Hans-Georg Gadamer

PHILOSOPHICAL
HERMENEUTICS

Translated and Edited

by
David E. Linge

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

Berkeley Los Angeles London
 Contents
Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Editor's Introduction

Part I: The Scope of Hermeneutical Reflection

1. The Universality of the Hermeneutical Problem

(1966)
2. On the Scope and Function of Hermeneutical
Reflection (1967)
3. On the Problem of Self-Understanding (1962)
4. Man and Language (1966)
5. The Nature of Things and the Language of
Things (1960)
6. Semantics and Hermeneutics (1972)
7. Aesthetics and Hermeneutics (1964)
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Acknowledgments

This book is a collection of translations of essays selected

from Hans-Georg Gadamer's Kleine Schriften, published in
three volumes by J. C. B. Mohr Verlag, Tubingen. "Heideg-
ger's Later Philosophy" first appeared as an introduction to
the Reclam edition of Martin Heidegger's Der Ursprung des
Kunstwerkes, and it is the only essay in the volume not
included in the Kleine Schriften.
"On the Scope and Function of Hermeneutical Reflec-
tion" was translated by G. B. Hess and R. E. Palmer; it first
appeared in Continuum, Vol. VIII (1970), Copyright © 1970
by Justus George Lawler. "Semantics and Hermeneutics" was
translated by P. Christopher Smith. I made only minor altera-
tions in the translations of these two essays in order to bring
some of the more technical expressions into line with conven-
tions employed in the rest of the volume. A version of "The
Science of the Life-World," translated by Gadamer, appeared
in Analecta Husserliana, Vol. II (1972). I retranslated this
essay from the German for this volume and translated all
other essays in this book. In this endeavor I enjoyed the
support of a faculty summer research grant from the Gradu-
ate School of The University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
I wish to thank Professor Gadamer for his encouragement
and for the many hours he spent correcting and improving

vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

the translations. Professor John C. Osborne of the University

of Tennessee gave unselfishly of his time in reading and
checking the translations. In addition, I owe a special word of
thanks to Richard Palmer, who suggested important revisions
of "The Phenomenological Movement" which improved it
substantially.

D. E. L.
Abbreviations
Knoxville, Tennessee

Abbreviations Used in the Footnotes

GS Wilhelm Dilthey, Gesammelte Schriften, 14

vols. Stuttgart: Teubner, 1959-1968.

HB Martin Heidegger, (Jber den Humanismus.

Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1947.

JPPF
\
Edmund Husserl, et a l l ed., Jahrbuch fur Phi-
losophic und phdnom/enologische Forschung.
Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1913-1930.
K Edmund Husserl, Die Krisis der europdischen
Wissenschaften und die transzendale Phd-
nomenologie. The Hague: Nijhoff, 1962. ET:
The Crisis of European Sciences and Tran-
scendental Phenomenology, trans. David Carr.
Evanston, 111.: Northwestern University Press,
1970.

Krefeld Husserl und das Den ken der Neuzeit. Second

International Phenomenological Colloquium
in Krefeld. The Hague: Nijhoff, 1959.

ix
 X ABBREVIATIONS

PG G. W. F. Hegel, Phdnomenologie des Geistes.

Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1952. El: Phenome-
nology of Mind, trans. J. B. Baillie. London:
George Allen & Unwin, 1949.

PhR Hans-Georg Gadamer, ed., Philosophische

Rundschau. Tubingen: Mohr, 1953-

P I
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investiga- Editor's Introduction
tions, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe. New York:
Macmillan, 1953.

Royaumont Cahiers de Royaumont. Paris: Les editions de

minuit, 1959.

SuZ Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit. Tubingen:

Max Niemeyer, 1963. ET: Being and Time,
trans Macquarrie and Robinson. London: The essays contained in this volume continue to develop the
SCM Press, 1962. philosophical perspective that Gadamer originally set forth in
his systematic work, Truth and Method, a perspective he has
T Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philos- called philosophical hermeneutics. EIlce~the larger work, these
ophicus, trans. Pears & McGuinness. London: essays are not primarily concerned with the methodological
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1961. questions pertaining ,'to scientific understanding that have
been the preoccupation of hermeneutical theory since Schlei-
UhL Hans Lipps, Untersuchungen zu einer her- ermacher's time. Indeed, it is Gadamer's contention that this
meneutischen Logik. Frankfurt: Klostermann. preoccupation has distorted the hermeneutical phenomenon
1938. in its universality by isolating the kind of methodical under-
standing that goes on in the &eisteswissenschaften from the
WM Hans-Georg Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode: broader processes of understanding that occur everywhere in
Grundzuge einer philosophischen Hermeneu- human life beyond the pale of critical interpretation and
tik. Tubingen: Mohr, 1960. scientific self-control. The task of philosophical hermeneu-
tics, therefore, is ontological rather than methodological. It
seeks to throw light on the fundamental conditions that
underlie the phenomenon of understanding in all its modes,
scientific and nonscientific alike, and that constitute under-
standing as an event over which the interpreting subject does
not ultimately preside. For philosophical hermeneutics, "the
question is not what we do or what we should do, but what
1
happens beyond our willing and doing." The universality of
the hermeneutical question can emerge, however, only when

xi
xii EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION xiii
3
we have freed ourselves from the methodologism that per- problem of understanding. Before Schleiermacher — for in-
vades modern thought and from its assumptions regarding stance, in the hermeneutics of Chladenius or Flacius — the
man and tradition. work of hermeneutics arose because of a lack of understand-
ing of the text; the normal situation for them was that of an
immediate and unimpeded understanding of the subject mat-
/ ter of the text. Hermeneutics arises as a pedagogical aid in
exceptional cases where our understanding of what the text
Hermeneutics has its origin in breaches in intersubjectivity. says is blocked for some reason. However, beginning with
Its field of application is comprised of all those situations in Schleiermacher, the talk is no longer of "not understanding,"
which we encounter meanings that are not immediately un- but rather of the natural priority of misunderstanding: "The
derstandable but require interpretive effort. The earliest situ- more lax practice of the art of understanding," declares
ations in which principles of interpretation were worked out Schleiermacher, "proceeds on the assumption that under-
were encounters with religious texts whose meanings were standing arises naturally. . . . The more rigorous practice pro-
obscure or whose import was no longer acceptable unless ceeds on the assumption that misunderstanding arises natu-
2
they could be harmonized with the tenets of the faith. But rally, and that understanding must be intended and sought at
4
this alienation from meaning can just as well occur while each p o i n t . " Misunderstanding arises naturally because of
engaging in direct conversation, experiencing a work of art, the changes in word meanings, world views, and so on that
or considering historical actions. In all these cases, the herme- have taken place in the time separating the author from the
neutical has to do with bridging the gap between the familiar interpreter. Intervening historical developments are a snare
world in which we stand and the strange meaning that resists that will inevitably entangle understanding unless their ef-
assimilation into the horizons of our world. It is vitally fects are neutralized. For Schleiermacher, therefore, what the
important to recognize that the hermeneutical phenomenon text really means is not at all what it "seems" to say to us
encompasses both the alien that we strive to understand and directly. Rather, its meaning must be recovered by a disci-
the familiar world that we already understand. The familiar plined reconstruction of the historical situation or life-con-
horizons of the interpreter's world, though perhaps more text in which it originated. Only a critical} methodologically
difficult to grasp thematically, are as integral a part of the controlled interpretation can reveal the author's meaning to
event of understanding as are the explicit procedures by us. Thus the way was cleared for making all valid understand-
which he assimilates the alien object. Such horizons consti- ing the product of a discipline.
tute the interpreter's own immediate participation in tradi-
tions that are not themselves the object of understanding but The far-reaching implications of thus identification of un-
the condition of its occurrence. Yet, this reflexive dimension derstanding with scientific-understanding can be seen most
of understanding has been all but completely ignored by the clearly in the work of Wilhelm Dilthey, whose aim was to
"science of hermeneutics" during the last century. The result establish hermeneutics as the universal methodological basis
has been a distorted and one-sided picture of understanding of the Geisteswissenschaften. Insofar as they adhered to the
and our relationship to tradition. guidelines of methodical interpretation, the human studies
could lay claim to a knowledge of the human world that
How did this neglect of the interpreter's situation come would be every bit as rigorous as the natural sciences' knowl-
about? In an illuminating discussion of Schleiermacher's her- edge of nature. Like Schleiermacher, Dilthey identified the
meneutics, Gadamer observes that Schleiermacher instituted meaning of the text or action with the subjective intention of
a subtle shift in the conception of the task of hermeneu- its author. Starting from the documents, artifacts, actions,
tics, a shift that has had profound consequences for the and so on that are the content of the historical world, the
 xiv EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION XV

task of understanding is to recover the original life-world understanding commensurate with human finitude. "The his-
they betoken and to understand the other person (the author toricity of our existence entails that prejudices, in the literal
or historical agent) as he understood himself. Understanding sense of the word, constitute the initial directedness of our
is essentially a self-transposition or imaginative projection whole ability to experience. Prejudices are the biases of our
6
whereby the knower negates the temporal distance that sepa- openness to the world." Shaped by the past in an infinity of
rates him from his object and becomes contemporaneous unexamined ways, the present situation is the "given" in
5
with it. which understanding is rooted, and which reflection can
It is at this point that the eclipse of the reflexive dimen- never entirely hold at a critical distance and objectify. This is
sion of the hermeneutical situation that Gadamer attempts to the meaning of the "hermeneutical situation" as Gadamer
reassert takes place. For Schleiermacher and Dilthey, the employs the term in the essays that follow. The givenness of
knower's own present situation can have only a negative the hermeneutical situation cannot be dissolved into critical
value. As the source of prejudices and distortions that block self-knowledge in such fashion that the prejudice-structure of
valid understanding, it is precisely what the interpreter must finite understanding might disappear. " T o be historical,"
transcend. Historical understanding, according to this theory, Gadamer asserts, "means that one is not absorbed into self-
7
is the action of subjectivity purged of all prejudices, and it is knowledge."
achieved in direct proportion to the knower's ability to set It is not surprising that Gadamer's notion of prejudice has
aside his own horizons by means of an effective historical been one of the most controversial aspects of his philosophy.
method. Beneath their assertion of the finitude and historic- More than any other element of his thought, it indicates his
ity of man, both Schleiermacher and Dilthey continue to pay determination to acknowledge the unsuspendable finitude
homage to the Cartesian and Enlightenment ideal of the and historicity of understanding and to exhibit the positive
autonomous subject who successfully extricates himself from role they actually play in every human transmission of mean-
the immediate entanglements of history and the prejudices ing. For Gadamer, the past has .a truly pervasive power in the
that come with that entanglement. What the interpreter ne- phenomenon of understanding, antKthis power was entirely
gates, then, is his own present as a vital extension of the past. missed by philosophers who dominated the scene before
This methodological alienation of the knower from his Heidegger. The role of the past cannot be restricted merely to
own historicity is precisely the focus of Gadamer's criticism. supplying the texts or events that make up the "objects" of
Is it the case, Gadamer asks, that the knower can leave his interpretation. As prejudice and tradition, the past also de-
immediate situation in the present merely by adopting an fines the ground the interpreter himself occupies when he
attitude? An ideal of understanding that asks us to overcome understands. This fact was overlooked, however, by the Neo-
our own present is intelligible only on the assumption that Kantians, whose orientation to the sciences presupposed the
our own historicity is an accidental factor. But if it is an essentially situationless, honhistorical subject of transcenden-
ontological rather than a merely accidental and subjective tal philosophy. Even the historicism of the late nineteenth
condition, then the knower's own present situation is already and early twentieth centuries, with its affirmation of the
constitutively involved in any process of understanding. Thus historicity and relativity of every human expression and
Gadamer takes the knower's boundness to his present hori- perspective reaching us from the past, stopped short of af-
zons and the temporal gulf separating him from his object to firming the interpreter's own historicity along with that of
be the productive ground of all understanding rather than his objects.
negative factors or impediments to be overcome. Our preju- Despite the many differences between these philosophies,
dices do not cut us off from the past, but initially open it up they are one in their commitment to a normative concept of
to us. They are the positive enabling condition of historical scientific knowledge that prevented them from recognizing
 xvi EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION xvii

the constitutive role of the interpreter's own facticity in all The temporal gulf that the older hermeneutics tried to over-
understanding. Only a neutralized, prejudice-free conscious- come now appears as a continuity of heritage and tradition.
ness guarantees the objectivity of knowledge, In "The Univer- It is a process of "presencings," that is, of mediations,
sality of the Hermeneutical Problem," Gadamer describes the through which the past already functions in and shapes the
inevitable result of this orientation as an "experience of interpreter's present horizon. Thus the past is never simply a
alienation" that has distorted what actually takes place in collection of objects to be recovered or duplicated by the
8
aesthetic and historical interpretation. Here Gadamer's her- interpreter, but rather what Gadamer calls an "effective his-
meneutics joins Heidegger's attack on the "subjectivism" of tory" (Wirkungsgeschichte) that alone makes possible the
Western thought. What Gadamer asks us to see is that the conversation between each new interpreter and the text or
dominant ideal of knowledge and the alienated, self-sufficient event he seeks to understand. The prejudices and interests
consciousness it involves is itself a powerful prejudice that that mark out our hermeneutical situation are given to us by
has controlled philosophy since Descartes. By ignoring the the very movement of tradition - of former concretizations
intrinsic temporality of human being it also ignores the that mediate the text to us - and constitute our immediate
temporal character of interpretation. This fate has befallen participation in this effective history. It is not an exaggera-
every hermeneutical theory that regards understanding as a tion, therefore, to say that for Gadamer prejudices function
repetition or duplication of a past intention — as a reproduc- as a limit to the power of self-consciousness: "It is not so
tive procedure rather than a genuinely productive one that much our judgments as it is our prejudgments that constitute
10
involves the interpreter's own hermeneutical situation. our b e i n g . "
Over against this dominant ideal, Gadamer develops a This open admission of the productive power of prejudice
conception of understanding that takes the interpreter's pres- in all understanding seems to place Gadamer in explicit
ent participation in history into account in a central way. opposition to the scientific ideal of prejudiceless objectivity
Understanding is not reconstruction but mediation. We are in interpretation, and his most acrimonious critics have been
conveyors of the past into the present. Even in the most those who regard his work as jeopardizing the very possibility
11

careful attempts to grasp the past "in itself," understanding of scientific understanding. The question of the relation of
remains essentially a mediation or translation of past meaning hermeneutical understanding as Gadamer conceives it to sci-
into the present situation. Thus Gadamer's specific emphasis entific knowledge is always present in his essays and forms
is not on the application of a method by a subject, but on the the basic theme of the first three essays of Part I. In consider-
fundamental continuity of history as a medium encompassing ing this question, it is helpful to locate the real point of
every such subjective act and the objects it apprehends. conflict between Gadamer and the science of hermeneutics
Understanding is an event, a movement of history itself in that has been largely responsible for developing the critical-
which neither interpreter nor text can be thought of as historical methodology basic to the Geisteswissenschaften.
autonomous parts. "Understanding itself is not to be thought What Gadamer's conception of understanding threatens is not
of so much as an action of subjectivity, but as the entering our efforts at critical interpretation or what is actually
into an event of transmission in which past and present are achieved by such efforts, but the self-understanding that has
constantly mediated. This is what must gain validity in her- accompanied scientific scholarship during the last two hun-
meneutical theory, which is much too dominated by the ideal dred years and the inflated claims it has made on behalf of
9
of a procedure, a m e t h o d . " methodological self-control. Far from excluding the function
of prejudice and the continuing standing within tradition that
As mediation or transmission, the interpreter's action be-
is the mark of historical existence, critical historical scholar-
longs to and is of the same nature as the substance of history
ship presupposes these things in its actual practice, if not in
that fills out the temporal gulf between him and his objects.
 xviii EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION xix
its theoretical self-justifications. As Gadamer points out to Thus for Gadamer the knower's present situation loses its
his critics, it is not only ancient texts that betray to the status as a privileged position and becomes instead a fluid and
interpreter when and where they were most likely written. relative moment in the life of effective history, a moment
Mommsen's History of Rome - a veritable masterpiece of that is indeed productive and disclosive, but one that, like all
critical-historical methodology - gives us just as unequivocal others before it, will be overcome and fused with future
indications of the "hermeneutical situation" in which it was
horizons. The event of understanding can now be seen in its
written and proves to be the child of its age rather than the
genuine productivity. It is the formation of a comprehensive
simple result of the application of a method by an anony-
horizon in which the limited horizons of text and interpreter
mous "knowing subject."
are fused into a common view of the subject matter - the
To recognize the historicity of the knower does not con- meaning - with which both are concerned.
test the importance of attempts at critical interpretation, nor
does it impair the operation of scientific understanding in the In truth, the horizon of the present is conceived in constant forma-
slightest. At the same time, however, Gadamer's insight does tion insofar as we must all constantly test our prejudices. The
give us occasion to question the abstract opposition between encounter with the past and the understanding of the tradition out
knowledge and tradition that has become a dogma in herme- of which we have come is not the last factor in such testing. Hence
neutical theory and to appreciate the sense in which scientific the horizon of the present does not take shape at all without the
historical understanding is itself the bearer and continuer of past. There is just as little a horizon of the present in itself as there
tradition. "Only a naive and unreflective historicism in her- are historical horizons which one would have to attain. Rather,
meneutics would see the historical-hermeneutical sciences as understanding is always a process of the fusing of such alleged
something absolutely new that would do away with the horizons existing in themselves. . . . In the working of tradition such
1 2
power of 'tradition.' " The aim of Gadamer's philosophical fusion occurs constantly. For there old and new grow together again
hermeneutics is to illuminate the human context within and again in living value without the one or the other ever being
14

which scientific understanding occurs and to account for the removed explicitly.
necessity for repeated attempts at critical understanding. We
The concept of understanding as a "fusion of horizons"
can indeed gain critical awareness of our prejudices and
provides a more accurate picture of what happens in every
correct them in our effort to hear what the text says to us.
transmission of meaning. By revising our conception of the
But this correction of prejudices is no longer to be regarded
function of the interpreter's present horizons, Gadamer also
as the transcendence of all prejudices in the direction of a
succeeds in transforming our view of the nature of the past,
prejudice-free apprehension of the text or event "in itself." It
which now appears as an inexhaustible source of possibilities
is the fact of prejudices as such, and not of one permanent,
of meaning rather than as a passive object of investigation.
inflexible set of them, that is symptomatic of our historicity
Luther's encounter with Romans or Heidegger's understand-
and immersion in effective history. Particular horizons, even
ing of Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics might serve as exam-
if mobile, remain the presupposition of finite understanding.
ples of the way a text speaks differently as its meaning finds
The critical self-consciousness of the interpreter must include
concretization in a new hermeneutical situation and the inter-
an awareness of the continuing power of effective history in
preter for his part finds his own horizons altered by his
his work: "Reflection on a given preunderstanding brings
appropriation of what the text says. Indeed, as Gadamer tries
before me something that otherwise happens 'behind my
to show in two fine pieces of phenomenological analysis,
back.' Something — but not everything, for what I have
the process of understanding that culminates in the fusion of
called the consciousness of effective history is inescapably
horizons has more in common with a dialogue between
more being than consciousness, and being is never fully
13 persons or with the buoyancy of a game in which the players
manifest."
are absorbed than it has with the traditional model of a
 XX EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION xxi

methodologically controlled investigation of an object by a viewpoint. It is precisely in confronting the otherness of the
subject. This latter model, derived largely from the experi- text - in hearing its challenging viewpoint - and not in
mental sciences and never entirely shaken off by earlier preliminary methodological self-purgations, that the reader's
hermeneutical theorists, conceals the intrinsically dialectical own prejudices (i.e., his present horizons) are thrown into
nature of understanding that transforms both text and inter- relief and thus come to critical self-consciousness. This her-
preter. meneutical phenomenon is at work in the history of cultures
Like all genuine dialogue, the hermeneutical conversation as well as in individuals, for it is in times of intense contact
between the interpreter and the text involves equality and with other cultures (Greece with Persia or Latin Europe with
active reciprocity. It presupposes that both conversational Islam) that a people becomes most acutely aware of the
partners are concerned with a common subject matter - a limits and questionableness of its deepest assumptions. Colli-
common question - about which they converse, for dialogue sion with the other's horizons makes us aware of assumptions
is always dialogue about something. Unlike the essentially so deep-seated that they would otherwise remain unnoticed.
reconstructive hermeneutics of Schleiermacher and Dilthey, This awareness of our own historicity and finitude — our
which took the language of the text as a cipher for something consciousness of effective history - brings with it an open-
lying behind the text (e.g., the creative personality or the ness to new possibilities that is the precondition of genuine
worldview of the author), Gadamer focuses his attention understanding.
squarely on the subject matter of the text itself, that is, on The interpreter must recover and make his own, then, not
what it says to successive generations of interpreters. All the personality or the worldview of the author, b u t the
literary documents possess a certain "ideality of meaning" fundamental concern that motivates the text - the question
insofar as what they say to the present is in written form and that it seeks to answer and that it poses again and again to its
is thus detached from the psychological and historical peculi- interpreters. This process of grasping the question posed by
arities of their origin. "What we call literature," Gadamer the text does not lead to the openness of a genuine conversa-
argues, "has acquired its own contemporaneity with every tion, however, when it is conceived simply as a scientific
present time. To understand it does not mean primarily isolation of the "original" question, buf\pnly when the inter-
referring back to past life, but rather present participation in preter is provoked by the subject matter \to question further
what is said. It is not really a question of a relation between in the direction it indicates. Genuine Questioning always
persons - for instance, between the reader and the author involves a laying open and holding open of possibilities that
(who is perhaps wholly unknown) - but rather, of a partici- suspend the presumed finality of both the text's and the
pation in the communication which the text makes to us. reader's current opinions. We understand the subject matter
Where we understand, the sense of what is said is present of the text that addresses us when we locate its question; in
entirely independently of whether out of the tradition we our attempt to gain this question we are, in our own ques-
can picture the author or whether our concern is the histori- tioning, continually transcending the historical horizon of the
ls
cal interpretation of the tradition as a general s o u r c e . " text and fusing it with our own horizon, and consequently
transforming our horizon. To locate the question of the text
The dialogical character of interpretation is subverted
is not simply to leave it, but to put it again, so that we, the
when the interpreter concentrates on the other person as
questioners, are ourselves questioned by the subject matter of
such rather than on the subject matter - when he looks at
the text.
the other person, as it were, rather than with him at what the
other attempts to communicate. Thus the hermeneutical con- The existential and integrative dimension of understand-
versation begins when the interpreter genuinely opens himself ing, which Gadamer ranges over against purely scientific,
to the text by listening to it and allowing it to assert its disinterested interpretation, is evident. Not everyone who
 xxii EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION XXili

masters the methodology of a discipline becomes a Newton particularly unfortunate way to pursue the question of
or a Mommsen. As Gadamer points out, the differentia be- the nature of playing. For what reveals itself as most char-
tween methodological sterility and genuine understanding is acteristic of the phenomenon of playing is that the individual
imagination, that is, the capacity to see what is questionable player is absorbed into the back-and-forth movement of the
in the subject matter and to formulate questions that ques- game, that is, into the definable procedure and rules of the
16
tion the subject matter further. And the precondition of game, and does not hold back in self-awareness as one who is
this capacity is that one is open to be questioned by the text, "merely playing." The person who cannot lose himself in full
to be provoked by it to risk involvement in a dialogue that earnest in the game or give himself over to the spirit of the
carries him beyond his present position. Understanding, then, game, but instead stands outside it, is a "spoil sport," one
does not allow the interpreter to stand beyond the subject who cannot play. Thus the game cannot be taken as an action
matter which comes to language in the text. In real under- of subjectivity. Instead it is precisely a relase from subjec-
standing, as in real dialogue, the interpreter is engaged by the tivity and self-possession. The real subject of playing is the
question, so that text and interpreter are both led by the game itself. This observation is not contradicted by the fact
subject matter - by the logos, as Plato said. We speak, that one must know the rules of the game and stick to them,
therefore, of having "gotten i n t o " a discussion, or of being or by the fact that the players undergo training and excel in
"caught" in a discussion, and these expressions serve to the requisite physical methods of the game. All these things
indicate the element of buoyancy in understanding that leads are valuable and "come into play" only for the one who
the conversational partners beyond their original horizons enters the game and gives herself to it. The movement of
into a process of inquiry that has a life of its own and is often playing has no goal in which it ceases b u t constantly renews
filled with developments that are unanticipated and unin- itself. That is, what is essential to the phenomenon of play is
tended. "The real event of understanding," Gadamer con- not so much the particular goal it involves but the dynamic
tends, "goes continually beyond what can be brought to the back-and-forth movement in which the players are caught
understanding of the other person's words by methodological up - the movement that itself specifies how the goal will be
effort and critical self-control. It is true of every conversation reached. Thus the game has its own place or space (its
1 7
that through it something different has come to b e . " Spielraum), and its movement and aims are cut off from
Plato's dialogues are models of the hermeneutical process in direct involvement in the world stretching beyond it. The
this dialectical sense, and the unique power of his philosophy fascination and risk that the player experiences in the game
owes much to the sense we have in reading him that we (or in a wider linguistic sense, the fascination experienced by
participate in the very life of understanding as a movement the person who "plays with possibilities," one of which he
that bears all participants beyond their initial horizons. must choose and carry o u t ) indicate that in the end "all
playing is a being-played."
This element of buoyancy - of being borne along by the
subject matter — is illuminated by a second phenomenon that The self-presenting, self-renewing structure of the game
Gadamer describes in support of his theory of understanding, helps Gadamer come to terms with one of the most difficult
the phenomenon of the game or playing. Even more strongly problems of hermeneutics, the problem of meaning and of
than the analogy of the conversation, Gadamer's phenome- the fidelity of interpretation to the meaning of the text. The
nology of the game suggests the inadequacy of trying to brief comments that follow may help orient the reader to the
comprehend understanding from the perspective of the sub- alternative concept of meaning that is presupposed by Gada-
jectivity of the author or the interpreter. To focus on the mer's theory of understanding. The customary way of defin-
subjective attitude of the player, as Schiller did, for instance, ing the meaning of a text has been to identify it with the
in his Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man, is a subjective act of intending of its author. The task of under-
 xxiv EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION XXV

standing is then construed as the recapturing or repetition of pretation, which form a part of the substance of spiritual life
this original intention. Such a theory of meaning has obvious just as much as agreements in interpretation, must either be
advantages* not the least of which is that it seems .to make reduced to the secondary question of "significance" or, more
possible a definitive, canonical interpretation. Because the drastically, to correct and incorrect interpretations. Neither
author intended something specific, the interpretation that alternative seems entirely adequate. The first does not accord
recovers and represents that original intention is the correct with the phenomenon of interpretation. The second involves
one that banishes all competing interpretations as incorrect. a hubris regarding our own reality: it denies the role of our
Just as scientific experiments can be repeated exactly any own hermeneutical situation and thus exhibits a neglect of
number of times under the same conditions and mathemati- the reflexive dimension of understanding that Gadamer has
cal problems have but one answer, so the author's intention shown to be operative in understanding.
constitutes a kind of fact, a "meaning-in-itself," which is For Gadamer, the meaning of the text cannot be restricted
18
repeated by the correct interpretation. While there may be to the mens auctoris. Tradition builds upon what he calls the
varying explications of the significance of the text for us, it "excess of meaning" that it finds in the text, an excess that
has only one meaning, and that is what the creator meant by goes beyond the author's intention, explicit or implicit, for
his words or by his work of art. what he creates. 19

The basic difficulty with this theory is that it subjectifies

both meaning and understanding, thus rendering unintelligi- Every time will have to understand a text handed down to it in its
ble the development of tradition that transmits the text or own way, for it is subject to the whole of the tradition in which it
art work to us and influences our reception of it in the has a material interest and in which it seeks to understand itself. The
present. When meaning is located exclusively in the mens real meaning of a text as it addresses the interpreter does not just
auctoris, understanding becomes a transaction between the depend on the occasional factors which characterize the author and
his original public. For it-is-^lso always co-determined by the
creative consciousness of the author and the purely reproduc-
historical situation of the interpreter and thus by the whole of the
tive consciousness of the interpreter. The inadequacy of this
objective course of history. . . . The rneaning of a text surpasses its
theory to deal positively with history is perhaps best seen in \ author not occasionally, but always. Thus understanding is not a
its inability to explain the host of competing interpretations reproductive procedure, but rather always also a productive one. . ..
of texts with which history is replete, and that in fact It suffices to say that one understands ^differently when one under-
constitute the substance of tradition. The distinction be- 20
stands at all. J
tween meaning and significance is at best difficult to apply to
the history of interpretation, for it is indisputably the case Underlying these comments is a view of the meaning of the
that interpreters of Plato, Aristotle, or Scripture in different text or the work of art as both eliciting and including in itself
historical eras differed in what they thought they saw in the the varying interpretations Jhrough which it is transmitted,
text and not just in their views of the significance of the and it is at tm'S^point4haf Gadamer's phenomenology of the
" s a m e " textual meaning for themselves. Interpreters of Paul, game has its bearing on hermeneutical theory. The idea of a
for instance, have not been arguing all these centuries only self-presenting reality overcomes the isolation of the text as
over what Paul " m e a n s " pro nobis, but also over the claim an object over against its interpretations. Neither the histori-
Paul makes regarding the subject matter. Hence agreement on cally transmitted text nor the work of art can be regarded as
textual meaning, whenever it is achieved, must be accounted solely dependent on its creator or on its present performer or
for on other grounds than the simple distinction between a interpreter, so that by reference to one of these we might get
supposed meaning-in-itself and its significance for the inter- a definitive perception of it "in itself." Like the game, the
preter. According to this theory, however, disparities in inter- text or art work lives in its presentations. They are not alien
 xxvi EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION XXV11

or secondary to it but are its very being, as possibilities that are linked to one another in the process of interpreta-
flow from it and are included in it as facets of its own 3 0
whose very nature is to say the same thing in a different
disclosure. The variety of performances or interpretations t 1 0 1 1
and precisely by virtue of saying it in a different way, to
are not simply subjective variations of a meaning locked in W V
v t h e same thing. If, by way of pure repetition, we were to
subjectivity, but belong instead to the ontological possibility y today the same thing that was said 2,000 years ago, we
of the work. Thus there is no canonical interpretation of a would only be imagining that we were saying the same thing,
text or art work; rather, they stand open to ever new compre- while actually we would be saying something quite differ-
hensions. ent T n e
consciousness of effective history is our own
consciousness that we are finite, historical beings and that,
The encounter with art belongs within the process of integration consequently, the risk of mediation is not optional for us.
given to human life which stands within traditions. Indeed, it is even Critical self-reflection does not remove our historicity, nor do
a question whether the special contemporaneity of the work of art the critical methods we develop change the fact that in our
does not consist precisely in this: that it stands open in a limitless interpretation of the tradition we are "being played" by the
way for ever new integrations. It may be that the creator of a work
movement of tradition itself. At its best, the science of
intends the particular public of his time, but the real being of a work
interpretation makes us more honest and more careful in our
is what it is able to say, and that stretches fundamentally out
beyond every historical limitation. 21 inevitable playing further of what is transmitted to us. But
when it is no longer qualified by the consciousness of the
As the essays in this volume will make clear, Gadamer's effective power of history, concentration on methods and
philosophical hermeneutics offers no new canon of interpre- techniques hides from our vision the noblest achievements of
tation or new methodological proposals for reforming current understanding. In his essay "Indirect Language and the
hermeneutical practice, but seeks instead to describe what Voices of Silence," Maurice Merleau-Ponty points to this
actually takes place in every event of understanding. The deeper achievement of understanding and beautifully con-
subjective intention of the author is an inadequate standard firms Gadamer's hermeneutics in these words:
of interpretation because it is nondialectical, while under-
standing itself, as Gadamer shows, is essentially dialectical - Husserl has used the fine word Stiftung - foundation or establish-
a new concretization of meaning that is born of the interplay ment - to designate first of all the unlimited fecundity of each
that goes on continually between the past and the present. present which, precisely because it is singular and passes, can never
Every interpretation attempts to be transparent to the text, stop having been and thus being universally; but above all to desig-
so that the meaning of the text can speak to ever new nate that fecundity of the products of culture which continue to
situations. This task does not exclude but absolutely requires have value after their appearance and which open a field of investiga-
the translation of what is transmitted. Thus we can give tions in which they perpetually come to life again. It is thus that the
Gadamer's insight a paradoxical formulation by saying that world as soon as he has seen it, his first attempts at painting, and the
the mediation that occurs in understanding must modify whole past of painting all deliver up a tradition to the painter - that
what is said so that it can remain the same. The German is, Husserl remarks, the power to forget origins and to give to the
theologian Gerhard Ebeling, who has himself learned much past not a survival, which is the hypocritical form of forgetfulness,
from Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics, expresses this but a new life, which is the noble form of it. . . . The productions of
the past, which are the data of our time, themselves once went
universal characteristic of human understanding as he dis-
beyond anterior productions towards a future which we are, and in
covers it within his own field of endeavor: "Actually, both
this sense called for (among others) the metamorphosis which we
factors, identity and variability, belong inseparably together 23
impose upon them.
 XXV111 EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION xxix

a particular language community. We do not first have an

xtralinguistic contact with the world and then put this
Gadamer's principal contribution to hermeneutics is to be
world into the instrumentation of language. To begin by
found in his concerted effort to shift the focus of discussion
away from techniques and methods of interpretation, all of assuming such a schema is to reduce language to the status of
which assume understanding to be a deliberate product of a tool, which fails to grasp its all-encompassing, world-consti-
self-conscious reflection, to the clarification of understanding tuting significance.
as an event that in its very nature is episodic and trans-subjec- Language is by no means simply an instrument or a tool. For it
tive. It is episodic in the sense that every particular " a c t " of belongs to the nature of the tool that we master its use, which is to
understanding is a moment in the life of tradition itself, of say we take it in hand and lay it aside when it has done its service.
which interpreter and text are subordinate parts. It is trans- That is not the same as when we take the words of a language, lying
subjective in that what takes place in understanding is a ready in the mouth, and with their use let them sink back into the
mediation and transformation of past and present that tran- general store of words over which we dispose. Such an analogy is
scends the knower's manipulative control. If these deeper false because we never find ourselves as consciousness over against
the world and, as it were, grasp after a tool of understanding in a
features of the hermeneutical phenomenon are distorted by
wordless condition. Rather, in all our knowledge of ourselves and in
concentration on the purely technical aspects of interpreta-
all knowledge of the world, we are always already encompassed by
tion, they come clearly to light when hermeneutics unfolds as 24
the language which is our own.
a phenomenology of language. It is no accident that despite
their diverse themes, every essay in this volume finally comes
This passage reflects Gadamer's agreement with Heideg-
to deal with the question of language, for language is the
ger's assertion that language and understanding are insepara-
medium in which past and present actually interpenetrate.
ble structural aspects of human being-in-the-world, not sim-
Understanding as a fusion of horizons is an essentially linguis-
ply optional functions that man engages in or does not
tic process; indeed, these two - language and the understand-
engage in at will. What is given in language is not primarily a
ing of transmitted meaning - are not two processes, but are
relation to this or that object, or even to a field of objects,
affirmed by Gadamer as one and the same.
but rather a relation to the whole of being, a relation that we
We can confirm the convergence of understanding and neither consciously create nor control and objectify as sci-
language by observing that the process of effective history ence does its objects. Our possession of language, or better,
that provides the horizons of our world is concretely present our possession by language, is the ontological condition for
in the language we speak. To say that the horizons of the our understanding of the texts that address us.
present are not formed at all without the past is to say that The appearance of particular objects of our concern de-
our language bears the stamp of the past and is the life of the pends upon a world already having been disclosed to us in the
past in the present. Thus the prejudices Gadamer identifies as language we use. Our experience of particular objects and our
more constitutive of our being than our reflective judgments manipulation of them is therefore not self-founding, but
can now be seen as embedded and passed on in the language presupposes that we are always already oriented to a particu-
we use. Since our horizons are given to us prereflectively in lar world by means of language. Similarly, our acts of inter-
our language, we always possess our world linguistically. pretation are not self-founding, as the emphasis on methodol-
Word and subject matter, language and reality, are insepara- ogy and objective control implies, but rather presuppose our
ble, and the limits of our understanding coincide with the immersion in tradition, which we can now see is given con-
limits of our common language. In this sense, there is no cretely in our total language dependence.
"world in itself" beyond its presence as the subject matter of Actually, this affirmation of the world-constituting signifi-
 ITOR'S INTRODUCTION
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION xxxi
cance of . je is hardly new with Gadamer. That language
at
open to participation in a dialogue with others that trans-
r relation to reality is the founding insight of
forms and broadens the horizons from which we start. Lan-
mediates ^ jt has developed since Wilhelm von Hum-
j e n c e a s
guage discloses realities that then react upon language itself as
linguis interdependence of word and idea," Humboldt
b o d it assimilates what is said. In "Semantics and Hermeneutics,"
' ^ j "shows us clearly that languages are not actually
1
Gadamer shows how language, in its life as conversation,
means of representing a truth already known, but rather of
constantly presses against the limits of established conven-
discovering the previously unknown. Their diversity is not
tions and moves between the sedimented meanings and
one of sounds and signs, but a diversity of world perspec-
25 usages that are at its basis and the new that it strives to
tives." Gadamer considers this relativistic conviction to be
express. "The fact that one can never depart too far from
a mistake fostered largely by the tendency of linguistic stud-
linguistic conventions is clearly basic to the life of language:
ies to concentrate on the form or structure of language while
he who speaks a private language understood by no one else
overlooking the actual life of language as speaking, that is, as
does not speak at all. But on the other hand, he who only
a process of communication that is essentially dialogical. It is
speaks a language in which conventionality has become total
just this unreflective life of language as communication —
in the choice of words, syntax, and in style forfeits the power
what might be called its disclosive function - that is of
of address and evocation which comes solely with the individ-
primary interest to hermeneutics. In "Man and Language,"
ualization of a language's vocabulary and of its means of
Gadamer points out that in its actual life, language does not 28
communication." Thus what we saw in Gadamer's discus-
draw attention to itself but is transparent to the realities that
sion of understanding is now confirmed from the side of
are manifested through it. Language is profoundly uncon-
language. Understanding is essentially linguistic, but this
scious of itself. Knowing a language, therefore, does not
statement does not mean — as every form of relativism as-
mean knowing rules and structures but rather knowing how
sumes - that understanding is frozen into one static language
to make oneself understood by others regarding the subject
26 in such fashion that translation from one language to another
matter. The words we speak function precisely by not
is impossible. The constantly self-transcending character of
being thematic, but by concretizing and disappearing into the
language in its concrete use in conversation is the foundation
subject matter they open up to the other person. "The more
of the fluid horizons of understanding. Understanding is
language is a living operation, the less we are aware of it.
essentially linguistic, but in such fashion that it transcends
Thus it follows from the forgetfulness of language that its
the limits of any particular language, thus mediating between
real being consists in what is said in it. What is said in it
the familiar and the alien. The particular language with which
constitutes the common world in which we live. . . . The real
we live is not closed off monadically against what is foreign
being of language is that into which we are taken up when we
27 to it. Instead it is porous and open to expansion and absorp-
hear it — what is s a i d . " Language claims no autonomous
tion of ever new mediated content. "The task of understand-
being of its own, but instead has its being in its disclosive
ing and interpreting," Gadamer says, "always remains mean-
power. It is on this level that language emerges as the uni-
ingful. In this is demonstrated the superior universality with
versal medium of understanding.
which reason is elevated above the limits of every given
It is also by reference to the disclosive function of lan- system of language. The hermeneutical experience is the
guage that hermeneutics dispels the linguistic relativism that corrective through which thinking reason escapes the power
has accompanied the investigation of language from Hum- of the linguistic even while it is itself linguistically consti-
boldt to Wittgenstein. Just as prejudices are not a prison that tuted."29

isolates us from the new, but a particular starting point from

which understanding advances, so to know a language is to be The universality and mediating power of language brings us
back to the phenomenon of the game, for it is in the playful
 EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION xxxiii

give-and-take of the conversation that language has its disclo- tjon brings with it a new "circle of the unexpressed." Thus
sive function. As dialogue, language is not the possession of what is disclosed in language poses ever new questions to its
one partner or the other, but the medium of understanding interpreters and gives new answers to those who are chal-
that lies between them. In conversation, language becomes lenged by it and play its meaning further within the dialectic
individualized, tailored t o the situation of speaking. "The of question and answer. Every conversation has an inner
selection of a word," writes Hans Lipps, "is determined by its infinity and no end. "One breaks it off because it seems that
'meaning' - but this meaning finds its weight by what is enough has been said or that there is nothing more to say.
roused in the other person through the word. It is con- But every such break has an intrinsic relation to the resump-
33
cretized, unfolded, in the articulation of everything that is tion of the dialogue." Similarly, a tradition has an inner
just touched upon in the word. The other person is already relation to every new horizon of interpretation for which it
conformed to in the word. The taking up of the word mirrors and discloses a whole of being. The conversation with
initiates something. In it, one gives the other person some- the text is in this sense resumed anew by each succeeding
thing to understand; what one 'means,' the other person horizon that takes it up, applying it and bringing it to
'should d o ' in some way. And one tries to bring himself into language within the present situation.
30
the 'vision' of a word when he tries to locate i t . " The
play-character of language involves a process of natural con-
cept formation that is not simply the employment of pre- ///
given general meanings and rules for their combination. The emphasis Gadamer places on interpersonal communi-
Rather, the meanings of words depend finally on the con- cation as the locus for the real determination of meaning
crete circumstances into which they are spoken. On this level, seems to bring his concept of language into close relation to
the logic of language is not simply the formal logic of the "ordinary language" philosophy of the later Wittgenstein
Aristotle or that of the positivists, but the "hermeneutical"
and his followers. In several places, Gadamer alludes to the
logic of question and answer. Conversational language is
convergence he sees occurring between Wittgenstein's ap-
therefore not reducible to "propositions" that are under-
proach and the phenomenological tradition out of which his
stood when their denotations and rules of synthesis are 34
own work c o m e s . But the careful reader of these essays
comprehended. Rather, general word meanings are drawn
may well wonder whether Gadamer has explored the differ-
into a constant process of concept formation in speaking. As
ences between his position and Wittgenstein's as well as he
a result, each word has around it what Hans Lipps has called
might.
the "circle of the unexpressed," which bears directly on the
31 In his later writings, Wittgenstein launches an attack on his
meaning of the language. In every moment of dialogue, the
former allies, the positivists, and abandons his own epoch-
speaker holds together what is said and addressed to the
32 making Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. In comparing the
other person with the "infinity of the unsaid." It is this
Tractatus with his later position, one might say that Wittgen-
infinity of the unsaid - this relation to the whole of being
stein has changed his mind as radically as he has changed his
that is disclosed in what is said - into which the one who
style. His approach to the subject of language is more cau-
understands is drawn.
tious and empirical in his later writings than it was in the
The whole of being that is mirrored and disclosed in Tractatus. If we want to know what meaning is and how our
language - including the language of texts — gives interpreta- words acquire meaning, we must start by seeing how words
tion its continuing task. The infinity of the unsaid that is are actually used in ordinary discourse. We cannot begin, as
essential to language cannot be reduced to propositions, that the Tractatus did, by assuming that all words have one
is, to the merely present-at-hand, for every new interpreta- purpose and can all get their meaning in one way — a way
 XXXIV EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION XXXV

that can be stated in terms of a logical calculus. In the f a socially induced and instituted form of behavior. For
0

Tractatus, Wittgenstein could contend that meaning arose Wittgenstein, therefore, to learn a language is to be able to
when the logical simples of language were combined in such narticipate in (i.e., to know how to use the rules of) the form
fashion as to correspond to ("picture") nonverbal facts. One 0f life the language depends on and is itself instrumental in
understands a sentence when one understands its constituent specifying and perpetuating. "The learning of a language," he
35
parts. However, in his later philosophy Wittgenstein argues 38
declares, "is no explanation, but training." The grammars
that what appears to be the meaning of a word in one of language games contain rules according to which children
context does not necessarily carry over into its use in are trained u p into existing life-forms: they are "didactic
another. This fact causes Wittgenstein to abandon his earlier rules for linguistic instruction." And when children learn
belief that words and sentences have clear and precise mean- such games by training, they are in fact introduced to a priori
ings that can be seen in abstracto. The meaning of a word is ways of seeing the world.
precisely its use. "The sentence," Wittgenstein remarks, "gets Wittgenstein's idea of the language game is thus in certain
its significance from the system of signs, from the language to respects similar to Gadamer's own concept of prejudice struc-
which it belongs. Roughly: understanding a sentence means tures. In fact, what Wittgenstein has formulated in the con-
36
understanding a language." There is no single definition of cept of language games is not unlike what Heidegger and
a word that covers all the uses we give it in ordinary dis- Gadamer call an "understanding of being," which is also not
course. When we are asked the precise definitions for com- simply the product of the individual's "inner experience,"
mon words we cannot give them, simply because they have but has intersubjective validity, going before and along with
no precise meaning. We can perhaps suggest several defini- all empirical experience, and yet is preontological (precon-
tions that, taken together, roughly correspond to the uses of ceptual). "In language," says Heidegger, "as a way things
a common word. In other cases a word may be used in have been expressed or spoken out, there is hidden a way in
dozens of different ways that gradually merge into one which the understanding has been interpreted." 39

another. We cannot give a universal rule for its use. There

What Gadamer and Wittgenstein share in common, there-
may be "family resemblances" in the various usages, b u t no
fore, is the affirmation of the unity of linguisticality and
single, normative meaning is to be found. Ordinary words
institutionalized, intersubjectively valid ways of seeing.
have "blurred edges." In order to clarify these edges, we do
Furthermore, and more significantly, both of them stress that
not have recourse to an ideal logic but rather look to the
the rules of a language game are discovered only by observing
specific context of their use in order to discover the "gram-
its concrete use in interpersonal communication. For both,
mar" actually assigned to them in social intercourse. "Don't
37
the concrete meaning of a piece of language therefore in-
think," says Wittgenstein, "but l o o k ! "
volves as an essential element how others respond to the
In contrast to the transcendental grammar of the positiv- words spoken to them. This dimension of use transcends a
ists, Wittgenstein contends that the uses that specify the merely formal logic and in effect introduces a kind of herme-
meaning of words in common discourse are inexhaustibly neutics into the clarification of language. In Wittgenstein's
flexible and various. Wittgenstein's concept of "language case, however, the development of this hermeneutical aspect
games" thus replaces the ideal of a universal grammar. It is hampered by his understanding of the task of philosophy
indicates that language owes its form primarily to the use as well as by certain features of his conception of language
people make of it, that is, to the way the words they use in games themselves.
social intercourse are connected with and facilitate specific For Wittgenstein, the multifarious uses that we discover in
actions and expectations of actions. The rules immanent in analyzing ordinary language are irreducible. Because their
the particular language game are the rules of a life form, that
rules are immanent, the clarification of a language game must
 t u l I U R ' S INTRODUCTION EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION xxxvii

be made "from within" rather than "from without." There translation. Wittgenstein never clarifies the position occupied
are indeed "family resemblances" between language games the one who views various games in their autonomy and
but there is n o common structure that philosophical analysis uncovers their rules. Ironically, this lack of clarification leads
can uncover and employ as a basis for mediating between a dilemma similar to that of romantic hermeneutics, which
these various games, which consequently stand in apparent believed the one who understands abandons his own horizons
isolation from each other. To protest against this seeming and simply steps into the historical horizons of his subject
fragmentation of language and to argue that there must be matter. As already noted, Gadamer's critique of this ap-
such universal factors is to " t h i n k " and not to "look." Such a proach to understanding sought to show that the present
metaphysic of language would be another game, and one with hermeneutical situation is always already constitutively in-
a queer grammar. To conceive of philosophy as supplying a volved so that the achievement of understanding has an
transcendental grammar, that is, as responsible somehow for essentially mediating or integrative character, transcending
developing and justifying norms common to all language the old horizons marked out by the text and the interpreter's
games, is to deny Wittgenstein's fundamental argument that own initial position. The analyzer of language games is him-
norms are in fact indigenous to the language games them- self involved in an integration or fusing of language games,
selves and do not constitute a transcendental grammar. Witt- not in the form of one transcendental game, but in a finite
genstein even repudiates a purely descriptive task for philoso-
form appropriate to all human reflection, namely, as insight
phy. Philosophy is for him a kind of linguistic therapy, which
into how language games, in their actual playing, grow and
ends when the philosopher exposes mistaken applications of
absorb each other. "Perhaps the field of language is not only
linguistic rules. At this point, the Wittgenstein of the Philo-
the place of reduction for all philosophical ignorance, but
sophical Investigations is still in agreement with the Wittgen-
rather itself an actual whole of interpretation which, from
stein of the Tractatus: philosophy has no position of its own
the days of Plato and Aristotle till today, requires not only to
over against the positive sciences, and thus no positive task of
be accepted, but to be thought through to the end again and
its own beyond the immanent clarification of grammar. 40
again."
Because Wittgenstein does not allow for mediation be- The inadequacy of Wittgenstein's monadic isolation of
tween language games, he is left with a multitude of hermeti- language games also becomes apparent when we consider
cally sealed usages and corresponding life forms. The hori- language games in their immediate use, for the integrative
zons of the user (and analyzer) of language are closed. Work- task of philosophy is a reflection of what Gadamer takes to
ing against the background of his own Tractatus and other be the self-transcending character of language itself. Consider,
excesses of linguistic positivism, Wittgenstein seems to regard
for example, the question of how we learn new language
any mediation that breaks down the absolute autonomy of
games. The close connection of language and practice means
the grammar of individual language games as a return to the
that we cannot learn a language, or clarify difficulties in one
transcendental rules of a universal language. Either one must
we know, by reference to an ideal grammar or a lexicon. We
settle for a plurality of relative games, or one has a metalan-
achieve these ends only by actual use, that is, by recalling the
guage that does violence to the empirical richness of usages
situation of training in which we learned the language. Ac-
and life forms.
cordingly, to learn a new language game, one must virtually
Wittgenstein's worry about the autonomy of language repeat the socialization process of the persons who use it. "In
games and his desire to avoid a transcendental position from such a difficulty," Wittgenstein advises, "always ask yourself:
which the plurality of games might be reduced to the rules of How did we learn the meaning of this word? From what sort
one transcendental game led him to overlook precisely the 41
of examples? In what language g a m e s ? "
assimilative power of language as a constant mediation and We must ask, however, if one ever undergoes more than
 XXXViii EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION xxxix
once a training or socialization such as children undergo. rules that compose one's horizons. The subject matter
Learning our first language and learning subsequent ones are opened up by the rules of language can call those rules into
not the same thing. The latter always presupposes the mas- question and provoke new rules — or rather, new applications
tery of at least one language, and in learning the first lan- of the rules - and consequently, new modes of perception
guage, we acquire the basis for altering it and fusing it with and action. Thus the particular, finite act of interpretation in
other language games. In the learning of the mother tongue language affects human life-forms and makes historical devel-
we learn not only its particular grammar but also the way to opment possible. In this sense, language itself makes possible
make other languages intelligible. That is the hermeneutical ever new concretizations of its subject matter and functions
dimension of language that Wittgenstein ignores: with the as the universal medium of understanding.
learning of our native language we have at the same time These observations do not diminish the substantial affini-
learned how one learns languages in general. Thus, we can ties between Wittgenstein's later philosophy and the view of
never again undergo training in the original sense. We already language Gadamer sets forth in these essays, but they do
possess all other language games in principle, not by a new point to an Hegelian influence on Gadamer that is missing in
socialization, but through mediation, translation. For Gada- Wittgenstein. This influence is evident in Gadamer's refusal to
mer, to learn a new language involves using it, but we never leave language games in unmediated isolation from each
learn the new game in a vacuum. Instead, we bring our native other. Hegel's dialectic of the limit has its hermeneutical
language along, so that learning is not a new socialization, but application. As Hegel pointed out in opposition to Kant's
an expansion of the horizons with which we began. By virtue doctrine of the Understanding, limitations only exist dialecti-
of learning our first language, then, we acquire a position that cally for reason, for to posit a limit is already to be beyond
at one and the same time is the basis for understanding and 43
it. Thus Gadamer rejects any absolutizing of the horizons
yet can itself be transformed by particular acts of under- that distinguish the present from the past, or any individual
standing. T o know a language is to have horizons from which structure of meaning from our own. So far as any alien
we enter into a subject matter that broadens those very horizon is a transmission of articulate meaning, it is open to
horizons. Commerce between language games goes on con- assimilation by understanding. The concept of language as
stantly, not as a new "training" that abandons our present something within which men are bound and frozen is an
game and places us "within" the new game (and form of life), illusion, because it contains only half the truth. Whoever has
but as a mediation of the new with the old. And this language " h a s " the world in that he is free from the restric-
mediation is always achieved in particular, finite acts of tions of an animal's environment and thus is open to the
language that are episodic and open to new mediations. truth of every linguistic world. Worlds given in language are
One certainly does not get the impression from reading not mutually exclusive entities; it is the power of language
Wittgenstein that he wishes to deny the growing, self-trans- that such "mutually exclusive" worlds can merge in under-
forming character of language games. Quite the contrary: his standing. "The other world," Gadamer says, "that stands
analysis bears witness to the almost uncontrollable inventive- over against us is not only a foreign, but a relatively other
ness of language use. However, missing from his later work is world. It does not have its own truth simply for itself but
any explanation for this inventiveness comparable to the one 44
also its truth for w s . "
Gadamer gives by relating the dynamic character of language It was Hegel who saw that knowledge is a dialectical
to the subject matter that communication discloses and inter- process in which both the apprehending consciousness and its
42
prets without ever exhausting. In the dialectic of question objects are altered. In the Phenomenology of Spirit Hegel
and answer, form and content (language and subject matter) sought to show that every new achievement of knowledge is a
interact, so that what is understood can affect the form or
mediation or refocusing of the past within a new and ex-
 xl EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION Xli

panded context. This dynamic and self-transcending char- hand was the assertion of the finitude and the situational
acter of knowledge is at the center of Gadamer's concept of character of human existence — the determination to explore
understanding as a concrete fusing of horizons. The event of the limits of human experience and control that marks the
understanding is " t h e elevation to a higher universality which work of Jaspers and Heidegger and dialectical theology — and
overcomes not only one's own particularity but also that of on the other was the epistemological orientation of philoso-
45
the other p e r s o n . " For Gadamer, however, this "higher phy to the sciences and the confident assumption of cultural
universality" remains finite and surpassable and is not to be progress.
equated with Hegel's absolute knowledge in concepts. Gada- The first essay in this section makes it clear that Gadamer
mer draws mainly on the empirical or phenomenological side considers the philosophical foundations of the twentieth cen-
of Hegel's thought. It is not absolute knowledge, but the tury to be intimately connected with the triumph of these
moving, dialectical life of reason that finds expression in new tendencies. The principal philosophical development of
Gadamer's description of what takes place in the "fusion of the twentieth century is the thoroughgoing attack on the
horizons." As Hegel demonstrated in the Phenomenology, subjectivism of modern thought with its foundation in self-
every experience passes over into another experience. Under- conscious reflection and on the corresponding reduction of
standing has this same dialectical character. We can now the world to an object of scientific investigation and control.
recognize that in its life as dialogue language is the medium in The influence of this subjectivism is hardly limited to aca-
which understanding occurs. Language makes possible agree- demic philosophy. It functions much more pervasively as the
ments that broaden and transform the horizons of those who assumption behind society's faith in the rational control of
use it. But every dialogue relates to the "infinity of the the future: "Society clings with bewildered obedience to
unsaid," which presents understanding with its ongoing task. scientific expertise, and the ideal of conscious planning and
precisely functioning administration dominates every sphere
of life even down to the level of the molding of public
IV 46
o p i n i o n . " Since the 1920s, philosophy has mercilessly ex-
The essays in Part II are devoted largely to Gadamer's posed the naivete of "subjective consciousness" and its ideal
interpretation and assessment of the immediate background of objectifying knowledge. Wittgenstein exposed the difficul-
of his thought in the phenomenological movement of the ties involved in treating language as a logically perfect artifi-
1920s and 1930s and in Martin Heidegger's philosophy. They cial system that we "apply," and he recognized the priority
provide an enormously valuable and illuminating insight into of the ordinary language within which we live. Existentialism,
the genesis of some of the major themes and problems of following Nietzsche (and Freud), unmasked the naivete of
German philosophy in the twentieth century. Indeed, one is reflective consciousness and penetrated the explicit inten-
tempted to say that these essays constitute something of a tions of reflection to the hidden sources and the finitude of
philosophical memoir. Gadamer was born in 1900, and in the reason. Phenomenology undermined the subjectivism of
1920s was a student of philosophy and classical philology at earlier epistemology, which had confined consciousness to its
Marburg and Freiburg. There he witnessed the struggle be- own contents and then had sought to construct the world out
tween the philosophical and theological perspectives that of such abstractions as "sense data" and pure judgments.
antedated World War I (Neo-Kantianism and 'liberal' theol- These movements and others participate in the fundamental
ogy) and the radical new tendencies of the postwar period task of contemporary philosophy, which Gadamer identifies
1

whose supporters were launching a frontal attack on the as the overcoming of the alienation of the "subject" from a
cherished assumptions of established thought. On the one world that was reduced to "objects" of experience and reflec-
xiii EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION xliii
tion. The philosophical foundations of the twentieth century school, but with the special claim that he had grounded his
are found, therefore, in the effort to situate consciousness philosophy in a careful descriptive analysis of the "phenom-
and to define the limits of objectifying knowledge. e n a " In this way he intended to put philosophical knowledge
In "The Phenomenological Movement," Gadamer credits for the first time on a rigorously scientific footing that would
Edmund Husserl with initiating the drive to penetrate the avoid both the scientism and the historicism rampant in the
absolutizing of the world of science that had taken place in first decades of this century. In this context he developed the
49
the philosophy of his day to the phenomena themselves as strategy of transcendental phenomenology. By suspending
given to immediately living consciousness. The phenome- the general positing function of consciousness, that is, by
nological slogan, " T o the things themselves! " expresses this bracketing the affirmation of the actual existence of the
desire to gain access to the prereflective givenness of things in world, Husserl restricted the task of philosophy to the cor-
a way that would not be distorted by theories or "anticipa- relation of phenomena in their essential nature with corre-
tory ideas of any kind," and especially (as Husserl came to sponding acts of consciousness in which they are constituted
see in his last great work, The Crisis of European Sciences in their objectivity. The ultimate foundation of objectivity
and Transcendental Phenomenology) not by the pervasive (and thus of the positive sciences and ordinary experience) is
objectivism that had dominated European thought since Gali- the transcendental ego, from which the essential validity of
47
leo and Descartes. Actually, this movement to recover the everything existing can be derived by constitutional analysis.
life-world that precedes theoretical objectifications had be- Husserl's writings in the 1920s seek to elaborate and per-
gun even earlier with the "philosophy of life" that is associ- fect this program by means of a transcendental reduction
ated with the names of Nietzsche, Bergson, Simmel, and that would bring all being within the scope of the transcen-
Dilthey. In connection with Dilthey's work in particular, dental ego. Husserl saw these efforts threatened not only by
hermeneutics began to emerge as the philosophical investiga- his opponents, who followed the naive realism of the sciences
tion of "understanding" in a new and comprehensive sense — and remained in the "natural attitude," but also by his own
as a "hermeneutics of life" that attempted to grasp the "lived students, who failed to hold to the task of transcendental
experience" of self and world and to trace out the origin of phenomenology he had marked out. Moreover, two difficul-
the reflective forms in which lived experience is ultimately ties seemed t o threaten the transcendental reduction from
stabilized and communicated. But Dilthey's hermeneutics within and to indicate fatal limits to the entire enterprise of
opened up a diversity of prereflective experience and world- transcendental phenomenology — the problem of intersubjec-
orientations that philosophy seemed powerless to unify. In- tivity and that of the life-world.
deed, Dilthey contended that all efforts of reflection to
The problem of the life-world is the focus of Gadamer's
systemize or unify the worldviews that issue from lived
interpretation of Husserl in both "The Phenomenological
experience can only lead to the onesidedness of yet another
Movement" and "The Science of the Life-World." These
world-orientation, thus compounding the problem of rela-
essays are a valuable contribution to the current discussion of
tivism rather than solving it. Dilthey's hermeneutical enter-
Husserl's late philosophy. In them, Gadamer defends the
prise remained trapped, therefore, in historicism and went no
continuity and integrity of Husserl's transcendental approach
further than a typology of divergent worldviews in their
48
against the interpretations of Jean Wahl, Eugen Fink, and
actuality.
Ludwig Landgrebe, among the many who find in Husserl's
Husserl's approach was entirely different. Dissatisfied and treatment of the life-world a break with his transcendental
irritated by the increasing "irrationalism" and relativism of Phenomenology and an abandonment of the transcendental
e s o
the time, he followed the basic ideas of the Neo-Kantian go. At the same time, the concept of the life-world is
xliv EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION xiv

