[1] Apel, Karl-Otto - Selected Essays Vol 1 [Towards a Transcendental Semiotics]

8/2/2019 [1] Apel, Karl-Otto - Selected Essays Vol 1 [Towards a Transcendental Semiotics]

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K A R L - O T T O A P E L :S E L E C T E D E S S A Y SV o l u m e O n e T o w a r d s a

T r a n s c e n d e n t a lS e m io t ics

Edited and Introduced byEDUARDO MENDIETA

rH U M A N I T I E S P R E S SN E W J E R S E Y


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First published in 1994 by Humanities Press InteAtlantic Highlands, New Jersey 07716. 1994 by Karl-Otto A p e lLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication CA p e l , Karl-Otto.

[Essays. Selections]Karl-Otto A p e l : selected essays / edited and introduced by

Eduardo Mendieta ; preface by Karl-Otto A p e l .p. cm.Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents: v. 1. Towards a transcendental semiotics.ISBN 0-391-03807- 9 (hard)1. First philosophy. 2. Language and languagesPhilosophy. 3. Semiotics.

4. Hermeneutics. I. Mendieta, Eduardo. II. Title.B3199.A63E5 1993

A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.A l l rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, inany form or by any means, without written permission from the publisher.Printed in the United States of America

193d c20 93-12057CIP

SOY I N KPRINTED WITH


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CONTENTS

A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s vi iP r e f a c e v i i i

KARL-OTTO APELIntroduction xi

EDUARDO MENDIETA1. ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY OF LA NGUAGE AN D TH E

GEISTESVOTSSENSC HAPTEN 12. INTENTIONS, CONVENTIONS, AND REFERENCE TO

THINGS: MEANING IN HERMENEUTICS A ND THEANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE 51

3. T H E TRANSCENDENTAL CONCEPTION OF LANGUAGE-COMMUNICATIO N A ND THE IDEA OF A FIRSTPHILOSOPHY: TO W ARDS A CRITICAL RECONSTRUCTIONO F TH E HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE LIGH T OFLANGUAGE PHILOSOPHY 83

4. TRANSCENDENTAL SEMIOTICS AS FIRST PHILOSOPHY 1125. T H E "PRAGMATIC T U RN" AN D TRANSCENDENTAL

SEMIOTICS: T H E COMPATIBILITY OF TH E "LINGUISTICTURN" AN D TH E "PRAGMATIC T U R N " OF MEANINGTHEORY WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF ATRANSCENDENTAL SEMIOTICS 132

6. C . S. PEIRCE AND POST-TARSKIAN TRUTH 175

7. TRANSCEN DENTAL SEMIOTICS AND HYPOTHETICALMETAPHYSICS OF EVOLUTION 207

8. PRAGMATIC PHILOSOPHY OF LA NGUAGE BASED ONTRANSCENDENTAL SEMIOTICS 231I n d e x 255

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to acknowledge m y deep d ebt to my long-time mentor, Step hen EricBronner, w ith wh om I first studied Cr it ica l Th eory, wh o encouraged me on th isproject and helped make it possible. I would also like to thank Enrique Dussel forhis influence on my intellectual development, and Ed mu nd Are ns and GregKlass, wh o read the manuscript and provided valuable advice. Seyla Benhab ibtaught me about Com mu nicative Eth ics, and Richa rd J. Bernstein bettered myunderstanding of Am erican Pragmatism and Wittgenstein. Bot h thus contributed immensely to my understanding of Professor Ap el 's philosop hy. O f course,this collection wou ld not have been possible without Ap el 's perm ission.Through many conversations and a trans-Atlantic correspondence and by mak in g available many unpublished materials h e has generously guid ed me th rou ghhis work. I would also like to acknowledge the very important help that Ireceived from Jennifer Farquh ar, Co rne li a Tutuh atu newa, and Kath y Delfosse,whose meticulous editing helped make this collection of essays into a book.Finally, let me thank Keith M . A s h f i e l d , President of Humanities Press, for h isenthusiasm and encouragement.

EDUARDO MENDIETAT H E NEW SCHOOL FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH

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PREFACE TO THE FIRST VOLUME

After some struggles w ith my doubts and scrup les, I have accepted EduardoMendieta's prop osal to collect into two volumes the papers I have publ ished inEnglish, along with some new translations, during the last two decades. Indeed,1 had p rimarily thought of elaborating my G erm an works into a more systematica n d coherent continuation of what I previously called "transform ation ofphilosophy."1 But this project w i l l still take some time, and so these twovolumes present, in advance, those English papers thatnot quitecoh erentlymark the two main lines of my transformation project: namely, onthe one hand, that of t r a n s c e n d e n t a l s e m i o t i c s as the novel, post-linguistic turnparadigm of First Philosop hy as th eoretical philosop hy; and, on the other hand,that of c o m m u n i c a t i v e or discourse ethics as the corresponding paradigm of FirstPhilosophy as practical philosophy.

T h e present volume deals p rimarily w ith the first of these two dimensions ofFirst Philosophy. It opens with two essays ("Analytic Philosop hy of Languagea n d th e G e i s t e s w i s s e n s c h a f t e n " and "Intentions, Conventions, and Reference toThings") that are primarily concerned w ith building the bridge betweenl a n g u a g e - a n a l y t i c ph ilosophy and the Conti nental h e r m e n e u t i c tradition, fromwhich I myself started ou t. Th ese op ening pieces are also closely connected withm y long-standing preoccupation with the epistemological and methodologicalfoundations of the social or cultu ral sciences, that is, with the e x p l a n a t i o n versusu n d e r s t a n d i n g controversy.2 These opening essays are further supplemented bytwo essays ("The Hermeneutic Dimension of the Social Sciences and Its N orm ative Foundations" and "Types of Rationality Tod ay: Th e Cont inu u m of Reasonbetween Science and Ethics") that have been placed in the second volumebecause c r i t i c a l h e r m e n e u t i c or reconstructive sciences, being not value-neu tral (incontradistinction to the standard natural sciences and the quasi-nomologicalsocial sciencesi.e., the beh avioral sciences), presuppose a p h ilosop h icalfoundation of ethics and may in tu rn by their results contribute to an eth icalassessment of the human situation as a produ ct of cultural evolu tion and history.

After the h ermeneutic inaugu ration, however, all the subsequent essays of thepresent volume clearly stand in the service of expounding the idea of a t r a n s c e n d e n t a l s e m i o t i c s that could take the place of o n t o l o g i c a l m e t a p h y s i c s and m e n -t a U s t i c e p i s t e m o l o g y by taking over and fu l f i l l i n g the methodological function of aFirst Philosophy in our time. This idea is first introduced in the essays "TheTranscendental Conception of Langu age-Com munication and the Idea of a FirstPhilosophy" and "Transcendental Semiotics as First Philosophy," wh ich provide

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P R E F A C E iX

a reconstructive outline of the historical sequence of th e three m ain paradigmsof First Philosophy. Th e second of these essays (which served as a n introductionto m y Ernst C a s s i r e r L e c t u r e s delivered at Yale University in 1977) tries toprovide not only a historical reconstruction bu t also a systematic foundation forthe sequence of paradigms, th e last of which is transcendental semiotics itself.

T h e last four essays of the present volu me, which are more recent, try to showh o w and i n what respects t r a n s c e n d e n t a l s e m i o t i c s (wh ich in my opinion comprises t r a n s c e n d e n t a l p r a g m a t i c s of l a n g u a g e and t r a n s c e n d e n t a l h e r m e n e u d c s ) may fu l f i l lits function with regard to the traditional problems of metaphysics and episte-mology, that is, regarding the prob lem of tru th . Th e reader can easily realize, inthis context, how much I owe to Charles Sanders Peirce, to whom I devotedmuch exegetical work before turning to my ow n concep tion of a transcendentalsemiotics.3

I n a sense one may say that, by relying on Peirce's "pragmaticism" rather th ano n th e subjectivist, nominalist, and particularist versions of pragmatism andneopragmatism, I came to take another o p tion than d id Richard Rorty inconceiving of a post-metaphysical (or even post-epistemological) conception ofphilosophy, as is indeed required in our day. Although I can agree with th eacceptance of a "de-transcendentalization" with regard to categorical schemes, Iwould insist that this very argument for de-transcendentalization, through itsvalidity claim, presupposes a transcendental a priori with regard to the necessarypresuppositions of argumentative discourseas, for example, th e regulativeprinciple and counter-factual anticip ation of an ult imate universal consensus tobe reached in the long run by the indefinite argum entation comm unity. Rortyhimself confirms this structure by th e valid ity claims raised b y each one of hiso w n verdicts against all universal valid ity claims of philosophy. H e thus endsupas do the postmodernists following Nietzschewith th e novel rhetoricalfigure of constantly committing a p er f o r m a t i v e s e l f - c o n t r a d i c t i o n . 4

T h e significance of this crucial point w i l l be further clarified, and alsodramatized, in the essays of the second volume, which is concerned with th efoundation of a universally valid ethics.

KARL-OTTO APELFRANKFURT A M MAIN

NOTES1. Karl-Otto A p e l , T r a n s f o rm a t i o n der P h i l o s o p h i c , 2 vols. (Frankfurt a.M .: Suhrkamp

Verlag, 1973). Selective English translation: Towards a T r a n s f o rm a t i o n o f P h i l o s o p h y ,trans. G l y n Adey and David Frisby (London: Routledge &. Kegan Paul, 1980).

