THOMAS MCCARTHY

O N M I S U N D E R S T A N D I N G ' U N D E R S T A N D I N G '

ABSTRACT. Philosophers of Science have recently put a good deal of energy into locat- ing the precise methodological boundaries between the natural and the social sciences. The methodological affinities of the latter with certain aspects of the humanities have been as yet too little explored. A convenient starting point for this discussion, and one which is adopted in this paper, is a reconsideration of the role and nature of interpretive understanding in the social sciences. However, before a serious examination of this issue can be undertaken, a clearing operation on the encrusted misunderstandings which are part of the legacy of logical positivism is necessary. In this paper I argue that the neo-positivistic account of understanding rests on a misunderstanding of the concept; that a more adequate conception of the issues involved - and one closer to the traditional Verstehen problematic of Dilthey et al. - can be gleaned from the work of Peter Winch; and that this development is furthered in a number of important respects by recent work done in hermeneutie philosophy - especially that of H.-G. Gadamer. The discussion of Gadamer suggests that the problem of locating the boundaries with the humanities might be as serious a problem for the theory of the social sciences as has been that concerning the natural sciences. The paper concludes with several suggestions as to the implications of the analysis of understanding for the thesis of the methodolo- gical unity of the sciences.

W i t h a few no tab le exceptions, ph i losophers o f science have no t devoted a

great deal o f energy to analyz ing the me thodo log ica l dua l i sm which does

in fact ob ta in between the na tu ra l sciences and the humani t ies . By and

large they have been content to live with the obvious d iss imi lar i ty between

research procedures and forms o f a rgumen ta t ion in the ' two cul tures ' .

This otherwise peaceful co-existence is unfor tuna te ly subject to per iod ic

d is turbances der iv ing f rom a fundamen ta l d i sagreement a b o u t the respect-

ive spheres o f influence. The contes ted te r r i tory is the d o m a i n o f the social

sciences.

While the natural sciences and the humanities (Geisteswissenschaften) are able to live side by side, in mutual indifference if not in mutual admiration, the social sciences must resolve the tension between the two approaches (and bring them) under one roof. Here the research practice itself forces a reflection on the relationship between analytic and hermeneutic procedures. 1

W i t h o u t a d o u b t the central me thodo log ica l issue in this t e r r i to r i a l d ispute

concerns the na ture and role o f Verstehen, or in terpret ive unders tand ing ,

Theory and Decision 3 (1973) 351-370. All Rights Reserved Copyright �9 1973 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht-Holland

352 T H O MA S M C C A R T H Y

in the social sciences. The majority of those thinkers who have argued for the methodological distinctiveness of the social from the natural sciences have, in one form or another, based their arguments on the necessity in the former of a procedure foreign to the latter, a procedure aimed at inter- pretively understanding the meaning of social phenomena. On the other hand, those defending the methodological unity of the social with the natural sciences, most recently the logical positivists and their descendents, have almost unanimously given a rather low estimate of the importance of the concept of Verstehen for a logic of the social sciences. In what follows I will argue that the neo-positivistic devaluation of Verstehen rests on a misunderstanding of the concept, that a more adequate conception of the issues involved can be gleaned from the work of Peter Winch, and that this development is furthered in a number of important respects by recent work done in hermeneutic philosophy. I will conclude by drawing some implications of this treatment for the logic of the social sciences. 2

I. U N D E R S T A N D I N G A N D E M P A T H Y

There are no doubt a number of historical considerations which throw light on the sceptical attitude within 'the legacy of logical positivism' towards the idea of a procedure peculiar to the study of social phenomena. To mention only two: the majority of influential logical positivists were both by training and by interest oriented to logic, mathematics and the physical sciences and tended to regard these as models for scientific knowledge in general. When, secondly, the issue has been discussed in this tradition, it has usually been formulated in accordance with what is taken to have been Max Weber's conception of the problem. This conception is itself a narrowing in certain important respects of the issues which were presented to Weber by the rapid development of historical research and of the Geisteswissensehaften in the nineteenth century, and by the methodo- logical reflection which this development had occasioned. This foreshort- ening of historical perspective has seriously affected the discussion of Verstehen. For one thing, there has been an overriding tendency to formulate the problem as one concerned exclusively with the understand- ing of individual or group actions through the employment of empathy, sympathetic imagination, empathetic identification or something of the sort.