undoubtedly the closest point of contact with Gadamer's (the eidos "life-world") and to deal with the relativity of
own philosophical concerns, and it marks the transition from life-worlds as variations of that structure. If his transcenden-
Husserl's transcendentalism to Heidegger's philosophy. tal program founders on the nonobjectifiable horizon of the
The concept of the life-world calls attention to the origi- life-world (and Gadamer believes it does), Husserl himself
nal, taken-for-granted horizon of lived meanings that is an- never recognized his failure, but believed himself to be master
terior to all those levels of experience that Husserl had sought of the difficulty.
to embrace by his transcendental reduction. How could the It is curious that Gadamer, who stands at some consider-
validity of the life-world — or rather, of the bewildering able distance from Husserlian phenomenology, is able to
multiplicity of subjective-relative life-worlds — be reduced argue convincingly that the Crisis represents Husserl's rebut-
and legitimated by constitutional analysis? In the Crisis tal of Heidegger, while those closer to Husserl consider him in
Husserl recognizes the new and universal task that the life- effect to have at least partially abandoned the foundations of
world poses: his life-long program in the face of Heidegger's Being and
Time. The temptation to interpret Husserl's last work in
. . . there opens up to us, to our growing astonishment, an infinity of terms of Heidegger is as futile in the last analysis as the effort
ever n e w phenomena belonging to a new dimension, coming to light to understand Being and Time as a simple continuation of
only through consistent penetration into meaning-and validity-impli- Husserl's transcendental phenomenology.
cations o f what was thus taken for granted — an infinity, because In Heidegger's philosophy we encounter a more radical
continued penetration shows that every phenomenon attained critique of the foundations of Western metaphysical thinking,
through this unfolding o f meaning, given at first in the life-world as
one that in its unfolding undercuts the concept of the tran-
obviously existing, itself contains meaning-and validity-implications
5 1
scendental ego as completely as it does the traditional notion
whose exposition leads again to new phenomena, and so o n .
of being as substance. But the full implications of this cri-
tique were not at once apparent when Being and Time first
The life-world was overlooked by constitutional analysis as appeared in 1927; to many, Heidegger did indeed seem to be
Husserl had practiced it, for while the transcendental reduc- continuing Husserl's line of inquiry, even if in a way that was
tion aimed at explicit objects of consciousness, the life-world not sanctioned by Husserl. Concentrating on the nonobjec-
functioned precisely as the horizon of intentional objects tifying modes of disclosure in which Dasein is directly en-
without ever becoming thematic itself. How could the phe- gaged in its world rather than reflecting upon it, Heidegger's
nomenologist's own enterprise avoid presupposing the self- Being and Time seemed to represent an effort to deal with
evident validity of a life-world in which his praxis had its the prereflective human experience of the life-world to which
meaning? 5 2
Indeed, this life-world, present as a nonobjecti- Husserl himself had already pointed in Ideas II (1920), but
fied horizon of meaning, seems to encompass transcendental did not consider in detail until after Being and Time had had
subjectivity itself and in this sense threatens to displace it as its impact. In Being and Time, the life-world is disclosed by
the absolute foundation of experience. The ego at this point Dasein not as a realm of neutral things or objects — as
appears to be " i n " the life-world. present-at-hand (vorhanden) - but rather as the referential
totality of Dasein's own direct involvement, as a realm of
The point of Gadamer's argument in both essays on Hus-
possibilities upon which it has already projected itself. The
serl is to show that Husserl did not relinquish the priority of
entities of Dasein's world manifest themselves initially as
the transcendental ago, but saw the reduction of the life-
tool-like in character (zuhanden) and deteriorate into mere
world itself as the final task that would complete the pro-
"objects" only when they fall out of Dasein's own projects.
gram of transcendental phenomenology. The purpose of the
Closely connected with this, Heidegger's analysis shows that
Crisis is to investigate the essential structure of the life-world
 xlvi EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION xlvii
this disclosure of the world is also Dasein's ^//-disclosure, Dasein already has - the understanding of being in light of
but no longer in the idealist sense of the objectification of which it discloses the beings with which it is directly in-
infinite spirit or in Husserl's implied sense of the life-world as volved. An understanding of being is ingredient, therefore, in
disclosive of the constitutive accomplishments of the tran- the human situation, not as the theory of being, arrived at by
scendental ego. Rather, Dasein comes upon itself as radically contemplation or inductive generalization from the beings
finite and temporal "being-in-the-world." Thus the effect of actually encountered, but as the precondition of their mean-
Heidegger's analytic of Dasein was to render unsuspendable ingful disclosure. The sense of understanding as one kind of
precisely the life-world Husserl intended to reduce and to cognition among others (e.g., explaining, hypothesizing) is
replace the transcendental ego with the being whose facticity derivative from the primary understanding that Dasein always
reflection could not set aside. Dasein has its essence, para- already has.
doxically, in its existence. Heidegger's discovery of the ontological significance of
In the last analysis, however, both the continuities and understanding is a major turning point in hermeneutical
discontinuities between Heidegger and Husserl become clear theory, and Gadamer's work can be conceived as an attempt
only when we recognize the fundamental question that moti- to work out the implications of the new starting point
vates Heidegger's thought from the very beginning: what is Heidegger provides. All deliberate interpretation takes place
the meaning of being? The purpose of Being and Time is to on the basis of Dasein's historicity, that is, on the basis of a
recover the experience of being that lies concealed behind the prereflective understanding of being from within a concrete
dominant modes of Western thought. The recovery begins as situation that has intrinsic relation to the interpreter's past
an investigation of the structures of Dasein's mode of being and future. It is the meaning of Heidegger's description of
insofar as Dasein constitutes a unique entree to the meaning Dasein as "thrown projection," a description that is of funda-
of being as such. The existential analysis of Dasein that mental significance for Gadamer. As projective, understand-
Heidegger presents in Being and Time is therefore not con- ing is intrinsically related to the future into which Dasein
ceived by him as being a "regional ontology" in Husserl's continually projects itself. Similarly, understanding is
sense of the term. "Philosophy is universal phenomenological thrown, that is, situated by the past as a heritage of funded
ontology, and takes its departure from the hermeneutic of meanings that Dasein takes over from its community. Thus
Dasein, which, as an analytic of existence, has made fast the Heidegger shows that every interpretation - even scientific
guiding-line for all philosophical inquiry at the point where it interpretation - is governed by the concrete situation of the
5 3
arises and to which it returns. " interpreter. There is no presuppositionless, "prejudiceless"
This statement gives the direction of Heidegger's answer to interpretation, for while the interpreter may free himself
the phenomenological problem of access, and the appearance from this or that situation, he cannot free himself from his
of the term "hermeneutic of Dasein" indicates the central, own facticity, from the ontological condition of always al-
ontological role that understanding and hermeneutics play in ready having a finite temporal situation as the horizon within
his early thought. Hermeneutics no longer refers to the sci- which the beings he understands have their initial meaning
ence of interpretation, but rather to the process of interpreta- for him. In this way Heidegger ends the long struggle of
tion that is an essential characteristic of Dasein. 54
"Dasein," German philosophy to overcome historicism and relativism
says Heidegger, "is an entity which, in its very being, com- by means of ever more refined methodological reflections
55
ports itself understanding^ towards that b e i n g . " Dasein is that would neutralize the knower's own immediate participa-
open to beings because it has already construed being in some tion in history. Every apprehension of meaning is a finite
way as the horizon against which they appear. The mode of apprehension from within the pretheoretical givenness of
access to being is through this understanding of being that man's historical situation.
 xlviii EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION xlix
Certainly no long discussion is required to demonstrate the that of the "being of beings" - that is, into the question of
influence of Heidegger's analysis of facticity on the concep- beings considered with respect to their universal character-
tion of interpretation Gadamer advances in these essays. It istics. By concentrating on the beings that are disclosed to its
offers Gadamer a powerful means of overcoming the initial gaze, metaphysical thinking forgot being itself as the event of
isolation of the knower from tradition that was axiomatic to disclosure or openness that allows beings to come forward
earlier hermeneutical theory. The projective character of un- into unconcealedness.
derstanding as the appropriation or "repetition" of meanings
as possibilities of Dasein's own existence, finds expression in Metaphysics thinks about beings as beings. Wherever the question is
Gadamer's insistence that interpretation is mediation rather asked what beings are, beings as such are in sight. Metaphysical
than contemplative reconstruction. And the "thrownness" of representation owes this sight to the light of Being. The light itself,
Dasein is elaborated by Gadamer in his conception of the i.e., that which such thinking experiences as light, does not c o m e
interpreter's inevitable involvement in "effective history." within the range of metaphysical thinking; for metaphysics always
57
represents beings only as b e i n g s .
As deeply as these connections show Being and Time to
have affected Gadamer, however, it is nonetheless true that
the decisive impact of Heidegger's thought on Gadamer This forgetting of being (of what Heidegger calls the ontologi-
comes with the Kehre — the " t u r n " that distinguishes the cal difference) opens the way to conceiving being in static,
fundamental ontology of Being and Time from the more thing-like terms - as the underlying permanent substance of
explicit, even if often more enigmatic, reflection on being things, or their uncaused cause, eternal ground, and so on.
that is the dominant theme of Heidegger's later philosophy. Hand in hand with this substantive rendering of being
In concluding, therefore, we must consider Gadamer's inter- comes the "humanization" of being in Western thought.
pretation of the " t u r n " in Heidegger's thinking and assess its Since being itself is not a thing that can appear, it is neglected
influence on Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics. by man. According to Heidegger, this process begins with
All of Heidegger's writings, including Being and Time, Plato, who identifies the permanent form (the idea) of things
reflect his consistent effort to conceive the meaning of being that the mind apprehends with what most truly is. Thus
in a way that is not distorted by the objectifying categories reality is conceived as the stable world that appears to man's
of Western metaphysics. Given the historicity of all thinking, outlook or viewpoint, and man's vision and thinking become
which Heidegger affirms, this effort to "overcome" meta- determinative of truth and being. What happens with Des-
physics can only take place as a probing of the inherited cartes, and in modern thought generally, is therefore only the
meanings that compose the "hermeneutical situation" in working out in a more radical fashion of what was prepared
which present thinking stands. In this sense, Heidegger's in earlier metaphysics. Now in the modern era man guaran-
effort to overcome the tradition begins, as Gadamer shows, tees truth and being by the intrinsic clarity of his own vision.
from within the tradition itself. Thus Being and Time at- With Descartes, man the subject grasps beings in his represen-
tempts to interpret the "everyday" understanding of being tations, and the conditions for the clarity and distinctness of
that Dasein already has, and the writings after 1927 consti- his vision, that is, the conditions for his certitude, are eo ipso
tute an ever-deepening dialogue with the history of meta- the foundation of beings themselves. The world becomes the
physical thinking. Both approaches seek to recover the orig- object or field of objects in proportion as man, the thinking
inal possibilities for understanding the meaning of being that subject, becomes the center, guarantor, and calculator of
56
are latent in the tradition. beings. "The basic process of modern times," Heidegger con-
The basic error of the metaphysical tradition, according to tends, "is the conquest of the world as picture. The world
Heidegger, is that it transformed the question of being into 'view' now means the product of representational building. In
 I EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION li

it man fights for the position in which he can be that being 0f the transcendence of being (i.e., of the ontological differ-
which sets the standard for all beings and draws the guiding ence) quite comparable to Descartes's res cogitans or Kant's
58
principles for t h e m . " This dominance of the human sub- transcendental ego? Does not the analytic of Dasein - and
ject and its calculating techniques and methods over the more specifically, Dasein's "self-understanding" - function
world considered as a realm of things is most characteristic of a sthe transcendental condition for the question of being, so
modern thinking. that Heidegger's later assertion of the priority of being over
In Being and Time, Heidegger described this humanization Dasein must appear as a reversal (indeed, as a contradiction)
of being as the mistaken priority of the "apophantic a s " over of his position in Being and Timel
the "hermeneutical-existential a s " - the interpretive " a s " of In his essays, as in Truth and Method, Gadamer argues that
judgments and propositions over the " a s " of the life-world despite the inadequacies of Heidegger's language, there is a
discovery and disclosure of beings from which it is originally consistent development throughout Heidegger's thinking, and
59
derived. As the locus of truth, judgments or representa- that the " t u r n " after Being and Time serves to draw out and
tions no longer serve truth as disclosive, that is, they do not clarify the basic insight into the relation of being and
point beyond themselves so that beings can shine forth. human-being that was present from the beginning of Heideg-
Rather, they become ends in themselves, objects of the ger's work. What appears in Being and Time as subjectivism is
mind's attention, and truth becomes the adjustment of the Heidegger's designation of Dasein as hermeneutical, but
entity "judgment" to the entity "object" - adequatio intel- Heidegger's analysis there had already made it clear that
lects et reium. Truth is transformed from an event of Dasein's self-understanding does not objectify being or make
disclosure (a\r)deia — unconcealment) in which beings stand it the product of Dasein's conscious reflection. Repeatedly in
out to information residing in the adequate representation of these essays, Gadamer calls our attention to Heidegger's dis-
beings. Small wonder that thinking concentrates increasingly tinction between objectifying reflection {actus signatus) and
on the question of proper intellectual "vision" and the tech- a direct, non-objectifying awareness {actus exercitus) from
niques for securing and guaranteeing certitude of vision. Here within existence itself, in order to demonstrate that "self-
we can recall Gadamer's indictment of the "naivete of asser- understanding" as Heidegger used it had already broken de-
tions" in "The Philosophical Foundations of the Twentieth cisively with transcendental reflection in the idealistic sense.
Century." In Being and Time the real question is not in what way being can be
understood, but in what way understanding is being, for the under-
Difficulties in interpreting Heidegger's philosophy begin standing of being represents the existential distinction of Dasein.
with determining ti.j relation of his own magnum opus to Already at this point Heidegger does not understand being to be the
this critique of Western thought, for Being and Time seems to result of the objective operation of consciousness, as was still the
represent precisely the radical subjectivism and "humanism" case in Husserl's phenomenology. Rather, the question of being, as
Heidegger is attacking. Heidegger's determination to interpret Heidegger poses it, breaks into an entirely different dimension by
Dasein's mode of being out of itself and to make its fini- focusing on the being of Dasein which understands itself. And this is
tude - its temporality — the horizon for the question of where the transcendental schema must finally founder. The infinite
6 0
being and truth is, as Walter Schulz has skillfully argued, contrast between the transcendental ego and its objects is finally
itself the culmination of Western metaphysics as subjec- taken up into the ontological question. In this sense, Being and Time
tivism: Being and truth seem to have their final ground in the already begins to counteract the forgetfulness of being which
horizon of Dasein's finite projects. Hence Heidegger can say, Heidegger was later to designate as the essence of metaphysics. What
"Of course only as long as Dasein is (that is, only as long as he calls the 'turn' is only his recognition that it is impossible to
an understanding of Being is ontically possible) 'is there' overcome the forgetfulness of being within the framework of tran-
62
Being." 61
Is not this Dasein-relativity a radical undercutting scendental reflection.
 lii EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION liii
The historicity and temporality of Dasein in Being and well as openness. Thus according to Gadamer, Heidegger's
Time meant that Dasein's grasp of being is not the result of analysis of the work of art strengthens his concept of the
the neutral, free-floating activity of self-consciousness. eventful nature of being by protecting beings against the total
Rather, determinate thinking of any kind can go on only disclosure that is the aim of objectification.
because being has already been understood in some specific
way - and in this sense it is not we who grasp being, but The conflict between revealment and concealment is not the truth of
being that grasps us. Heidegger's emphasis on Dasein as the work of art alone, but the truth of every being, for as unhidden-
being-disclosing leads to the centrality of Dasein as the ness, truth is always such an opposition of revealment and conceal-
"place" or "clearing" where disclosure occurs; his emphasis ment. The two belong necessarily together. This obviously means
on the finitude and givenness of Dasein leads to the affirma- that truth is not simply the mere presence of a being, so that it
tion of the priority and initiative of being and to Dasein's stands, as it were, over against its correct representation. Such a
role as the "servant" or "instrument" of being. Far from concept o f being unhidden would presuppose the subjectivity of the
Dasein which represents beings. But beings are not correctly defined
being contradictory, these two points of emphasis are in fact
in their being if they are defined merely as objects of possible
complementary; the " t u r n " in Heidegger's thought is in fact
representation. Rather, it belongs just as much t o their being that
the turning of his attention from the former to the latter of
they withhold themselves. As unhidden, truth contains in itself an
these interrelated insights. 64
inner tension and a m b i g u i t y .
How does Heidegger formulate his insight into the priority
of being? In "Heidegger's Later Philosophy," Gadamer takes
up this question by referring to Heidegger's 1935 lecture, In Heidegger's later thought, the decisional language of
"The Origin of the Work of A r t . " In this lecture, Heidegger Being and Time, seen most clearly perhaps in the key con-
begins to depart from the Dasein-centered terminology of cepts of resolute decision and authentic and inauthentic
Being and Time and to point to resistance or hiddenness as existence, give way to the notion of thinking as a response to
well as unconcealedness as essential to being. Because being is the disposing power of being. Here Heidegger's thought be-
concealedness as well as unconcealment, earth as well as comes truly historical in a way that is reminiscent of Hegel,
world, beings can stand in themselves and withhold them- for the disposing power of being finds concrete expression in
selves from man. This more dialectical structure of being is how being reveals and conceals itself in the fateful thinking
most apparent in the work of art. The art work and the of each historical epoch. The initiative of being illuminates
65
disclosure that occurs in it can be comprehended neither in history (Geschichte) as " f a t e " (Geschick). "That being
terms of the being of the thing or object (Vorhandensein) nor itself and how being itself concerns thinking," says Heideg-
as a tool used by Dasein (Zuhandensein). The peasant's shoes ger, "does not depend initially or ever entirely on thinking.
in Van Gogh's painting, for example, are not simply objects That and how being itself affects thinking brings thinking to
we contemplate nor are they of any conceivable use to us in the point at which it arises from being itself in order that it
66
controlling things in our world. By standing in itself and corresponds to being as s u c h . " It is just this enigmatic
withholding itself, the art work "changes our usual relations interinvolvement of disclosure and concealment, of the giving
to world and earth and henceforth stops our customary and withdrawing of being, that Gadamer seizes upon and
acting and valuing, knowing and observing." 63
Out of its develops in his own thought. While Heidegger's reflection has
hiddenness, the work can be the revelation of a world: the concentrated more and more on the poet and the philoso-
hopes and fears, the sufferings and travail of the peasant's pher, seemingly abandoning the humanistic disciplines to
world open up to us and are preserved in it. Being as event technology, Gadamer's aim, as these essays demonstrate, is to
involves concealment as well as disclosure, obstinateness as bring Heidegger's later philosophy to bear on the whole range
 Hv EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION lv

of interpretive disciplines that constitute the humanistic and there, and only this, has the basic character of ek-sistence,
social sciences. "It seems to m e , " Gadamer declares, "that it i.e., of the ecstatic standing-within the truth of being." 6 8

is possible to bring to expression within the hermeneutical What fascinates Heidegger about thinking is not its character
consciousness itself Heidegger's statements concerning 'being' as a deliberate action of a subject, but its ontological role
and the line of inquiry he developed out of the experience of within the occurrence of disclosure in which it is used by
the 'turn,' and I have carried out this attempt in Truth and being. Man's thinking is the place — the " t h e r e " - where
6 7
Method. "
being discloses itself. The most accurate characterization of
The reader of these essays and of Truth and Method will thinking, therefore, is not as the achievement or work of man
find a close parallel between the relation of being and think- but as the achievement of being. Thinking has an ontological
ing in Heidegger's later writings and Gadamer's conception of status transcending human intentionality and purpose. For
the relation of tradition and understanding. Like Heidegger's both Heidegger and Gadamer, this statement is the corollary
notion of being, tradition is not a thing existing somehow of the assertion that being (tradition) has primacy rather than
behind its disclosures. As we have already seen, tradition is man.
precisely its happening, its continuing self-manifestations, Students of the later Heidegger will find the strongest
much as Heidegger defines being as eventful, i.e., as disclosive confirmation of the parallel between Heidegger's conception
rather than substantive. Now we can recognize the further of being and Gadamer's conception of tradition in the central
affinity between the hiddenness of being and the inexhaust- role language plays in both thinkers. We have already seen the
ibleness of tradition that preserves it in the face of every emphasis Gadamer places on the disclosing and concealing
investigation and prevents it from becoming a mere totality power of language as it functions in living conversation. In
of objects. For Gadamer, the ontological difference preserves what we say and in what is said to us, beings disclose
tradition as the inexhaustible reservoir of possibilities of themselves, but they withdraw from us as well and are never
meaning. fully manifest, for what is spoken has about it the circle of
The priority and initiative Heidegger claims for being in its the unsaid. For Heidegger and Gadamer alike, man not only
relation to thinking has a further implication that is of great uses language to express "himself," but, more basically, he
importance to Gadamer: it drives the concept of self-under- listens to it and hence to the subject matter that comes to
standing - indeed, the entire notion of selfhood - from its him in it. The words and concepts of a particular language
central position in Western philosophy. Man is not to be reveal an initiative of being: the language of a time is not so
defined prior to or independently of the event of being which much chosen by the persons who use it as it is their historical
thinking essentially serves. Not only is man not primary in his fate - the way being has revealed itself to and concealed
relation to being: man is at all only insofar as he is addressed itself from them as their starting point. The universal task of
by being and, in his thinking, participates in the event of hermeneutical reflection, as Gadamer conceives it in these
being. Thus, for Heidegger, the basic relation is not man's essays, is to hearken to and bring to language the possibilities
relation to himself (i.e., his "self-consciousness," his subjec- that are suggested but remain unspoken in what the tradition
tivity) but his relation to and immersion in the event of being speaks to us. This task is not only universal — present wher-
in which beings manifest themselves. Thinking is the place ever language is present — but it is also never finished. This is
where being clears itself and shines forth. "Standing within the mark of our finitude. Every historical situation elicits
the illumination of being," Heidegger says, "is what I call the new attempts to render the world into language. Each makes
ek-sistence of man. . . . Man is in such fashion that he is the its contribution to the tradition, but is itself inevitably
'there,' i.e., the illumination of being. This 'being' of the charged with new unspoken possibilities that drive our think-
 Ivi EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION Ivii
ing further and constitute the radical creativity of tradition. 25. Wilhelm von Humboldt, Werke (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche
As Heidegger has said, we are therefore always "on the way Buchgesellschaft, 1963), vol. 3, pp. 19-20.
to language." 26. Cf. WM, p. 4 1 8 .
2 7 . P. 6 5 . Cf. also "The Philosophical Foundations of the Twentieth
Century.
28. Pp. 85-86.
29. WM, p. 3 8 0 .
NOTES 30. UhL, p. 86. Cf. WM, p. 4 0 5 .
3 1 . UhL, p. 7 1 .
1. WM, p. xiv. 32. Cf. WM, pp. 4 4 3 - 4 4 4 .
2. Cf. "On the Problem of Self-Understanding" and Dilthey's in- 3 3 . P. 6 7 .
structive essay "Die Entstehung der Hermeneutik," in GS, vol. 5, pp. 34. Pp. 126-127.
3 1 7 - 3 3 8 , esp. pp. 3 2 1 - 3 2 6 . 35. T, 4 . 0 2 4 .
3. Cf. pp. 7, 9 8 - 9 9 . 36. Wittgenstein, The Blue Book (Oxford; Blackwell, 1960), p. 5.
4. Schleiermacher, Hermeneutik, trans. H. Kimmerle (Heidelberg: 37. PI, I, 6 6 .
Karl Winter, 1 9 5 9 ) , p. 86. 38. PI, I, 5; cf. The Blue Book, p. 17.
5. For Dilthey's theory of understanding, cf. GS, vol. 7, pp. 39. SuZ, pp. 167-168.
200-220. 40. P. 177.
6. P. 9, also cf. WM, p. 2 6 1 . 4 1 . PI, I, 77; also cf. PI, I, 7.
7. WM, p. 2 8 5 . 42. Cf. PI, I, 2 1 9 : "When I obey a rule, I do not choose. I obey the
8. Pp. 4-9. rule blindly." Cf. also PI, I, 198, 2 0 6 , 217.
9. WM, pp. 2 7 4 - 2 7 5 . 4 3 . Cf. Hegel, The Science of Logic (London: George Allen &
10. WM, p. 2 6 1 . Unwin, 1 9 5 1 ) , vol. 1, pp. 36-37, 67 ff., and PG, p. 4 4 (ET, pp.
11. Cf. esp. Emilio Betti, Die Hermeneutik als allgemeine Ausle- 111-112).
gungstheorie (Tubingen: Mohr, 1962) and Eric Hirsch, Jr., Validity in 44. WM, p. 4 1 8 .
Interpretation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967), pp. 2 4 5 - 2 6 4 . 45. WM, p. 2 8 8 .
Jurgen Habermas's Zur Logik der Sozialwissenschaften (PhR, Beiheft 5; 4 6 . P. 111.
Tubingen: Mohr, 1 9 6 7 ) , though generally more sympathetic to Gada- 47. Cf. K, pt. 2.
mer's position, shares this criticism. Cf. esp. pp. 2 7 2 - 2 7 6 . 48. Cf. the essays in GS, vol. 8, WM, pp. 2 0 4 - 2 2 8 , and m y essay
12. P. 29. "Dilthey and Gadamer: T w o Theories of Historical Understanding," in
13. P. 3 8 , also cf. "Semantics and Hermeneutics." The Journal of the American Academy of Religion, vol. 41 ( 1 9 7 3 ) , pp.
14. WM, p. 2 8 9 . 536-553.
15. WM, 3 6 9 . 4 9 . Husserl states his intentions clearly in the famous Logos article
16. Cf. esp. "The Universality of the Hermeneutical Problem." of 1 9 1 1 , "Philosophic als strenge Wissenschaft." T w o years later Ideas I
17. P. 58. appeared and began to implement the program of transcendental phe-
18. Cf. Hirsch, Validity in Interpretation, chap. 2. nomenology.
19. Cf. p. 2 0 9 . Although the mens auctoris provides no positive 50. A clear statement of the interpretation Gadamer is opposing is
standard for interpretation, it has the important negative function of found in Ludwig Landgrebe, "Husserls Abschied vom Cartesianismus "
excluding anachronistic interpretations, etc. Cf. also "Aesthetics and PhR, IX ( 1 9 6 2 ) , pp. 133-177.
Hermeneutics." 51. K, p. 1 1 4 ( E T , p . 112).
20. WM, p. 2 8 0 . 52. Cf. K, pp. 140-145 (ET, pp. 137-141), where Husserl raises this
2 1 . P. 96. radical question of the possible self-referential character of phenome-
22. Gerhard Ebeling, The Problem of Historicity (Philadelphia: For- nology in dealing with the life-world.
tress Press, 1 9 6 7 ) , p. 26. 53. SuZ, p. 38.
23. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Signs (Evanston, 111.: Northwestern Uni- 54. Heidegger, Unterwegs zur Sprache (Pfullingen: Neske, 1959),
versity Press, 1 9 6 4 ) , p. 59. pp. 97-98 (ET: On the Way to Language [New York: Harper & Row,
24. P. 6 2 . 1 9 7 1 ] , pp. 9-10).
Iviii EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

55. SuZ, pp. 52-53.

56. Cf. SuZ, pp. 4 1 - 4 9 , esp. p. 4 4 .
57. Heidegger. Was 1st Metaphysik? (Frankfurt: Klostermann,
1965), pp. 7-8.
58. Heidegger, Holzwege (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1950), p. 87.
59. SuZ, pp. 158-159, 3 5 9 - 3 6 0 , and Heidegger, Vom Wesen des
Grundes (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1955), pp. 12-16.
6 0 . Cf. Walter Schulz, "Uber den philosophiegeschichtlichen Ort
Martin Heideggers," PhR, I ( 1 9 5 3 - 5 4 ) , pp. 6 5 - 9 3 , 2 1 1 - 2 3 2 , and esp. pp.
Part I:
69-79.
6 1 . SuZ, p. 2 1 2 .
The Scope of
6 2 . Pp. 4 9 - 5 0 , and WM, PP- 2 4 1 - 2 4 3 .
6 3 . Heidegger, Holzwege, p. 54.
Hermeneutical Reflection
64. P. 2 2 6 .
65. Cf.HB, p. 4 6 .
66. Heidegger, Was 1st Metaphysik?, p. 10.
67. P. 5 0 .
68. HB, pp. 13, 15, and Identitdt und Differenz (Pfullingen: Neske,
1957), p. 2 2 .
 The Universality of the Hermeneutical
Problem (1966)

Why has the problem of language come to occupy the same

central position in current philosophical discussions that the
concept of thought, or "thought thinking itself," held in
philosophy a century and a half ago? By answering this
question, I shall try to give an answer indirectly to the central
question of the modern age — a question posed for us by the
existence of modern science. It is the question of how our
natural view of the world - the experience of the world that
we have as we simply live out our lives - is related to the
unassailable and anonymous authority that confronts us in
the pronouncements of science. Since the seventeenth cen-
tury, the real task of philosophy has been to mediate this
new employment of man's cognitive and constructive capaci-
ties with the totality of our experience of life. This task has
found expression in a variety of ways, including our own
generation's attempt to bring the topic of language to the
center of philosophical concern. Language is the fundamental
mode of operation of our being-in-the-world and the all-
embracing form of the constitution of the world. Hence we
always have in view the pronouncements of the sciences,
which are fixed in nonverbal signs. And our task is to recon-
n e
c t the objective world of technology, which the sciences
Place at our disposal and discretion, with those fundamental

3
4 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION UNIVERSALITY OF THE PROBLEM 5

orders of our being that are neither arbitrary nor manipulable y s and presents and that it should have its place in the
s a

by us, but rather simply demand our respect. vvorld where men live together. The consciousness of art -
I want to elucidate several phenomena in which the uni- the aesthetic consciousness — is always secondary to the
versality of this question becomes evident. I have called the immediate truth-claim that proceeds from the work of art
point of view involved in this theme "hermeneutical," a term itself. To this extent, when we judge a work of art on the
developed by Heidegger. Heidegger was continuing a perspec- basis of its aesthetic quality, something that is really much
tive stemming originally from Protestant theology and trans- more intimately familiar to us is alienated. This alienation
mitted into our own century by Wilhelm Dilthey. into aesthetic judgment always takes place when we have
What is hermeneutics? I would like to start from two withdrawn ourselves and are no longer open to the immediate
experiences of alienation that we encounter in our concrete claim of that which grasps us. Thus one point of departure
existence: the experience of alienation of the aesthetic con- for my reflections in Truth and Method was that the aes-
sciousness and the experience of alienation of the historical thetic sovereignty that claims its rights in the experience of
consciousness. In both cases what I mean can be stated in a art represents an alienation when compared to the authentic
few words. The aesthetic consciousness realizes a possibility experience that confronts us in the form of art itself.
that as such we can neither deny nor diminish in its value, About thirty years ago, this problem cropped up in a
namely, that we relate ourselves, either negatively or affirma- particularly distorted form when National Socialist politics of
tively, to the quality of an artistic form. This statement art, as a means to its own ends, tried to criticize formalism by
means we are related in such a way that the judgment we arguing that art is bound to a people. Despite its misuse by
make decides in the end regarding the expressive power and the National Socialists, we cannot deny that the idea of art
validity of what we judge. What we reject has nothing to say being bound to a people involves a real insight. A genuine
to us — or we reject it because it has nothing to say to us. artistic creation stands within a particular community, and
This characterizes our relation to art in the broadest sense of such a community is always distinguishable from the cultured
the word, a sense that, as Hegel has shown,, includes the society that is informed and terrorized by art criticism.
entire religious world of the ancient Greeks, whose religion of The second mode of the experience of alienation is the
beauty experienced the divine in concrete works of art that historical consciousness - the noble and slowly perfected art
man creates in response to the gods. When it loses its original of holding ourselves at a critical distance in dealing with
and unquestioned authority, this whole world of experience witnesses to past life. Ranke's celebrated description of this
becomes alienated into an object of aesthetic judgment. At idea as the extinguishing of the individual provided a popular
the same time, however, we must admit that the world of formula for the ideal of historical thinking: the historical
artistic tradition - the splendid contemporaneousness that consciousness has the task of understanding all the witnesses
we gain through art with so many human worlds — is more of a past time out of the spirit of that time, of extricating
than a mere object of our free acceptance or rejection. Is it them from the preoccupations of our own present life, and of
not true that when a work of art has seized us it no longer knowing, without moral smugness, the past as a human
leaves us the freedom to push it away from us once again and phenomenon. In his well-known essay The Use and Abuse of
to accept or reject it on our own terms? And is it not also History, Nietzsche formulated the contradiction between this
true that these artistic creations, which come down through historical distancing and the immediate will to shape things
the millennia, were not created for such aesthetic acceptance that always cleaves to the present. And at the same time he
or rejection? No artist of the religiously vital cultures of the exposed many of the consequences of what he called the
past ever produced his work of art with any other intention "Alexandrian," weakened form of the will, which is found in
then that his creation should be received in terms of what it modern historical science. We might recall his indictment of
6 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION UNIVERSALITY OF THE PROBLEM 7

the weakness of evaluation that has befallen the modern our actual encounter with historical tradition — and it knows
mind because it has become so accustomed to considering only an alienated form of this historical tradition.
things in ever different and changing lights that it is blinded We can contrast the hermeneutical consciousness with
and incapable of arriving at an opinion of its own regarding these examples of alienation as a more comprehensive possi-
the objects it studies. It is unable to determine its own bility that we must develop. But, in the case of this herme-
position vis-a-vis what confronts it. Nietzsche traces the neutical consciousness also, our initial task must be to over-
value-blindness of historical objectivism back to the conflict come the epistemological truncation by which the traditional
between the alienated historical world and the life-powers of "science of hermeneutics" has been absorbed into the idea of
the present. modern science. If we consider Schleiermacher's hermeneu-
To be sure, Nietzsche is an ecstatic witness. But our actual tics, for instance, we find his view of this discipline peculiarly
experience of the historical consciousness in the last one restricted by the modern idea of science. Schleiermacher's
hundred years has taught us most emphatically that there are hermeneutics shows him to be a leading voice of historical
serious difficulties involved in its claim to historical objec- romanticism. But at the same time, he kept the concern of
tivity. Even in those masterworks of historical scholarship the Christian theologian clearly in mind, intending his herme-
that seem to be the very consummation of the extinguishing neutics, as a general doctrine of the art of understanding, to
of the individual demanded by Ranke, it is still an unques- be of value in the special work of interpreting Scripture.
tioned principle of our scientific experience that we can Schleiermacher defined hermeneutics as the art of avoiding
classify these works with unfailing accuracy in terms of the misunderstanding. To exclude by controlled, methodical con-
political tendencies of the time in which they were written. sideration whatever is alien and leads to misunderstanding —
When we read Mommsen's History of Rome, we know who misunderstanding suggested to us by distance in time, change
alone could have written it, that is, we can identify the in linguistic usages, or in the meanings of words and modes of
political situation in which this historian organized the voices thinking - that is certainly far from an absurd description of
of the past in a meaningful way. We know it too in the case the hermeneutical endeavor. But the question also arises as to
of Treitschke or of Sybel, to choose only a few prominent whether the phenomenon of understanding is defined appro-
names from Prussian historiography. This clearly means, first priately when we say that to understand is to avoid misunder-
of all, that the whole reality of historical experience does not standing. Is it not, in fact, the case that every misunderstand-
find expression in the mastery of historical method. No one ing presupposes a "deep common accord"?
disputes the fact that controlling the prejudices of our own
I am trying to call attention here to a common experience.
present to such an extent that we do not misunderstand the
We say, for instance, that understanding and misunderstand-
witnesses of the past is a valid aim, but obviously such
ing take place between I and thou. But the formulation "I
control does not completely fulfill the task of understanding
and t h o u " already betrays an enormous alienation. There is
the past and its transmissions. Indeed, it could very well be
nothing like an "I and t h o u " at all - there is neither the I nor
that only insignificant things in historical scholarship permit
the thou as isolated, substantial realities. I may say " t h o u "
us to approximate this ideal of totally extinguishing individ-
and I may refer to myself over against a thou, but a common
uality, while the great productive achievements of scholarship
understanding [ Verstdndigung] always precedes these situa-
always preserve something of the splendid magic of imme-
tions. We all know that to say " t h o u " to someone presup-
diately mirroring the present in the past and the past in the
poses a deep common accord [tiefes Einverstandnis]. Some-
present. Historical science, the second experience from wnich
thing enduring is already present when this word is spoken.
I begin, expresses only one part of our actual experience -
When we try to reach agreement on a matter on which we
8 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION UNIVERSALITY OF THE PROBLEM 9
have different opinions, this deeper factor always comes into live, influences us in everything we want, hope for, or fear in
play, even if we are seldom aware of it. Now the science of the future. History is only present to us in light of our
hermeneutics would have us believe that the opinion we have futurity. Here we have all learned from Heidegger, for he
to understand is something alien that seeks to lure us into exhibited precisely the primacy of futurity for our possible
misunderstanding, and our task is to exclude every element recollection and retention, and for the whole of our history.
through which a misunderstanding can creep in. We accom- Heidegger worked out this primacy in his doctrine of the
plish this task by a controlled procedure of historical train- productivity of the hermeneutical circle. I have given the
ing, by historical criticism, and by a controllable method in following formulation to this insight: It is not so much our
connection with powers of psychological empathy. It seems judgments as it is our prejudices that constitute our being.*
to me that this description is valid in one respect, but yet it is This is a provocative formulation, for I am using it to restore
only a partial description of a comprehensive life-phenome- to its rightful place a positive concept of prejudice that was
non that constitutes the " w e " that we all are. Our task, it driven out of our linquistic usage by the French and the
seems to me, is to transcend the prejudices that underlie the English Enlightenment. It can be shown that the concept of
aesthetic consciousness, the historical consciousness, and the prejudice did not originally have the meaning we have
hermeneutical consciousness that has been restricted to a attached to it. Prejudices are not necessarily unjustified and
technique for avoiding misunderstandings and to overcome erroneous, so that they inevitably distort the truth. In fact,
the alienations present in them all. the historicity of our existence entails that prejudices, in the
literal sense of the word, constitute the initial directedness of
What is it, then, in* these three experiences that seemed to
our whole ability to experience. Prejudices are biases of our
us to have been left out, and what makes us so sensitive to
openness to the world. They are simply conditions whereby
the distinctiveness of these experiences? What is the aesthetic
we experience something — whereby what we encounter says
consciousness when compared to the fullness of what has
something to us. This formulation certainly does not mean
already addressed us - what we call "classical" in art? Is it
that we are enclosed within a wall of prejudices and only let
not always already determined in this way what will be
through the narrow portals those things that can produce a
expressive for us and what we will find significant? Whenever
pass saying, "Nothing new will be said here." Instead we
we say with an instinctive, even if perhaps erroneous, cer-
welcome just that guest who promises something new to our
tainty (but a certainty that is initially valid for our conscious-
curiosity. But how do we know the guest whom we admit is
ness) "this is classical; it will endure," what we are speaking
one who has something new to say to us? Is not our expecta-
of has already preformed our possibility for aesthetic judg-
tion and our readiness to hear the new also necessarily
ment. There are no purely formal criteria that can claim to
determined by the old that has already taken possession of
judge and sanction the formative level simply on the basis of
us? The concept of prejudice is closely connected to the
its artistic virtuosity. Rather, our sensitive-spiritual existence
concept of authority, and the above image makes it clear that
is an aesthetic resonance chamber that resonates with the
it is in need of hermeneutical rehabilitation. Like every
voices that are constantly reaching us, preceding all explicit
irnage, however, this one too is misleading. The nature of the
aesthetic judgment.
hermeneutical experience is not that something is outside and
The situation is similar with the historical consciousness. desires admission. Rather, we are possessed by something and
Here, too, we must certainly admit that there are innumera- Precisely by means of it we are opened up for the new, the
ble tasks of historical scholarship that have no relation t c our different, the true. Plato made this clear in his beautiful
own present and to the depths of its historical consciousness.
But it seems to me there can be no doubt that the great
horizon of the past, out of which our culture and our present •Cf. WM, p. 261.
 10 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION UNIVERSALITY OF THE PROBLEM 11

comparison of bodily foods with spiritual nourishment: while enable us to deal, with the basic factor of contemporary
we can refuse the former (e.g., on the advice of a physician), culture, namely, science and its industrial, technological utili-
we have always taken the latter into ourselves already. zation. Statistics provide us with a useful example of how the
But now the question arises as to how we can legitimate hermeneutical dimension encompasses the entire procedure
this hermeneutical conditionedness of our being in the face 0f science. It is an extreme example, but it shows us that
of modern science, which stands or falls with the principle of science always stands under definite conditions of method-
being unbiased and prejudiceless. We will certainly not ac- ological abstraction and that the successes of modern sciences
complish this legitimation by making prescriptions for sci- rest on the fact that other possibilities for questioning are
ence and recommending that it toe the line - quite aside concealed by abstraction. This fact comes out clearly in the
from the fact that such pronouncements always have some- case of statistics, for the anticipatory character of the ques-
thing comical about them. Science will not do us this favor. tions statistics answer make it particularly suitable for propa-
It will continue along its own path with an inner necessity ganda purposes. Indeed, effective propaganda must always
beyond its control, and it will produce more and more try to influence initially the judgment of the person ad-
breathtaking knowledge and controlling power. It can be no dressed and to restrict his possibilities of judgment. Thus
other way. It is senseless, for instance, to hinder a genetic what is established by statistics seems to be a language of
researcher because such research threatens to breed a super- facts, but which questions these facts answer and which facts
man. Hence the problem cannot appear as one in which our would begin to speak if other questions were asked are
human consciousness ranges itself over against the world of hermeneutical questions. Only a hermeneutical inquiry would
science and presumes to develop a kind of antiscience. Never- legitimate the meaning of these facts and thus the conse-
theless, we cannot avoid the question of whether what we are quences that follow from them.
aware of in such apparently harmless examples as the aes-
But I am anticipating, and have inadvertently used the
thetic consciousness and the historical consciousness does not
phrase, "which answers to which questions fit the facts."
represent a problem that is also present in modern natural
This phrase is in fact the hermeneutical Urphdnomen: No
science and our technological attitude toward the world. If
assertion is possible that cannot be understood as an answer
modern science enables us to erect a new world of techno-
to a question, and assertions can only be understood in this
logical purposes that transforms everything around us, we are
way. It does not impair the impressive methodology of mod-
not thereby suggesting that the researcher who gained the
ern science in the least. Whoever wants to learn a science has
knowledge decisive for this state of affairs even considered
to learn to master its methodology. But we also know that
technical applications. The genuine researcher is motivated
methodology as such does not guarantee in any way the
by a desire for knowledge and by nothing else. And yet, over
productivity of its application. Any experience of life can
against the whole of our civilization that is founded on
confirm the fact that there is such a thing as methodological
modern science, we must ask repeatedly if something has not
sterility, that is, the application of a method to something
been omitted. If the presuppositions of these possibilities for
not really worth knowing, to something that has not been
knowing and making remain half in the dark, cannot the
made an object of investigation on the basis of a genuine
result be that the hand applying this knowledge will be
question.
destructive?
The methodological self-consciousness of modern science
The problem is really universal. The hermeneutical ques- certainly stands in opposition to this argument. A historian,
tion, as I have characterized it, is not restricted to the areas for example, will say in reply: It is all very nice to talk about
from which I began in my own investigations. My only the historical tradition in which alone the voices of the past
concern there was to secure a theoretical basis that would gain their meaning and through which the prejudices that
 12 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION UNIVERSALITY OF THE PROBLEM 13
determine the present are inspired. But the situation is com- which Socrates gets into a dispute with the Sophist virtuosi
pletely different in questions of serious historical research. and drives them to despair by his questions. Eventually they
How could one seriously mean, for example, that the clarifi- can endure his questions no longer and claim for themselves
cation of the taxation practices of fifteenth-century cities or the apparently preferable role of the questioner. And what
of the marital customs of Eskimos somehow first receive happens? They can think of nothing at all to ask. Nothing at
their meaning from the consciousness of the present and its all occurs to them that is worth while going into and trying
anticipations? These are questions of historical knowledge to answer.
that we take up as tasks quite independently of any relation I draw the following inference from this observation. The
to the present. real power of hermeneutical consciousness is our ability to
In answering this objection, one can say that the extremity see what is questionable. Now if what we have before our
of this point of view would be similar to what we find in eyes is not only the artistic tradition of a people, or historical
certain large industrial research facilities, above all in America tradition, or the principle of modern science in its hermeneu-
and Russia. I mean the so-called random experiment in which tical preconditions but rather the whole of our experience,
one simply covers the material without concern for waste or then we have succeeded, I think, in joining the experience of
cost, taking the chance that some day one measurement science to our own universal and human experience of life.
among the thousands of measurements will finally yield an For we have now reached the fundamental level that we can
interesting finding; that is, it will turn out to be the answer to call (with Johannes Lohmann) the "linguistic constitution of
1
a question from which someone can progress. No doubt the world." It presents itself as the consciousness that is
modern research in the humanities also works this way to effected by history [wirkungsgeschichtliches Bewusstsein]
some extent. One thinks, for instance, of the great editions and that provides an initial schematization for all our possi-
and especially of the ever more perfect indexes. It must bilities of knowing. I leave out of account the fact that the
remain an open question, of course, whether by such proce- scholar - even the natural scientist - is perhaps not com-
dures modern historical research increases the chances of pletely free of custom and society and from all possible
actually noticing the interesting fact and thus gaining from it factors in his environment. What I mean is that precisely
the corresponding enrichment of our knowledge. But even if within his scientific experience it is not so much the "laws of
they do, one might ask: Is this an ideal, that countless ironclad inference" (Helmholz) that present fruitful ideas to
research projects (i.e., determinations of the connection of him, but rather unforseen constellations that kindle the spark
facts) are extracted from a thousand historians, so that the of scientific inspiration (e.g., Newton's falling apple or some
1001st historian can find something interesting? Of course I other incidental observation).
am drawing a caricature of genuine scholarship. But in every The consciousness that is effected by history has its fulfill-
caricature there is an element of truth, and this one contains ment in what is linquistic. We can learn from the sensitive
an indirect answer to the question of what it is that really student of language that language, in its life and occurrence,
makes the productive scholar. That he has learned the must not be thought of as merely changing, but rather as
methods? The person who never produces anything new has something that has a teleology operating within it. This
also done that. It is imagination [Phantasie] that is the means that the words that are formed, the means of expres-
decisive function of the scholar. Imagination naturally has a sion that appear in a language in order to say certain things,
hermeneutical function and serves the sense for what is are not accidentally fixed, since they do not once again fall
questionable. It serves the ability to expose real, productive altogether into disuse. Instead, a definite articulation of the
questions, something in which, generally speaking, only he world is built up - a process that works as if guided and one
who masters all the methods of his science succeeds. that we can always observe in children who are learning to
As a student of Plato, I particularly love those scenes in speak.
 14 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION UNIVERSALITY OF THE PROBLEM 15

We can illustrate this by considering a passage in Aristotle's contend, is the real mode of operation of our whole human
Posterior Analytics that ingeniously describes one definite experience of the world. Learning to speak is surely a phase
2
aspect of language formation. The passage treats what Aris- of special productivity, and in the course of time we have all
totle calls the epagoge, that is, the formation of the universal. transformed the genius of the three-year-old into a poor and
How does one arrive at a universal? In philosophy we say: meager talent. But in the utilization of the linguistic interpre-
how do we arrive at a general concept, but even words in this tation of the world that finally comes about, something of
sense are obviously general. How does it happen that they are the productivity of our beginnings remains alive. We are all
"words," that is, that they have a general meaning? In his acquainted with this, for instance, in the attempt to translate,
first apperception, a sensuously equipped being finds himself in practical life or in literature or wherever; that is, we are
in a surging sea of stimuli, and finally one day he begins, as familiar with the strange, uncomfortable, and tortuous feel-
we say, to know something. Clearly we do not mean that he ing we have as long as we do not have the right word. When
was previously blind. Rather, when we say " t o k n o w " we have found the right expression (it need not always be
[erkennen] we mean " t o recognize" [wiedererkennen], that one word), when we are certain that we have it, then it
is, to pick something out [herauserkennen ] of the stream of "stands," then something has come to a "stand." Once again
images flowing past as being identical. What is picked out in we have a halt in the midst of the rush of the foreign
this fashion is clearly retained. But how? When does a child language, whose endless variation makes us lose our orienta-
know its mother for the first time? When it sees her for the tion. What I am describing is the mode of the whole human
first time? No. Then when? How does it take place? Can we experience of the world. I call this experience hermeneutical,
really say at all that there is a single event in which a first for the process we are describing is repeated continually
knowing extricates the child from the darkness of not know- throughout our familiar experience. There is always a world
ing? It seems obvious to me that we cannot. Aristotle has already interpreted, already organized in its basic relations,
described this wonderfully. He says it is the same as when an into which experience steps as something new, upsetting
army is in flight, driven by panic, until at last someone stops what has led our expectations and undergoing reorganization
and looks around to see whether the foe is still dangerously itself in the upheaval. Misunderstanding and strangeness are
close behind. We cannot say that the army stops when one not the first factors, so that avoiding misunderstanding can
soldier has stopped. But then another stops. The army does be regarded as the specific task of hermeneutics. Just the
not stop by virtue of the fact that two soldiers stop. When reverse is the case. Only the support of familiar and common
does it actually stop, then? Suddenly it stands its ground understanding makes possible the venture into the alien, the
again. Suddenly it obeys the command once again. A subtle lifting up of something out of the alien, and thus the broad-
pun in involved in Aristotle's description, for in Greek "com- ening and enrichment of our own experience of the world.
m a n d " means arche, that is, principium. When is the principle This discussion shows how the claim to universality that is
present as a principle? Through what capacity? This question appropriate to the hermeneutical dimension is to be under-
is in fact the question of the occurrence of the universal. stood. Understanding is language-bound. But this assertion
If I have not misunderstood Johannes Lohmann's exposi- does not lead us into any kind of linguistic relativism. It is
tion, precisely this same teleology operates constantly in the indeed true that we live within a language, but language is not
life of language. When Lohmann speaks of linguistic tenden- a system of signals that we send off with the aid of a
f
cies as the real agents of history in which specific o r m s telegraphic key when we enter the office or transmission
expand, he knows of course that it occurs in these forms of station. That is not speaking, for it does not have the infinity
realization, of "coming to a stand" [Zum-Stehen-Kommen], of the act that is linguistically creative and world experienc-
as the beautiful German word says. What is manifest here, I ing. While we live wholly within a language, the fact that we
16 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION UNIVERSALITY OF THE PROBLEM 17
do so does not constitute linguistic relativism because there is of them the simultaneous building up of our own world in
absolutely no captivity within a language - not even within language still persists whenever we want to say something to
our native language. We all experience this when we learn a each other. The result is the actual relationship of men to
foreign language, especially on journeys insofar as we master each other. Each one is at first a kind of linguistic circle, and
the foreign language to some extent. To master the foreign these linguistic circles come into contact with each other,
language means precisely that when we engage in speaking it merging more and more. Language occurs once again, in
in the foreign land, we do not constantly consult inwardly vocabulary and grammar as always, and never without the
our own world and its vocabulary. The better we know the inner infinity of the dialogue that is in progress between
language, the less such a side glance at our native language is every speaker and his partner. That is the fundamental di-
perceptible, and only because we never know foreign lan- mension of hermeneutics. Genuine speaking, which has some-
guages well enough do we always have something of this thing to say and hence does not give prearranged signals, but
feeling. But it is nevertheless already speaking, even if per- rather seeks words through which one reaches the other
haps a stammering speaking, for stammering is the obstruc- person, is the universal human task - but it is a special task
tion of a desire to speak and is thus opened into the infinite for the theologian, to whom is commissioned the saying-
realm of possible expression. Any language in which we live is further (Weitersagen) of a message that stands written.
infinite in this sense, and it is completely mistaken to infer
that reason is fragmented because there are various languages.
Just the opposite is the case. Precisely through our finitude, NOTES
the particularity of our being, which is evident even in the
variety of languages, the infinite dialogue is opened in the 1. Cf. Johannes Lohmann, Philosophic und Sprachwissenschaft
direction of the truth that we are. (Berlin: Duncker & Humbolt, 1963).
2. Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, 100a 11-13.
If this is correct, then the relation of our modern industrial
world, founded by science, which we described at the outset,
is mirrored above all on the level of language. We live in an
epoch in which an increasing leveling of all life-forms is
taking place — that is the rationally necessary requirement
for maintaining life on our planet. The food problem of
mankind, for example, can only be overcome by the surren-
der of the lavish wastefulness that has covered the earth.
Unavoidably, the mechanical, industrial world is expanding
within the life of the individual as a sort of sphere of
technical perfection. When we hear modern lovers talking to
each other, we often wonder if they are communicating with
words or with advertising labels and technical terms from the
sign language of the modern industrial world. It is inevitable
that the leveled life-forms of the industrial age also affect
language, and in fact the impoverishment of the vocabulary
of language is making enormous progress, thus bringing about
an approximation of language to a technical sign-system.
Leveling tendencies of this kind are irresistible. Yet in spite
 SCOPE AND FUNCTION OF REFLECTION 19
very essence. It should be evident already from the essential
linguisticality of all human experience of the world, which
has as its own way of fulfillment a constantly self-renewing
contemporaneousness. I maintain that precisely this contem-
poraneousness and this linguisticality point to a truth that
goes questioningly behind all knowledge and anticipatingly
2 before it.
And so it was unavoidable that in my analysis of the
On the Scope and Function of universal linguisticality of man's relation to the world, the
Hermeneutical Reflection (1967) limitations of the fields of experience from which the investi-
gation took its start would unwittingly predetermine the
(Translated by G. B. Hess and R. E. Palmer) result. Indeed, it paralleled what happened in the historical
development of the hermeneutical problem. It came into
being in encounter with the written tradition that demanded
translation, for the tradition had become estranged from the
present as a result of such factors as temporal distance, the
fixity of writing, and the sheer inertia of permanence. Thus it
Introduction was that the many-layered problem of translation became for
Philosophical hermeneutics takes as its task the opening up of me the model for the linguisticality of all human behavior in
the hermeneutical dimension in its full scope, showing its the world. From the structure of translation was indicated
fundamental significance for our entire understanding of the the general problem of making what is alien our own. Yet
world and thus for all the various forms in which this under- further reflection on the universality of hermeneutics eventu-
standing manifests itself: from interhuman communication to ally made clear that the model of translation does not, as
manipulation of society; from personal experience by the such, fully come to grips with the manifoldness of what
1

individual in society to the way in which he encounters language means in man's existence. Certainly in translation
society; and from the tradition as it is built of religion and one finds the tension and release that structure all under-
law, art and philosophy, to the revolutionary consciousness standing and understandability, but it ultimately derives from
that unhinges the tradition through emancipatory reflection. the universality of the hermeneutical problem. It is important
to realize that this phenomenon is not secondary in human
Despite this vast scope and significance, however, individ-
existence, and hermeneutics is not to be viewed as a mere
ual explorations necessarily start from the very limited expe-
subordinate discipline within the arena of the Geisteswissen-
riences and fields of experience. My own effort, for instance,
schaften.
went back to Dilthey's philosophical development of the
heritage of German romanticism, in that I too made the The universal phenomenon of human linguisticality also
theory of the Geisteswissenschaften (humanistic sciences and unfolds in other dimensions than those which would appear
social sciences) my theme. But I hope to have placed it on a to be directly concerned with the hermeneutical problem, for
new and much broader footing linguistically, ontologically, hermeneutics reaches into all the contexts that determine and
and aesthetically; for the experience of art can answer the condition the linguisticality of the human experience of the
prevailing presumption of historical alienation in the human- world. Some of those have been touched upon in my Truth
istic disciplines, I believe, with its own overriding and victori- and Method; for instance, the wirkungsgeschichtliches Be-
ous claim to contemporaneousness, a claim that lies in its wusstsein (consciousness of effective history, or the con-
18
 20 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION SCOPE AND FUNCTION OF REFLECTION 21

sciousness in which history is ever at work) was presented in govern it. It builds, as does rhetoric, on a natural power that
a conscious effort to shed light on the idea of language in everyone possesses to some degree. It is a skill in which one
some phases of its history. And of course linguisticality gifted person may surpass all others, and theory can at best
extends into many different dimensions not mentioned in only tell us why. In both rhetoric and hermeneutics, then,
2
Truth and Method. theory is subsequent to that out of which it is abstracted;
In rhetoric, linguisticality is attested to in a truly universal that is, to praxis.
form, one that is essentially prior to the hermeneutical and Historically it is worthy of note that while rhetoric belongs
almost represents something like the "positive" as over to the earliest Greek philosophy, hermeneutics came to
against the "negative" of linguistic interpretation. And in this flower in the Romantic era as a consequence of the modern
connection the relationship between rhetoric and hermeneu- dissolution of firm bonds with tradition. Of course, herme-
3
tics is a matter of great interest. In the social sciences, one neutics occurs in earlier times and forms, but even in these it
finds linguisticality deeply woven into the sociality of human represents an effort to grasp something vanishing and hold it
existence, so that the theorists of the social sciences are now up in the light of consciousness. Therefore, it occurs only in
becoming interested in the hermeneutical approach. Preemi- later stages of cultural evolution, like later Jewish religion,
nently, Jiirgen Habermas has recently established a relation- Alexandrian philology, Christianity as inheriting the Jewish
ship between philosophical hermeneutics and the logic of the gospel, or Lutheran theology as refuting an old tradition of
social sciences in his significant contribution to the Philo- Christian dogmatics. The history-embracing and history-
sophische Rundschau* evaluating this relationship from preserving element runs deep in hermeneutics, in sharp con-
within the epistemological interests of the social sciences. trast to sociological interest in reflection as basically a means
This relationship too raises important questions as to the of emancipation from authority and tradition. Reflection in
proper interests and purposes of hermeneutical reflection as rhetoric, like that in hermeneutics, is a meditation about a
compared with those characteristic of the sciences and social praxis that is in itself already a natural and sophisticated one.
sciences. I should like to recall something of the early history of both
It seems advisable, then, if not imperative, to take up the rhetoric and hermeneutics in order to characterize and com-
question of the interdependence of rhetoric, hermeneutics, pare the scope and functions of the two fields.
and sociology as regards the universalities that run through all
three, and to try to shed some light on the various kinds of
legitimacy possessed by these elements. This endeavor is the Rhetoric and Hermeneutics
more important in view of the fact that the claim to being The first history of rhetoric was written by Aristotle, and
strictly a science is in all three cases rendered rather ambigu- we now possess only fragments of it. It is clear, however, that
ous because of an obvious relationship to praxis. Of course basically Aristotle's theory of rhetoric was developed to carry
this relationship applies most openly and clearly to rhetoric out a program originally projected by Plato. Plato, going back
and hermeneutics; but it also applies to sociology, as we shall behind all the shallow claims put forward by the contempo-
see presently. rary teachers of rhetoric, had discovered a genuine founda-
For it is clear that rhetoric is not mere theory of forms of tion for rhetoric that only the philosopher, the dialectician,
speech and persuasion; rather, it can develop out of a native could carry out: the task is to master the faculty of speaking
talent for practical mastery, without any theoretic.l reflec- in such an effectively persuasive way that the arguments
tion about ways and means. Likewise, the art of under- brought forward are always appropriate to the specific recep-
standing, whatever its ways and means may be, is not depen- tivity of the souls to which they are directed. Certainly this
dent on an explicit awareness of the rules that guide and Statement of the task of rhetoric is theoretically enlightening,
 22 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION SCOPE AND FUNCTION OF REFLECTION 23
but implicit in it are two Platonic assumptions: first, that came into its own in modern times, which had become aware
only he who has a grasp of the truth (i.e., the ideas) can 0f the temporal distance separating us from antiquity and of
unerringly devise the probable pseudos of a rhetorical argu- the relativity of the life-worlds of different cultural tradi-
ment; second, that one must have a profound knowledge of tions. Something of this awareness was contained in the
the souls of those one wishes to persuade. Aristotelian rheto- theological claim of Reformation biblical exegesis (in the
ric is preeminently an expansion of the latter theme. In it is principle of sola scriptura), but its true unfolding only came
fulfilled the theory of the mutual accommodation of speech about when a "historical consciousness" arose in the Enlight-
and soul demanded by Plato in the Phaedrus, now in the enment (although it was influenced by the novel insights of
form of an anthropological foundation for the art of speech. Jesuit chronological information) and matured in the roman-
Rhetorical theory was a long prepared-for, result, of a tic period to establish a relationship (however broken) to our
controversy that represented the breaking into Greek culture entire inheritance from the past.
of an intoxicating and frightening new art of speaking and a Because of this historical development of hermeneutics
new idea of education itself: that of the Sophists. At that hermeneutical theory oriented itself to the task of interpret-
time an uncanny new skill in standing everything on its head, ing expressions of life that are fixed in writing, although
the Sicilian art of oratory, flowed in on the strait-laced but Schleiermacher's theoretical working out of hermeneutics
easily influenced youths of Athens. Now it became para- included understanding as it takes place in the oral exchange
mountry necessary to teach this new power (this great ruler, of conversation. Rhetoric, on the other hand, concerned
as Gorgias had called oratory) its proper limits - to discipline itself with the impact of speaking in all its immediacy. It did
it. From Protagoras to Isocrates, the masters of rhetoric of course also enter into the realm of effective writing, and
claimed not only to teach speaking, but also the formation of thus it developed a body of teaching on style and styles.
a civic consciousness that bore the promise of political suc- Nevertheless, it achieved its authentic realization not in the
cess. But it was Plato who first created the foundations out act of reading but in speaking. The phenomenon of the orally
of which a new and all-shattering art of speaking (Aristoph- read speech occupies an in-between, a hybrid, position: al-
anes has depicted it for us blatantly enough) could find its ready it displays a tendency to base the art of speaking on
limits and legitimate place. the techniques of expression inherent in the medium of
The history of understanding is no less ancient and venera- writing, and thus it begins to abstract itself from the original
ble. If one acknowledges hermeneutics to exist wherever a situation of speaking. Thus begins the transformation into
genuine art of understanding manifests itself, one must begin poetics, whose linguistic objects are so wholly and com-
if not with Nestor in the Iliad, then at least with Odysseus. pletely art that their transformation from the oral sphere into
One can point out that the new philosophical movement writing and back is accomplished without loss or damage.
represented by the Sophists was concerned with the interpre- Rhetoric as such, however, is tied to the immediacy of its
tation of sayings by famous poets and depicted them very effect. Now the arousing of emotions, which is clearly the
artfully as pedagogical examples. Certainly this was a form of 6
essence of the orator's task, is effectual to a vastly dimin-
hermeneutics. Over against this, one can place the Socratic ished degree in written expression, which is the traditional
5
hermeneutics. Still, it is far from a full-fledged theory of object of hermeneutical investigation. And this is precisely
understanding. It seems, rather, to be generally characteristic the difference that matters: the orator carries his listeners
of the emergence of the "hermeneutical" problem that some- away with him; the convincing power of his arguments over-
thing distant has to be brought close, a certain strangeness whelms the listener. While under the persuasive spell of
overcome, a bridge built between the once and the now. Thus speech, the listener for the moment cannot and ought not to
hermeneutics, as a general attitude over against the world, indulge in critical examination. On the other hand, the read-
24 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION SCOPE AND FUNCTION OF REFLECTION 25

ing and interpreting of what is written is so distanced and of immediate understandability of texts handed down to us
detached from its author - from his mood, intentions, and historically or their proneness to be misunderstood is really
unexpressed tendencies — that the grasping of the meaning of only a special case of what is to be met in all human
the text takes on something of the character of an indepen- orientation to the world as the atopon (the strange), that
dent productive act, one that resembles more the art of the which does not "fit" into the customary order of our expec-
orator than the process of mere listening. Thus it is easy to tation based on experience. Hermeneutics has only called our
understand why the theoretical tools of the art of interpreta- attention to this phenomenon. Just as when we progress in
tion (hermeneutics) have been to a large extent borrowed understanding the mirabilia lose their strangeness, so every
from rhetoric. 7
successful appropriation of tradition is dissolved into a new
Where, indeed, but to rhetoric should the theoretical ex- and distinct familiarity in which it belongs to us and we to it.
amination of interpretation turn? Rhetoric from oldest tradi- They both flow together into one owned and shared world,
tion has been the only advocate of a claim to truth that which encompasses past and present and which receives its
defends the probable, the eikos (verisimile), and that which is linguistic articulation in the speaking of man with man.
convincing to the ordinary reason, against the claim of sci- The phenomenon of understanding, then, shows the uni-
ence to accept as true only what can be demonstrated and versality of human linguisticality as a limitless medium that
tested! Convincing and persuading, without being able to carries everything within it — not only the "culture" that has
prove — these are obviously as much the aim and measure of been handed down to us through language, but absolutely
understanding and interpretation as they are the aim and everything — because everything (in the world and out of it)
measure of the art of oration and persuasion. And this whole is included in the realm of "understandings" and understand-
wide realm of convincing "persuasions" and generally reign- ability in which we move. Plato was right when he asserted
ing views has not been gradually narrowed by the progress of that whoever regards things in the mirror of speech becomes
science, however great it has been; rather, this realm extends aware of them in their full and undiminished truth. And he
to take in every new product of scientific endeavor, claiming was profoundly correct when he taught that all cognition is
it for itself and bringing it within its scope. only what it is as re-cognition, for a "first cognition" is as
The ubiquity of rhetoric, indeed, is unlimited. Only little possible as a first word. In fact, a cognition in the very
through it is science a sociological factor of life, for all the recent past, one whose consequences appear as yet unforesee-
representations of science that are directed beyond the mere able, becomes what it truly is for us only when it has
narrow circle of specialists (and, perhaps one should say, unfolded into its consequences and into the medium of
insofar as they are n o t limited in their impact to a very small intersubjective understanding.
circle of initiates) owe their effectiveness to the rhetorical And so we see that the rhetorical and hermeneutical
element they contain. Even Descartes, that great and passion- aspects of human linguisticality completely interpenetrate
ate advocate of method and certainty, is in all his writings an each other. There would be no speaker and no art of speaking
author who uses the means of rhetoric in a magnificent if understanding and consent were not in question, were not
8
fashion. There can be no doubt, then, about the funda- underlying elements; there would be no hermeneutical task if
mental function of rhetoric within social life. But one may go there were no mutual understanding that has been disturbed
further, in view of the ubiquity of rhetoric, to defend the and that those involved in a conversation must search for and
primordial claims of rhetoric over against modern science, find again together. It is a symptom of our failure to realize
remembering that all science that would wish to be of practi- this and evidence of the increasing self-alienation of human
cal usefulness at all is dependent on it. life in our modern epoch when we think in terms of organiz-
J

No less universal is the function of hermeneutics. The lack ng a perfect and perfectly manipulated information - a turn
 26 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION SCOPE AND FUNCTION OF REFLECTION 27

modern rhetoric seems to have taken. In this case, the sense scientists, on the other hand, insofar as they recognize herme-
of mutual interpenetration of rhetoric and hermeneutics neutical reflection as unavoidable, nevertheless advance the
fades away and hermeneutics is on its own. claim (as Habermas has formulated it) of raising understand-
U o u t a
ing P °f prescientific exercise to the rank of a
self-reflecting activity by "controlled alienation" - that is,
Hermeneutics and the Social Sciences through "methodical development of intelligence." 10