2. Karl-Otto A p e l , Die " E r U d r e n N e r s t e h e n " Kontroverse in t r a n s i e n d e n t a l p r a g m a t i s c h e rS i c h t (Frankfurt a .M .; Suhrkamp Verlag, 1979). English translation: Understandinga n d Explanation: A T r a n s c e n d e n t a l - P r a g m a t i c P e r s p e c t i v e , trans. Georgia Warnke(Cambridge, Mass.: M I T Press, 1984).

3. Charles Sanders Peirce, S c h r i f t e n , 2 vols., ed . by Karl-Otto A p e l (Frankfurt a .M .:


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Suhrkamp Verlag, 1967, 1970); Karl-Otto A p e l , Der D e n k w e g v o n Charles S a n d e r sP e a c e : E i n e E i n f ii h r u n g i n d e n a m e r i k a n i s c h e n Prugmatismus (Frankfurt a . M . : SuhrkampVerlag, 1975); English translation: Charles S. P e i rc e : F r o m P r a g m a t i s m t o P r a g m a t k i s m(Amherst, Mass.: University of Massachusetts Press, 1981).See also m y argument with Rorty and the postmodernists i n D i s k u r s a n d Veranttwrtung(Frankfurt a . M . : Suhrkamp Verlag, 1988); selective English translation: D i s c o u r s e a n dResponsibility, to appear with Columbia UniversityPress).


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INTRODUCTION

i

Karl-Otto A p e l is one of the most imp ortant p hilosophers of postwar Germany.Characterized by th e du al program of rescue and transformation, Apel's workappropriates much of classical German philosophy as it confronts its reactionaryelements. M ore than that, however, h e opens these traditions to a fruitfulinterchange with other ph ilosop h ical positions. In Apel's work we encounterboth the experiences of a national catastrophe and th e crises of Enlightenmentthought. Indeed, Apel's essays show a set of deep engagements, confrontations,a n d juxtapositions with thinkers belonging to what in th e 1960s, 1970s, andeven still today are considered to be irreconcilable traditions.

American pragmatism, Italian hu manism , analytic ph ilosoph y, G erm an her-meneutics, and semiotics all influence h is thought. They serve to establish aprocess of mutual questioning and correction of the traditions in question.Apel's work, only to be compared to Habermas's, was, thus, extremely important in opening postwar G erm an ph ilosophy to foreign philosophical traditions.Thanks to A p e l , for instance, C . S. Peirce has become as much a householdname as have Heidegger, Gadamer, and Adorno. However, Apel's work is notlimited to illuminating exegesis and panoramic historical reconstructions. It isalso deeply mark ed by a systematic and architectonic drive. In all of his essaysone can see the designs of a larger formulation. This became in th e late sixties asystematic philosop hical program that went by th e name of a semiotical transformation of transcendental Kanti an philosop hy. But as other philosophersmade similar moves, A p e l comp lemented h is "linguistic tu rn" wi th a transcendental semiotics. This transcendental semiotics is a First Philosophy ( p r i m ap h i l o s o p h i a ) , th e theoretical part of a system that grounds a practical ph ilosoph ythat is expressed concretely in a discourse ethics. A l o n g with th is more detailedarchitectonic, A p e l has continued to develop h is ancillary programs of atranscendental pragmatics, a transcendental hermeneutics, and a theory ofrationality. Today, however, what lies at the center of Apel's focus and source ofpreoccupation is the development of a Discourse Ethic that may act as thegrounding for a macro-ethic of planetary coresponsibility, and its possible ap plications and consequences for ou r present world situation in which we faceaccentuated N or th -Sou th inequities, a precarious global ecological situation,a n d a deeply suspect "triu m p h " of Western democracies and their underlyingnotions of progress.

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II

Karl-Otto A p e l was born on M arch 15, 1922, in Diisseldorf. In 1940, as aneighteen-year-old youth, A p e l , along with his entire graduating class, volunteered for military service. H e fought on the Ru ssian front and became a prisonerof war. Ap el 's war experiences are of great imp ortance in understanding thenature of his philosophical project. A p e l himself has suggested that his warexperiences are at the root of his ph ilosoph izing. Th e experience that "everything was false" led him to search for a solid foundation that would allow h im todemystify what was dogmatically presented as eth ical or true. Th is way ofportraying Ap el 's motivations for philosophizing borders d angerously on psychologizing if one does not contextualize it with in his later university studies, hisconfrontation w ith the bankruptcy of the G erm an philosop hical tradition thatcontribu ted to the failure of moral nerve under Nazism , and the immediatepostwar period. A p e l describes this in his autobiographical essay "Zuriick zurNorm alitat? O d er konnten wir aus der nationalen Katastrophe etwas Besonderesgelernt haben?" (Return to Norm ality? O r C o u l d We Have Learned SomethingSpecial from the National Catastrophe?).1

In the f a l l of 1945, Karl-O tto A p e l entered the Universi ty of Bonn tostudy philosophy, history, and G e r m a n i s t i k . Th ere he studied with the RankeansHoltzmann and Braubach, the historian of literature Giinther M i i l l e r , andthe neo-Hu mbold tian language scientist ( S p r a c h w i s s e n s c h a f t l e r ) Leo Weisgerber.H e also studied with Oskar Becker, a historian of mathematics who had anexistentialist-phenomenological inclinati on, the neo-Hegeli an Th eod or Litt,an d the imp ortant med ieval h istorian and scholar of Romance languages Ernst-Robert Cu rtiu s. But it was Eri ch Rothacker wh o became most important forApel's ph ilosop h ical development. Und er Rothacker, A p e l was influencedb y a vision of the G e i s t e s w i s s e n s c h a f t e n that comb ined a life-ph ilosoph y( L e b e n s p h i l o s o p h i e ) wi th an anthrop ological-psychological app roach.

Studying with Rothacker, who was also Habermas's D o k t o r v a t e r , A p e l alreadyevidenced his systematic concerns wi th delineating a transcendental herm eneu-tics through an anthropological-epistemological ( e r k e n n t n i s a n t h r o p o h g i s c h e s )transformation of Kanti an philosophy. Th is program was first articulated in hisdoctoral d issertation, "Dasein und Erk ennen," in wh ich he p rovided an anthropological reading of Heidegger's categories from Being a n d T i m e . Th e concernwith the a p riori conditions for grasping the meaning of existence was also at thecenter of Apel's later historical research into the different traditions of the ideaof language. Most important, h owever, is that in his student years A p e l alreadysaw the need to surmount the gap between the analytic tradition and thehermeneutical tradition of G erm an ph ilosophy.

T h e possibility of bridging the gap between these two traditions of thephilosophy of language was seen by A p e l as resulting from a transformation oftranscendental philosop hy. Th is transformation was to be carried out by questioning both the structures of pre-understanding and the search for criteria that


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allows for the determination of knowledge claims.After his doctoral dissertation (in 1950) A p e l became Rothacker's research

assistant and engaged in a project financed by the Mainzer Akadem ie derWissenschaften und Literatu r. Eventually this group founded the A r c h i v f i i rB e g r i f f s g e s c h k h t e , in which Apel's first essays appeared. Here also was publishedh is still-imp ortant work o n the hi storical roots of modern ph ilosoph ies oflanguage: D i e I d e e der S p r a c h e in der T r a d i t i o n des H u m a n i s m u s v o n D a n t e b i s V i c o( T h e I d e a of L a n g u a g e in the T r a d i t i o n of H u m a n i s m f r o m D a n t e to V i c o ) . 1 Thishistorical research led A p e l to pu t aside the systematic elab oration of the projectof a transcendental epistemological anthropology laid out in this dissertation.S t i l l , he was able to relate one d im ension of his earlier systematic concerns tothis new aspect of h is work : namely the a priori status of language as the med iumthrough which the world is disclosed to us. Here, in these studies, A p e l starts tol i n k Heideggerian ph ilosophy and the neo-Hu m b old tian language research ofWeisgerber w ith the analytic philosophy of language. In these early formulations, language acts for A p e l not only as th e p recondi tion of facts and events,b u t also as the p recondition of the possib ility and valid ity of intersub jectiveknowledge. This would become a distinctive and normative feature of the wayA p e l discussed and engaged with other ph ilosophers of language.

These early years of research, however p rod uctive, were still very hard forA p e l , who contracted an eye infection that almost left h im b l i n d . It required hestop h is research for several years. In fact, the b ook T h e I d e a of L a n g u a g e in theT r a d i t i o n of H u m a n i s m f r o m D a n t e t o V i c o was a partial rendering of a m u ch largerproject that could not be comp leted due to his illness. After this hiatus in theearly sixties, A p e l presented his Hofcilitation, and went on to teach in K i e l . Fromh is K i e l years came his most famous, and now classic, work, Transformation derP h i l o s o p h i e (Transformation of P h i l o s o p h y ) , originally published in 1972.3 As thistour de force evidences, A p e l had made his great discovery, C . S. Peirce, whomhe h ad at first read as a forerunner of Dewey and James, but whom h e later cameto consider the greatest American philosopher. Peirce would serve as the bridgeto l i n k Continental herm eneutical p hilosoph y with the analytic ph ilosoph yof language.