ON MISUNDERSTANDING 'UNDERSTANDING' 353

Thus, for example, Edgar Zilsel, writing on 'Physics and the Problem of Historico-Sociological Laws' in 1941, stated that: "Understanding means psychological empathy: psychologically a historical process is 'understood' if it is evident or plausible." 3 In his now classic article of 1948. Theodor Abel analyzed 'The Operation Called Verstehen' as a process based on 'imagination', that is

based on the application of personal experience to observed behavior. We 'understand' an observed or assumed connection if we are able to parallel either one with something we know through self-observation does happen. 4

In his Structure of Science Ernest Nagel continues to treat the problem as one of the role of"sympathet ic imagination' or 'empathetic identification' and comes to similar conclusions as to its importance for the logic of the social sciences. 5 Even those authors within this tradition who reject the conclusions of such arguments often accept the terms. Thus in a recent discussion Michael Scriven is concerned to demonstrate that "empathy is, in principle, a reliable tool for the historian and the physical scientist." 6

This definition of the problem goes a long way towards its resolution. With few exceptions - e.g. Scriven - methodologists are not prepared to attribute a fundamental logical role to a psychological act of 'empathetic identification'. So defined, Verstehen would, argues Abel, depend upon knowledge "derived from personal experience... (and on) introspective capacity". It could not be a 'method of verification', but, at best, a heuristic aid "in preliminary explorations of a subject", with perhaps the additional capacity to "relieve us of a sense of apprehension in connection with behavior that is unfamiliar or unexpected". In the last analysis the "probability of a connection" could be established "only by means of objective, experimental, and statistical tests." 7 In a similar vein Nagel points out that

it is by no means obvious that a social scientist cannot account for men's actions unless he has experienced in his own person the psychic states he imputes to them or unless he can successfully recreate such states in imagination.

Such an ability would, at best, "be pertinent to questions concerning the origins of his explanatory hypotheses but not to questions concerning their validity." In short, empathetic identification "does not, by itself, constitute knowledge." s

This then is the ruling orthodoxy. Verstehen is connected with the

354 THOMAS MCCARTHY

explanation of individual or group actions. It amounts to the heuristic employment of sympathetic imagination in the attempt to interpolate motives into observed behavior sequences. It is not iself a mode of know- ledge of social phenomena, nor is it a method of verification. As a heuristic device its functions are to suggest hypotheses and to relieve apprehension in the face of the unfamiliar.

This view of the matter has not gone unchallenged in English-speaking philosophical circles. In recent years an interesting challenge has arisen from the Wittgensteinian tradition. Whereas his earlier philosophy seemed to support the positivistic theory of science, Wittgenstein's later philosophy has inspired an approach to problems concerning the nature, description and explanation of human action which provides a frame- work for the reconsideration of the foundations of social inquiry. In this framework the broader traditional Verstehen problematic - such, for example, as it is developed in the work of Dilthey - comes once again to the fore, albeit in a somewhat different dress. I would like next to consider briefly the work of one of the most interesting and most con- troversial members of this Wittgensteinian school of thought, Peter Winch.

II. UNDERSTANDING FORMS OF LIFE

In the second chapter of his book The Idea of a Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy, Winch discusses 'the nature of meaningful be- havior'. 9 His discussion centers on purposive individual behavior, that is, on that type of behavior which is at the center of the neo-positivistic treatment of Verstehen. Winch, however, immediately introduces a new dimension: meaningful behavior is "ipso facto rule governed." (52) This is not to say that it is simply a putting into effect of pre-existing principles. Rather, principles and rules "arise in the course of conduct and are only intelligible in relation to the conduct out of which they arise." (63) On the other hand, "the nature of the conduct out of which they arise can only be grasped as an embodiment of those principles." (63) Disregarding for the moment the claim implicit in the word 'only' - a claim which has born the brunt of much of the criticism levelled at Winch - it may be noted here that this conception of human behavior as essentially rule-following is not at all new to social theory. On the con- trary, it is a central conception of the sociological tradition. Thus,

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although Winch's development of his theme wears the dress of Witt-

gensteinian philosophy, it can be said to have its roots within the practice of social science, where the notions of shared rules, standards, norms and the 'role behavior' which they govern are of central concern. It should also be clear that the treatment of human behavior as rule-following

does not of itself amount to a denial of the importance of empirical procedures of data gathering, the search for regularities, the use of statistical techniques and the like. Such procedures are commonly employed by social scientists whose express goal it is to discover and formulate norms governing the roles which exist in a society.

With these preliminaries behind us we can now pose the question: in what way does Winch's treatment of human action throw light on the problem of Verstehen ? Let us return for a moment to Abel's analysis and, in particular, to his examples. 10 One ease he discusses concerns a

neighbor's chopping wood and building a fire after a drop in temperature. Sympathetic imagination, according to Abel, enables us to connect low temperatures with feeling cold and the observed behavior with seeking warmth. Another case connects a drop in the annual rate of crop pro- duction in a farming community with a drop in the rate of marriage in this community by internalizing the first into 'feelings of anxiety' and the second into 'fear of new commitments'. In both cases the work of understanding is performed at three points: firstly, the internalization of the stimulus; secondly, the internalization of the response: and thirdly the establishing of a connection between the two feeling states by the application of a 'behavior maxim' generalized from personal experience - for example: 'A person feeling cold will seek warmth' or 'People who experience anxiety will fear new commitments'.

As Jfirgen Habermas points out in his critique of Abel, this process of internalization and application of behavior maxims is by no means unproblematic.