It is in keeping with the universality of the hermeneutical It has been the way of science from its earliest stages to
approach that hermeneutics must be taken into account with achieve through teachable and controllable ways of proceed-
regard to the logic of the social sciences, and especially in ing what individual intelligence would also occasionally
relation to the intentional alienation and distancing present attain, but in unsure and uncheckable ways. But is this way
in sociological methodology. Jiirgen Habermas in his article to be absolutized and idolized? Is it right that social scientists
on the subject worked with my analysis of the wirkungs- should believe that through it they attain human personal
geschichtliches Bewusstsein and the model of translation as judging and practice? What kind of understanding does one
both were given in Truth and Method with the hope that achieve through "controlled alienation"? Is it not likely to be
they could help to overcome the positivistic ossification of an alienated understanding? Is it not the case that many
sociological logic and move sociological theory beyond its social scientists are more interested in using the sedimented
historical failure to reflect upon its linguistic foundations. truisms inherent in linguisticality (so as to grasp "scientifi-
Now Habermas's use of hermeneutics stands on the premise cally" the "real" structures, as they define them, of society)
that it shall serve the methodology of the social sciences. But than in really understanding social life? Hermeneutical reflec-
this premise is, in itself, a prior decision of greatest signifi- tion will not, however, allow a restriction of itself to this
cance, for the purpose of sociological method as emancipat- function that is immanent in the sciences. And most espe-
ing one from tradition places it at the outset very far from cially it will not be deterred from applying hermeneutical
the traditional purpose and starting point of the hermeneu- reflection anew to the methodical alienation of understand-
tical problematic with all its bridge building and recovery of ing practiced by the social sciences, even though it exposes
the best in the past. itself to positivistic detraction.
Admittedly the methodical alienation that comprises the But let us examine first how the hermeneutical problem-
very essence of modern science is indeed to be found also in atic applies within social scientific theory and how it would
the Geisteswissenschaften, and the title of Truth and Method be seen from that vantage point. Habermas sees in its analysis
never intended that the antithesis it implies should be mutu- of historicity one of the principal values of hermeneutics for
9
ally exclusive. But the Geisteswissenschaften were the start- social theory. So it is the claim of hermeneutics that the idea
ing point of my analysis in Truth and Method precisely of Wirkungsgeschichte (effective history) furnishes a means
because they related to experiences that have nothing to do of access to the realm of objects treated by sociology. The
with method and science but lie beyond science - like the wirkungsgeschichtliches Bewusstsein (consciousness of effec-
experience of art and the experience of culture that bears the tive history) seeks to be aware of its prejudgments and to
imprint of its historical tradition. The hermeneutical expe- control its own preunderstanding; and thus it does away with
rience as it is operative in all these cases is not in itself the that naive objectivism that falsifies not only the positivistic
object of methodical alienation but is directed against eliena- theory of science but also any project of laying either a
tion. The hermeneutical experience is prior to all methodical Phenomenological or language-analytical foundation for
alienation because it is the matrix out of which arise the sociology.
questions that it then directs to science. The modern social Yet the question arises as to what hermeneutical reflection
 28 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION SCOPE A N D FUNCTION OF REFLECTION 29
really does. Habermas answers this question in reference to the historian in all its methodological naivete, was himself
universal history, a goal that unavoidably lifts itself out of tremendously influential for the national consciousness of
the multiple goals and conceptions of goal in social actions. bourgeois nineteenth-century culture. He was, in any case,
He asserts that if hermeneutical reflection were simply satis- more effective than the epical consciousness of Ranke, which
fied with general considerations, such as that nobody is able was inclined to foster the nonpoliticality appropriate to an
to reach beyond the limitedness of his own standpoint, then authoritarian state. To understand, we may say, is itself a
it would be ineffectual. The claim to a material philosophy of kind of happening. Only a naive and unreflective historicism
history may be contested by such a consideration, but histor- in hermeneutics would see the historical-hermeneutical sci-
ical consciousness nevertheless constantly will project an an- ences as something absolutely new that would do away with
ticipated universal history. What is the good, after all, Haber- the power of "tradition." On the contrary, I have tried to
mas asks, of knowing merely that a projected futurity cannot present in Truth and Method, through the aspect of lin-
be other than preliminary and essentially provisional? So, guisticality that operates in all understanding, an unambigu-
where it is effective and operational, what does hermeneu- ous demonstration of the continual process of mediation by
tical reflection do? In what relationship to the tradition of which that which is societally transmitted (the tradition) lives
which it becomes conscious does this "historically operative" on. For language is not only an object in our hands, it is the
reflection stand? reservoir of tradition and the medium in and through which
My thesis is - and I think it is the necessary consequence we exist and perceive our world.
of recognizing the operativeness of history in our condi- To this formulation Habermas objects that the medium of
tionedness and finitude - that the thing which hermeneutics science itself is changed through reflection, and that precisely
teaches us is to see through the dogmatism of asserting an this experience is the priceless heritage bequeathed us by
opposition and separation between the ongoing, natural German idealism out of the spirit of the eighteenth century.
"tradition" and the reflective appropriation of it. For behind Habermas asserts that although the Hegelian procedure of
this assertion stands a dogmatic objectivism that distorts the reflection is not presented in my analysis as fulfilled in an
very concept of hermeneutical reflection itself. In this objec- absolute consciousness, nevertheless my "idealism of lin-
11
tivism the understander is seen - even in the so-called sci- guisticality" (as he calls i t ) exhausts itself in mere herme-
ences of understanding like history - not in relationship to neutical appropriation, development, and "cultural transmis-
the hermeneutical situation and the constant operativeness of sion," and thus displays a sorry powerlessness in view of the
history in his own consciousness, but in such a way as to concrete whole of societal relationships. This larger whole,
imply that his own understanding does not enter into the says Habermas, is obviously animated not only by language
event. but by work and action; therefore, hermeneutical reflection
But this is simply not the case. Actually, the historian even must pass into a criticism of ideology.
the one who treats history as a "critical science," is so little In taking such a position, Habermas is tying directly into
separated from the ongoing traditions (for example, those of the central motif in sociological interest in gaining knowl-
his nation) that he is really himself engaged in contributing to edge. Rhetoric (theory) stepped forward against the bewitch-
the growth and development of the national state. He is one ing of consciousness achieved through the power of speech,
of the " n a t i o n ' s " historians; he belongs to the nation. And by differentiating between the truth and that which appears
for the epoch of national states, one must say: the more he to be the truth (and which it teaches one to produce).
may have reflected on his hermeneutical conditionedness, the Hermeneutics, being confronted with a disrupted intersubjec-
more national he knows himself to be. J. F. Droysen, for tive understanding, seeks to place communication on a new
instance, who saw through the "eunuch-like objectivity" of basis and in particular to replace the false objectivism of
30 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION SCOPE AND FUNCTION OF REFLECTION 31

alienated knowing with new hermeneutical foundations. Just recognizable determinants of social reality that are taken as
as in rhetoric and hermeneutics so also in sociological reflec- the "real" factors. But is it not true that we can understand
tion an emancipatory interest is at work that undertakes to precisely every ideology as a form of false linguistic con-
free us of outer and inner social forces and compulsions sciousness, one that might show itself not only to us as a
simply by making us aware of them. Insofar as these forces conscious, manifest, and intelligible meaning but also might
and compulsions tend to legitimate themselves linguistically, be understood in its " t r u e " meaning? Take for example the
Habermas sees the critique of ideology as the means of interest in political or economic domination. In the individ-
12
unmasking the "deceptions of language." But this critique, ual life, the same thing applies to unconscious motives, which
of course, is in itself a linguistic act of reflection. the psychoanalyst brings to conscious awareness.
In the field of psychoanalytical therapy, too, says Haber- Who says that these concrete, so-called real factors are
mas, we find the claims for the emancipatory power of outside the realm of hermeneutics? From the hermeneutical
reflection corroborated. For the repression that is seen standpoint, rightly understood, it is absolutely absurd to
through robs the false compulsions of their power. Just as in regard the concrete factors of work and politics as outside
psychotherapy it is the goal to identify through a process of the scope of hermeneutics. What about the vital issue of
reflective development all our motives of action with the real prejudices with which hermeneutical reflection deals? Where
meaning to which the patient is oriented (this goal is of do they come from? Merely out of "cultural tradition"?
course limited by the therapeutic task in the psychoanalytic Surely they do, in part, but what is tradition formed from? It
situation, which therefore itself represents a limiting concept) would be true when Habermas asserts that "hermeneutics
so in social reality also (as Habermas would have it) herme- bangs helplessly, so to speak, from within against the walls of
neutics would be at its best when such a fictitious goal tradition," 13
if we understand this "within" as opposite to
situation is operative. For Habermas, and for psychoanalysis, an "outside" that does not enter our world — our to-be-
the life of society and the life of the individual consists of the understood, understandable, or nonunderstandable world —
interaction of intelligible motives and concrete compulsions, but remains the mere observation of external alterations
which social and psychological investigation in a progressive (instead of human actions). With this area of what lies out-
process of clarification appropriates in order to set man, the side the realm of human understanding and human under-
actor and agent, free. standings (our world) hermeneutics is not concerned. Cer-
One cannot dispute the fact that this sociotheoretical tainly I affirm the hermeneutical fact that the world is the
conception has its logic. The question we must ask ourselves, medium of human understanding or not understanding, but it
however, is whether such a conception does justice to the does not lead to the conclusion that cultural tradition should
actual reach of hermeneutical reflection: does hermeneutics be absolutized and fixed. To suppose that it does have this
really take its bearings from a limiting concept of perfect implication seems to me erroneous. The principle of herme-
interaction between understood motives and consciously per- neutics simply means that we should try to understand every-
formed action (a concept that is itself, I believe, fictitious)? I thing that can be understood. This is what I meant by the
maintain that the hermeneutical problem is universal and sentence: "Being that can be understood is language."*
basic for all interhuman experience, both of history and of This does not mean that there is a world of meanings that
the present moment, precisely because meaning can be expe- is narrowed down to the status of secondary objects of
rienced even where it is not actually intended. The universal- knowledge and mere supplements to the economic and politi-
ity of the hermeneutical dimension is narrowed down, I cal realities that fundamentally determine the life of society.
think, when one area of understood meaning (for instance,
the "cultural tradition") is held in separation from other *WM, p. 450.
 32 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION SCOPE AND FUNCTION OF REFLECTION 33
Rather, it means that the mirror of language is reflecting step towards dissolving prior convictions. Authority is not
everything that is. In language, and only in it, can we meet always wrong. Yet Habermas regards it as an untenable asser-
what we never "encounter" in the world, because we are tion, and treason to the heritage of the Enlightenment, that
ourselves it (and not merely what we mean or what we know the act of rendering transparent the structure of prejudg-
of ourselves). But the metaphor of a mirror is not fully ments in understanding should possibly lead to an acknowl-
adequate to the phenomenon of language, for in the last edgment of authority. Authority is by his definition a dog-
analysis language is not simply a mirror. What we perceive in matic power. I cannot accept the assertion that reason and
it is not merely a "reflection" of our own and all being; it is authority are abstract antitheses, as the emancipatory En-
the living out of what it is with us - not only in the concrete lightenment did. Rather, I assert that they stand in a basically
interrelationships of work and politics but in all the other ambivalent relation, a relation I think should be explored
relationships and dependencies that comprise our world. rather than casually accepting the antithesis as a "funda-
14
Language, then, is not the finally found anonymous sub- mental conviction."
ject of all social-historical processes and action, which pre- For in my opinion this abstract antithesis embraced by the
sents the whole of its activities as objectivations to our Enlightenment is a mistake fraught with ominous conse-
observing gaze; rather, it is by itself the game of interpreta- quences. In it, reflection is granted a false power, and the
tion that we all are engaged in every day. In this game true dependencies involved are misjudged on the basis of a
nobody is above and before all the others; everybody is at the fallacious idealism. Certainly I would grant that authority
center, is " i t " in this game. Thus it is always his turn to be exercises an essential dogmatic power in innumerable forms
interpreting. This process of interpretation takes place when- of domination: from the ordering of education and the
ever we "understand," especially when we see through preju- mandatory commands of the army and government all the
dices or tear away the pretenses that hide reality. There, way to the hierarchy of power created by political forces or
indeed, understanding comes into its own. This idea recalls fanatics. Now the mere outer appearance of obedience ren-
what we said about the atopon, the strange, for in it we have dered to authority can never show why or whether the
"seen through" something that appeared odd and unintelligi- authority is legitimate, that is, whether the context is true
ble: we have brought it into our linguistic world. To use the order or the veiled disorder that is created by the arbitrary
analogy of chess, everything is "solved," resembling a diffi- exercise of power. It seems evident to me that acceptance or
cult chess problem where only the definitive solution makes acknowledgment is the decisive thing for relationships to
understandable (and then right down to the last piece) the authority. So the question is: on what is this acknowledg-
necessity of a previous absurd position. ment based? Certainly such acceptance can often express
But does this mean that we "understand" only when we more a yielding of the powerless to the one holding power
see through pretexts or unmask false pretentions? Habermas's than true acceptance, but really it is not true obedience and
Marxist critique of ideology appears to presuppose this mean- it is not based on authority but on force. (And when anyone
ing. At least it seems that the true " p o w e r " of reflection is in an argument appeals to authority, he only pretends.) One
evident only when it has this effect, and its powerlessness need only study the processes of forfeiture and decline of
when one would remain occupied with the supposed phan- authority (or its rise) to see what authority is and that out of
tom of language and spin out its implication. The presupposi- which it lives and grows. It lives not from dogmatic power
tion is that reflection, as employed in the hermeneutical but from dogmatic acceptance. What is this dogmatic accep-
sciences, should "shake the dogmatism of life-praxis." Here tance, however, if not that one concedes superiority in
indeed is operating a prejudice that we can see is pure knowledge and insight to the authority, and for this reason
dogmatism, for reflection is not always and unavoidably a one believes that authority is right? Only on this crucial
 34 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION SCOPE A N D F U N C T I O N OF REFLECTION 35
concession, this belief, is acceptance founded. Authority can tism, and indeed, to be a misinterpretation of reflection. For,
rule only because it is freely recognized and accepted. The from Husserl (in his doctrine of anonymous intentionalities)
obedience that belongs to true authority is neither blind nor and from Heidegger (in demonstration of the ontological
slavish. abridgment evident in the subject-object concept in idealism),
It is an inadmissable imputation to hold that I somehow we have learned to see through the false objectification
meant there is no decline of authority or no emancipating inherent in the idealist conception of reflection. I would hold
criticism of authority. Of course, whether one can really say that there is most certainly an inner reversal of intentionality
that decline of authority comes about through reflection's in reflection, which in no way raises the thing meant to a
emancipatory criticism or that decline of authority is ex- thematic object. Brentano, using Aristotelian insights, was
pressed in criticism and emancipation is a matter we shall aware of this fact. I would not know, otherwise, how the
leave aside (although we may say that it is perhaps a
enigmatic form of the being of language could be grasped at
misstatement of the genuine alternatives). But what is really
all. Then one must distinguish "effective reflection" (die
in dispute, I think, is simply whether reflection always dis-
"effektive" Reflexion), which is that in which the unfolding
solves substantial relationships or is capable of taking them
of language takes place, from expressive and thematic reflec-
up into consciousness.
tion, which is the type out of which Occidental linguistic
In this regard, my presentation in Truth and Method of the history has been formed. 15
Making everything an object and
teaching and learning process (referring principally to Aris- creating the conditions for science in the modem sense, this
totle's Ethics) is taken by Habermas in a peculiarly one-sided latter type of reflection establishes the grounds for the plane-
way. For the idea that tradition, as such, should be and tary civilization of tomorrow.
should remain the only ground for acceptance of presupposi-
Habermas defends with extraordinary emotion the sciences
tions (a view that Habermas ascribes to me) flies in the face
of experience against the charge of being a random game of
of my basic thesis that authority is rooted in insight as a
words. But who, from the vantage point of the technical
hermeneutical process. A person who comes of age need
power to place nature at our disposal, would dispute their
not but he also from insight can — take possession of what
necessity? The researcher might disclaim the technical moti-
he has obediently followed. Tradition is no proof and valida-
vation of his work and defend his relationship to pure theo-
tion of something, in any case not where validation is de-
retical interests — with full subjective justification. But no-
manded by reflection. But the point is this: where does
body would deny that the practical application of modern
reflection demand it? Everywhere? I would object to such an
science has fundamentally altered our world, and therewith
answer on the grounds of the finitude of human existence
also our language. But precisely so — "also our language."
and the essential particularity of reflection. The real question
This by no means suggests, however, what Habermas imputes
is whether one sees the function of reflection as bringing
to me: that the linguistically articulated consciousness claims
something to awareness in order to confront what is in fact
to determine all the material being of life-practice. It only
accepted with other possibilities - so that one can either
suggests that there is no societal reality, with all its concrete
throw it out or reject the other possibilities and accept what
forces, that does not bring itself to representation in a con-
the tradition de facto is presenting - or whether bringing
sciousness that is linguistically articulated. Reality does not
something to awareness always dissolves what one has previ- 16
happen "behind the back" of language; it happens rather
ously accepted.
behind the backs of those who live in the subjective opinion
The concept of reflection and bringing to awareness that that they have understood "the world" (or can no longer
Habermas employs (admittedly from his sociological interest) understand it); that is, reality happens precisely within lan-
appears to me, then, to be itself encumbered with dogma- guage.
 3b THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION SCOPE AND FUNCTION OF REFLECTION 37

Obviously this fact makes the concept of "natural situa- heard outside the door,* and one finds that behind all the
17
tion" discussed by Habermas highly questionable. Marx disavowals of world history the goal, the end-thought, of
already persuasively held that this concept was the counter- freedom possessed a compelling evidentness. One can as little
idea to the working world of modern class society, but get beyond this as one can get beyond consciousness itself.
Habermas willingly uses it, not only in his reference to the But the claim that every historian must make and operate
"natural substance of tradition" but also to "the causality of within, namely to tie the meaning of all events to today (and
natural patterns." I believe it is pure romanticism, and such of course to the future of this today), is really a funda-
romanticism creates an artificial abyss between tradition and mentally more modest one than asserting a universal history
the reflection that is grounded in historical consciousness. or a philosophy of world history. Nobody can dispute that
However, the "idealism of linguisticality" at least has the history presupposes futurity, and a universal-historical con-
advantage that it does not fall into this sort of romanticism. ception is unavoidably one of the dimensions of today's
Habermas's critique culminates in questioning the imma- historical consciousness from a practical point of view, or for
nentism of transcendental philosophy with respect to its practical purposes ("In praktischer Absicht"). But does it do
historical conditions, conditions upon which he himself is justice to Hegel to want to reduce him to the limitations
dependent. Now this is indeed a central problem. Anyone implied by this pragmatic interpretive requirement that the
who takes seriously the finitude of human existence and present demands? "In praktischer Absicht" - nobody today
constructs no "consciousness as such," or "intellectus arche- goes beyond this claim, for consciousness has become aware
t y p u s , " or "transcendental ego," to which everything can be of its finitude and mistrusts the dictatorship of ideas or
traced back, will not be able to escape the question of how concepts. Even so, who would be so foolish as to try to
his own thinking as transcendental is empirically possible. reduce Hegel to the level of practical purposes? I certainly
But within the hermeneutical dimension that I have devel- would not, even while criticizing his claims to a philosophy
oped I do not see this difficulty arising. of universal history. So on this point I think there is really no
dispute between Pannenberg and myself, so far as I under-
The well-known young theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg
stand him. For Pannenberg does n o t propose t o renew
has presented a highly useful discussion of my book in his
18 Hegel's claim either. There is only the difference that for the
article "Hermeneutics and Universal H i s t o r y , " which re-
Christian theologian the "practical purpose" of all universal
lates to the question of immanentism but more particularly
historical conceptions has its fixed point in the absolute
to the question of whether my philosophical hermeneutics
historicity of the Incarnation.
necessarily but unconsciously rehabilitates the Hegelian con-
cept of universal history (such as in the concept of fusion of All the same, the question [of universality] remains. If the
horizons, where the ultimate horizon is, says Pannenberg, hermeneutical problematic wishes to maintain itself in the
implied or presupposed in the direction of every individual face of the ubiquity and universality of rhetoric, as well as
event of fusion). In particular his discussion brought home to the obvious topicality of critiques of ideology, it must estab-
me the vast difference between Hegel's claim to demonstrate lish its own universality. And it must do so especially over
the presence of reason in history and the conceptions of against the claims of modern science to universality, and thus
world history, those constantly outstripped conceptions, in to its tendency to absorb hermeneutical reflection into itself
which one unconsciously always behaves like the latest histo- and render it serviceable to science (as in the concept, for
rian. instance, of the "methodical development of intelligence"
Hegel's claim to a philosophy of world history can cer- Habermas has in mind). Still, it will be able to do so only if it
tainly be disputed. Hegel himself knew how finite it was and
•Gadamer expresses this more picturesquely with a quote: "Die Fiisse derer,
remarked that the feet of his pallbearers could already be die dich hinaustragen, sind schon vor der Tiire." (Trans.)
 38 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION SCOPE AND FUNCTION OF REFLECTION 39
does not become imprisoned in the impregnable immanence and epochs. Consider how iconography has pressed from the
of transcendental reflection but rather gives account of what periphery to the forefront, and how hermeneutical reflection
its own kind of reflection achieves. And it must do it not on the concepts of experience and expression has had liter-
only within the realm of modern science but also over against ary-critical consequences (even in cases where it becomes
this realm, in order to show a universality that transcends only a more conscious carrying forward of tendencies long
that of modern science. favored in literary criticism). While it is of course evident
how the shake-up of fixed presuppositions promises scientific
On the Universality of Hermeneutical Reflection progress by making new questions possible, it should be
equally evident that this applies in the history of artistic and
Hermeneutical reflection fulfills the function that is ac- literary styles. And we constantly experience what historical
complished in all bringing of something to a conscious aware- research can accomplish through becoming conscious of the
ness. Because it does, it can and must manifest itself in all our history of ideas. In Truth and Method I believe I have been
modern fields of knowledge, and especially science. Let us able to show how historical alienation is mediated in the
reflect a bit on this hermeneutical reflection. Reflection on a form of what I call the "fusion of horizons."
given preunderstanding brings before me something that The overall significance of hermeneutical reflection, how-
otherwise happens behind my back. Something - but not ever, is not exhausted by what it means for and in the
everything, for what I have called the wirkungsgeschichtliches sciences themselves. For all the modern sciences possess a
Bewusstsein is inescapably more being than consciousness, deeply rooted alienation that they impose on the natural
and being is never fully manifest. Certainly I do not mean consciousness and of which we need to be aware. This aliena-
that such reflection could escape from ideological ossification tion has already reached reflective awareness in the very
if it does not engage in constant self-reflection and attempts beginning stages of modern science in the concept of method.
at self-awareness. Thus only through hermeneutical reflection Hermeneutical reflection does n o t desire to change or elimi-
am I no longer unfree over against myself but rather can nate this situation; it can, in fact, indirectly serve the meth-
deem freely what in my preunderstanding may be justified odological endeavor of science by making transparently clear
and what unjustifiable. the guiding preunderstandings in the sciences and thereby
And also only in this manner do I learn to gain a new open new dimensions of questioning. But it must also bring
understanding of what I have seen through eyes conditioned to awareness, in this regard, the price that methods in science
by prejudice. But this implies, too, that the prejudgments have paid for their own progress: the toning down and
that lead m y preunderstanding are also constantly at stake, abstraction they demand, through which the natural con-
right up to the moment of their surrender - which surrender sciousness still always must go along as the consumer of the
could also be called a transformation. It is the untiring power inventions and information attained by science. One can with
of experience, that in the process of being instructed, man is Wittgenstein express this insight as follows: The language
ceaselessly forming a new preunderstanding. games of science remain related to the metalanguage pre-
In the fields that were the starting points of my hermeneu- sented in the mother tongue. All the knowledge won by
tical studies - the study of art and the philological-historical science enters the societal consciousness through school and
sciences — it is easy to demonstrate how hermeneutical re- education, using modern informational media, though maybe
flection is at work. For instance, consider how the autonomy sometimes after a great - too great - delay. In any case, this
of viewing art from the vantage point of the history of style is the way that new sociolinguistic realities are articulated.
has been shaken up by hermeneutical reflection (1) on the For the natural sciences, of course, this gap and the me-
concept of art itself, and (2) on concepts of individual styles thodical alienation of research are of less consequence than
 40 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION SCOPE AND FUNCTION OF REFLECTION 41

for social sciences. The true natural scientist does not have to engineers!), which takes reflection alone as its objective. He
be told how very particular is the realm of knowledge of his points in this regard to the example of psychoanalysis. And it
science in relation to the whole of reality. He does not share is in psychoanalysis, as a matter of fact, that hermeneutical
in the deification of his science that the public would press reflection plays a fundamental role. This is because, as we
upon him. All the more, however, the public (and the re- have emphasized earlier, the unconscious motive does not
searcher who must go before the public) needs hermeneutical represent a clear and fully articulable boundary for herme-
reflection on the presuppositions and limits of science. The neutical theory: it falls within the larger perimeter of herme-
so-called "humanities," on the other hand, are still easily neutics. Psychotherapy could be described as the work of
mediated to the common consciousness, so that insofar as "completing an interrupted process of education into a full
they are accepted at all, their objects belong immediately to history (a story that can be articulated in language)," so in
the cultural heritage and the realm of traditional education. psychotherapy hermeneutics and the circle of language that is
But the modern social sciences stand in a particularly strained closed in dialogue are central. I think I have learned this fact,
relationship to their object, the social reality, and this re- above all, from Jacques Lacan. 19

lationship especially requires hermeneutical reflection. For All the same it is clear that even this is not the whole
the methodical alienation to which the social sciences owe story, for the psychoanalytic approach turns out not to be
their progress is related here to the human-societal world as a universalizable even for the psychoanalyst himself. The
whole. These sciences increasingly see themselves as marked framework of interpretation worked out by Freud claims to
out for the purpose of scientific ordering and control of possess the character of genuine natural-scientific hypotheses,
society. They have to do with "scientific" and "methodical" that is, to be a knowledge of acknowledged laws. This orien-
planning, direction, organization, development — in short, tation inevitably shows up in the role that methodical aliena-
with an infinity of functions that, so to speak, determine tion plays in his psychoanalysis. But although the successful
from outside the whole of the life of each individual and each analysis wins its authentication in its results, the claim to
group. Yet this social engineer, this scientist who undertakes knowledge in psychoanalysis must not be reduced to mere
to look after the functioning of the machine of society, pragmatic validation. And this means that psychoanalysis is
appears himself to be methodically alienated and split off exposed again to another act of hermeneutical reflection, in
from the society to which, at the same time, he belongs. which one must ask: How does the psychoanalyst's special
But is man as a political being the mere object of the knowledge relate to his own position within the societal
techniques of making public opinion? I think not: he is a reality (to which, after all, he does belong)?
member of society, and only in playing his role with free The psychoanalyst leads the patient into the emancipatory
judgment and politically real effectiveness can he conserve reflection that goes behind the conscious superficial interpre-
freedom. It is the function of hermeneutical reflection, in tations, breaks through the masked self-understanding, and
this connection, to preserve us from naive surrender to the sees through the repressive function of social taboos. This
experts of social technology. activity belongs to the emancipatory reflection to which he
Of course, a hermeneutically reflective sociologist like leads his patient. But what happens when he uses the same
Habermas cannot conceive himself in these shallow terms of kind of reflection in a situation in which he is not the doctor
social engineering. Habermas's lucid analysis of social- but a partner in a game? Then he will fall out of his social
scientific logic has resolutely worked out the authentic epis- role! A game partner who is always "seeing through" his
temological interest, which distinguishes true sociologists game partner, who does not take seriously what they are
from technicians of social structure. He calls it an emancipat- standing for, is a spoil sport whom one shuns. The emancipa-
ing interest (what a contrast to the interest of the social tory power of reflection claimed by the psychoanalyst is a
 42 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION SCOPE AND FUNCTION OF REFLECTION 43

special rather than general function of reflection and must be (language in Occidental thought). He traces "the emergence of the
given its boundaries through the societal context and con- concept (Begriff) as the intellectual vehicle by which given objects are
sciousness, within Which the analyst and also his patient are momentarily subsumed under one cogitated form" (p. 7 4 ) . He recog-
nizes in the stem-inflecting verbs of Old Indo-Germanic the grammatical
on even terms with everybody else. This is something that
expression of this idea, especially in the copula. From this, he says, we
hermeneutical reflection teaches us: that social community, can deduce the possibility of theory, which is a creation peculiar to the
with all its tensions and disruptions, ever and ever again leads Occident. The significance of this is more than historical; it also extends
back to a common area of social understanding through into the future. Not only does Lohmann take the transition from
which it exists. stem-inflecting to word-inflecting language types to interpret the his-
tory of thought in the Occident by showing the development of lan-
Here, I think, the analogy Habermas suggests between
guage forms, he shows that this latter-day development to word-inflect-
psychoanalytical and. sociological theory breaks down, or at ing types makes possible science in the modern sense - science as the
least raises severe problems. For where are the limits of this rendering disposable to us of our world.
analogy? Where does the patient-relationship end and the 3. I have considered some aspects of this in WM, but they can be
social partnership in its unprofessional right begin? Most greatly expanded; see, for instance, the extensive supplements and
fundamentally: Over against what self-interpretation of the corrections contributed by Klaus Dockhorn to the Gottingen "Ge-
lehrten-Anzeigen," CCXVIII, Heft 3 / 4 ( 1 9 6 6 ) , pp. 169-206.
social consciousness (and all morality is such) is it in place to
4. PhR, XIV, Beiheft 5 ( 1 9 6 7 ) , pp. 149-180. See also his more
inquire behind that consciousness — and when is it not? recent book, Knowledge and Human Interests, (Boston: Beacon Press,
Within the context of the purely practical, or of a universal- 1972).
ized emancipatory reflection, these questions appear un- 5. Hermann Gundert has done this in his contribution to Her-
answerable. The unavoidable consequence to which all these meneia, 1 9 5 2 , a Festschrift for Otto Regenbogen.
observations lead is that the basically emancipatory con- 6. Klaus Dockhorn has shown, with profound scholarship, in "Ge-
lehrten-Anzeigen," the extent to which the arousing of emotions has
sciousness must have in mind the dissolution of all authority,
been considered the most important means of persuasion from Cicero
all obedience. This means that unconsciously the ultimate and Quintilian to the political rhetoric of the eighteenth century in
guiding image of emancipatory reflection in the social sci- England.
ences must be an anarchistic U t o p i a . Such an image, however, 7. I discussed this in my book, and Dockhorn, "Gelehrten-Anzei-
seems to me to reflect a hermeneutically false consciousness, gen," has carried out the exploration on a much broader basis.
the antidote for which can only be a more universal herme- 8. Henri Gouhier in particular has shown this in his La resistance au
vrai, ed. E. Castelli (Rome: 1955).
neutical reflection.
9. In this regard see the preface to the second edition ( 1 9 6 5 ) .
10. Cf. Ph R, XIV, Beiheft 5, pp. 172-174.
NOTES 11. Ibid., p. 179.
12. Ibid., p. 178.
1. Thus what O. Marquard (Heidelberger Philosophiekongress, 13. Ibid., p. 177.
1 9 6 6 ) calls "das Sein zum Texte" does not at all exhaust the hermeneu- 14. Ibid., p. 174.
tical dimension - unless the word Texte is taken not in the narrow 15. On this point I am agreeing with J. Lohmann in Philosophie und
sense but as "the text that God has written with his o w n hand," i.e., Sprach wissenschaft.
the liber naturae, which consequently encompasses all knowledge from 16. PhR, XIV, Beiheft 5, p. 179.
physics to sociology and anthropology. And even in this case the model 17. Ibid., pp. 173-174.
of translation is implied, which is not fully adequate to the complexity 18. Wolfhart Pannenberg, "Hermeneutik und Universalgeschichte,"
of the hermeneutical dimension. Zeitschrift fur Theologie und Kirche, 6 0 ( 1 9 6 3 ) : 9 0 - 1 2 1 . ET. Paul J.
2. See Johannes Lohmann, Philosophie und Sprachwissenschaft and Achtemeier in History and Hermeneutic, ed. Robert W. Funk and
his review of my book in Gnomon, XXXVII ( 1 9 6 5 ) , pp. 709-718'. Gerhard Ebeling (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), pp. 122-152.
Lohmann's treatment may be seen as a greatly expanded application of 19. See the collection of his writings now published as Ecrits (Paris:
what I had briefly sketched as the imprint of the concept of Sprache Editions du Seuil, 1966).
 ON THE PROBLEM OF SELF-UNDERSTANDING 45

that follows, I want to focus my attention on the hermeneu-

tical aspect from a point of view that does not seem to have
been sufficiently stressed. I want to pose the question of
whether our relation to the New Testament can be under-
stood adequately in terms of the central concept of the
self-understanding of faith or whether an entirely different
factor is operative in it — a factor that goes beyond the
individual's self-understanding, indeed, beyond his individual
On the Problem of Self-Understanding being. To this end, I will take up the question of the relation-
ship between understanding and "playing." Preparatory con-
(1962) siderations are in order, however, to help us indicate the
hermeneutical aspect of the problem.
First of all, as a hermeneutical task, understanding includes
a reflective dimension from the very beginning. Understand-
ing is not a mere reproduction of knowledge, that is, it is not
a mere act of repeating the same thing. Rather, understanding
is aware of the fact that it is indeed an act of repeating.
When it was first published in 1941, Rudolf Bultmann's August Boeckh had already expressed this fact by calling
programmatic essay on demythologizing the New Testament understanding a "knowing of the known.* Boeckh's paradox-
produced an enormous sensation.* No one who can remem- ical formulation epitomizes the clear insight that romantic
ber the impact the essay had at that time or who considers hermeneutics had into the reflective structure of the herme-
the influence it continues to exert today will fail to see the neutical phenomenon. The operation of the understanding
special problems it raises for theology. For those persons who requires that the unconscious elements involved in the origi-
were acquainted with Bultmann's theological work, however, nal act of knowledge be brought to consciousness. Thus
this essay was hardly sensational. Bultmann only provided a romantic hermeneutics was based on one of the fundamental
clear formulation for what had already long since taken place concepts of Kantian aesthetics, namely, the concept of the
in the exegetical work of the theologian. But this point is genius who, like nature itself, creates the exemplary work
precisely the one at which philosophical reflection may be "unconsciously" — without consciously applying rules or
able to contribute something to the theological discussion, merely imitating models.
for the problem of demythologizing undoubtedly also has a This observation indicates the special circumstance in
general hermeneutical dimension. The theological problems which the hermeneutical problem appears. The problem
do not have to do with the hermeneutical phenomenon of clearly does not arise as long as one is involved directly in
demythologizing as such, but rather with its dogmatic impli- taking up and continuing a specific intellectual tradition. It
cations, that is, with whether from the standpoint of Protes- does not arise, for instance, with the Renaissance humanists,
tant theology Bultmann correctly draws the boundaries with- who rediscovered classical antiquity and tried to be the
in which demythologizing is to be applied. In the discussion successors of the ancient authors, imitating them, indeed,
openly competing with them, rather than merely "under-
*Cf. Rudolf Bultmann, ."Neues Testament und Mythologie," Kerygma und
Mythos, vol. 1, ed. Hans-Werner Bartsch (Hamburg: Evangelischer Verlag, 1941),
pp. 15-48. ET: 'New Testament and Mythology," in Kerygma and Myth, ed. *Cf. August Boeckh, Encyklopddie und Methodologie der philologische Wis-
Hans-Werner Bartsch (New York: Harper & Row, 1961), pp. 1-44. senschaften, ed. Ernst Bratuscheck (Leipzig: Teubner, 1877).
44
 46 THE SCOPE OF H E R M E N E U T I C A L REFLECTION ON THE PROBLEM OF S E L F - U N D E R S T A N D I N G 47

standing" them. The hermeneutical problem only emerges with modern science, and hence that portion which one
clearly when there is no powerful tradition present to absorb could understand only by recourse to historical conditions
one's own attitude into itself and when one is aware of grew enormously. For Spinoza, there was certainly still an
confronting an alien tradition to which he has never belonged immediate certitude regarding moral truths that reason recog-
or one he no longer unquestioningly accepts. nizes in the Bible. Their certitude is in a certain sense the
The latter case is the aspect of the hermeneutical problem same as the certitude of Euclid's axioms, which contain
that we have to deal with here. For us, the understanding of truths that illuminate reason so immediately that the ques-
the Christian tradition and the tradition of classical antiquity tion of their historical origin is never raised at all. However,
includes an element of historical consciousness. Even if the the moral truths in biblical tradition that are certain in this
forces binding us t o the great Greco-Christian tradition are way are for Spinoza only a small part of the biblical tradition
still ever so vital, our consciousness of its alien character, of taken as a whole. On the whole, Scripture remains alien to
no longer belonging unquestioningly to it, determines us all. reason. If we want t o understand Scripture, we must rely on
This point is especially clear when we consider the beginnings historical reflection, as in the case of the criticism of mira-
of the historical criticism of the tradition, and especially of cles.
biblical criticism as initiated by Spinoza in his Tractatus-
Romanticism began with the deep conviction of a total
Theologico-Politicus. Spinoza's work makes it quite evident
strangeness of the tradition (as the reverse side of the totally
that the way of historical understanding is a kind of unavoid-
different character of the present), and this conviction be-
able detour that the person who understands must take when
came the basic methodological presupposition of its herme-
immediate insight into what is said in the tradition is no
neutical procedure. Precisely in this way hermeneutics be-
longer possible for him. Genetic inquiry, whose goal consists
came a universal, methodical attitude: it presupposed the
in explaining a traditional opinion on the basis of its histori-
foreignness of the content that is to be understood and thus
cal situation, only appears where direct insight into the truth
made its task the overcoming of this foreignness by gaining
of what is said cannot be reached because our reason sets
itself in opposition. understanding. It is characteristic, therefore, that Schleier-
macher did not find it at all absurd to understand Euclid's
T o be sure, the modern age of the Enlightenment was not Elements historically, that is, by going back to the creative
the first to take this detour into historical explanation. In moments in Euclid's life in which these insights occurred.
dealing with the Old Testament, for example, Christian theol- Psychological-historical understanding took the place of im-
ogy very quickly faced the problem of eliminating exe-
mediate insight into the subject matter and became the only
getically those ideas which were not compatible with Chris-
genuinely methodical, scientific attitude. With this develop-
tian dogmatics and moral teaching. Along with allegorical and
ment, the exegetical side of biblical scholarship or theology
typological interpretation, historical considerations also
was first elevated to the status of a purely historical-critical
served this end, as Augustine demonstrated, for instance, in
science. Hermeneutics became the universal organ of the
his De Doctrina Christiana. But in all such cases, the dog-
historical method. As is well known, the application of this
matic tradition of the Christian Church remained the un-
historical-critical approach in the area of biblical exegesis led
shakable basis of all interpretation. Historical considerations
to severe tensions between dogmatics and exegesis, tensions
were unusual and secondary aids to the understanding of
Scripture. The emergence of modern natural science and the that prevade theological work on the New Testament even in
critical perspective it brought with it essentially changed this our own time.
state of affairs. On the basis of pure reason, only a small In conceiving the historian's task, Friedrich Droysen, the
portion of Scripture could be regarded as being in harmony most acute methodologist of the Historical School, thor-
oughly rejected this total, objectivistic alienation of the ob-
 48 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION ON THE PROBLEM OF SELF-UNDERSTANDING 49
ject of history. He pursued this "eunuch-like objectivity" rather took it up in a positive way into his ontological
with biting ridicule and in opposition to it he pointed to a problematic. As a result of Heidegger's work, the concept of
belonging of the knower to the great moral forces that rule understanding that the Historical School had made methodo-
history as the precondition of all historical understanding. logically respectable was transformed into a universal philo-
His famous formula, that the task of the historian is to sophical concept. According to Being and Time, understand-
"understand by means of careful investigation" (forschend zu ing is the way in which the historicity of Dasein is itself
verstehen), has a theological aspect. The plans of Providence carried out. The futurity of Dasein - the basic character of
are hidden from men, but in its restlessly searching penetra- projection that befits its temporality - is limited by its other
tion into the structures of world history, the historical mind basic determination, namely, its "thrownness," which not
has a presentiment of the meaning of the whole, which is only specifies the limits of sovereign self-possession but also
concealed from us. Here understanding is more than a uni- opens up and determines the positive possibilities that we are.
versal method that is occasionally supported through the In certain ways, the concept of self-understanding is an
affinity or congeniality of the historian with his historical heirloom of transcendental idealism and has been propagated
object. What concerns us is not simply the historian's own in our own time as such an idealism by Husserl. It was only
fortuitous sympathy. Rather, something of the historicity of through Heidegger's work that this concept acquired its real
the historian's own understanding is already at work in his historicity, and with this change it became capable of sup-
choice of objects and in the rubrics under which he places the porting the theological concern for formulating the self-
object as a historical problem. understanding of faith. It is not, therefore, as a sovereign
It is certainly difficult for the methodical self-conscious- self-mediation of self-consciousness but rather as the expe-
ness of historical investigation to grasp this side of the mat- rience of oneself that what happens to one and (from the
ter, for even historical studies are stamped by the scientific theological standpoint) what takes place in the challenge of
ideal of the modern age. To be sure, the romantic criticism of the Christian proclamation, can remove the false claim of
Enlightenment rationalism destroyed the dominance of natu- gnostic self-certainty from the self-understanding of faith. In
ral law, but the path of historical investigation was itself his 1926 essay on Barth's Commentary on Romans,* Gerhard
understood as a step toward man's total historical self-illumi- Kriiger sought to radicalize dialectical theology in this direc-
nation, which would dispel the final dogmatic vestiges of the tion, and Heidegger's own years in Marburg owed much of
Greco-Christian tradition. The historical objectivism corre- their unforgettable excitement to Rudolf Bultmann's theo-
sponding to this ideal draws its strength from the idea of logical use of Heidegger's critique of the "objectivistic" sub-
science that has its background in the philosophical subjec- jectivism of the modern age.
tivism of the modern age. Droysen struggled to guard himself Heidegger did not stop, however, with the transcendental
against this idea, but only the fundamental critique of philo- schema that still motivated the concept of self-understanding
sophical subjectivism that began with Heidegger's Being and in Being and Time. Even in Being and Time the real question
Time was able to establish philosophically Droysen's his- is not in what way being can be understood but in what way
torico-theological position and to demonstrate its validity in understanding is being, for the understanding of being repre-
opposition to Wilhelm Dilthey, who had succumbed so much sents the existential distinction of Dasein. Already at this
more completely to the modern concept of science than did Point Heidegger does not understand being to be the result of
his genuine adversary, the Lutheran thinker Count Paul the objectifying operation of consciousness, as Husserl's phe-
Yorck von Wartenburg. Heidegger no longer regarded the nomenology still did. The question of being, as Heidegger
historicity of Dasein as a restriction of its cognitive possibili-
ties and as a threat to the ideal of scientific objectivity, but
*Cf. Gerhard Kriiger in Zwischen den Zeiten, 1926.
 50 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION ON THE PROBLEM OF SELF-UNDERSTANDING 51

poses it, breaks into an entirely different dimension by focus- evident certainty idealism asserted it to have, nor is it ex-
ing on the being of Dasein that understands itself. And this is hausted in the revolutionay criticism of idealism that thinks
the point at which the transcendental schema must finally of the concept of self-understanding as something that hap-
founder. The infinite contrast between the transcendental pens to the self, something through which it becomes an
ego and its objects is finally taken up into the ontological authentic self. Rather, I believe that understanding involves a
question. In this sense, Being and Time already begins to moment of "loss of s e l f that is relevant t o theological
counteract the forgetfulness of being that Heidegger was later hermeneutics and should be investigated in terms of the
to designate as the essence of metaphysics. What he calls the structure of the game.
" t u r n " is only his recognition that it is impossible to over- In pursuing this matter we are directed back immediately
come the forgetfulness of being within the framework of to antiquity and the peculiar relation between myth and
transcendental reflection. Hence all his later concepts, such as logos that we find at the beginning of Greek thought. The
the "event" of being, the " t h e r e " as the clearing of being, customary Enlightenment formula, according to which the
and so on, were already entailed as a consequence of the process of the demagicification of the world leads necessarily
approach taken in Being and Time. from myth to logos, seems to me to be a modern prejudice. If
The role that the mystery of language plays in Heidegger's we take this formula as our starting point, we cannot explain,
later thought is sufficient indication that his concentration for instance, how Attic philosophy opposed the tendencies of
on the historicity of self-understanding banished not only the the Greek Enlightenment and was able to establish its secular
concept of consciousness from its central position, but also reconciliation of religious tradition and philosophical
the concept of selfhood as such. For what is more uncon- thought. We are indebted to Gerhard Kriiger for his masterful
scious and "selfless" than that mysterious realm of language illumination of the religious presuppositions of Greek, espe-
in which we stand and which allows what is to come to cially Platonic, philosophizing.* The history of myth and
expression, so that being "is temporalized" (sich zeitigtyl But logos in ancient Greece has a completely different and more
if this is valid for the mystery of language it is also valid for complicated structure than the Enlightenment formula sug-
the concept of understanding. Understanding too cannot be gests. In light of this fact, we can begin to comprehend the
grasped as a simple activity of the consciousness that under- great distrust that the modern study of antiquity has had of
stands, but is itself a mode of the event of being. To put it in myth as a religious source and its decided preference for the
purely formal terms, the primacy that language and under- more stable forms of cultic tradition. For the ability of myth
standing have in Heidegger's thought indicates the priority of to change and its openness for ever new interpretations by
the "relation" over against its relational members - the I the poets compels one to regard it as wrong to ask in what
who understands and that which is understood. Nevertheless, sense an ancient myth was "believed" or, assuming it was no
it seems t o me that it is possible to bring to expression within longer "believed" even then, where it passed over into poetic
the hermeneutical consciousness itself Heidegger's statements play. In truth, myth is obviously and intimately akin to
concerning "being" and the line of inquiry he developed out thinking consciousness. Even the philosophical explication of
of the experience of the " t u r n . " I have carried out this myth in the language of concepts adds nothing essentially
attempt in Truth and Method. Just as the relation between new to the constant movement back and forth between
the speaker and what is spoken points t o a dynamic process discovery and concealment, between reverential awe and spir-
that does n o t have a firm basis in either member of the itual freedom, that accompanied the entire history of Greek
relation, so the relation between the understanding and what myth. It is useful t o remember this point if we are to
is understood has a priority over its relational terms. Under-
standing is not self-understanding in the sense of the self- •Gerhard Kriiger, Einsicht und Leidenschaft: Das Wesen des platonischen
Denkens. (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1963).
 52 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION ON THE PROBLEM OF SELF-UNDERSTANDING 53
r
understand correctly the concept of myth that is implied in sary f ° us to consider the relation between faith and under-
Bultmann's program of demythologizing. The contrast Bult- standing in terms of the freedom of the game.
mann makes between the "mythical picture of the world" It may appear surprising at first to combine the deadly
and the scientific picture of the world that we hold as true seriousness of faith with the arbitrariness of the game. In
hardly has the tone of finality that has been attributed to it fact, the sense of this contrast would be completely de-
in the course of the demythologizing controversy. In the last stroyed if one were to understand the game or playing in the
analysis, the relation of a Christian theologian to the biblical customary way, namely, as a subjective attitude rather than
tradition does not appear to be so fundamentally different as a dynamic whole sui generis that embraces even the subjec-
from the relation of the Greek to his myths. The casual and tivity of the one who plays. Now it seems to me that this
somewhat incidental formulation of the concept of demy- latter concept of the game is the truly legitimate and original
thologizing that Bultmann proposed (indeed, the sum of his one,* and it is in terms of this concept of the game that we
general exegetical theology) had anything but an Enlighten- can best focus attention on the relation between faith and
ment meaning. Rather, as a pupil of the liberal, historical understanding.
study of the Bible, what Bultmann sought in the biblical The back and forth movement that takes place within a
tradition was the aspect that had persisted despite all histor- given field of play does not derive from the human game and
ical explanation, which is the real bearer of the proclamation from playing as a subjective attitude. Quite the contrary,
and represents the real challenge of faith. even for human subjectivity the real experience of the game
This positive dogmatic interest, not an interest in a pro- consists in the fact that something that obeys its own set of
gressive enlightenment, marks Bultmann's concept of myth. laws gains ascendency in the game. To the movement in a
Thus his concept of myth is completely descriptive and determinate direction corresponds a movement in the oppo-
retains historical and contingent elements. In any case, al- site direction. The back and forth movement of the game has
though the specifically theological problem involved in demy- a peculiar freedom and buoyancy that determines the con-
thologizing the New Testament may be fundamental, it is still sciousness of the player. It goes on automatically - a condi-
a matter of practical exegesis and does not directly concern tion of weightless balance, "where the pure too-little incom-
the hermeneutical principle of all exegesis. The general her- prehensibly changes - springs round into that empty too-
meneutical implication of this theological concept is that we much."* Even the intensification of the individual's effort
cannot dogmatically establish a definite concept of myth and that occurs in competitive situations is marked by something
then determine once and for all which aspects of Scripture like a possession by the buoyancy of the game in which he
are to be unmasked by scientific explanation as "mere m y t h " has a role. Whatever is brought into play or comes into play
for modern man. "Mere m y t h " must not be defined on the no longer depends on itself but is dominated by the relation
basis of modern science, but positively from the point of that we call the game. For the individual who, as playing
view of the acceptance of the kerygma - in terms of the subjectivity, engages in the game, this fact may seem at first
inner claim of faith. The great freedom that the Greek poet to be an accommodation. He conforms to the game or
possessed and employed in order to interpret the mythical subjects himself to it, that is, he relinquishes the autonomy
tradition of his people is another example of such demythol- of his own will. For example, two men who use a saw
ogizing. Here too we do not deal with "enlightenment," but
rather with a religious basis for the poet's exercise of his *Cf. WM, pp. 97-105 and 462-465, where I believe I have shown this to be the
spiritual power and critical insight. One need only think of case.
Pindar and Aeschylus in this connection. Hence it is neces- **Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies, trans. J. B. Leishman and Stepher
Spender (New York: W. W. Norton, 1963), Fifth Elegy, lines 84-86.
 54 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION ON THE PROBLEM OF SELF-UNDERSTANDING 55

together allow the free play of the saw to take place, it would this point that the concept of the game becomes important,
seem, by reciprocally adjusting to each other so that one for absorption into the game is an ecstatic self-forgetting that
man's impulse to movement takes effect just when that of j experienced not as a loss of self-possession, but as the free
s

the other man ends. It appears, therefore, that the primary buoyancy of an elevation above oneself. We cannot compre-
factor is a kind of agreement between the two, a deliberate hend this in a unified way under the subjective rubric of
attitude of the one as well as the other. But this attitude is self-understanding. The Dutch historian Huizinga recognized
still not the game. The game is not so much the subjective this point when he said that the consciousness of the one
attitude of the two men confronting each other as it is the who is playing finds itself in an inseparable balance between
formation of the movement as such, which, as in an uncon- belief and unbelief: the savage himself knows no conceptual
scious teleology, subordinates the attitude.of the individuals difference between being and playing.*
to itself. It is the merit of the neurologist Viktor von Weiz- It is not merely the savage, however, who is unacquainted
sacker to have conducted experiments on phenomena of this with this conceptual difference. Wherever the claim of self-
kind and to have analyzed them theoretically in his work Der understanding is asserted - and where do men not assert
Gestaltkreis. * I am indebted to him also for his reference to it? - it remains within well-defined limits. The hermeneutical
the fact that the tension-filled situation in which the mon- consciousness does not compete with that self-transparency
goose and the snake hold each other in check cannot be that Hegel took to constitute absolute knowledge and the
described as the reaction of one partner to the attempted highest mode of being. We are not speaking of self-under-
attack of the other, but represents a reciprocal behavior of standing in the realm of faith alone. In the last analysis, all
absolute contemporaneousness. Here too, neither partner understanding is self-understanding, but not in the sense of a
alone constitutes the real determining factor; rather, it is the preliminary self-possession or of one finally and definitively
unified form of movement as a whole that unifies the fluid achieved. For the self-understanding only realizes itself in the
activity of both. We can formulate this idea as a theoretical understanding of a subject matter and does not have the
generalization by saying that the individual self, including his character of a free self-realization. The self that we are does
activity and his understanding of himself, is taken up into a not possess itself; one could say that it "happens." And this
higher determination that is the really decisive factor. is what the theologian is actually saying when he asserts that
This is the context in which I would like to consider the faith is an event in which a new man is established. The
relation of faith and understanding. From the theological theologian says also that we must believe and understand the
point of view, faith's self-understanding is determined by the Word, and that it is through the Word that we overcome the
fact that faith is not man's possibility, but a gracious act of abysmal ignorance about ourselves in which we live.
God that happens to the one- who has faith. To the extent That the concept of self-understanding has an originally
that one's self-understanding is dominated by modern science theological stamp can be seen clearly in the work of Johann
and its methodology, however, it is difficult for him to hold Georg Hamann. What he meant by the concept was that we
fast to this theological insight and religious experience. The do not understand ourselves unless it be before God. But God
concept of knowledge based on scientific procedures toler- is the Word. From the earliest times, the human word has
ates no restriction of its claim to universality. On the basis of provided theological reflection with a concrete visualization
this claim, all self-understanding is represented as a kind of of the Word of God and the mystery of the Trinity. Augus-
self-possession that excludes nothing as much as the idea that tine in particular sought to describe the suprahuman mystery
something that separates it from itself can befall it. It is at of the Trinity by means of innumerable variations on the
•Viktor von Weizsacker, Der Gestaltkreis: Theorie der Einheit von Wahrneh- *Cf. Johann Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture
men und Bewegen (Leipzig, 1940). (Boston: Beacon Press, 1955).
56 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION ON THE PROBLEM OF SELF-UNDERSTANDING 57

word and the dialogue as they occur between men. Word and that speech confronts speech but does not remain immobile.
dialogue undoubtedly include within them an aspect of the In speaking with each other we constantly pass over into the
game. thought world of the other person; we engage him, and he
Many aspects of the dialogue between men point to the engages us. So we adapt ourselves to each other in a prelimi-
common structure of understanding and playing: risking a nary way until the game of giving and taking - the real
word or "keeping it to oneself," provoking a word from the dialogue - begins. It cannot be denied that in an actual
other person and receiving an answer from him or giving an dialogue of this kind something of the character of accident,
answer oneself. Another indication is the way every word favor, and surprise - and in the end, of buoyancy, indeed, of
"comes into play" within the definite context in which it is elevation - that belongs to the nature of the game is present.
spoken and understood. It is in language games, for example, And surely the elevation of the dialogue will not be expe-
that the child becomes acquainted with the world. Indeed, rienced as a loss of self-possession, but rather as an enrich-
everything we learn takes place in language games. This is not ment of our self, but without us thereby becoming aware of
to say that when we speak we are "only playing" and do not ourselves.
mean it seriously. Rather, the words we find capture our Now it seems to me that these observations also hold for
intending, as it were, and dovetail into relations that point dealing with written texts and thus for understanding the
out beyond the momentariness of our act of intending. When Christian proclamation that is preserved in Scripture. The life
does the child who listens to and repeats the language of of tradition, and even more, the life of proclamation, consist
adults understand the words he uses? When is his playing in such a play of understanding. The understanding of a text
transformed into seriousness? When does seriousness begin has not begun at all as long as the text remains mute. But a
and playing cease? Every determination of word meanings text can begin to speak. (We are not discussing here the
grows, as it were, in playful fashion from the value of the conditions that must be given for this actually to occur.)
word in the concrete situation. Just as writing represents a When it does begin to speak, however, it does not simply
fixing of the phonetic constancy [Lautbestand] of language speak its word, always the same, in lifeless rigidity, but gives
and thus reacts upon the phonetic form [Lautgestalt] of the ever new answers to the person who questions it and poses
language itself by articulating it, so too living speaking and ever new questions to him who answers it. To understand a
the life of the language have their play in a back and forth text is to come to understand oneself in a kind of dialogue.
movement. No one fixes the meaning of a word, nor does the This contention is confirmed by the fact that the concrete
ability to speak merely mean learning the fixed meanings of dealing with a text yields understanding only when what is
words and using them correctly. Rather, the life of language said in the text begins to find expression in the interpreter's
consists in the constant playing further of the game that we own language. Interpretation belongs to the essential unity of
began when we first learned to speak. A new word usage understanding. One must take up into himself what is said to
comes into play and, equally unnoticed and unintended, the him in such fashion that it speaks and finds an answer in the
old words die. This is the ongoing game in which the being- words of his own language. This observation holds true in
with-others of men occurs. every respect for the text of the Christian proclamation,
which one really cannot understand if it does not seem to
The common agreement that takes place in speaking with speak directly to him. It is in the sermon, therefore, that the
others is itself a game. Whenever two persons speak with each understanding and interpretation of the text first receives its
other they speak the same language. They themselves, how- full reality. It is the sermon rather than the explanatory
ever, in no way know that in speaking it they are playing this commetary of the theologian's exegetical work that stands in
language further. But each person also speaks his own lan- the immediate service of proclamation, for it not only com-
guage. Common agreement takes place by virtue of the fact
 58 THE SCOPE OF H E R M E N E U T I C A L REFLECTION

municates to the community the understanding of what

Scripture says, but also bears witness itself. The actual com-
pletion of understanding does not take place in the sermon as
such, but rather in its reception as an appeal that is directed
to each person who hears it.
If self-understanding comes about in this way, then it is
surely a very paradoxical, if not negative, understanding of
oneself in which one hears himself called into dialogue. Such
self-understanding certainly does not constitute a criterion Man and Language (1966)
for the theological interpretation of the New Testament.
Moreover, the texts of the New Testament are themselves
already interpretations of the Christian message; they do not
wish to call attention to themselves, but rather to be media-
tors of this message. Does this not give them a freedom in
speaking that allows them to be selfless witnesses? We are
much indebted to modern theological study for our insight
into the theological intention of the New Testament writers,
but the proclamation of the gospel speaks through all these Aristotle established the classical definition of the nature of
mediations in a way that is comparable to the repetition of a man. according to which man is the living being who has
legend or the continual renewal and transformation of mythi- logos. In the tradition of the West, this definition became
cal tradition by great poetry. The genuine reality of the canonical in a form which stated that man is the animal
hermeneutical process seems to me to encompass the self- rationale, the rational being, distinguished from all other
understanding of the interpreter as well as what is inter- animals by his capacity for thought. Thus it rendered the
preted. Thus "demythologizing" takes place not only in the Greek word logos as reason or thought. In truth, however,
action of the theologian, but also in the Bible itself. But the primary meaning of this word is language. Aristotle once
neither in the work of the theologian nor in the Bible is developed the difference between man and animal in the
"demythologizing" a sure guarantee of correct understand- following way: animals can understand each other by indi-
ing. The real event of understanding goes beyond what we cating to each other what excites their desire so they can seek
can bring to the understanding of the other person's words it, and what injures them, so they can flee from it. That is as
through methodical effort and critical self-control. Indeed, it far as nature goes in them. To men alone is the logos given as
goes far beyond what we ourselves can become aware of. well, so that they can make manifest to each other what is
Through every dialogue something different comes to be. useful and harmful, and therefore also what is right and
Moreover, the Word of God, which calls us to conversion and wrong. A profound thesis. What is useful and what is harmful
promises us a better understanding of ourselves, cannot be is something that is not desirable in itself. Rather, it is desired
understood as a word that merely confronts us and that we for the sake of something else not yet given, in whose
must simply leave as it is. It is not really we ourselves who acquisition it aids one. The distinguishing feature of man,
understand: it is always a past that allows us to say, "I have therefore, is his superiority over what is actually present, his
understood." sense of the future. And in the same breath Aristotle adds
that with this the sense for right and wrong is given - and all
because man, as an individual, has the logos. He can think
59
 MAN AND LANGUAGE 61
60 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION
in which man was without language. With this the very
and he can speak. He can make what is not present manifest
question of the origin of language was excluded altogether.
through his speaking, so that another person sees it before
Herder and Wilhelm von Humboldt saw that language is
him. He can communicate everything that he means. Indeed,
essentially human and that man is an essentially linguistic
even more than this, it is by virtue of the fact he can
being, and they worked out the fundamental significance of
communicate in this way that there exists in man alone
this insight for man's view of the world. The diversity of
common meaning, that is, common concepts, especially those
human linguistic structures was the field of study of Wilhelm
through which the common life of men is possible without
von Humboldt, the one-time minister of culture who with-
murder and manslaughter - in the form of social life, a
drew from public life - the wise man of Tegel who through
political constitution, an organized division of labor. All this
the work of his old age became the founder of modern
is involved in the simple assertion that man is a being who
linguistic science.
possesses language.
Nevertheless, Humboldt's founding of the philosophy of
One might think that this obvious and convincing observa-
language and linguistic science did not lead to a restoration of
tion had long ago guaranteed a privileged place for the
the original Aristotelian insight. By making the language of
phenomenon of language in our thinking about the nature of
peoples the object of his investigation, Humboldt pursued a
man. What is more convincing than the fact that the language
path of knowledge that was able to clarify in a new and
of animals - if one wants to confer this name on their way of
promising way both the diversity of peoples and times as well
making themselves understood - is entirely different from
as the common human nature underlying them all. But this
human language, in which an objective world is conceived
procedure merely equipped man with a capacity and eluci-
and communicated? Indeed, human language takes place in
dated the structural laws of this capacity - what we call the
signs that are not rigid, as animals' expressive signs are, but
grammar, syntax, and vocabulary of a language - and it
remain variable, not only in the sense that there are different
restricted the horizon of the question of man and language.
languages, but also in the sense that within the same language
The aim of such an approach was to comprehend the world-
the same expression can designate different things and differ-
views of different peoples, indeed even the details of their
ent expressions the same thing.
cultural development, through the mirror of language. An
In fact, however, Western philosophical thought has not example of this approach would be the insight into the
placed the nature of language at the center of its considera- cultural situation of the Indo-Germanic family of peoples
tions. It is indeed significant that in the Old Testament story that we owe to Viktor Hehn's superb studies of cultivated
of creation, God conferred dominion over the world on the plants and house pets.* Far more than other prehistories,
first man by permitting him to name all beings at his discre- linguistic science is the prehistory of the human spirit.
tion. The story of the Tower of Babel too indicates the
fundamental significance of language for human life. Never- For this approach, however, the phenomenon of language
theless, it was precisely the religious tradition of the Christian has only the significance of an excellent manifestation in
West that hindered serious thought about language, so that which the nature of man and his development in history can
the question of the origin of language could be posed in a be studied. Yet it was unable to infiltrate the central posi-
new way only at the time of the Enlightenment. An impor- tions of philosophical thought, for the Cartesian characteriza-
tant advance occurred when the answer to the question of tion of consciousness as self-consciousness continued to pro-
the origin of language was sought in the nature of man vide the background for all of modern thought. This un-
instead of in the biblical story of creation. For then a further shakable foundation of all certainty, the most certain of all
step was unavoidable: the naturalness of language made it *Cf. Viktor Hehn, Kulturpflanzen und Haustiere (Berlin: Gebriider Born-
impossible to inquire any longer about an original condition traeger, 1870).
 62 THE SCOPE OF H E R M E N E U T I C A L REFLECTION MAN A N D L A N G U A G E 63

