My friend Colin wrote something that I like. He gets bonus points for inventing some cool acronyms - MIQT, MCRUT, and CPITs - as I have a fondness for acronyms. Still, I feel the need to polem. I just made that word up, polem, a verbalization of “polemic” and “polemos”, I think it’s much superior to “polemicize”, among its virtues is a pun on Deleuze and Guattari on philosophers. Dolce and Gabbana write that the philosopher shuns discussion. I think it’s because the philosopher has allergies. Ha! (Get it? See, the Spanish word ‘discutir’ means ‘to discuss’ or ‘to argue’ in the sense of reasoned debate and ‘to argue’ in the sense of conflict and fight, that is ‘to polem’. ‘Polem’ sounds like ‘pollen’. The philosopher stays away from discussion because the philosopher has hay fever, polem bakes theb sneeze, and the nasal congestion is much harder on the French for whom the nose is an integral part of speech.) But I digress.
Colin writes:
Heidegger says our understanding is always grounded in a preconception. In paragraph 32 of Being and Time-Understanding and Interpretation-Heidegger argues that “interpretation is never a presuppositionless grasping of something previously given.” In some respects, I like this claim, and the criticism of the “myth of the given” that it contains. However, when Gadamer works Heidegger’s argument up into “prejudice is the condition of intelligibility,” I get nervous. I despise Gadamer’s argument against the Enlightenment “prejudice against prejudice,” which reduces the opposition to prejudice to “just another prejudice.” It’s slippery and hard to get out of, and you’ve got to respect it for that, but it’s on the wrong side of things. Philosophers shouldn’t be making arguments for the necessity of prejudice. I’m not just expressing another prejudice here. They really shouldn’t.
After reading some secondary literature on Kant, I realized that I don’t have to refute Gadamer’s claim directly in order to refute it. I don’t have to demonstrate that an opposition to prejudice is something other than prejudice. That’s really hard. All I have to do is show that prejudice makes things unintelligible, rather than intelligible. Then, you can’t say that prejudice is the (sufficient) condition of intelligibility of a text.
He then goes on to show how a certain text, the book The Philosophy of the Young Kant, is unintelligible, or rather renders Kant unintelligible, because of a prejudice it has, a prejudice required for its argument. I accept Colin’s read of the book and his argument about its problems. I don’t accept this as a refutation of prejudice, though. This only shows that that prejudice in that particular case was wrong. Not prejudice as such in the sense used in refernece to Gadamer. Of course, I don’t know about Heidegger (except that he was a dirty nazi who regrettably was not killed) or Gadamer, but the claim does not seem to be that all prejudices are correct or necessary. That would be incoherent, since surely there must be prejudices that conflict. Rather, the claim seems to be that some prejudices are correct and necessary. Refuting that would mean arguing that no prejudices are correct and necessary. Doing so will not come from the refutation or exposure of one prejudice as bad. I don’t know how one could actually do so, but then I’m pretty friendly to what I take to be the Gadamer position as Colin presents it.
Colin then writes
Here’s the hard part, the part that I think gets at Gadamer’s claim. If you deny claims like those in The Philosophy of the Young Kant, does it imply that you’re treating the text as something which is simply “given,” that you can cut through every preconception and prejudice and get to the “thing itself” (in this case, the pure, unadulterated “truth” or “meaning” of the text)? Or that you’re just marshalling your own prejudices against the prejudices of the scholar you’re reading? I don’t think so. I think you’re simply demonstrating that some preconceptions and prejudices make things unintelligible. It’s a modest enough claim, and it doesn’t betray some other preconception or prejudice.
When you’ve shown that (some) preconceptions and prejudices can make things unintelligible, it makes sense to look for some other, better conception or judgment to help you make sense of the text.
Colin seems here to say what I said before - the claim about this book in particular only addresses one prejudice, not the category of prejudice or the need for (some) prejudices. Also, Colin seems to be hankering for a sort of prejudiced-less, presuppositionless read of Kant. That’s understandable, but it makes Colin still a Hegelian, in the sense of desiring a presuppositionless starting point (a place to stand which is no place?). I don’t see how that can escape the thing itself problem Colin indicates, that of being uberschwenglisch (I can’t remember how to spell that word and I can’t remember if it translates as “transcendent” or “transcendental” in Kant, or if I’ve even got the right word in mind - what I’m thinking of is that thing that Kant talks about where reason oversteps its bounds. I just remember that German word because it sounds like “over-swing” which reminds me of being a kid and wanting to get the swing on the swingset to wrap around the upper bar). Against all this I’m more for just asserting against Gadamer precisely a prejudice against prejudice, particularly against ones that one doesn’t cop to, and against (almost?) any ones other than that one, the prejudice against prejudice. A la Rorty, “I’m not a relativist, I’m ethnocentric.”