In the first volume of Transformation der P h i l o s o p h i e , subtitled "LanguageAnalysis, Semiotics, and Hermeneutics," we encounter a confrontation andconvergence between an ontological herm eneutics and a transcendental therapeutic critiqu e of language. Th e key philosophical figures in this confrontationan d climactic convergence are Wittgenstein and Heidegger. Th e p oint ofcommonality that allows A p e l to bring these two seemingly disparate philosophical giants together is the qu estioning of Western metaphysics as a theoretical science. Wittgenstein's work was motivated by the qu estion of how toovercome the seduction of the "metaphorical appearance" of the language ofphilosophy. This demystification is at the center of Wittgenstein's focus on thequestion of the criteria of the sense and nonsense of propositions. Heidegger,similarly, is concerned with the "oblivion of Being" (Seiravergessenneit) as it


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takes place in Western metaphysics qua ontology, also a mystification. In b oth ,then, A p e l encounters a critique of Western mystifying metaphysics, albeit fromthe standpoint of an unacknowledged and unthematized transcendentality oflanguage. Bot h criticize dogmatic metaphysics from a transcendental point thatitself remains unelaborated, unjustified, and ungrounded . Th e qu estion forA p e l , th en, is how a mu tual point of reference and corrective may be located.

What emerges from Apel's juxtaposition of Wittgenstein with Heidegger isthe "transcendental ity" of language. This transcendentality is understood byA p e l in the sense of providing th e necessary preconditions for perceiving theobjects of knowledge and hermeneutically allow ing meaning to appear. Th eseinsights are further elaborated and sub stantiated in the first volume of T r a n s

f o r m a t i o n , through a series of essays in wh ich language is also discussed as ameta-institution vis-a-vis A r n o l d G eh len's theory of institutions. Th e relationships between language and order and between language and truth are alsoclosely studied.

It must be noted perhaps not so parenthetically that A p e l and Habermasalways need to digest the entire material of a tradition before presenting theirow n positions. Indeed, when presented within th e context of the history of aproblematic, their positions seem to emerge dialectically from the inner aporiasof that particular ph ilosoph ical prob lem. Thus , in each one of his essays, beforelaunching into the particular issue at hand, A p e l gives us magnificent overviewsof the history and evolut ion of particular ph ilosop h ical conceptions: h istories ofph enomenology and the phases it has undergone from Hu sserl throu gh Heidegger; histories of hermeneutics and the differences between Schleiermacher,Dilthey, Hegel, Gadamer, and Heidegger. But this encyclopedic knowledgedoes not restrict itself to Continental philosophy. It also extends to knowledgeof the history of analytic philosophy. This is most evident in the essay onCharles Morris.

In the u ncovering of language as the grou nd of transcendentality, in the firstvolume of T r a n s f o r m a t i o n der P h i l o s o p h i c further elucida tion of transcendentalhermeneutics takes place. Dealing with Gadamer's work, it became clear toA p e l that transcendental questions concerning th e condi tions of the possib ilityof knowledge must remain primarily a questioning after the conditions ofinter-sub jective valid ity claims. These valid ity claims must not be responded tob y recourse to a contingent a priori of the world -pre-understanding, i n the senseof a qu asi-ontological concept such as "meaning-event" or "tru th -event," if onedoes not want to f a l l into h istoricism -relativism. Rather, it must be necessaryan d possible to appeal to the complementary non-contingent a priori (whichcannot be challenged withou t a self-performative contrad iction) of the id eal,universally valid presuppositions of argumentation; that is, -the argumentativediscourse of an ideal, unlim ited comm unication community that is alwayscounter-factually presupposed. Gadamer's position, suggests A p e l , was still infected with the dogmatism of a metaphysical position that does not submit itso w n claims to the process of valid ation implied in every transcendental discus-


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sion. Gadamer had skipped over the qu estion of standards and normative rulesthat allow one to differentiate between meaning as truth and truth as meani n g . In this discussion A p e l moves towards an overcoming of hermeneuticalrelativism and historicism by means of his own version of ttanscendental her-meneutics, wh ich in later formulations he would locate within the edifice of atranscendental semiotics.

Turning to the second volume of T r a n s f o r m a t i o n der P h i l o s o p h i e , a different"herm eneutical h orizon" appears. We encounter Apel's attempt to provide asemiotical transformation of transcendental philosophy and an ultimate foundation ( L e t z t b e g r i i n d u n g ) for ethics. Whereas the first volume was determined bythe influence of Heidegger, and the p reoccupation w ith the herm eneutics oflanguage, the second volume seeks normative justification for validity claimsan d a transcendental grounding in a theory that marries hermeneutics, semiotics, and pragmatics. If in the first volume Heidegger and Wittgenstein were thekey figures in the constella tion of modern philosophy, Peirce, Royce, and Kantemerge as the key figures in the second volume. This is not to imply thatHeid egger and Wittgenstein ate left behind, superseded. Rather, their ideas aresubsumed within a new patadigm, a new prob lematic. N or does this shift ofemphasis between the first and second volume imply a clear break. Rather, theteis a continuity. Indeed, as A p e l questions the radical critiques of Wittgensteinan d Heidegger, w hich had elaborated the "oblivion of Being," he asks whetherboth of th em had not engaged in a similar oblivion, but in this case of logos(Logos v e r g e s s e n h e i t ) .

Apel's transcendental philosophy discusses th e conditions of the possib ility ofknowledge; s t i l l , it focuses neither on ontological questions nor on the epistem o-logical conditions of knowled ge. Rathet, departing from the insights alreadygained in volume one, this new transcendental philosop hy begins as a critiquean d analysis of language. Extend ing the p atalle l, if Kant' s was a ttanscendentalphilosophy that tried to establish the conditions of valid knowledge and theconditions of the constitu tion of objects, contemporary p hilosop hy departs fromthe establishment of such conditions as conditions that happ en in and throughlanguage. Th e so-called linguist ic tu rn is made evident and patently clear byA p e l . Thus, from a pu re critique of knowledge, knowledge as constitu ted by andfor a monological transcendental sub ject, we move to a critique of language.This language, how ever, is not understood by A p e l as the logical calculus orl i n g u a philosop/uca of analytic-linguistic philosophy. It appears instead in the

. fullness of its triadic dimensions: syntactics, semantics, and pragmatics.Syntactics refers to the relationship between signs. It is from this s e m i o t i c a l

dimension of language that the mod ern logical-mathematical ph ilosoph ies ofscience atise. Semantics refers to th e relationship between signs and emp iricalstates of affairs. It is from this dimension that empiricist and positivistic projectsof a unified science take their departure. Finally, there is pragmatics, wh ichdeals with th e relationship b etween signs, the objects they point to, and humanbeingstheir userswithin contexts of comm unities of users. It is from here


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that Am erican pragmatists began the attempt to develop a theory of science. Incontrad istinction to the projects of a philosophy of science, which tries to reducescience to either a syntactics or a semantics, A p e l insisted that knowledge as asign-mediated activity is always an interpretation by humans performed within thecontext of a comm unity of scientists or a community of interpretation.

Here two central ideas are profiled. Th e communication community turns outto be a transcendental horizon, wh ile theoretical and practical reason converge.This means that every person, in as much as he or she is a memb er of humansociety, is a l w a y s a l r e a d y embedd ed i n a commu nity of comm unication that" actsas the "instit u tion of institu tions." Within this institution of institutions we area l w a y s a l r e a d y entwined in a web of normative presuppositions that commandthe individual to enter into the process of redeeming the valid ity claims that aleconstantly raised in the process of communicative interactions and argumentation. These conditions and presuppositions of discursive argumentation constitute an intranscendable, uncircumventable ( n i c h t h i n t e r g e h b a r ) horizon. Indeed,a person may intentionally pretend to disregard these transcendental presup positions of the transcendental language game, bu t he or she can only do so at therisk of falling into a "performative contradiction."

A '^performative contrad iction" is the disruption and self-annulment thattakes place when a person contradicts what they are saying with what they arepragmatically presupposing in order for their claim to make sense. This limitconcept becomes for A p e l an ultimate foundation ( L e t z t b e g r t i n d u n g ) , whichserves as the arch imedian po int for a grounding of both the theoretical andpractical sciences: hence, the convergence of practical and theoretical reason.

From T r a n s f o r m a t i o n der P h i l o s o p h y , then, we are able to gather and observethe breadth of Apel's philosoph ical system. A parallel wi th Jiirgen Habermas'sproject of the reconstru ction of the social sciences can best illustrate the reachan d importance of Apel's philosophical work . Th e parallel is entirely warrantedb y their long friendship and mutual intellectual indebtedness, going back as faras the 1950s, wh en they met in Rothacker's seminars.4 In fact, the parallel canbe extended , and one can speak of a division of labor between A p e l andHabermas.5 If Habermas has formu lated his theory of comm unicative rationalityan d action in order to extract sociopolit ical theory from the cul-de-sac intowhich it was driven by the conflation of reason with instrumental rationality,A p e l has called for and articulated a transformation of philosophy, in terms of atranscendental semiotics that includ es both a hermeneutics and a pragmatics, inorder to extricate philosop hical discourse from the aporias of a reason entrenched in "methodological solipsism" and "abstractive fallacies." In this parallel,the hybrid status of Apel's and Habermas's projects is revealed . Bot h are engagedi n critically preserving and app ropriating the best of the G erman critical andidealist trad ition, while at the same time having it interact d ialectically withBritish-American analytic ph ilosophy, pragmatism, and systems theory.