facts, that I know myself, became the standard for everything men and in the last analysis with ourselves when we learn to
that could meet the requirements of scientific knowledge in speak. Learning to speak does not mean learning to use a
the thought of the modern period. In the last analysis, the preexistent tool for designating a world already somehow
scientific investigation of language rested on this same foun- familiar to us; it means acquiring a familiarity and acquaint-
dation. The spontaneity of the subject possessed one of its ance with the world itself and how it confronts us.
basic forms in language-forming energy. Also, the worldview An enigmatic and profoundly veiled process! What sort of
present in languages could be interpreted so fruitfully in folly is it to say that a child speaks a "first" word. What kind
terms of this principle that the enigma language presents to of madness is it to want to discover the original language of
human thought did not come into view at all. For it is part of humanity by having children grow up in hermetic isolation
the nature of language, that it has a completely unfathomable from human speaking and then, from their first babbling of
unconsciousness of itself To that extent, it is not an accident an articulate sort, recognize an actual human language and
that the use of the concept "language" is a recent develop- accord it the honor of being the "original" language of
ment. The word logos means not only thought and language, creation. What is mad about such ideas is that they want to
but also concept and law. The appearance of the concept suspend in some artificial way our very enclosedness in the
"language" presupposes consciousness of language. But that linguistic world in which we live. In truth we are always
is only the result of the reflective movement in which the one already at home in language, just as much as we are in the
thinking has reflected out of the unconscious operation of world. It is Aristotle once again who gives us the most
speaking and stands at a distance from himself. The real extensive description of the process in which one learns to
enigma of language, however, is that we can never really do speak. What Aristotle means to describe is not learning to
this completely. Rather, all thinking about language is al- speak, but rather, thinking, that is, acquiring universal con-
ready once again drawn back into language. We can only cepts. In the flux of appearances, in the constant flood of
think in a language, and just this residing of our thinking in a changing impressions, how does anything like permanence
language is the profound enigma that language presents to come about? Surely it is first of all the capacity of retention,
thought. namely, memory, that allows us to recognize something as
the same, and that is the first great achievement of abstrac-
Language is not one of the means by which consciousness
tion. Out of the flux of appearances a common factor is spied
is mediated with the world. It does not represent a third
here and there, and thus, out of accumulating recognitions
instrument alongside the sign and the tool, both of which are
that we call experience, the unity of experience slowly
also certainly distinctively human. Language is by no means
emerges. Knowledge of the universal originates in this way as
simply an instrument, a tool. For it is in the nature of the
a capacity for disposing over what has been experienced.
tool that we master its use, which is to say we take it in hand
Now Aristotle asks: Exactly how can this knowledge of the
and lay it aside when it has done its service. That is not the
universal come about? Certainly not in such a way that one
same as when we take the words of a language, lying ready in
thing after the other goes by and suddenly knowledge of the
the mouth, and with their use let them sink back into the
universal is acquired when a certain particular reappears and
general store of words over which we dispose. Such an
is recognized as the same one. This one particular as such is
analogy is false because we never find ourselves as con-
not distinguished from all other particulars by some mysteri-
sciousness over against the world and, as it wore, grasp after a
ous power of representing the universal. Rather, it too is like
tool of understanding in a wordless condition. Rather, in all
all other particulars. And yet it is true that at some point the
our knowledge of ourselves and in all knowledge of the
knowledge of the universal actually comes about. Where does
world, we are always already encompassed by the language
it begin? Aristotle gives an ideal image for this: How does an
that is our own. We grow up, and we become acquainted with
 64 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION MAN AND LANGUAGE 65
army that is in flight come to take a stand again? Certainly j \ really gigantic achievement of abstraction is required of
not by the fact that the first man stops, or the second or the everyone who will bring the grammar of his native language
third. We cannot say that the army stands when a certain to explicit consciousness. The actual operation of language
number of fleeing soldiers stops its flight, and also certainly lets grammar vanish entirely behind what is said in it at any
not when the last has stopped. For the army does not begin given time. In learning foreign languages there is a very fine
to stand with him; it has long since begun to come to a stand. experience of this phenomenon which each of us has had,
How it begins, how it spreads, and how the army finally at namely, the paradigm sentences used in text books and
some point stands again (that is, how it comes once again to language courses. Their task is to make one aware in an
obey the unity of the command) is not knowingly prescribed, abstract way of a specific linguistic phenomenon. In earlier
controlled by planning, or known with precision by anyone. times, when the task of acquisition involved in the learning
And nonetheless it has undoubtedly happened. It is precisely of the grammar and syntax of a language was still acknowl-
this way with knowledge of the universal, because this is edged, these were sentences of an exalted senselessness that
really the same as its entrance into language. declared something or other about Caesar or Uncle Carl. The
We are always already biased in our thinking and knowing modern tendency to communicate a great deal of interesting
by our linguistic interpretation of the world. To grow into information about the foreign country by means of such
this linguistic interpretation means to grow up in the world. paradigm sentences has the unintended side effect of obscur-
To this extent, language is the real mark of our finitude. It is ing their exemplary function precisely to the extent that the
always out beyond us. The consciousness of the individual is content of what is said attracts attention. The more language
not the standard by which the being of language can be is a living operation, the less we are aware of it. Thus it
measured. Indeed, there is no individual consciousness at all follows from the self-forgetfulness of language that its real
in which a spoken language is actually present. How then is being consists in what is said in it. What is said in it consti-
language present? Certainly not without the individual con- tutes the common world in which we live and to which
sciousness, but also not in a mere summation of the many belongs also the whole great chain of tradition reaching us
who are each a particular consciousness for itself. from the literature of foreign languages, living as well as dead.
No individual has a real consciousness of his speaking when The real being of language is that into which we are taken up
he speaks. Only in exceptional situations does one become when we hear it — what is said.
conscious of the language in which he is speaking. It happens, 2. A second essential feature of the being of language
for instance, when someone starts to say something but seems to me to be its I-lessness. Whoever speaks a language
hesitates because what he is about to say seems strange or that no one else understands does not speak. To speak means
funny. He wonders, "Can one really say t h a t ? " Here for a to speak to someone. The word should be the right word.
moment the language we speak becomes conscious because it That, however, does not mean simply that it represents the
does not do what is peculiar to it. What is peculiar to it? I intended object for me, but rather, that it places it before the
think we can distinguish three things. eyes of the other person to whom I speak.
1. The first is the essential self-forgetfulness that belongs To that extent, speaking does not belong in the sphere of
to language. The structure, grammar, syntax of a language - the " I " but in the sphere of the "We." Thus Ferdinand Ebner
all those factors which linguistic science makes thematic - was right in giving his celebrated work The Word and Spiri-
are not at all conscious to living speaking. Hence one of the tual Realities the subtitle, Pneumatological Fragments. * For
peculiar perversions of the natural that is necessary for mod- the spiritual reality of language is that of the Pneuma, the
ern education is that we teach grammer and syntax in our
•Ferdinand Ebner, Das Wort und die geistigen Realitaten: Pneumatologische
own native language instead of in a dead language like Latin. Fragmente (Innsbruck: Brenner, 1921).
66 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION MAN AND LANGUAGE 67
spirit, which unifies I and Thou. It has long been observed 3. A third feature is what I would call the universality of
that the actuality of speaking consists in the dialogue. But in language. Language is not a delimited realm of the speakable,
every dialogue a spirit rules, a bad one or a good one, a spirit over against which other realms that are unspeakable might
of obdurateness and hesitancy or a spirit of communication stand. Rather, language is all-encompassing. There is nothing
and of easy exchange between I and Thou. that is fundamentally excluded from being said, to the extent
As I have shown elsewhere, the form of operation of every that our act of meaning intends it. Our capacity for saying
dialogue can be described in terms of the concept of the keeps pace untiringly with the universality of reason. Hence
game.* It is certainly necessary that we free ourselves from every dialogue also has an inner infinity and no end. One
the customary mode of thinking that considers the nature of breaks it off, either because it seems that enough has been
the game from the point of view of the consciousness of the said or because there is no more to say. But every such break
player. This definition of the man who plays, which has has an intrinsic relation to the resumption of the dialogue.
become popular primarily through Schiller, grasps the true We have this experience, often in a very painful way, when
structure of the game only in terms of its subjective appear- a statement is required from us. As an extreme example, we
ance. In fact, however, the game is a dynamic process that can think of an interrogation or a statement before a court.
embraces the persons playing or whatever plays. Hence it is In such a case, the question we have to answer is like a barrier
by no means merely a metaphor when we speak of the "play erected against the spirit of speaking, which desires to express
of the waves," or "the playing flies" or of the "free play of itself and enter into dialogue ("I will speak h e r e " or "Answer
the parts." Rather, the very fascination of the game for the my question!"). Nothing that is said has its truth simply in
playing consciousness roots precisely in its being taken up itself, but refers instead backward and forward to what is
into a movement that has own its dynamic. The game is unsaid. Every assertion is motivated, that is, one can sensibly
underway when the individual player participates in full ask of everything that is said, "Why do you say t h a t ? " And
earnest, that is, when he no longer holds himself back as one only when what is not said is understood along with what is
who is merely playing, for whom it is not serious. Those who said is an assertion understandable. We are familiar with this
cannot do that we call men who are unable to play. Now I fact especially in the phenomenon of the question. A ques-
contend that the basic constitution of the game, to be filled tion that we do not understand as motivated can also find no
with its spirit — the spirit of bouyancy, freedom and the joy answer. For the motivational background of a question first
of success - and to fulfill him who is playing, is structurally opens up the realm out of which an answer can be brought
related to the constitution of the dialogue in which language and given. Hence there is in fact an infinite dialogue in
is a reality. When one enters into dialogue with another questioning as well as answering, in whose space word and
person and then is carried along further by the dialogue, it is answer stand. Everything that is said stands in such space.
no longer the will of the individual person, holding itself back We can illustrate this idea by an experience each of us has
or exposing itself, that is determinative. Rather, the law of had. What I have in mind is translating and reading transla-
the subject matter is at issue in the dialogue and elicits tions from foreign languages. The translator has a linguistic
statement and counterstatement and in the end plays them text before him, that is, something said either verbally or in
into each other. Hence, when a dialogue has succeeded, one is writing, that he has to translate into his own language. He is
subsequently fulfilled by it, as we say. The play of statement bound by what stands there, and yet he cannot simply
and counterstatement is played further in the inner dialogue convert what is said out of the foreign language into his own
of the soul with itself, as Plato so beautifully called thought. without himself becoming again the one saying it. But this
means he must gain for himself the infinite space of the
*Cf. WM, pt. 3. saying that corresponds to what is said in the foreign lan-
68 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION

guage. Everyone knows how difficult it is. Everyone knows

how the translation makes what is said in the foreign lan-
guage sound flat. It is reflected on one level, so that the word
sense and sentence form of the translation follow the origi-
nal, but the translation, as it were, has no space. It lacks that
third dimension from which the original (i.e., what is said in
the original) is built up in its range of meaning. This is an
unavoidable obstruction to all translations. No translation 5
can replace the original. One might argue that the original The Nature of Things and the
assertion, which is projected into this flatness, should be
more easily understandable in the translation, since much Language of Things (I960)
that was suggestive background or "between the lines" in the
original would not be carried over. The reduction to a simple
sense achieved by the translation could be taken, therefore,
to facilitate understanding. But this argument is mistaken. No
translation is as understandable as the original. Precisely the
most inclusive meaning of what is said — and meaning is
The object of our study in this essay will be two common
always a direction of meaning — comes to language only in
expressions that for all intents and purposes mean the same
the original saying and slips away in all subsequent saying and
thing. Our intention is to illuminate a convergence of topics
speaking. The task of the translator, therefore, must never be
that dominates philosophy today despite every difference in
to copy what is said, but to place himself in the direction of
starting points and methodological ideals. While these two
what is said (i.e., in its meaning) in order to carry over what
expressions seem to say the same thing, we will show that a
is to be said into the direction of his own saying.
tension exists between them. At the same time, the power of
This problem becomes clearest in those translations which the same impulse appears in both despite this difference.
make possible a verbal dialogue between men of different Linguistic usage alone gives us little indication of all this, for
native languages by the interposition of an interpreter. An it seems to indicate that the two expressions are completely
interpreter who only reproduces the words and sentences interchangeable. The two expressions are "it is the nature of
spoken by one person in the language of another alienates the things" [Es liegt in der Natur der Sache] and "things speak
conversation into unintelligibility. What he has to reproduce for themselves" [Die Dinge sprechen fur sich selber], or
is not what is said in exact terms, but rather what the other "they speak an unmistakable language" [sie ftihren eine un-
person wanted to say and said in that he left much unsaid. missverstdndliche Sprache]. In both cases we are dealing with
The limited character of his reproduction must also attain the stereotyped linguistic formulas that do not really give the
space in which alone dialogue becomes possible, that is, the reasons for why we hold something to be true, but rather
inner infinity that belongs to all common understanding. reject the need for further proof. Even the two basic terms
Hence language is the real medium of human being, if we that appear in these expressions, Sache and Ding, seem to say
only see it in the realm that it alone fills out, the realm of the same thing. They are both expressions for something that
e

human being-together, the realm of common understanding, ludes more precise definition. Correspondingly, when we
of ever-replenished common agreement — a realm as indis- speak of the " n a t u r e " of things or the "language" of things,
pensible to human life as the air we breathe. As Aristotle these expressions share in common a polemical rejection of
said, man is truly the being who has language. For we should violent arbitrariness in our dealing with things, especially the
let everything human be spoken to us.
69
 70 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION THE NATURE OF THINGS 71
mere stating of opinions, the capriciousness of conjectures or within philosophy, also means something similar. Phenom-
assertions about things, and the arbitrariness of denials or the enological analysis sought to uncover the uncontrolled as-
insistence on private opinions. sumption involved in unsuitable, prejudiced, and arbitrary
However, if we look more closely and probe the more constructions and theories. And in fact it exposed such
furtive differences of linguistic usage, the appearance of com- assumptions in their illegitimacy by the unprejudiced analysis
plete interchangeability is dispelled. The concept of the thing
of the phenomena.
[Sache] is marked above all by its counterconcept, the per-
But the concept of the thing [Sache] reflects more than
son. The meaning of this antithesis of thing and person is
the Roman legal concept of res. The meaning of the German
found originally in the clear priority of the person over the
word Sache is permeated above all by what is called causa,
thing. The person appears as something to be respected in its
that is, the disputed " m a t t e r " under consideration. Origi-
own being. The thing, on the other hand, is something to be
nally, it was the thing that was placed in the middle between
used, something that stands entirely at our disposal. Now
the disputing parties because a decision still had to be ren-
when we encounter the expression "the nature of things,"
dered regarding it. The thing was to be protected against the
the point is clearly that what is available for our use and
domineering grasp of one party or the other. In this context,
given to our disposal has in reality a being of its own, which
objectivity means precisely opposition to partiality, that is,
allows it to resist our efforts to use it in unsuitable ways. Or
to the misuse of the law for partial purposes. The legal
to put it positively: it prescribes a specific comportment that
concept of "the nature of things" does not mean an issue
is appropriate to it. But with this statement the priority of
disputed between parties, but rather the limits that are set to
the person over the thing is inverted. In contrast to the
the arbitrary will of the legislator in the promulgation of the
capacity persons have to adapt to each other as they please,
law and to the judicial interpretation of the law. The appeal
the "nature of things" is the unalterable givenness to which
to the nature of things refers to an order removed from
we have to accommodate ourselves. Thus the concept of the
human wishes. And it intends to assure the triumph of the
thing can maintain its own emphasis by demanding that we
living spirit of justice over the letter of the law. Here too,
abandon all thought of ourselves and thereby even compell-
therefore, "the nature of things" is something that asserts
ing us to suspend any consideration of persons.
itself, something we have to respect.
This is where the exhortation to objectivity [Sachlichkeit] If, however, we pursue what is expressed in the phrase
that we also know as the characteristic attitude of philosophy "the language of things," we are pointed in a similar direc-
originates. Bacon's famous words, which Kant chose as the tion. The language of things too is something to which we
m o t t o for his Critique of Pure Reason, express it: "De nobis should pay better attention. This expression also has a kind
ipsis silemus, de re autem quae agitur." [About ourselves we of polemical accent. It expresses the fact that, in general, we
keep silent, but we will speak of the subject.] are not at all ready to hear things in their own being, that
One of the greatest champions of such objectivity among they are subjected to man's calculus and to his domination of
classical philosophical thinkers is Hegel. He actually speaks of nature through the rationality of science. Talk of a respect
the action of the thing and characterizes real philosophical for things is more and more unintelligible in a world that is
speculation by the fact that the thing itself is active in it and becoming ever more technical. They are simply vanishing,
not simply the free play of our own notions. That is, the free and only the poet still remains true to them. But we can still
play of our reflective procedures with the thing is not opera- speak of a language of things when we remember what things
tive in real philosophical speculation. The celebrated phe- really are, namely, not a material that is used and consumed,
nomenological slogan, "To the things themselves," which at not a tool that is used and set aside, but something instead
the beginning of the century expressed a new orientation that has existence in itself and is "not forced to do any-
 72 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION THE NATURE OF THINGS 73

thing," as Heidegger says. Its own being in itself is dis- nation of the object by cognition. Thus they understood the
regarded by the imperious human will to manipulate, and it i s thing-in-itself as the mere ideal goal of an infinite task of
1
like a language it is vital for us to hear. The expression "the progressive determination. Even Husserl, who, in contrast to
language of things," therefore, is not a mythological, poetic fJeo-Kantianism, started less from the facts of science than
truth that only a Merlin the Magician or those initiated into from everyday experience, tried to give a phenomenological
the spirit of the fairy tale could verify. Rather this common demonstration of the doctrine of the thing-in-itself by pro-
expression rouses the memory (slumbering in us all) of the ceeding from the fact that the various shadings of the things
being of things that are still able to be what they are. of perception formed the continuum of a single experience.
Thus, in a certain sense, the same truth is actually spoken The doctrine of the thing-in-itself could mean nothing other
by both phrases. Common expressions are not simply the than the possibility of this continuous transition from one
dead remains of a linguistic usage that has become figurative. aspect of a thing to another, by which the unified matrix of
They are at the same time the heritage of a common spirit, our experience is made possible. Thus even Husserl under-
and if we only understand them rightly and penetrate their stood the idea of the thing-in-itself in terms of the idea of the
covert richness of meaning, they can make this common progress of our knowledge, which has its ultimate demonstra-
spirit perceivable again. Hence our examination of these tion in scientific investigation.
expressions has shown us that in a certain sense they say the There is certainly nothing comparable to this in the moral
same thing - something that must be kept in mind over order, for since Rousseau and Kant it has no longer been
against the despotic character of our capriciousness. This is possible to assume a moral perfectibility of mankind. Yet
not all, however. Even though the two expressions — "the here too the phenomenological critique of Neo-Kantianism
nature of things" and "the language of things" — are some- had its point of departure in the formalism of Kantian moral
times used interchangeably and are stamped by what they philosophy. Kant's starting point in the phenomenon of duty
both oppose, this commonality still conceals a difference that and his demonstration of the unconditionedness of the cate-
is not accidental. Rather, there is a philosophical task here of gorical imperative seemed to banish from moral philosophy
elucidating the tension perceivable in the subtle undertones any filling out of the content of what the moral law de-
of both expressions. I shall try to show that the arbitration of mands. As weak as it was on its negative side, Max Scheler's
this tension that is taking place in philosophy today distin- critique of the formalism of Kantian ethics proved its own
guishes the matrix of problems common to us all. fruitfulness by its outline of a material ethic of values.
For the Philosophical mind, the concept of "the nature of Scheler's phenomenological critique of the Neo-Kantian con-
things" brings into focus an opposition to philosophical ideal- cept of production also represented an important stimulus
ism shared by many persons, and especially to the Neo- that led Nicolai Hartmann in particular to reject Neo-Kan-
2

Kantian form in which idealism was renewed in the latter half tianism and to develop his metaphysics of knowledge. The
of the nineteenth century. This continuation of Kant, which fact that knowledge brought about no alteration in the
sought to make him a spokesman for the faith in progress and known, let alone that it meant its production, and the fact
pride in science of its own time, really no longer knew what that, on the contrary, everything that is remains indifferent
to do with the thing-in-itself. With all their explicit rejection to whether it is known or not, seemed to Hartmann to speak
of metaphysical idealism, Kant's successors no longer con- against any form of transcendental idealism, even against
sidered a return to the Kantian dualism of thing-in-itself and Husserlian constitutional research. On the positive side, Hart-
appearance. Only by means of a reinterpretation did Kant s mann believed the way to a new ontology to lie in the
words fit their own self-evident convictions. As a result of recognition of the autonomy of beings and their independ-
er

this reinterpretation, their idealism meant the total determi- >ce of all human subjectivity. Hence he came into proximity
 74 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION THE NATURE OF THINGS 75
with the "critical realism" that triumphed at the same time in created to encounter beings, so the thing is created true, that
England too - and there completely. is, capable of being known. An enigma that is insoluable for
But I believe such a dismissal of transcendental philosophi- the finite mind is thus resolved in the infinite mind of the
cal reflection involves a massive misunderstanding of its Creator. The essence and actuality of the creation consists in
meaning and is the result of the decline of philosophical being such a harmony of soul and thing.
knowledge that began with Hegel's death. There are of course Now philosophy certainly can no longer avail itself of such
reasons for the continual repetition of such a renunciation, a theological grounding and will also not want to repeat the
even in the philosophy of our own time. When we contrast secularized versions of it, as represented by speculative ideal-
the superior reality of the divinely ordained order with our ism with its dialectical mediation of finite and infinite. But
domineering will that is shattered on it (Gerhard Kriiger), or for its part, philosophy may also not close its eyes to the
man and his history with the indifference of the natural truth of this correspondence. In this sense, the task of meta-
world (Karl Lowith), we can understand such polemical re- physics continues, though certainly as a task that cannot
nunciation as an appeal to the nature of things. Nevertheless, again be solved as metaphysics, that is, by going back to an
it seems to me that such an appeal to the nature of things infinite intellect. Hence we must ask: are there finite possi-
finds its limitation in a common assumption that remains bilities of doing justice to this correspondence? Is there a
unquestioned and dominates all these attempts at the restora- grounding of this correspondence that does not venture to
tion of the autonomy of things. It is the assumption that affirm the infinity of the divine mind and yet is able to do
human subjectivity is will, an assumption that retains its justice to the infinite correspondence of soul and being? I
unquestioned validity even where we posit being-in-itself as a contend that there is. There is a way that attests to this
limit to the determination of things by man's will. In the correspondence, one toward which philosophy is ever more
nature of the case, this means that these critics of modern clearly directed - the way of language.
subjectivism are not really free at all from what they criticize,
It is no accident, it seems to me, that in recent decades the
but only articulate the opposition from the other side. In
phenomenon of language has come to the center of philo-
contrast to the one-sidedness of Neo-Kantianism, which takes
sophical inquiry. Perhaps one can even say that under this
the progress of scientific culture as its guideline, they pose
banner even the greatest kind of philosophical gulf that exists
the one-sidedness of a metaphysic of being-in-itself, which
today between peoples - the one between Anglo-Saxon nom-
shares with its opponent the predominance of determination
inalism on the one hand and the metaphysical tradition on
by the will.
the Continent on the other - has begun to be bridged. At
In light of this situation, we must ask if "the nature of any rate, the analysis of language that was developed in
things" is not a dubious battle cry, and if classical meta- England and America after the problematic of logical, artifi-
physics does not prove to have a real superiority over against cial language broke down approximates the orientation of
all these attempts and to pose a continuing task. The superi- Edmund Husserl's phenomenological school in striking fash-
ority of classical metaphysics seems to me to lie in the fact ion. Just as the recognition of the finitude and historicity of
that from the outset it transcends the dualism of subjectivity human Dasein developed by Martin Heidegger has trans-
and will, on the one hand, and object and being-in-itself, on formed the nature of the task of metaphysics, the antimeta-
the other, by conceiving their preexistent correspondence physical passion of logical positivism has been dissolved with
with each other. To be sure, classical metaphysics' concept of the recognition of the autonomous meaning of spoken lan-
truth - the conformity of knowledge with the object - rests guage (Wittgenstein). From information to myth and to the
on a theological correspondence. For it is in their creatureli- saga [Sage] which, for Heidegger, is a "pointing" [Zeige] as
ness that the soul and the object are united. Just as the soul is well, language constitutes the common theme. In order to
76 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION THE NATURE OF THINGS 77
think seriously about language, I believe we must ask if in the
that language presents the correspondence we are seeking,
end language does not have to be called the "language of
but rather as the preliminary medium that encompasses all
things" — the language of things in which the primordial
beings insofar as they can be expressed in words. Is not
correspondence of soul and being is so exhibited that finite
language more the language of things than the language of
consciousness too can know of it.
man?
In itself, the assertion that language is the medium through The interconnection of word and thing, which was a prob-
which consciousness is connected with beings is nothing new. lem at the beginning of Western thought about language,
Hegel had already called language the medium through which gains renewed interest in terms of this question. To be sure,
subjective spirit is mediated with the being of objects. And in the question the Greeks asked about the correctness of names
our own time, Ernst Cassirer expanded the narrow starting is more a last echo of that word-magic that understood the
point of Neo-Kantianism, namely, the facts of science, into a word as the thing itself, or better, as its representative being.
philosophy of symbolic forms that encompassed not only the Indeed, Greek philosophy began with the dissolution of such
natural sciences and the human studies, but was to provide a name-magic and took its first steps as a critique of language.
transcendental foundation for human cultural activity in its Nevertheless, it preserves in itself so much of the naive
entirety. self-forgetfulness of the original experience of the world, that
Cassirer took as his starting point the idea that language, for it the essence of things manifested in the logos is the
art, and religion are "forms" of representation, that is, the self-presentation of beings themselves. In the Phaedo, Plato
presentation of something mental in something sensuous. By designates the flight into the logoi as his second-best way
transcendental reflection on all these forms of embodied because being is contemplated there only in the reflected
spirit, transcendental idealism would be elevated to a new image of the logos instead of in its direct reality. But a hint
and authentic universality. The symbolic forms are the of irony is present in his assertion. In the end, the true being
spirit's processes of formation within the fleeting temporality of things becomes accessible precisely in their linguistic ap-
of sensuous appearance, and they represent a connecting pearance — in the ideality of what is intended that is con-
medium in that they are as much an objective appearance as cealed in such fashion that its being intended (the linguistic
they are a trace of the spirit. We must certainly wonder, character of the manifestation of things) is not experienced
however, if an analytic of the basic spiritual forces Cassirer as such. Since metaphysics understands the true being of
had in mind really accounts for the uniqueness of the phe- things as essences that are directly accessible to the " m i n d , "
nomenon of language. For language does not really stand the linguistic character of the experience of being is con-
alongside art and law and religion, but represents the sustain- cealed.
ing medium of all of these manifestations of the spirit. The
So too, medieval scholasticism, as the Christian heir of
concept of language should not merely receive a special
Greek metaphysics, conceived the word wholly in terms of
distinction among the symbolic forms, that is, among the
the species, as its perfection, without grasping the enigma of
forms in which spirit is expressed. Rather, as long as it is even
its incarnation. The linguistic character of the experience of
conceived as a symbolic form, it is not yet recognized at all in
the world, to which metaphysical thinking had originally
its true dimensions. The idealistic philosophy of language
oriented itself, became in the last analysis something second-
from which Herder and Humboldt start already provokes the
ary and contingent that schematizes the thinking gaze at
critical question that touches the philosophy of symbolic
things through linguistic conventions and closes it off from
forms as well: by directing attention to the " f o r m " of lan-
the primordial experience of being. In truth, however, the
guage, does it not isolate language from what is spoken in and
illusion that things precede their manifestation in language
mediated through it? It is not as a formal power or capacity
conceals the fundamentally linguistic character of our experi-
 78 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION THE NATURE OF THINGS 79
ence of the world. In particular, the illusion of the possibility This fact can be illustrated beautifully by a phenomenon
of the universal objectification of everything and anything that itself constitutes a structural aspect of everything linguis-
completely obscures this universality itself. Since at least tic, namely, the phenomenon of rhythm. The essence of
within the Indo-Germanic family of languages, language has rhythm lies in a peculiar intermediary realm between being
the possibility of extending its universal naming function to and the soul, as Richard Honingswald has already emphasized
any element of the sentence and of making everthing the in his analysis from the point of view of the psychology of
subject of further assertions, it creates the general illusion of thought. The succession that is rhythmatized by the rhythm
reification, which reduces language itself to a mere instru- does not necessarily represent the rhythm of the phenomena
ment of common understanding. Even modern linguistic anal- themselves. Rather, rhythm can be imputed by our hearing
ysis, as much as it tries to uncover the verbalistic seductions even to a regular succession, so that it appears as rhythmati-
of language by means of artificial sign systems, does not bring cally organized. Or better, wherever a regular succession is to
the basic assumption of such objectification into question. be perceived by the mind, such a rhythmatizing not only can
Rather, through its own self-limitation it only teaches us that but in the end must take place. But what do we mean here
there is no liberation from the orbit of language by introduc- when we say "it must"? Something opposed to the nature of
ing artificial sign systems, since all such systems already things? Obviously not. But then what does "the rhythm of
presuppose natural language. Just as the classical philosophy the phenomena themselves" mean? Are the phenomena not
of language showed the question of the origin of language to first precisely what they are in that they are thus appre-
be untenable, so also the examination of the idea of an hended as rhythmatic or rhythmatized? Thus the correspon-
artificial language leads to the elimination of this idea and dence that holds between them is more original than the
thus to the legitimation of natural languages. But what is acoustic succession on the one hand and the rhythmatizing
implicit in all this discussion remains completely uncon- apprehension on the other.
sidered. Certainly we know that languages have their reality
The poets know of this phenomenon, especially those who
everywhere they are spoken, that is, where people are able to
try to account for the process of the poetic mind that holds
understand each other. But what kind of being is it that
sway in them - Holderlin, for instance. When they differen-
language possesses? Is it that of an instrument of understand-
tiate the original poetic experience from the pregiven charac-
ing? It seems to me that Aristotle had already indicated the
ter of language as well as from the pregiven character of the
true character of the being of language when he freed the
world (i.e., of the order of things) and describe the poetic
concept of syntheke from its naive meaning as "convention."
conception as the harmony of the world and soul in the
By excluding every sense of founding or originating from linguistic concretization that becomes poetry, it is a rhythmic
the concept of syntheke, he pointed in the direction of that experience they are describing. The structure of the poem,
correspondence of soul and world that comes to light in the which thus becomes language, guarantees the process of soul
phenomenon of language as such and is independent of the and world addressing each other as something finite. It is here
forceful extrapolation of an infinite mind by which meta- that the being of language shows its central position. The
physics provided this correspondence with a theological foun- subjective starting point, which has become natural to mod-
dation. The agreement about things that takes place in lan- ern thought, leads us wholly into error. Language is not to be
guage means neither a priority of things nor a priority of the conceived as a preliminary projection of the world by subjec-
human mind that avails itself of the instrument of linguistic tivity, either as the subjectivity of individual consciousness or
understanding. Rather, the correspondence that finds its con- as that of the spirit of a people. These are all mythologies,
cretion in the linguistic experience of the world is as such Just as the concept of genius is. The concept of genius plays
s
what is absolutely prior. ° dominant a role in aesthetic theory because it understands
 gO THE SCOPE OF H E R M E N E U T I C A L REFLECTION THE N A T U R E OF THINGS 81

the origination of the form as an unconscious production and j js tradition that opens and delimits our historical horizon,
t

thus teaches us to interpret it in analogy with conscious not an opaque event of history that happens "in itself."
production. But the work of art is as little to be understood Thus the disavowal of the act of meaning that we perceive
in terms of the planned execution of a sketch - even an a S the common feature in speaking about "the nature of
infallibly unconscious one — as the course of history may be things" and "the language of things" gains a positive sense
conceived for our finite consciousness as the execution of a and a concrete fulfillment. But with this the tension that
plan. Rather, here as well as there, luck and success tempt us exists between these two common expressions first appears in
into oracula ex eventu that in fact hide the event - the word its true light. What seemed the same is not the same. It makes
or deed - by which they are expressed. a difference whether a limit is experienced from out of the
The consequence of modern subjectivism, it seems to me, subjectivity of the act of meaning and the domineering char-
is that in all such realms self-interpretation receives a primacy acter of the will or whether it is conceived in terms of the
that is not justified by the facts. In truth, we may attribute a all-embracing harmony of beings within the world disclosed
privilege to a poet in the explanation of his verse just as little by language. Our finite experience of the correspondence
as we may attribute it to the statesman in the historical between words and things thus indicates something like what
explanation of events in which he had an active part. The real metaphysics once taught as the original harmony of all things
concept of self-understanding that is alone applicable to all created, especially as the commensurateness of the created
such cases is not to be conceived in terms of the model of soul to created things. This fact seems to me to be guaranteed
perfected self-consciousness, but rather in terms of religious not in "the nature of things," which confronts other opinions
experience. Inherent in it is the fact that the false paths of and demands attention, but rather in "the language of
human self-understanding only reach their true end through things," which wants to be heard in the way in which things
divine grace. That is, only thereby do we reach the insight bring themselves t o expression in language.
that all paths lead us to our own salvation. All human
self-understanding is determined in itself by its inadequacy.
This holds precisely for work and deed alike. According to
NOTES
their own being, therefore, art and history elude interpreta-
tion in terms of the subjectivity of consciousness. They 1. In my essay "Heidegger's Later Philosophy" I have emphasized
belong to that hermeneutical universe that is characterized by this idea as the systematic starting-point for Heidegger's later work.
the mode of operation and the reality of language that 2. The earliest documentation of this stimulus to Hartmann's
3
transcends all individual consciousness. The mediation of thought is the review of Scheler that Hartmann had already published
finite and infinite that is appropriate to us as finite beings lies in the journal Die Geisteswissenschaften, early in 1914. Cf. Hartmann,
Kleine Schriften, vol. 3 (Berlin: DeGruyter, 1 9 5 8 ) , pp. 365 ff., and my
in language - in the linguistic character of our experience of
own essay, "Metaphysik der Erkenntnis," in Logos, 12 ( 1 9 2 4 ) :
the world. It exhibits an experience that is always finite but 340-359.
that nowhere encounters a barrier at which something infi- 3 . In addition to WM, cf. "The Universality o f the Hermeneutical
nite is intended that can barely be surmised and no longer Problem."
spoken. Its own operation is never limited, and yet is not a
progressive approximation of an intended meaning. There is
rather a constant representation of this meaning in every one
of its steps. The success of the work constitutes its meaning,
not what is only meant by it. It is the right word, and not the
subjectivity of the act of meaning, that expresses its meaning.
 SEMANTICS AND HERMENEUTICS 83
pears as our use of the world of signs. Both semantics and
hermeneutics thematize at some time along their own ways
the totality of our relationship to the world that finds its
expression in language, and both do this by directing their
investigations behind the plurality of natural languages.
The merit of semantic analysis, it seems to me, is that it
has brought the structural totality of language to our atten-
tion and thereby has pointed out the limitations of the false
Semantics and Hermeneutics (1972) ideal of unambiguous signs or symbols and of the potential of
(Translated by P. Christopher Smith) language for logical formalization. The great value of seman-
tic analysis rests in no small part in the fact that it breaks
through the appearance of self-sameness that an isolated
word-sign has about it. As a matter of fact, it does this in
different ways: first, by making us aware of its synonyms and
second, and considerably more important, by demonstrating
that an individual word-expression is in no way translatable
into other terms or interchangeable with another expression.
It seems to me to be no coincidence that among the various I consider the second achievement more important because it
directions which contemporary philosophical research has is based on something that transcends all synonymity. The
taken, semantics and hermeneutics have assumed particular majority of expressions for the same thought or of words for
importance. Both have as their starting point the linguistic the same thing can be distinguished, arranged, and differen-
form of expression in which our thought is formulated. They tiated if one's approach aims solely at designating or naming
no longer pass over the primary form in which our intellec- a thing. However, the less a particular word-sign is isolated by
tual experience is given. Insofar as both of them deal with the this method, the more strongly individualized is the meaning
realm of language, it is clear that semantics and hermeneutics of the expression. The concept of synonymity becomes more
alike have a truly universal perspective. For of that which is and more attenuated. Ultimately, it seems a semantic ideal
given in language, what is, on the one hand, not a sign and emerges, which stipulates that in a given context only one
what, on the other, is not a moment in the process of coming expression and no other is the right one. Above all, the poetic
to understand? use of words might be mentioned in this regard, and within it
individualization becomes more pronounced as one proceeds
Semantics appears to describe the range of linguistic facts
from the epic use of words to the dramatic, to the lyric, and
externally, as it were, and does so in a way that has made
to the ultimate poetic creation, the poem itself. The point
possible the development of a classification of types of be-
here is made evident by the fact that lyric poetry is for the
havior with respect to these signs. For this classification we
most part untranslatable.
are indebted to the American scholar Charles Morris.* Her-
meneutics, in contrast, focuses upon the internal side of our The example of a poem might illustrate just what is
use of this world of signs, or better said, on the internal accomplished by starting from the semantic point of view.
process of speaking, which if viewed from the outside, ap- There is a verse of Immermann's in which it is said, "Die
Zahre r i n n t , " (meaning roughly, the tear runs), but anyone
*Charles W. Morris, Signs, Language and Behavior (New York: George Brazil- whose native tongue is German and who hears the carefully
ler, 1955); and Foundations of a Theory of Signs (Chicago: University of Chicago chosen use of Zahre (for tear) instead of the accustomed
Press, 1938). [Translator]
82
84 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION SEMANTICS AND HERMENEUTICS 85
Trdne, will perhaps be surprised that such an old-fashioned has a vantage point from which to make the intrusion of one
word replaces the ordinary one. And nevertheless in weighing structural totality into another total structure recognizable.
a context of a poetic sort, one will ultimately come to accept Its descriptive precision points up the incoherence that re-
the choice of the poet in instances like this one where it is a sults when a realm of words is carried over into new con-
matter of a real poem. One will see that a different, quietly texts - and such incongruity often indicates that something
changed meaning is brought out by the word Zahre in con- truly new has been discovered.
trast to everyday crying. One might have one's doubts. Is That is also and particularly true of the logic of the
there really a difference in meaning? Is it not solely of metaphor. Indeed, the metaphor maintains the appearance of
aesthetic significance, that is, is the difference not merely in carrying something over from one realm to another, that is, it
emotional or euphonic valence? Certainly, it might be the brings to mind the original realm of meaning from which it
case that one hears different things when Zahre or Trdne is was taken and out of which it has been carried over into new
spoken. But with regard to their meaning, are they not realms of usage, as long as this context as such is kept in
interchangeable? mind. Only when the word has taken root, as it were, in its
One must think through the entire weight of this objec- metaphorical use and has lost its character of having been
tion; for, indeed, it is difficult to find a better definition for taken up and carried over does its meaning in the new
the sense or meaning of an expression than its interchange- context begin to become its "proper" meaning. Thus it is
ability with another expression. If one expression can take certainly a mere convention of grammar books when particu-
the place of another without changing the meaning of the lar expressions that are used in our language, for example,
whole, then that expression has the same meaning as the one "blossoming" are accepted as having their proper function in
it replaces. Still, it is doubtful just in what measure such a the world of flora and the application of the word to the
theory of meaning in speaking that is based on interchange- wider realm of living things or even to higher units of life like
ability can be valid for the actual entirety of the phenome- society or culture, is considered to be an improper and
non of language. And that it is a matter of the whole of metaphorical use. In fact, the accumulation of vocabulary
speaking and not of the interchangeable single expression as and the rules of its application establishes only the outline
such is not to be denied. The potential of semantic analysis for that which in this way actually builds the structure of a
lies precisely in getting beyond a theory of meaning that language, namely, the continuing growth of expressions into
isolates words from the whole. Within its wider perspective new realms of application.
what emerges is that the theory of interchangeability, which
Accordingly, a certain limitation is placed on semantics. It
was to define the meaning of words, has limited validity. The
is true that one can approach all natural languages guided by
structure of a linguistic form cannot be described simply on
the idea of a total analysis of the semantic deep structure of
the basis of the correspondence and the possibility of substi-
language and can view these languages as forms in which
tution of single expressions. To be sure, there are such things
language as such appears. But in so doing, one will find a
as equivalent ways of speaking, but such relationships of
conflict between the continuing tendency toward individuali-
equivalency are not unchanging correspondences, but rather
zation in language and that tendency which is just as essential
arise and die out just like the spirit of an era as it is reflected
to language, namely, to establish meanings by convention.
from decade to decade in semantic change. For an example,
For to be sure, the fact that one can never depart too far
one need only observe the penetration of English expressions
from linguistic conventions is clearly basic to the life of
into present German social life. By making such observations
language: he who speaks a private language understood by no
semantic analysis is able, in a manner of speaking, to read the
one else, does not speak at all. But on the other hand, he who
differences in times and the course of history. In particular, it 0r
»ly speaks a language in which conventionality has become
86 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION SEMANTICS AND HERMENEUTICS 87
total in the choice of words, in syntax, and in style forfeits for defining the concept of meaning for a given linguistic
the power of address and evocation that comes solely with expression. The fact characterizing the extreme case of the
the individualization of a language's vocabulary and of its lyric poem — that it it untranslatable to the point that it can
means of communication. no longer be rendered in another language at all without
An exemplary occurrence of the tension I refer to is that losing its entire poetic expressiveness — plainly demonstrates
which has always existed between terminology and living the failure of the idea of substitution, of replacing one
language. It is a phenomenon well known to the scholar, but expression with another. But the point seems also to be valid
even more so to the layman desirous of education, that generally, that is, independently of the special phenomenon
technical expressions present an obstacle. They have a pecu- of a highly individualized poetic language. The thesis that one
liar profile that prevents them from fitting into the actual life expression can be substituted for another is, if I view the
of the language. Nevertheless, such precisely defined, unam- matter correctly, contradicted by the moment of individuali-
biguous terms live and communicate only in as far as they are zation in the speaking of a language as such. Even in those
embedded in the life of the language, and hence it is obvi- cases where, out of an overabundance of available expressions
ously essential that they enrich their power of making things or in correcting ourselves we might, while speaking, replace
clear — a power previously limited by their univocality - one expression with another or use one after another since
with the communicative power of multivocal, vague ways of we did not find the best expression at first — even in those
speaking. To be sure, science can ward off such muddying of cases the intended meaning of what is said emerges within the
its concepts, but methodological " p u r i t y " is always attain- continuum of expressions that supersede each other, not in
able only in particular areas - the context of world-orienta- separation from the particular flow of this event. Such sepa-
tion resting upon our linguistic relationship to the world ration occurs, however, if one attempts to put another word
precedes it. For an example, one need only think of the with an identical meaning in the place of the one used.
concept of "force" in physics and the connotations that are
Here we reach the point where semantics transcends itself
heard along with "force" and that make the insights of
and becomes something else. Semantics is a doctrine of signs,
science meaningful to the layman. On different occasions, I
in particular, of linguistic signs. Signs, however, are a means
have been able to demonstrate how Newton's accomplish-
to an end. They are put to use as one desires and then laid
ments were integrated into public consciousness in this way
aside just as are all other means to the ends of human
by Oetinger and Herder: the concept of force was made
activity. "One masters one's tools," it is said, that is, one
comprehensible on the basis of the living experience of force.
applies them purposively. And certainly we would say in a
But as this integration occurred, the technical concept grew
similar fashion that one must master a language, if one is to
into the German language and was individualized to the point
express oneself to another in that language. But actual speak-
of becoming untranslatable. Or, put another way, who would
ing is more than the choice of means to achieve some purpose
dare to render Goethe's "In the beginning was die Kraft"" in
in communication. The language one masters is such that one
another language without Goethe's reservation, "Already
lives within it, that is, " k n o w s " what one wishes to communi-
something warns me that I shall not stop with that"?
cate in no way other than in linguistic form. "Choosing"
As a matter of fact, if we consider the tendency toward one's words is an appearance or effect created in communica-
individualization that is characteristic of living language, we tion when speaking is inhibited. " F r e e " speaking flows for-
will come to recognize the ultimate form of that tendency in ward in forgetfulness of oneself and in self-surrender to the
poetic creation. If that is correct, however, it becomes ques- subject matter made present in the medium of language. That
tionable whether the theory of substitution is really adequate is even true in the case of understanding written discourse, in
88 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION SEMANTICS A N D HERMENEUTICS 89

understanding texts. For they too, if one is to understand biguous meaning based on its linguistic and logical construc-
them, must be merged again with the movement of meaning tion as such, but, on the contrary, each is motivated. A
in speaking. question is behind each statement that first gives it its mean-
Thus there emerges behind the field of examination that ing- Furthermore, the hermeneutical function of the question
analyzes the linguistic form of a text as a whole and brings its affects in turn what the statement states generally — in that
semantic structure into view yet another direction of ques- the statement is an answer. This is not the place to discuss
tioning and research, namely, that of hermeneutics. Herme- the as yet unclarified matter of the hermeneutics of the
neutical inquiry is based on the fact that language always question. As everyone knows, there are many sorts of ques-
leads behind itself and behind the facade of overt verbal tions that do not even need a syntactical character of a
expression that it first presents. Language is not coincident, special sort in order, nevertheless, to fully indicate their
as it were, with that which is expressed in it, with that in it interrogative sense. I am referring here to the interrogative
which is formulated in words. The hermeneutical dimension emphasis by which a unit of speech that is syntactically
that opens up here makes clear the limit to objectifying declarative can assume the nature of a question. Another nice
anything that is thought and communicated. Linguistic ex- example, though, is the reverse: namely, that something
pressions, when they are what they can be, are not simply which orginally had the character of a question assumes a
inexact and in need of refinement, but rather, of necessity, declarative character. That is what we call a rhetorical ques-
they always fall short of what they evoke and communicate. tion. For the so-called rhetorical question is in fact a question
For in speaking there is always implied a meaning that is only in form. In substance it is an assertion. And if we
imposed on the vehicle of the expression, that only functions analyze how the interrogative character here becomes affir-
as a meaning behind the meaning and that in fact could be mative and assertive, we shall see clearly that the rhetorical
said to lose its meaning when raised to the level of what is question becomes affirmative in that it implies its answer.
actually expressed. In order to make this point clear, I should Through its question it robs one, as it were, of the chance to
like to differentiate between two forms in which speaking answer.
extends behind itself in this way: first, in that which is unsaid
The most clear-cut evidence of the unsaid revealing itself in
and nevertheless made present by speaking, and second, in
what is said is thus that of the latter's roots in the question
that which for all practical purposes is concealed by speaking.
behind it. But we must ask ourselves whether this form of
Let us turn first to that which is said in spite of not being implication is the only one or whether there are other forms
said. What emerges here is the vast realm of the occasionality besides. Is this, for example, the proper model for the very
of all speaking that plays an important role in establishing the large number of statements that s trie to sensu are no longer
meaning of what is said. By occasionality I mean dependency statements at all, because they are not actually and solely
on the situation in which an expression is used. Hermeneu- intended to convey information, to communicate some state
tical analysis is able to show that such dependency on the of affairs that is meant, but rather have a completely differ-
situation is not itself situational, like the so-called occasional ent function and sense? I mean, for instance, not only phe-
expressions (for instance, " h e r e " or "this") that obviously nomena of speaking like the curse or the blessing or the holy
possess no fixed content in their semantical character, but message of a religious tradition, but also the command or
rather are applicable like empty forms and in which, as is the complaint. These are all ways of speaking that make their
case with empty forms, changing content can be inserted. proper sense known in such a way that they cannot be
Hermeneutical analysis is able to show, rather, that such reiterated; their so-called signatio (i.e., their transformation
relativity to situation and opportunity constitutes the very into an informative assertion, "I say I curse y o u " for in-
essence of speaking. For no statement simply has an unam- stance) fully changes the sense of the statement — (e.g., its
 90 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION SEMANTICS A N D HERMENEUTICS 91
curse character) - if it does not destroy it altogether. The nals by virtue of which what is said in the text can be
question remains: is that wliich is said here an answer to a identified by intending to conceal. Here lying is not just the
motivating question? Is it comprehensible, solely compre- assertion of something false; it is a matter of speaking that
hensible, on the basis of such a question? Certainly, the conceals and knows it. For that reason seeing through the lie,
meaning of all such forms of statements reaching from the or better said, grasping the lie-character of the lie in one of
curse to the blessing cannot be grasped in its full extent the senses corresponding to the true intention of the speaker,
without a determination of meaning derived from a context is the objective of a linguistic explication of any poetic
of action. One cannot contest the fact that these forms of creation.
statements also have the character of occasionality in so far Opposed to the lie is the quite different concealment of
as the occasion of their being said is brought to full awareness error. Here language behavior in the case of a correct asser-
whenever they are understood. tion is in no way different from that in the case of a mistaken
Yet another level of problems opens up when we have one. Error is n o t a semantic phenomenon, but neither is it a
before us a " t e x t " in the special sense of "literature." For the hermeneutical phenomenon, though both elements are pre-
"meaning" of such a text is not motivated by an occasion, sent in it. Mistaken assertions are "correct" expressions of
but, on the contrary, claims to be understandable "anytime," erroneous opinions, but, taken as phenomena of expression
that is, to be an answer always, and that means inevitably and language, they are not specifically opposed to the expres-
also to raise the question to which the text is an answer. sion of correct opinions. The lie, however, is very much a
Precisely these texts - those of theology, law, and literary phenomenon of language, but for the most part a harmless
criticism — are the preferred objects of hermeneutics. For case of concealment. I say harmless, not only because lies do
such texts present the problem of awakening a meaning not get very far, but also because they are embedded in
petrified in letters from the letters themselves. language behavior in the world, which is reaffirmed in them,
Another form of hermeneutical reflection, however, which since they presuppose the truth value of speaking, a truth
does not only relate to that which is unsaid, but also to that value that is reestablished when the lie is seen through or
which is concealed by speaking, penetrates even more deeply uncovered. He who is caught in a lie acknowledges his lie as
into the hermeneutical conditions of our language behavior. such. Only when the lie no longer involves a conscious
We all know that in the case of the lie, language, precisely in concealment does it take on a new character — one that
being spoken, can in fact conceal. The complicated inter- determines the liar's whole relationship to his world. We are
weaving of interpersonal relationships encountered in lies familiar with this phenomenon as the kind of personal deceit-
ranging from Oriental forms of courtesy to a clear breach of fulness in which a feeling for what is true and, indeed, for
trust between people has in itself no primarily semantic truth of any kind has been lost. Such falsity denies its own
character. He who lies like a book does so without stuttering existence and secures itself against exposure through talking
and without showing embarrassment, that is, he even con- per se. It maintains itself by spreading the veil of talk over
ceals the concealment that his speaking in fact is. Clearly, the itself. Here one encounters the fully developed and all-
language reality itself has the particular character of a lie only encompassing power of talk, which persists even after it has
in those cases where we see it as our task to call forth reality been laid bare in the judgment of others. This kind of
by means of language alone, that is, in the case of the deceitfulness provides the model for the self-estrangement to
linguistic work of art. Within the linguistic totality of a whole which our language consciousness is susceptible and that
of poetic expression this sort of concealing, which one calls needs to be broken through by the efforts of hermeneutical
lying, does possess its own semantic structures. In the case of reflection. Viewed from the standpoint of hermeneutics, the
texts, for instance, a modern linguist would speak of lie-sig- recognition of deceitfulness means to the one who has recog-
92 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION SEMANTICS AND HERMENEUTICS 93

nized it in the other that the latter is excluded from com- dispel them. Or put another way, it seeks to penetrate the
munication because he does not stand behind what he says disguise that cloaks the unchecked effect of such prejudices.
For hermeneutics is primarily of use where making clear to That is an extremely difficult task, for one who calls the
others and making clear to oneself has become blocked. The self-evident into doubt will find the resistance of all practical
two powerful forms of concealment through language to evidence marshaled against him. Exactly herein, however, lies
which hermeneutical reflection must apply itself above all the function of hermeneutical theory. It makes general accep-
and that I wish to discuss in what follows concern precisely tance possible in those instances where acceptance by partic-
this kind of concealment through language that determines ular individuals might be prevented by powerful habits and
one's whole relationship to the world. One is an unstated prejudices. Ideological criticism represents only a particular
reliance upon prejudices. One of the fundamental structures form of hermeneutical reflection, one that seeks to dispel a
of all speaking is that we are guided by preconceptions and certain class of prejudices through critique.
anticipations in our talking in such a way that these continu- Hermeneutical reflection, however, is universal in its possi-
ally remain hidden and that it takes a disruption in oneself of ble application. As opposed to the sciences, it must also fight
the intended meaning of what one is saying to become for recognition in those cases where it is a matter, not of the
conscious of these prejudices as such. In general the disrup- particular problem of uncovering ideology through social
tion comes about through some new experience, in which a criticism, but of self-enlightenment with regard to the meth-
previous opinion reveals itself to be untenable. But the basic odology of science as such. Any science is based upon the
prejudices are not easily dislodged and protect themselves by special nature of that which it has made its object through its
claiming self-evident certainty for themselves, or even by methods of objectifying. The method of modern science is
posing as supposed freedom from all prejudice and thereby characterized from the start by a refusal: namely, to exclude
securing their acceptance. We are familiar with the form of all that which actually eludes its own methodology and
language that such self-securing of prejudices takes: namely procedures. Precisely in this way it would prove to itself
the unyielding repetitiousness characteristic of all dogmatism. that it is without limits and never wanting for self-justifica-
We encounter it, too, however, in science, when, for instance, tion. Thus it gives the appearance of being total in its knowl-
for the sake of presuppositionless knowledge and scientific edge and in this way provides a defense behind which social
objectivity the method of a proven science like that of prejudices and interests lie hidden and thus protected. One
physics is carried over into such other areas as that of social need only think of the role of experts in contemporary
theory without methodological modification. An even more society and of the way economics, politics, war, and the
salient case that occurs more and more in our times is the implementation of justice are more strongly influenced by
invocation of science as the highest authority in the decision- the voice of experts than by the political bodies that repre-
making processes of society. Here, as only hermeneutical sent the will of the society.
reflection is capable of demonstrating, the interest that is Hermeneutics achieves its actual productivity only when it
bound together with knowledge is overlooked. We are famil- musters sufficient self-reflection to reflect simultaneously
iar with this kind of hermeneutical reflection in the form of about its own critical endeavors, that is, about its own
ideological critique, which makes a position suspect by point- limitations and the relativity of its own position. Hermeneu-
ing up the ideology behind it, that is, which debunks sup- tical reflection that does that seems to me to come closer to
posed objectivity by showing it to be an expression of the the real ideal of knowledge, because it also makes us aware of
stabilized balance of given social powers. With the help of the illusion of reflection. A critical consciousness that points
historical and social reflection, ideological critique seeks to to all sorts of prejudice and dependency, but one that con-
make us aware of the prevailing social prejudices and thus to siders itself absolutely free of prejudice and independent,
94 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION

necessarily remains ensnared in illusions. For it is itself moti-

vated in the first place by that of which it is critical. Its
dependency on that which it destroys is inescapable. The
claim to be completely free of prejudice is naive whether that
naivete be the delusion of an absolute enlightenment or the
delusion of an empiricism free of all previous opinions in the
tradition of metaphysics or the delusion of getting beyond
science through ideological criticism. In any case, the herme-
neutically enlightened consciousness seems to me to establish
a higher truth in that it draws itself into its own reflection.
Aesthetics and Hermeneutics (1964)
Its truth, namely, is that of translation. It is higher because it
allows the foreign to become one's own, not by destroying it
critically or reproducing it uncriticially, but by explicating it
within one's own horizons with one's own concepts and thus
giving it new validity. Translation allows what is foreign and
what is one's own to merge in a new form by defending the
point of the other even if it be opposed to one's own view. In
this manner of practicing hermeneutical reflection, what is
found in a given formulation of language is altered in a If we define the task of hermeneutics as the bridging of
certain sense; that is, it is taken out of its own linguistically personal or historical distance between minds, then the expe-
structured world. But it itself — and not our opinion about rience of art would seem to fall entirely outside its province.
it - is drawn into a new linguistic explication of the world. For of all the things that confront us in nature and history, it
In this process of finite thought ever moving forward while is the work of art that speaks to us most directly. It possesses
allowing the other to have its way in opposition to oneself, a mysterious intimacy that grips our entire being, as if there
the power of reason is demonstrated. Reason is aware that were no distance at all and every encounter with it were an
human knowledge is limited and will remain limited, even if encounter with ourselves. We can refer to Hegel in this
it is conscious of its own limit. Hermeneutical reflection thus connection. He considered art to be one of the forms of
exercises a self-criticism of thinking consciousness, a criticism Absolute Spirit, that is, he saw in art a form of Spirit's
that translates all its own abstractions and also the knowledge self-knowledge in which nothing alien and unredeemable ap-
of the sciences back into the whole of human experience of peared, a form in which there was no contingency of the
the world. Above all, philosophy, which whether expressly or actual, no unintelligibility of what is merely given. In fact, an
not always must be a critique of traditional attempts to absolute contemporaneousness exists between the work and
think, is the actualization of such hermeneutics, which blends its present beholder that persists unhampered despite every
the total structures worked out in semantic analysis into the intensification of the historical consciousness. The reality of
continuum of translating and comprehending within which the work of art and its expressive power cannot be restricted
we live and pass away. to its original historical horizon, in which the beholder was
actually the contemporary of the creator. It seems instead to
belong to the experience of art that the work of art always
has its own present. Only in a limited way does it retain its
historical origin within itself. The work of art is the expres-
sion of a truth that cannot be reduced to what its creator

95
96 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION AESTHETICS AND HERMENEUTICS 97

actually thought in it. Whether we call it the unconscious regards it as being open to ever newer comprehension does
creation of the genius or consider the conceptual inexhausti- not already belong to a secondary world of aesthetic cultiva-
bility of every artistic expression from the point of view of tion. In its origins, is not a work of art the bearer of a
the beholder, the aesthetic consciousness can appeal to the meaningful life-function within a cultic or social context?
fact that the work of art communicates itself. And is it not within this context alone that it receives its full
The hermeneutical perspective is so comprehensive, how- determination of meaning? Still it seems to me that this
ever, that it must even include the experience of beauty in question can also be reversed: Is it really the case that a work
nature and art. If it is the fundamental constitution of the of art, which comes out of a past or alien life-world and is
historicity of human Dasein to mediate itself to itself under- transferred into our historically educated world, becomes a
s t a n d i n g ^ - which necessarily means to the whole of its own mere object of aesthetic-historical enjoyment and says noth-
experience of the world - then all tradition belongs to it. ing more of what it originally had to say? " T o say some-
Tradition encompasses institutions and life-forms as well as thing," " t o have something to say" — are these simply meta-
texts. Above all, however, the encounter with art belongs phors grounded in an undetermined aesthetic formative
within the process of integration that is involved in all human value that is the real truth? Or is the reverse the case? Is the
life that stands within traditions. Indeed, it is even a question aesthetic quality of formation only the condition for the fact
as to whether the peculiar contemporaneousness of the work that the work bears its meaning within itself and has some-
of art does not consist precisely in its being open in a thing to say to us? This question gives us access to the real
limitless way to ever new integrations. The creator of a work problematic dimension of the theme "aesthetics and herma-
of art may intend the public of his own time, but the real neutics."
being of his work is what it is able to say, and this being The inquiry developed here deliberately transforms the
reaches fundamentally beyond any historical confinement. In systematic problem of aesthetics into the question of the
this sense, the work of art occupies a timeless present. But experience of art. In its actual genesis and also in the founda-
this statement does not mean that it involves no task of tion Kant provided for it in his Critique of Aesthetic Judg-
understanding, or that we do not find its historical heritage ment, it is certainly true that philosophical aesthetics covered
within it. The claim of historical hermeneutics is legitimated a much broader area, since it included the beautiful in nature
precisely by the fact that while the work of art does not and art, indeed, even the sublime. It is also incontestable that
intend to be understood historically and offers itself instead in Kant's philosophy natural beauty had a methodical prior-
in an absolute presence, it nevertheless does not permit just ity for the basic determinations of the judgment of aesthetic
any forms of comprehension. In all the openness and all the taste, and especially for his concept of "disinterested plea-
richness of its possibilities for comprehension, it permits - sure." However, we must admit that natural beauty does not
indeed even requires - the application of a standard of ap- "say" anything in the sense that works of art, created by and
propriateness. It may remain undecided whether the claim to for men, say something to us. One can rightly assert that a
appropriateness of comprehension raised at any particular work of art does not satisfy in a "purely aesthetic" way, in
time is correct. Kant was right in asserting that universal the same sense as a flower or perhaps an ornament does. With
validity is required of the judgment of taste, though its respect to art, Kant speaks of an "intellectualized" pleasure.
recognition cannot be compelled by reasons. This holds true But this formulation does not help. The "impure," intellec-
for every interpretation of works of art as well. It holds true tualized pleasure that the work of art evokes is still what
for the active interpretation of the reproductive artist or the really interests us as aestheticians. Indeed, the sharper reflec-
reader, as well as for that of the scientific interpreter. toon that Hegel brought to the question of the relation of
n
atural and artistic beauty led him to the valid conclusion
One can ask skeptically if a concept of the work of art that
 98 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION AESTHETICS AND HERMENEUTICS 99

that natural beauty is a reflection of the beauty of art. When hermeneutics, it becomes clear that we are dealing here with
something natural is regarded and enjoyed as beautiful, it is a language event, with a translation from one language to
not a timeless and wordless givcnness of the "purely aes- another, and therefore with the relation of two languages.
t h e t i c " object that has its exhibitive ground in the harmony But insofar as we can only translate from one language to
of forms and colors and symmetry of design, as it might seem another if we have understood the meaning of what is said
to a Pathagorizing, mathematical mind. How nature pleases and construct it anew in the medium of the other language,
us belongs instead to the context that is stamped and deter- such a language event presupposes understanding.
mined by the artistic creativity of a particular time. The Now these obvious conclusions become decisive for the
aesthetic history of a landscape — for instance, the Alpine question that concerns us here - the question of the language
landscape - or the transitional phenomenon of garden art are of art and the legitimacy of the hermeneutical point of view
irrefutable evidence of this. We are justified, therefore, in with respect to the experience of art. Every interpretation of
proceeding from the work of art rather than from natural the intelligible that helps others t o understanding has the
beauty if we want to define the relation between aesthetics character of language. To that extent, the entire experience
and hermeneutics. In any case, when we say that the work of of the world is linguistically mediated, and the broadest
art says something to us and that it thus belongs to the concept of tradition is thus defined - one that includes what
matrix of things we have to understand, our assertion is not a is not itself linguistic, but is capable of linguistic interpreta-
metaphor, but has a valid and demonstrable meaning. Thus tion. It extends from the " u s e " of tools, techniques, and so
the work of art is an object of hermeneutics. on through traditions of craftsmanship in the making of such
According to its original definition, hermeneutics is the art things as various types of implements and ornamental forms
of clarifying and mediating by our own effort of interpreta- through the cultivation of practices and customs to the
tion what is said by persons we encounter in tradition. establishing of patterns and so on. Does the work of art
Hermeneutics operates wherever what is said is not imme- belong in this category, or does it occupy a special position?
diately intelligible. Yet this philological art and pedantic Insofar as it is not directly a question of linguistic works of
technique has long since assumed an altered and broadened art, the work of art does in fact seem to belong to such
form. Since the time of this original definition, the growing nonlinguistic tradition. And yet the experience and under-
historical consciousness has made us aware of the misunder- standing of a work of art is different from the understanding
standing and the possible unintelligibility of all tradition. of the tool or the practices handed on to us from the past.
Also, the decay of Christian society in the West — in continu- If we follow an old definition from Droysen's hermeneu-
ation of a process of individualization that began with the tics, we can distinguish between sources [Quellen] and ves-
Reformation — has allowed the individual to become an tiges [Vberresten]. Vestiges are fragments of a past world
ultimately indissoluble mystery to others. Since the time of that have survived and assist us in the intellectual reconstruc-
the German romantics, therefore, the task of hermeneutics tion of the world of which they are a remnant. Sources, on
has been defined as avoiding misunderstanding. With this the other hand, constitute a linguistic tradition, and they
definition, hermeneutics acquires a domain that in principle thus serve our understanding of a linguistically interpreted
reaches as far as the expression of meaning as such. Expres- world. Now where does an archaic image of a god belong, for
sions of meaning are first of all linguistic manifestations. As instance? Is it a vestige, like any tool? Or is it a piece of
the art of conveying what is said in a foreign language to the world-interpretation, like everything that is handed on lin-
understanding of another person, hermeneutics is not with- guistically?
out reason named after Hermes, the interpreter of the divine
Sources, says Droysen, are records handed down for the
message to mankind. If we recall the origin of the name
purpose of recollection. Monuments are a hybrid form of
 100 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION AESTHETICS AND HERMENEUTICS 101

sources and vestiges, and to this category he assigns "works comprehended meaning. Whatever says something to us is
of art of every kind," along with documents, coins, and so like a person who says something. It is alien in the sense that
on. It may seem this way to the historian, but the work of art it transcends us. To this extent, there is a double foreignness
as such is a historical document neither in its intention nor in in the task of understanding, which in reality is one and the
the meaning it acquires in the experience of the work of art. same foreignness. It is this way with all speech. Not only does
To be sure, we talk of artistic monuments, as if the produc- it say something, but someone says something to someone
tion of a work of art had a documentary intention. There is a else. Understanding speech is not understanding the wording
certain truth in the assertion that permanence is essential to of what is said in the step-by-step execution of word mean-
every work of art - in the transitory arts, of course, only in ings. Rather, it occurs in the unitary meaning of what is
the form of their repeatability. The successful work "stands." said - and this always transcends what is expressed by what
(Even the music hall artist can say this of his act.) But the is said. It may be difficult to understand what is said in a
explicit aim at recollection through the presentation of some- foreign or ancient language, but it is still more difficult to let
thing, as it is found in the genuine document, is not present something be said to us even if we understand what is said
in the work of art. We do not want to refer to anything that right away. Both of these things are the task of hermeneutics.
once was by means of presentation. Just as little could it be a We cannot understand without wanting to understand, that
guarantee of its permanence, since it depends for its preserva- is, without wanting to let something be said. It would be an
tion on the approving taste or sense of quality of later inadmissible abstraction to contend that we must first have
generations. Precisely this dependence on a preserving will achieved a contemporaneousness with the author or the origi-
means that the work of art is handed on in the same sense as nal reader by means of a reconstruction of his historical
our literary sources are. At any rate, "it speaks" not only as horizon before we could begin to grasp the meaning of what
remnants of the past speak to the historical investigator or as is said. A kind of anticipation of meaning guides the effort to
do historical documents that render something permanent. understand from the very beginning.
What we are calling the language of the work of art, for the But what holds in this fashion for all speaking is valid in an
sake of which the work is preserved and handed on, is the eminent way for the experience of art. It is more than an
language the work of art itself speaks, whether it is linguistic anticipation of meaning. It is what I would like to call
in nature or not. The work of art says something to the surprise at the meaning of what is said. The experience of art
historian: it says something to each person as if it were said does not only understand a recognizable meaning, as histori-
especially to him, as something present and contemporane- cal hermeneutics does in its handling of texts. The work of
ous. Thus our task is to understand the meaning of what it art that says something confronts us itself. That is, it ex-
says and to make it clear to ourselves and others. Even the presses something in such a way that what is said is like a
nonlinguistic work of art, therefore, falls within the province discovery, a disclosure of something previously concealed.
of the proper task of hermeneutics. It must be integrated into The element of surprise is based on this. "So true, so filled
1
the self-understanding of each person. with being" [So wahr, so seiend] is not something one knows
In this comprehensive sense, hermeneutics includes aes- in any other way. Everything familiar is eclipsed. To under-
thetics. Hermeneutics bridges the distance between minds stand what the work of art says to us is therefore a self-
and reveals the foreignness of the other mind. But revealing encounter. But as an encounter with the authentic, as a
what is unfamiliar does not mean merely reconstructing his- familiarity that includes surprise, the experience of art is
torically the " w o r l d " in which the work had its original experience in a real sense and must master ever anew the task
meaning and function. It also means apprehending what is that experience involves: the task of integrating it into the
said to us, which is always more than the declared and whole of one's own orientation to a world and one's own
 102 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION AESTHETICS AND HERMENEUTICS 103
self-understanding. The language of art is constituted pre- understanding, without understanding in general being taken
cisely by the fact that it speaks to the self-understanding of to mean the new actualization in oneself of another person's
every person, and it does this as ever present and by means of thoughts. We learn this fact with convincing clarity not only
its own contemporaneousness. Indeed, precisely the contem- from the experience of art (as explained above), but also
poraneousness of the work allows it to come to expression in from the understanding of history. For the real task of
language. Everything depends on how something is said. But historical study is not to understand the subjective inten-
this does not mean we should reflect on the means of saying tions, plans, and experiences of the men who are involved in
it. Quite the contrary, the more convincingly something is history. Rather, it is the great matrix of the meaning of
said, the more self-evident and natural the uniqueness and history that must be understood and that requires the inter-
singularity of its declaration seems to be, that is, it concen- pretive effort of the historian. The subjective intentions of
trates the attention of the person being addressed entirely men standing within the historical process are seldom or
upon what is said and prevents him from moving to a dis- never such that a later historical evaluation of events con-
tanced aesthetic differentiation. Over against the real inten- firms their assessment by contemporaries. The significance of
tion, which aims at what is said, reflection upon the means of the events, their connection and their involvements as they
the declaration is indeed always secondary and in general is are represented in historical retrospect, leave the mens auc-
excluded where men speak to each other face to face. For toris behind them, just as the experience of the work of art
what is said is not something that presents itself as a kind of leaves the mens auctoris behind it.
content of judgment, in the logical form of a judgment. The universality of the hermeneutical perspective is all-
Rather, it is what we want to say and what we will allow to encompassing. I once formulated this idea by saying that
be said to us. Understanding does not occur when we try to 2
being that can be understood is language. This is certainly
intercept what someone wants t o say t o us by claiming we not a metaphysical assertion. Instead, it describes, from the
already know it. medium of understanding, the unrestricted scope possessed
All these observations hold especially for the language of by the hermeneutical perspective. It would be easy to show
art. Naturally it is not the artist who is speaking here. The that all historical experience satisfies this proposition, as does
artist's own comments about what is said in one or another the experience of nature. In the last analysis, Goethe's state-
of his works may certainly be of possible interest too. But ment "Everything is a symbol" is the most comprehensive
the language of art means the excess of meaning that is formulation of the hermeneutical idea. It means that every-
present in the work itself. The inexhaustibility that distin- thing points to another thing. This "everything" is not an
guishes the language of art from all translation into concepts assertion about each being, indicating what it is, but an
rests on this excess of meaning. It follows that in understand- assertion as to how it encounters man's understanding. There
ing a work of art we cannot be satisfied with the cherished is nothing that cannot mean something to it. But the state-
hermeneutical rule that the mens auctoris limits the task of ment implies something else as well: nothing comes forth in
understanding posed in a text. Rather, just this expansion of the one meaning that is simply offered to us. The impossibil-
the hermeneutical perspective to include the language of art ity of surveying all relations is just as much present in
makes it obvious how little the subjectivity of the act of Goethe's concept of the symbolic as is the vicarious function
meaning suffices to denote the object of understanding. But of the particular for the representation of the whole. For
this fact has a general significance, and to that extent aesthet- only because the universal relatedness of being is concealed
ics is an important element of general hermeneutics. That from human eyes does it need to be discovered. As universal
should be conclusively indicated. Everything that in the as the hermeneutical idea is that corresponds to Goethe's
broadest sense speaks to us as tradition poses the task of words, in an eminent sense it is fulfilled only by the expe-
104 THE SCOPE OF HERMENEUTICAL REFLECTION

rience of art. For the distinctive mark of the language of art

is that the individual art work gathers into itself and ex-
presses the symbolic character that, hermeneutically re-
garded, belongs to all beings. In comparison with all other
linguistic and nonlinguistic tradition, the work of art is the
absolute present for each particular present, and at the same
time holds its word in readiness for every future. The inti-
macy with which the work of art touches us is at the same
Part II:
time, in enigmatic fashion, a shattering and a demolition of Phenomenology, Existential
the familiar. It is not only the "This art t h o u ! " disclosed in a
joyous and frightening shock; it also says to us; "Thou must Philosophy, and Philosophical
alter thy life!"
Hermeneutics
NOTES