Hey Nate–
First, thanks for commenting. These are methodological problems I’m interested in, and haven’t really worked out for myself. Second, I would like to point out that what I blogged was by no means a finished product (nor will what I write here be anything like a masterpiece). It was just a spur of the moment thought experiment. I don’t know that I’d take anything back, but I’d explain things more and wouldn’t have glided over a few of the points in the argument so casually if I were presenting it formally.
The problem I’m trying to avoid is precisely the hermeneutic equivalent of the Rorty position you cite at the end of your response: I don’t think it’s ok for people to be ethnocentric. At least, it’s not ok for people to be ethnocentric simply because they’re ethnocentric. To put it another way, it’s not ok to be ethnocentric for the sake of ethnocentrism. If you’re going to be ethnocentric, you’d better have a good reason. And it has to be more than ethnocentrism.
I think it works like this: If one culture is more “just” than another, then it’s ok to be ethnocentric about the “just” culture. But not if you don’t know what “justice” is. So, the question becomes “what is justice?”
I don’t think you can assume that the beliefs you hold about “justice” are superior to the those of others without reasons. You can choose one or the other, but then you become Buridan’s ass. You can “decide” for one position and against the other, but you can’t say either one is better. You can just say you chose one over the other, and you have your reasons.
If that’s where you want to stop, ok. It’s not where I want to stop. I think we can do better. And I think it’s worthwhile to try to figure out what “justice” is and why it makes a culture or society better, and to answer those kinds of questions. Obnoxious philosophy stuff.
I’d probably makie the same argument in the about how to read texts. I don’t deny that it’s possible take a position on a text for reasons which have nothing to do with that text. You can just choose to believe that it says one thing rather than another. But at that point you shouldn’t say you’re talking about the text, you should just admit that what you’re talking about is the set of beliefs you happen to hold (because your talk about the text is just code for what you believe).
At least when you’re talking about scholarship, about reading a text to understand a text, I don’t think interpretations should follow from beliefs. They shouldn’t be interested positions one takes for reasons which have nothing to do with the text. Rather, they should be attempts to render the text as intelligible as possible, to make it as clear as possible, to understand it as completely as possible. To realize the MIQT. Maybe I should have specificed that my opposition to prejudice in reading and interpretation is specific to reading for the sake of understanding, and may not apply in other cases. Ultimately, though, I think politics would also function better if we got rid of prejudice, so I don’t know if there’s any case in which I’d admit that it’s better to run with your prejudices.
At this point, the question is probably “how this prove that you don’t need preconceptions or prejudices to make a text intelligible?” Basically, I think I showed (1) that claims derived from prejudice can make a text unintelligible. If that’s true, then (2) prejudice isn’t the sufficient condition of intelligibility of a text. Rather, it must be the case that (3) there’s something about some prejudices which help them make a text intelligible, and something about other prejudices that make them make a text unintelligible. So, just because you have a prejudice that a text should mean something, that isn’t enough to make it intelligible. In other words, if a reading with a certain prejudice happens to make a text intelligible, it isn’t because it’s a prejudice. It makes the text intelligible because it makes the text intelligible. (5) A position you derived from arguing with someone for an hour or a day or a year could do the same thing, and couldn’t be considered a “pre”judice. It’s just another conception or judgment. At this poing you can assert (6) that prejudice isn’t the necessary condition of the intelligibility of a text, because things which aren’t held beforehand like preconceptions or prejudices can give you the same intelligibility quotient as preconceptions and prejudices. So (7) by showing that prejudice is neither necessary nor sufficient for making a text intelligible, you’ve undermined Gadamer’s position entirely. The position just becomes irrelevant. It doesn’t have any force. You never have to talk about prejudice again. But you still have to (1) figure out what it is that a text becomes intelligible, (2) how to approach a text in such a ways as to maximize its intelligibility, and (3) you also have to figure out how to accurately estimate your own capacity to realize the intelligibility quotient of the text, in the interest of “pure” understanding. I don’t know how to do any of those things.
