Ricoeur 1981: 152). Each unit of the text-system is defined only in terms of its difference from all of the others.
Consequently, structural analysis divests the role of the plot in the narrative and subordinates it to the underlying logical structures. Plot is relegated to the surface level of manifestation as opposed to the level of “deep grammar,” that consists of structures and their transformations (Ricoeur 1981: 280).
The duality between explanation and understanding, outlined in Dilthey’s work (1976), constitutes an alternative wherein one term is mutually exclusive to the other: “either you ‘explain’ in the manner of the natural scientist, or you ‘interpret’ in the manner of the historian” (Ricoeur 1981: 150). After Dilthey the decisive step was the questioning of the fundamental postulate that saw the differences between the “hard” sciences and the “human” sciences as an epistemological matter. In other words, the legitimization of the human sciences was dependent on the development of an appropriate methodology of their own. Such presupposition implies that hermeneutics is merely a subsection of the theory of knowledge and that “the debate between explanation and understanding can be contained within the limits of the…methodological dispute” (Ricoeur 1981: 53).
Both Heidegger and Gadamer, the fathers of the critical hermeneutics approach, put into question such an assumption – that is, the presupposition that hermeneutics is construed as epistemology. This movement beyond the epistemological enterprise uncovers the ontological conditions of hermeneutics. Ricoeur defines it as “a movement from regional to general hermeneutics” as well as a “radicalization of hermeneutics” where the question to be asked is “what is the mode of that being who exists only in understanding?” (Ricoeur 1981: 54). From now on, the properly epistemological concerns of hermeneutics – that is, its efforts to achieve scientific status – are subordinated to ontological preoccupation, “whereby understanding ceases to appear as a simple mode of knowing in order to become a way of relating to beings and to being” (Ricoeur 1981:44).
This ontological turn informs the approach to the written text as a fixed discourse. Ricoeur (1981) worked out a systematic theory of interpretation based on a distinctive notion of the text. A text, according to Ricoeur is an instance of written discourse. Thus, it involves four forms of distanciation which differentiate it from the conditions of speech. First, in spoken discourse there is an interplay between the event of saying (the utterance) and the meaning of what is said: it is the meaning which is inscribed in the text. Second, whereas in spoken discourse there is an overlap between the intention of the speaking subject and the meaning of what is said, in the case of written discourse these two dimensions of meaning drift apart: the meaning of the text does not coincide with what the author meant. The written text becomes an independent entity from its author. Third, whereas spoken discourse is addressed to a specific recipient, written discourse is addressed to an unknown audience and potentially to anyone who can read. Fourth, whereas the shared circumstances of the speech situation provide some degree of referential specificity for spoken discourse, in the case of written discourse these circumstances no longer exist. To think of language as a structure or a tool limits the interpreter’s creativity and confines it to a designated set of actions outside its being and apart from its own history.
These various characteristics of the text provide the basis upon which Ricoeur elaborates his theory of interpretation. He argues that the process of interpretation can be facilitated and enriched by the use of explanatory methods of analysis. Since the text is a structured totality of meaning which has been distanced from its conditions of production, it can be analyzed fruitfully and legitimately by means of structuralist methods. But this type of analysis can never be an end in itself. It can only be a step along the path of interpretation – that is, a partial contribution to the broader hermeneutical task of unfolding the “world” of the text and the significance it has for its readers. While Ricoeur’s theory of interpretation is formulated with regard to texts, he argues that it can be extended to non-textual phenomena like action (1981, 1986). Ricoeur’s argument is that action involves the four forms of distanciation characteristic of written discourse; and hence, for the purposes of analysis, action can be treated as a text. One advantage of this approach is that it enables Ricoeur to propose a novel solution to the problem of the relation between explanation and interpretation in the social sciences. Just as interpretation of texts can be facilitated by the structuralist analysis of their contents, so too the understanding of action can be enriched by an explanatory account. Hence explanation and understanding are not necessarily in opposition. Rather, the explanation of action can be treated as an integral part of a process of understanding.