1. It is in this sense that I criticized Kierkegaard's concept of the

aesthetic (as he himself does). Cf. WM, pp. 91 ff.
2. Cf. WM, p. 4 5 0 .
8
The Philosophical Foundations of the
Twentieth Century (1962)

At the end of the nineteenth century, Houston Stewart

Chamberlain posed the question of the foundations of his
century.* Today a similar question forces itself upon us with
respect to the foundations of our own century. From a
genuinely historical point of view, the twentieth century is
certainly not a chronologically defined period — say the
period of time from 1900 to 2000. Just as the nineteenth
century lasted in fact from the death of Goethe and Hegel
until the outbreak of World War I, so the twentieth century
began as the age of the world wars. When we raise this
retrospective question, however, something like an epochal
awareness seems to separate us from the age of the world
wars. The sensibilities of the younger generation no longer
appear dominated to such an extent by the anxious expecta-
tion that catastrophe will inevitably result from the historical
complexities of the present day. Today the predominant
expectation is that men may learn to adjust even to the great
forces that threaten them with mutual destruction, that a
sober assessment of realities and a readiness for rational
compromises will open the way into the future. In light of

*The title of Gadamer's essay reflects the title of Houston Stewart Chamber-
lain's famous book,Die Grundlagen des 19. Juhrhunderts (Munich: F. Bruckmann,
1899). [Trans.]
107
 108 PHENOMENOLOGY PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS 109
this expectation, what are the foundations of this century in novel that no longer narrates action or of the poem that
which we live and for whose continuation we hope? enigmatizes its message. And even in the greatest devotion to
The question of the foundations of an epoch, century, or the cultural world of the past, we must acknowledge that all
age is directed at something that is not immediately obvious, these changes in the actual forms of our life - the dwindling
but that nevertheless has stamped the unified physiognomy inwardness and the functionalization of social existence in
of what is immediately present round about us. It sounds the age of anonymous responsibility - are "right." It was
trivial perhaps to say that the foundations of the twentieth symptomatic of this new age that as early as 1930 Karl
century lie in the nineteenth century. Yet our point of Jaspers described the spiritual situation of the time with the
departure must be the fact that the Industrial Revolution - concept of "anonymous responsibility." The illusionless rec-
the rapid industrialization of Western Europe - began in the ognition of the actual is united in this concept with the
nineteenth century and that the twentieth century simply passion of existential decision. Philosophy accompanied the
continues what was established at that time. The splendid events of the time by guarding the limits of the scientific
development of the natural sciences in the nineteenth cen- orientation of consciousness to the world.
tury provided the essential foundations for our own techno- If we are to speak here of the philosophical foundations of
logical and economic development, and to that extent we are the twentieth century, we do not mean in the sense that
only exploiting ever more consistently and rationally the philosophy represents the true foundations of the century.
practical possibilities that result from the scientific discov- For there is some question as to whether what was formerly
eries of the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, with World War philosophy still has a place within the totality of present-day
I a genuine epochal awareness emerged that welded the life. The old tension between science and philosophy in the
nineteenth century into a unit of the past. This is true not modern period of history may culminate in our century, but
only in the sense that a bourgeois age, which had united faith the problem goes back further, for modern science is not an
in technical progress with the confident expectation of a invention of the nineteenth century, but of the seventeenth
secured freedom and a civilizing perfectionism, had come to century. The task of providing a rational foundation for the
an end. This end is not merely an awareness of leaving an knowledge of nature was taken up at that time, and the
epoch, but above all the conscious withdrawal from it, in- question was raised as to how science, as the new foundation
deed, the sharpest rejection of it. The term "nineteenth of our human relation to the world, could be united with the
century" acquired a peculiar ring in the cultural conscious- traditional forms of that relation - with the tradition of
ness of the first decades of the twentieth century. It was Greek philosophy, as the embodiment of everything men
heard as a term of abuse, designating the very embodiment of knew about God, the world, and human life, and with the
inauthenticity, stylelessness, and tastelessness - a combina- message of the Christian Church. Then began the Enlighten-
tion of crass materialism and an empty cultural pathos. The ment that gave the whole of more recent centuries the
forerunners of the new age closed ranks in rebellion against character of its philosophy. For as triumphant as the march
the spirit of the nineteenth century. One need only think of of modern science has been, and as obvious as it is to
modern painting, which made its revolutionary breakthrough everyone today that their awareness of existence is perme-
in the first decade of our century with the cubist destruction ated by the scientific presuppositions of our culture, human
of form; or of architecture, which rejected the past century's thought is nonetheless continually dominated by questions
art of historicizing facades. An entirely new life-feeling ap- for which science promises no answer.
pears in this architecture with increasing clarity. It has no
more room for the intimate and favors instead the transpar- In this state of affairs philosophy takes up its task, a task
ency and openness of every space. Or one may think of the that has remained the same to the present day. The answers it
has found in the three centuries of the modern period sound
 110 PHENOMENOLOGY PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS 111

different, but they are answers to the same question. Further- nineteenth century appears to have been influenced by scien-
more, the later answers are not possible without the earlier tific progress only in a very limited way. If we compare the
ones and must be tested successfully against them. Hence the role that the dominance of science over life plays in our own
question of the foundations of the twentieth century, when century, the difference is obvious. It may be characteristic of
it is posed as a question of philosophy, must be related to the the naivete of the nineteenth century that it considered the
answers that were given in preceding centuries. Leibniz first expansive enthusiasm of its knowledge and its civilized faith
saw the task in the eighteenth century. He appropriated the in the future to rest on the firm basis of a socially sanctioned
new scientific thought with his entire genius, and yet he moral order. The traditional form of the Christian Church,
considered the ancient and scholastic doctrine of substantial the national consciousness of the modern state, and the
forms to be indispensible. Thus he became the first thinker to morality of private conscience lie unquestioned at the foun-
attempt to mediate between traditional metaphysics and dation of the bourgeois culture of a century whose scientific
modern science. A century later, German idealism tried to achievements have been so fruitful, indeed revolutionary.
accomplish the same task. The scholastic philosophy of the Today, however, the awareness of such constants of social
eighteenth century had been destroyed by the Kantian cri- reality have receded completely into the background. We live
tique of dogmatic metaphysics with a swiftness that ap- with the awareness of a world that is changing in unforesee-
proached a genuine revolution. Actually, its coincidence with able ways, and in conflicts and tensions we expect science,
Rousseau's critique of the moral arrogance of the Enlighten- out of its own resources, to constitute the decisive factor.
ment and with the immense social upheaval of the French When the issue is avoiding sickness or improving the standard
Revolution may have secured Kantian philosophy its victory. of living we invest our hope in it. Society clings with bewil-
After that, a new answer to the old question became neces- dered obedience to scientific expertise, and the ideal of
sary, and this answer was given its final systematic cogency conscious planning and smoothly functioning administration
by Hegel. dominates every sphere of life even down to the level of
molding public opinion.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century there stands
not only the revolutionary achievement of the Kantian cri- Correspondingly, the culture of inwardness, the intensifica-
tique, but also the comprehensive synthesis of Hegelian phi- tion of personal conflicts in human life, and the pent-up
losophy against which the scientific spirit of the nineteenth expressive power of its artistic representation is gradually
century had to make its way. Hegel's philosophy represents becoming alien to us. The social order develops forms of such
the last mighty attempt to grasp science and philosophy as a power that the individual is hardly conscious at all any longer
unity. It is easy today to feel the hopelessness of such a task, of living out of his own decisions, even in the intimate sphere
and in fact it was the last attempt of this kind. But if it is of his own personal existence. Thus we must sharpen the
part of the sensibilities of the nineteenth century, at least in question in our own time as to how man can understand
the realm of knowledge of nature, to confirm its own empiri- himself within the totality of a social reality dominated by
cal frame of mind by ridiculing the natural philosophy of science. It is worth while considering Hegel's answer too, in
German idealism, we nonetheless have reason, especially in order to prepare adequate answers of our own. For by
view of that century itself, to ask to what extent the nine- subjecting the standpoint of subjective consciousness to an
teenth century's scientific idea of progress had different explicit critique, Hegel's philosophy opened up a way to
presuppositions from those it was itself aware of. Perhaps understand the human social reality in which we still find
Hegel knew more about such presuppositions than did the ourselves today. Hence in introducing Hegel's critique of
science that was so full of ridicule for him. subjective spirit we must also ask how the philosophical
thought of our own century is to be distinguished from that
This question forces itself upon us, for in retrospect the
 112 PHENOMENOLOGY PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS 113
first great application of the critique of subjective spirit not generally ones in which we have the inner freedom for
which we inherit from German idealism, and above all from reflection of this kind. And Hegel makes this criticism with
Hegel. cogency. Kant argues, for instance, in the Foundations of the
It is well known that Hegel's speculative idealism is charac- Metaphysics of Morals* that a man considering suicide needs
terized by the most caustic criticism of the philosophy of to have retained only enough reflective sense to ask himself if
reflection, which he regarded as an illness of the romantic it is in accordance with the law of life to turn life against
mind and its feeble inwardness. The concept of reflection as itself. But it is easy to see that even to consider suicide
we generally employ it (for instance, when we say that indicates one no longer has that much reflective sense. The
someone engages in reflection or that someone is a relfective situation in which moral reflection can appear is always an
man, etc.) is what Hegel calls "external reflection." The exceptional one, a situation of conflict between duty and
layman knows no other concept of reflection. For the lay- inclination, a situation of moral seriousness and distanced
man, as Hegel says, reflection is the raisonnement that moves self-examination. It is impossible for us to treat the totality
hither and yon and, without settling on a particular content, of moral phenomena in this way. The moral must be some-
knows how to apply general principles to any content. Hegel thing different. Hegel expressed this point in a provokingly
holds this procedure of external reflection to be a modern simple formula: morality is living in accordance with the
form of sophism because of the abritrariness with which it customs of one's land.
brings something given under general principles. His critique This formulation contains the concept of objective spirit
of the all too agile, all too facile generalizing of the given has implicitly. Present in the customs, the legal order, and the
its positive counterpart in the demand that thought immerse political constitution of a land is a definite spirit that has no
itself completely in the objective content of the thing and adequate reflection in the subjective consciousness of the
leave all its own fancies behind. This demand acquires its individual. To this extent, it is in fact objective spirit - spirit
central significance above all in moral philosophy. From his that surrounds us all and over against which no one has a
criticism of Kant's moral philosophy and the explicit foun- reflective freedom. The implications of this concept are of
dation that Kant had given to the phenomenon of moral fundamental significance to Hegel. The spirit of morality, the
reflection in the principle of ethics, Hegel developed his concept of the spirit of a people, the whole of Hegel's
concept of "spirit" and his criticism of subjective, "external" philosophy of law - all rest on the transcendence of the
reflection. subjective spirit present in the orders of human community.
Kant's moral philosophy is based on the so-called cate- Hegel's idea of objective spirit has its origin in the concept
gorical imperative. It is obvious that the "formula" of the of spirit that stems from the Christian tradition, that is, in
categorical imperative - (e.g., as Kant says, that the maxim the concept of pneuma in the New Testament - the concept
of our action at any time should be thought of as a universal of the Holy Spirit. The pneumatic spirit of love, the genius of
law or a law of nature) - does not represent a moral com- redemption, in terms of which the young Hegel interpreted
mand that could supplant material commands, such as those Jesus, indicates precisely this common factor that transcends
of the Decalogue. The formula corresponds instead to what particular individuals. Hegel quotes an Arabian expression: "a
Hegel calls "law-testing reason," and it does not mean that son of the stem of Koresh," an Oriental phrase indicating
the actuality of the moral life consists in following this that, for the men who use it, a particular man is not an
command. Rather, it is the highest instance of testing for the individual but a member of a tribe.**
binding force of every ought, and it is meant to guide moral
reflection in its effort to ascertain the purity of the moral *Cf. Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Lewis White Beck
will. (Indianapolis and New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1969), p. 45.
**Cf. Hegel, Early Theological Writings (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
It is obvious, however, that situations of moral action are 1948), p. 260.
 PHENOMENOLOGY PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS 115

This concept of objective spirit, the roots of which reach alive in Hegel's critique of subjective spirit at the end of the
far back into antiquity, finds its real philosophical justifica- nineteenth century, therefore, was not his belief in a reconcil-
tion in Hegel through the fact that it is itself transcended by iation that knows and conceives everything alien and objec-
what Hegel calls absolute spirit. By absolute spirit, Hegel tive, but rather the alien itself — objectivity in the sense of
means a form of spirit that contains nothing more in itself the opposition and otherness of what confronts subjective
that is alien, other, or in opposition, such as customs, which spirit. In the scientific thought of the nineteenth century,
can stand over against us as something limiting us, or the laws what Hegel called objective spirit is conceived as the Other of
of a state, which restrict our will by expressing prohibitions. spirit, and a unified consciousness of method is created after
Even when we generally recognize that the legal order is the the model of the knowledge of nature. Just as nature already
representation of our common social being, it stands in our appears in Hegel as the Other of spirit, so now the totality of
way in the form of a prohibition. Hegel sees the distinctive- historical and social reality no longer appears to the active
ness of art, religion, and philosophy in the fact that no such energy of the nineteenth century as spirit, but rather in its
opposition is experienced in them. We have in these forms a stubborn actuality, or, to use an everyday word, in its incom-
final and adequate mode in which spirit knows itself as spirit, prehensibility. One thinks of the incomprehensible phenome-
in which subjective consciousness and the objective actuality non of money, of capital, and of the concept of the self-
that supports us permeate each other, as it were, so that we alienation of man as it was developed by Marx. Subjective
encounter nothing more that is alien, because we know and spirit does not come to know the incomprehensibility, alien-
recognize everything we encounter as our own. It is well ness, opaqueness of social and historical life any differently
known that Hegel's own philosophy of world history claims than it does nature, which is objective to it. Hence nature and
to know and recognize in the intrinsic necessity of the event history are both considered objects of scientific investigation
even what seems to befall the individual as an alien fate. His in the same sense. They constitute the "object of knowl-
philosophy of spirit reaches its culmination in this claim. edge."

In itself, however, such a claim evokes once again the Thus began the development that culminated in Marburg
critical question of how we are to conceive the complicated, Neo-Kantianism making the object of knowledge into an
ambiguous relation between the subjective spirit of the indi- infinite task. The issue for the Neo-Kantians was the determi-
vidual and objective spirit that manifests itself in world nation of the indeterminate, its production in thought. The
history. This old question has three forms: how the individ- model of Neo-Kantian transcendental thought was the infini-
ual is related to world spirit (Hegel), how he is related to the tesimal method of defining the path or course of a move-
moral powers that are the genuine sustaining reality of histor- ment. Its watchword was: All knowledge culminates in the
ical life (Droysen), or where he finds himself within the scientific " p r o d u c t i o n " of the object. In the eighteenth cen-
relations of labor, the basic structure of human society tury, Leibniz sought to overcome the one-sidedness of the
(Marx). These three questions are united in the question of new science by his new system of monadology. At the
where the reconciliation of subjective spirit with objective beginning of the nineteenth century, Hegel confronted the
spirit is to occur - in the absolute knowledge of the Hegelian philosophy of reflection with the imposing synthesis of his
philosophy, in the restless labor of the Protestant-ethical philosophy of absolute spirit. Our own century too has felt
individual in Droysen, or in the changing structure of society the one-sidedness of this scientific methodologism. But we
in Marx. could indeed ask at this point the skeptical question: Was not
the critique of the dominant Neo-Kantian philosophy that
Whoever inquires in this fashion has in fact surrendered
focused on the concepts "life" and "existence" essentially
Hegel's standpoint of the concept in which the reconciliation
romantic in character? Does this question not apply to Dil-
has already taken place as reason in reality. What remained
 116 PHENOMENOLOGY PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS 117

they, Bergson, or Simmel, or to Kierkegaard and existential ourselves to be doing is in no way identical with what is in
philosophy, or, with the passion of cultural criticism, to fact transpiring in our human being.
Stefan George, to name but a few representative authors At this point one word can provide us with the proper
whose work involved a critique of the century? Was their orientation for understanding how deep this incursion into
effort anything more than a repetition of the romantic criti- the validity of subjective spirit reaches. It is the concept of
cism of the Enlightenment? Is it not the case that all such interpretation, a philosophical and humanistic concept that,
critical attempts contain that indissoluable dialectic of cul- at the beginning of the modern period, was still applied in a
tural criticism, namely, they continue to value so highly what wholly naive fashion to the natural sciences as interpretatio
they condemn that we can apply the same critique to them? naturae and that has now acquired a highly refractory mean-
We could actually embrace this argument if Nietzsche did not ing. Since Nietzsche, the claim has arisen that it is interpreta-
stand behind these philosophical movements of our century. tion, with its legitimate cognitive and interpretive aim, that
He was the great, fateful figure who fundamentally altered first grasps the real which extends beyond every subjective
the task of the critique of subjective spirit for our century. meaning. Consider the role the concept of interpretation
I do not want to take up the question of how far philoso- plays in the psychological and moral realms, according to
phy itself is simply an expression of a new social and personal Nietzsche. He writes: "There are no moral phenomena, but
situation or to what extent it is itself able to alter this only a moral interpretation of the phenomena."*
situation. If we are concerned with Nietzsche's real and The effects of this idea are beginning to be felt only in our
epoch-making significance for this whole matrix of questions, own century. If in earlier times interpretation aimed at noth-
we do not have to decide whether philosophy is the expres- ing more than the explication of the author's true meaning
sion of an event or the cause of it. For his criticism aims at (and I have reasons for believeing that this concept was
the final and most radical alienation that comes upon us from always too narrow), it is now explicitly the case that interpre-
out of ourselves — the alienation of consciousness itself tation is expected to go behind the subjectivity of the act of
Consciousness and self-consciousness do not give unambig- meaning.** It is a question of learning to get behind the
uous testimony that what they think they mean is not surface of what is meant. The unconscious (Freud), the
perhaps a masking or distorting of what is really in them. relations of production and their determinative significance
Nietzsche hammered this home to modern thought in such for social reality (Marx), the concept of life and its
fashion that we now recognize it everywhere, and not only in "thought-constituting w o r k " (Dilthey and historicism), the
the excessive, self-destructive and disillusioning way in which concept of existence as it was once developed by Kierkegaard
Nietzsche himself tears one mask after another from the I, against Hegel - all these are interpretive standpoints that our
until finally no more masks remain - and also no more I. We century has developed as ways of going behind what is meant
think not only of the plurality of masks, represented mytho- in subjective consciousness.
logically by Dionysus, the god of masks, but also of the
This shift is particularly obvious in German philosophy in
critique of ideology that, since Marx, has been applied in-
our century. The epistemology that was still the basic disci-
creasingly to religious, philosophical, and world-orienting
pline in the Neo-Kantian epoch and that anyone wanting to
convictions that are held with unconditional passion. Above
do philosophy had to study first is disappearing. The epis-
all, we think of the psychology of the unconscious, of Freud,
temological inquiry appealed to Kant and asked: With what
whose interpretation of psychological phenomena is domi-
right do we use concepts we have produced ourselves for the
nated by his insight that there can be powerful contradictions
in man's psychic life between conscious intention and uncon- •Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, section 108.
scious desire and being and that in any case what we believe **The verb hintergehen, "to go behind," can also mean, "to deceive" or "to
double cross." These meanings should not be overlooked in the present context.
 118 PHENOMENOLOGY PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS 119
knowledge of things and for the description of experience? its watchword in the assertion that Dasein is "being-in-the-
The question of legitimation, the questio iuris stemming from world." Since that time many have come to regard it as
the Cartesian tradition, acquired a new face in our century absurd and wholly obsolete to ask how the subject arrives at
through phenomenology - or better, it lost its face. knowledge of the so-called "external world." Heidegger has
In his first sketches of The Idea of Phenomenology in called the persistence of this question the real "scandal" of
1907 and afterward with increasing awareness, Husserl traced philosophy.
the concept of the phenomenon and of the pure description And now we must ask how the philosophical situation of
of the phenomenon back to the concept of correlation. That our century, which finally goes back to Nietzsche's critique
is, he always asked how what is intended is revealed, for of consciousness, is to be distinguished from Hegel's critique
which consciousness it is revealed, and in what form. Hence of subjective spirit. This question is not an easy one to
from the very beginning he did not conceive of the situation answer, but we could attempt the following argument here.
in terms of a subject existing for itself and choosing its No one knew better than did German idealism that con-
objects. Instead, he studied the attitudes of consciousness sciousness and its object are not two separated worlds. It
correlated with the phenomenal objects of intentionality - even found a word for it by coining the term "philosophy of
the "intentional a c t s , " as he called them. Now "intention- identity." It showed that consciousness and object are in fact
ality" [Intentionalitdt] does not mean "an act of meaning" only two sides that belong together and that any bifurcation
[Meinen] in the sense of a subjective operation. There are into pure subject and pure objectivity is a dogmatism. The
also what Husserl calls "horizontal intentionalities." If I series of dramatic developments that constitute Hegel's Phe-
direct my attention to a definite object, for instance, to those nomenology of Spirit rests directly on an awareness of the
two squares on the rear wall, everthing present — the entire fact that every consciousness that knows an object alters
room — is simultaneously there for me, like a corona of itself and hence also necessarily alters its object once again,
intentionalities. I can even remember subsequently that at so that the truth is known only in "absolute" knowledge - in
the moment I intended nothing other than the two squares, the complete cancellation of the objectivity of what is
all of this was also present and cointended. This horizon of thought. Is the critique of the concept of the subject that our
intentionalities, the constantly cointended, is not itself an century has attempted anything more than a repetition of
object of a subjective act of meaning. Consequently Husserl what German idealism achieved? Indeed, must we not confess
calls such intentionalities " a n o n y m o u s . " that this repetition has an incomparably narrower capacity
for abstraction and lacks the intuitive power that the concept
Similarly, and with his almost demagogic passionateness,
then had?
Scheler described the ecstatic character of consciousness by
showing that consciousness is not a closed box. The gro- I do not believe this argument is valid. The critique of
tesqueness of this image clearly caricatures the false substan- subjective spirit in our century has altogether different traits
tializing of the movement of self-reflection. We do n o t know at several decisive points because it can no longer renounce
our representations, we know things, Scheler asserted. There Nietzsche's question. There are three points, above all, at
are no images of things in our consciousness that we "really" which contemporary thought has exposed the naive assump-
think and relate in some way to the things of the "external tions of German idealism that can no longer be considered
world." All this is mythology. We are always with the beings valid: (1) the naivete of the assertion; (2) the naivete of
we intend. Heidegger radicalized this criticism of hyposta- reflection; and (3) the naivete of the concept.
sized "consciousness" by transforming it into an ontological The first point is the naivete of the assertion. Since Aris-
critique of the understanding of being presupposed by "con- totle, the totality of logic has rested on the concept of the
sciousness." His ontological critique of consciousness found Proposition, the apophansis, that is, the assertion of a judg-
120 PHENOMENOLOGY PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS 121

ment. In a classical passage, Aristotle emphasizes that he is dence, namely, to testify without knowing what one's own
dealing with the "apophantic logos'" alone, that is, with the declaration "means." A similar situation exists in an examina-
mode of discourse in which the issue is the truth or falsehood tion when a professor asks the candidate concocted questions
of assertions. He leaves aside such phenomena as the petition, that no rational person can answer. Heinrich von Kleist, who
the command, or even the question. To be sure, they are had himself been through the Prussian state examinations,
modes of discourse, but they are not concerned simply with took up this theme in his beautiful essay "On the Gradual
revealing that which is existent, that is, with being true. Thus Composition of Thought in Discourse."* The criticism of the
Aristotle established the priority of "judgment" in logic. In abstraction of the assertion and the abstraction of pure
modern philosophy, the concept of assertion that originated perception has been radicalized by Heidegger's transcenden-
in this way is connected with the concept of the judgment of tal-ontological inquiry. We must remember, first of all, that
perception. Pure perception corresponds to pure assertion. the concept of the fact, which corresponds to the concept of
But in our century, roused to doubt by Nietzsche, both have pure perception and pure assertion, was exposed by Heideg-
turned out to be inadmissible abstractions that cannot with- ger as an ontological prejudice affecting the concept of value
stand a phenomenological critique. There is neither pure as well. Thus Heidegger showed the distinction between the
perception nor pure assertion. judgment of fact and the judgment of value to be problematic,
The concept of "pure perception" was undermined first by as if there could be a pure determination of facts at all. I
the combined impact of many investigations. In Germany it would like to characterize the dimension revealed here as the
began to take effect above all when Max Scheler, with the hermeneutical dimension.
force of his phenomenological intuition, used the results of Here we find the well-known problem that Heidegger ana-
this research. In Forms of Knowledge and Society, he showed lyzed under the title of the hermeneutical circle. The prob-
the idea of a perception adequated to a stimulus to be a lem concerns the astounding naivete of the subjective con-
purely artificial product of abstraction. What I perceive in no sciousness that, in trying to understand a text, says "But that
way corresponds to the sensuous or physchological stimulus is what is written here!" Heidegger showed that this reaction
that has actually taken place. Rather, the relative adequation is quite natural, and often enough a reaction of the highest
of perception - that we see what is actually there, no more self-critical value. But in truth there is nothing that is simply
and no less - is the final product of a powerful refinement, a " t h e r e . " Everything that is said and is there in the text stands
final reduction of the excess of fantasy that guides all our under anticipations. This means, positively, that only what
seeing. Pure perception is an abstraction. The same holds for stands under anticipations can be understood at all, and not
the pure assertion, as Hans Lipps in particular has shown.* In what one simply confronts as something unintelligible. The
this connection, I would point to the legal assertion as an fact that erroneous interpretations also arise from anticipa-
especially relevant phenomenon. It makes clear how difficult tions and, therefore, that the prejudices which make under-
it is for a witness to know to any extent the full truth of standing possible also entail possibilities of misunderstanding
what he means, within the protocol of the court that is the could be one of the ways in which the finitude of human
context of his testimony. Torn from the context of the nature operates. A necessarily circular movement is involved
immediacy of question and answer by omissions, summaries, in the fact that we read or understand what is there, but
and so on, the reformulated assertion is like an answer one nonetheless see what is there with our own eyes (and our
must give without knowing why the question is asked. And own thoughts).
this is not accidental. It is precisely the accepted ideal of a It seems to me, moreover, that this observation needs a
testimony and undoubtedly an essential aspect of all evi-
•Cf. Heinrich von Kleist, "Uber das allmahliche Verfertigung der Gedanken
beim Reden," in Werke (Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut, n.d.), vol. 4, pp.
*Cf. UhL. 74-80.
 122 PHENOMENOLOGY PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS 123

further radicalization - one I have formulated in my own concept of reflection is also undercut. The kind of knowledge
studies in the following thesis: It is certainly correct that we in question here implies that not all reflection performs an
have to understand what the author intended "in his sense." objectifying function, that is, not all reflection makes what it
But "in his sense" does not mean "as he himself intended it." is directed at into an object. Rather, there is an act of
It means rather that understanding can also go beyond the reflecting that, in the fulfillment of an "intention," bends
author's subjective act of meaning, and perhaps even neces- back, as it were, on the process itself. Let us take a well-
sarily and always goes beyond it. There was always an aware- known example. When I hear a tone, the primary object of
ness of this fact in the earlier stages of hermeneutics before my hearing is obviously the tone. But I am also conscious of
the psychological turn that we call historicism occurred. And my hearing of the tone, and by no means only as the object
as soon as we consider an appropriate model - for example, of a subsequent reflection. A concomitant reflection always
the understanding of historical actions, of historical events - accompanies hearing. A tone is always a heard tone, and my
we find ourselves in agreement. No one will assume that the hearing of the tone is always intrinsically involved. We read
subjective consciousness of the agent, or of the participant in this in Aristotle, who already described it with perfect cor-
events, is commensurate with the historical significance of his rectness: every aisthesis is an aisthesis aistheseos. Every per-
actions. It is obvious to us that understanding the historical ception is perception of the perceiving and of the perceived
significance of an action presupposes that we do not restrict in one, and in no way contains "reflection" in the modern
ourselves to the subjective plans, intentions, and dispositions sense. Aristotle gives the phenomenon as it showed itself to
of the agents. At least since Hegel's time it has been clear that him, namely, as a unity. Aristotle's commentators were the
history by its very nature does not have its primary focus in first to systematize and associate the perception of the per-
the self-knowledge of the individual, and it holds just as well ceiving with the concept of the nowi) aiodetq which Aristotle
for the experience of art. I believe that this same insight must used in a different connection.
be applied even to the interpretation of texts whose informa- Franz Brentano, Husserl's teacher, founded his empirical
tional sense is not open to an indeterminate explanation like psychology substantially on the phenomenon described by
the art work. Here too, as Husserl's critique of psychologism Aristltle. He asserted that we have a nonobjectifying con-
has demonstrated, "what is m e a n t " is not a component of sciousness of our psychic acts. I can remember what enor-
subjective inwardness. mous significance it had for my generation when Heidegger
The second point I would like to consider is the naivete of acquainted us for the first time with a scholastic distinction
reflection. Here our century has consciously delineated itself that pointed in the same direction, namely, the distinction
from the critique of subjective spirit that was made by between the actus signatus and the actus exercitus. There is a
German idealism, and the phenomenological movement de- difference between saying "I see something" and "I am
serves the major credit for this fact. saying that I see something." But the signification "I am
What is at stake here is this: It seems at first as if the saying t h a t . . . " is not the first awareness of the act. The act
reflective spirit is the absolutely free spirit. In coming back to originally taking place is already such an act, which is to say
itself it is completely at home with itself [bei sich]. In fact, it is already something in which my own operation is vitally
German idealism - for example, in Fichte's concept of action present to me. The transformation into a "signification"
or even Hegel's concept of absolute knowledge - considered founds a new intentional object.
this achievement of the spirit that is at home with itself as By proceeding from these early and forgotten starting
the highest mode of existence or presence. But if the concept points of phenomenological research, perhaps I can call atten-
of assertion has succumbed to the phenomenological critique, tion to the role this problem still plays in the philosophy of
as we have seen, then the central position occupied by the our century. In demonstrating this procedure, I will restrict
 PHENOMENOLOGY PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS 125
124
myself to Jaspers and Heidegger. Jaspers contrasted the con- from publicness, from the " T h e y , " from idle talk, from
cept of certain knowledge, "world-orientation," as he called curiosity, and so on - from all ways of falling prey to society
it, with the illumination of existence, which comes into play and its power to reduce things to their lowest common
in the boundary situations of the scientific as well as every denominator. In short, the authenticity of Dasein emerged as
human capacity for knowledge. According to Jaspers, bound- human finitude. All these things reflect something of the
ary situations are those situations of human existence in passion of a successor to Kierkegaard, who had an enormous
which the possibilities of being guided by the anonymous impact on our generation. But this influence was undoubt-
powers of science break down, and where, for that reason, edly more a concealment of Heidegger's real aims than an
everything depends upon oneself. In such situations some- actual apprehension of the intentions of his thought.
thing comes out of a man that remains concealed in the Heidegger was no longer concerned with conceiving of the
purely functionalized application of science for the purpose essence of finitude as the limit at which our desire to be
of dominating the world. There are many such boundary infinite founders. He sought instead to understand finitude
situations. Jaspers already marked out the situation of death, positively as the real fundamental constitution of Dasein.
and also the situation of guilt. In the way one behaves when Finitude means temporality and thus the "essence" of Dasein
he is guilty or when he is caught in his guilt, something is its historicity. These well-known theses of Heidegger's were
emerges - existit. His mode of behavior is such that he him- meant to serve him in asking the question of being. The
self is completely immersed in it. That is the form in which "understanding" that Heidegger described as the basic dy-
Jaspers appropriated the Kierkegaardian concept of existence namic of Dasein is not an " a c t " of subjectivity, but a mode
in a systematic way. Existence is the emergence of what is of being. By proceeding from the special case of the under-
really up to us, where the guiding power of anonymous standing of tradition, I have myself shown that understanding
science breaks down. What is decisive here is that this emer- is always an event. The issue here is not simply that a
gence is not a fuzzy, emotional event, but an illumination. nonobjectifying consciousness always accompanies the proc-
Jaspers calls it an illumination of existence, that is, what was ess of understanding, but rather that understanding is not
concealed within a person is raised into the light of an suitably conceived at all as a consciousness of something,
existential commitment that makes him responsible for what since the whole process of understanding itself enters into an
he decides to do. It is not an objectifying reflection. Situa- event, is brought about by it, and is permeated by it. The
tions - even boundary situations - require a kind of knowl- freedom of reflection, this presumed being-with-itself, does
edge that is doubtless not an objectifying knowledge and thus not occur at all in understanding, so much is understanding
cannot be diminished by science's anonymous possibilities of conditioned at every moment by the historicity of existence.
knowing. Finally, there is the third factor, which perhaps defines our
Then Heidegger took this motif up into his basic considera- present-day philosophy most profoundly, the insight into the
tion of the meaning of being. The "mineness" of Dasein, naivete of the concept. Here too, it seems to me, the current
being guilty, running ahead toward death, and similar notions situation is determined on the one side by the development
are the principal phenomena of Being and Time. It is unfortu- of phenomenology in Germany and, interestingly enough;
nate that Heidegger's reception during the first decades of his also by a development in English-speaking countries that had
work involved the moralizing of these concepts, which was its origins in Germany. When the layman wonders what
indeed in accord with Jaspers's concept of existence, but was philosophy really is, he has the idea that philosophizing
then extended to the concept of authenticity in Being and means defining, and taking responsibility for the need to
Time. The authenticity of Dasein, which emerges in bound- define, the concepts in which all men think. Since as a rule
ary situations, in running ahead toward death, was distin- we do not see this happen, we have helped ourselves by
guished from the inauthenticity of trivial, thoughtless life, means of a doctrine of implicit definition. In reality, how-
 126 PHENOMENOLOGY PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS 127

ever, such a "doctrine" is a mere verbalism. For to call a cism. All thinking is confined to language, as a limit as well as
definition implicit obviously means one finally comes to a possibility. This experience is present in every interpreta-
notice, on the basis of a number of sentences someone has tion that is itself linguistic in character. When we do not
spoken, that he was thinking something unambiguous by understand a text, the ambiguity of a particular word and the
means of using a concept. In this respect, philosophers are no possibilities for interpreting it undoubtedly lead to a distur-
different from other men, for other men too are in the habit bance of the linguistic process in which mutual understanding
of thinking definite things and avoiding contradictions. The is achieved. And we are confident we have understood the
lay opinion appealed to here is in fact dominated by the word when the ambiguity that initially appeared is finally
nominalistic tradition of recent centuries, in considering lin- overcome by a clarification of how the text as a whole is to
guistic reproduction as a kind of application of signs. It is be read. All genuine interpretation of linguistic texts, not just
obvious that artificial signs need an organization and arrange- grammatical interpretation, seems to me to be designed to
ment that excludes any ambiguity. Thus the demand arises disappear in this way. Interpretation must play, that is, it
that the illusory problems of "metaphysics" must be un- must come into play, in order to negate itself in its own
masked by establishing univocal, artifical languages. This de- achievement. Unwelcome as this characterization may be,
mand, which came from the Vienna Circle, has given rise to this much at least may have become clear: something like a
extensive scholarship, expecially in England and America. convergence is occurring between Wittgenstein's critique of
One of the most radical and successful formulations of this Anglo-Saxon semantics on the one hand and the criticism of
program is found in Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philo- the ahistorical art of phenomenological description that is
sophicus. In his late work, however, Wittgenstein showed that made by the self-criticism of language, that is, by hermeneu-
the ideal of artificial language is self-contradictory, but not tical consciousness, on the other hand. The way we trace the
merely for the reason so often cited, namely, that the intro- use of concepts back into their history in order to awaken
duction of any artificial language requires that another lan- their real, living, evocative meaning seems to me to converge
guage already be in use, thus entailing a natural language. with Wittgenstein's study of living language games, and in-
Rather, the knowledge decisive for Wittgenstein's later in- deed with everything moving in the same direction.
sights is that language is always right, that is, it has its real These developments also involve a critique of subjective
function in the achievement of mutual understanding, and consciousness in our century. Language and concept are
that the illusory problems of philosophy do not grow out of obviously so closely bound to each other that to think we
a defect in language, but out of a false, dogmatizing thought, can "apply" concepts — as for instance, when we say "I call
an hypostasizing of operative words. Language is like a game. it so-and-so" — damages the binding force of philosophizing.
Wittgenstein speaks of language games in order to hold fast to Individual consciousness has no such freedom when it wishes
the purely functional sense of words. Language is language to philosophize. It is bound to language — n o t only the
when it is a pure actus exercitus, that is, when it is absorbed language of the speakers, but also the language of the dia-
into making what is said visible, and has itself disappeared, as logue that things carry on with us. Today science and the
it were. human experience of world encounter each othere in the
In his development of phenomenology, Heidegger also philosophical problem of language.
came to see that language is a mode of interpreting the world It seems to me to follow from these considerations that in
that precedes all reflective attitudes, and his insight was contemporary philosophy three great partners of the dialogue
shared by those thinkers who, on the basis of his work, began down through the centuries stand in the foreground of our
to draw philosophical consequences, especially from histori- consciousness. First of all, there is the presence of the Greeks
 PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS 129
128 PHENOMENOLOGY

in contemporary thought, above all because for them word teachers in the age of scientism. The limit they designate over
and concept still stand in immediate, easy communication. against the total scientific reduction of our world is nothing
The flight into the logoi with which Plato begins the real we must first devise. It is there as something that has always
Western turn of the metaphysics in the Phaedo at the same preceded science. What seems to me t o be the most hidden
time holds thought in close proximity to the linguistic and yet the most powerful foundation of our century is its
world-experience as a whole. The Greeks are so exemplary skepticism over against all dogmatism, including the dogma-
for us today because they resisted the dogmatism of concepts tism of science.
and the "urge for system." Thanks t o this resistance they
were able to conceive the phenomena that dominate our
quarrel with our own tradition, such as the self and self-
consciousness, and thus also the entire realm of ethical and
political being, without falling into the dilemma of modern
subjectivism.
The second partner in this dialogue through the centuries
appears t o me to be, now as ever, Kant, for he made binding
once and for all the distinction between thinking of oneself
and knowledge. We may, of course, consider knowledge to
encompass more than the kind of cognition found in mathe-
matical natural science and its treatment of experience,
which is the mode Kant had in view. But knowledge is still
something different from all thinking about the self, for
which experience no longer provides a basis of demonstra-
tion. It seems to me that Kant showed that to be the case.
And to my mind, Hegel is the third partner, despite his
speculative-dialectical transcendence of the Kantian concept
of finitude and its assertion of our dependence upon expe-
rience. For the concept of spirit, which Hegel appropriated
from the Christian spiritualistic tradition and raised to new
life, is still the basis of every critique of subjective spirit, as
this critique is posed for us as our own task by the experience
of the post-Hegelian epoch. This concept of spirit that tran-
scends the subjectivity of the ego has its true counterpart in
the phenomenon of language, which is coming increasingly to
the center of contemporary philosophy. The reason is that, in
contrast t o the concept of spirit that Hegel drew from the
Christian tradition, the phenomenon of language has the
merit of being appropriate to our finitude. It is infinite, as is
spirit, and yet finite, as is every event.
It would be an error t o assert that we no longer need these
 THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL MOVEMENT 131

like Friedrich Gundolf's Goethe or Ernst Kantorowicz's Fred-

erick the Second had little in common with the nine-
teenth-century works on the same subject. The biographical
study of the individual (the tracing of sources and influences)
that had characterized literary work at the end of the nine-
teenth century is basically overcome here. The object of
these new works is not the incidental biographical, historical
conditions under which a man and his work took shape, but
The Phenomenological Movement rather the essential character of these great spiritual figures
that reveals itself to us only when our attention is directed to
(1963) their creative powers and their spiritual life-forces.
Phenomenology was no less critical of the habits of
thought of contemporary philosophy. It wanted to bring the
phenomena to expression, that is, it sought to avoid every
unwarranted construction and to subject the unquestioned
domination of philosophical theories to critical examination.
Hence it considered it a prejudiced construction, for exam-
ple, when the effort was made to derive all the phenomena of
The phenomenological movement, which arose in Germany
human social life from a single principle - for example, from
before World War I, occupies a distinguished place in twen-
the principle of the greatest utility or from the pleasure
tieth-century philosophy. Edmund Husserl, the founder of
principle. In opposition to such theories, it asserted that
phenomenology, regarded the method he developed as the
phenomena such as the idea of justice and punishment, or of
only way of elevating philosophy to the status of a rigorous
friendship and love, bear their meaning within themselves and
science. His passionate devotion to this task led to the found-
are not to be comprehended in terms of utility or pleasure.
ing of a philosophical school. Even when he was driven from
But above all, it aimed its attacks at the construction that
public attention after 1933 because of his Jewish back-
dominated epistemology, the basic discipline of the philoso-
ground, his influence continued and produced a veritable
phy of the time. When epistemological inquiry sought to
renaissance after World War II. Husserl died in 1938. His
answer the question of how the subject, filled with his own
extensive legacy of literary works, which were taken from
representations, knows the external world and can be certain
Freiburg to Louvain in order to save them from destruction,
of its reality, the phenomenological critique showed how
is currently being edited, and the great series of these vol-
pointless such a question is. It saw that consciousness is by
umes keeps philosophical interest in Husserl's thought alive.
no means a self-enclosed sphere with its representations
It is not at all easy to say what it is that brings this locked up in their own inner world. On the contrary, con-
phenomenological movement to the awareness of the general sciousness is, according to its own essential structure, already
public. For as a school of thought within academic philoso- with objects. Epistemology asserts a false priority of self-con-
phy that avoided any great publicity, it was unable to gain sciousness. There are no representative images of objects in
public attention to the degree that existential philosophy consciousness, whose correspondence to things themselves it
later attained it. And yet phenomenology too had its hour, is the real problem of epistemology to guarantee. The image
which bound it closely in spirit to other movements. Con- we have of things is rather in general the mode in which we
sider, for example, how nineteenth-century biographical re- are conscious of things themselves. Only an exceptional case
search changed its appearance precisely at this time. Books

130
 132 PHENOMENOLOGY THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL MOVEMENT 133

of disturbed certainty, of doubt regarding the correctness of and clever constructions were an abomination to him. In his
an opinion, requires that I differentiate the mere image I have teaching, whenever he encountered the grand assertions and
of an object from the object itself. arguments that are typical of beginning philosophers, he used
A phenomenology of knowledge must account for this to say, "Not always the big bills, gentlemen; small change,
fact. The model instance is perception. Here our perceptions small change!" This kind of work produced a peculiar fasci-
grasp the things themselves "in direct givenness." There is no nation. It had the effect of a purgation, a return to honesty, a
inference here from sense stimuli that are certain to the liberation from the opaqueness of the opinions, slogans, and
causes of the stimuli, no subsequent synthesis of various battle cries that circulated.
stimulus-effects into the unity of a cause, which we call the Moreover, the content or field upon which this modest
thing. These are all constructions that have no warrant in the sort of work was exercised was itself very modest. One of
phenomena. Knowledge is intuition, and in the case of direct Husserl's classic themes was the phenomenology of the things
perception, that means the direct giveness of what is known of perception. Here, for example, he developed with a really
in perception. It has its own certainty in itself. Wherever real masterful precision the fact that we always see only the side
insight is attained outside of the sphere of what is per- of each thing that is turned toward us and that the change of
ceivable, it can mean nothing other than that there too what perspective which results from walking around a thing can do
is intended presents itself in intuitive givenness. There is nothing to alter this essential relation, namely, that what we
"categorical" intuition. Husserl said it occurs as a fulfillment see is always the front and never the reverse side. Many
of the intention of the act of meaning. That is the plain, phenomenological analyses were equally trivial. One of Hus-
descriptive sense of the celebrated "Wesensschau," which has serl's most gifted pupils, Adolf Reinach, the Gottingen Privat-
been combatted with a great deal of blind ingenuity. It is no dozent who was killed in World War I, is even said to have
patented procedure, no secret method of a school. Rather, it spent a whole semester dealing solely with the question of
reestablishes against all constructive theories the simple fact what a mail box is.
that knowing is a direct intuition. In 1913, when Husserl
Actually Husserl never discussed the great classical themes
published his Ideas and began the long series of phenome-
of philosophy in a manner that could have satisfied the need
nological yearbooks, in conjunction with Max Scheler, Alex-
of the young scholars who listened to him for a worldview.
ander Pfander, and later, Martin Heidegger, he wrote regard-
And yet the fascination was there. 1919 was a time of
ing the theory of investigation that the editors shared: It is
confusion and new organization of German awareness, a
"the common conviction that we can make full use of the
time in which debating clubs, both large and small, fairly
great tradition of philosophy in our concepts and problems
swarmed. I remember a discussion within a young academic
only by returning to the original sources of intuition and the
circle that I attended as a wide-eyed, curious student. Every
insights into essences to be derived from them, and that in
possible means of salvation was offered for the sickness and
this way alone can concepts be clarified intuitively, problems
crisis of the time. One person spoke out for a socialist
be posed anew on an intuitive basis and then solved in
society; another saw the poet Stefan George as the founder
principle."*
of new human community; a third wanted to build anew on
These words have a faint missionary ring about them. And the basis of antiquity and humanism; a fourth saw in Gierke's
Husserl was in fact filled with a genuine missionary con- Genossenschaftsrecht the ideas for the construction of a new
sciousness. He regarded himself as a master and teacher of state. And then a fifth student came forward and said fer-
patient, descriptive, detailed work, and all rash combinations vently that the only salvation from our difficulties was phe-
nomenology. In retrospect, I think I can say a little more
*JPPF, vol. 1, p.v. exactly what I did not understand at the time. The shattering
 134 PHENOMENOLOGY THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL MOVEMENT 135

of the cultural consciousness that accompanied the collapse could n o t reach. Even a perfected phenomenological knowl-
of Wilhelminian Germany had spread a general perplexity, edge of all essences — including those in the realm of moral-
and in this confusing situation the wildest talk occurred and ity and also the realm of "values" - might not be able to
the most absurd proposals were made. Some persons who had reach the actuality of what is actual, the actuality of thinking
undergone the rigorous discipline of the art of phenomeno- consciousness as well as the experience of actuality. Even if
logical description may have been tempted to say that only the distinction between fact and essence might be rightly
rigorous, detailed work that patiently and conscientiously delimited over against the particular sciences as phenome-
lays new foundations can show the way to a new order, and nology's great field of investigation and the ground cleared
not this wild thrashing about in the dark. for methodically self-conscious work, the factuality of the
Husserl's own primary question, which he asked with pene- factual — facticity, existence - is not only a final, last, and
trating conscientiousness, was: How can I become a worthy contingent factor that is materially determined and grasped
philosopher? By this he meant: how can I execute each step exhaustively in its determinateness. It is also a primary and
of my thinking in such fashion that each further step can basic factor, one not to be ignored, which on its side supports
have a secure ground? How can I avoid every unjustified every insight into essences. The dilemma was that factical
assumption and thus finally realize the ideal of rigorous human Dasein could be illuminated by phenomenological
science in philosophy too? The shock of World War I, in research only as an eidos, an essence. In its uniqueness,
which he lost one of his sons, brought him back again and finitude, and historicity, however, human Dasein would
again from the progressive realization of his phenomenologi- preferably be recognized not as an instance of an eidos but
cal investigation to the foundations, which he sought to rather as itself the most real factor of all. In this aporia,
inspect and justify with ever-new scrupulousness. On the Husserl and phenomenological investigation in general was to
whole, he published little himself, and almost always his encounter its own limit, finitude, and historicity.
publications were only programmatic sketches. The patient, Within the circle of phenomenologists, Max Scheler knew
detailed work that he knew how to teach like no other man it to be the case. He was at home with every reality and every
no longer appeared in his literary work because of his science. His powerful temperment penetrated the life-prob-
methodological reflections. More than anything else, his Lec- lems of modern man with passionateness — problems of the
tures on the Phenomenology of Internal Time Consciousness, individual, society, the state, and religion. He was an entirely
which date from the time before World War I, give an independent and brilliant figure alongside Husserl, even
idea of what phenomenological work was. He experienced a though it was the ethos of the craftsmanship of phenome-
second shock to his philosophical endeavor in the rise of nological work that Husserl embodied that first disciplined
National Socialism, which robbed him of his public influence his truly versatile mind. His ethic of material value estab-
and which he regarded, along with the philosophical develop- lished a direction of phenomenological research that fused
ment of the 1920s associated with the names of Jaspers and the tradition of Catholic moral philosophy for the first time
Heidegger, as the inundation of irrational tendencies that with the most advanced positions of modern philosophy, and
threatened the rationality of human culture and the rigor of it has this function to the present day. Husserl's doctrine of
scientific philosophical thought. the "intuition of essences" suited Scheler perfectly, insofar as
In truth, this idea of the knowledge of essences that was to he had a penetrating intuitive power that gave him access to
renew the morality of philosophizing, this descriptive analysis the broadest fields of science — physiology as well as psychol-
of the boundless field of "consciousness" that was to precede ogy, anthropology as well as sociology and the historical
all scientific knowledge and contain its a priori presupposi- sciences — and made possible his brilliant insights into the
tions, might have a limit beyond which phenomenology itself essential lawfulness of human life. He raised philosophical
 136 PHENOMENOLOGY THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL MOVEMENT 137

anthropology to the level of a central philosophical science example, in theology, psychiatry, and sociology. Above all
whose influence carried all the way into the doctrine of God else, it was reflection on the Danish philosopher Kierkegaard,
and in the end his restless speculative spirit broke the bonds the religious author and critic of speculative idealism in the
of the Catholic Church. post-Hegelian epoch, that prompted the philosophical cri-
In the exciting years after World War I, the intellectual tique of Neo-Kantian idealism. With bitter sarcasm, Kierke-
adventure of this distinguished and demonically driven man gaard had asserted that Hegel, the absolute professor, had for
had no less influence than the quiet continuity of research gotten existence. "Mediation," that is, the dialectical recon-
within the Freiburg phenomenological school. He strove to ciliation of even the most sharply opposed ideas, takes from
build a comprehensive synthesis out of the latest scientific human existence the stringency of absolute decision, the
knowledge by supplementing phenomenology with a meta- unconditioned and irrevocable character of the choice that
physical science of actuality, and the world of spirit and its alone is appropriate to its finitude and temporality. The
deactualizing vision of essences with the actuality of impulse philosophical reflection that assimilated Kierkegaard's dia-
as the elemental ground of all being. Scheler's writings, espe- lectic of existence made its appearance alongside the theo-
cially those on the sociology of knowledge and philosophical logical critique of nineteenth-century liberal theology initi-
anthropology, were able to work out the connection between ated by Karl Barth's Commentary on Romans and by Fried-
essence and actuality with thematic explicitness. But in the rich Gogarten, a critique that turned above all on the immedi-
end, the mere supplementing of phenomenology by a philo- acy of the Thou and its human claim on the I in contrast to
sophical science of actuality was not able to satisfy philo- the world of liberal culture and its self-confidence.
sophical consciousness. The dualism of truth and actuality, of Karl Jaspers, in his Psychology of Worldviews, was the first
spirit and impulse, of the impotence of the spirit the recal- to give a new accent to the concept of existence in contrast
citrant power of the actual, posed a problem rather than to all cultural forms of philosophizing. For Jaspers, the
solved it. Hence the time was ripe for a more radical ap- scientific idea of the liberal age was embodied in the remark-
proach to philosophizing, which was introduced by Heidegger able scholarly personality of Max Weber. The rigor with
and by Jaspers's "philosophy of existence." which Weber sought to eliminate every aspect of a worldview
and all value judgments from the concept of science, but at
the same time recognized the limits of science in the neces-
II sity for science itself to choose its god, prescribed Jaspers's
If in the quiet and seclusion of the academic lecture hall own philosophical task. That task was to mediate the self-
the phenomenological movement established a new relation limitation of science that was presented here in so exemplary
to things and a new interest in the prescientific "life-world," and almost quixotic a fashion in the life of one man with the
its slogan, "philosophy as a rigorous science," was unable to claim of philosophy, and to perform this mediation on the
satisfy the public's need for a worldview. Thus it was the basis not of irrational decisions but out of the power of
so-called philosophy of existence that gave the strongest thought to make a choice as to which gods one would follow.
philosophical stamp to the period between the two wars. That is, the task was to choose in the clear light of reason and
at the same time with existential commitment the possi-
Its point of departure was the dissatisfaction with the
bilities that are available at any time to existing man.
orientation to the facts of the sciences that was the basis of
contemporary Neo-Kantian philosophy. The scholastic form This requirement was fulfilled especially by the concept of
of transcendental idealism no longer satisfied a generation the boundary situation, which Jaspers created in order to
shaken by the slaughter of World War I. The limits of liberal advocate a new commitment for philosophy. Boundary situa-
cultural consciousness became evident in many areas, for tions are those situations in human life in which the individ-
 138 PHENOMENOLOGY THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL MOVEMENT 139

ual must choose and decide without being guided by the of Being and Time really meant a total transformation of the
certain knowledge provided by science. One has to undergo intellectual climate, a transformation that had lasting effects
such extreme situations of decision and choice in his own on almost all the sciences. It repeated and intensified on
existence, and precisely how one faces up to them, how one academic territory the European occurrence that Nietzsche
acts, for instance, when death is near, brings out - ex- represented, an occurrence absolutely incommensurable with
sistere — what he himself really is. Many things dwindle into the concept of "rostrum philosophy," to use Schopenhauer's
indifference in light of such existentially binding thought. caustic term.
But much that is attained by Dasein that is thus thrown back Whoever witnessed Heidegger's influence in those early
on itself — especially from philosophy, art, and re- years of his teaching in Freiburg and Marburg knows that at
ligion — acquires the seriousness of existentially binding that time he had the most powerful effect on every direction
truth. Hence Jaspers's philosophy was constructed in three of scholarly research. In him too there was an existential
books, which are the three levels of the soul: world orienta- passion, an emanation of intellectual concentration, that
tion, as supplied by science; illumination of existence, as it made everything that preceded it seem feeble. Indeed, it was
occurs for the individual in boundary situations; and meta- far more powerfully true of Heidegger because it appeared in
physics, in which the cyphers of transcendence become legi- a more direct way than it did in Jaspers's literary form. One
ble for the individual in an existentially binding way. could actually recall the romantic furioso of Van Gogh,
In Heidelberg, alongside Southwest German Neo-Kan- whose letters appeared at that time and made a deep impres-
tianism, Jaspers had a growing influence on the students. But sion on the young Heidegger. And in fact, those letters gave
even before Jaspers's philosophy appeared in print, Martin representative expression to the life-feeling of the epoch. Just
Heidegger changed the philosophical consciousness of the as might have been the case in fifth-century Athens when the
time with one stroke. He unleashed a critique of cultural young, under the banners of the new sophistic and Socratic
idealism that reached a wide public — a destruction of the dialectic, vanquished all conventional forms of authority,
dominant philosophical tradition — and a swirl of radical law, and custom with radical new questions, so too the
questions. Heidegger was a pupil of Edmund Husserl and the radicalism of Heidegger's inquiry produced in the German
heir of his master's great phenomenological art. At the same universities an intoxicating effect that left all moderation
time he had an intensely revolutionary temperment. His first behind.
great masterpiece, the first volume of Being and Time (a Today, with the distance of decades, the philosophical
second volume never appeared), preserved the external form impulse that Heidegger represented no longer has the same
of an affiliation with the transcendental phenomenology of infatuating relevance. It has penetrated everywhere and
his master. But in truth the force with which the entire works in the depths, often unrecognized, often barely pro-
academic philosophy of the time was attacked here for the voking resistance; but nothing today is thinkable without it.
first time in generations was not the professorial pathos that The philosophical standpoint of Being and Time could be
faded away in the hallways of the lecture buildings. Here the interpreted very easily in terms of the Kierkegaardian con-
academic boundaries were boundaries no longer. Heidegger cept of existence, and in fact it has been so interpreted.
was a descendent of the great moralists in the style of Hence in the 1920s and in the early 1930s, Heidegger and
Montaigne, Pascal, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, and Nietz- Jaspers stood out as the two representatives of German
sche, but was at the same time a well-established and highly existential philosophy. In Being and Time, and even more in
successful teacher. The chasm that finally opened in the Heidegger's lectures, something occurred that Jaspers had
nineteenth century between the academic and worldly forms called thinking that makes an appeal [das appellierende Den-
of philosophy seemed to close up. And the brilliant scheme ken] - a summons of existence to itself, to the choice of
 14U PHENOMENOLOGY THEPHENOMENOLOGICAL MOVEMENT 141

authenticity and the withdrawal from fallenness into the and he did it conceptually on the level of the classical
"They," curiosity, and idle chatter. In the "resolution ready thinkers of philosophy.
to live in anxiety" in "running ahead toward death," Da-sein It is not difficult today, on the basis of Heidegger's later
is placed before itself and has left behind it all the forms of work, to recognize that even Being and Time did not repre-
concealment of social intercourse, the cultural complacency sent a philosophy of existence, but only used its vocabulary
of bourgeois life, the bustle of journalism and party politics. to deal with the question that both bound Heidegger to the
Despite its connection with the methodical discipline of great line of classical philosophical thinkers stretching from
Husserlian phenomenology, what occurred in Heidegger's phi- Plato to Nietzsche and at the same time made it necessary to
losophizing was not really basically a continuation and de- inquire behind this tradition. Today it is clear that the inner
tailed extrapolation .of a program of phenomenological re- and indissoluable connection of the authenticity and in-
search. To a far greater degree, it was the themes of prag- authenticity of Dasein, of unconcealedness and concealment,
matism, Nietzsche's critique of the assertions of self- of truth and error, indicated the real dimension of the Hei-
consciousness, the religious radicalism of a Dostoevski whose deggerian inquiry. At that time, however, his severe style of
flaming sign was displayed at that time on every desk in the lecturing and the pointedness of his invective made it appear
form of the red-bound volumes of the Piper edition, that simply incredible when Heidegger described the world of the
Heidegger's thought pushed to their philosophical conse- "They" and "idle chatter" with bitter acrimony and then
quences. added, "this is intended without any negative meaning." The
The doctrine of judgment and its founding, the classical existential seriousness that characterized Heidegger in his
analysis of perception, the logical distinction between expres- lectures seemed to suggest that the rejection of inauthenticity
sion and meaning, but above all, the incomparably exact and and embracing of authenticity was the meaning of his doc-
penetrating description of internal time consciousness, in trine. Against his will, then, he became a kind of philosopher
which every sense of duration or timeless validity had to be of existence. Later, when the chaotic irrationalism of the
constructed - these were all themes of Husserl's phenome- National Socialist worldview began to confuse the situation.
nology that sprang from a basic intention that was purely Jaspers similarly had to give the concept of reason priority
theoretical. An ontological hiatus separated them from the over that of existence, and indeed, would have better revoked
pragmatic experience of life, perception directed by the prac- the word "existence" altogether. The reception of Heideg-
tical meaning of what is ready-to-hand, and the temporality gerian t h o u g h t by the French moralistic tradition
of Dasein that lays hold of itself as a movement of existence, strengthened this effect, even though Husserl and Hegel were
which characterized Heidegger's approach. The explication of fused into Heidegger's influences on French thought. Today
this new approach began with Being and Time. If it had been the style of those "years of decision" has lost its magic, but
Husserl's special merit to analyze conceptually the truths the task has remained the same, namely, to preserve within
present in the natural consciousness of the world and not just an increasingly technical age and its antihistorical ideal the
those formulated in science, then in an entirely different way great heritage of Western thought that phenomenology and
Heidegger's transcendental analysis of everydayness did jus- existential philosophy had appropriated with a new passion.
tice to the experience of real life and to the inner decissions
that are part of the leading of each personal life. Heidegger's
shattering of the exclusiveness of academic philosophy had a
tremendous effect, not only in Germany but also in the
The time seems to have come to write a history of the
whole world. He had the speculative power to develop those
phenomenological movement. On the one hand, we feel a
things that commanded the attention of a crisis-ridden time.
clear distance from this philosophical current that victori-
142 PHENOMENOLOGY THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL MOVEMENT 143
ously dominated the first decades of our century in Ger- ticeship under a great experimental scientist or a great doc-
many. On the other hand, the complete edition of Edmund tor. Yet the question, "What is phenomenology?" was posed
Husserl's works has revealed materials that have determined by almost every scholar whom we can assign to this move-
the present discussion to a very great extent. In particular, ment, and the question was answered differently by each
the great edition of his works in progress in the Louvain one.
archives is a constant stimulus to discuss the contemporary One's own philosophical standpoint always shines through
significance of Husserl's philosophy, especially its relation to his description of the basic meaning of phenomenology. It is
the dominant figures in current philosophy. When one leaves simply not possible in philosophy to isolate a methodological
the Anglo-Saxon critique of metaphysics out of considera- technique that one can learn independently of its applica-
tion, this discussion involves, above all others, Heidegger — tions and their philosophical consequences. Every phenome-
and Hegel. The discussion is currently in full swing, not only nologist had his own opinion about what phenomenology
in Germany, but also in France and Italy. really was. Only one thing was certain: that one could not
Meanwhile, a series of colloquia have received documenta- learn the phenomenological approach from books. The vox
tion. Hence one cannot say that phenomenology is of merely viva acquired new significance here. Thus the literary produc-
historical interest. Nevertheless, it is also the occasion for tion of phenomenology is basically rather slim: eleven year-
historical recollection and estimation. For the factor that was books in two decades and almost nothing at all in any of the
felt to be common at that time and that brought the most other journals, which fairly stagnated at that time, not least
diverse scholars together, namely, the cultivation of the pow- of all because of the influence of the new research attitude of
ers of intuitive description and intuitive exhibition of all the a thriving intellectual craft that was not concerned for the
steps of thought, can hardly be found today, even in the needs of the day, but rather for the consummation of the
works of those who appeal to phenomenology, for example, epochal goal of a genuinely scientific philosophy.
1
the distinguished writers of France. There was, to be sure, The only person who could claim authenticity, because of
no phenomenological school, but only various groups of his unique position, was the founder of phenomenology,
2
scholars who stood in rather loose relation to each other. Edmund Husserl. And he claimed it. Spiegelberg recounts
Yet this connection was a strong reality, and became ever that at the beginning of the 1920s Husserl used to say,
stronger, so that out of the common research-orientation of "Phenomenology: that is I and Heidegger, and no one else."
these men the characteristic watchword, " T o the things As illusory as this assertion was, inasmuch as Husserl mis-
themselves" grew, and it found its literary expression in the judged the original intentions of his follower of that time,
phenomenological "yearbook."* It was the aim of many — nevertheless such an assertion was not as completely fantastic
both before and after World War II — to learn the phenome- as it might seem. Rather, it indicates the fact that the
nological approach and to meet its standards. Even among majority of phenomenologists had reservations regarding Hus-
those scholars who at that time stood outside the phenome- serl's development of transcendental phenomenology and
nological groups, the best minds tried to work phenome- its sphere of operation, which Husserl called constitutional
nologically. One thinks, for instance, of Nicolai Hartmann. research. To many, this development seemed to be nothing
What one tried t o learn was almost like a craft-secret of more than an inexplicable relapse into Neo-Kantian idealism.
philosophy. A man could say, for instance, that he had Reaction to this further development of Husserl's was very
"worked with Husserl" or "with Pfander," just as a practi- negative, even within the narrowest Gottingen circle, so that
tioner has special credentials because he served his appren- in reality Husserl had to start again completely anew in
3

