Charles Taylor - Interpretation and the Sciences of Man
● Two opposing views of the ‘sciences of man’: hermeneutic and empiricist
● Hermeneutic sciences characterised by three things:
○ an object or field of objects about which we can speak of in terms of
coherence or incoherence, sense or nonsense
○ distinction between the sense of coherence made, and its embodiment in
language. ie distinction between phenomena and their expression; ‘a distinction must be
possible between meaning and expression’
○ must have meaning for a subject (e.g. agent)
● Problem with hermeneutics is that it rests on seemingly subjective interpretation
○ an interpretation may make sense of what seems incoherent, but what if
someone reads the language/situation differently?
■ the interpreter can only justify with reference to more
expressions or readings; hence we cannot avoid an ultimate appeal to common
understanding of the expressions/‘language’ involved
■ this is the ‘hermeneutic circle’
● There are two ways that have been employed to break out of the circle
○ rationalism a la Hegel
■ aspires to such clarity that refutation would be
unthinkable
○ empiricism
■ accepts as brute certain facts e.g. sense data, and seeks to
build on these brute facts using inference (logical empiricism)
■ this is the model of the natural sciences, and its hand is
strengthened by the invention of computers (because explicit inference
procedures)
● An empiricist will necessarily be hostile to hermeneutics, because it cannot meet the
requirements of intersubjective, nonarbitrary verification
● Why would we consider the sciences of man to be hermeneutic?
○ when we talk in terms of meaning we refer to three things:
■ meaning is for a subject i.e. context dependent; there is
no meaning in vacuo
■ meaning is of something i.e. there is a distinction
between meaning and its element
● there can be no meaning without
elements, but the same meaning can appropriately attach to different
elements
■ things only have meaning in a field i.e. in relation to the
meanings of other things - colour, numbers etc.
○ this is hermeneutic e.g. shame cannot be explained but with reference to
other concepts, which themselves cannot be explained without reference to shame
■ we may not notice this because we are inside the
hermeneutic circle, but we notice it instantly when exposed to another
civilization
● Do the sciences of man fulfil the three criteria of hermeneutic disciplines?
● Two opposing views of the ‘sciences of man’: hermeneutic and empiricist
● Hermeneutic sciences characterised by three things:
○ an object or field of objects about which we can speak of in terms of
coherence or incoherence, sense or nonsense
○ distinction between the sense of coherence made, and its embodiment in
language. ie distinction between phenomena and their expression; ‘a distinction must be
possible between meaning and expression’
○ must have meaning for a subject (e.g. agent)
● Problem with hermeneutics is that it rests on seemingly subjective interpretation
○ an interpretation may make sense of what seems incoherent, but what if
someone reads the language/situation differently?
■ the interpreter can only justify with reference to more
expressions or readings; hence we cannot avoid an ultimate appeal to common
understanding of the expressions/‘language’ involved
■ this is the ‘hermeneutic circle’
● There are two ways that have been employed to break out of the circle
○ rationalism a la Hegel
■ aspires to such clarity that refutation would be
unthinkable
○ empiricism
■ accepts as brute certain facts e.g. sense data, and seeks to
build on these brute facts using inference (logical empiricism)
■ this is the model of the natural sciences, and its hand is
strengthened by the invention of computers (because explicit inference
procedures)
● An empiricist will necessarily be hostile to hermeneutics, because it cannot meet the
requirements of intersubjective, nonarbitrary verification
● Why would we consider the sciences of man to be hermeneutic?
○ when we talk in terms of meaning we refer to three things:
■ meaning is for a subject i.e. context dependent; there is
no meaning in vacuo
■ meaning is of something i.e. there is a distinction
between meaning and its element
● there can be no meaning without
elements, but the same meaning can appropriately attach to different
elements
■ things only have meaning in a field i.e. in relation to the
meanings of other things - colour, numbers etc.
○ this is hermeneutic e.g. shame cannot be explained but with reference to
other concepts, which themselves cannot be explained without reference to shame
■ we may not notice this because we are inside the
hermeneutic circle, but we notice it instantly when exposed to another
civilization
● Do the sciences of man fulfil the three criteria of hermeneutic disciplines?