I wish I could see everything I’ve written in this box at once, or edit it after I’ve posted it. I have no idea what I’ve said…
Colin–
Comment by Colin — November 7, 2006 @ 9:07 pm
Ok, one clarification: The “I think I showed” refers to my original blog posting, not to the previous paragraphs. Though I do think the elimination of reasons for preferring one interpretation to another is the same thing as rendering a text unintelligible…
Comment by Colin — November 7, 2006 @ 9:14 pm
hi Colin,
I need to got sleep, more later. For now -
“I think I showed (1) that claims derived from prejudice can make a text unintelligible. If that’s true, then (2) prejudice isn’t the sufficient condition of intelligibility of a text. Rather, it must be the case that (3) there’s something about some prejudices which help them make a text intelligible, and something about other prejudices that make them make a text unintelligible.”
I didn’t think Gadamer’s claim as I read it in your post was that having any prejudice at all was a sufficient condition for understanding a text. I took it from your post that the claim is that the necessary condition for understanding a text is some prejudice. That all prejudices don’t serve equally to produce understanding of texts does not undermine this argument: “when understanding of a text happens to occur, the understanding relies upon some prejudice.” (No more than “diesel fuel doesn’t make my car go” undermines the claim “my car needs fuel to go.”) The argument doesn’t say anything about which prejudices do and don’t serve, that does certainly need to be clarified, and that’s what your argument underscores. (Does Gadamer attempt which ones do and don’t serve?) Good night for now.
take care,
Nate
Comment by Nate — November 8, 2006 @ 6:09 am
Hey Nate–
You’re right. The first (3) points just serve to demonstrate that having some prejudice, no matter what kind, isn’t “sufficient” to make a text intelligible. That’s the argument against prejudice as a “sufficient” condition of intelligibility. It doesn’t disprove the claim that some prejudice is the “necessary” condition of intelligibility, as you point out in your most recent response.
The claim that prejudice isn’t the “necessary” condition of intelligibility is handled by points (5-7). Point (4) is a secret.
The argument that discussion can also make a text intelligibile is suppose to show that prejudice isn’t a “necessary” condition of intelligibility. I don’t think a discussion is reducible to a conflict of interpretations, or two parties marshalling their own prejudices against one another.
Instead, the discursive situation I’m imagining is this: you meet someone totally random on the street. For some reason you talk about a book that you’ve both been meaning to read, but haven’t yet read. You happen to have a copy of the book with you. You open the book to a random page, read a random passage, which seems very strange and incomprehensible, and the two of you start talking about it. The passage starts to become intelligible as you talk.
What I think is happening in a situation like this is that you’re making the text intelligible (in some fashion), but you aren’t relying on a preconception or a prejudice to understand the text. Instead, you’re gauging the correctness of your reading and the sufficiency of your understanding by the reaction an interlocutor has to your claims, and the arguments (s)he makes in response to them.
If my understanding of how discourse and argument can help to make a text intelligible is accurate, then there’s no need to talk about PREconception or PREjudice. You’re still dealing with conceptions and judgments, but you don’t have to hold them before you read the text, and you don’t have to apply them to the text as you read it. Rather, you can read the text, and then do the work of making it intelligible afterwards. If that’s possible, then prejudice isn’t the “necessary” condition of intelligibility.
If prejudice is neither the necessary nor the sufficient condition of intelligibility, then it’s entirely incidental to the process of making a text intelligible, and you can ignore it if you choose to. Your reason to do so might be that you’re not interested in maintaining some belief or another, but understanding the text itself, to the fullest extent that you’re capable.
Comment by Colin — November 8, 2006 @ 3:07 pm
Hey Nate–
You’re right. The first (3) points just serve to demonstrate that having some prejudice, no matter what kind, isn’t “sufficient” to make a text intelligible. That’s the argument against prejudice as a “sufficient” condition of intelligibility. It doesn’t disprove the claim that some prejudice is the “necessary” condition of intelligibility, as you point out in your most recent response.
The claim that prejudice isn’t the “necessary” condition of intelligibility is handled by points (5-7). Point (4) is a secret.
The argument that discussion can also make a text intelligibile is suppose to show that prejudice isn’t a “necessary” condition of intelligibility. I don’t think a discussion is reducible to a conflict of interpretations, or two parties marshalling their own prejudices against one another.
Instead, the discursive situation I’m imagining is this: you meet someone totally random on the street. For some reason you talk about a book that you’ve both been meaning to read, but haven’t yet read. You happen to have a copy of the book with you. You open the book to a random page, read a random passage, which seems very strange and incomprehensible, and the two of you start talking about it. The passage starts to become intelligible as you talk.