*The reference is to JPPF, eleven volumes of which were published by Husserl

Freiburg. Moreover, Max Scheler and Moritz Geiger, whom
and his associates between 1913 and 1930. Nicolai Hartmann followed to a great extent, saw basically a
 144 PHENOMENOLOGY THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL MOVEMENT 145
dangerous one-sidedness in Husserl's preference for the sub- correlation of act and object as its own great field of study,
jective theme. Hence in 1914, Moritz Geiger demanded an already holds good for the Logical Investigations, even if this
"object phenomenology" as a supplement to Husserl's so- mode of investigation was not yet perfected there by an
called act phenomenology. It really was the case that hardly a adequate methodological self-consciousness. Max Scheler and
single person from the older circle of phenomenologists pur- Alexander Pfander also come into false relief when the m o t t o
sued Husserl's way. Husserl was not mistaken when he spoke " T o the things themselves" is interpreted from the point of
in this fashion. view of the opposition of object and subject. For them too,
In addition, the other pupils of Franz Brentano who were this m o t t o was not a "realistic" departure from idealism. It
active at that time as teachers of philosophy, for example, A. was defined instead primarily and simply by their opposition
von Meinong of Graz, the creator of the "theory of objects," to all theoretical constructions that serve a desire for philo-
4
Oskar Kraus of Prague, and others engaged at least part of sophical explanation not satisfied by the phenomena. Typical
the time in bitter feuding with Husserl. How obvious it was, examples of such construction are the mechanics of the
from Brentano's point of view, to affirm the Husserl of the elements of sensuous representation, or the so-called copy
Logical Investigations, but to explain his advance from a theory of knowledge, which, in order to explain the enigma
descriptive psychology to "eidetic" phenomenology - and, of knowledge, spoke of copies of perceived things " i n " con-
even more, its further development to transcendental phe- sciousness. Or the reduction of all higher psychic acts, such as
nomenology - as a wrong track, is taught by Paul Ferdinand sympathy and love, to an original utilitarianism or hedonism.
Linke's Symptoms of Decline in Contemporary Philosophy.* Under the m o t t o " T o the things themselves," all this found a
Taken by itself, the slogan " T o the things themselves," which devastating critique in Pfander and Scheler, just as it did in
Heidegger still repeats in Being and Time, may be regarded as Husserl.
the common battle cry of all phenomenological researchers. It was clear to all of them too that only the return to
But even this slogan could be interpreted in the sense of a intentional acts could produce that "self-givenness" in intui-
phenomenological "realism." This interpretation cannot do tive self-evidence that constitutes the essence of phenome-
justice to Husserl. It is absurd to interpret this slogan as a nology. Without the act of intending there is no such "fulfill-
turn to the object and to pose Husserl's later development ment" of what is intended. The "things themselves" are not
over against it as a turn to the subject. How could one "objective entities" [objektive Gegenstdnde] posited as tran-
understand the Logical Investigations from that point of scendent, but rather the intended entities as such, which are
view? These investigations did indeed refute psychologism experienced in the filling out of intentional acts. The things
and thus — in the sense of Frege's critique of Husserl's intended are "immediately perceived" there, not represented
Philosophy of Arithmetic — they exhibited the mode of by signs or symbols. It is certainly correct that Scheler and
5
being of logical objects as a kind of ideal being-in-itself. This Pfander, as well as Geiger, Reinach, and so on, considered
exhibition takes place, however, in a return to the subject Husserl's "idealistic" modeling of phenomenology on Neo-
through an analysis of the intentional acts of conscious life. Kantiansim to be devious. Nevertheless, the priority of self-
Only in this way did the Logical Investigations succeed in givenness over against everything merely inferred or postu-
exposing the error of confusing what is intended with real lated was common to them all.
psychic experiences. To that extent, Husserl's central asser-
tion, that phenomenological research transcends in principle Closely connected with this frontal position of phenome-
the opposition between object and subject and discloses the nology as it began is the fact that to Stumph and Husserl, the
pupils of Brentano, William James seemed to be almost an
ally. His critique of the fundamental concepts of the psychol-
*Paul Ferdinand Linke, Niedergangserscheinungen in der Philosophie der Gen-
genwart (Munich and Basel, 1961). ogy of that time had in part the same opponents as phenome-
 146 PHENOMENOLOGY THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL MOVEMENT 147
nology. For example, he also opposed the copy theory of Husserl's transcendental turn is not at all, therefore, a kind
knowledge - despite all the brain mythology he maintained. of one-sidedness that at best one must legitimately concede
It is obvious that the phenomenological point of departure is because it is softened by "realistic" features. It is not without
polemically oriented in the first place against contemporary humor when the "passive" constitution of the hyletic data is
positivism, which appealed to Hume, and only secondarily treated under this rubric. If one is already seeking realistic
against dogmatic positions within Neo-Kantianism. Over features, how can they be present in the constitutional anal-
against the dogmatic physicalism of Avenarius and Mach, ysis of "hyletic data"? This makes sense only if we are
Husserl's idea of phenomenology claims to be true posi- operating with a totally obsolete "metaphysical" concept of
6
tivism. This is also where the concept of "reduction" has its idealism, which Kant reduced to absurdity and which has
origin. He means the return to the phenomenally given as nothing to do with Husserl. It is just as strange when Hus-
such, which renounces all theory and metaphysical construc- serl's constantly smoldering discussion of the problem of
tion. To this extent, the phenomenological reduction is most intersubjectivity is quite seriously considered in terms of the
closely connected with the epoche, the suspension of all question of how far Husserl "succeeded" in avoiding the
positing of being, for the purpose of studying the " p u r e " solipsism that was present in the idealistic approach, for
phenomena. But we must exclude the associations with the instance, in the sense of Leibnizian monadology. We also
concept of reduction that come from Anglo-Saxon usage and cannot find correct access to the concept of the life-world,
should not think of the oversimplifying reduction of phe- the most powerful conceptual creation of the later Husserl, if
nomena to a single principle, perhaps in the style of a we do not understand it in terms of its connection with the
one-sided naturalism or psychologism, or of Occam's razor, idea of the transcendental reduction. Futhermore, we must
that is, the axiom entia non sunt multiplicanda. not fail to recognize that Husserl did not intend the "new
The phenomenological reduction is something else en- phenomenology" of the life-world to be anything other than
tirely. Its goal is not really to reduce to the unity of a transcendental phenomenology itself, carried through fault-
principle, but rather to disclose the whole wealth of the lessly, that is, free of prejudices, without any "naive" antici-
self-given phenomena in an unbiased way. The concept of pation. This intention is made perfectly clear by Husserl's
"equiprimordiality" [Gleichursprunglichkeit] that becomes persistent appeal to Kant and by his claim really to bring
important in Heidegger has a good, old phenomenological transcendental philosophy to perfection for the first time.
heritage. The fact that the investigation of the intentionality With an emphatic radicalness and universality, Husserl even
of consciousness goes back finally to transcendental subjec- goes beyond the Kantian dissolution of the opposition be-
tivity as the ultimate source of all bestowal of meaning and tween realism and idealism, so that it simply does not make
thus brings about Husserl's approximation of Neo-Kantianism sense any longer to speak, as has been done time and time
in terms of the idea of constitutional research has nothing to again, of realistic elements within his idealism.
do with reduction to a single principle. We do not have to It seems to me to be significant that even the penetrating
make Husserl's question " H o w can I become a more honest critique that Adorno directs at Husserl from the point of
philosopher?" our own, but we must recognize that Husserl's view of the sociology of knowledge deals with its adversary in
doctrine of the transcendental reduction is not any sort of 7
this manner. The "static Platonism" of the Logical Investi-
borrowing from contemporary theories. It was compelled gations is certainly easily dissolved by the dialectic of im-
instead by the attempt to construct a hierarchy of self- mediacy — except that, after 1907, Husserl himself had al-
evidence with systematic consistency. We need not materially ready attended to it in the most thorough fashion. Only
accept the systematic consistency that leads Husserl to the because of that is there a phenomenological philosophy at all.
transcendental ego, but we must recognize it nonetheless in If Adorno had seen this, he would hardly be so surprised at
its immanent necessity. how close Husserl comes later to abolishing reification.
 148 PHENOMENOLOGY THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL MOVEMENT 149
Philip Merlan is surely correct in finding that Husserl's physics. Heidegger is thus just as far beyond the opposition
phenomenology does not so much stand beyond the opposi- between realism and idealism as is Husserl's investigation of
8
tion of realism and idealism as on this side of it. His the correlation of noesis and noema. If Dasein is Being-in-
phenomenology does not intend to contribute anything to the-world, human Dasein is not thereby to be defined anthro-
the clarification of the problem of this traditional opposition pologically. Rather, it soon becomes apparent that the issue
nor can it. But does that not hold true in the end for is the completely different one of defining "Dasein in m a n "
speculative idealism as well? Hence I cannot follow Merlan ontologically. Heidegger's complete reversal of reflection and
when he sets phenomenology in opposition to idealism and his redirection of it toward "Being" - the so-called " t u r n " —
sees its limits, to which we cannot allow ourselves to be is not so much an alteration of his point of view as it is the
confined, in the fact that phenomenology, in contrast to indirect result of his critique of Husserl's concept of transcen-
idealism, does not contribute anything to the question of dental reflection, which had not yet become fully effective in
idealism and realism. In my judgment, Merlan's observation Being and Time.
might apply to speculative idealism as well. It is of course It seems as if the opponents of Husserl's transcendental
correct that idealism derives its entire content from the turn do not sufficiently appreciate the fact that Husserl also
analysis of consciousness, without needing the external in definitely recognized in principle the ideal of an eidetic
any way. But does that not hold true as well for the plan of ontology "alongside" transcendental constitutional research,
Husserlian phenomenology? Husserl certainly does not ac- for example, an eidetic psychology or an eidetic ontology of
knowledge the ideal of derivation. He called it "constitu- 9
the life-world. In his eyes, this "alongside" certainly had no
tion." But did he not dissociate himself with just as much absolutely strict validity. If such an eidetic ontology is also a
decisiveness from the epistemological inquiry-standpoint that legitimate task of research, it nevertheless acquires its ulti-
lies at the foundation of the opposition between idealism and mate philosophical justification for him only in the comple-
realism? Does he not explicitly emphasize the fact that the tion of the transcendental reduction, and thus remains sub-
turn to transcendental reflection already presupposes the ordinated to transcendental phenomenology. But that
possession of the world by the consciousness that is reflect- changes nothing in the possibility, constantly stressed by
ing, so that seeking its epistemological justification would Husserl, of turning transcendental phenomenology into an
involve abandoning the transcendental position? It seems to essence-oriented mundane science. We should not sharpen
me that at this point the speculative philosophy of identity into an antithesis what does not lie on the same level at all.
has no advantage over Husserl.
We can see in the distinguished work of Roman Ingarden
Heidegger's critique of Husserl too has nothing to do with The Literary Work of Art how one may imagine an "onto-
"realistic" softenings. Rather, it presupposes the consistent logical" perspective "alongside" the transcendental-phenome-
carrying out of the transcendental thought in Husserl's phe- 10
nological o n e . We will not consider here the special signifi-
nomenology — admittedly, in order to make it the object of cance of this work, which in a certain sense must be called a
an ontological reflection and critique that takes an entirely classic in literary aesthetics. Instead, we will consider its
different direction. Heidegger's ontological reflection and his position with respect to the systematic questions given with
doctrine of the ontological difference between Being and Husserl's transcendental self-interpretation. Our approach
beings does not mean the distinction made by metaphysics corresponds after all to the deeper, systematic interests that
between ens qua ens and ens qua accidens. This must be Ingarden had already expressed in the preface of the first
stressed again and again. Rather, it means the completely edition of The Literary Work of Art. His perspective is
different dimension of origin of the process of Being's mani- mitially documented in the German language in his contribu-
festation that precedes and lies at the basis even of meta- tion to the Husserl Festschrift of 1929. In the meantime it
 150 PHENOMENOLOGY THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL MOVEMENT 151

has been supplemented by his contribution to the Krefeld When Husserl writes "The real . . . in the absolute sense is
colloquium in 1956. For him, the literary work of art has the nothing at a l l . . . , it possesses the whatness of something
13
philosophical value that "pure intentional objects" are un- that in principle is only intentional," Ingarden understands
deniably found in it, that is, objects that claim no immediate this in the sense of that heteronomy of being which he
correspondence to reality at all. Their mode of being can be regards, for his part justifiably, as the special mode of being
thought of neither as real physical being nor as ideal being in of what is presented in literature. He does not understand
itself. Rather, their propositional character stands in a pecu- Husserl's idealism, therefore, as a transcendental idealism but
liar balance between the identity and intersubjectivity of the rather (all protestations notwithstanding) as a metaphysical
14
work and a mere quasi-reality, which Ingarden calls heteron- idealism - and, in my opinion, he is incorrect.
omy of being. His investigation, therefore, is intended as an
ontology of the literary work of art. IV
He follows Husserl in a far-reaching way when he analyzes The real discussion of Husserl today concerns another level of
the multileveled character of the literary work in its construc- problems namely, the late elaboration of Husserl's phenome-
tion (sound, meaning, schematic perspective, presented objec- nology and especially The Crisis of European Sciences and
tivity). Nevertheless, his systematic intention is clearly to call Transcendental Phenomenology. Ludwig Landgrebe (follow-
Husserl's transcendental idealism into question, especially in ing the precedent of A. Gurwitch) has emphasized the doc-
its later form. Logical structures are autonomous in their trine of the "life-world" (under the provocative title, "Hus-
15
being just as the real external world is (despite all the phe- serl's Departure from Cartesianism" ), which for its part
16
nomenological aspects they offer as intentional objects). The provokes a renewed discussion of the p r o b l e m .
literary work of art alone, however, is not only phenome- The word "life-world" has found an astounding resonance
nologically but also ontologically structured in such a way in the contemporary mind. A word is always an answer. What
that "purely intentional objectivities" appear in it. Hence, does this new word, "life-world," answer? What is the ques-
over against Husserl, whose Formal and Transcendental Logic tion to which this word presents an answer that has been
had appeared at the same time as the First edition of The accepted by the general consciousness of language?
Literary Work of Art, Ingarden wants in fact to advance the If the question is put in this manner, then it is clear that
task of a real ontology [Real-Ontologie] through his investi- the issue is not the obvious question of how far Heidegger's
gation of the quasi-reality of art, just as this task is also posed analytic of Dasein published in Being and Time influenced
by Hedwig Conrad-Martius. In itself, this task is certainly not Husserl's thought, or conversely, grew out of questions pur-
incompatible with the consistent execution of the transcen- sued in Husserl's thought. It is indeed indubitable that Hus-
1 1
dental reduction as it was conceived by the later Husserl. serl's late essay - the work of a man in his sixties — had the
(A later and larger work of Ingarden in Polish, dealing with same constant reference to Heidegger's work as it did to the
the "dispute about the existence of the world" is dedicated events of the time that had forced Husserl into his inner
12
to this t a s k . ) But Ingarden's talk of a "purely intentional emigration. Nevertheless, wherever a new word emerges, it
object," to which a still more real object corresponds, betrays always involves more than what is present consciously, on the
his position outside of "phenomenological immanence," surface. An objective concern, persistently pursued and
since for Husserl only a "conversion" of the transcendental- shared by many persons, which has not yet been expressed
phenomenological into an ontological standpoint would be but has nevertheless long sought proper expression, is what
legitimate. Hence even the questions that Ingarden exposes in alone permits an individual person's arbitrary conceptual
his contribution to the Krefeld colloquium are directed coinage to become a word. Hence what had been sought and
against the Husserlian "solution" to the problem of idealism. inquired after for a long time, especially in Husserl's own
 152 PHENOMENOLOGY THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL MOVEMENT 1 53

thought, was in fact gathered together in the word "life- the appeal to the self-evidence of what is given directly in the
world." intuition of essences. In the last analysis, the appeal to
The counterconcept to "life-world," which provoked the self-evidence, as it might actually be employed in a natural
first coining of the new concept, is without doubt the "world way, had only the legitimation of a belief in oracles, as
of science." Indeed, the first characteristic application of Husserl himself recognizes. 17
In order to reach more certain
Husserl's phenomenological research, through which his in- knowledge, a further reduction was clearly needed, one that
quiry stood out over against the dominant Neo-Kantianism, distinguished within what was given in self-evident intuition
had been to show that the task of justifying knowledge did something whose nonbeing was absolutely absurd and im-
not mean scientific knowledge as much as it did the totality possible. Only a self-evidence apodictic in this sense could
of our natural experience of the world. Neo-Kantianism had satisfy the need for a more certain knowledge. Only from
never really been interested in this natural experience of the such apodictic self-evidence could be extracted a hierarchy of
world, because for it science was the model of all knowledge. evidence that would satisfy the claim of a philosophy to be a
The progressive determination of the indeterminate per- rigorous science. In connection with Kant and Neo-Kan-
mitted the object of knowledge to be defined for all cogni- tianism, Husserl called this further reduction the transcenden-
tion in terms of the idea of an infinite task. Thus it was the tal reduction. It had its ultimate foundation in the cogito ego
fact of science and its transcendental justification alone that and on that basis was to make possible constitution, that is,
could interest Neo-Kantianism. the legitimate derivation of the ontic validity of everything in
In contrast to this position, Husserl's phenomenological any way.
approach meant from the very beginning the posing of a new The fact that with this idea of the transcendental reduc-
task. Instead of the constructive mastery of reality, which tion Husserl followed the Cartesian model as well needs no
had its ideal in the mathematical formalism of the natural long explanation. Just as Descartes, by means of universal
sciences, the ideal of knowledge for Husserl was intuition, the doubt, suspends everything held as valid in order to reach
concrete givenness of what is perceived. Thus he had the final certainty in the fundamentwn inconcussum of the ego
"natural a t t i t u d e " of "immediately living" consciousness- in cogito, so the suspension of the general thesis of reality and
view just as much as the convincing certainty of mathe- the movement of transcendental reduction leads in the same
matical deductions. What interested him about the knowl- way to the transcendental primal-ego as the source of every
edge of the world in the "natural a t t i t u d e " was certainly bestowal of meaning and being.
neither the fact actually encountered nor even the actual Thus it was not the idea of universal doubt but merely
operation in which that fact was perceived. Rather, he was Descartes's execution of it that found a critique in Husserl.
interested exclusively in the " p h e n o m e n o n " in its essential He found a genuine radicalism missing in it to the extent that
nature and the corresponding apprehension of that essence this transcendental I that resists all doubt is still conceived by
by acts of consciousness. He was concerned exclusively with Descartes as a "little bit of the world," a substantia. And
the legitimation of the ontic validity of that which is in- correspondingly, the way from this foundation of all knowl-
tended as existing. The transcendental factor in his method is edge of the world was not really understood as a transcenden-
that this legitimation can only be found in the "antinatural" tal derivation of meaning. Indeed, it is well-known that for
reflection on the constitutive accomplishments of conscious- Descartes the detour by way of the proof for the existence of
ness. The restriction to the pure phenomenon, this eidetic God, that is, by way of the labeled store of ideas of the
reduction, first opens up the dimension of phenomenological I-consciousness, is to legitimate the certainty of the mathe-
questions. For the need for knowledge was certainly not matically mediated knowledge of the world. Husserl found
satisfied with the mere differentiation of essence and fact and this approach to be dogmatic. In similiar fashion Husserl later
 154 PHENOMENOLOGY THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL MOVEMENT 155
criticized Kant's fundamental position of the transcendental Husserl arrived at the elaboration of his doctrine of the
synthesis of apperception and reproached the deduction of horizons that in the end are all integrated into the one
the transcendental concepts of the understanding as lacking universal world-horizon that embraces our entire intentional
in radicalism. life.
This perspective permitted Husserl's Ideas of 1913 to Probably at least as early as the beginning of the 1920s
develop in programmatic fashion the Cartesian way of a Husserl sought to revise in both these directions the stand-
transcendental reduction and a universal investigation of the point of the Cartesian reduction taken up in the Ideas and set
constitutive accomplishments of the transcendental ego by out to try new ways for the reduction of the ego that would
opening up from below the breadth of a foundation for be free of such deficiencies. Thus in progressive reductions he
Marburg Neo-Kantianism. went through the entire field of the nos cogitamus, that is,
The decisive question in the execution of this phenome- the way of a transcendental psychology, in order to reach the
nological program was whether the reduction that was under- transcendental ego from that point. But again it turned out
taken was really radical enough. That is, whether everything that the progressive epoche did not suffice and the "psychical
that had validity in the construction of the meaning-accom- I" itself still had to be subjected to a universal epoche
plishments of consciousness out of the transcendental pri- through which all prejudices of psychological objectivism
mal-ego really reached its transcendental legitimation, or would be rendered harmless. But above all, he recognized
whether hidden theses of belief still remained undetected that in all former attempts at reduction on the part of
even in this procedure and thus made its justification and transcendental reflection and in every previous critique aimed
certainty dubious. Husserl soon perceived that the general at the objectivism of naive belief in being (even in Hume's
suspension of the positing of actual being that he had de- skeptical critique and in the critical destruction of dogmatism
manded in the countermove against the positional con- by Kant as well as in Descartes's doubting meditation), the
sciousness of the sciences reached an ultimate, firm ground in
universal belief in the world as such was not put in question
the transcendental ego. But this ultimate ego was basically
at all. It was always a question of the dubitability of this or
something empty, with which one really did not know what
that thing asserted to exist, but just such doubting already
to do. Husserl saw, in particular, that at least two unnoticed
presupposed the universal experiential basis of belief in the
presuppositions were contained in this radical beginning.
world.
First of all, the transcendental ego contains the "all of u s " of
Thus Husserl came to the characterization of the life-world
human community, and the transcendental view of phenome-
that still functions as valid, that is, as the pregiven world. Its
nology in no way poses the question explicitly as to how the
constitution is the task of the transcendental ego that re-
being of the thou and the we, beyond the ego's own world, is
really constituted. (This is the problem of intersubjectivity.) mained unrecognized before this time. Historically con-
Second, he saw that the general suspension of the thesis sidered, he could justify the fact that this presupposition of
regarding reality did not suffice, since suspension of the belief necessarily remained concealed, for as such it is never
positing only touched the explicit object of the act of inten- explicitly thematic but accompanies all intending conscious-
tional meaning, but not what is cointended and the anony- ness in an anonymous way as a universal horizon of con-
mous implications given along with every such act of mean- sciousness.
ing. But these implications become fatal for the radicalness of An actual history of the phenomenological movement
the transcendental reduction, since the critique of the objec- would have to present this complex of problems in its en-
tivism of science presupposes the validity of the life-world tirety. It would obviously have to begin with Franz Brentano.
without legitimation and constitutive demonstration. 18
Thus It was really with him — with his legitimate appeal to Aris-
19
totle - that a momentous distinction is developed between
 156 PHENOMENOLOGY THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL MOVEMENT 157

"'inner perception" [innere Wahrnehmung] and "inner obser- as a particular fundamental characteristic of Dasein, an exis-
vation" [innere Beobachtung]. To put this another way, not tential structural aspect of it. Viewed from this perspective,
all consciousness is consciousness of an object, or better, Heidegger's transcendental analytic of everydayness appears
objectifying consciousness. When we hear a tone, for exam- as the consistent carrying through of the direction of ques-
ple, this tone is objectively present t o consciousness ("pri- tioning of Husserlian phenomenology. And its result - the
mary object"), but our hearing of the tone is not observed as demonstration of the authenticity of Dasein, its existential
an object and is nevertheless conscious. Husserl substantially structure of temporality and historicity - can in fact be
refined this doctrine of the cogivenness of inner conscious- interpreted as the execution of the program of transcendental
ness when he overcame the methodologically key position phenomenology right down to the concrete horizons given
that memory had in Brentano's doctrine through his demon- with the finitude of Dasein. Hence Oskar Becker wrote in the
stration of the horizontal character of consciousness, and Husserl Festschrift of 1929:
especially his doctrine of the retentional horizon. The con-
cept of the intentionality of consciousness, the constitution The tendency o f hermeneutical phenomenology, though not exclu-
of the stream of consciousness, and even more, the concept sively, is toward the further concretization o f the transcendental-
of the life-world, contribute t o the unfolding of this hori- idealistic position o f the Ideas, since many horizons that were left
zontal structure of consciousness. still undefined there are more closely secured, above all be means o f
the fact that the finitude not merely o f the "psychological" subject
Heidegger's own effort also presupposes this phenome- but also o f that subjectivity which is relevant in the fundamental
nological overcoming of the rigid opposition between con- ontological respect is established with all its far-reaching conse-
sciousness and object. When Heidegger once referred to the 2 2
quences (death, historicality, being guilty, e t c . ) .
scholastic distinction between the actus signatus and the
actus exercitus — I believe it was in 1924 in Marburg — it
sounded to us like a new watchword. It corresponded to our According to Becker, Heidegger himself operated in
own dissatisfaction with Neo-Kantianism that, over against methodical dependence on the line of problems of Husserlian
the objectifying attitude of consciousness and its culmination phenomenology insofar as he applied Husserl's exhibition of
in science, there is a much deeper level in human behavior the hidden intentionalities requisite for a really adequate
and the human experience of the world with which philoso- transcendental reduction t o the concealedness of the "ques-
phy has to do. But only Heidegger's critique of the concept tion of Being" to whose exposition Being and Time is dedi-
of presence-at-hand in Being and Time brought the fact home cated.
to general philosophical attention that an ontological task of At the same time, when we study the great writing of
thinking "Being" that was not "object-being" was being Husserl's last years, The Crisis of European Sciences and
posed. Transcendental Phenomenology, we cannot hide from t h e
The same complex of problems is the basis of the conver- fact that Husserl had become convinced that Heidegger's
gence between Husserl's doctrine of the life-world (first so important work was n o longer a continuing effort in the
20
designated in Ideas II in 1 9 2 0 ) and the analysis of world in direction planned by him. Even more, the great resonance
Being and Time. I mean this statement objectively, not that Heidegger's philosophizing found at that time seemed to
genetically: who was t h e initiator and who the follower, Husserl to be a dubious symptom. It made clear to him the
21
Husserl or Heidegger, remains undecided. dangers that lurked in the mind of the time and how easily
In Being and Time t o o it is pointed out that the world- his own philosophical task could be misunderstood. The
hood of t h e world as such remains unrecognized in all of external situation is already very significant. His efforts of
Dasein's experience of the world, and it must be designated years to develop a sound presentation of the foundation of
 158 PHENOMENOLOGY THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL MOVEMENT 159

phenomenology out of the Cartesian Meditations - his ad- from his knowledge of the danger. But this inference is in no
dresses published only in French — had come to a standstill. way to be taken in the sense that the great task of philosophy
The success of Being and Time forced Husserl to a new is recognized as really being a mere dream that has ended.
reflection, and thus the Crisis appeared. As a result of the Quite the contrary. Certainly under the altered conditions
circumstances at that time, however, it appeared not in with respect to the breakthrough of historical relativism into
Germany, but in Belgrade! What had happened? What did the general awareness he must ask himself: "What sort of mean-
explicit thematizing of the life-world mean, and the elaborate ing does it have — must it have - for one engaged in philos-
attempt to contrast transcendental phenomenology with the ophical self-reflection? Is his work l o s t . . . ? " But this ques-
objectivism of former philosophy interpreted as a whole? So tion is certainly answered in the negative. It is not the idea of
far as I am familiar with the material, I cannot follow at this a scientific philosophy that he surrendered, but rather the
point the opinion of those who want to see an "overcoming" carefree, untroubled continuation of it that spares itself the
of the foundation in the transcendental ego in this latest trouble of an explicit historical justification. Thus the Crisis
work of Husserl, and to that extent an approximation of reflects well a certain change in his former confidence in
Heidegger's philosophical approach. One generally refers to finding a foundation for philosophy as an apodictically rig-
the fragment from the summer of 1935 that was printed as orous science in a direct way. And the systematic accentua-
Appendix XXVIII to Paragraph 73 of the Crisis,* 3
It is tion of the life-world is certainly connected somehow with
entirely correct that this text represents a kind of autobio- his awareness as changed in this way. But does this change
graphical motivation for the writing of the Crisis. But what really reach its goal? Husserl writes:
does this motivation appear to be? It begins with the proposi-
tion: "Philosophy as science, as serious, rigorous, indeed It is the same here as it is generally for men in danger. For the sake
apodictically rigorous, science - the dream is over." And of the life-task that has been taken up, in times of danger one must
further, "Philosophy once thought of itself as the science of first let these very tasks alone and do what will make a normal life
the totality of what is." "But these times are over — such is possible again in the future. The effect will generally be such that
the generally reigning opinion of such people. A powerful the total life-situation, and with it the original life-tasks, has been
24

and constantly growing current of philosophy that renounces changed or in the end has even become fully without an o b j e c t .
scientific discipline, like the current of religious disbelief, is
inundating European h u m a n i t y . "
How is this general proposition to be applied to Husserl's
We misunderstand Husserl's words if we take them to be own special situation? Do we have the right to contend that
his own opinion. In fact, they describe a view he did not the transformation of his life-situation leads Husserl too to
share, indeed, one he contested as a fatal corruption. His old consider his original life-task of founding philosophy as an
battle for philosophy as a rigorous science, which had led him apodictically rigorous science to be groundless? What does
earlier to a sharp demarcation against historicism (1911), the Crisis give as an answer to this question?
appears now, at the end of his life, in a new phase. Once When we view the volume as a whole, the principle of its
again the danger that everything will become a question of composition is unmistakable. It is concerned with carrying
"worldviews," and that a scientific truth of the absolute will out a really defensible transcendental reduction. The elabo-
be considered impossible, challenges him to a renewed reflec- rate survey of the history of objectivism serves the purpose
tion. "Philosophy is in danger, that is, its future is threaten- primarily of bringing his own phenomenological program into
ed - shouldn't the question of the present task of philosophy explicit historical relief. A "transformation of the task of
have a distinctive significance in such a t i m e ? " Thus historical knowledge" is achieved through phenomenology. There is no
reflection is needed - that is the inference Husserl draws more assumed experiential basis for it. Even that universal
 160 PHENOMENOLOGY THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL MOVEMENT 161
belief in the world which, as the natural reflective life of constituted in a transcendental ego? As much trouble as this
man, supports the ground of experience in every case of difficulty gives Husserl, at no time does it dissuade him from
doubt regarding the contents of experience must be sus- maintaining the methodical primacy of the transcendental
pended and must find its constitution in the transcendental ego. There can be no doubt, it seems to me, that in Husserl's
ego. To that extent, the method of phenomenology, in con- eyes it is a question of the difficulties he had perceived long
trast to all scientific methods, is a method dealing with that ago in the self-referential character of phenomenology,
which has no foundation, the way of a "transcendental namely that the phenomenological basis of all philosophy in
experience," not an empirical induction. For it must first apodictic certainty must itself have application on this basis
create its ground for itself. too. And it is his conviction that these difficulties had led to
The historical reflection that Husserl employs teaches him fateful errors in Heidegger's "hermeneutic of facticity." The
how it was that the approaches to such a radical transcenden- extensive background of historical self-reflection that the
tal reflection had always been diverted from their proper Crisis represents intends to uncover the grounds of such
path by the dominant objectivism. This is true of Descartes, midunderstandings. Husserl's entire life-situation and the
Hume, Kant, and of the leading thinkers of German idealism original tasks of his life had in fact changed to this extent:
(Fichte!) In Husserl's eyes it clearly holds also for the surging historical self-reflection has become indispensable. It has its
tide of the philosophy of worldviews in Heidegger's work. place in the critique of the critique in which alone-the
The principle of composition in the Crisis indicates this fact transcendental reduction can reach completion. The Crisis
most clearly. In the effort toward a radical foundation of the attempts to give an implicit answer to Being and Time.
transcendental ego, "serious paradoxes" whose solution is We must ask what the concept of the life-world and the
indispensable appear ever again. "Further considerations will objective meaning attributed to it here can settle in this
show h o w great the temptation is, here, to misunderstand matter. If the old problem of the metacritique from Ideas I
oneself and how much - indeed, ultimately, the actual suc- finds expression here, namely, the necessary extension of the
cess of a transcendental philosophy - depends upon self- epoche to the universal horizon of the experience of the
reflective clarity carried to its limits," Husserl writes at the pregiven world (and every such transcendental reduction in-
end of Paragraph 42. And in fact the appearance of paradoxi- cludes the task of a constitution; consequently there must be
cal unintelligibilities in the course of further reflection con- "a doctrine of pure essences of the life-world"), then there
sists in the difficulty of holding to the purely transcendental can be no doubt that now for the first time the analysis of
sense of the reduction to the ego. Husserl's answer, therefore, this essential structure of the life-world reaches its decisive
is: In the last analysis it is only an apparent problem that the application: It makes possible the clarification of the prob-
ego that is to function as the source of the validity of all lems of historicism. The relativity present in the concept of
being and meaning is itself a part of the world that is first the life-world as such appears also in the multiplicity of
constituted in it. At work here is the power of what is taken historical worlds already given to us by historical knowledge
for granted in the natural objective attitude that allows the in a fashion similar to the general world horizon of our
transcendental attitude to be "constantly threatened by mis- present experience of the world, that is, a priori in contrast
25
understandings." The transcendental ego is not an I in the to all the particular details of historical knowledge. T o begin
world. The enormous difficulty is to recognize this fact and with the transcendental ego, therefore, embraces the entirety
really hold fast to it. of possible "worldviews" whose typical features are the ob-
26
This matter appears once again in the case of the problem ject of constitutional research.
of intersubjectivity. Once again it seems in order to ask: How Now all these relativities, even our captivity in our own
can the Thou and the We, that are themselves both I's, be life-world, which has become historical, lose their disconcert-
 PHENOMENOLOGY THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL MOVEMENT 163

ing meaning when the eidos '"life-world" as such and the One has to ask if Husserl's insight and the tendency toward
range of its variations is known. The result of the analysis of historical self-justification that dominates the Crisis does not
the life-world is unambiguously explained: "After all this it is call the methodological foundation of transcendental phe-
clear that there is no conceivable meaningful problem of nomenology, namely, the reduction to the transcendental
previous philosophy and no conceivable problem of Being at ego, into question. In order to lend weight to this question,
all that transcendental phenomenology would not necessarily one might think of the role that the concept of life plays in
reach along its way." the later Husserl. It almost seems as if this concept of "life"
is intended to replace the I-ness of the transcendental ego.
Now one may certainly ask: Must the permeation of the
Nevertheless, the "life of consciousness" - an expression that
transcendental reduction with historical self-reflection, which 28
Husserl may well have gotten from Natorp a n y w a y and in
characterizes Husserl's late work, not assert itself also in the
which an old mystical connotation can be heard - is for
foundational analysis of self-temporalizing [Selbstzeitigung]
Husserl not a level independent of the transcendental ego.
with which Husserl had heretofor disclosed the basis of his
Neither in his exposition of the problem of the life-world nor
transcendental phenomenology? At least one would expect
in that of intersubjectivity do I see a basis for thinking that
that the essential finitude that distinguishes the penetration
Husserl was moving toward the revision of his transcendental,
of Husserl's thought by historical elements from Hegel's
("artesian starting point. As the Crisis confirms through wide-
dialectic of absolute knowledge would stand out clearly. In
ranging historical demonstration, both problem areas offer
fact it follows directly from Husserl's long-held aversion to
only particularly tempting starting points — constantly reviv-
speculative idealism that the universality of the life-world is
ing "paradoxes" or difficulties - that entice one to abandon
conceived merely as a universal horizon, so that the idea of
the point of view which led to transcendental founding.
an adequate apodictic certainty is to be repudiated here from
the very beginning. The idea of a gathering of all the past into Schutz's hypothesis, with which Fink agrees, that the
the "absolute" present of an "absolute knowledge" proves confines of the transcendental ego finally fell away in the
itself to be absurd. Just as the future, which fades away into face of the problematic of intersubjectivity is in my opinion
29
the uncertain distance, is incorporated into the immediate wholly indefensible. It represents just the sort of relapse
flow of the ego as an infinite horizon, so does the past, which that Husserl tried with all his might to avert. It also seems to
also fades into the distance. Husserl resolutely draws the me to be a mere illusion when one thinks he sees a develop-
consequences from such an absolute historicity. He writes: ment from the theory of intersubjectivity in the Cartesian
"World history in the sense of the infinite idea means the Meditations to the relevant parts of the Crisis, according to
idea of the world projected, as it were, into infinity and which Husserl transcended the doctrine that the alter ego is
continued as corrected by the infinity of factually valid constituted by transcendental empathy. The only thing that
representations of the world." "This requires the idea of an can be said is that Husserl had marked out a methodical
infinite historical past that would be corrected in all past priority of the alter ego, of the experience of the thou
presents by the present as totally determined . . . , but then namely, for the primordial experience of the transcendence
what will the infinite future mean? One would really be of beings as such. In comparison with the experience of the
amazed if the world in itself thus presumed can have a thou, all experience of the things of the so-called external
2 7
meaning, and what that meaning would b e . " This passage world is a secondary experience of transcendence. But this
indicates how in the course of his thoughts Husserl is com- changes nothing with respect to the fact that the building up
pelled to negate the idea of a world in itself as the projection of a hierarchy of evidences, the stratification of constitutive
of an infinite consciousness, and to emphasize radical fini- accomplishments, has its unremovable basis in the transcen-
tude for the sake of the infinity of the future. dental ego. There is indeed a discussion in the Crisis of the
 PHENOMENOLOGY THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL MOVEMENT 165

primordiality of the psychic community, and the path of himself to become entangled in the perversity of an inquiry-
transcendental psychology that leads to it has its own legiti- standpoint presupposing the old precritical and pretranscen-
macy as an unfolding of the nos cogitamus. According to dental opposition of realism and idealism. Yet if we inquire
Husserl, however, this level of the problematic once again after the realistic side of Husserl's phenomenology and per-
absolutely requires its transcendental grounding in the primal haps refer t o the recognition of the hyletic data in Husserl,
ego, so that the reductional procedure of transcendental we obviously stab at thin air. For who thinks that Husserl
psychology still leads in the end to "my o w n " life-world. was an idealist in the sense that Berkeley was?
It is simply an illusion to follow Fink in taking the new In my opinion, this observation holds especially for the
dimension represented by the transcendental primal ego concept of constitution. Who will contest the fact that the
(which in a certain sense has really left the problem horizon concept of production with respect to the thing perceived
of the Cartesian Meditations behind) to be the problem of can mean nothing else than the production of its valid sense?
intersubjectivity insofar as the plurality of ego and alter ego But when we take Husserl's transcendental intention seri-
30
Finds its origin in i t . In fact, the doctrine of the constitu- ously, the same holds too for the constitution of the life-
tion of intersubjectivity by transcendental empathy that is world and of the other ego. Constitution is nothing but the
expressed in the Cartesian Meditations is in complete agree-
movement of reconstruction that follows the accomplished
ment with this new dimension. It is explicitly designated as
reduction. Just as the latter is transcendental, that is, intends
the first step preceding that of the constitution of the objec-
31
no real negation but only the suspension of ontic validity, so
tive world and the community of m o n a d s . Hence it does
too the process of building up out of the accomplishments of
not seem to me to be entirely fair to the consistency of
subjectivity is not the real engendering of anything, but
Husserl's intellectual achievement when one says - as Jean
rather the way of understanding everything that is to have
Wahl does, for instance, in his summary of the results of the 33
32 meaning.
colloquium at R o y a u m o n t - that two tendencies were at
In a very interesting address on Husserl in Royaumont,
work in Husserl that stood in a fruitful tension with each
other, the one directed at the transcendental ego and the Fink contended that the concept of constitution is one of a
other directed at the life-world. In truth, no such tension number of Husserl's operative concepts characterized by the
existed. fact that they themselves never become thematic. His conten-
tion is quite correct. But at Royaumont I had already moved
The really open questions issuing from Husserl's phenom- on toward recognizing this fact as being at the same time a
enology do not lie, therefore, as the Crisis teaches us, in problem of transcendental language. To be operative does
"difficulties" that result from his adherence t o the process of indeed mean t o function in an unthematic way, and this is
the transcendental reduction. Husserl believed himself the precisely the mode in which what is linguistic functions. In
master of these problems. In contrast to this, the doctrine of
any case, ambiguity by no means comes into the conceptual
the life-world is intended to make the transcendental reduc-
meaning of a word when it is of "worldly" origin. Like many
tion flawless. The point where problems that form the real
another of Husserl's concepts, no matter how much the
object of controversy lie is the level of the fundamental
concept of constitution may have been taken from a com-
question of constitution, that of the primal ego itself, that is,
monly known context ("production") and applied in the
of the self-constitution of temporality.
transcendental realm, production is precisely what he does
How can we explain the fact that there is still so much
not mean.
controversy over the meaning of "constitution"? We cannot
What is to be debated here? In his notes on the Cartesian
assume that either Fink or Landgrebe - both of whom had
Meditations, Roman Ingarden watches especially carefully,
such an active part in Husserl's late philosophy - allowed
almost jealously, t o ensure that the problematic of the tran-
 166 PHENOMENOLOGY THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL MOVEMENT 167

scendental reduction itself does not slip off into the meta- thoroughly illegitimate anticipations. Hence it follows me-
physical. He resists the idea that one can completley deny the thodically that this being of the transcendental ego too must
old Gottingen circle an understanding of Husserl's transcen- itself be bracketed and brought to constitution. Only with
34
dental t u r n , but he himself still raises noteworthy objec- this do we come upon the "primal" present. How is this
tions to Husserl's concept of production in logical structures. primal-phenomenality experienced? Obviously through re-
The core of the problem lies exclusively in the self-constitu- flection that knows itself to be the same as that upon which
tion of temporality in its primal source of the present. Hence it reflects, and knows it in constant iteration. Thus it is not
it lies in that deepest level of the problematic of constitution itself time, but in it the continuing stream of consciousness
for which even the transcendental ego and the stream of that has the form of being of time constitutes itself.
consciousness (the ultimate source of all accomplishments of Here is where the problem lies. By that primal-phenomen-
constitution) is transcended in the sense that the immediate ality of the ego do we really mean a mere end result of
flow of the living present, as the real primal phenomenon, lies transcendental reflection? Does n o t the latter only come to
at the basis even of the constitution of the stream of con- be at all by virtue of that primal-phenomenality (so that in
sciousness. Only here, in fact, where the issue is "self-consti- this sense a "creation" [Kreation] presents itself)? In fact,
tution," can one ask if constitution does not also mean Husserl asks: Is primal-phenomenality, the primal ground of
creation. temporalizing, the primal I, in the form of time at all?
Husserl calls it the present, but in an original sense, and
V consequently, in contrast to the transcendental ego, an ade-
quate self-givenness is to be attributed to it. He asks himself
The editing of Husserl's manuscripts in the Louvain Ar- whether this attribution of self-givenness is not absurd. Is not
chives is clearly a long term task. Not only their dating but everything that is given given to someone, so that the latter is
also the ordering of their contents may at present only be the recipient and not the giver? But clearly on this deepest
possible in a provisional way. With things in this state, I could level of the self-constitution of temporality, where it is a
hardly venture to say anything about the disputed problems question of the primal source of the flow of the immediate
of the self-constitution of the "primal-phenomenal present" present, a self-relational character that contains no distinc-
if I did not have before me a copy of the important manu- tion between what is giving and what is given (or better, what
script C21 from the Husserl Archives in Cologne (for which is received) must be assumed. Instead, it is a kind of mutual
Landgrebe and Volkmann-Schluck are to be thanked). In encompassing, as it is structurally appropriate to life — to
orienting ourselves to this manuscript, we can consider the Plato's amoKwovv. But the classical doctrine of the VOTJOIC,
direction and limit of a speculative-dialectical interpretation wr/oeiuc and the doctrine of the intellectus agens are also
that pushes out beyond Husserl's transcendental phenom- confirmed here. This constantly flowing primal-present is at
enology. Such an interpretation is given most impressively by the same time a nunc stans that contributes to the constitu-
Fink. tion of its time horizons in such fashion that it functions as a
It appears to be the special feature of the primal level that form for everything that flows through it. What is is a primal
in no sense can one speak any longer of an activity through change. But the primal transformation is not in time, since
which its ontic meaning comes about as a valid unity. What time arises first of all within it, in that it builds itself up
exists is instead the transcendental stream of consciousness within the capacity of limitless iteration of reflection as a
itself, which is " I " in all such activities, in every accomplish- continuity of form. There seems to me to be no doubt that
ing act. But it too is constituted — and, indeed, in a passive Husserl saw no breakdown of the phenomenological mode of
35

way. This talk of the flux and of the I clearly contains research in this structure of iteration. On the contrary:
 168 PHENOMENOLOGY THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL MOVEMENT 169

The givenness of the primal change in iterating reflection is, the dialectic. In the wake of Heidegger, however, the "abso-
for Husserl, an actual result of the "transcendental reduc- lute intelligibility of Being," which is involved in the concept
tion." I do not see how the methodological foundations of of absolute knowledge, remains unacceptable to Fink. Hence
transcendental phenomenology become ambiguous as a re- at the same time he follows Heidegger by applying to Husserl
sult. The primal life remains a primal ego. In answer to the the inner tension and ambiguity (Gegenwendigkeit) of truth
very pointed question which Hyppolite posed in Royaumont and untruth, disclosure and concealment. The essential
as to whether in Husserl there is a basic level that is egoless, "shading" that is bound up with every thematization, makes
van Breda correctly answered: " F o r Husserl this solution is the Husserlian attempt at a "constitutional phenomenology"
unthinkable."36
ultimately impossible. The complete lack of clarity of the
The current discussion of Husserl seems to be determined concept of constitution in Husserl is itself an example of such
substantially by the fact that the qualitative difference be- a shading.
tween the naive-realistic and the "fundamental ontological" But was it really Husserl's "shipwreck" on the limiting
objections to this development does not stand out sharply problems of a transcendental foundation that first provided
enough. 37
Landgrebe in particular appears to have given the new stimulus? Is Heidegger's "hermeneutic of facticity"
reinforcement to the highly confusing talk of a "fundamental (which is an answer to this stimulus) really only an answer to
ontological realism," 38
inasmuch as in his own critique he such a transcendental limiting problematic, so that, as
follows Heidegger's critique of the ontological underdetermi- another answer, one could also introduce Hegel's philosophy
nateness of the transcendental consciousness. At any rate, we of identity, his critique of external reflection and his dialec-
must keep in mind that a "realistic critique" that intends to tical negation of "Being"?
proceed to a being that is independent of consciousness in In truth, fundamental differences in content make their
39
principle completely misses the state of the problem. Hus- appearance very early and testify to Heidegger's own ap-
serl's Crisis should have made it completely clear that abso- proach. First of all, there is the persistent dispute concerning
lutely nothing can escape the universality of transcendental the nature of perception. Heidegger's doctrine of the priority
reflection - nisi intelkctus ipse. of being-ready-to-hand (and also what is similarly expressed
We can do justice t o this state of affairs only when we do in Sender's reception of pragmatic motives) contradicts the
not fall short of the rigor of Husserl's transcendental philo- entire order of the building up and founding of intentional-
sophical consistency. We d o fall short of it, however, when ities that Husserl erected in his phenomenology. The return
we emphasize "realistic" motives in the problem of the Hyle, to prepredicative experience that Husserl undertook does not
40

intersubjectivity or in any other problem. With this the seem to be free from the structure of predication. Is
grandeur of Husserl's life work would be unappreciated. Heidegger not right when he sees an ontological prejudice
operative in Husserl's foundational structure, a prejudice that
Hence it is incomparably more consistent to follow Fink in
finally affects the whole idea of a constitutive phenome-
carrying Husserl's untiring effort finally to achieve the tran-
nology? To be sure, Husserl can get around this criticism by
scendental reduction out beyond itself, and to start from the
saying that every sense of being must itself be capable of
insight into the essential impossibility of completing the
exhibition in constitutional analysis. Even when "Dasein"
reduction. Fink makes the doctrine of the self-constitution of
comes into the discussion it can only be a matter of the eidos
the transcendental ego in the "primal present" the starting
"Dasein." All problems of constitution originate precisely in
point for a fundamental critique of Husserl's general tran-
the self-constitution of temporality, in that final limiting
scendental path of reflection. For this purpose, he enlists
stratum of the "primal phenomenal present" which alone,
Hegel and his critique of external reflection, thus supple-
according to Husserl, is not "being" in the same sense as
menting phenomenology, as it were, with its hostile brother,
 170 PHENOMENOLOGY THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL MOVEMENT 171

everything that is constituted as being. But Heidegger means mordial meaning of truth. Just as Being is not mere presence,
41
more: "The 'essence' of Dasein lies in its existence." This but rather the "clearing" itself, so in the primordial dimen-
Heideggerian proposition emphasizes not only the ecstatic sion of the "question of Being," truth turns out to be an
nature of existence but also the transformation in the mean- event. In metaphysics, the "question of Being" is already
ing of "essence" that is given with the question of Dasein's construed in such a fashion that it cannot be posed any
mode of being. The appeal to the eidos-character of Dasein is
longer.
not sufficient.
I do n o t believe it advances us at all when we try to
Furthermore, the total self-presence involved in the con- combine the direction of Heidegger's inquiry in dialectical
cept of the primal-phenomenal present already fixes every fashion, as it were, with the Husserlian problematic of the
meaning of Being, even the meaning intended in "historic- self-constitution of temporality. This is what we do, however,
ity." The essence of historicity is indeed "the history of the when (with Fink) we take "finitude" to mean only the limit
cutting-off of Finite mankind's development as it becomes of total objectification, which for its part presupposes (with
42
mankind with infinite t a s k s . " But it is self-evident for the the philosophy of identity) the nonobjective whole. Ontolog-
Husserlian concept of phenomenology that this history has a ically considered, such an interpretation would mean main-
telos, the knowledge of which constitutes the meaning of taining precisely the aim of objectification. The nature of the
phenomenological self-reflection. Teleology remains determi- dialectic is the capacity to make fluid only what is secure, to
native even when Husserl recognizes the "infinity" of this break only what is fixed. It is an Eleatic invention. The
43
task, thus repudiating Hegel's absolute knowledge. That is interinvolvement of concealment and disclosure, presence
a result which is well known from the history of metaphysics. and absence, which Heidegger tries to think, is not "dialec-
It indicates that the concept of being that dominates the tical" in this sense and is not conceived as a limiting expe-
entire standpoint of Husserl's inquiry is that of metaphysics. rience of a "primal present" and an "absolute" truth. Rather,
Even the final level, the level of the self-constitution of it is itself experienced as Being and truth. Forgetfulness of
temporality, remains within this horizon as the amonwovv or Being is not forgetfulness of the world.
the VOTJOLC, wnaecoc.
If this interpretation is right, then the task of philosophy
I see no possibility here for appealing to Heidegger's doc- in the face of Husserl's transcendental phenomenology is not
trine of the interinvolvement of disclosure and concealment. a dialectical overcoming of "phenomenological immanence,"
For the Heideggerian doctrine of the "inner tension and but a constant confrontation with the attitude of phenome-
ambiguity of t r u t h " does not lie at all in the direction of nological research. But then just as little does the direction of
transcendental philosophical reflection. Thus it does not have Heidegger's inquiry permit a dialectical development. Instead,
its warrant in any way in the paradox of the self-constitution it requires the constant reference back to the ideal of phe-
of the primal present as the foundation of the transcendental nomenological exhibition, even if the ideal of an "ultimate
ego. Rather, it is the essence of metaphysics (i.e., thinking of grounding," and thus of a systematic constitutional research,
truth as disclosedness and of Being as the presence of what is founders on its own ontological prejudices. The concept of
present) that still determines Husserl's transcendental ques- fundamental ontology, which has become a common term in
tion. In contrast, Heidegger recognized the concealment that our linguistic usage, poorly characterizes Heidegger's path
is necessarily connected with the experience that thinks and the consequence of that path. It makes us think at once
Being as beings, namely, the concealment of that which first of another form of grounding for philosophy that would be
makes possible every disclosure of beings as beings - what he in competition with the "transcendental reduction" at-
called the ontological difference. Hence he came to see the tempted by Husserl. As if it were not the "proposition of
interinvolvement of disclosure and concealment as the pri- reason" [Satz vom Grunde] and the idea of grounding itself
 172 PHENOMENOLOGY THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL MOVEMENT 173

that are called into question, and Heidegger's transcendental research. To recognize it means already to have advanced
account of Being and Time had not proved itself insufficient beyond it.
44
precisely in the task of grounding Being in t i m e . Hence from out of the phenomenological tradition, first
It seems to me that it is essential for taking finitude Heidegger (though at first not with full force) and, after him,
seriously as the basis of every experience of Being that such Hans Lipps, gave language the central place that it holds in
experience renounce all dialectical supplementation. To be the current situation of philosophy - not only among the
sure, it is "obvious" that finitude is a privative determination successors of phenomenology, or in Heidegger, but in the
of thought and as such presupposes its opposite, transcen- ancestral realm of Anglo-Saxon pragmatism and positivism as
dence, or history or (in another way) nature. Who will deny well.
that? I contend, however, that we have learned once and for Hence we must still give some attention to the noteworthy
all from Kant that such "obvious" ways of thought can convergence of traditions as opposed to each other as tran-
mediate no possible knowledge to us finite beings. Depen- scendental phenomenology and Anglo-Saxon positivism. 4 6

dence on possible experience and demonstration by means of The connection between intending and speaking (the "hiatus
it remains the alpha and omega of all responsible thought. of the word") acquired a positive side in William James, as
47
But the basis of such demonstration is genuinely universal Linschoten shows so well. But only in the life work of
and, if one can so express it, infinite in a finite way. All our Ludwig Wittgenstein does it have its full effect - an impact
ways of thinking are dependent upon the universality of that was felt first of all in England. In Wittgenstein, the
language. problem of language is central from the very beginning, but
Hence the problem of language finally comes to the center even there it gains its full philosophical universality only as
of attention. For Husserl (as for Greek ontology and English his thought matures.
empiricism), language was a seduction of thought. Bergson Wittgenstein's first endeavor was an attempt to construct a
regarded it as the "ice of words" that covered over the living logical critique of language that would banish the problems
stream. Even for Hegel it was more a preformation of the of philosophy as linguistic bewitchments. Wittgenstein made
Logos than its perfection. It is astounding how little the this attempt in the Tractatus of 1921 by seeking to develop
problem of language is attended to at all in phenomenol- the neopositivistic doctrine of elementary propositions into
48
ogy - by Husserl or by Scheler. an "all-embracing logic, which mirrors the w o r l d " by
49

It is not as if Husserl did not recognize a field of problems means of a consistent, logical symbolic. A language that
50

here. We cannot avoid the compelling fact that linguistic "prevents any logical e r r o r " seems possible as a conven-
formation is a schematization of the experience of the world. tionally founded sign language. But in all this Wittgenstein
And in the minute, descriptive work of phenomenology the was certainly n o t a positivist in the sense that he intended to
investigation of ordinary modes of speech rightly play a great solve "our problems of life" in this way. "There are, indeed,
practical role - a point of convergence, moreover, with cur- things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves
51

rent Anglo-Saxon analytical philosophy, which will occupy manifest. They are what is mystical." But that was only
our attention later. Naturally Husserl's constructive order of the mystical reverse side of his extreme nominalism. Today it
intentional accomplishments includes language - especially seems to us that the dispute between Husserl and the Vienna
after the discovery of the anonymous intentionalities that Circle regarding the true positivism would have gone against
build up the "life-world." For him, it is an "upper-level" both sides. Wittgenstein's self-criticism within the Vienna
achievement. But the -npoTepov irp'os ruiaq, which it is, is only Circle's critique of language moves in a direction similar to
eccentrically described. 45
This too, it seems to me, indicates Heidegger's ontological critique within phenomenology.
a limit to the projection of the task of phenomenological Wittgenstein's unusually casuistic mode of presentation,
 174 PHENOMENOLOGY THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL MOVEMENT 175

which very rarely mentions names — in the Tractatus, only ask, conversely, if language would succeed at all by means of
Frege and Russell, and in the Investigations, occasionally univocality and if it could even consist of univocal concepts.
52
W. J a m e s — makes difficult a direct application to the The "essence" of language does not lie on the surface, in
situation in phenomenology. But that Husserl's critique of such fashion that a "propositional logic" can seek to pick it
psychologism was also dispelled by Wittgenstein's critique of up cartographically, as it were. Wittgenstein asks: What is
53 56
language is just as clear as it is that Wittgenstein is not it? That is, what is it actually, in its actual life? His guiding
interested in Husserl's transcendental reduction and explicitly concept now is the language game. Everything is in order in
criticizes his doctrine of the "ideal u n i t y " of meaning, even if the playing of games or the use of words as it takes place in
he does not mention his name. But the really astounding everyday activities. The reduction of all propositions to a
thing is that Wittgenstein's self-critique moves in a direction "proposition in i t s e l f or t o the form of judgment would
similar to the one we have seen in the evolution of phenome- bring a false hypostasizing into the actual language game that
nology. is played, for instance, in ordering or obeying or in the
57

