[Milton-L] historicism, formalism, etc. (Skulsky)

[jfleming at sfu.ca]

I am grateful for this discussion. (I apologize to those who may find it
wearisome.) My position, however, is absolutely not (_pace_ Prof. Skulsky)
that there is no understanding, or even that it cannot be accounted for. My
position is that objectivism, with historicism as one of its sub-routines,
cannot give (despite initial appearances) anything better than an incoherent
or paralogistic account of understanding. Thus I agree heartily with the
view expressed below that we can in fact legitimately claim to be able to
understand historical texts, and that the business of doing so is not
qualitatively different from that of understanding any utterance. What I
deny is that it makes any sense to think that we achieve our understanding
by the kind of rigorous methodical alientation of interpreter from
interpretandum (viewer from object, prejudice from text) that characterizes
historicism and otyer forms of objectivism (or foundationalism, or
positivism, or whatever you want to call it). Precisely because objectivism
cannot make its own claims good, a commitment to it becomes, willy-nilly, a
commitment to deconstruction. Which is what I, following Gadamer, am
against.

On that note, with regard to Professor Skulsky's concluding summary below
(and its veritably Edenic anecdote), it seems to me absolutely crucial to
recognize that Gadamer's thinking in this regard does _not_ align with the
sceptical-rhetorical tradition from Gorgias to Derrida. It aligns, rather,
with the critical-pragmatic tradition, from Aristotle to Kant to Davidson
and Putnam. Gadamer's contribution, moreover, far from being predictable or
time-worn, is an account of understanding that dispenses with the tired
binaries -- subject against object, interpretation against understanding,
history against present -- that keep the fish in the objectivist pond going
round and round. Gadamer's view is absolutely not that all understandings
are valid -- not even close. His view, rather, is that valid understanding
emerges, uniquely, from an intra-subjective Gestalt (though this is not his
word) of which the understander is not basically in control. But
understanding, perforce, is what can and does emerge; just as it does here;
just as it does in Milton's garden. 

JD Fleming

PS One interlineation below.

On Sat, 22 Nov 2008 15:19:21 -0500 milton-l at lists.richmond.edu wrote:
> James Fleming's original claim was that historicist interpretation runs
> in a tight and vicious circle: "The only way to know that ones
> interpretation had reached it [i.e.,"what a given text means, etc.]
> would be by comparison with an understanding of the interpretandum just
> as it is." In other words, my evidence for fact X (the meaning of a
> given text) is validated by my understanding of fact X - even though
> (unfortunately) my understanding of fact X is validated by my evidence
> for fact X. 
> 
> Professor Fleming now claims that historicist interpretation runs not
> in a circle but off the cliff of a vicious infinite regress: "The
> context [of a given text], from the point of view of interpretative
> work, consists of nothing other than a set of interpretanda. Valid
> understanding of these determines valid interpretation of the primary
> interpretandum." But this is a different claim; "determines" does not
> mean "presupposes." 

Of course it doesn't. Because it doesn't, the presentation of circularity as
regress is not a "new claim." Valid understanding of the contextual
interpretanda, under historicism, determines -- is supposed to control or
shape -- valid interpretation of the primary interpretandum. That's how the
regress or circularity gets going. You have it backwards. 


On the new claim, my evidence for fact X is
> validated by my evidence for fact Y,	my evidence for fact Y is
> validated by my evidence for fact Z, and so on to infinity - where X, Y,
> and Z stand for the meanings of various texts.
> 
> In its general form, this kind of argument would encourage us to
> suppose that one can never know any fact at all, since the process of
> justification (as defined) goes on without limit, each succeeding
> justification requiring another. But this is a strange notion of
> justification. 
> 
> An example close to home may help here.
> 
> When Professor Fleming complies with my request for help in
> understanding his argument, he does so because he has succeeded in
> understanding my request. His understanding was based on evidence that
> he takes for granted in the absence of a reasonable doubt. His
> understanding is no less genuine and well grounded for that. No
> knowledge claim of mere human beings commits the claimant to an
> infinitely nested series of justifications. 
> 
> Yet Professor Fleming's initial problem in understanding my request is
> no different in principle from the problem of understanding any other
> utterance, no matter how ancient and elaborate and culturally remote; we
> accept the standard evidence for the constitution of the language of the
> utterance, including the grammar of the language, the meaning
> assignments to its vocabulary, the pragmatic rules that control its
> reference in varying circumstances of utterance, and (last but not
> least) the common understandings shared by the utterance maker and her
> target audience. It is always possible that we are mistaken about any or
> all of these items. But bare possibility is not a reasonable ground for
> doubt. We go on our standard evidence until reasonable grounds for doubt
> are provided. Until then our evidence (to resort to the usual jargon) is
> prima facie undefeated. That is what a knowledge claim is all about -
> and not only in the rarefied world of literary interpretation.
> 
> Professor Fleming's kind of argument has been a steady presence in
> Western thought from Gorgias and Theodorus to Gadamer to Quine on
> "gavagai" to Derrida and his epigoni to the much-missed Richard Rorty. I
> remember debating with Gadamer about the Verschmelzung der Horizonte
> many years ago, during his triumphant visit to the States. If anything
> resembled a fall into the blackness of a mise en abîme, it was that
> conversation, with its ancient and predictable moves and countermoves.
> Gadamer crowned the occasion by rising to serve Liebfraumilch to each of
> his hosts, of whom I was one.
> 
> I will read Professor Fleming's reply, should he be generous enough to
> make one, with pleasure and an open mind. My failure to reply should not
> be construed as agreement.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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James Dougal Fleming
Associate Professor
Department of English
Simon Fraser University
778-782-4713
cell: 604-290-1637

"Not always, nor of necessity, nor for the most part."