Such an approach has been adopted also in the study of language and text. To study language from this perspective, analysts must describe a linguistic system, which consists of structures not content. For structuralism, the crucial point is that the object of analysis is not the corpus of utterances identified as “parole,” but the underlying system (“langue”) – that is, a set of formal elements defined in relation to each other and which can be variously combined to form a sentence (Saussure 1983).
The language-speech (langue-parole) distinction is fundamental in order to give linguistics a homogeneous object that is both a-temporal and composed of “units devoid of proper meaning” (Ricoeur 1981: 153). In this light, language and text become systemic objects that can be investigated scientifically under the assumption that in any state of the system there are no absolute terms but only relations of mutual dependence. In other words, structuralism treats the collection of signs as closed and autonomous system of internal dependencies (Ricoeur 1981: 8).
Two major implications of the positivistic approach are the treatment of the text as a “worldless and authorless object” – that is, to be explained in terms of its internal relations (Ricoeur 1981: 152). Each unit of the text-system is defined only in terms of its difference from all of the others.
Consequently, structural analysis divests the role of the plot in the narrative and subordinates it to the underlying logical structures. Plot is relegated to the surface level of manifestation as opposed to the level of “deep grammar,” that consists of structures and their transformations (Ricoeur 1981: 280).
The duality between explanation and understanding, outlined in Dilthey’s work (1976), constitutes an alternative wherein one term is mutually exclusive to the other: “either you ‘explain’ in the manner of the natural scientist, or you ‘interpret’ in the manner of the historian” (Ricoeur 1981: 150). After Dilthey the decisive step was the questioning of the fundamental postulate that saw the differences between the “hard” sciences and the “human” sciences as an epistemological matter. In other words, the legitimization of the human sciences was dependent on the development of an appropriate methodology of their own. Such presupposition implies that hermeneutics is merely a subsection of the theory of knowledge and that “the debate between explanation and understanding can be contained within the limits of the…methodological dispute” (Ricoeur 1981: 53).
Both Heidegger and Gadamer, the fathers of the critical hermeneutics approach, put into question such an assumption – that is, the presupposition that hermeneutics is construed as epistemology. This movement beyond the epistemological enterprise uncovers the ontological conditions of hermeneutics. Ricoeur defines it as “a movement from regional to general hermeneutics” as well as a “radicalization of hermeneutics” where the question to be asked is “what is the mode of that being who exists only in understanding?” (Ricoeur 1981: 54). From now on, the properly epistemological concerns of hermeneutics – that is, its efforts to achieve scientific status – are subordinated to ontological preoccupation, “whereby understanding ceases to appear as a simple mode of knowing in order to become a way of relating to beings and to being” (Ricoeur 1981:44).
This ontological turn informs the approach to the written text as a fixed discourse. Ricoeur (1981) worked out a systematic theory of interpretation based on a distinctive notion of the text. A text, according to Ricoeur is an instance of written discourse. Thus, it involves four forms of distanciation which differentiate it from the conditions of speech. First, in spoken discourse there is an interplay between the event of saying (the utterance) and the meaning of what is said: it is the meaning which is inscribed in the text. Second, whereas in spoken discourse there is an overlap between the intention of the speaking subject and the meaning of what is said, in the case of written discourse these two dimensions of meaning drift apart: the meaning of the text does not coincide with what the author meant. The written text becomes an independent entity from its author. Third, whereas spoken discourse is addressed to a specific recipient, written discourse is addressed to an unknown audience and potentially to anyone who can read. Fourth, whereas the shared circumstances of the speech situation provide some degree of referential specificity for spoken discourse, in the case of written discourse these circumstances no longer exist. To think of language as a structure or a tool limits the interpreter’s creativity and confines it to a designated set of actions outside its being and apart from its own history.