In the Tractatus (and in the surviving diaries, which are exclamation and the understanding of i t , in short, in lin-
published for the first time in the German edition) the guistic life-forms. The question is to accept what is said
thinking subject is exposed as a superstition, but only to the intelligibly. Even children's games are of such a nature that
advantage of the acting subject. "The subject does not belong we cannot go behind their established rules with any kind of
54
to the world: rather, it is a limit of the w o r l d , " or better, superior knowing. Language games, like those of children,
58

its presupposition. This is all very unclear and sounds like have inexact or changing rules. The particular "aspect" in
Schopenhauer. It is no less unclear how Wittgenstein intends which something is manifested in seeing or saying, the way
59

to go from idealism via solipsism to realism (see the entry in we " h e a r " a word with a particular meaning, is as imme-
the Notebooks for October 15, 1916). diately present as is a thing's contrived play-function in
children's games.
We do not find such obsolete-sounding statements in his
later work. There language in its essential finitude occupies Thus it is a question of constantly projecting ourselves into
the central position. Heidegger had noted earlier that "truth the living usage of language and avoiding hexed "problems"
is not propositional t r u t h , " and he had put the "existential" brought about by language. To that extent, the old tendency
of understanding (and its objects) on a completely different of the critique of language persists. But this critique no
basis than that of logic and objective science. Wittgenstein's longer aims at language as such, as it actually plays, but
Philosophical Investigations, which he had prepared for publi- rather at linguistic idling, that is, at the false transference that
cation shortly before his death in 1956, also fundamentally is made from one language game into another, for example,
criticized the ideal of a "logical language" in its own way and from physics into psychology. 60
The false hyposticizing of
thus shattered the whole nominalistic presupposition of the "inner processes," encountered especially in the customary
critique of language. Even yet, however, the critique of thinking of psychology, is pursued in innumerable variations
language seeks to free us from the bewitchments of thought in the Philosophical Investigations. We may see a certain
by means of language. But in the meantime, Wittgenstein had agreement here with the phenomenological critique and will
come t o recognize that the logical idealization of language, recall that Franz Brentano's legacy in Vienna may have
which the Tractatus had sought to establish, contradicted the influenced Wittgenstein too. We have found in Brentano, as
nature of language itself. He sees now that every proposition
we emphasized earlier, the critique of objectifying observa-
of our language "is in order, as it is. That is to say, we are not
5 S
tion.
striving after an ideal . . . " Vagueness and indeterminate-
Meanwhile, the range of Wittgenstein's new approach goes
ness of concepts injures its employment so little that we can
far beyond the dedogmatizing of empirical psychology. At
 176 PHENOMENOLOGY THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL MOVEMENT 177

the conclusion of the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgen- But instead, Wittgenstein wants to reach such a complete
stein himself points in this direction: "An investigation is clarity regarding the use of language by means of his language
possible in connection with mathematics that is entirely games that "philosophical problems should completely dis-
67
analogous to our investigation of psychology" 61
- an investi- appear." Hence the goal has remained the same: to elimi-
68
gation that would not be logical! 62
It would obviously nate "meaningless" words or signs. Now, however,
" t r e a t " the problems of the foundation of mathematics "like Wittgenstein pursues this goal without nominalistic prejudices
63
a sickness." It would include, for instance, the problems of when he demands that we accept the " u s e " of language and
the "objectivity and reality of mathematical facts" as philos- only clarify its aberrations, which arise when language does
69 70
ophizing mathematicians consider them. The same thing not work, when it " i d l e s , " "takes a h o l i d a y . " An exam-
could also be said from the phenomenological standpoint - ple: "I can know what someone else is thinking, not what I
though certainly not with so therapeutic and cathartic a am thinking. It is correct to say, 'I know what you are
7 1
tone. 64
And what would be nearer to the later Husserl and thinking,' and wrong to say 'I know what I am thinking.' "
his interest in the life-world or to Heidegger's analytic of Philosophy, therefore, as a critique of language, a "doc-
everyday Dasein than this sentence: "The aspects of things trine of language," is a self-critique of philosophy - we could
that are most important for us are hidden because of their even say it is the self-healing of self-inflicted wounds, similar
simplicity and familiarity. (One is unable to notice something to the way the Tractatus had already proclaimed its self-
because it is always before one's eyes.) The real foundations negation. 72
Should it not be necessary, however, to define
65
of his inquiry do not strike a man at a l l . " the business of philosophy, and the doctrine of language too,
These are, to be sure, all convergences in the object of less negatively? In the last analysis, are not the concepts of
criticism, not in their own positive intention. For Wittgen- the " u s e " or "application" of words, of language as "activ-
stein, a "positive intention" would itself be a highly suspi- i t y " or as a "life form," for their part in need of "healing," as
cious concept. In the later Wittgenstein too, the issue is Wittgenstein says? This insight occasionally emerges in
always the demythologizing of grammar - one thinks of Wittgenstein himself: "If language is to be a means of com-
Nietzsche at this point. A logical ideal language, therefore, is munication there must be agreement not only in definitions
73

no longer his aim only because such an ideal language itself but also (queer as this may sound) in j u d g m e n t s . " Perhaps
proves to be dominated by a mythological assumption. As if the field of language is not only the place of reduction for all
there were first objects that we consider subsequently how to philosophical ignorance, but rather itself an actual whole of
name - an "occult process." 66
"Nominalists make the mis- interpretation that, from the days of Plato and Aristotle till
take of interpreting all words as names and thus do not really today, requires not only to be accepted, but to be thought
describe their application." While it was still his positive task through to the end again and again. At this point, Husserl's
in the Tractatus simply to designate the primary elements, he transcendental-phenomenological reduction seems to me, de-
now cites a characteristic passage of Plato's Theatetus, ac- spite all its idealism of reflection, to be less prejudiced than
cording to which the letters and sounds - the real atoms of Wittgenstein's self-reduction. Over against both of them, we
speech - are undefinable. Now, however, Wittgenstein con- must admit that we are ever and again only "on the way to
tinues with a large " B u t , " and Augustine's nominalistic the- language."
ory of language serves him as a point of departure for his
self-critique. The question that forces itself upon us is
whether he could have learned something from the Platonic NOTES
critique of the theory that was quoted from the Theatetus,
1. Cf. Oskar Becker's description of this phenomenological attitude
that is, from Plato's dialectic.
in Lebendiger Realismus: Festschrift fiir Thyssen ( 1 9 6 2 ) .
 178 PHENOMENOLOGY THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL MOVEMENT 179

2. Herbert Spiegelberg has perceived this correctly in his historical 2 1 . In the final analysis, this question is posed in an altogether
introduction to ' phenomenology, The Phenomenological Movement mistaken way. Heidegger's note in SuZ, p. 3 8 , testifies to Husserl's
(The Hague: Nijhoff, 1 9 6 0 ; Phaenomenologica, Vol. 4 & 5). In general "liberal" turning over of manuscripts. Such an action would be un-
this two-volume presentation deserves every recognition as a source of thinkable if Husserl himself at that time had not found the sorting out
reliable information about the past, thanks to its painstaking and of his own property and, generally, the spectacle of giving and taking
conscientious scholarship. The author was close to the Munich circle, between himself and Heidegger to be inappropriate.
especially Alexander Pfander, and his picture of things is naturally 22. Oskar Becker, in Husserl Festschrift, ( 1 9 2 9 ) , p. 39.
determined in part from that perspective. Hence I have serious objec- 2 3 . S o , most recently, Landgrebe, PhR, IX ( 1 9 6 3 ) , p. 157. How-
tions to many of his emphases. However, in my article in PhR, \\ ever, it should be emphasized that Spiegelberg, Phen. Movement, vol. 1,
( 1 9 6 3 ) : 1-45, I inadvertently did him an injustice several times by p. 77, n. 2, correctly understands the text in question: "He was
taking his critical observations to be his o w n opinion. speaking in bitter irony about the times, not about himself."
3. Cf. Royaumont, pp. 329 f., where Ingarden protests sharply 24. K, p. 5 9 2 (ET, p. 392).
against this all t o o summary assertion, represented by van Breda. 2 5 . K, p. 183 (ET. p. 180).
4. Cf., for instance, Kraus's introduction t o Brentano's Psychologie 2 6 . Cf. Husserl's letter to Levy-Bruhl, given in Spiegelberg, Phen.
vom empirischen Standpunkt (Hamburg: Philosophische Bibliothek Movement, vol. 1, pp. 161 ff. But it would be a mistake if, because of
( 1 9 5 5 ) which sounds fatally anachronistic today. this letter, the above doctrine were referred only to the mythical-
5. Cf. Frege's review of Husserl's Philosophie der Arithmatik, which magical "world" and not to all "alien" worlds, and above all to the
appeared in Zeitschrift fur Philosophie und philosophische Kritik historical world.
(1894).
27. K, p. 5 0 1 .
6. On Husserl and Mach, cf. H. Lubbe's essay in Beitrage zu Wissen- 28. From the first edition of Natorp's Einleitung in die Psychologie .
schaft und Philosophie: W. Szilasi zum 70. Geburtstag ( 1 9 6 0 ) pp.
161-184. (1886).
7. Cf. Theodor Adorno, Zur Metakritik der Erkenntnistheorie 29. Cf. A. Schutz, "Das Problem der transzendentalen Intersub-
(1956). jektivitat bei Husserl," PhR, V ( 1 9 5 7 ) , pp. 105 ff. For Fink's agree-
8. Cf. Royaumont, pp. 384 ff. ment, ci. Royaumont, p. 268. Meanwhile, M. Theunissen has investigated
9. Cf. the interesting contribution of Hedwig Conrad-Martius, pub- the problem in his wide-ranging analysis, Der Andere (Berlin, 1965). His
lished in the Festschrift for Husserl's one-hundredth birthday (Phae- analysis leads from the "loneliness" of transcendental phenomenology
nomenologica, Vol. 4, 1 9 5 9 ) . to the foundering of philosophy on "the other person" in general - a
10. Cf. Roman Ingarden, Das literarische Kunstwerk 2d ed. (Tubin- contesting o f transcendental phenomenological immanence that deals
gen: Niemeyer, 1 9 6 0 ) . with principles and that lays no claim to being an immanent interpreta-
11. Cf. n. 3 4 . tion of Husserl.
12. In the meantime, Ingarden's Der Streit um die Existenz der Welt 3 0 . Cf. Royaumont, p. 113.
(Tubingen: Niemeyer, 1964) has appeared in German. Here Ingarden 3 1 . Husserl, Cartesian Meditations (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1964),
delineates his standpoint explicitly as a metaphysical one, as opposed to
Husserl's transcendental-constitutive position. This work first appeared paragraph 50.
in Polish in 1 9 4 7 - 1 9 4 8 . 32. Royaumont, p. 4 2 9 .
3 3 . In R o y a u m o n t , I pointed out that the meaning of the word
13. Quoted by Ingarden in Krefeld, p. 1 9 9 , from Ideen, Vol. 1, p.
constitution already points in this direction. To constitute does not
94.
mean to produce, but rather to bring into a constituted state, to bring
14. Cf. Krefeld, p. 197.
about, as in Kant's distinction between constitutive and regulative. Of
15. Ludwig Landgrebe, "Husserls Abschied vom Cartesianismus,"
PhR, XI, pp. 133-77. course such a determination is formulated from a wholly naive, extra-
phenomenological standpoint. As Fink rightly says, the distinction
16. The discussion of the problem of the life-world that follows was
between being and valid sense, taken strictly, has no meaning at all in
presented in November 1960, in Cologne, and in June 1 9 6 1 , in Berlin.
the sphere of phenomenological immanence. But when on this account
17. Cf. K, p. 1 9 2 (ET. pp. 188-189).
one calls the disputed concept ambiguous, because it also contains the
18. K, p. 136.
sense of pure creation, as Fink continually stresses, then he himself
19. Cf., Aristotle, De Anima 4 2 5 b 12 ff., and Metaphysics 12. 9.
makes such a naively realistic concept fundamental. In m y opinion, he
20. Cf. Husserliana, Vol. 4, pp. 3 7 2 ff. (Beilage XIII).
therefore must be prepared to have his opinion tested against Husserl's
text.
 THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL MOVEMENT 181
PHENOMENOLOGY

34. Cf. n. 1 1. The considerations against the "production" of logical 49. T, 5 . 4 7 5 .

structures - or, to say this in another way, their subsistence in their 50. T, 5 . 4 7 3 1 .
"ideal in-itselfness," as distinct from structures characterized by "heter- 51. T, 6 . 5 2 2 .
onomy of being" such as the "literary work of art" (cf., p. 165-166 52. PI, I, 3 4 2 , 4 1 3 , 6 1 0 ; II, xi.
above) - certainly betray the fact that Husserl's transcendental idealism 5 3 . For instance, "Intending is n o experience," (PI II, xi), or "The
is not shared by Ingarden. Accordingly, he does not consider the meaning of a word is not the experience one has in hearing or saying
"painful questions" Husserl raised in his Formal and Transcendental ." (PI, II, vi).
it

Logic (p. 3 0 ) to be settled by Husserl's consistent carrying out of the 54. T, 5 . 6 3 2 ; 6 4 1 .

transcendental reduction. Cf. Das lit. Kunstwerk, Ch. 13 (this was also 55. PI, I, 9 8 .
clear at Krefeld; cf., Krefeld, pp. 190 ff.) 5 6 . PI, I, 9 2 .
35. A "speculative" development of this line of thought, as pre- 57. PI, I, 2 7 .
sented, for instance, by Hubert Hohl, Lebenswelt und Geschichte: 5 8 . PI, I, 8 3 .
Grundziige der Spatphilosophie E. Husserls (Freiburg and Munich, 59. PI, I, 5 3 4 .
1962), would have been rejected by Husserl as unphenomenological. 60. Aristotle had already recognized that many philosophical errors
36. Royaumont, pp. 3 2 3 , 3 3 3 . arise from false transferences. Cf. Topics 139b 32 ff.
37. This is even the case to some extent in Thomas Seebohm's 6 1 . PI, II, 14.
otherwise excellent defense of the consistency with which Husserl 62. Alexander Israel Wittenberg, Denken in Begriffen ( 1 9 5 7 ) , repre-
carries through his idea of transcendental phenomenology. Seebohm,
sents an effort in this direction.
Die Bedingungen der Moglichkeit der Transzendental-philosophie: Ed-
6 3 . PI, I, 2 5 5 .
mund Husserls transzendental-phdnomenologischer Ansatz (Bonn,
1962). 64. Cf. Oskar Becker's analysis of "mathematical existence" in JPPF
38. Cf. Seebohm, p. 151. 8 (1927), 441-809.
3 9 . Ibid., p. 155.
4 0 . Against Heidegger, Husserl's Erfahrung und Urteil, (p. 62 and
par. 15) resolutely holds to the foundational structure that has "pure"
perception at its basis.
4 1 . SuZ, p. 4 2 .
4 2 . K, p. 325 (ET, p. 2 7 9 ) .
4 3 . On this basis, we can exhibit elements of a philosophical theol-
ogy in Husserl: God as the Logos w h o bears the "ontological unique-
ness in himself." Cf. Hohl, p. 85.
4 4 . Cf.HB,p. 17.
4 5 . The valuable analyses that Roman Ingarden gives in Das lit.
Kunstwerk do, to be sure, deal thoroughly with the linguistic constitu-
tion of the work of art, but from the perspective of the "ideal concepts
existing in a u t o n o m y of being" as mere (partial) actualization of their
sense (Das lit. Kunstwerk, chaps. 16, 6 6 ) . The real interest of the
author is focused on the "existence of ideal concepts." Only in this
way, he believes, is deliverance from total subjectification possible - in
the case of the literary work of art as well as in that of scientific work
(chap. 6 0 ) . Linguistically this remains a secondary phenomenon.
4 6 . Cf. also H. Liibbe, " 'Sprachspiele' und 'Geschichten,' Neo-
positivismus und Phanomenologie im Spatstadium," Kantstudien, 52
( 1 9 6 0 - 6 1 ) , pp. 2 2 0 - 2 4 3 .
4 7 . Cf. J. Linschoten, Auf dem Wege zu einer phdnomenologischen
Psychologie (Berlin, 1 9 6 1 ) , pp. 9 2 ff.
4 8 . T, 5 . 5 1 1 .
 THE SCIENCE OF THE LIFE-WORLD 183
And even the critical objections that Scheler and Heidegger
raised against his foundation of phenomenology encounter
nothing but his obstinate insistence that they had not under-
stood the real meaning of his "transcendental reduction."
That is the only fixed point in his self-interpretation. It seems
to me, therefore, to be methodologically required that we
10 interpret the doctrine of the life-world against the back-
ground of this permanent complaint that he raises against his
The Science of the Life-World (1969) philosophical contemporaries.
One must concede, however, that the new word, life-
world — one of the few new words proposed by a philoso-
pher that has had a success of its own in ordinary language —
has a very broad meaning that expresses very well the specific
character of Husserlian thinking over against the dominant
philosophies of Neo-Kantianism and positivism. It does not
restrict the task of philosophy to the foundations of science,
but extends it to the wide field of everyday experience. It is
Although the science of the life-world is the most discussed quite understandable, then, that this wider sense of the
part of the doctrine of the later Husserl, there seems to be a concept of the life-world proposed in Husserl's later work
permanent necessity to examine what is novel in this doc- should be accepted and acclaimed by many scholars who by
trine. Does it open new paths of investigation or is it only a no means intended to follow him on his path toward tran-
new and clearer outline of the programmatic intentions phe- scendental reduction. Rather, in perfect opposition to it,
nomenology had from the beginning? It is a peculiar char- they have used the popular term "life-world" in the sense of
acteristic of Husserl's style of thinking that self-correction turning away from Cartesianism, or at least they sought to
and self-repetition are indistinguishab.e from each other. legitimate their own investigations as independent analyses of
Therefore the introduction of the concept of the Lebenswelt the social and historical world in the context of a phenome-
wavers between a mere description of the authentic approach nological anthropology. This use is not unjustified, insofar as
that Husserl chose for his phenomenological investigation Husserl himself acknowledged that it is a genuine though
(and that distinguished him and his philosophical interest secondary task to work out an ontology of the life-world. To
from the dominant Neo-Kantian and positivistic scientism) do so does not necessarily require that one follow Husserl's
and a new self-criticism that if it did not attain the great goal own way of transcendental phenomenology and transcenden-
for which Husserl longed throughout all his work, namely, to tal reduction.
found philosophy as a rigorous science, would at least make
As a matter of fact, it is not only the intention of Husserl's
this goal appear attainable. We may add that Husserl's self-
phenomenology to go back behind the whole of scientific
interpretation is anything but a trustworthy canon for the
experience to the simple phenomenological data, like sense-
understanding of his meaning. His self-interpretation also
perception, or practical experience, and to legitimate claims
oscillates between continually renewed self-criticism on the
of validity over against the sciences — it is also quite justified
one hand and, on the other, a teleological self-interpretation
that the life-world claims its own phenomenal legitimacy.
that allows him, for example, to pretend that his Philosophy
This field of themes represents a mode of givenness, or
of Arithmetic is a prefiguration of constitutional research.
better, a realm of original modes of givenness, and it is clearly
182
 184 PHENOMENOLOGY THE SCIENCE OF THE LIFE-WORLD 185
unjustified to ignore these modes of givenness by directing sense, the thematic of the life-world is not completely new,
our attention to a structure of scientific knowledge of the but is clearly in view when Husserl investigates the deepest
world that lies "behind" them - t o an ontology of the gen- level of phenomenological research, the self-constitution of
uinely objective world - and to do it because the objective internal time-consciousness, investigations that go back to a
science of nature encompasses everything that is knowable. time before the first programmatization of the idea of tran-
One of Husserl's first important insights, present in his Philos- scendental phenomenology.
ophy of Arithmetic, was to recognize in the example of the But later, when the philosophical project of transcendental
symbolic number that there exist no monolithic and dog- reduction integrated all Husserlian investigations into one
matic concepts of givenness at all. What could the concept of systematic philosophical framework and when philosophy
givenness mean, for example, in the case of infinite numbers, was programmatized as a rigorous science by starting from
which by definition can never actually be produced but ultimate founding in apodictic evidence, it became necessary
nevertheless have a well-defined mathematical meaning? In to test the rigorousness and clarity of the procedure to
the same sense, the modes of givenness of the life-world must transcendental reduction. It was at that time that the prob-
be made objects of intentional analysis and constitutively lem of the life-world emerged and that the term "life-world"
founded in their character as phenomena without being re- was created. It is well known that in the Ideas Husserl
duced to the world of "physics." Such an analysis, which interpreted the new style of scientific philosophy founded in
follows the correlation between intentional object and inten- the analysis of transcendental subjectivity in the sense that in
tional act and determines the meaning of the intended by the it for the first time an idealism of a really transcendental
intention, necessarily entails that the "life of consciousness," character would be achieved. To demonstrate it he followed
the stream of intentional experiences, offers a way of access the Cartesian method of gaining the apodictic certainty of
and exhibition for what is given in the life-world and by no the ego cogito by means of a universal methodical doubt.
means only for the objectivity of scientific experience. It is This Husserlian Cartesianism was very far from the authentic
thus important to observe that even the first step of Husserl's motives of Descartes, as Husserl was fully aware. In particu-
investigations went beyond the Neo-Kantian task of conceiv- lar, it was clear to him that Descartes's universal doubt of the
ing the objects of experience in the sense of the science of world could not result in a systematic foundation of all
facts. knowledge in a new philosophical certainty, but served rather
Only the analysis of this correlation between intentional to legitimate the mathematical natural sciences as the real
act and intentional object is able to disclose the naivete of an knowledge of the objective world. Therefore the ego, that
ontology of the world based on the objectivism of mathe- fundamentus inconcussum that resists the most universal
matical natural science. Such an ontology of the world misses doubt, was by no means the transcendental ego, by which
the decisive question of the idealizations involved in its Husserl sought to build up the order of evidences and to
method and therefore floats in the air, as Husserl says. But on found philosophy as pure phenomenology. The Cartesian ego
the other side, intentions within the life-world horizon also was only a little piece of the world that remained after all
represent idealizations and therefore contain intentional acts doubting and by which in quite different theological ways
that participate in its building-up. It was already the program the cognition of the world could be legitimated. Nevertheless,
of the correlative constitutional analysis in the Logical Inves- what Husserl gained from the example of Descartes's doubt
tigations not only to thematize the constitutive intention- was the universality of suspending all validity of belief in the
alities correlated with objects but also to work out the basic world. Thus he developed his own doctrine of the transcen-
structure of consciousness as a whole, which by its own dental epoche, which brackets and suspends all positing of
streaming temporality builds up validity of objects. In this reality and also the validity of eidetic sciences such as mathe-
 186 PHENOMENOLOGY THE SCIENCE OF THE LIFE-WORLD 187

matics undisturbed by the claims of modern science, the of a transcendental solipsism — can one legitimate the con-
phenomena, the modes of givenness as such, must be demon- cept of " w e " that is the experience of other subjects, each of
strated and acknowledged in their ontological status by inves- which is in and of itself an " e g o . " To be sure, the problem of
tigating their phenomenological constitution. intersubjectivity was considered to be crucial, not only by
The enormous field of investigations involved in transcen- Husserl but also by his school; and many scholars treating
dental phenomenology was outlined in its full methodical this problem postulated a breakthrough and a rejection of the
autonomy in the Ideas and claimed to be all-embracing. By transcendental attitude as a whole. Some of them even
means of the methodical rigor of the transcendental reduc- argued that Husserl himself had already done so. But Husserl
tion, Husserl went back behind all the usual philosophical was right in contending that this argument is an illusion. It is
debates about standpoints and worldviews. He felt misunder- only from the side of the transcendental ego and its constitu-
stood when people expected from his analysis of transcen- tive accomplishments that the problem of intersubjectivity
dental subjectivity a decision regarding the usual philo- can be resolved, that the "like ego," the intentionality of the
sophical standpoints or even imagined they found realistic so-called transcendental empathy, can be understood. It is
elements, for example, in his doctrine of the hyletic data curious enough that a mere object of perception, a corporeal
grounding sense-perception. And I think he was correct. With thing, is only able to become an alter ego by means of a form
no less resoluteness he combatted the confusion between of idealizing apprehension. Husserl acknowledged explicitly
phenomenology and psychology, for all sciences of facts were that the problem of intersubjectivity did not receive suffi-
excluded from the inner field of transcendental phenome- cient consideration within the framework of his appropria-
nology. Only on the basis of transcendental phenomenology tion of Cartesian doubt. He therefore dedicated numerous
could they regain their legitimacy in the form of eidetic papers to invalidating all the objections to his theory of
"sciences in a new style." But it lay well within the claim of transcendental reduction that followed from this point. But
transcendental phenomenology to provide the sciences too it seemed to him absolutely certain that there was no real
with a new, clarified basis that no crisis could disturb. That danger here to his foundation of philosophy as a rigorous
was the claim Husserl made in the Ideas and retained and science.
repeated in his last work, the so-called Crisis. The same holds for the problem of the life-world. Never-
Certainly Husserl recognized the enormous difficulty of theless, even more than the problem of intersubjectivity, this
maintaining the transcendental attitude firmly and unerr- problem remains alive and unsettled in Husserl's later works.
ingly. He not only protested to his adversaries that they What exactly was the problem? Husserl recognized it in a
were regressing into an uncritical natural attitude or that they double form: in the form of a self-criticism directed against
did not understand the radicalism of the transcendental re- his own description of the transcendental reduction in the
duction, but he also acknowledged that the danger of regress- Ideas and also in another form, one in which the problem of
ing into the natural attitude is always present for everyone. the life-world is entangled in peculiar fashion with the tran-
In many of his phenomenological investigations, therefore, he scendental foundation of philosophy. To be sure, in the end
discussed untiringly the problem of intersubjectivity: how he contends that the entanglement of the problem of the
can we grasp the constitution of an alter ego by the transcen- life-world with the transcendental reduction can be resolved
dental ego, when this alter ego has in itself the same character and that it appears as irresolvable only as long as the way of
as the transcendental ego? But in the end he always relies on reduction is not worked out exactly. But he came increas-
the same unambiguous solution to this difficulty: only on ingly to recognize that the problem of the life-world con-
the basis of transcendental subjectivity, in the radical solitude tained special difficulties and paradoxes for the working out
of the transcendental ego - that is, only from the standpoint of the reduction.
 188 PHENOMENOLOGY THE SCIENCE OF THE LIFE-WORLD 189

From this point on, he found a rigorous consideration of suspension of the general thesis of reality, the belief in the
the historical world unavoidable. In his famous Logos article world as such, in the horizon-intentionality of the world
of 1911, which marked the beginning of his philosophical antecedent to every positing of entities, was not also sus-
program, he recognized Weltanschauungsphilosophie as a sec- pended — and that meant precisely that uncontrolled preju-
ond danger equal to that of a naive and unreflective natural- dices might slip into the constitutional research that claimed
ism. In it he saw the danger of an impatient demand for hasty to build up every objective validity by starting with transcen-
philosophical decisions, a confusing relativism, and, as a re- dental subjectivity. It was not really a pedantic desire for
sult, "skepticism and weariness." The terrible convulsions of absolute precision and rigorousness that directed the reduc-
World War I had a personal impact on him, not only in the tional procedure and discovered an incidental mistake. This
loss of one of his sons, but also in the dissolution of the mistake would be a fatal one. For the horizon of the life-
Hapsburg Empire and separation from Moravia, his native world in which life goes on unquestioningly and that is never
land. Soon thereafter, other events claimed his attention: the an object by itself, represents a cardinal problem for any
collapse of popular idealism, the rise of dialectical theology, philosopher. Clearly, he himself, as the one who engages in
and the emergence of Scheler, Jaspers, and Heidegger. The transcendental reflection, is surrounded by this horizon of
deep earnestness of his basically unpretentious and innocent the world without ever questioning it. One look at such fields
personality was focused from then on upon the single ques- of investigation as ethnology or history informs us that
tion: How can I become a worthy philosopher? A philoso- spaces and times produce highly different life-worlds in
pher for him was a self-thinker, a man who sought to give an which highly different things pass as unquestioningly self-
ultimate account for all his thoughts and convictions, begin- evident.
ning with the basic problems of science (Husserl was a mathe- Of course it seems to be the way of science to recognize
matician) but extending to all the problems of human life, the objective facts and the objective laws and to make them
and a man for whom every uncontrolled and unproven con- controllable and at the disposal of everyone. Here alone does
viction must appear as a loss of his own inner self-confidence. truth seem to reside. But the way of scientific investigation
It was in the context of this lifelong quest for a final follows quite different aims posed by deliberate decisions
self-justification in this sense that the demons of historicism that go beyond the natural self-givenness of the life-world
and the skepticism it involved continued to disquiet him. In and involve a specific idealization or mathematical descrip-
the explanation of the life-world he hoped to find the way to tion of the world. In this respect the bracketing of the
a final clarity and the beginning of a new honesty and scientific cognition of facts by the epoche presupposes the
rationality that would fundamentally transform all future validity of the life-world dimension of pure self-givenness;
generations of man. but "now we are embarrassed as to what else could be
He began by acknowledging a mistake he had made in the claimed scientifically as established for everyone and for all
construction of philosophy as a rigorous science, that is, in time," writes Husserl in the Crisis. The word "now," of
his carrying out of the transcendental reduction - a mistake course, means here not "now after the first epoche," but
that had as its consequence the demands of Weltanschauungs- "now after we have recognized the manifoldness and the
philosophie that were threatening to burst the dams of relativity of life-worlds and their priority for all scientific
responsible scientific thinking. In his Ideas he believed that objectivity." In this sense, the thematic insight into the basic
by the bracketing of all posited reality, of all objects of validity of the life-world, which as such was not perfectly
science, he had reduced what is not objective, the field of new, involves nevertheless the emergence of new problems.
pure subjectivity and apodictic evidence. He did not realize Certainly the subjective relativity of life-worlds may be ana-
that in the bracketing of all objects in the world by the lyzed in its universal structure and the a priori of a life-world,
 190 PHENOMENOLOGY THE SCIENCE OF THE LIFE-WORLD 191
a universal a priori, can be disclosed as one that by no means claims to be essentially singular, proves to be ambiguous since
is the objective a priori of the traditional metaphysics or the it encompasses a variable wealth of modes of givenness. The
sciences but that grounds all the sciences because as Boden- world is never self-given; it is only the pole of objectivity,
geltung, as basic validity, it precedes every science, including that is, it remains functional as a polar direction in the
logic. Is it not a new fundament for all truth and does it not
ever-continuing advance and disclosure of life-world experi-
displace the transcendental ego?
ence. In this way, the epoche, that is, the deliberate themati-
When we read the explicit summary of the new role of zation of it, reveals the transcendental subject-object correla-
transcendental reduction that Husserl gives in the Crisis (it is tion in its purity.
the only one we possess), we are astonished to find that the But what is involved here with all its mysterious implica-
old, well-known problems and insights of the earlier program tions? What is this world-constitutive subjectivity that is itself
have returned, though in a somewhat altered form. The
a part of this world? It is we, the human beings for whom
analysis of the a priori of the life-world and its methodical
this world is valid. We are many egos among whom I am one
founding involves a change of attitude that is none other than
ego. It is necessary to clarify this dimension of intersubjective
the familiar transcendental epoche of the Ideas. * What is new
experience of the world by constitutive analysis. One can
in the new description and differs from the older Cartesian
investigate all these modes of givenness. For example, what is
way of graded doubting or "graded reduction" is that the
an acquaintance? What common horizon of the life-world is
turn of attitude is achieved all at once in its totality. Every
involved and presupposed in the phenomenon of having ac-
graded bracketing of validities would only occupy the univer-
quaintances? A whole series of constituent elements: being
sal ground in another way but would not suspend its
validity. present to others and having others present to oneself, a
circle of acquaintances with the open possibility of its expan-
It is true that the thematizing or bracketing of the basic
sion, internal levels of closer and more distant acquaintances,
validity of the life-world is a new aspect of the transcendental
of friends and enemies. Furthermore, there is the anonymous
investigation of the autonomous realm of "experiences,"
horizon of society with all its patterns and rules with which
since what comes into view is precisely the universal structure
one is familiar and which is nevertheless quite a different
of the manifold life-worlds with their changing horizons. Or
thing from the circle of one's own acquaintances. It is the
we might also say that the edios "life-world" persists in all
world itself that is concretized in such intersubjective experi-
forms of the life-world. The way through the life world is not
only a " n e w " way of reduction but an important new insight ences: it, and not an "objective" world mathematically de-
insofar as the transcendental ego to which the reduction also scribable a priori, is the world.
leads proves to be the solution to an otherwise insoluable Even if we realize all these things, and consider that, like
difficulty. This difficulty consists in the fact that the univer- myself, every I has the possibility of freely deciding to adopt
sal horizon of the life-world also necessarily embraces tran- the change of attitude involved in the epoche and to investi-
scendental subjectivity. As a matter of fact the life-world gate this transcendental a priori of correlations — and thus
manifests itself in its subjective and relative structure. The that transcendental subjectivity permits and even demands a
immediate living in " t h e " world, however, in one world that transcendental community — we still cannot escape the para-
dox that the world-constitutive subjectivity, though it may
be a manifold of such constitutive subjectivities, is a part of
*It should be noted that the title of paragraph XXXVIII, whoever its author
may be, is erroneous. There are not "two fundamental modes of thematizing the the world constituted by these subjectivities and therefore
life-world," but the unthematic validity of the horizon of the life-world as brings into play all the special subjective, relative characters
opposed to the thematization of it by a universal turn of interest - an Interessen-
wendung. of the personal horizon that distinguishes the Negroes of the
Congo or Chinese farmers, for example, from Professor Hus-
 192 PHENOMENOLOGY THE SCIENCE OF THE LIFE-WORLD 193
serl. In light of the unsuspendably specific character of the This conclusion is by no means the case. When Husserl
pregiven horizons of the life-world, how is phenomenology as describes the eidos "life-world" in such fashion that "it takes
a "rigorous science" possible at all? into account all imaginable possibilities that are included in
When we follow the text of the Crisis, the solution of the the horizon or into which the horizon can be resolved in its
problem explained there seems neither new nor problem- explications," what is implied is "the problem of the idealiza-
atic — it is the old answer that the transcendentally function- tion of the world of life."* But does this point the way to
ing subjectivity of the ego, by which belief in the world is historical investigations, for which Husserl was poorly
constituted, may not be confused with the ego that is a part equipped? It is certainly the case that penetration into these
of the world and is constituted with all its experiences of the life-world horizons cannot avoid beginning by uncovering the
world. That which constitutes all the forms of world, for style of the present life-world and in the end thinking the
example, the world of dreams, the world of children, the world "in its concrete and infinite historicity." ** But when
world of animals, historical worlds, the problems of birth and we read, "All possible worlds are variants of the world which
death, the problem of the sexes, is not one ego beside others is valid for us," or that the world is built up only as a
and is not in the world as one of its parts, but functions only "perpetually streaming" constituted something, in the sense
as the ultimate functioning ego in all its absolute apodicticity of an infinite idea, it means certainly that the life-world,
but also in its unique philosophical solitude. because it is an "idea," is not the world itself that constructs
But it is not the text of the article alone that is the source itself in a continually streaming change by a continuous series
here - though this source is unclear enough, since the discus- of corrections, nor can it ever be the object of a science in
sion of newly arising difficulties always interrupts the stream the traditional sense of objective science. Precisely this un-
of thinking. Besides this text (which was never completed) questioning recognition of the horizon of validity of objec-
there exists a series of articles and notes from the same tive science is the error that is uncovered only in light of the
period that give the correct picture of what it is that concerns life-world in which it is grounded. The life-world is in princi-
Husserl and drives him on. But the composition of the Crisis ple an intuitively given world, given, of course, only in the
itself confirms it also. Husserl speaks almost apologetically of flowing and fluctuating of its streaming horizon, while the
historical investigations that became unavoidable with his world of science has rather the symbolic givenness of a logical
recognition of the great wealth of subjective-relative life- substruction that can no more be given by itself than the
worlds. infinite series of numbers.t
The historical investigation that he undertakes in this Thus the life-world has the universal structure of a finite,
respect concerns the origins of scientific objectivism in the subjective-relative world with indeterminately open horizons.
physics of Galileo, who was fully aware of the specific By starting from our own finite life-woild and our historical
problematic and idealization grounding the natural sciences. recollection of its well-defined variations since classical
Husserl's analysis is a genetic ideal-typical construction and Greece and by limiting the objective a priori of the world of
treats Descartes, Hume, and Kant under the norm of the science, we can disclose the life-world in its validity. But can
ultimate founding of transcendental phenomenology, espe- it be doubted that the a priori of the life-world too becomes
cially as it pertains to the life-world. Admittedly, the over- accessible in the old phenomenological fashion by varying
looking of the life-world and the lack of radicalness in Kant's and methodically changing our examples?"}-1 The very self-
transcendentalism and in Neo-Kantianism comes from the
narrowness of their concept of scientific experience, but does *K, p. 499.
it follow from this that the new thematic of the life-world **K, p. 500.
t * . p. 131 (ET.p. 127).
cannot be investigated apart from historical clarifications? tfCf. K, p. 383 (ET, p. 375).
 194 PHENOMENOLOGY THE SCIENCE OF THE LIFE-WORLD 195
interpretation of the historical way that Husserl uses in his Furthermore, the appendices and the preface planned for
analysis of Galileo, written in 1936, treats the starting point the Crisis make it clear enough that external, contemporary
in his own life-world merely as his access to the aeterna reasons led Husserl, after the general discovery of the a priori
Veritas * and it certainly takes a firm grasp of the transcen- of the life-world and its historicity, to attach historical con-
dental meaning of the ego - as the pure working ego [Voll- siderations to this "new way of transcendental reduction."
zugs-Ich] - to disentangle the paradoxes that result from Their purpose is to oppose the spirit of the time and the
the continuing validity of the life-world for every imaginable historical skepticism it entailed. The names of Scheler and of
I. The text of the article makes that sufficiently clear. Heidegger are mentioned* and many reflections are con-
Nevertheless, the differentiation of the science of the life- cerned with the right use of historical studies. But here too
world from the objective science that has determined the way the result is no different than what we find in all the other
of human civilization from the time of the Greeks is not an ways of Husserl's thinking: transcendental phenomenology
arbitrary one. For objective science is a factor in our own (and the transformation of philosophy into phenomenology),
life-world. It is a factor that can be understood by historical is the final meaning of the history of philosophy.
exploration of its origin and its limits of validity, and the To summarize all the texts published in the sixth volume
prejudices involved in it can be overcome. Rigorous science in of the Husserliana, Husserl would agree with Oskar Becker,
the sense that the young Husserl professed and never revoked who formulated it long ago, namely, that the contribution of
may indeed be science, but a new style of science, namely a Being and Time to the problematic was restricted to the
universal account and self-examination based on a change of "fixing of horizons" of historical existence left open by
attitude and certainly not derived from the idea of objective Husserl himself. And the claim of rigorous science remains
science but from the situational cognition involved in the untouched. Self-reflection culminates in a knowledge for
direct form of life-interests. This is nothing new. But one everyone, and, Husserl adds proudly, in a "universal praxis"
must concede that in a certain sense Husserl's own lifelong of humanity that is ready to be led consciously by phenome-
task changed the moment he entered the way of historical nology.**
self-clarification, thematizing the personal life-world presup- Really? Is this the way to bridge the growing gulf between
positions of philosophizing. This way is presented in the practical, political judgment and the anonymous validity of
Crisis. Nevertheless, without any doubt this new way leads to science? Can phenomenology prescribe and determine the
the old goal of transcendental phenomenology, a goal that is ways of men in the "life-world" by recommending that they
firmly based in the transcendental ego (and its self-constitu- follow the philosopher, who finds his own justification in
tion as ego). This way alone is rigorous science, clearly not in surveying the complex relations between the "practical
the traditional sense of science or traditional philosophy, but knowledge" that underlies and determines human activities in
in the sense of a new will to live, " t o become acquainted with the life-world and the proud and rigorous science - science
oneself in one's former and predetermined future being**But "in a new style" - that is grounded in transcendental phe-
this aim is the old one of an ultimate and absolute self-cogni- nomenology? It was the ultimate aim of the lifelong thinking
tion, and in it one hears the old familiar tones. The life-world of Husserl to become a worthy philosopher. And perhaps this
in all its flexibility and relativity can be the theme of a goal seemed to him to be attainable through his insight into
universal science, but not, of course, as a general theory in the mutual interweaving of the basic reality of the life-world
the form of traditional philosophy or traditional science.t and the speculative, ultimate grounding in the transcendental
ego. Whoever will become a philosopher must give an account
*K, p. 385 (ET, p. 377).
**K, p. 472. *K, p. 439.
\K, p. 462 (ET, pp. 382-383).
**K, p. 503.
 THE SCIENCE OF THE LIFE-WORLD 197
196 PHENOMENOLOGY
future of humanity, however, demands that we do not simpW
of all his prejudices and all his self-evident assumptions, and
do everything we can but that we require rational just.fica-
his "Sitz im Leben" is determined by this requirement as his
own unique act. tion foTwhat we should do. In this sense, 1 agree with the
What I am alluding to here is the problem of the self-refer- T r a impulse that lies at the basis of Husserl's idea of a new
ential character of phenomenology, a problem Husserl him- End of life-world praxis, but I would like to connect it with
self reflected upon. It became entangled, however, in the tie ok1 impulse o f an authentic practial and political com-
dubious question of science and praxis "in a new style" that mon sense.
is described above. Actually it was only in Heidegger's onto-
logical critique of the concepts of subjectivity and objectivity
that we acquired the philosophical means for uncovering the
illusion that persisted undetected in Neo-Kantianism, and not
in it alone. It is the illusion that from science - in whatever
style rational decisions can be derived that would consti-
tute a "universal praxis." Even if Heidegger's own question
aimed in an altogether different direction and cripples the
relation of philosophy to the sciences in a dangerous way, we
are nonetheless indebted to him for rehabilitating the "modes
of knowledge" implied in Aristotle's concept of phronesis
and in his critique of Plato's knowledge of the good, a
tradition that, as philosophia practica, continued all the way
into the eighteenth century before losing its legitimacy. It is a
mistake to consider the knowledge that is behind our prac-
tical decisions nothing other than the application of sci-
ence — no matter how much the application of science enters
into our practical knowledge. In light of this fact, the notion
of the "life-world" has a revolutionary power that explodes
the framework of Husserl's transcendental thinking. What
confronts us here is not a synthesis of theory and practice
nor science in a new style, but rather the prior, practical-
political limitation of the monopolistic claims of science and
a new critical consciousness with respect to the scientific
character of philosophy itself. As early as the prolegomena to
his Logical Investigations (1900), a certain ambiguity is pres-
ent in Husserl's notion of the application of science. If the
application of science were simply the problem of how, with
the help of science, we might do everything we can do, then
it is certainly not the application we need as human beings
who are responsible for the future. For science as such will
never prevent us from doing anything we are able to do. The
 HEIDEGGER AND MARBURG THEOLOGY 199

cal controversy was beginning at that time! On the one side,

there was the dignified reserve of Rudolf Otto; on the other,
the sharp and gripping exegesis of Rudolf Bultmann. On the
one side, there was Nicolai Hartmann's finely chiselled
thought; on the other, the breath-taking radicalism of the
Heideggerian questions, which brought theology too under its
spell. In its earliest form, Being and Time was an address that
Heidegger gave before the theological community in Marburg
Martin Heidegger and Marburg in 1924.
What Heidegger expressed in his discussion of the Thurney-
Theology (1964) sen address can be traced through to the present day as a
central motif of his thinking: the problem of language. No
ground had been prepared for this theme in Marburg. The
Marburg School, which for decades had been distinguished
within contemporary Neo-Kantian circles for its methodolog-
ical rigor, had concentrated on the philosophical foundation
of the sciences. It assumed without question that what can be
Let us turn our thoughts back to the 1920s, to that tension- known is really grasped by the sciences alone, and that the
filled time when the theological break with historical and objectification of experience by science completely fulfills
liberal theology took place in Marburg, to the time when the the meaning of knowledge. The purity of the concept, the
philosophical abandonment of Neo-Kantianism occurred, the exactness of the mathematical formula, the triumph of the
Marburg School dissolved, and new stars arose in the philo- infinitesimal method - these were the philosophical concerns
sophical heavens. It was at that time that Eduard Thurneysen of the Marburg School, not the intermediary realm of fluctu-
delivered an address to the theological community in Mar- ating linguistic configurations. Even when Ernst Cassirer
burg. For the younger of us, he was a first herald of dia- brought the phenomenon of language into the program of
lectical theology in Marburg and after this address he received Marburg Neo-Kantian idealism, he did so under the meth-
the more or less hesitant blessing of the Marburg theologians. odological principle of objectification. To be sure, his Philos-
The young Heidegger also took a part in that discussion. He ophy of Symbolic Forms had nothing to do with a methodol-
had just come to Marburg as an assistant professor, and even ogy of the sciences. It saw myth and language as symbolic
today I find unforgettable the way he concluded his contri- forms, as configurations of objective spirit, and yet in such
bution to the discussion of Thurneysen's address. After evok- fashion that they should have their methodological basis in a
1

ing the Christian skepticism of Franz Overbeck, he said it is fundamental dimension of transcendental consciousness.
the true task of theology, which must be discovered once At the same time phenomenology began to attract atten-
again, to seek the word that is able to call one to faith and tion in Marburg. Max Scheler's founding of the ethics of
preserve one in faith. A genuine Heidegger-statement, full of material value, which was connected with a vigorous critique
ambiguity. In speaking these words, Heidegger seemed to be of the formalism of Kantian moral philosophy, had already
posing a task for theology. Yet perhaps he conjured up more left a deep impression on Nicolai Hartmann, who represented
than Overbeck's attack on the theology of his time, for his 2
the avant-garde in the Marburg School of that time. Scheler
statement reflected a despair at the possibility of theology had shown persuasively - as had Hegel a century earlier -
itself. What a turbulent epoch of philosophical and theologi- that it is simply not possible to approach the whole range of

198
 200 PHENOMENOLOGY HEIDEGGER AND MARBURG THEOLOGY 201

ethical phenomena by starting with the phenomenon of the Heidegger's preoccupation with Aristotle was a critical and
"ought" in the imperative form of ethics. In the field of destructive one. At that time, however, this purpose was not
moral philosophy, therefore, a basic limitation of the subjec- so clear. The remarkable phenomenological power of intui-
tive starting point of transcendental consciousness came to tion Heidegger brought to his interpretation liberated the
light. The consciousness of the "ought" could not encompass original Aristotelian text so profoundly and strikingly from
the entire domain of moral value. But the phenomenological the sedimentations of the scholastic tradition and from the
school had an even stronger impact by no longer sharing the lamentably distorted image of Aristotle contained in the
Marburg School's orientation to the facts of the sciences as criticism of the time (Cohen loved to say, "Aristotle was an
self-evident. It went behind scientific experience and the apothecary") that it began to speak in an unexpected way.
categorical analysis of its methods, and it brought the natural Perhaps what happened then, not only to the students, but to
experience of life - that is, what the later Husserl named Heidegger himself, was that the power of Aristotle, though an
with his now-famous expression, the "life-world" - into the adversary, came to dominate him for a time. Indeed, 3

foreground of its phenomenological investigation. Both the Heidegger's interpretation took this risk, true to the Platonic
turning away from imperative ethics in moral philosophy and axiom of making the opponent's position stronger. For 4

the abandonment of the methodologism of the Marburg

what else is interpretation in philosophy but coming to terms
School had their theological parallels. When the problem of
with the truth of the text and risking oneself by exposure to
speaking of God was reawakened, the foundations of system-
it?
atic and historical theology were shaken. Rudolf Bultmann's
I became aware of something of this for the first time
critique of myth, his concept of the mythical picture of the
when I met Heidegger in 1923. At that time he was still in
world, especially to the extent that it is still dominant in the
Freiburg, and I participated in his seminar on Aristotle's
New Testament, was at the same time a critique of the total
Nichomachean Ethics. We studied the analysis of phronesis.
claim of objectifying thinking. Bultmann's concept of having
Heidegger pointed out to us in the text of Aristotle that
something at one's disposal [Verfiigbarkeit], with which he
every techne poses an intrinsic limit: its knowledge is not a
sought to encompass both the procedure of historical science
full uncovering of something because the work it knows how
and mythical thinking, plainly forms the counterconcept to
to produce is delivered into the uncertainty of a use over
the authentically theological expression.
which it does not preside. Then he began to discuss the
And now Heidegger appeared in Marburg. No matter what difference that distinguishes all such knowledge, and espe-
he lectured on — whether Descartes or Aristotle, Plato or cially mere doxa, from phronesis: Xf?0n 717c p.ev roiaurnc
Kant formed the starting point - his analysis always pene- e£ecoc COTLV, (Ppouijoecjq 6e ova £OTIV.S
We were unsure of
trated behind the concealments of traditional concepts to the this sentence and completely unfamiliar with the Greek con-
most primordial experience of Dasein. An early manuscript, cepts; as we groped for an interpretation, he declared
which Heidegger had sent to Paul Natorp in 1922, and which brusquely: "That is the conscience!" This is not the place to
I read, attests well to this fact. (It was a basic introduction to reduce the pedagogical overstatement involved in this asser-
the interpretation of Aristotle, prepared by Heidegger, and it tion to its proper proportions, and even less, to indicate the
spoke especially of the young Luther, of Gabriel Biel and of logical and ontological force that the analysis of phronesis
Augustine. Heidegger would surely have called it a working actually had in Aristotle. Today it is clear what Heidegger
out of the hermeneutical situation: it tried to make the found in it. and what so fascinated him in Aristotle's critique
reader aware of the questions and the intellectual resistance of Plato's idea of the Good and the Aristotelian concept of
with which we confront Aristotle, that master of the tradi- practical knowledge. They described a mode of knowledge
6
tion.) Today no one would doubt that the basic purpose in (an eiooc, 7t>tooecoc) that could no longer be based in any
 202 PHENOMENOLOGY HEIDEGGER AND MARBURG THEOLOGY 203

way on a final objectifiability in the sense of science. They transcendental constitution, already gone beyond the realm
described, in other words, a knowledge within the concrete of explicit objectifications. Husserl spoke of anonymous in-
situation of existence. Could Aristotle perhaps even help in tentionalities, that is, conceptual intentions in which some-
overcoming the ontological prejudice in the Greek concept of thing is intended and posited as ontically valid, of which no
Logos, which Heidegger later interpreted temporally as pres- one is conscious thematically as individually intended and
ence-at-hand and presence [Anwesenheit]"? The violent rend- performed, which nonetheless are binding for everyone. Thus
ing of the Aristotelian text here recalls Heidegger's own what we call the stream of consciousness is built up in
thematic concerns. In Being and Time, for instance, it is the internal time consciousness. The horizon of the life-world too
call of conscience that first makes "Dasein in m a n " manifest in is such a product of anonymous intentionalities. Neverthe-
its ontological and temporal event-structure. Of course it was less, not only the scholastic distinction that Heidegger cited
only much later that Heidegger defined his concept of Dasein but also the Husserlian constitutional analysis of the anony-
in terms of the "clearing," and thus disengaged it from all mous "accomplishments" of transcendental consciousness
7
transcendental reflection. Could the word of faith also ulti- proceeded from the unrestricted universality of reason, which
mately find a new philosophical legitimation by means of can clarify each and every thing intended in constitutional
Heidegger's criticism of the logos and of the traditional analysis, that is, can make them into the object of an explicit
understanding of being as presence-at-hand? In somewhat the act of intending - in other words, objectify them.
same way, later on Heidegger's "remembrance" [Andenken] In contrast to this objectification, Heidegger himself went
never allows us to forget entirely its old proximity to "devo- resolutely in quite another direction. He pursued the intrinsic
tion" [Andacht], which Hegel had already observed. Was and indissoluable interinvolvement of authenticity and in-
that the ultimate meaning of his ambiguous contribution to authenticity, of truth and error, and the concealment that is
the Thurneysen discussion? essential to and accompanies every disclosure and that intrin-
Later, in Marburg, a similar instance attracted our atten- sically contradicts the idea of total objectifiability. The direc-
tion. Heidegger was dealing with a scholastic distinction and tion in which this carried him is clearly indicated by the
spoke of the difference between the actus signatus and the insight that instructed us and moved us most deeply in those
6
actus exercitus. These scholastic concepts correspond ap- times, namely, that the most primordial mode in which the
9

proximately to the concepts "reflective" and "direct" and past is present is not remembering, but forgetting. Heideg-
mean, for instance, the difference between the act of ques- ger's ontological opposition to Husserl's transcendental sub-
tioning and the possibility of directing attention explicitly to jectivity becomes evident at the very center of the phenome-
the questioning as questioning. The one can lead over into nology of internal time consciousness. Indeed, in contrast to
the other. One can designate the questioning as questioning, the role that memory played in Brentano's analysis of time,
and hence not only question but also say that one questions, Husserl's analysis sought the more precise phenomenological
and say that such and such is questionable. To nullify this differentiation of explicit recollection (which always implies
transition from the immediate and direct into the reflective a "having-been-perceived") from the actual existence of the
intention seemed to us at that time to be a way to freedom. present that is retained in the process of sinking away into
It promised a liberation from the unbreakable circle of reflec- the past, and that Husserl called "retentional consciousness."
tion and a recapturing of the evocative power of conceptual All consciousness of time and of entities in time rests on the
10

thinking and philosophical language, which would secure for function of retentional consciousness. To be sure, these
philosophical thinking a rank alongside poetic use of lan- were " a n o n y m o u s " functions but precisely functions of a
guage. keeping-present, of a stopping, as it were, of the process of
passing away. The now, which emerges out of the future and
Certainly Husserl's phenomenology had, in its analysis of
 204 PHENOMENOLOGY HEIDEGGER A N D MARBURG THEOLOGY 205

sinks into the past, is still understood in terms of the pres- radical abandonment of the "clearing" and the "disclosed-
ent-at-hand. In contrast to this, Heidegger had in view the ness" that were oriented toward the self-understanding of
primordial ontological dimension of time that lies in the Dasein. For even if this holding-in-itself of the ready-to-hand
fundamental dynamic of Dasein. From this perspective, light is finally founded in Dasein as the ground [ Worumwillen ] of
is cast on the enigmatic irreversibility of time, which never every involvement, it is nevertheless clear as regards being-in-
permits time to arise but always merely to pass away. the-world itself that its "disclosedness" is not a total trans-
Furthermore it also becomes clear that time has its being not
parency of Dasein, but entails instead an essential domination
in the " n o w " or the succession of nows, but rather in the 12
of indefiniteness. The holding-in-itself of the ready-to-hand
essentially futural character of Dasein. That is obviously the
is not so much a withholding and concealment as it is a
actual experience of. history, the mode in which historicity
being-included and being-saved in the world-relation in which
happens to us. The fact that more happens to one here than
it has its being. The inner tension in which "disclosure"
one does testifies to forgetting. It is one way in which the
stands not only with concealment [ Verbergung] but also
past and passing away demonstrate their reality and power.
with saving \Bergung] also probes, in the final analysis, the
Heidegger's thought clearly pushes out beyond the tran-
dimension in which language appears in its versatile being and
scendental philosophical direction of reflection that, with the
help of Husserl's anonymous intentionalities, had thematized can be of use to the theologian in his understanding of the
these structures of temporality as the consciousness of in- Word of God.
ternal time and its self-construction. In fact, in the end, the In the realm of theology too the concept of self-under-
critique of the ontological prejudice involved in the Aris- standing experienced a corresponding transformation. The
totelian concept of being and substance, and in the modern self-understanding of faith - the main concern of Protestant
concept of the subject, necessarily brought about the dissolu- theology - clearly cannot be grasped appropriately through
tion of the idea of transcendental reflection itself. the transcendental concept of self-understanding. We are ac-
quainted with this concept from transcendental idealism.
This actus exercitus in which reality is experienced in a Fichte, especially, proclaimed that his Wissenschaftslehre had
quite unreflective way — for example, the experience of the consistently carried through the transcendental idealism that
tool in the inconspicuousness of its actual use, or of the past understands itself. One recalls his critique of Kant's concept
in the inconspicuousness of its receding — is not transformed 13
of the thing-in-itself. In his critique, Fichte declared, with
into a signified act without a new concealment. The upshot characteristically scornful coarseness, that if Kant had under-
of Heidegger's analysis of Dasein as being-in-the-world was stood himself, then only such and such could have been
rather that the being of beings experienced in this way, and meant by "thing-in-itself." If Kant did not think that, then
especially the worldliness of the world, is not encountered he was only a half-wit and no thinker at all. 14
Hence at the
objectively. Rather, it conceals itself in an essential way. basis of the concept of self-understanding lies the fact that all
Being and Time had already discussed the holding-in-itself of dogmatic assumptions are dissolved by the inner self-produc-
the ready-to-hand [Ansichhalten des Zuhandenen) upon tion of reason, so that at the end of this self-construction of
which "being-in-itself" [Ansichsein] - unexplainable in the transcendental subject it is totally transparent to itself. It
11
terms of being-present-at-hand - ultimately rests. The is astounding how close Husserl's idea of transcendental phe-
being of the ready-to-hand is not simply a concealment and nomenology comes t o this requirement set by Fichte and
concealedness whose disclosure and disclosedness is at issue. Hegel.
Its " t r u t h " — its authentic, undisguised being obviously lies
For theology, however, such a concept could not be re-
precisely in its inconspicuousness, unobtrusiveness, inob-
tained without transformation. For if anything is inseparable
stinacy. Here already in Being and Time were hints of a
from the idea of revelation, it is precisely this: man cannot
 206 PHENOMENOLOGY HEIDEGGER AND MARBURG THEOLOGY 207

reach an understanding of himself by his own means. It is an scribe a neutral anthropological basic constitution in terms of
age-old motif of faith, which already pervades Augustine's which the call of faith could be interpreted "existentially,"
reflection on his life, that all of man's efforts to understand independently of its content, and within the fundamental
himself out of himself, and in terms of the world over which dynamics of existence. It was therefore precisely the tran-
he presides as his own, ultimately founder. It would seem, in scendental philosophical conception of Being and Time that
fact, that the word and concept "self-understanding" owe fit in with his theological thinking. Of course it was no longer
their first use to a Christian experience. We find both in the the old idealistic concept of self-understanding and its cul-
correspondence between Hamann and his friend Jakobi. mination in "absolute knowledge" that could represent the a
From the standpoint of a pietistic certainty of faith, Hamann priori of the experience of faith. For what the conceptual
tries to convince his friend that he can never reach a genuine interpretation of the event of faith had to make possible was
self-understanding with his philosophy and the role that faith the a priori of an event - the a priori of the historicity and
15
plays in i t . By "genuine self-understanding," Hamann obvi- finitude of human Dasein. And it was just this interpretation
ously means more than the complete self-transparency pos- of Dasein in terms of temporality that Heidegger achieved.
sessed by thought in harmony with itself. Rather, self-under- It is beyond my competence to discuss here the exegetical
standing contains historicity as a determining aspect. Some- fruitfulness of the Bultmannian approach. It was certainly a
thing happens and has happened to one who attains true triumph of the new existential exegesis that Paul and John
self-understanding. Thus the meaning of the self-understand- were interpreted, with the rigorous methods of historical
ing of faith is that the believer is conscious of his dependence philology, in terms of their self-understanding of the faith.
upon God. He gains insight into the impossibility of under- Precisely in such an interpretation the kerygmatic meaning of
standing himself in terms of what he has at his disposal. the New Testament proclamation was brought to its highest
In his concept of having something at one's disposal and fulfillment.
the necessary shattering of any self-understanding founded Meanwhile, Heidegger's way of thinking went in the op-
on it, Bultmann put Heidegger's ontological critique of the posite direction. Transcendental philosophical self-knowledge
philosophical tradition to work for theological purposes. He proved to be ever more inappropriate to the inner concern of
delineated the position of the Christian faith over against the Heidegger's thought - the concern that drove him on from
self-consciousness implicit in Greek philosophy. In keeping the very beginning. The discussion that arose later on, regard-
with his own scholarly background, however, Greek philoso- ing the turn [Kehre] that eliminated every existential sense
phy, for him, was the philosophy of the Hellenistic age, and from the language of Dasein's authenticity, and thus obliter-
his attention focused not on ontological foundations but on ated the concept of authenticity itself, could no longer be
existential self-understanding. In particular, Greek philos- combined, it seems to me, with Bultmann's basic theological
ophy meant the Stoic ideal of self-control, interpreted as the concern. In this way, however, Heidegger was now really
ideal of complete self-sufficiency and criticized as untenable approaching for the first time the dimension in which his
from the point of view of Christianity. From this point of early demand (that theology find the word that not only calls
departure, under the influence of Heideggerian thinking, one to faith but would also be able to preserve one in faith)
Bultmann explicated his position by means of the concepts could find fulfillment. If the call to faith - the claim that
of inauthenticity and authenticity. Dasein that has fallen into challenges the complacency of the I and compels it to self-
the world, that understands itself in terms of what is at its examination in faith — could be interpreted as self-under-
disposal, is called to conversion and experiences the turn to standing, perhaps a language of faith that could preserve one
authenticity in the shattering of its self-sufficiency. For Bult- in faith was something else. It was just this language for
mann, the transcendental analytic of Dasein seemed to de- which a new foundation was sketched out ever more clearly
 208 PHENOMENOLOGY HEIDEGGER AND MARBURG THEOLOGY 209

in Heidegger's thought, namely, truth as an event containing study of the older hermeneutics of the seventeenth and
its own error within itself, a disclosure that is concealment eighteenth centuries. Can the mens auctoris, what the author
and thus at the same time saving, and also the celebrated meant, be acknowledged in an unqualified way as the stan-
phrase from the Letter on Humanism, that language is the dard for understanding a text? If we give a broad and sym-
"house of being." All of this points beyond the horizon of pathetic interpretation to this hermeneutical axiom, it cer-
any self-understanding, be it ever so frail and historical. tainly contains something convincing. That is, if by "what
Yet one can also advance in the same direction from the the author m e a n t " we understand "what in general he could
experience of understanding and the historicity of self-under- have m e a n t " — what lay within his own individual historical
standing, and it is at this point that my own efforts to horizon — and therefore exclude "whatever could not have
16

develop a philosophical hermeneutic began. First of all, the occurred to him at all," then this axiom seems s o u n d . It
experience of art presents indisputable evidence for the fact protects interpretation from anachronisms, from arbitrary
that self-understanding does not yield an adequate horizon of interpolations and illegitimate applications. It seems to form-
interpretation. This fact is certainly no new piece of wisdom ulate the ethic of the historical consciousness, the con-
for the experience of art. Even the concept of genius, upon scientiousness of the historical mind.
which the modern philosophy of art has been founded since However, if one considers the interpretation of texts to-
Kant, contained unconsciousness as an essential ingredient. gether with the understanding and experience of the work of
For Kant, there is an inner parallel between nature's creativ- art, then this axiom too still involves something that is
ity, whose forms favor us with and establish for men the fundamentally questionable. There may also be historically
miracle of beauty, and the genius, who, like a favorite of appropriate and to that extent authentic modes of experience
nature, creates what is exemplary unconsciously and without of the work of art. But the experience of art surely cannot be
the application of rules. It is a necessary result of this restricted to them. Precisely because we hold fast to the
account that the artist's self-interpretation is deprived of its historical task of integration that is posed for every experi-
legitimation. When such interpretive declarations by the artist ence of the work of art as human experience, we may not
do arise, they are the product of subsequent reflection,, in embrace completely a Pythagorizing aesthetic. Nonetheless,
which the artist has no particular privilege over against any- we must acknowledge that the work of art represents a
one else who confronts his work. Such declarations of the structure of meaning of a unique kind, whose ideality ap-
artist are indeed documents, and in certain circumstances proaches the unhistorical dimension of the mathematical. 1 7

constitute points of departure for subsequent interpretation. Our experience and interpretation is obviously in no sense
But they do not have a canonical status. limited by the mens auctoris. Now when we add that the
inner unity of understanding and interpreting, which the
The consequences become even more decisive, however,
romantics had already exhibited, transports the object of
when we look beyond the limits of the aesthetics of genius
understanding - whether a work of art, a text or whatever
and Erlebnis-art, and consider that the interpreter belongs
kind of tradition - into the present and brings it again to
intrinsically to the movement of meaning of the work. For
speech in its own language, then I think I see certain theologi-
then even the standard of an unconscious canon that is seen
cal consequences adumbrated.
in the "miracle of the creative m i n d " is given up. The whole
universality of the hermeneutical phenomenon appears be- The kerygmatic meaning of the New Testament, which
hind the experience of art. gives the form of application of the pro me to the gospel,
In fact, a deeper penetration into the historicity of all cannot ultimately contradict the legitimate investigation of
understanding necessarily leads in this direction. An insight meaning by historical science. This is, I contend, an unalter-
with important implications emerges, especially from the able requirement of the scientific consciousness. It is impossi-
 210 PHENOMENOLOGY HEIDEGGER AND MARBURG THEOLOGY 211
18
ble to assume a relation of mutual exclusion between the yew) no longer holds a prominent position in herme-
meaning and the salvation-meaning of a scriptural text. But neutics. What is at issue here is not even basically a matter of
can it be a question here at all of a mutual exclusion? Does translating, at least not from one language to another. The
not the intended meaning of the New Testament authors - hopeless inadequacy of all translations can well illustrate the
even what they may concretely have in mind — move in the difference we have in mind. When one who understands
direction of the meaning of salvation for which one reads the attempts to explicate his comprehension, he is not in the
Bible? This is not to say that an adequate and appropriate unfree situation of the translator, who must coordinate his
self-understanding is to be attributed to their statements. efforts word for word with a given text. He participates in
They belong completely to the genre which Franz Overbeck the freedom that belongs to actual speaking, which is to say
characterized as Urliteratur. If by the meaning of a text we what the text means. Certainly every understanding is only
understand the mens auctoris, that is, the " a c t u a l " horizon of "underway"; it never comes entirely t o an end.. And yet a
understanding of the original Christian writers, then we do whole of meaning is present in the free achievement of saying
the New Testament authors a false honor. Their honor should what is meant - even in what the interpreter means. Under-
lie precisely in the fact that they proclaim something that standing that is linguistically articulated has free space
surpasses their own horizon of understanding — even if they around it which it fills in constant response to the word
are named John or Paul. addressing it, without filling it o u t completely. "There is
This assertion in no way entails an uncontrollable theory much to say" is the basic hermeneutical relation. Interpreta-
of inspiration or pneumatic exegesis. Such things would dissi- tion is not a subsequent fixing of fleeting meanings - any-
pate the gain in knowledge that we derive from New Testa- more than speaking is something of that sort. What comes to
ment scholarship. In fact, however, it is not a question of a language, even in literary tradition, is not some sort of
theory of interpretation. That becomes clear if we consider meanings as such, but rather by means of it, the very experi-
the hermeneutical situation of theology together with that of ence of the world, which always entails the whole of our
jurisprudence, with the human studies and with the experi- historical tradition. Tradition is always porous for what is
ence of art, as I have done in my efforts toward a philo- handed on [tradiert] in it. Not only the word that theology
sophical hermeneutic. Nowhere does understanding mean the must seek but every answer to the address of tradition is a
mere recovery of what the author " m e a n t , " whether he was word, a word that preserves.
the creator of a work of art, the doer of a deed, the writer of
a law book, or anything else. The mens auctoris does not
limit the horizon of understanding in which the interpreter NOTES
has to move, indeed, in which he is necessarily moved, if,
instead of merely repeating, he really wants to understand. 1. For Cassirer's discussion of this point, see his Philosophy of
Symbolic Forms, vol. 1 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1 9 5 3 ) , pp.
The surest testimony to this seems to me to lie in the 7 3 - 1 1 4 . (Trans.)
character of language. Not only does all interpretation occur 2. Cf. N. Hartmann's review of the JPPF, vol. 1, in Die Geisteswis-
within the medium of language, but insofar as it has to do senschaften, vol. I ( 1 9 1 4 ) , pp. 3 5 , 97 ff. Also cf. Hartmann, Kleine
with linguistic forms it also carries over the form of what is Schriften, vol. Ill (Berlin: DeGruyter, 1 9 5 8 ) , pp. 3 6 5 ff.
3. In this connection, one might consider the reference to Aris-
understood into its own linguistic world when it raises it into
totle's Nichomachean Ethics VI and Metaphysics XII in SuZ, p. 2 2 5 .
its own understanding. That is not a secondary act standing
4. Plato, Sophist 2 4 6 d .
over against "understanding" as such. Since Schleiermacher, 5. Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, VI, 9, 1149b 2 9 .
the ancient distinction that was always maintained by the 6. Ibid., 1 1 4 1 , 6 3 3 ff.
Greeks between "thinking" (voeip) and "expressing" (Xe- 7. That the Aristotelian concept of 0ucncwas at the same time also
 212 PHENOMENOLOGY

important for Heidegger is clear in his interpretation of Aristotle's

Physics BI. Cf. Heidegger in II Pensiero (Milan-Varese, 1958).
8. On the historical background of this distinction, cf. "The Philo-
sophical Foundations of the Twentieth Century."
9. Cf. SuZ, p. 3 3 9 .
10. Cf. Husserl, "Vorlesungen zur Phanomenologie des inneren
Zeitbewusstseins," ed. by Martin Heidegger, in JPPF, IX ( 1 9 2 8 ) , . p p

395 ff. ET by James S. Churchill, The Phenomenology of Internal Time

Consciousness (Bloomington, Ind.: University o f Indiana Press, 1964),
pp. 57 ff. Heidegger's Later Philosophy (1960)
11. Cf. SuZ, p. 7 5 .
12. SuZ, p. 3 0 8 .
13. Cf. Johann Gottlieb Fichte, "Zweite Einleitung in die Wissen-
schaftslehre," in Sammtliche Werke, ed. I. H. Fichte, vol. I, pp. 471 f.,
4 7 4 ff., 4 8 2 . ff.
14. Ibid., p. 4 8 2 .
15. Cf. the Heidelberg dissertation of Renate Knoll, "J. G. Hamann
und Fr. H. Jacobi," Heidelberger Forschungen, vol. 7 (Heidelberg: Karl
Winter Verlag, 1963).
16. Cf. Chladenius, quoted in WM, p. 172.
When we look back today on the time between the two
17. When Oskar Becker wishes t o play the "Pythagorean" truth off
against my attempt to interpret the aesthetic experience hermeneuti- world wars, we can see that this pause within the turbulent
cally t o o , he touches no really controversial issue. Cf. Becker, "Die events of our century represents a period of extraordinary
Fragwurdigkeit des Transzendierung der asthetischen Dimension der creativity. Omens of what was to come could be seen even
Kunst," in PhR X ( 1 9 6 2 ) , pp. 2 2 5 - 2 3 8 , esp. p . 2 3 7 .
before the catastrophe of World War I, particularly in paint-
18. This distinction first appears in Parmenides's didactic p o e m . Cf.
ing and architecture. But for the most part, the general
H. Diels, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 5th ed., 2, 7 f., 8, 3 5 f.
awareness of the time was transformed only by the terrible
shock that the slaughters of World War I brought t o the
cultural consciousness and to the faith in progress of the
liberal era. In the philosophy of the day, this transformation
of general sensibilities was marked by the fact that with one
blow the dominant philosophy that had grown up in the
second half of the nineteenth century in renewal of Kant's
critical idealism was rendered untenable. "The collapse of
German idealism," as Paul Ernst called it in a popular book
of the time,* was placed in a world-historical context by
Oswald Spengler's The Decline of the West. The forces that
carried out the critique of this dominant Neo-Kantian philos-
ophy had two powerful precursors: Friedrich Nietzsche's
critique of Platonism and Christendom, and Soren Kierke-
gaard's brilliant attack on the Reflexionsphilosophie of spec-
if. Paul Ernst, Der Zusammenbruch des deutschen Idealismus. (Munich: G.
Midler, 1918).

