A 'Hermeneutic Objection': Language and the inner view
Journal of Consciousness Studies 6 (2-3):257-269 (1999)
| Abstract | In the worlds of philosophy, linguistics, and communications theory, a view has developed which understands conscious experience as experience which is 'reflected' back upon itself through language. This indicates that the consciousness we experience is possible only because we have culturally invented language and subsequently evolved to accommodate it. This accords with the conclusions of Daniel Dennett (1991), but the 'hermeneutic objection' would go further and deny that the objective sciences themselves have escaped the hermeneutic circle. The consciousness we humans experience is developed only within the context of crossing the 'symbolic threshold' (Percy 1975; Deacon 1997) and one of the earliest and most important symbols we acquire is that of the self, or 'the subject of experience'. It is only when we achieve self-awareness that the world, as such, comes to exist for us as an object (which contains categories and sub-categories of objects). Any consciousness imputed to prelinguistic stages of development is based on projection and guesswork, since we can know nothing directly of it. It can be said that any experience which does not separate an inner subject from an outer world is probably a continuum of sensation in which environmental stimulus and instinctive response are experienced as a unity; it may be 'lived experience' but it is experience 'lived' non-consciously. Speech requires assertion and by learning to speak we find ourselves asserting, in essence, our selves into the world. The narrative form of language allows us to develop life stories, self-knowledge, and, most important, narrative memory coincident with narrative time. All this is made possible with the intersubjective 'net' of language which allows us to know ourselves by first identifying with the viewpoint of others; and, later, such allows us to identify with other minds as we anticipate their reception our communication. These three, assertion, narrative, and intersubjectivity are the essence of what language is and are the keystones that make culture possible outside of nature. | |||||||||
| Keywords | consciousness language hermeneutics phenomenology semiotics hermeneutic circle cultural constructivism science of consciousness meditation introspectionism | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
  |
| External links |
 Try with proxy. Try with proxy. Try with proxy. |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesStephanie Theodorou (2007). Two Theories of Ontological Disclosure. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy 12:77-83.
Jos de Mul (2011). Horizons of Hermeneutics: Intercultural Hermeneutics in a Globalizing World. Frontiers of Philosophy in China 6 (4):628-655.
Jos Mul (2011). Horizons of Hermeneutics: Intercultural Hermeneutics in a Globalizing World. Frontiers of Philosophy in China 6 (4):628-655.
Barry F. Dainton (2000). Stream of Consciousness: Unity and Continuity in Conscious Experience. Routledge.
Christian Lotz (2011). Poetry as Anti-Discourse: Formalism, Hermeneutics, and the Poetics of Paul Celan. Continental Philosophy Review 44 (4):491-510.
Dimitri Ginev (1998). Rhetoric and Double Hermeneutics in the Human Sciences. Human Studies 21 (3):259-271.
Mario Vaneechoutte (2000). Experience, Awareness, and Consciousness: Suggestions for Definitions as Offered by an Evolutionary Approach. Foundations of Science 5 (4):429-456.
Gregory M. Nixon (2010). From Panexperientialism to Conscious Experience: The Continuum of Experience. Journal of Consciousness Exploration and Research 1 (3):216-233.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-01-28Total downloads35 ( #34,187 of 549,196 )Recent downloads (6 months)20 ( #2,905 of 549,196 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