There is no need for marriage to be judged primarily from the point of view of the economic burdens it occasions. In situations of insecurity (the establishing of) one's own family might just as well appear to be a security enhancing (formation of) an intimacy group. How farmers in cases of crop failure will behave with respect to familial matters depends obviously on inherited values and institutionalized roles. Such cultural patterns and social norms however.., do not belong to the class of apparently introspectively certain behavior maxims. Rather they require a controlled appropriation through the hermeneutic understanding of their meaning. 11

356 THOMAS MCCARTHY

The point of this criticism is clear. Behavior in a society depends, as has long been noted by social scientists, on 'the definition of the situation'. The agents about whose behavior the social scientist theorizes have themselves an interpretation of that behavior, ideas about what they are doing and why they are doing it. The application of empathetic identifi- cation as recommended by Abel presupposes that one has already under- stood satisfactorily the traditional institutional and cultural framework which gives the behavior to be explained its significance. And it is this type of understanding around which many of the central issues of the traditional Verstehen problematic revolve.

Now it might be argued that Abel has, in one way, anticipated this criticism. He was careful to stress that Verstehen is not a method of verification. "When we 'understand' a connection we imply nothing more than recognizing it as a possible one... In any given case the test of the actual probability calls for the application of objective methods of observation. ''lz But this qualification does not touch the heart of the matter, which Abel, in his unselfconscious use of the phrase 'the appli- cation of objective methods of observation', rather passes over. From a Winchean perspective, the critical problem of understanding already arises at the level of observation and description. For the description of a sequence of movements as an action of a certain sort already implies interpreting the behavior as having a certain point, as situated within a system of rules, norms, standards, and the like. By selecting as examples rather unproblematic actions in his own cultural vicinity, Abel could pass over, in presupposing, the work of interpretive analysis. Had he dealt, as the anthropologist must, with behavior in a foreign culture or, as the historian must, with epochs far removed in time from his own, it would have become clear that the work of interpretive understanding begins at a much more fundamental level than his schema implies. In another social setting the gathering of and setting fire to wood might have to be under- stood, for example, as the preparation for a ritual sacrifice or as the giving of a signal before it could properly be explained in terms of motives.

In other words, the problem arises at the level of identifying or de- scribing a series of movements as an action of a certain sort. The same movements could be variously described as 'lighting a fire', 'giving a signal', 'lighting a ritual fire', and so forth. Which description is ap-

ON M I S U N D E R S T A N D I N G ' U N D E R S T A N D I N G ' 357

plicable to the response determines in turn what the relevant stimulus and what the relevant motive might be. If the minimal description 'lighting a fire' is the proper one, then a drop in temperature and seeking warmth are proper candidates for the roles of stimulus and motive. If however some other description of the response - e.g. 'lighting a ritual fire' - is the proper one, then the list of candidates for these roles alters perceptibly. Now the Winchean point can be put by suggesting that the proper identification of an action depends on knowing the stock of action descriptions available in a given language game, as well as the criteria for their application. An interpretive understanding of the form of life in which it is located is thus essentially involved in the proper identification of an action, of relevant stimuli and of possible motives. These are not independent, but rather interconnected operations.

The presupposition of understanding in this broader sense is even clearer in the third case which Abel considers, the explanation of the Greeks' belief in eternal verities by reference to the 'hostile and changing world' as stimulus, and to the behavior maxim: 'A person who feels inadequate (when facing change) will seek security (in something change- less)'. Would anyone want to claim that this characterization of Greek thought as exhibiting a belief in eternal verities could be arrived at independently of an interpretive understanding of the Greek language and culture?

Winch's arguments have not gone unnoticed or uncriticized by de- fenders of the orthodox position. Two critical treatments in particular have achieved a rather wide currency, that of May Brodbeck in her article on 'Meaning and Action' 13 and the more abbreviated remarks of Richard Rudner in his book Philosophy of Social Science.14 Considerations of space make a lengthy analysis of their arguments impossible. I would, however, like to offer the following remarks. Rudner holds that

Winch's argument commits a rather subtle form of the 'reproductive fallacy' ... the claim that the only understanding appropriate to social science is one that consists of a reproduction of the conditions or states of affairs being studied is logically the same as the claim that the only understanding that is appropriate to the investigation of tornados is that gained in the direct experience of tornados, x5

What Rudner apparently intends with the phrase 'a subtle form of the reproductive fallacy' is that Winch, although he certainly does not call for reproduction in any usual sense of the term, does insist that the

358 THOMAS MCCARTHY

fundamental criteria for the identification of human actions are to be found, not in the rules which govern the sociologist's investigation, but in the rules according to which the activity under investigation is itself carried out. In general, "any more reflective understanding (of society) must presuppose, if it is to count as genuine understanding at all, the participant's unreflective understanding. 'u6 According to Rudner the fallacy consists in claiming that "these direct understandings are either the only ones possible for the social scientist or that they are a substitute for a scientific understanding of social phenomena." 17

In Winch's defense it should be pointed out that he nowhere maintains that the 'participant's unreflective understanding' is the only one possible or that it is a substitute for a 'more reflective understanding'. His claim is rather that the former is a presupposition of the latter. As Ryan has put it: "The claim is not one which dictates where our inquiries shall end, but one which says where they can logically be said to start." 18 It is not then the denial of the possibility of developing and employing sociological categories other than those of the participant, but the claim that the sociologist's access to his data, his formulation of the more reflective categories, and his application of them must be mediated through the participant's way of viewing his world. The sociologist, that is, must understand the 'language game' that is being played. If Winch's argument is taken in this way, Rudner's criticism, as it stands, misses the mark. What is needed, and what he fails to provide, is a demonstration that this sort of understanding is, in principle, dispensable.