Among the projects delineated in the T r a n s f o r m a t i o n , th en, are the foundations of an anthropological epistemology that analyzes the conditioning charac-


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ter of constitutive knowledge interests, interests that orient us not only in thetealm of object-sub ject and object-object relations, bu t also in those of subject-co-subject. This project is broached once more in a few of the essays collected inthis volume, in particular "Transcendental Semiotics and Hypoth eticalMetaphysics of Evol u ti on" and "Pragmatic Philosophy of Language Based onTranscendental Sem ioti cs." Volu m e Tw o of the T r a n s f o r m a t i o n anticipates atranscendental semiotic, and this is the focus of most of the essays here. Alsopresent, as a corollary to a transcendental anth rop ological epistemology, is thedevelop ment of a theory of rationality. (Th is w i l l be taken up once again in thesecond volume of K a r l - O t t o A p e l : S e l e c t e d E s s a y s , which w i l l be entitled Ethicsa n d the T h e o r y of R a t i o n a l i t y . ) Most important, how ever, is that in T r a n s f o r m a t i o n we have the foundations for a formulation of a theory of discourse ethic.This theme has become the focus of Ap el' s ph ilosophizing and has yielded a veryimportant volume entitled D i s k u r s u n d V e r a n t w o r t u n g : D a s P r o b l e m d es U b e r g a n g sz u r p o s t k o n v e n t i o n e U e n M o r a l ( D i s c o u r s e a n d R e s p o n s i b i l i t y : T h e P r o b l e m of T r a n s i t i o n t o a P o s t c o n v e n t i o n a l M o r a l i t y ) . In this volume, A p e l deals with the possibilit y and the necessity of grou nding eth ics on the uncircumventab ili ty of thecommunication community.

After K i e l , Karl-Otto A p e l moved to the Goethe University in Frankfurt,where he taught in the philosophy dep artment, along with Habermas, and fromwhich he recently received his emeritus status. From his Frankfurt years therecomes a series of in-depth essays confronting the critical rationalists, and inparticular Alb ert' s critiqu e of the notion and possibility of a grounding of thesciences and ethics. D u r i n g his Frankfurt p eriod , A p e l also entered into debatewith the postmodernists and their challenge to the u niversality of reason and thepossibility of a normative grou nding of ethics. In particular, he criticizedRichard Rorty's neopragmatism and his rela tivization of the a priori communication community that acts as the already given background of understanding.Part of Apel's debate with Rorty is over the status of transcendental argumentation; A p e l argues that it allows us not to f a l l back into the k i n d of extremecontextualisms or cultural relativism that have lead Rorty to abd icate to thepostmodernist critiques of universalism ( l o g o c e n t r i s m ) and to retreat beh ind thehermeneutical horizon of the Am er ican polit ical trad ition as a point of referencean d a warrant for his ph ilosophical claims. Ano th er very imp ortant topic ofApel's philosophizing during his Frankfurt tenure was the question of tru th andits relationship, on the one hand, to the a priori, historicizing communicationcommunity in wh ich truth is claimed and disclosed, and, on the other h and , toth e fallibility of knowledge implied by the Peircean notion of truth as theconsensus that would be reached in the long run in an unlimited community ofresearchers and arguers.6 Some aspects of this discussion are dealt with andarticulated in some of the essays of the present volume.


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III

T h e works collected in this first volum e of K a r l - O t t o A p e l : S e l e c t e d E s s a y s spanh is critical engagement with the C ont ine nta l and analytic ph ilosoph ies oflanguage. T h e first two essays illustrate the concern w ith this h istorical convergence of both the analytic and h ermeneutical tradi tions. Th e first essay, whichdates to 1965, is concerned prim arily with the h istory of analytic philosophy andits unfolding towards a point of convergence w ith the herm eneutical t rad ition ofthe philosophy of language. In this essay, A p e l delineates three major stages ofthe evolu tion of analytic ph ilosop hy and the major aporias that led analyticphilosophers to move to the next stage. Placing analytic philosophy within th eEnlightenment tradition of the attempt to formalize the sciences of humanityalong the model of the natural sciences, A p e l characterizes the project ofanalytic philosophy as an attempt to establish the possibility, or as it turned outthe imp ossibility, of a normative and q uasi-nomological science of humaninteractions.

In the second essay, A p e l once again takes up the project of bridging the gapbetween analytic and Co ntine ntal or herm eneutical ph ilosoph ies of language.This tim e, however, the project is pursued by means of a discussion of thetreatment of meaning in both traditions. A p e l provides detailed historicalprofiles of preceding treatments. In discussing the nature and treatments of thequestion of meaning, A p e l focuses on three different aspects of the description ofmeaning and what leads to its understanding: intentions, conventions, andreference. Th ese in tu rn, as A p e l shows, have been treated unilaterally or havebeen over-emphasized by different currents within both traditions. Th e closean d systematic readings of the d ifferent ways the question of meaning has beentreated under these three headings leads A p e l to th e formu lation of "transcendental semiotics" as the p erspective from w h ich the d ialectical med iation between these aspects can be ach ieved without the over-emp hasis or neglect of anyof them . Th e status and fu l l description of th is transcendental semioticalperspective w i l l unfold methodically through the following and complementaryessays.

T h e complementarity between the next two essays is similar to that betweenthe prior two. Th e first of these two essays is historical in character. In it, A p e lpresents us with a critical historical reconstruction of the ph ilosoph ies of language, beginning with Aris tot le and ending wi th the contemporary linguisticturn of philosophy, which takes language as its methodological point of departure. This new vantage point has come to be considered the sine qua non of anycontemporary philosophical approach to the perennial questions of philosophy.In both essays, three different paradigms of First Philosophy, p r i m a p h i l o s o p h i a ,are sketched . Th e first paradigm is First Philosop hy as ontology, and stems fromAris tot le and Plato. Here the q uestion is the correspondence betw een ideas andontological existents. Und er this paradigm language is conceptualized as ameans to portray, under the correspondence relationship, things that exist and


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that need to be established b efote we can assign names to th em . Th e secondparadigm is First Philosop hy as epistemology, and stems from Kant; it beginswith a discussion of the condit ions of the possibility of certainty. Th e thi rdparadigm of First Philosophy tries to integrate and transform the insights of thefirst two paradigms. Accord ing to Apel's critical reconstruction, this th irdparadigm was first formulated by Peirce. But its clearest expression is in terms ofa transcendental semiotics. This transcendental semiotics is characterized, usingPeirce's and Morris's descriptions of semiotics, as the med iation of all claims toknowledge by the interdependence of the three ways in wh ich objects, theirsigns, and the users of those signs are rela ted . Indeed , in the second of these twoessays. "Transcendental Semiotics as First Philosophy," A p e l elucidates the twopreceding paradigms as moments in the triadic relationship between object,sign, and com munity of sign users and interpreters. If the first paradigm focusedunilaterally on the relationship b etween things and consciousness, not yetintersubjectively and communicatively conceptualized, the second focused onthe internal relationsh ip of sign representation and consciousness, analyzedcritically from the standpoint of th eir making possible knowledge of the world. Ifthe first paradigm abstracted from knowledge of things its med iation by language, the second abstracted from the signs that allow us to cognize the worldtheir b elonging to a process of interp retat ion. A p e l demonstrates not only theorder of succession of these three paradigms, but also what they either thematizeor presuppose.

T h e final essays in this volum e deal with very specific ph ilosophical p roblemsan d how they are solved by a transcendental semiotical-pragmatic approach . Inthese last essays A p e l deals w ith the qu estion of tru th and its different treatmentsb y Tatski, Searle, Habermas, Putnam, Grice, and other major philosophers. Inthese essays A p e l also broaches the qu estion of the aporias bequeathed to us byKant as they pertain to the valid ity of scientific knowled ge, natural causality,an d teleology. Th ese aporias are viewed from the standp oint of a metaphysics ofthe evolution of human knowledge that attempts to establish a connectionbetween nature, the p re-history of humanity, and the unfolding of humanhistory as the mutual unfolding of nature and hu man knowledge. In particular,A p e l draws on Peirce's later metaphysical speculations. In a similar fash ion toMead's claims about the metaphysical status of sociability, w hich as a p rincipleestablishes the mutual unfolding of object and social self and therefore theinterpenetration of reason and society, A p e l establishes that there is a convergence between knowledge of nature and growth in philosophical knowledge.

In the last essay A p e l proceeds to demonstrate how the pragmatic turn of thephilosophy of language, as another moment within th e unfolding of the linguistic turn of philosophy, can best be understood and accounted for from within asemiotical transcendental philosophy, qua First Philosophy. T h e claim is that apragmatic tu rn of the philosop hy of language is a necessary condit ion forexplicating tru th claims and valid ity claims. But this is not yet a sufficientcondition. Th e su fficiency, so to say, is p rovid ed by a f u l l y elaborated


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transcendental semiotics, w h ich is what A p e l here tries to achieve.These essays constitute a major conttibution to the knowledge of the histori

cal unfolding of one of today's most important philosop hical currents, namely thediscoutse theory of ethics and its underp inning theory of communicativerationality. These essays also provide a point of departure for furthet study of theproblematics formulated by this current. A m ong some of the most imp ortantproblems to be studied furthet are the status of transcendental arguments in apostmod ern world , the contradictions between the real and ideal com munication communities, the tole of a de-utopianized Marxism in criticizing theasymmetries of actual comm unication comm unities, the p rerequisites for developing a planetary macro-ethic of coresponsibility that would address thewidening gap between N or th and South , and the growing global ecological \crises. If noth ing else, h owever, these essays should help English-speakingintellectuals to come into contact with one of the most important Continentalphilosophets of our time.7

EDUARDO MENDIETAT H E NEW SCHOOL FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH

NOTES1. K a r l - O t t o A p e l , D i s k u r s u n d V e r a n t w o r t u n g : D a s Problem d es Dbergangs z u r p o s t k o n v e n -

t i o n e U e n M o r a l (F r an k fu r t a . M . : S u h r k a m p V e r l a g , 1988). E n g l i s h t r a n s l a t io n fo r th c o m i n g fr o m C o l u m b i a U n i v e r s it y P r e ss.