These various characteristics of the text provide the basis upon which Ricoeur elaborates his theory of interpretation. He argues that the process of interpretation can be facilitated and enriched by the use of explanatory methods of analysis. Since the text is a structured totality of meaning which has been distanced from its conditions of production, it can be analyzed fruitfully and legitimately by means of structuralist methods. But this type of analysis can never be an end in itself. It can only be a step along the path of interpretation – that is, a partial contribution to the broader hermeneutical task of unfolding the “world” of the text and the significance it has for its readers. While Ricoeur’s theory of interpretation is formulated with regard to texts, he argues that it can be extended to non-textual phenomena like action (1981, 1986). Ricoeur’s argument is that action involves the four forms of distanciation characteristic of written discourse; and hence, for the purposes of analysis, action can be treated as a text. One advantage of this approach is that it enables Ricoeur to propose a novel solution to the problem of the relation between explanation and interpretation in the social sciences. Just as interpretation of texts can be facilitated by the structuralist analysis of their contents, so too the understanding of action can be enriched by an explanatory account. Hence explanation and understanding are not necessarily in opposition. Rather, the explanation of action can be treated as an integral part of a process of understanding.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Thoughts on Dasein, Technology, Culture and Development
Both Heidegger (1972) and Ricoeur (1992) understand the self, or Dasein, as essentially embodied. The self is both made possible and constituted by its material and cultural situation which presents it with a dynamic weltanschauung. But, on the other hand, Dasein is always capable of initiative, of inaugurating something novel.
Dasein is authentic when it ceases to take the world for granted as some objective entity “present-at-hand,” recognizing it, instead, as an open horizon of possibilities “ready-to-hand.” Being is indeed revealed authentically through the temporal horizon of Dasein (Heidegger 1972) in a creative process of becoming.
Acting in as well as understanding the world, becomes therefore a way of being – that is, Dasein is transformed every time it engages in the world.
If one accepts this ontological orientation, that is housed in language, one is to deem the world of work as a premier locus where such an expressive and transformative event can occur both personally and communally.
Accordingly, one can hold that technology (elementary or sophisticated as it may be) and other techniques of production are no longer mere means. They become a way of revealing. With Heidegger (1977: 12-13), one could argue that every “bringing-forth,” that is, the use of technology in the workplace, is indeed a way of revealing as it is the possibility of all productive activities.
Most of the early attempts to capture social phenomena and, through an accurate description, to reach some form of knowledge about the subjects in question as well as the relations among them don’t seem to be thorough if one is to seek for a more dynamic and open-to-the-future understanding of the human condition.
In the light of the ontological turn (Heidegger 1972), culture becomes a mode of being, something so intimate and inherent to human nature that cannot be detached, not even for analytical purposes, from the lived historical essence of being. According to Heidegger (1972), humans’ essence lies in existence. Human existence thus becomes an activity of endless transcendence. Such act is similar to the distanciation between the reader and the text, personal, social or written as the case may be. Being situated, thrown in an historical context and simultaneously having the ability to transcend, imagine and initiate new possibilities are specific features of human being, of Dasein in Heideggerian lingo.
This human faculty, which calls for the exercise of critique, does not take place in a vacuum.
In this light, a radically new working concept of culture emerges: culture becomes Dasein’s lived experience played in a to-and-from movement between throwness and imagination. Accordingly, the understanding of the nature of development changes.
On the one hand, Escobar’s (1985) work traces back and documents every bit of history of development and points out how a certain decision might have had a socio or political consequence up to present. On the other hand, he does not offer any feasible way to escape the historical entrapment, other than by, externally, counterattacking the established status quo. The throwness, in this case, has taken over.
Moreover, such a process ought to be readily available to each and every participant because one is “always already” (Gadamer 1988) part of a historical community. This very historicity becomes the basis for emancipation through narrative identity, that is a kind of identity to which a human being has access via the mediation of the narrative function.
Dasein is authentic when it ceases to take the world for granted as some objective entity “present-at-hand,” recognizing it, instead, as an open horizon of possibilities “ready-to-hand.” Being is indeed revealed authentically through the temporal horizon of Dasein (Heidegger 1972) in a creative process of becoming.
Acting in as well as understanding the world, becomes therefore a way of being – that is, Dasein is transformed every time it engages in the world.
If one accepts this ontological orientation, that is housed in language, one is to deem the world of work as a premier locus where such an expressive and transformative event can occur both personally and communally.