Brodbeck comes closer to identifying Winch's real concern when she interprets him as claiming that "first of all, the investigator must under- stand the language of the people he studies." 19 Her criticism of his arguments is however not without its weaknesses. At one point she "suggests how, in principle, the investigator could dispense with knowing a common language" by alluding to the possibility of an 'objective' theory of language. 20 But she is aware that this conception is fraught with difficulties and admits that "in practice, these difficulties may well be insuperable." And so we are left with the problem of what, as a matter of fact, the understanding of the participant's language game involves. Brodbeck offers the following suggestions.

In practice the investigator simply assumes that he and the subject understand the same language. It is not hard to tell, in purely objective ways, whether or not a person under-

ON MISUNDERSTANDING ' U N D E R S T A N D I N G ' 359

stands what is being said to him .... If two people understand the same language, presumably because they have both learned it in the same social context, then they can communicate with each other .... The fact that the scientist learns the language as a participant in the social process does not imply that he can never, so to speak, stop being a participant .... In another sense (subject and scientist) do not 'speak the same language'. The language that the scientist uses to describe what he learns about his subject is in principle not the same language that he uses to communicate with him. 21

These suggestions bring us significantly closer to the core of the Ver- stehen problematic and call therefore for some comment. (a) Only in special eases can the "investigator assume that he and the subject under- stand the same language." For the anthropologist, historian or sociologi- cal investigator of groups other than his own coming to understand the language of the subject is a substantial part of the task at hand. And even in those eases where this can safely be assumed, Winch's point that the more reflective understanding of the social scientist presupposes the participant's unreflective understanding remains intact. The relative difficulty or ease of understanding the subjects's language does not affect the logical issue involved. (b) While it is true that the ways in which one judges whether what is said is understood are not subjective, neither are they 'purely objective' in the behavioristic sense in which Brodbeck seems to intend the phrase. A key concept here is suggested by Brodbeck herself in the lines quoted when she speaks of the ability to communicate as a sign of understanding. (c) Finally, Brodbeck touches upon a central point when she notes that "the language that the scientist uses to describe what he learns about his subject is in principle not the same language that he may use to communicate with him." But she seems to take this remark to be a solution to the problem whereas it is actually a statement of it: what is the relationship between the language of the social in- vestigator and that of the subject, and what sorts of logical issues does this difference in language games imply? In the next section I would like to indicate briefly the nature of these issues by returning to the work of Peter Winch and, by introducing into the discussion some of the ideas of the leading contemporary exponent of hermeneutic philosophy, Hans-Georg Gadamer.

III. VERSTEHEN AND HERMENEUTICS

In a later article, 'Understanding a Primitive Society', Winch provides an essential clarification and, it seems to me, extension of the theory put

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forward in his book. 2z In particular he takes up the question posed above. The article concentrates on certain issues connected with social anthro- pology and develops these through an analysis of Evans-Pritchard's book on Azande magic. Our question appears there as the

strain inherent in the situation of an anthropologist who wishes to make these beliefs and practices (of the Azande) intelligible to himself and his readers. This means present- ing an account of them that will somehow satisfy the criteria of rationality demanded by the culture to which he and his readers belong: a culture whose conception of ratio- nality is deeply affected by the achievements and methods of the sciences, and one which treats such things as a belief in magic or the practice of consulting oracles as almost a paradigm of the irrational. (307)

Winch begins his discussion of the 'strain' by posing the question whether a primitive system of magic, like that of the Azande, constitutes a "coherent universe of discourse, in terms of which an intelligible con- ception of reality and clear ways of deciding what beliefs are and are not in agreement with this reality can be discerned." (309) In the course of arguing that this is the case he considers the objection: even granting that the Azande are satisfied with their system of beliefs and practices, these are, nevertheless, based on an illusion and thus, in comparison say to our technologically based practices, make no sense. They are unintel- ligible. But this, says Winch, raises the questions: " to whom is the practice (of consulting oracles) alleged to be unintelligible ?" (311) "What criteria have we for saying that something does, or does not, make sense?" (312) The anthropologist is confronted here with two language games which he recognizes as "fundamentally different in kind, such that much of what may be expressed in one has no possible counterpart in the other." (313) Winch suggests that in this situation the anthropologist is not even in a position to "determine what is and what is not coherent in such a system of rules without raising questions about the point which following those rules has in that society." (315) He rejects the view that the anthropologist should simply take up and apply the standards of intelligibility current in his own society and proposes instead a sort of dialectical process in which, by somehow bringing the subject's con- ception of intelligible behavior into relation with our own, we create a new unity for the concept of intelligibility.