2. K a r l - O t t o A p e l , D ie I d e e d er Sprache in d er T r a d i tio n d es H u m a n is m u s v o n D a n t e b is V ic o( B o n n : H . Bo u v i er u n d C o . V e r la g , 1963).

3 . T h i s m a j o r w o r k of p h i l o s o p h y was, u n f o r t u n a t e l y , o n l y p a r t i a ll y t r a n sl a te d i n t oE n g l i s h , m o s t of the essays c o m i n g fr o m the s e c o n d v o l u m e of the G e r m a n o r i g in a l .K a r l - O t t o A p e l , T r a n s f o r m a t i o n der P h i l o s o p h i e , 2 v o l s. (F r a n k fu r t a . M . : S u h r k a m pV e r l a g , 1973). E n g l i s h t r a n s l a t i o n : T o w a r d s a T r a n s f o r m a t i o n of P h i l o s o p h y , t r a n s .G l y n A d e y and D a v i d F r i s b y ( L o n d o n : R o u t l e d g e & K e g a n P a u l , 1980).

4. O n the r e l a t i o n s h i p b e t w e e n A p e l and H a b e r m a s , see the s p e e c h H a b e r m a s g a v e att h e c o ll o q u i u m o r g a n iz e d on the o c c a s i o n of A p e l 's r e ce i v in g his e m e r i t u s status f romt h e G o e t h e U n i v e r s i t y in F r a n k f u r t . T h i s may be f o u n d as an a f t e r w o r d to W a l t e rReese-Schafer's K a r l - O t t o A p e l zur E i n f u h r u n g (H a m b u r g : Ju n i u s V e r l a g , 1990),137-49.

5 . See Ji ir g e n H a b e r m a s , V o r st u d i e n und E r g d n ^ u n g e n zur T h e o r i e des k o m m u n i k a t i v e nH a n d e l n s (F r an k fu r t a . M . : S u h r k a m p V e r l a g , 1984), 7.

6. K a r l - O t t o A p e l , "F a l l i b i li s m u s , K o n s e n s t h e o r i e der W a h r h e i t u n d L e t z t b e g r iin d u n g , "i n P h i lo so p h ie u n d Be g r u n d u n g , ed. W . K u h l m a n n (F ra n k fu r t a . M . : S u h r k a m p V e r la g ,1987).

7. F o r treatments of K a r l - O t t o A p e l in E n g l i s h , see F r e d R. D a l lm a y r , Be y o n d D o g m a a n dD e s p a i r : T o w a r d a C r i t i c a l P h e n o m e n o l o g y of P o l i t i c s ( I n d i a n a : U n i v e r s i t y of N o t r eD a m e P r e s s , 1981); T w i l i g h t of S u b j e c t i v i t y : C o n t r i b u t i o n s to a P o s t - I n d i v i d u a l i s t T h e o r yo f P o lit ics (A m h e r s t , M a s s . : U n i v e r s i t y of M a s s a c h u s e t t s P r e s s , 1981); and C r i t i c a lE n c o u n t e r s : Be tw e e n P h i lo so p h y a n d P o l it ics ( I n d i a n a : U n i v e r s i t y of N o t r e D a m e P r ess,1987). T h i s l a s t b o o k c o n t a i n s an e n t i r e c h a p t e r d e v o t e d to A p e l ' s T r a n s f o r m a t i o n .


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See also Josef B l e i c h e r , C o n t e m p o r a r y H e r m e n e u t i c s : H e r m e n e u t i c s a s M e t h o d , P h i l o s o p h y , a n d C r i t i q u e ( L o n d o n : R o u t l e d g e & K e g a n P a u l , 1980). In G e r m a n , see K o m m u -nikation u n d Reflexion : Z u r D isk ussion d er Trons^endent al prag m at zk . A n t w o r t e n auf K a r l -O t t o A p e l , ed . W o l f g a n g K u h l m a n n and D i e t r i ch Bo h l e r (F r an k fu r t a . M . : Su h r k a m pV e r l a g , 1982); and W a l t e r Reese-Schafer, K a r l - O t t o A p e l zur E i n f u h r u n g ( H a m b u r g :J u n i u s V e r l a g , 1990).


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O N E

A n a l y t i c P h i l o s o p h y of Languageand the G e is t e s w i s s en s c h a f t en

SUMMARY

This study attempts a historical account and crit ical evalu ation of the so-calledanalytic p hilosop hy of language, considered by the auth or to be the characteristic and dominating new m ethod ical approach in Angl o-Saxon ph ilosophy in thefirst part of this century.

T h e perspective from which evalu ation and critique is viewed is mainly thatof the traditional German G e i s t e s w i s s e n s c h a f t e n , wh ich led in this century to thedevelopment of a h e r m e n e u t i c a l p h i l o s o p h y , for wh ich the problem of language isalso of paramount imp ortance (from D il th ey to Heidegger to H . - G . Gadamer).

T h e confrontation of the two philosophical currents w i l l lead to a historicalreconstruction of analytic philosop hy in three phases: logical atomism, logicalpositivism, analytic philosop hy of language. In the evalu ation of the th ird phasea considerab le convergence of a n a l y t i c and h e r m e n e u t i c a l philosophy w i l l becomeapparent; b u ta nd here lies the author's main thesisit w i l l also becomeevident that it is necessary to go beyond both philosophies and to mediatedialectically between the method of intersubjective understanding of languagean d the methods of objective explanation of behavior, this mediation beingnecessary since m an is not (yet) able to express completely the actual motives ofh is beh avior i n intersubjective comm u nication.

INTRODUCTION: T H E METHODICAL-METHODOLOGICAL AM BIVALENC E O FANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE PERVADING TH E T H R EE P H ASES O F

ITS HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT

T h e name "analytic philosophy," as it is used today, contains an ambivalence ofmeaning, wh ich , as we shall see, is of paramount importance for the prob lems tobe discussed:

1. Ana lyti c philosophy stands first for a school of thought, w h ich recognizesas "scientific" only the methods of the natural sciences in the wider sense of theword, insofar as they objectively explain the phenomena in question by refer


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objective knowledge and its separation from any k i n d of subjective Weltanschauung, that is, theology, metaphysics, or some other normative science.1 It isclear that the ph ilosophy thus characterized, which in Germany is usuallyidentified with the logical posit ivism of the so-called Vienna Circle, w i l l have apolemical attitude towards the idea of a Geisteswissenschaft and the philosophical concepts wh ich constitute its systematic foundation and its h istor icalroots. Th u s viewed, analytic philosop hy, today the most influential school ofthought in the Western world (at least in the Anglo-Saxon and the Scandinavian), seems to be the continu ation of eighteenth-century Enligh tenm ent,which also held that the only legitimate goal of science dealing with man and hisculture was to give explanations in terms of laws of nature, if possible, mathematically formalized. Th us it seems as if a confronta tion of analytic ph ilosophy anda philosophy of the Geisteswissenschaften can lead to no more than a renewal ofthat nineteenth-century discussion, in the course of which J. G . Droysen (in hisH i s t o r i k , 1868) and later W . Dilthey (in his E i n l e i t u n g in die G e i s t e s w i s s e n s c h a f t e n , 1883) contrasted the concept of "exp lanat ion" (of nature) with "understanding" (of the h istorical-social world as created by m an).2

2. Th e name "analytic ph iloso p h y," how ever, has still another meaningcomponent wh ich , from the point of view of the historian of ph ilosoph y,characterizes the meth od ical starting point of this philosophy more preciselythan the vague explication given above.

It was not actually the "analytic" methods of the sciences under study byanalytic ph ilosoph y wh ich gave this p hilosoph y its name, but rather its ownmeth od of analysis, that methodical revolution in philosophy wh ich is dom inati n g the Anglo-Saxon world tod ay.3 This "analysis ," however, wh ich is considered so revolutionary, is not applied to th e objective facts of science, bu t ratherto the sentences of science, that is, not to things, but to the language that speaksof these things. "Meaning and Truth," "Meaning and Verification," "Language,Truth, and Logic"these are typical titles to be found in the literature ofanalytic p hilosop hy; and the d istinction between meaningful and meaninglesssentences is the characteristic theme of the logical positivist's critiqu e ofmetaphysics.

Proceeding from the dichotom y between "exp lai ning" and "understand ing,"as established in the G erm an tradition of the ph ilosophy of the G eisteswissenschaften, one might expect that also the analytic philosophers in their discussions of meaning have encountered problems that correspond to the problemsinvolved in the concept of "und erstanding," forone should th ink th esentences of the causally explaining sciences, in fact all sentences as vehicles ofmeaning, must first be understood as expressions of human intentions before onecan proceed to deduce them from general laws, and thus explain the factsdescribed by them.