Accordingly, one can hold that technology (elementary or sophisticated as it may be) and other techniques of production are no longer mere means. They become a way of revealing. With Heidegger (1977: 12-13), one could argue that every “bringing-forth,” that is, the use of technology in the workplace, is indeed a way of revealing as it is the possibility of all productive activities.
Most of the early attempts to capture social phenomena and, through an accurate description, to reach some form of knowledge about the subjects in question as well as the relations among them don’t seem to be thorough if one is to seek for a more dynamic and open-to-the-future understanding of the human condition.
In the light of the ontological turn (Heidegger 1972), culture becomes a mode of being, something so intimate and inherent to human nature that cannot be detached, not even for analytical purposes, from the lived historical essence of being. According to Heidegger (1972), humans’ essence lies in existence. Human existence thus becomes an activity of endless transcendence. Such act is similar to the distanciation between the reader and the text, personal, social or written as the case may be. Being situated, thrown in an historical context and simultaneously having the ability to transcend, imagine and initiate new possibilities are specific features of human being, of Dasein in Heideggerian lingo.
This human faculty, which calls for the exercise of critique, does not take place in a vacuum.
In this light, a radically new working concept of culture emerges: culture becomes Dasein’s lived experience played in a to-and-from movement between throwness and imagination. Accordingly, the understanding of the nature of development changes.
On the one hand, Escobar’s (1985) work traces back and documents every bit of history of development and points out how a certain decision might have had a socio or political consequence up to present. On the other hand, he does not offer any feasible way to escape the historical entrapment, other than by, externally, counterattacking the established status quo. The throwness, in this case, has taken over.
Moreover, such a process ought to be readily available to each and every participant because one is “always already” (Gadamer 1988) part of a historical community. This very historicity becomes the basis for emancipation through narrative identity, that is a kind of identity to which a human being has access via the mediation of the narrative function.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Unambiguous Ambiguity
Heinz W. Arndt, in his Economic Development: The History of An Idea (1987: 6), argues that “economic growth was unambiguous in its meaning. The question was why people thought such growth increasingly desirable for some years and then became doubtful.” The idea of an ever-increasing gross national product and pro capita income was seen as a straightforward and seemingly accurate methodology to measure and practice the linear progression of a nation out of its pre-modern phase into an industrial and modern era. Yet, over time such certainty has become doubtful. The solution to that puzzle had soon emerged, as Arndt (1987: 7) contends, from the very idea of development – as opposed to economic growth: “[d]evelopment, in contrast, has meant almost all things to all men and women. This story has no simple plot. If there is a central theme, it is … one of increasing complexity and divergence.” It is the very complexity of the phenomenon of development that has placed economic growth measurements within a broader discourse and made it one indicator among others, certainly necessary but not sufficient.
An example of this dialectic is represented by the economic analysis I presented in one of my previous works: An Augmented Growth Model Including Cultural Attitudes Toward Work (2005). Such analysis has not led to any conclusive findings in terms of the relevance of cultural aspects in a discourse of economic development.
The findings do not support the macroeconomic theory in its totality. These statistical results seem unable to capture some aspects of socioeconomic development – such as the importance of education and the relevance of culture in economic activities – that are recognized as crucial in other fields of study.
Drawing from hermeneutic theory, one can legitimately consider the economic analysis of growth as an integral component of the social text that, along side with the fixed text of the conversations and the other historical documents, becomes the principle data source for this research.
Paul Ricoeur (1981: 152) points out the two possibilities that are engendered by “the eclipse of the surrounding world by the quasi-world of text.” On the one hand, the reader can “remain in the suspense of the text, treating it as a worldless and authorless object” (Ricoeur 1981: 152). In this case, one can only explain the text in terms of its internal relations and its structure, and perhaps its statistical correlations. On the other hand, one “can lift the suspense and fulfill the text … restoring it to living communication.” In this case, as Ricoeur (1981: 152) argues, “we interpret the text.”
Within the realm of social sciences, and specifically when researching social and economic development, the idea of exerting one’s ability to interpret may seem elusive and inconclusive. That is from a positivistic conceptual framework. The theory of interpretation, developed by Paul Ricoeur (1981: 158), suggests a “more complementary and reciprocal relation between explanation and interpretation.” John Thompson (in Ricoeur 1981: 16) points out that Ricoeur contends that human action, no less than literary texts, “displays a sense as well as a reference; it possesses an internal structure as well as projecting a possible world,” that is to say, “a potential mode of human existence which can be unfolded through a process of interpretation.”