Winch then goes on to make some tentative suggestions about what this dialectical process involves. It is founded in part, according to him,

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on certain formal analogies holding between different ways of life. Their formality implies that, although the understanding of other forms of life requires that we see them in relation to our own, the analogies themselves do not give us any clues as to "which of our existing categories of thought will provide the best point of reference from which we can understand the point" of the practices under study. (319) Winch illus- trates this by challenging the interpretation of Azande magic as a more primitive form of our science. He takes as his 'point of reference' certain Christian conceptions of man and his dependence on God's will. But these formal analogies are not the only supports for the interpreter's work. Winch suggests other analogical notions, called by him 'limiting notions', which are involved in the "very conception of human life: ... birth, death, and sexual relations," and they are involved in a way "which gives us a clue where to look if we are puzzled about the point of an alien system of institutions." (322)

There are some striking parallels between this theory of interpretive understanding, developed from a linguistic perspective, and the theory of Hans-Georg Gadamer, developed from a hermeneutic perspective. 23 In the space that remains it will be possible to provide only the most summary treatment of Gadamer's views. This is regrettable since his work contains the most detailed contemporary analysis of the notion of Verstehen.

It might be well to begin with some very general differences in orien- tation which distinguish Gadamer's approach from that of Winch. It has often been remarked that Wittgenstein's account of language is peculiarly a-historical and Winch has been accused of carrying over this a-historicity into his theory of the social sciences. For Gadamer, language and tradition are inextricably intertwined. Tradition is the medium in which language continues and develops. From this perspective the process of socialization into a language community, which provides Wittgenstein and Winch with their point of orientation, is regarded as a component of an ongoing process in which a tradition is preserved and developed. The most obvious consequence of this difference in orientation is that Gadamer's questions, examples, concepts, etc. are tailored most directly to problems surrounding the interpretive understanding of meanings in one's own tradition, whereas Winch departs from the anthropological investigation of an alien culture.

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Another difference in orientation concerns the models which function in determining the two approaches. In the background of Wittgenstein's remarks on language there is usually the model of the learning of a primary language, that is, of the socialization process through which one comes to be able to use language in the first place. In his book Winch seems also to take his cues, in large part, from this model. This would help to account for the analogies which he explicitly draws between understanding a different language game and becoming socialized into a language community, and thus for the ambivalence which many have found in the logical status granted the 'participant's unreflective under- standing' over against the 'more reflective understanding' of the social scientist. It is precisely these analogies and this ambivalence which give rise to the suspicion that the argument of his book rests upon a "subtle form of the reproductive fallacy."

In his later article on understanding a primitive society, there is no mention of a change in approach but, as we saw, the central problem is there stated as that of achieving an understanding between two different language games, and the suggestion that this can be conceived of as a form of reproduction is explicitly rejected. In fact, as Winch describes it, the problem sounds much more like one of translation. Gadamer adopts this approach from the beginning. He departs from the situation in which the interpreter and his subject have already mastered their respective languages and sets the problem as one of achieving an understanding between them. He expressly rejects the socialization process as a model for Verstehen.

The understanding of a language is itself not yet really Verstehen, but an accomplish- ment of life (Lebensvollzug). For one understands a language in that one lives in it . . . the hermeneutic problem is therefore not a problem of the correct mastery of a language .... Such mastery. . . , is (rather) a precondition for understanding in dialogue. 24

Gadamer's paradigm for the operation of Verstehen is then the attempt at mutual understanding in dialogue. However, the real problems of understanding are most clearly seen when one considers cases in which it is particularly difficult to achieve, for example, cases involving two different languages. In such eases the conditions for successful under- standing are more likely to become explicit, and for this reason Gadamer adopts translation as a model from which to develop his analysis of Verstehen. 25

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This orientation excludes from the start an analysis of understanding in psychological terms, for example, in terms of empathetic imagination, of the recreation of feeling states, or of the virtual repetition of a social- ization process. Understanding is, for Gadamer, inextricably bound up with interpretation, that is, with a linguistic articulation of the meaning grasped. Regarded in this light, the logic of Verstehen is the analysis of the nature of the interpretive process, that is, of the articulation in the interpreter's language of meanings constituted in another universe of discourse. The interpreter does not approach his subject as a tabula rasa, as an ideally neutral observer with a direct acess to 'the given'. Rather, he brings with him a certain horizon of expectations or, in Winehean terms, a set of concepts, norms, rules, beliefs, practices, etc., which comprise the language game which is his form of life. The subject is seen by him from the perspectives opened by this horizon.