From this one migh t conclu de: Although analytic ph ilosophy as a ph ilosophyof science accepts as the goal of science only the objectivistic explanation offacts, nevertheless, the prob lems involved in the very idea of "language analysis"


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must lead analytic ph ilosophy "th rou gh the back d oor" into the midst of thoseproblems which the theory of "understanding" of the Geisteswissenschaft wasdesigned to cope with.In the following, we shall, in fact, use the parallels ou tlined thus far as aheuristic device, in order to facilitate a fruitful confrontation between analyticphilosophy and the philosophy that is implied by the idea of a Geisteswissenschaft. In doing this, we shall have to consider and interpret what we may callthe "objectivism" of analytic philosophy, long indispu tably part of its explicitmethodology and which must be well distinguished from its ow n meth od ofphilosophizing. In the following pages we shall therefore endeavor1 . to show the methodical-methodological ambiguity already appearing at theoutset of analytic p hilosop hy as a philosop hy of language analysis;2. to discuss the claim of the methodology of logical positivism, to wit, that th e

realm of the Geisteswissenschaften can also be incorporated into the sciencesthat "explain"; here the antinomy between the objectivist-physicalist andthe language analysis viewpoint w i l l have to be made apparent;

3. to follow the development of the self-understanding of the analytic philosophers up to that aporetic point at which the problems of the "understanding" of the Geisteswissenschaften become televant for the self-reflection oflanguage analysis.

There is, in fact, an obvious correspondence between the th ree-point schemejust given and the actual historical development of analytic philosophy. T o seethis, however, we must accept the insistence of British chroniclers like U rm s o n4and Charlesworth 5 that analytic p hilosophy cannot be identified with logicalpositivism and its central idea of a "unified science," as is done in G ermany andsometimes in the United States. In England, logical positivism is only thoughtof as one stage in the development of a philosophy, which began with B.Russell's, G . E. Moore's, and especially the young Wittgenstein's ideal of a"logical analysis of language," and w h ich has reached its final stage in "linguisticphilosophy," as started by the later Wittgenstein and p racticed in O xford andCambridge today.6

In the following I shall adopt this British viewpoint of analytic philosophy andits hi storical develop ment, and shall try to establish from the very beginning aconnection between the analytic p rob lem of understanding language and theproblem of "understanding" as seen by the Geisteswissenschaften.

T H E ORIGIN O F THIS AMBIVALENCE IN W ITTGENSTEIN' S T R A C T A T U SA suitable starting point is the T r a c t a t u s of the young Wittgenstein: a s k et ch profound and paradoxicalof a transcendental semantics or logic of language,which cannot justify its own meth od . T h e afotementioned ambiguity betweenmethod and methodology was already present in this ske tch, wh ich determ ineda l l subsequent developm ents of analytic philosophy. With respect to our objectives in this study, the origin of this amb iguity can be shown very well if we tu rn


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to Wittgenstein's short but influential discussion of the so-called intentional orbelief-sentences.

Sentences of the form "A believes that p ," "A thinks p ," "A says p " seem tocontradict the main thesis ( T r a c t a t u s 5.54) of Wittgenstein's sentential logic,accotding to which a sentence can only be part of any oth et sentence as a "tru thcondition" of the latter. Th e models of this logic of ttu th-functions are comp lexsentences which are put togethet out of elementary sentences and sententialconnectives, such as "Tod ay the sun is shining and everyone is hap p y" or "It istaining outside ot the sun is shining." Wittgenstein applied the logic of truth-functions to language analysis to teveal the form allowing verification7 ofsentences such as "N o t all citizens of the Federal Republic are musical," therebyanalyzing it as " A is musical, B is musical, etc., M is not musical, O is notmusical, etc." In other words, the ap p lication of the logic of tru th -functi onsthe so-called thesis of extensionalitywas connected , for Russell and Wittg enstein, with the h ope of d iscovering the true logical structure of all sentences,which was thought to be concealed, indeed misleadingly cloaked in the externalform of everyday language.

This hope was now seriously jeopardized by the existence of sentences of theform " A believes that p ," for examp le, the sentence "Peter believes that it israining ou tsid e." Fot i n this case, the proposition "it is raining outside," whichseems to be contained in the intentional proposition "Peter believes that it israining ou tsid e," certainly cannot be considered as a tru th conditi on of the lattercompound sentence. Th e p oint about these "belief-sentences" (even moreobvious in the case of sentences of "ind itect sp eech "), is, aftet all, that the ttuthof that which is believed , meant, or said can rem ain undecided , wh ile thesentence about the belief can nonetheless be true. Sentences of th is k i n date ob viou sly a cond it io n for the p ossib ility of such an entetprise asthe Geisteswissenschaften.

Therefore, the pertinence of Russell's and Wittgenstein's difficulties with thebelief-sentences to the questions concerning us is that this is the first time in thehistory of analytic philosophy that the language of "unified science" comes inconflict with the language of the Geisteswissenschaft, which consists of intentional sentences; for Wittgenstein's thesis of extensionality is the first rad icalformulation of a thing-fact-language mod el, whichaccotd ing to Wit tgenste inholds for all meaningful sentences, that is, expl icit ly, for al l sentences of the"natural sciences" ( T r a c t a t u s 4.11).

Insofar as the later "ob jecti vism " and "ph ysical ism " of the neop ositivistmethodology has to be considered as part of analytic philosophy and not metelya continuation of the old metaphysical naturalism, it remains dependent uponWittgenstein. Its claim is not that of the older positi viststh at the realm of themind itself can be reduced to the realm of nature and its lawsbu t rathet thatany knowledge obtained in the Geisteswissenschaften must be translatable intosentences of the one, intersubjective language of science, that is, into theobjective language about things and facts.


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Wittgenstein's difficulties w ith b elief-sentences thus introduce for the firsttime the problems which arise if we attempt to incorporate the Geisteswissen-schaften into an objectivistic unified science in its modern linguistic form.In this light let us regard Wittgenstein's solution of the problem, which,though short and obscure, nevertheless determined the further development ofanalytic philosophy. Wittgenstein app lies Russell's m axim, accord ing to whichthe philosopher should look for the true structure of thought hidd en beh ind th emisleading form of everyday language,8 in the case of the belief-sentences aswell, and he thetefore postulates for the intentional form of sentences:(5.541) . . considered superficially, it looks as if the prop osition p stood i n

some k i n d of relation to an object A .(5.542) It is clear, however, that " A believes that p ," " A has the thought p ,"

and " A says p " are of the form "' p ' says p . " . . .This much seems to beobvious immediately: In these passages Wittgenstein

claims that the true form of the intentional sentences is that of a sentence aboutth e meaning of a sentence-sign. We can now ask the quest ion: Does this solu tionspeak for or against the possibility of incorporating the Geisteswissenschafteninto the unified language of the objective natural sciences?

A t first glance Wittgenstein's solution seems to speak against it, since asentence about the meaning of a sentence-sign, fot example, the sentence ' " i lpleut' means: it is raining," seems to be a characteristic sentence of a Geisteswis-senschaft, that is, a sentence which can be true, though its component sentences "i l pleut" and "it is raining" are not its truth conditions. The n how couldWittgensteinwe may ask ourselvesthink he had saved the thesis of exten-sionality (which supp osedly determines the form of all meaningful sentences),which is undoubtedly what he intended to do, as the context shows?

Wittgenstein's comments to the sentence " 'p ' says p " indicate how he thou ghtto have salvaged the thesis of extensionality:(5.542) . . . this does not involve a correlat ion of a fact w ith an ob ject, bu t

rather the correlation of facts by means of the correlation of theirobjects.

In other words, what we are here concerned with is not a fact in the world,which can be d epicted by language, bu t the dep icting faculty of language itself,which consists of the correspondence of depicting facts and dep icted facts. Th ethesis of extensionality, accotd ing to Wittgenstein, is true because language inits capacity to depict theworld does not admit of a special k i n d of facts whichwould consist of a subject (as an element of that fact) in its relationsh ip to a stateof affairs (as the other element of that fact)th ou gh this seems to be the casewith the intentional sentences if they are interpreted psychologically (cf. Tracta-tus 5.541). This possibility of interpretation Wittgenstein has excluded byoffering the sentence form "' p ' says p" as the explication of the sentences inquestion, thus eliminating thehuman subject of the proposition. He therefore


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draws the following conclusion from his semantical teduction of intentionalsentences:(5.5421) This shows too that there is no such th ing as the so u lth e subject,

etc. a s it is conceived in the superficial psychology of the ptesentd a y . . . .

Note that the English translation of this deeply ambiguous sentence soundsalmost precise compared with the German:

Dies zeigt au ch, daB die Seeledas Sub jekt, e tc.w ie sie in der heutigenoberflachlichen Psychologie aufgefafk wird, ein Unding ist. . . .

T h e negative interpretation of this sentence w h ich was accepted by the logicalpositivists does, however, agree with another of Wittgenstein's sentences:(5.631) There is no such thing as the subject that thinks ot entertains

ideas. . . .A n d it especially agrees with Wittgenstein's central thesis that only the sentences of the natural sciences are meaningful, that is (as the logical p ositivistsunderstood that concept), intersubjectively verifiab le.