213
 214 PHENOMENOLOGY HEIDEGGER'S LATER PHILOSOPHY 215
ulative idealism. Two new philosophical catchwords con- cation and public relations that manipulated everything.
fronted the Neo-Kantian preoccupation with methodology. Heidegger contrasted the concept of the authenticity of
One was the irrationality of life, and of historical life in Dasein, which is aware of its finitude and resolutely accepts
particular. In connection with this notion, one could refer to it, with the "They," "idle chatter" and "curiosity," as fallen
Nietzsche and Bergson, but also to the great historian of and inauthentic forms of Dasein. The existential seriousness
philosophy Wilhelm Dilthey. The other catchword was Exis- with which he brought the age-old riddle of death to the
tenz, a term that rang forth from the works of S^ren Kierke- center of philosophical concern, and the force with which his
gaard, the Danish philosopher of the first part of the nine- challenge to the real "choice" of existence smashed the
teenth century, whose influence was only beginning to be felt illusory world of education and culture, disrupted well-pre-
in Germany as a result of the Diedrichs translation. Just as served academic tranquility. And yet his was not the voice of
Kierkegaard had criticized Hegel as the philosopher of reflec- a reckless stranger to the academic world - not the voice of a
tion who had forgotten existence, so now the complacent bold and lonely thinker in the style of Kierkegaard or Nietz-
system-building of Neo-Kantian methodologism, which had sche - but of a pupil of the most distinguished and conscien-
placed philosophy entirely in the service of establishing sci- tious philosophical school that existed in the German univer-
entific cognition, came under critical attack. And just as sities of the time. Heidegger was a pupil of Edmund Husserl,
Kierkegaard — a Christian thinker — had stepped forward to who pursued tenaciously the goal of establishing philosophy
oppose the philosophy of idealism, so now the radical self- as a rigorous science. Heidegger's new philosophical effort
criticism of the so-called dialectical theology opened the new also joined in the battle cry of phenomenology, "To the
epoch. things themselves." The thing he aimed at, however, was the
Among the forces that gave philosophical expression to the most concealed question of philosophy, one that for the
general critique of liberal culture-piety and the prevailing most part had been forgotten: What is being? In order to
academic philosophy was the revolutionary genius of the learn how to ask this question, Heidegger proceeded to define
young Heidegger. Heidegger's appearance as a young teacher the being of human Dasein in an ontologically positive way,
at Freiburg University in the years just after World War I instead of understanding it as "merely finite," that is, in
created a profound sensation. The extraordinarily forceful terms of an infinite and always existing Being, as previous
and profound language that resounded from the rostrum in metaphysics had done. The ontological priority that the
Freiburg already betrayed the emergence of an original philo- being of human Dasein acquired for Heidegger defined his
sophical power. Heidegger's magnum opus, Being and Time, philosophy as "fundamental ontology." Heidegger called the
grew out of his fruitful and intense encounter with contem- ontological determinations of finite human Dasein determina-
porary Protestant theology during his appointment at Mar- tions of existence "existentials." With methodical precision,
burg in 1923. Published in 1927, this book effectively com- he contrasted these basic concepts with the categories of the
municated to a wide public something of the new spirit that present-at-hand that had dominated previous metaphysics.
had engulfed philosophy as a result of the convulsions of When Heidegger raised once again the ancient question of the
World War I. The common theme that captured the imagina- meaning of being, he did not want to lose sight of the fact
tion of the time was called existential philosophy. The con- that human Dasein does not have its real being in determin-
temporary reader of Heidegger's first systematic work was able presence-at-hand, but rather in the dynamic of the care
seized by the vehemence of its passionate protest against the with which it is concerned about its own future and its own
secured cultural world of the older generation and the level- being. Human Dasein is distinguished by the fact that it
ing of all individual forms of life by industrial society, with understands itself in terms of its being. In order not to lose
its ever stronger uniformities and its techniques of communi- sight of the finitude and temporality of human Dasein, which
 216 PHENOMENOLOGY HEIDEGGER'S LATER PHILOSOPHY 217

cannot ignore the question of the meaning of its being, general public as the first essay in Holzwege. * For it had long
Heidegger defined the question of the meaning of being been the case that Heidegger's lectures and addresses had
within the horizon of time. The present-at-hand, which sci- everywhere aroused intense interest. Copies and reports of
ence knows through its observations and calculations, and the them were widely disseminated, and they quickly made him
eternal, which is beyond everything human, must both be the focus of the very "idle chatter" that he had characterized
understood in terms of the central ontological certainty of so acrimoniously in Being and Time. In fact, his addresses on
human temporality. This was Heidegger's new approach, but the origin of the work of art caused a philosophical sensation.
his goal of thinking being as time remained so veiled that It was not merely that Heidegger now brought art into the
Being and Time was promptly designated as "hermeneutical basic hermeneutical approach of the self-understanding of
phenomenology," primarily because self-understanding still man in his historicity, nor even that these addresses under-
represented the real foundation of the inquiry. Seen in terms stood art to be the act that founds whole historical worlds (as
of this foundation, the understanding of being that held sway it is understood in the poetic faith of Holderlin and George).
in traditional metaphysics turns out to be a corrupted form Rather, the real sensation caused by Heidegger's new experi-
of the primordial understanding of being that is manifested in ment had to do with the startling new conceptuality that
human Dasein. Being is not simply pure presence or actual boldly emerged in connection with this topic. "World" and
presence-at-hand. It is finite, historical Dasein that " i s " in the " e a r t h " were key terms in Heidegger's discussion. From the
real sense. Then the ready-to-hand has its place within very beginning, the concept of the world had been one of
Dasein's projection of a world, and only subsequently does Heidegger's major hermeneutical concepts. As the referential
the merely present-at-hand receive its place. totality of Dasein's projection, "world" constituted the hori-
But various forms of being that are neither historical nor zon that was preliminary to all projections of Dasein's con-
simply present-at-hand have no proper place within the cern. Heidegger had himself sketched the history of this
framework provided by the hermeneutical phenomenon of concept of the world, and in particular, had called attention
self-understanding: the timelessness of mathematical facts, to and historically legitimated the difference between the
which are not simply observable entities present-at-hand; the anthropological meaning of this concept in the New Testa-
timelessness of nature, whose ever-repeating patterns hold ment (which was the meaning he used himself) and the
sway even in us and determine us in the form of the uncon- concept of the totality of the present-at-hand. The new and
scious; and finally the timelessness of the rainbow of art, startling thing was that this concept of the world now found
which spans all historical distances. All of these seem to a counterconcept in the "earth." As a whole in which human
designate the limits of the possibility of hermeneutical inter- self-interpretation takes place, the concept of the world
pretation that Heidegger's new approach opened up. The could be raised to intuitive clarity out of the self-interpreta-
unconscious, the number, the dream, the sway of nature, the tion of human Dasein, but the concept of the earth sounded
miracle of art — all these seemed to exist only on the periph- a mythical and gnostic note that at best might have its true
ery of Dasein, which knows itself historically and under- home in the world of poetry. At that time Heidegger had
stands itself in terms of itself. They seem to be comprehensi- devoted himself to Holderlin's poetry with passionate in-
ble only as limiting concepts. tensity, and it is clearly from this source that he brought the
concept of the earth into his own philosophy. But with what
It was a surprise, therefore, in 1936, when Heidegger dealt justification? How could Dasein, being-in-the-world, which
with the origin of the work of art in several addresses. This
work had begun to have a profound influence long before it *Cf. Martin Heidegger, "Uber den Ursprung des Kunstwerkes," in Holzwege
was first published in 1950, when it became accessible to the (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1950), pp. 7-68.
 218 PHENOMENOLOGY HEIDEGGER'S LATER PHILOSOPHY 219

understands itself out of its own being, be related ontologi- the aesthetics of Alexander Baumgarten. Then in his third
cally to a concept like the " e a r t h " - this new and radical Critique - the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment — Kant estab-
starting point for all transcendental inquiry? In order to lished the problem of aesthetics in its systematic significance.
answer this question we must return briefly to Heidegger's In the subjective universality of the aesthetic judgment of
earlier work. taste, he discovered the powerful and legitimate claim to
Heidegger's new approach in Being and Time was certainly independence that aesthetic judgment can make over against
not simply a repetition of the spiritualistic metaphysics of the claims of the understanding and morality. The taste of
German idealism. Human Dasein's understanding of itself out the observer can no more be comprehended as the applica-
of its own being is not the self-knowledge of Hegel's absolute tion of concepts, norms, or rules than the genius of the artist
spirit. It is not a self-projection. Rather, it knows that it is can. What sets the beautiful apart cannot be exhibited as a
not master of itself and its own Dasein, but comes upon itself determinate, knowable property of an object, but manifests
in the midst of beings and has to take itself over as it finds itself in a subjective factor: the intensification of the
itself. It is a "thrown-projection." In one of the most brilliant Lebensgefuhl (life-feeling) through the harmonious corre-
phenomenological analyses of Being and Time, Heidegger spondence of imagination and understanding. What we exper-
analyzed this limiting experience of Dasein, which comes ience in beauty - in nature as well as in art - is the total
upon itself in the midst of beings, as "disposition" [Befind- animation and free interplay of all our spiritual powers. The
lichkeit), and he attributed to disposition or mood [Stim- judgment of taste is not knowledge, yet it is not arbitrary. It
mung] the real disclosure of being-in-the-world. What is come involves a claim to universality that can establish the auton-
upon in disposition represents the extreme limit beyond omy of the aesthetic realm. We must acknowledge that this
which the historical self-understanding of human Dasein justification of the autonomy of art was a great achievement
could not advance. There was no way to get from this in the age of the Enlightenment, with its insistence on the
hermeneutical limiting concept of disposition or moodfulness sanctity of rules and moral orthodoxy. This is particularly
to a concept such as the earth. What justification is there for the case at just that point in German history when the
this concept? What warrant does it have? The important classical period of German literature, with its center in Wei-
insight that Heidegger's "The Origin of the Work of Art" mar, was seeking to establish itself as an aesthetic state. These
opened up is that " e a r t h " is a necessary determination of the efforts found their conceptual justification in Kant's philoso-
being of the work of art. phy.

If we are to see the fundamental significance of the ques- Basing aesthetics on the subjectivity of the mind's powers
tion of the nature of the work of art and how this question is was, however, the beginning of a dangerous process of sub-
connected with the basic problems of philosophy, we must jectification. For Kant himself, to be sure, the determining
gain some insight into the prejudices that are present in the factor was still the mysterious congruity that obtained be-
concept of a philosophical aesthetics. In the last analysis, we tween the beauty of nature and the subjectivity of the
need to overcome the concept of aesthetics itself. It is well subject. In the same way, he understood the creative genius
known that aesthetics is the youngest of the philosophical who transcends all rules in creating the miracle of the work
disciplines. Only with the explicit restriction of Enlighten- of art to be a favorite of nature. But this position presup-
ment rationalism in the eighteenth century was the autono- poses the self-evident validity of the natural order that has its
mous right of sensuous knowledge asserted and with it the ultimate foundation in the theological idea of the creation.
relative independence of the judgment of taste from the With the disappearance of this context, the grounding of
understanding and its concepts. Like the name of the disci- aesthetics led inevitably to a radical subjectification in fur-
pline itself, the systematic autonomy of aesthetics dates from ther development of the doctrine of the freedom of the
 220 PHENOMENOLOGY HEIDEGGER'S LATER PHILOSOPHY 221

genius from rules. No longer derived from the comprehensive the work of art from the point of view of an ontological
whole of the order of being,- art comes to be contrasted with model that assumes the systematic priority of scientific cog-
actuality and with the raw prose of life. The illuminating nition. What really " i s " is thing-like in character; it is a fact,
power of poesy succeeds in reconciling idea and actuality something given to the senses and developed by the natural
only within its own aesthetic realm. This is the idealistic sciences in the direction of objective cognition. The signifi-
aesthetics to which Schiller first gave expression and that cance and value of the thing, however, are secondary forms
culminated in Hegel's remarkable aesthetics. Even in Hegel, of comprehension that have a mere subjective validity and
however, the theory of the work of art still stood within a belong neither to the original givenness itself nor to the
universal ontological horizon. To the extent that the work of objective truth acquired from it. The Neo-Kantians assumed
art succeeds at all in adjusting and reconciling the finite and that the thing alone is objective and able to support such
the infinite, it is the tangible indication of an ultimate truth values. For aesthetics, this assumption would have to mean
that philosophy must finally grasp in conceptual form. Just that even the work of art possesses a thing-like character as
as nature, for idealism, is not merely the object of the its most prominent feature. This thing-like character func-
calculating science of the modern age, but rather the reign of tions as a substructure upon which the real aesthetic form
a great, creative world power that raises itself to its perfec- rises as a superstructure. Nicolai Hartmann still describes the
tion in self-conscious spirit, so the work of art too, in the structure of the aesthetic object in this fashion.
view of these speculative thinkers, is an objectification of Heidegger refers to this ontological prejudice when he
spirit. Art is not the perfected concept of spirit, but rather its inquires into the thing-character of the thing. He distin-
manifestation on the level of the sense intuition of the world. guishes three ways of comprehending the thing that have
In the literal sense of the word, art is an intuition of the been developed in the tradition: it is the bearer of properties;
world [Welt-Anschauung]. it is the unity of a manifold of perceptions; and it is matter
If we wish to determine the point of departure for Heideg- to which form has been imparted. The third of these forms of
ger's meditation on the nature of the work of art, we must comprehension, in particular — the thing as form and mat-
keep clearly in mind that the idealistic aesthetics that had ter - seems to be the most directly obvious, for it follows the
ascribed a special significance to the work of art as the model of production by which a thing is manufactured to
organon of a nonconceptual understanding of absolute truth serve our purposes. Heidegger calls such things "implements."
had long since been eclipsed by Neo-Kantian philosophy. Viewed theologically, from the standpoint of this model,
This dominant philosophical movement had renewed the things in their entirety appear as manufactured items, that is,
Kantian foundation of scientific cognition without regaining as creations of God. From man's perspective, they appear as
the metaphysical horizon that lay at the basis of Kant's own implements that have lost their implement-character. Things
description of aesthetic judgment, namely, a teleological are mere things, that is, they are present without reference to
order of being. Consequently, the Neo-Kantian conception of serving a purpose. Now Heidegger shows that this concept of
aesthetic problems was burdened with peculiar prejudices. being-present-at-hand, which corresponds to the observing
The exposition of the theme in Heidegger's essay clearly and calculating procedures of modern science, permits us to
reflects this state of affairs. It begins with the question of think neither the thing-like character of the thing nor the
how the work of art is differentiated from the thing. The implement-character of the implement. In order to focus
work of art is also a thing, and only by way of its being as a attention on the implement-character of the implement,
thing does it have the capacity to refer to something else, for therefore, he refers to an artistic representation - a painting
instance, to function symbolically, or to give us an allegorical by Van Gogh depicting a peasant's shoes. The implement
understanding. But this is to describe the mode of being of itself is perceived in this work of art - not an entity that can
 222 PHENOMENOLOGY HEIDEGGER'S LATER PHILOSOPHY 223

be made t o serve some purpose or other, but something The tones that constitute a musical masterwork are tones in a
whose very being consists in having served and in still serving more real sense than all other sounds or tones. The colors of
the person t o whom it belongs. What emerges from the a painting are colors in a more genuine sense than even
painter's work and is vividly depicted in it is not an incidental nature's wealth of colors. The temple column manifests the
pair of peasant's shoes. The emergence of truth that occurs in stone-like character of its being more genuinely in rising
the work of art can be conceived from the work alone, and upward and supporting the temple roof than it did as an
not at all in terms of its substructure as a thing. unhewn block of stone. But what comes forth in this way in
These observations raise the question of what a work is the work is precisely its concealedness and self-concealing -
that truth can emerge from it in this way. In contrast to the what Heidegger calls the being of the earth. The earth, in
customary procedure of starting with the thing-character and truth, is not stuff, but that out of which everything comes
object-character of the work of art, Heidegger contends that forth and into which everything disappears.
a work of art is characterized precisely by the fact that it is At this point, form and matter, as reflective concepts,
not an object, but rather stands in itself. By standing in itself prove t o be inadequate. If we can say that a world "arises" in
it not only belongs to its world; its world is present in it. The a great work of art, then the arising of this world is at the
work of art opens up its own world. Something is an object same time its entrance into a reposing form. When the form
only when it no longer fits into the fabric of its world stands there it has found its earthly existence. From this the
because the world it belongs to has disintegrated. Hence a work of art acquires its own peculiar repose. It does not first
work of art is an object when it becomes an item of com- have its real being in an experiencing ego, which asserts,
mercial transaction, for then it is worldless and homeless. means, or exhibits something and whose assertions, opinions,
The characterization of the work of art as standing-in-itself or demonstrations would be its "meaning." Its being does not
and opening up a world with which Heidegger begins his consist in its becoming an experience. Rather, by virtue of its
study consciously avoids going back t o the concept of genius own existence it is an event, a thrust that overthrows every-
that is found in classical aesthetics. In his effort to under- thing previously considered to be conventional, a thrust in
stand the ontological structure of the work independently of which a world never there before opens itself up. But this
the subjectivity of the creator or beholder, Heidegger now thrust takes place in the work of art itself in such a fashion
uses " e a r t h " as a counterconcept alongside the concept of that at the same time it is sustained in an abiding [ins Bleiben
the "world" t o which the work belongs and which it erects geborgen]. That which arises and sustains itself in this way
and opens up. " E a r t h " is a counterconcept to world insofar constitutes the structure of the work in its tension. It is this
as it exemplifies self-concealment and concealing as opposed tension that Heidegger designates as the conflict between the
to self-opening. Clearly, both self-opening and self-concealing world and the earth. In all of this, Heidegger not only gives a
are present in the work of art. A work of art does not description of the mode of being of the work of art that
" m e a n " something or function as a sign that refers to a avoids the prejudices of traditional aesthetics and the modern
meaning; rather, it presents itself in its own being, so that the conception of subjectivity, he also avoids simply renewing
beholder must tarry by it. It is so very much present itself the speculative aesthetics that defined the work of art as the
that the ingredients out of which it is composed - stone, sensuous manifestation of the Idea. T o be sure, the Hegalian
color, tone, word — only come into a real existence of their definition of beauty shares with Heidegger's own effort the
own within the work of art itself. As long as something is fundamental transcendence of the antithesis between subject
mere stuff awaiting its rendering, it is not really present, that and object, I and object, and does not describe the being of
is, it has not come forth into a genuine presence. It only the work of art in terms of the subjectivity of the subject.
comes forth when it is used, when it is bound into the work. Nevertheless, Hegel's description of the being of the work of
 224 PHENOMENOLOGY HEIDEGGER'S LATER PHILOSOPHY 225
art moves in this direction, for it is the sensuous manifesta- emphasis on the privative sense of aletheia does not mean
tion of the Idea, conceived by self-conscious thought, that simply that knowledge of the truth tears truth out of the
constitutes the work of art. In thinking the Idea, therefore, realm of the unknown or hiddenness in error by an act of
the entire truth of the sensuous appearance would be can- robbery (privatio means "robbery"). It is not the only reason
celled. It acquires its real form in the concept. When Heideg- why truth is not open and obvious and accessible as a matter
ger speaks of the conflict between world and earth and of course, though it is certainly true and the Greeks obvi-
describes the work of art as the thrust through which a truth ously wanted to express it when they designated beings as
occurs, this truth is not taken up and perfected in the truth they are as unhidden. They knew that every piece of knowl-
of the philosophical concept. A unique manifestation of edge is threatened by error and falsehood, that it is a ques-
truth occurs in the work of art. The reference to the work of
tion of avoiding error and gaining the right representation of
art in which truth comes forth should indicate clearly that
beings as they are. If knowledge depends on our leaving error
for Heidegger it is meaningful to speak of an event of truth.
behind us, truth is the pure unhiddenness of beings. This is
Hence Heidegger's essay does not restrict itself t o giving a
what Greek thought had in view, and in this way it was
more suitable description of the being of the work of art.
already treading the path that modern science would eventu-
Rather, his analysis supports his central philosophical con-
ally follow to the end, namely, to bring about the correctness
cern to conceive being itself as an event of truth.
of knowledge by which beings are preserved in their unhid-
The objection is often made that the basic concepts of denness.
Heidegger's later work cannot be verified. What Heidegger In opposition to all this, Heidegger holds that unhidden-
intends, for example, when he speaks of being in the verbal ness is not simply the character of beings insofar as they are
sense of the word, of the event of being, the clearing of correctly known. In a more primordial sense, unhiddenness
being, the revealment of being, and the forgetfulness of "occurs," and this occurrence is what first makes it possible
being, cannot be fulfilled by an intentional act of our subjec- for beings to be unhidden and correctly known. The hidden-
tivity. The concepts that dominate Heidegger's later philo- ness that corresponds to such primordial unhiddenness is not
sophical works are clearly closed to subjective demonstration, error, but rather belongs originally to being itself. Nature,
just as Hegel's dialectical process is closed to what Hegel which loves to hide itself (Heraclitus), is thus characterized
called representational thinking. Heidegger's concepts are the not only with respect to its possibility of being known, but
object of a criticism similar to Marx's criticism of Hegel's rather with respect to its being. It is not only the emergence
dialectic in the sense that they too are called "mythological." into the light but just as much the hiding of itself in the dark.
The fundamental significance of the essay on the work of It is not only the unfolding of the blossom in the sun, but
art. it seems to me, is that it provides us with an indication of just as much its rooting of itself in the depths of the earth.
the later Heidegger's real concern. No one can ignore the fact Heidegger speaks of the "clearing of being," which first
that in the work of art, in which a world arises, not only is represents the realm in which beings are known as disclosed
something meaningful given to experience that was not in their unhiddenness. This coming forth of beings into the
known before, but also something new comes into existence " t h e r e " of their Dasein obviously presupposes a realm of
with the work of art itself. It is not simply the manifestation openness in which such a " t h e r e " can occur. And yet it is just
of a truth, it is itself an event. This offers us an opportunity as obvious that this realm does not exist without beings
to pursue one step further Heidegger's critique of Western manifesting themselves in it, that is, without there being a
metaphysics and its culmination in the subjectivism of the place of openness that openness occupies. This relation is
modern age. It is well known that Heidegger renders aletheia, unquestionably peculiar. And yet even more remarkable is
the Greek word for truth, as unhiddenness. But this strong the fact that only in the " t h e r e " of this self-manifestation of
 226 PHENOMENOLOGY HEIDEGGER'S LATER PHILOSOPHY 227

beings does the hiddenness of being first present itself. To be total leveling of them. A complete objectification of this kind
sure, correct knowledge is made possible by the openness of would no longer represent beings that stand in their own
the there. The beings that come forth out of unhiddenness being. Rather, it would represent nothing more than our
present themselves for that which preserves them. Neverthe- opportunity for using beings, and what would be manifest
less, it is not an arbitrary act of revealing, an act of robbery, would be the will that seizes upon and dominates things. In
by which something is torn out of hiddenness. Rather, this is the work of art, we experience an absolute opposition to this
all made possible only by the fact that revealment and will-to-control, not in the sense of a rigid resistance to the
hiddenness are an event of being itself. To understand this presumption of our will, which is bent on utilizing things, but
fact helps us in our understanding of the nature of the work in the sense of the superior and intrusive power of a being
of art. There is clearly a tension between the emergence and reposing in itself. Hence the closedness and concealment of
the hiddenness that constitute the being of the work itself. It the work of art is the guarantee of the universal thesis of
is the power of this tension that constitutes the form-niveau Heidegger's philosophy, namely, that beings hold themselves
of a work of art and produces the brilliance by which it back by coming forward into the openness of presence. The
outshines everything else. Its truth is not its simple manifesta- standing-in-itself of the work betokens at the same time the
tion of meaning, but rather the unfathomableness and depth standing-in-itself of beings in general.
of its meaning. Thus by its very nature the work of art is a This analysis of the work of art opens up perspectives that
conflict between world and earth, emergence and hiddenness. point us further along the path of Heidegger's thought. Only
But precisely what is exhibited in the work of art ought to by way of the work of art were the implement-character of
be the essence of being itself. The conflict between reveal- the implement and, in the last analysis, the thingness of the
ment and concealment is not the truth of the work of art thing able to manifest themselves. All-calculating modern
alone, but the truth of every being, for as unhiddenness, science brings about the loss of things, dissolving their charac-
truth is always such an opposition of revealment and conceal- ter of standing-in themselves, which "can be forced to do
ment. The two belong necessarily together. This obviously nothing," into the calculated elements of its projects and
means that truth is not simply the mere presence of a being, alterations, but the work of art represents an instance that
so that it stands, as it were, over against its correct represen- guards against the universal loss of things. As Rilke poetically
tation. Such a concept of being unhidden would presuppose illuminates the innocence of the thing in the midst of the
the subjectivity of the Dasein that represents beings. But general disappearance of thingness by showing it to the
beings are not correctly defined in their being if they are angel,* so the thinker contemplates the same loss of thing-
defined merely as objects of possible representation. Rather, ness while recognizing at the same time that this very thing-
it belongs just as much to their being that they withhold ness is preserved in the work of art. Preservation, however,
themselves. As unhidden, truth has in itself an inner tension presupposes that what is preserved still truly exists. Hence
and ambiguity. Being contains something like a hostility to the very truth of the thing is implied if this truth is still
its own presentations, as Heidegger says. What Heidegger capable of coming forth in the work of art. Heidegger's essay,
means can be confirmed by everyone: the existing thing does "What Is a Thing?" thus represents a necessary advance on
not simply offer us a recognizable and familiar surface con- the path of his thought.** The thing, which formerly did not
tour; it also has an inner depth of self-sufficiency that even achieve the implement-status of being-present-to-hand,
Heidegger calls its "standing-in-itself." The complete unhid-
denness of all beings, their total objectification (by means of *Gadamer is referring to the angel motif in Rilke's Duino Elegies.
a representation that conceives things in their perfect state) •*Cf. Heidegger, Die Frage nach dem Ding: Zu Kants Lehre von den transzen-
would negate this standing-in-itself of beings and lead to a dentalen Grundsdtzen. (Tubingen: Max Niemeyer, 1962). ET: What Is a Thing?,
trans. Barton and Deutsch (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1967).
 228 PHENOMENOLOGY

but was merely present-at-hand for observation and investiga-

tion, is now recognized in its " w h o l e " being [in seinem
"heilen"Sein] as precisely what cannot be put to use.
From this vantage point, we can recognize yet a further
13
step on this path. Heidegger asserts that the essence of art is Heidegger and the Language of
the process of poeticizing. What he means is that the nature
of art does not consist in transforming something that is Metaphysics (1967)
already formed or in copying something that is already in
being. Rather, art is the project by which something new
comes forth as true. The essence of the event of truth that is
present in the work of art is that "it opens up an open
place." In the ordinary and more restricted sense of the
word, however, poetry is distinguished by the intrinsically
linguistic character that differentiates it from all other modes The tremendous power emanating from Heidegger's creative
of art. If the real project and the genuine artistic element in energies in the early 1920s seemed to sweep along the genera-
every art — even in architecture and in the plastic arts — can tion of students returning from World War I or just beginning
be called " p o e t r y , " then the project that occurs in an actual its studies, so that a complete break with traditional aca-
poem is bound to a course that is already marked out and demic philosophy seemed to take place with Heidegger's
cannot be projected anew simply from out of itself, the appearance — long before it was expressed in his own
course already prepared by language. The poet is so depen- thought. It was like a new breakthrough into the unknown
dent upon the language he inherits and uses that the language that posed something radically new as compared with all the
of his poetic work of art can only reach those who command mere movements and countermovements of the Christian
the same language. In a certain sense, then, the " p o e t r y " that Occident. A generation shattered by the collapse of an epoch
Heidegger takes to symbolize the projective character of all wanted to begin completely anew; it did not want to retain
artistic creation is less the project of building and shaping out anything that had formerly been held valid. Even in the
of stone or color or tones than it is their secondary forms. In intensification of the German language that took place in his
fact, the process of poeticizing is divided into two phases: concepts, Heidegger's thought seemed to defy any compari-
into the project that has already occurred where a language son with what philosophy had previously meant. And that
holds sway, and another project that allows the new poetic was in spite of the unceasing and intensive interpretive effort
creation to come forth from the First project. But the pri- that especially distinguished Heidegger's academic instruc-
macy of language is not simply a unique trait of the poetic tion - his immersion in Aristotle and Plato, Augustine and
work of art; rather, it seems to be characteristic of the very Thomas, Leibniz and Kant, in Hegel and Husserl.
thing-being of things themselves. The work of language is the
most primordial poetry of being. The thinking that conceives Altogether unexpected things came to the surface and
all art as poetry and that discloses that the work of art is were discussed in connection with these names. Each of these
language is itself still on the way to language. great figures from our classical philosophical tradition was
completely transformed and seemed to proclaim a direct,
229
 230 PHENOMENOLOGY THE LANGUAGE OF METAPHYSICS 231

compelling truth that was perfectly fused with the thought of The development of Heidegger's late philosophy has
its resolute interpreter. The distance separating our historical scarcely encountered a critique anywhere that does not go
consciousness from the tradition seemed to be nonexistent. back in the last analysis to Hegel's position. This observation
The calm and confident aloofness with which the Neo- is true in the negative sense of aligning Heidegger with Hegel's
Kantian "history of philosophical problems" was accustomed abortive speculative revolution, as Gerhard Kriiger and 1

to deal with the tradition, and the whole of contemporary

countless others after him have argued. It is also valid in the
thought that came from the academic rostrum, now sud-
positive Hegelianizing sense that Heidegger is not sufficiently
denly seemed to be mere child's play.
aware of his own proximity to Hegel, and for this reason he
In actual fact, the break with tradition that took place in does not really d o justice to the radical position of specula-
Heidegger's thought represented just as much an incompara- tive logic. The latter criticism has occurred basically in two
ble renewal of the tradition. Only gradually did the younger problem areas. One is Heidegger's assimilation of history into
students come to see both how much appropriation of the his own philosophical approach, a point that he seems to
tradition was present in the criticism, as well as how pro- share with Hegel. The second is the hidden and unnoticed
found the criticism was in the appropriation. Two great dialectic that attaches to all essentially Heideggerian asser-
classical figures of philosophical thought, however, have long tions.
occupied an ambiguous position in Heidegger's thought, If Hegel tried to penetrate the history of philosophy philo-
standing out as much by their affinity with Heidegger as by sophically from the standpoint of absolute knowledge, that
their radical distance from him. These two thinkers are Plato is, to raise it to a science, Heidegger's description of the
and Hegel. From the very beginning, Plato was viewed in a history of being (in particular, the history of the forgetful-
critical light in Heidegger's work, in that Heidegger took over ness of being into which European history entered in the
and transformed the Aristotelian criticism of the Idea of the century following Hegel) involved a similarly comprehensive
Good and stressed especially the Aristotelian concept of claim. Indeed, there is in Heidegger nothing of that necessity
analogy. Yet it was Plato who provided the m o t t o for Being of historical progress that is both the glory and the bane of
and Time. Only after World War II, with the decisive incorpo- Hegelian philosophy. For Heidegger, rather, the history that
ration of Plato into the history of Being, was the ambiguity is remembered and taken up into the absolute present in
in regard to Plato removed. But Heidegger's thought has absolute knowing is precisely an advance sign of the radical
revolved around Hegel until the present day in ever new forgetfulness of being that has marked the history of Europe
attempts at delineation. In contrast to the phenomenological in the century after Hegel. But for Heidegger, it was fate, not
craftsmanship that was all too quickly forgotten by the history (remembered and penetrable by understanding), that
scholarship of the time, Hegel's dialectic of pure thought originated in the conception of being in Greek metaphysics
asserted itself with renewed power. Hence Hegel not only and that in modern science and technology carries the forget-
continually provoked Heidegger to self-defense, but he was fulness of being to the extreme. Nevertheless, no matter how
also the one with whom Heidegger was associated in the eyes much it may belong to the temporal constitution of man to
of all those who sought to defend themselves against the be exposed to the unpredictability of fate, this does not rule
claim of Heidegger's thought. Would this final form of West- out the claim continually raised and legitimated in the course
ern metaphysics be outstripped by the radicalism with which of Western history to think what is. And so Heidegger too
Heidegger stirred the oldest questions of philosophy to new appears to claim a genuinely historical self-consciousness for
life? Or would the circle of the philosophy of reflection, himself, indeed, even an eschatological self-consciousness.
which dashed all such hopes of freedom and liberation, force
Heidegger's thought too back into its orbit? The second critical motif proceeds from the indeterminate-
ness and undeterminableness of what Heidegger calls "being."
 232 THE LANGUAGE OF METAPHYSICS 233
PHENOMENOLOGY

This criticism tries by Hegelian means t o explain the alleged way to Schelling - from whom Schopenhauer, Nietzsche,
tautology of being - that it is itself - as a disguised second and the metaphysics of the will take their departure - all
immediacy that emerges from the total mediation of the serve to show that the understanding of being in terms of
immediate. Furthermore, are there not real dialectical antith- presence [Prdsenz] is constantly threatened by nothingness.
eses at work whenever Heidegger explicates himself? For In our own century, this situation is also found in Max
instance, we find the dialectical tension of thrownness and Scheler's dualism of impulse and spirit and Ernst Bloch's
projection, of authenticity and inauthenticity, of nothing as philosophy of the not yet, as well as in such hermeneutical
the veil of being, and Finally, and most importantly, the inner phenomena as the question, doubt, wonder, and so on. T o
tension and ambiguity [Gegenwendigkeit] of truth and error, this extent, Heidegger's approach has an intrinsic preparation
revealment and concealment, which constitute the event of in the subject matter of metaphysics itself.
being as the event of truth. Did not Hegel's mediation of In order to clarify the immanent necessity of the develop-
being and nothing in the truth of becoming - that is, in the ment within his own thought that led Heidegger to "the
truth of the concrete - already mark out the conceptual t u r n . " and to show that it has nothing to do with a dialectical
framework within which alone the Heideggerian doctrine of reversal, we must proceed from the fact that the transcenden-
the inner tension of truth can exist? Hegel, by his dialectical- tal-phenomenological conception of Being and Time is al-
speculative sharpening of the antitheses in understanding, ready essentially different from Husserl's conception of it.
overcame a thinking dominated by the understanding. Would Husserl's constitutional analysis of the consciousness of time
it be possible to get beyond this achievement, so as to shows particularly well that the self-constitution of the pri-
overcome the logic and language of metaphysics as a whole? mal presence (which Husserl could indeed designate as a kind
Access to our problem undoubtedly lies in the problem of of primal potentiality) is based entirely on the concept of
nothingness and its suppression by metaphysics, a theme constitutive accomplishment and is thus dependent on the
Heidegger formulated in his inaugural address in Freiburg. being of valid objectivity. The self-constitution of the tran-
From this perspective, the nothingness we Find in Parmenides scendental ego, a problem that can be traced back to the fifth
and in Plato, and also Aristotle's definition of the divine.as chapter of the Logical Investigations, stands wholly within
energia without dynamis really constitutes a total vitiation of the traditional understanding of Being, despite - indeed,
nothingness. Even God, as the infinite knowledge that has precisely because of — the absolute historicity that forms the
being from itself, is understood basically from the vantage transcendental ground of all objectivities. Now we must
point of the privative experience of man's being (in the admit that Heidegger's transcendental point of departure
experience of sleep, death, and forgetting) as the unlimited from the being that has its being as an issue and the doctrine
presence of everything present. But another motif seems to of the existentials in Being and Time both carry with them a
be at work in the history of metaphysical thinking alongside transcendental appearance; as though Heidegger's thoughts
this vitiation of nothingness that extends even into Hegel and were, as Oskar Becker puts it, simply the elaboration of
Husserl. Aristotelian metaphysics has culminated in the ques- further horizons of transcendental phenomenology that had
tion, "What is the being of beings?" The question that not previously been secured and that had to do with the
2

Leibniz and Schelling asked and that Heidegger even called historicity of Dasein. In reality, however, Heidegger's under-
the basic question of metaphysics, "Why is there anything at taking means something quite different. Jaspers's formulation
all, and not rather nothing?" expressly continues the con- of the border situation certainly provided Heidegger with a
frontation with the problem of nothingness. The analysis of starting point for explicating the finitude of existence in its
the concept of dynamis in Plato, Plotinus, the tradition of basic significance. But this approach served as the preparation
negative theology, Nicolas of Cusa, and Leibniz, and all the of the question of being in a radically altered sense, and was
 PHENOMENOLOGY THE LANGUAGE OF METAPHYSICS 235
not the explication of a regional ontology in Husserl's sense. But in fact one cannot simply lose his pocket knife in such
The concept of "fundamental ontology" - modeled after fashion that it is no longer present. When one has lost a long
that of "fundamental theology" - also creates a difficulty. familiar implement such as a pocket knife, it demonstrates its
The mutual interconnection of authenticity and inauthen- existence by the fact that one continually misses it. Holder-
ticity, of the revealment and concealment of Dasein, which lin's "Fehl der G o t t e r " or Eliot's silence of the Chinese vase
appeared in Being and Time more in the sense of a rejection are not nonexistence, but "being" in the most poetic sense
of an ethicistic, affect-oriented thinking, turned out increas- because they are silent. The breach that is made by what is
ingly to be the real nucleus of the "question of being." missing is not a place remaining empty within what is pre-
According to Heidegger's formulation in On the Essence of sent-to-hand; rather, it belongs to the being-there of that to
Truth, ek-sistence and in-sistence are indeed still conceived which it is missing, and is "present" in it. Hence "essence" is
from the point of view of human Dasein. But when he says concretized, and we can demonstrate how what is present is
that the truth of being is the untruth., that is, the conceal- at the same time the concealment of presence.
ment of being in "error," then the decisive change in the Problems that necessarily eluded transcendental inquiry
concept of "essence" which follows from the destruction of and appeared as mere peripheral phenomena become compre-
the Greek tradition of metaphysics can no longer be ignored. hensible when we proceed from such experiences. In the first
For Heidegger leaves behind him both the traditional concept place, this holds for " n a t u r e . " Becker's postulation of a
of essence and that of the ground of essence. paraontology is justified here insofar as nature is no longer
What the interconnection of concealment and revealment only " a limiting case of the being of a possible inner-worldly
means and what it has to do with the new concept of being." But Becker himself has never recognized that his
"essence" can be exhibited phenomenologically in Heideg- counterconcept of paraexistence, which is concerned with
ger's own essential experience of thought in a number of such essential phenomena as mathematical and dream exis-
ways. (1) In the being of the implement that does not have tence, is a dialectical construction. Becker himself synthe-
its essence in its objective obstinacy, but in its being ready- sized it with its opposite and thus marked out a third posi-
to-hand, which allows us to concentrate o n what is beyond tion, without noticing how this position corresponds to the
the implement itself. (2) In the being of the work of art, Heideggerian doctrine of the " t u r n . "
which holds its truth within itself in such fashion that this
A second large complex of problems that comes into a new
truth is not available in any other way but in the work. For
light in the context of Heidegger's later thought is that of the
the beholder or receiver, "essence" corresponds here to his
Thou and the We. We are familiar with this problem complex
tarrying alongside the work. (3) In the thing, as the one and
from Husserl's ongoing discussion of the problem of intersub-
only reality that stands in itself, cannot be compelled to serve
jectivity; in Being and Time it is interpreted in terms of the
our purposes, and contrasts in its irreplaceability with the
world of concern. What constitutes the mode of being of
concept of the object of consumption, as found in industrial
essence is now considered from the point of view of the
production. (4) And finally in the word. The "essence" of
dialogue, that is, in terms of our capacity to listen t o each
the word does not lie in being totally expressed, but rather in
other in concreto, for instance, when we perceive what
what is left unsaid, as we see especially in speechlessness and
governs a conversation or whenever we notice its absence in a
remaining silent. The common structure of essence that is
tortured conversation. But above all. the inscrutable problem
evident in all four of these experiences of thinking is a
of life and corporeality presents itself in a new way. The
"being-there" that encompasses being absent as well as being
concept of the living being [Lebe-Wesen], which Heidegger
present. During his early years at Freiburg, Heidegger once
emphasized in his Letter on Humanism,* raises new ques-
said, "One cannot lose God as one loses his pocket knife."
*HB, pp. 15-16.
 PHENOMENOLOGY 237
THE LANGUAGE OF METAPHYSICS
tions, especially the question of its correspondence to the
Letter on Humanism, means that it is not open for being as is
nature of man [Menschen-Wesen] and the nature of language
man, who is aware of his possibility of not being. But have
[Sprach-Wesen]. But behind this line of questioning stands
we not learned from Heidegger that the real being of the
the question of the being of the self, which was easy enough
to define in terms of German idealism's concept of reflection. living being is not its own individual being-there, but rather
It becomes puzzling, however, the moment we no longer the species? And is the species not " t h e r e " for the living
proceed from the self or self-consciousness, or from human being, even if not in the same way that being is present for
Dasein, in Being and Time, but rather from essence. The fact man in the insistence of the forgetfulness of being? Does it
that being comes to a presence in a "clearing." and that in not comprise a part of the being of the species that its
this fashion thinking man is the guardian of being, points to a members " k n o w " themselves, as the profound expression of
primordial interconnection of being and man. The tool, the the Lutheran Bible puts it? Indeed, as knowing, are they not
work of art, thing, the word - in all of these, the relation to concealed from themselves and yet in such fashion that
man stands forth clearly in essence itself. But in what sense? knowing passes over into it? Is it not also characteristic of
Scarcely in the sense that the Being of the human self "insistence" that the animal intends only itself [conservatio
thereby acquires its definition. The example of language has sui] and yet precisely in this way provides for the reproduc-
already shown us that. As Heidegger says, language speaks us, tion of its kind?
insofar as we do not really preside over it and control it, Similarly, we could ask about the growth of vegetation: Is
although, of course, no one disputes the fact that it is we it only a coming to presence for man? Does not every form
who speak it. And Heidegger's assertion here is not without of life as such have a tendency to secure itself in its being,
meaning. indeed to persist in it? Is it not precisely its Finitude that it
If we want to raise the question of the " s e l f in Heidegger, wants to tarry in this manner? And does it not hold for man
we will have first to consider and reject Neo-Platonic modes as well that the Dasein in him, as Heidegger called it, is not to
of thought. For a cosmic drama consisting in the emanation be thought of at all as a kind of highest self-possession that
out of the One and the return into it. with the self designated allows him to step outside the circuit of life like a god? Isn't
as the pivot of the return, lies beyond what is possible here. our entire doctrine of man distorted rather than put in order
Or one could consider what Heidegger understands by "insis- by modern metaphysical subjectivism, in that we consider the
tence" as the way to a solution. What Heidegger called the essence of man to be society ($ioov TTOXLTLKOV)! I S it not just
"insistence" of Dasein and what he called errancy are cer- this belief that declares the inner tension and ambiguity that
tainly to be conceived from the point of view of the forget- is being itself? And does it not mean that it is senseless to pit
fulness of being. But is this forgetfulness the sole mode of " n a t u r e " against "being"?
coming to presence? Will this render intelligible the place- The continuing difficulty is that of avoiding the language
holding character of human Dasein? Can the concept of of metaphysics, which conceives of all these matters in terms
coming to presence and the " t h e r e " be maintained in exclu- of the "power of reflection". But what do we mean when we
sive relation to human Dasein, if we take the growth of plants speak of the "language of metaphysics"? It is obvious that
and the living being into consideration? In his On the Essence the experience of "essence" is not that of manipulating
of Truth, Heidegger still conceived of "insistence" from the thinking. If we keep this distinction in mind, we can see that
point of view of the being that first "raised its h e a d " [i.e., the concept of "re-collection" has something natural about
m a n ] . But does not insistence have to be taken in a broader it. It is true that recollection itself is something and that in it
sense? And hence "ek-sistence" too? Certainly the confine- history has its reality, not that history is simply remem-
ment of the living being in its environment, discussed in the bered through it. But what takes place in "recollection"? Is it
really tenable to expect something like a reversal in it — like
 238 PHENOMENOLOGY THE LANGUAGE OF METAPHYSICS 239
the abruptness of fate? Whatever the case may be, the impor- In the up and down movement, in coming into being and
tant thing in the phenomenon of recollection, it seems to me, passing away, it is " t h e r e . "
is that something is secured and preserved in the " t h e r e , " so Is this the old metaphysics? Is it the language of meta-
that it can never not be, as long as recollection remains alive. physics alone that achieves this continual coming-to-language
Yet recollection is not something that clutches tenaciously at of our being-in-the-world? Certainly it is the language of
what is vanishing; the nonexistence of what disappears is not metaphysics, but further behind it is the language of the
at all concealed or obstinately disputed by it. Rather, some- Indo-Germanic peoples, which makes such thinking capable of
thing like consent takes place in it (of which Rilke's Duino formulation. But can a language — or a family of languages -
Elegies tell us something). There is nothing of what we have ever properly be called the language of metaphysical think-
called "insistence" in it. ing, just because metaphysics was thought, or what would be
Conversely, what we may call "fascination" arises through more, anticipated in it? Is not language always the language
the constructive capacity and technological power of "insis- of the homeland and the process of becoming-at-home in the
tence," that is, of human forgetfulness of Being. There is world? And does this fact not mean that language knows no
essentially no limit to the experience of being, which, since restrictions and never breaks down, because it holds infinite
Nietzsche, we call nihilism. But if this fascination proceeds possibilities of utterance in readiness? It seems to me that the
from such a constantly intensifying obstinacy, does it not hermeneutical dimension enters here and demonstrates its
find its own ultimate end in itself, precisely by virtue of the inner infinity in the speaking that takes place in the dialogue.
fact that the constantly new becomes something left behind, To be sure, the technical language of philosophy is preformed
and that this happens without a special event intervening or a by the grammatical structure of the Greek language, and its
reversal taking place? Does not the natural weight of things usages in Graeco-Latin times established ontological implica-
remain perceptible and make itself felt the more monoto- tions whose prejudiced character Heidegger uncovered. But
nously the noise of the constantly new may sound forth? T o we must ask: are the universality of objectifying reason and
be sure, Hegel's idea of knowledge, conceived as absolute the eidetic structure of linguistic meanings really bound to
self-transparency, has something fantastic about it if it is these particular historically developed interpretations of sub-
supposed to restore complete at-homeness in being. But jectum and species and actus that the West has produced? Or
could not a restoration of at-homeness come about in the do they hold true for all languages? It cannot be denied that
sense that the process of making-oneself-at-home in the world there are certain structural aspects of the Greek language and
has never ceased to take place, and has never ceased to be the a grammatical self-consciousness, particularly in Latin, that
better reality that is not deafened by the madness of technol- fix in a definite direction of interpretation the hierarchy of
ogy? Does this restoration not occur when the illusory char- genus and species, the relation of substance and accident, the
acter of the technocracy, the paralyzing sameness of every- structure of predication and the verb as an action word. But
thing man can make, becomes perceptible, and man is re- is there no rising above such a preschematizing of thought?
leased again into the really astonishing character of his own For instance, if one contrasts the Western predicative judg-
finite being? This freedom is certainly not gained in the sense ment with the Eastern figurative expression, which acquires
of an absolute transparency, or a being-at-home that is no its expressive power from the reciprocal reflection of what is
longer endangered. But just as the thinking of what cannot be meant and what is said, are these two not in truth only
preconceived [das Denken des Unvordenklichen] preserves different modes of utterance within one and the same uni-
what is its own, for example, the homeland, what cannot be versal, namely within the essence of language and reason? Do
preconceived regarding our finitude is reunited with itself in concept and judgment not remain embedded within the life
the constant process of the coming to language of our Dasein. of meaning of the language we speak and in which we know
 240 PHENOMENOLOGY

how to say what it is we mean? And conversely, cannot the

connotative aspect of such Oriental reflective expressions
always be drawn into the hermeneutical movement that cre-
ates common understanding, just as the expression of the
work of art can? Language always arises within such a move-
ment. Can anyone really contend that there has ever been
language in any other sense than in the fulfilling of such a Index
movement? Hegel's doctrine of the speculative proposition
too seems to me to have its place here, and always takes up
into itself its own sharpening into the dialectic of contradic-
tion. For in speaking, there always remains the possibility of
cancelling the objectifying tendency of language, just as
Hegel cancels the logic of understanding, Heidegger the lan-
guage of metaphysics, the Orientals the diversity of realms of
Cassirer, Ernst, 7 6 , 199, 2 1 1
being, and the poet everything given. But to cancel [auf- Adorno, Theodor, 147, 178
Chamberlin, Houston Stewart,
heben] means to take up and use. Aeschylus, 5 2
107
Aquinas, St. Thomas, 2 2 9
Aristophanes, 2 2 Chladenius, xii, 2 1 2
Aristotle, xix, xxiv, xxxii, xxxvii, Cicero, 4 3
NOTES 14, 2 1 , 3 4 , 5 9 , 6 3 f., 6 8 , 7 8 , Cohen, Hermann, 201
119 f., 123, 155, 177, 178, Conrad-Martius, Hedwig, 150,
1. Cf. Gerhard Kriiger, "Martin Heidegger und der Humanismus," 181, 196, 2 0 0 - 2 0 2 , 2 0 4 , 2 1 1 , 166,178
Theologische Rundschau, XVIII ( 1 9 5 0 ) , pp. 148-178.
212, 229, 232 Descartes, Rene, xvi, xiii, xlix,
2. Cf. Oskar Becker, "Von der Hinfa'lligkeit des Schonen und der
Augustine, St., 4 6 , 5 5 , 176, 2 0 0 , li, 2 4 , 153, 155, 1 6 0 , 1 8 5 ,
Abenteuerlichkeit des Kiinstlers," published originally in the Festschrift
206,229 192, 2 0 0
fur Husserl ( 1 9 2 9 ) , pp. 27-52.
Avenarius, Richard, 146, 186 Dilthey, Wilhelm, xiii-xiv, xx,
xiii, 4 , 18, 4 8 , 115 f., J 1 7 ,
Bacon, Francis, 7 0 214
Barth, Karl, 137 Dionysus, 116
Baumgarten, Alexander, 2 1 9
Dockhorn, Klaus, 4 3
Becker, Oskar, 157, 177, 179,
Dostoevsky, Fyodor, 140
181, 1 9 5 , 2 1 2 , 2 3 3 , 2 3 5 , 2 4 0
Droysen, Friedrich, 2 8 , 4 7 f.,
Bergson, Henri, xiii, 1 1 6 , 1 7 2 , 2 1 4
99 f., 114
Berkeley, George, 165
Biel, Gabriel, 2 0 0
Bloch, Ernst, 2 3 3
Boeckh, August, 45 Ebeling, Gerhard, xxvi, 4 3
Brentano, Franz, 3 5 , 123, 144, Ebner, Ferdinand, 65
Eliot, T. S., 235
145, 155 f., 175, 178, 2 0 3
Ernst, Paul, 2 1 3
Bultmann, Rudolf, 4 4 , 1 9 9 , 2 0 0 ,
EucUd, 47
2 0 6 f.

241
 242 INDEX INDEX 243
Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 122, Humboldt, Wilhelm von, x x x , 6 1 , Liibbe, H., 180 Rilke, Rainer Maria, 5 3 , 2 2 7 , 2 3 8
160, 2 0 5 , 212 76 Luther, Martin, xix, 2 0 0 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 73
Fink, Eugen, xliii, 163, 164 f., Hume, David, 146, 155, 157, Russell, Bertrand, 174
166, 168 f., 171, 179 160, 192 Mach, Ernst, 146, 178
Flacius, xiii Husserl, Edmund, xxvii, xlii-xlvi, Marquand, Otto, 4 2 Scheler, Max, 7 3 , 8 1 , 118, 120,
Frege, Gottlieb, 144, 174, 178 3 5 , 4 9 , 7 3 , 7 5 , 1 18, 122 f., Marx, Karl, 3 6 , 1 1 4 - 1 1 7 , 2 2 4 132, 135 f., 143, 145, 169,
Freud, Sigmund, xli, 4 1 , 116 f. 130, 132-135, 138, 140-180, Meinong, A., 144 1 7 2 , 182, 183, 188, 195, 199,
200, 203, 205, 212, 215, 229, Merlan, Philip, 148 233
Galileo, xlii, 192, 194 232,233,235 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, xxvii Schelling, Friedrich, 2 3 2 f.
Geiger, Moriz, 143 f., 145 Hyppolite, Jean, 168 Mommsen, Friedrich, xviii, xxii, 6 Schiller, Friedrich, xxii, 6 6 , 2 2 0
George, Stefan, 116, 1 3 3 , 2 1 7 Montaigne, Michel de, 138 Schleiermacher, Friedrich, xi, xii-
Gierke, 133 Immermann, Karl, 8 3 Morris, Charles, 82 xiv, x x , 7, 2 3 , 47
Goethe, 8 6 , 103, 107 Ingarden, Roman, 1 4 9 - 1 5 1 , 165 f., Schopenhauer, Arthur, 138, 139,
Gogarten, Friedrich, 137 178, 180 Natorp, Paul, 163, 179, 2 0 0 174,233
Gouhier, Henri, 43 Isocrates, 22 N e w t o n , Isaac, xxii, 13, 86 Schulz, Walter, 1
Gundert, Hermann, 4 3 Nicholas of Cusa, 2 3 2 Schutz, Alfred, 163, 179
Gundolf, Friedrich, 131 Jakobi, Friedrich, 2 0 6 , 2 1 2 Neitzsche, Friedrich, xli, xlii, 5 f., Seebohm, Thomas, 180
Gurwitch, Aron, 151 James, William, 145 f., 173, 174 116 f., 119 f., 138 f., 140 f., Simmel, Georg, xlii, 116
Jaspers, Karl, xli, 109, 124, 134, 176, 2 1 3 f., 2 1 5 , 2 3 3 , 238 Socrates, 13
Habermas, Jiirgen, 2 0 , 26-36, 135, 137 f., 139, 1 4 1 , 188, Spengler, Oswald, 2 1 3
4 0 f. 233 Oetinger, 86 Spiegelberg, Herbert, 143, 178 f.
Hamann, Johann Georg, 5 5 , 2 0 6 , Overbeck, Franz, 198, 2 1 0 Spinoza, Benedict de, 46 f.
212 Kant, Immanuel, x x x i x , li, 7 0 , 7 2 , Otto, Rudolf, 199 Stumph, Karl, 145
Hartmann, Nicoli, 7 3 , 8 1 , 142, 7 3 , 9 6 , 97, 110, 112 f., 117, Sybel, Heinrich von, 6
143, 1 9 9 , 2 1 1 , 2 2 1 128, 147, 153, 154, 155, 160, Pannenberg, Wolfhaxt, 36 f.
Hegel, G. W. F., xxxix-xl, 4, 36 f., 168, 172, 179, 192, 2 0 0 , 2 0 5 , Parmenides, 2 1 2 , 2 3 2 Thurneysen, Eduard, 179, 198 f.,
55, 7 0 , 7 4 , 7 6 , 9 5 , 97 f., 107, 208, 213, 219, 220, 229 Pascal, Blaise, 138 202
110, 111-115, 117, 119, 122, Kantorwicz, Ernst, 131 Pfander, Alexander, 132, 1 4 2 , Treitschke, Heinrich von, 6
128, 137, 141, 142, 162, 168 f., Kierkegaard, Soren, 104, 116, 145, 178
170, 172, 199, 2 0 2 , 2 0 5 , 2 1 4 , 117, 124 f., 137 f., 2 1 3 f., Pindar, 52 Van Breda, H. L., 168
2 1 8 , 2 2 0 , 2 2 3 f., 2 2 9 , 230- 215 Plato, xxii, xxiv, xxxvii, xlix, Van Gogh, Vincent, 139, 2 2 1
232, 238, 240 Kleist, Heinrich von, 121 9 f., 12 f., 21 f., 2 5 , 6 6 , 7 7 , Volkmann-Schluck, K. H., 166
Hehn, Voktor, 61 Knoll, Renate, 212 128, 1 4 1 , 167, 177 f., 1 9 6 ,
Heidegger, Martin, xv, xvi, xix, Kraus, Oskar, 1 4 4 , 178, 181 200, 2 0 1 , 2 1 1 , 2 2 9 , 2 3 0 , 2 3 2 Wahl, Jean, xliii, 164
xxix, xxxv, xl, xliv-lvi, 4 , 9, Kriiger, Gerhard, 4 9 , 5 1 , 7 4 , Wartenburg, Paul Yorck von, 4 8
Plotinus, 2 3 2
3 5 , 4 8 ff., 7 2 , 7 5 , 8 1 , 1 18 f., 231, 240 Protagoras, 2 2 Weber, Max, 137
120 f., 123, 124 f., 132, 134, Weizsa'cker, Viktor von, 5 4
135, 1 3 8 - 1 4 1 , 142 f., 144, Lacan, Jacques, 41 Wittenberg, Alexander Israel, 181
Quintilian, 4 3
146, 148 f., 1 5 1 , 156 f., 160 f., Wittgenstein, Ludwig, x x x , xxxiii-
Landgrebe, Ludwig, xliii, 1 5 1 ,
168-174, 176, 179, 180, 183, x x x i x , xli, 7 5 , 126 f., 173-177
164, 166, 168, 178 f. Ranke, Leopold von, 5, 6, 29
188, 195, 196, 198-240
Leibniz, Friedrich, 110, 115, 147, Reinach, Adolf, 133, 145
Helmholz, Hermann von, 13
229, 232
Heraclitus, 225
Levy-Bruhl, Lucien, 179
Herder, J. G., 6 1 , 7 6 , 86
Linke, Paul Ferdinand, 144
Hohl, Hubert, 180
Linschoten, Johannes, 173, 180
Hblderlin, Friedrich, 7 9 , 2 1 7 , 2 3 5
Lipps, Hans, xxxii, 120, 173
Honingswald, Richard, 7 9
Lohmann, Johannes, 13, 14, 4 2 f.
Huizinga, Johan, 55
Lowith, Karl, 7 4