The process of interpretation itself has a hypothetical and circular character. From the perspectives available to him, the interpreter makes a preliminary projection (Vorentwurf) of the sense of the text (system of beliefs, institution, historical configuration, etc.) as a whole. With further penetration into the detail of his material the preliminary projection is revised, alternative proposals are considered, and new projections are tested. This hypothetico-circular process of understanding the parts in terms of a projected sense of the whole, and revising the latter in the light of a closer investigation of the parts, has as its goal the achieving of a unity of sense, that is, an interpretation of the whole in which our detailed knowledge of the parts can be integrated without violence. Standards of objectivity governing such a process cannot, according to Gadamer, be formulated or applied independently of the confirmation or certification of a projected interpretation in the light of the material at hand. Arbitrary preconceptions derived from the interpreter's own cultural context show themselves to be arbitrary only in collision with this material. The unsuitability of carrying over certain of his conceptions and beliefs into contexts far removed in time or place from his own be- comes evident through the further penetration of the material, a pene- tration which must be guided by a trained openness for cultural dif- ferences. This openness cannot be a question of the interpreter's ridding himself of all preconceptions and pre-judgements. This is a logical

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impossibility - the idea of an interpreter without a language. All inter- pretive understanding is necessarily bound to preconceptions and pre- judgements. The problem for interpretation is not simply the having of a structure of prejudices (Vorurteilsstruktur), but the unselfconscious imposition of this structure and the violence to an adequate under- standing which this entails, z6 Openness can only provide that this struc- ture of prejudices gradually becomes consciously recognized by the interpreter in the course of his interpretive activity. There is, of course, no possibility of raising to consciousness all at once and once and for all one's preconceptions and pre-judgements, say as a kind of puri- fication rite for the interpreter-to-be. It is rather in the interpretive process itself that one's own structure of prejudices gradually becomes clearer.

Up to this point Gadamer's analysis contains a number of points similar to those made by Winch. He too insisted that the parts (e.g. an individual action) could not be understood in isolation from the whole (the system of rules in which it is located). At least in the later article, he was clearly of the opinion that the central hermeneutic task is the interpretation of meanings constituted in one linguistic context into another linguistic context. And his critique of Evans-Pritchard's inter- pretation of Azande witchcraft as a sort of misguided technology followed closely the lines suggested by Gadamer - it was argued that this inter- pretation rests on the imposition of categories from the anthropologist's own culture which do not do justice to the material at hand; and he based this criticism on a closer analysis of this material, pointing out, for example, that the Azande do make distinctions between technological problem solving and magical rites, and that witchcraft rites are connected with certain beliefs and practices of a more 'religious' nature. His claim then was that this interpretation of the whole system as technological does not fit the particulars of the case, does not achieve a unity of sense, and that for this reason it amounts to an illicit pre-judgement. He does not argue that preconceptions as a whole can be done away with. On the contrary, his own interpretation departs from certain religious concep- tions in our culture.

There is another point on which the two authors very nearly agree. Winch described the interpretive process in quasi-dialectical terms, as the extension of our own conception of intelligible behavior to take

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account of the standards ofinteUigibility in the culture under investigation. Similarly, Gadamer argues that the interpreter, like the translator, must capture the sense of his material in and through articulating it in a conceptual framework different from that in which it is originally constituted as meaningful. And as the translator must find an idom which preserves, so to speak, the rights of his mother tongue and at the same time respects the foreignness of his text, so too must the interpreter conceptualize his material in such a way that, while its foreignness is preserved, it is nevertheless brought into intelligible relation with the concepts and beliefs of his own culture. In his terms, a successful inter- pretation brings with it a fusion of horizons (Horizontenverschmelzung). At this point Gadamer explicitly draws a conclusion which is only implicit in Winch: there is no such thing as the correct interpretation, as it were, in itself. I f interpretation is always a hermeneutic mediation between two conceptual systems, one of which - that of the interpreter - is constantly undergoing historical development, the notion of a final, once-and-for-all valid interpretation makes no sense. "Each time will have to understand the written tradition in its way...one understands otherwise if one understands at all." 27 To understand is to relate to one's own culture. Unless there be an end to history, there can be no end to the interpretive process, zs

It was remarked above that Gadamer does, whereas Winch does not, explicitly thematize the historical dimensions of interpretive under- standing. Consequently some of his more interesting theses relate most directly to historical understanding. He argues - to mention only one such point - that the traditional description of the hermeneutic circle - as the problem of the relation of the parts to the whole in the interpretive process - is purely formal and, as such, inadequate for an analysis of the structure of historical understanding and, in particular, for an analysis of the interpretive appropriation of one's own tradition. There is a circular structure to this process as well, but it is of a material nature. The anticipation or projection of meaning which guides the interpreter's work is, in this case, itself a product of the tradition he is trying to understand. That is, the interpretive understanding of one's own tradition departs from a structure of prejudices, from preconceptions and pre-judgements, which are themselves a product of this tradition. This is especially true of the study of classical cultures and their products, since these, by