T h e foregoing considerations led the logical positivists to conclude thatpsychology and sociology, as long as they were using the intentional sentenceform, were not genuine sciences. Therefore, if these disciplines together withany possibly scientifically respectable part of the so-called Geistesw issenschaftenwere to be reduced to the language of science, th en their sentences could nolonger be about intentional pseudofacts, that is, the relationship between a"soul-subject" and the state of affairs meant by it, but would father have to dealwith genuine relationships between objects and states of genuine objects. This isthe starting point for a program of "beh aviora l sciences" as part of an objectivist"unified science" program, to wh ich we shall return later in this essay.

T h e short Wittgenstein interpretation given above w i l l , however, haveshown that the redu ction of intentional sentences to sentences about behavior isat best only half of what the T r a c t a t u s has to say about th is prob lem. O n the onehand, this behaviorist reduction is the only possibility left by the semanticaltheory of th e T r a c t a t u s to make a science out of the Geisteswissenschaften; onthe other hand, this reduction is not in accordance w ith Wittgenstein's reduction of intentional sentences to semantical sentences.

T h e reason that hints at such interpretation were not follow ed in the periodwhen th e T r a c t a t u s made its initial impression on the philosophical world lay, aswe mentioned already, in the paradoxical nature of the language theory of theT r a c t a t u s : Sentences like " ' p ' means p " are not to be understood as linguisticrepresentations of facts, according to this theory; but this implies that thesentence "'p' means p " to which the sentence "A says p " had just beenreduced by Wittgensteinis still itself of a misleading pseudoform, because itstill looks like a sentence (e.g., of the form " a R b " ) , though it is not about a fact


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i n th e world but about that special relation between fact and sign-fact, in otherwords, about what must always be presupposed w h en we speak about a fact in theworld. Wittgenstein infers from this that sentences about sentences, that is,semantical sentences, are imp ossible: Wh at they try to express "shows its elf" inthe use of language, but it cannot be "said." As is well known, Wittgensteindrew the consequences of this distinction and therefore declared that his ownsentences about language and its depicting relationship to the world weremeaningless, and that they only fu l f i l l e d the function of a ladder in order toreach the f i n a l , mystical k now led ge.9

O n e might contend in ob jection that it is very unlikely for su ch aparadoxicalphilosophy of language to have seriously influenced themethodology of logicalpositivism. However, in doing so, one would ignore the perfect consistency ofWittgenstein's philosophy of language as a transcendental semantics of a logicall y clear language which does not p erm it any metap horical usage. If the languageto be used in science must be constructed as logical calculus, a ll sem antical talkabout the meaning of the signs belongs to metalanguagethat is, not to thelogically clear language of science.

It is, of course, possible to formalize the metalanguage, the metametalan-guage, etc., ad infinitum, as Russell suggested in his introduction to theT r a c t a t u s , 1 0 but in this way one would never arrive at the final metalanguage,which is actually used in the construction and semantical interpretation of anyformalized language. Without this semantical interpretation employing the lastmetalanguage, the formalized language is not yet a semantically functioninglanguagethough objectively given as a list of signs as objects in the world.A n d once it has been interpreted with the help of the last metalanguage, thevery fact of such an interpretation has shown that the logical form of language,which enables us to describe facts according to Wittgenstein, can itself not bedescribed or constructed as a fact, but rather must always be presu pp osed. This iswhat Wittgenstein means when he says(6.13) Th e logic [of language] is transcendental.Compare further the following sentences of th e Tractatus:(5.555) . . . A nd anyway, h ow cou ld it be necessary in logic for me todeal

with forms that 1 can invent? Wh at must be necessary is that 1should deal wi th that which makes it p ossible for me to invent them .

(5.556) There cannot be a hierarchy of the forms of elementary propositions. Wecan foresee only what we ourselves construct.I n other words, we can neither construct nor anticipate the logical form oflanguage which is also the logical form of the world. It always precedes suchattempts as the conditi on for the possibilityofany constructions.

O f course, all trad itional transcendental philosop hy has always sp oken aboutthe form of language and its relation to the world; and Wittgenstein does the sameextensively in the Tractatus, but he also demonstrates that such formulations,


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judged by the (language) ideal of a logical "object langu age ," must bynecessity be metaphorical.11 A sentence of everyday language like "Words havemeanings" sounds like the sentence " M e n have beards." If we want to p oint outi n which way that sentence is mislead ingly metap horical by saying "th e semantical relation between language and facts is not a relation like that between twogiven objects in the world," we nevertheless in th is sentence have to mak e use ofth e lingual picture of a relationship between two objects. This is the verydifficulty (for statements) of any transcendental philosophy, which Kant alreadyhit upon wh en he h ad to d istinguish between the metaph orical schematism ofthe affectation of our senses by the "thing in itself" as an "analogous schem atism" on the one h and and an empirical causal relationship on the o th er .12

Wittgenstein, like his teacher Russell, held such "metaphorical" or "analogous" use of language, as is unavoid ab le in ph ilosop hy, to be th e result of aconfusion of types, which comes about because the philosopher utters a self-reflexive sentence whenever he talks about the form of mind or language;therefore, accord ing to Russell's theory of typeswh ich , how ever, cannot beformulated as a philosophical theory by its own stand ard s 13any philosophicalsentence is "nonsensical." Wittgenstein drew a ll of these consequences.

A t this point someone might object with respect to the special topic of thisstudy: If a l l philosophical sentences about language as a whole, that is, about theclass of al l sentences, are nonsensical accord ing to the th eory of types becausethey have to be applied to themselves too, th en this still does not also imply thatempirical semantical sentences have to be nonsensical, that is, according toWittgenstein's reduction, the sentences of the Geisteswissenschaften (e.g.,"Goeth e's sentence 'Ub er alien G i p f e l n ist Ru h ' means such and su ch").

In the case of the latter k i n d of sentence, no "self-reflexiveness" seems to beinvolved. Wh y does Wittgenstein then treat them implicitly as self-reflexive andtherefore "nonsensical"?

From the point of view of the T r a c t a t u s , this only possible alternative to abehaviorist red uction of the sentences of the G eisteswissenschaften w i l l becomemore app arent, I th ink , in the ligh t of the idealistic transcendental ph ilosop hywhich stands behind the traditional idea of the Geisteswissenschaften. Followin g this p hilosop hy, one could argue in favor of Wittgenstein th us.

If really no self-reflexiveness of "th e" language or "th e" mind is implied by thesentences of empirical semantics, th en we have no reason to ob ject to a rad icallyobjectivist Geisteswissenschaft as envisioned by the early "physicalism." This iswhat naturalistic positivism was always convinced of and, starting w ith Wi ttg enstein, wh at led to th e p rogram of a behaviorist reform ulation of intentionalsentences. If, however, the sentences of the Geisteswissenschaften are sup posedto convey a "re-understand ing" of any th ink ab le meaning of sentences (as it isassumed by the transcendental philosophy behind the G erm an Geisteswissenschaften), then we also have to admitfollowing V i c o , Hegel, and Diltheythat in any sentence of the em pirical Geisteswissenschaften the sub ject dealswith itself in the final analysis and not w it h another one, foreign to itself. Every


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important achievement of understanding in the Geisteswissenschaften seems toprove the partial truth, at least, of this conception by its effect on the practicalshaping of history and thus also on the person who achieved this understanding.(In understanding one of Goethe's sentences we understand ourselves, i.e.,especially, the language which we have in common with Goethe and thepossibilities ofunderstanding the world wh ich areembedded in that language.)Th e well-known idea of the "herm eneutic ci rcl e"w h ich means that we musthave always understood in order to understand and that we nevertheless cancorrect this "pre-understanding" bymethodical attempts to understandalsopresupposes for this k i n d of understanding that, to use a word of Hegel's, themind in dealing w ith the other is by itself.14

N ot a dialectical but rather a paradoxical formulation of this insight oftranscendental philosophy is Wittgenstein's rad ical conclusion from Russell'stheory of types: In the sentences about the meaning of sentences, that is, aboutlanguage, the subject of language, according toWittgenstein as well, deals wi thitself; and for this reason philosophy and Geisteswissenschaft are impossible, fori n the final analysis both of them deal not with facts in the world but withlanguage as the condi tion for facts to have meaning.15

From this standpoint the deeper meaning of the following sentence, alreadyqu oted above, b ecomes more app arent:(5.5421) This shows too that there is no such th ing as the soulthe subject,

etc.as it is conceived in the sup erficial psychology of the presentday. . . .

Th e logical positivists, in literal agreement w ith Wittgenste in, drew from th isthe conclusion: "There is no such thing as the subject that thinks or entertainsideas," but they were right, because the subject, according to Wittgenstein, doesnot belong to theworld but is "a limit of the world" (5.632). O r , as Wittgenstein proceeds to say:(5.641) Thus there really is a sense in wh ich ph ilosophy can talk about the

self in anonpsychological way. Wh at brings the self into philosop hyis the fact that "theworld is my world". . . .

But, according to Wittgenstein,(5.62) . . . The world is my world: This is manifest in the fact that the

limits of l a n g u a g e (of that language wh ich alone I understand) meanthe limits of m y world.

Compare also 5.6.According to Wittgenstein, behind the apparent form of the sentences of

ordinary language and their apparent subjects there is the one universal form oflanguage as a dep icting language and the one sub ject of this language, w h ich isthe limit of the world: O n l y this radical turn, considering the subjective astranscendental, makes it understandab le why Wittgenstein identified the logicalform of intentional sentences with the logical form of semantical sentences. T h e


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decision about sense and nonsense is no t left to the judgment of the empiricalsubject, but rather to the judgment of the transcendental subject of (th e ideal)language, w hich "shows itse lf" in th e logical form of the sentences. (Th is waywe ca n understand how th e early Wittgenstein could hold metaphysical sentences to be nonsensical although they were certainly intended to be meaningfulb y their empirical authors.)