It is precisely such “potential mode of human existence [italics mine]” that the economist Heinz W. Arndt (1987: 7) was acknowledging when noting that development “has meant almost all things to all men and women.” It is such a mode of human existence that Martin Heidegger (1972: 31) was laying the foundation of when declaring that “all ontology, no matter how rich and firmly compacted a system of categories it has … remains blind and perverted from its ownmost aim, if it has not first adequately clarified the meaning of Being, and … its fundamental task.” It is the individual and communal historicity of a person and his or her own community that shapes the hopes for an improved future and solicits actions in the present, the only lived time at one’s disposal. Richard Kearney (2001: 1-2) elaborates on Heidegger’s intuition by challenging the classical “metaphysical tendency to subordinate the possible to the actual as the insufficient to the sufficient,” and by “refusing to impose a kingdom [that is, a universally established development standard], or to declare it already accomplished from the beginning … [in so doing, each] person carries within him/herself the capacity to be transfigured … and to transfigure … [a given historical situation] by making … possibility ever more incarnate and alive.”
An example of this dialectic is represented by the economic analysis I presented in one of my previous works: An Augmented Growth Model Including Cultural Attitudes Toward Work (2005). Such analysis has not led to any conclusive findings in terms of the relevance of cultural aspects in a discourse of economic development.
The findings do not support the macroeconomic theory in its totality. These statistical results seem unable to capture some aspects of socioeconomic development – such as the importance of education and the relevance of culture in economic activities – that are recognized as crucial in other fields of study.
Drawing from hermeneutic theory, one can legitimately consider the economic analysis of growth as an integral component of the social text that, along side with the fixed text of the conversations and the other historical documents, becomes the principle data source for this research.
Paul Ricoeur (1981: 152) points out the two possibilities that are engendered by “the eclipse of the surrounding world by the quasi-world of text.” On the one hand, the reader can “remain in the suspense of the text, treating it as a worldless and authorless object” (Ricoeur 1981: 152). In this case, one can only explain the text in terms of its internal relations and its structure, and perhaps its statistical correlations. On the other hand, one “can lift the suspense and fulfill the text … restoring it to living communication.” In this case, as Ricoeur (1981: 152) argues, “we interpret the text.”
Within the realm of social sciences, and specifically when researching social and economic development, the idea of exerting one’s ability to interpret may seem elusive and inconclusive. That is from a positivistic conceptual framework. The theory of interpretation, developed by Paul Ricoeur (1981: 158), suggests a “more complementary and reciprocal relation between explanation and interpretation.” John Thompson (in Ricoeur 1981: 16) points out that Ricoeur contends that human action, no less than literary texts, “displays a sense as well as a reference; it possesses an internal structure as well as projecting a possible world,” that is to say, “a potential mode of human existence which can be unfolded through a process of interpretation.”
It is precisely such “potential mode of human existence [italics mine]” that the economist Heinz W. Arndt (1987: 7) was acknowledging when noting that development “has meant almost all things to all men and women.” It is such a mode of human existence that Martin Heidegger (1972: 31) was laying the foundation of when declaring that “all ontology, no matter how rich and firmly compacted a system of categories it has … remains blind and perverted from its ownmost aim, if it has not first adequately clarified the meaning of Being, and … its fundamental task.” It is the individual and communal historicity of a person and his or her own community that shapes the hopes for an improved future and solicits actions in the present, the only lived time at one’s disposal. Richard Kearney (2001: 1-2) elaborates on Heidegger’s intuition by challenging the classical “metaphysical tendency to subordinate the possible to the actual as the insufficient to the sufficient,” and by “refusing to impose a kingdom [that is, a universally established development standard], or to declare it already accomplished from the beginning … [in so doing, each] person carries within him/herself the capacity to be transfigured … and to transfigure … [a given historical situation] by making … possibility ever more incarnate and alive.”
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