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definition, have had an especially important Wirkungsgeschichte; that is, their interpretive appropriation has played a major role in the devel- opment of the tradition which is, so to speak, the object and the Vor- urteilsstruktur of the interpretation. And this interpretation is itself a re-appropriation, a moment of their Wirkungsgeschichte, a building forth of the very tradition being studied. But this circle has a positive significance, for it implies that there is some common ground between the preconceptions and pre-judgements of the interpreter and the material which he is investigating, that his points of reference for understanding his tradition have a foundation in that tradition itself. "The position between foreignness and familiarity which the tradition has for us... the true place of hermeneutic. ''29

It is interesting to note that Winch's concern with the understanding of alien cultures led him to focus on the existence of formal analogies and limiting notions as a condition of possibility for Verstehen. Gadamer's concern with the written tradition, on the other hand, leads him to focus on the much more concrete connection of the interpreter's universe of discourse with his object which obtains when both are part of the same tradition. In the case of one's own tradition the common ground is not merely general and abstract but particular and concrete.

It has not been my intention, in pointing out the considerable simi- larities in the discussions of interpretive understanding now underway in Wittgensteinian and in hermeneutic circles, to imply that agreement is a proof of correctness. What I have wished to argue is that the definition of the problem of Verstehen which has been inherited from logical positivism is seriously inadequate and has prevented philosophers of science influenced by this tradition from coming to terms with the real issues. I have also wanted to argue that Winch's and Gadamer's for- mulation of the problem- as one stemming from the fact that the phenome- na which the social scientist investigates are meaningful, that their meaning involves their connection with ways of life very often different from that of the social scientist and that, consequently, the access of the social scientist to his data involves the interpretive mediation between his language and that of the participant's - is more nearly correct. I would also like to suggest that the different points of their analyses, especially where they converge, might be a good place to initiate a serious discussion of the logic of Verstehen.

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IV. CONCLUDING REMARKS

This discussion of Verstehen undoubtedly leaves a great number of problems outstanding, not the least of which are the extent to which Gadamer's approach can be legitimately extended from the sphere of textual interpretation to that of social inquiry and, more generally, the fruitfulness of adopting his dialogue or translation models for procedures of interpretation in such inquiry. These problems will have to be left to another time. In the concluding remarks which follow I would like merely to suggest several consequences which seem to me to be entailed by the criticism of the empathy model sketched in Section II above. I shall, in particular, suggest consequences for (a) the methodological distinctiveness of the social sciences, (b) the methodological (as opposed to heuristic) status of interpretive understanding, and (c) the notion of objectivity or validity proper to interpretations of social phenomena. That these can here be no more than suggestions should be obvious, but I am hopeful that at least the outlines of more detailed arguments will be clear.

(a) If the argument that the social scientist's access to his data, his identification and classification of social phenomena, his formulation and application of concepts and 'theories' essentially involve an inter- pretive understanding of the participant's view of his behavior is sound, it follows that the difference between, say, sociology and physics is not logically the same as that between, say, chemistry and physics. While it may be plausible to defend the methodological (in some sense of the term) unity of the various natural sciences, the fundamental role of interpretive understanding in the social sciences entails a logical dif- ference between the study of cultural and non-cultural objects, events, structures, etc. Without passing judgement on recent attempts to find a hermeneutic dimension in natural science - in the use of aesthetic criteria, in the importance of direct insight or recognition, in the use made of the concept of cause, 30 in the necessity for the natural scientist to be socialized into a community of researchers and to come to an intuitive understanding of its norms, standards, rules and practices, in the analogy between reading a text and 'reading' an instrument or even 'the book of nature' - there remains the irreducible 'extra' language in the case of the social sciences. That is, no matter how one describes the methodology of the natural sciences, in positivistic terms or in terms of 'personal knowl-

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edge', the difference in level between inquiry into natural phenomena and inquiry into cultural phenomena (which include inquiry into natural phenomena as a social process) remains.

(b) The relegation of this difference to the realm of the heuristic as opposed to the realm of the properly scientific will not do. In the first place, the dichotomy: 'heuristic aid-method of justification' does not univocally divide the whole class of operations useful in scientific inquiry. Is classification a heuristic aid or a method of justification? How about measurement? Clearly the answer, if there is one, depends on the context in which these operations are employed. It is even more difficult to place items like concept or theory formation in one of these niches. However these divisions be sharpened or elaborated, it seems rather obvious that a procedure which is essential to the identification, classification and interrelating of the objects of the domain of a science can hardly be viewed as 'merely heuristic'. Consider only the implications for the establishment of measurement procedures. One need only read through a standard description of these procedures in the social sciences to see that at almost every crucial point - e.g. the formation of categories in terms of which the objects under study are to be classified, the segmentation of a clas- sificatory concept into a number of areas, the specification of indicators for each area, the recombination of the segmental judgements into a quantitative index - they are beset by a type of problem foreign to the natural sciences. 31 To put it rather abstractly, the successful carrying out of these operations demands that the social scientist always keep one eye on the participant's understanding of the phenomena which are being 'measured'. Now clearly, if such measurement procedures can function as 'methods of justification' - and if they can't, what can? - then interpretive understanding, which is necessary to their realization and application, is no less essential from a logical point of view. One can't 'measure' in this way without understanding. And if the under- standing is a misunderstanding, then the measurement procedure which relies on it is likely to be of little value.