O f course, th e concrete herm eneutical prob lem of understanding is carried ada b s u r d u m by this u ndialectical transcendental philosophy; for all human subjectspatticipating in the transcendental subject's one pure language would this wayalready formally be in perfect communication. Assuming this one transcendental form of language, "understanding" ca n only refer to particular informationabout facts and no more to the intentions of particular individuals as key to thevery form of possible understanding the world. For Wittgenstein normal "understanding" is therefore: "Knowing what is the case i f . . ." (i.e., if certaininformation is true). A n d philosophical "understanding of language" is to showthe transcendental form of the dep iction of the world wh ich is presupposed in al lempirical understanding of information. Therefore, in the work of th e earlyWittgenstein, th e place of a hermeneutics of individual intentions of meaningsis taken by a logical analysis of language, which has to show th e identity,guaranteed by th e transcendental form of language, of "your" and "my," and"th eir" w orld and th e world whose description is of general validity.

This interpretation is supported explicitly by sentence(5.64) Here it can be seen that solipsism, when its implications are f o l

lowed out strictly, coincides w ith pu re realism. Th e self of solipsismshrinks to a point with out extension, and there remains th e realityof coordinated with it.

B u t this, according to Wittgenstein, "cannot be said, but it shows itself" (5.62).This paradoxical transcendental philosophy, a "critique of pure language" asStenius calls it r ightly, 16 discredited the language of critiqu e and determined the

inner discord between methods and methodology in th e further development ofneopositivist analytic philosophy. Adhering on th e one hand to an objectivist-physicalist methodology, as was suggested by Wittgenstein's theory of th e oneextensional language for all sciences, this ph ilosoph y could not on the otherhand reflect philosophically o n its own method since this would have beennonsensical metaphysics, according to Wittgenstein.

I n fact, no analytic philosophyof language ca n with clear conscience reflectupon its own methods and thus upon problems of that area where, according toWittgenstein's interpretation of intentional sentences, th e Geisteswissenschaf-ten should be located. This holds true as long as the concept of "meaningfullanguage" is limited to a model of descriptive language as it was developed inRussell's Principia M a t h e m a t i c a . Bu t this language model remained generallyaccepted, as we shall see, also during th e second period of analytic phi losophywhen th e methodology of science most widely held today was formulated.17 It


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was only in the th ird period of analytic philosophy, which started with Wittgenstein's lectures in Cam bridge arou nd 1932, that this language model was abandoned in favor of a d escrip tion of the infinite variety of actually functioning"language games." But even then, little immediate appreciation was accordedthose language games in wh ich other language games are described (i.e., interpreted) ot in wh ich the essence of a language game is determined; recognition ofthe natute of the Geisteswissenschaften and philosophy itself was insufficient. 1shall have to come back to the reasons for this later on.

We shall now turn to that neopositivist p eriod of analytic philosop hy inwhich the problem of the Geisteswissenschaften was discussed explicitly only inthe framework of the objectivist methodology, that is, the so-called unifiedscience program.

T H E CONSEQUENCES OF THIS AMBIVALENCE FOR THE METHODOLOGY O FSCIENC E O F LO GIC AL PO SITIVISM

E . Husserl says in his C a r t e s i a n i s c h e Meditationen about the way in wh ich othersubjects are given to me:

1 experience othets as actually existing and, on the one h and , as worldob jectsnot as mere ph ysical things belonging to Natu re, though indeed assuch things in respect of one side of th em . Th ey are in fact experienced also asg o v e r n i n g p s y c h i c a l l y in their respective natural organisms. Th u s peculiarlyinvolved with animate organisms, as "psychop hysical" Objects, they are "i n "the world. O n the other h and, I experience them at the same time as subjectsfor this wotld , as expetieneing it (this same world that 1 experience) and , in sodoing, experiencing me too, even as I experience the wotld and others in i t .1 8

This phenomenological sketch shows, it seems, wh ich possib ilities there arei n princip le for a science of m an. It is similar enough to the ideas of the youngWittgenstein, starting as it does from a transcendental subject, that we canuse it as comparison to the neopositivists' treatment of the problems ofthe Geisteswissenschaften.

When proceeding from Wittgenstein's treatment of the belief-sentences, weshould be inclined to demand that a genuine Geisteswissenschaft be constitutedo n the basis of that k i n d of experience mentioned above by Hu sserl to w h ich 1a n d the others, exper iencing each other, also experience the same world. Such aGeisteswissenschaft would deal with other human beings, not as objects ofmeaning and language, not as objects in the world, but rather as those beingsw h o "mean" together with me as partners of communication; in othet words:This Geisteswissenschaft would be constitu ted on the level of intersu bjectivity.Its purpose would be, for example, to reestablish communication betweensubjects in case this communication had broken down, or to initially establishsuch communication between different subjects.

Seen thus, the interpreter and the translator would be prototypes of a man of


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the Geisteswissenschaften, and Petrarch, the inaugu ratot of the s t u d i a h u m a n i t a -a s after the M i d d l e Ages, would be the man who set the theme of the Geisteswissenschaften when, in h is fictitious letters, he anticipated the possib ility ofdiscourse between the august minds of al l times and nations, to be realized onlylater by the G eistesw issenschaften.19

A t this point, however, we must inquire: Can this art of understanding,which does not regard the human being as an object of research but insteadassures the intersubjectivity of meaning, rightly be called a W i s s e n s c h a f t ascience? (In the M i d d l e Ages , grammar, rh etoric, and dialectics were called thea r t e s s e r m o n i c a l e s , and the first two were th e forerunners of present-day humanistic h ermeneutics.) Does not science presuppose the intersubjectivity of languageas th e very cond it ion for the possib ility of its ow n sentences? A n d is not thispresupposition to be understood as implying preciseness in the descrip tion ofpossible facts, thus guaranteeing the reproducibility of experienceand not justsome more or less well-functioning comm unication? D o not we have to presuppose for the p rotocol sentences as a basis of experience for general theories thatthe linguistic interpretation of the world is undisputed, that is, that intersubjective agreement has been reached about what is to cou nt as exp er ience?20

T h e neopositivist p rogram of unified science is based on exactly this presupposition, just as the T r a c t a t u s is; namely, that there is a world of facts which canbe described u nequ ivocally; and th is p resup position explains wh y the logicalpositivists never had any doubts about the inclusion of the sciences of man andh i s culture, that is, the social and beh avioral sciences, in th eir p rogram of theunited science.

T h e last remark is not to be understood as implying that the logical positivistswere not interested in the clarification of the condit ions of possible intetsubjec-tive communication. Quite the contrarytheir greatest lasting achievementsare probably in the f ie ld of constructive semantics, that is, in the construction offormal languages which can be interpreted as precise fotmalizations of scientifictheoties. But the constru ction of these "frameworks of language" (Camap), ofthese quasi-ontological category systems (only within which it is possible todistinguish between logically necessary propositions and factual prop osit ions), isnot considered as theoretical science but as a k i n d of practical work whichadmits of no further ju sti fication.21

Philosophers, accord ing to Cam ap , are designers of languages which w i l l orw i l l not stand the test of practical ap p licability. By tu rning the theoreticalproblem with sentences abou t the m eaning of sentences into the practicalproblem of constru cting sem antical systems, Carnap avoids the type-theoret icaldifficulties of ph ilosop h ical universal sentences abou t all sentences, that is,about language in general and its relation to the world, which had led Wittgenstein to his paradoxical conclusions. O n the other h and , in doing this Carnaprenders impossible his ow n ph ilosop h ical reflection on h ow every semanticalsystem, successfully interpreted, depends on the language of science as it hasdeveloped in the course of history and as it is in use now, and with whose help


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the artificially constructed framework cou ld be show n to be a legitimate language of science. T o be more precise, the semantical system only has to comp lywith the science in question through its "rules of correspondence," "correlatingdefinitions," etc., and by f u l f i l l i n g the "conditions of adequacy"; Carnap replaces reflection of the above-mentioned dependency by logical reconstructionof parts of the language of science in use; but the presu pp ositions, implied in themeanings of the fundam ental concepts of this science, rem ain rationally unclari-fiable. According to the pragm atic justification of constru ctive semantics, theycan only be accepted or rejected, and their acceptance constitutes a certaincategorical "net" for a possible descrip tion of the world (Wittgenstein, Popper).

This way, however, the comp lementary relat ionsh ip between the two endeavors of logical and hermeneutic clarification of meanings is not reflectedupon; and it is not recognized, or at least not acknowledged, that this complementary relationship between logical semantics and h istorical h ermeneutics(i.e., the history of philosophy and of science as well as the history of literature,of language, and of social institu tions) is an instance of the herm eneutic circle,th e latter being fundam ental to al l Geisteswissenschaften: M an has always triedto u nearth the meaning of strange language documents by constru cting schemesof interp retation; this is not different from wh at is done in constru ctive semantics where everyday language is consciously "estranged" so that it becomesunclear and i n need of interp retat ion. Even the "recoi l of the text," that is, theretroactive effect of the ob ject language already in use correcting the scheme ofinterpretation, can be found in the work of

[1] Apel, Karl-Otto - Selected Essays Vol 1 [Towards a Transcendental Semiotics]

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