What I think is happening in a situation like this is that you’re making the text intelligible (in some fashion), but you aren’t relying on a preconception or a prejudice to understand the text. Instead, you’re gauging the correctness of your reading and the sufficiency of your understanding by the reaction an interlocutor has to your claims, and the arguments (s)he makes in response to them.
If my understanding of how discourse and argument can help to make a text intelligible is accurate, then there’s no need to talk about PREconception or PREjudice. You’re still dealing with conceptions and judgments, but you don’t have to hold them before you read the text, and you don’t have to apply them to the text as you read it. Rather, you can read the text, and then do the work of making it intelligible afterwards. If that’s possible, then prejudice isn’t the “necessary” condition of intelligibility.
If prejudice is neither the necessary nor the sufficient condition of intelligibility, then it’s entirely incidental to the process of making a text intelligible, and you can ignore it if you choose to. Your reason to do so might be that you’re not interested in maintaining some belief or another, but understanding the text itself, to the fullest extent that you’re capable.
–Colin
Comment by Colin — November 8, 2006 @ 3:08 pm
Hey Nate–
You’re right. The first (3) points just serve to demonstrate that having some prejudice, no matter what kind, isn’t “sufficient” to make a text intelligible. That’s the argument against prejudice as a “sufficient” condition of intelligibility. It doesn’t disprove the claim that some prejudice is the “necessary” condition of intelligibility, as you point out in your most recent response.
The claim that prejudice isn’t the “necessary” condition of intelligibility is handled by points (5-7). Point (4) is a secret.
The argument that discussion can also make a text intelligibile is suppose to show that prejudice isn’t a “necessary” condition of intelligibility. I don’t think a discussion is reducible to a conflict of interpretations, or two parties marshalling their own prejudices against one another.
Instead, the discursive situation I’m imagining is this: you meet someone totally random on the street. For some reason you talk about a book that you’ve both been meaning to read, but haven’t yet read. You happen to have a copy of the book with you. You open the book to a random page, read a random passage, which seems very strange and incomprehensible, and the two of you start talking about it. The passage starts to become intelligible as you talk.
What I think is happening in a situation like this is that you’re making the text intelligible (in some fashion), but you aren’t relying on a preconception or a prejudice to understand the text. Instead, you’re gauging the correctness of your reading and the sufficiency of your understanding by the reaction an interlocutor has to your claims, and the arguments (s)he makes in response to them.
If my understanding of how discourse and argument can help to make a text intelligible is accurate, then there’s no need to talk about PREconception or PREjudice. You’re still dealing with conceptions and judgments, but you don’t have to hold them before you read the text, and you don’t have to apply them to the text as you read it. Rather, you can read the text, and then do the work of making it intelligible afterwards. If that’s possible, then prejudice isn’t the “necessary” condition of intelligibility.
If prejudice is neither the necessary nor the sufficient condition of intelligibility, then it’s entirely incidental to the process of making a text intelligible, and you can ignore it if you choose to. Your reason to do so might be that you’re not interested in maintaining some belief or another, but understanding the text itself, to the fullest extent that you’re capable.
–Colin
Comment by Colin — November 8, 2006 @ 3:09 pm
Sorry about the multiple postings. It was an accident. it said it wasn’t posting. Can you erase them?
Comment by Colin — November 8, 2006 @ 3:12 pm
hi Colin,
[I’ll fix the extra comments soon.] You’re absolutely right. I had misunderstood. The “pre-” part of prejudice doesn’t make any sense in this context, if it’s taken to mean a belief which pre-exists interpretation and therefore makes it possible. It seems obvious to me that one can encounter a text without a temporally prior prejudice, and in the process one can begin interpret the text. One could say that what one does then is generate a prejudice and then generate an interpretation. That doesn’t seem right to me. I think it might be more defensable to say that one begins to generate an interpretation and at the same time a prejudice. In that case, prejudice is at most only logically prior and foundational to interpretation, not temporally prior. If that were so, though, it’s not all clear then that the relationship between prejudice and interpretation is causal. It might be simply that interpretation logically implies prejudice (in the way that driving to work logically implies the motion of the car, but it doesn’t rmake sense to say that driving to work is caused by the motion car). I suspect that’s still a claim you’re not going to like. I think Rorty’s ‘ethnocentrism’ is more along those lines, but I’m not entirely sure. (More on that later, I’m still in a rush.)
take care,
Nate
Comment by Nate — November 8, 2006 @ 4:01 pm