(c) Finally it should be pointed out that this view of the role of Verstehen in the investigation of social phenomena is by no means incompatible with all modes of objectivity in the testing of social scientific hypotheses. It is however incompatible with an interpretation of testing procedures - including those procedures which are standardly employed

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in contemporary social research - which erroneously assimilates them to testing procedures in the natural sciences, where one need not worry about how the object views itself. To consider only one example: a pro- posed reconstruction of a rule system can be tested in a familiar way, that is, quasi-deductively. From the statement that a given individual or group is following a set of rules at a certain time, and statements describing their situation at that time, one can predict their behavior at a subsequent time. If the prediction fails, there are a number of possibilities. The hypothesis or the description may be mistaken, there may be additional factors which have to be taken into account, o r we may be dealing with a case of rule breaking, o r the rules may not have been sufficiently articulated to cover the (in some way novel) situation. Which alternative obtains can usually be ascertained, but not by 'the application of objective methods of observation', if these be taken to exclude understanding.

Department of Philosophy, Boston University,

Boston.

N O T E S

z Habermas, J., Zur Logik der Sozialwissenschaften, Frankfurt am Main 1970, p. 73. 2 This argument was first advanced in a paper delivered at the biennial meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association in October, 1972. The present treatment is a some- what revised and shortened version of that paper. 8 Philosophy of Science 8 (1941). 4 American Journal of Sociology 54 (1948); reprinted in Feigl and Brodbeck (eds.), Readings in the Philosophy of Science, New York 1953. The lines cited appear on p. 684 of this edition. While Abel is not by background or conviction himself a logical positivist, his article has become the locus classicus for the positivistic theory of Verstehen.

New York 1961. s Scriven, M., 'Logical Positivism and the Behavioral Sciences', in Achinstein and Barker (eds.), The Legacy of Logical Positivism, Baltimore 1969, p. 201. 7 Abel, op. cit., pp. 684-687. 8 Nagel, op. cit., pp. 483, 84. 9 London 1958; 6th ed.: London 1970. The numbers in the text of this section refer to the pagination in this edition. xo Abel is taken here as a model for this type of approach. 11 Habermas, op. cit., pp. 143, 44. 12 Abel, op. c/t., p. 685. 18 Philosophy o f Science 30 (1963); reprinted in M. Brodbeek (ed.), Readings in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences, New York 1968. The citations are from the reprinted version. a4 Engiewood Cliffs, 1966.

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15 Rudner, op. cit., p. 83. 16 Winch, op. cir., p. 89. lr Rudner, op. cit., p. 83. is Ryan, Alan, The Philosophy o f the Social Sciences, London 1970. 19 Brodbeck, op. cit., p. 68. 2o Ibid., p. 69. 21 Ibid., p. 69. 22 American Philosophical Quarterly 1, No. 4 (1964). The numbers in the text of this section refer to this article. 23 Gadamer, H.-G., Wahrheit und Methode (2nd ed.), TSbingen, 1965. The remarks that follow are based largely on the second section of the second part of this work: 'Grundztige einer Theorie der hermeneutischen Erfahrung'. They involve a strong dose of interpretation, especially where Gadamer's views are rendered in a Winchean terminology. 24 Gadamer, op. cit., p. 362. 25 Ibid., p. 362f. 26 The use of such terms as 'preconceptions', 'pre-judgements' and 'prejudices' to translate Gadamer's Vorbegriffe, Vormeinungen and Vorurteile is misleading, since the English terms carry a pejorative connotation which is not intended by Gadamer. The accent in each case is on the prefix Vor-, which is intended to bring out the fact that the interpreter's own language, experience, beliefs, etc. are a precondition for the initiation of the process of interpretive understanding. They are his starting point and the framework within which the preliminary understanding (Vorverstiindnis) of the text is developed. 27 Gadamer, op. cit., p. 280. 28 Compare Danto, A. C., AnalyticalPhilosophy o f History (2nd ed.), Cambridge 1968, p. 142. 29 Gadamer, op. cit., p. 279. a0 These factors are suggested by Scriven in his reply 'Verstehen Again' to James Van Evra's criticisms of his article cited in footnote 6 above. The reply appeared in Theory and Decision 1 (197t) 382-386. Compare also G. L. Eberlein: 'Ist eine Neubegri~ndung der verstehenden Soziologie m6glich?', ibid., 367-76, for a critical discussion of Winch. ~1 Compare the account of Lazarsfeld and Barton, 'Qualitative Measurement in the Social Sciences: Classification, Typologies and Indices', in The Policy Sciences (ed. by Lerner and Lasswell), Stanford 1951. The point I am making is that the positivistic opposition of interpretive understanding to 'objective, experimental and statistical tests' makes no sense if the former is an essential component of the latter in the social sciences. The point is even clearer when one considers the use of such techniques as interviewing and questionnaires.