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The Operation Called Verstehen: Towards a Redefinition of the Problem
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2022
Extract
One of the more constant elements in the ‘legacy of logical positivism’ has been a rather low estimate of the importance of the concept of Verstehen for a logic of the social sciences. To be sure, it has been the accepted practice among philosophers under the influence of this movement that any extended treatment of the logic of the social sciences include an analysis of the role of Verstehen. But these analyses have almost invariably taken the form of a whittling down to size of an outsized concept with, it is often noted, rather suspicious origins in German metaphysical thought.
Apart from the philosophical arguments advanced, there are a number of historical considerations which throw some light on the sceptical attitude of the logical positivists and of their descendants towards the idea of a procedure peculiar to the social sciences.
- Type
- Part V Philosophical Problems of the Social Sciences
- Information
- PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1972 , 1972 , pp. 167 - 193
- Copyright
- Copyright © 1974 by D. Reidel Publishing Company
References
Notes
1 Hempel, C. G., ‘Logical Positivism and the Social Sciences’, in Achinstein and Barker (eds.), The Legacy of Logical Positivism, Baltimore 1969, p. 163.Google Scholar
2 Philosophy of Science 8 (1941).
3 American Journal of Sociology 54 (1948); reprinted in Feigl, and Brodbeckl, (eds.), Readings in the Philosophy of Science, New York, 1953Google Scholar, and in Albert, Hans (ed.), Theorie undRealitat, Tübingen 1964Google Scholar. I shall cite from Albert. The lines which follow appear there on p. 185.
4 New York, 1961.
5 Albert, HansScriven, M., ‘Logical Positivism and the Behavioral Sciences’ in Achinstein, and Barker, (eds.), op. cit., p. 201.Google Scholar
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10 Collingwood, R. G., The Idea of History, New York 1946Google Scholar. Dray, W., Laws and Explanation in History, Oxford 1957.Google Scholar
11 For a general discussion of this approach see Bernstein, R., Praxis and Action, Philadelphia 1971, Part IV.Google Scholar
12 London, 1958; 6th ed., London 1970. The numbers in the text of this section refer to the pagination of this sixth edition.
13 In what follows Abel will be taken as a model of this type of approach.
14 This point, as well as the next, is made by Ryan, Alan, The Philosophy of the Social Sciences, London 1970 in his discussion of Winch on pp. 125-171.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
15 Habermas, , op. cit., pp. 143, 86.Google Scholar
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18 Rudner, R., Philosophy of Social Science, Englewood Cliffs, 1966.Google Scholar
19 See p. 172 above for the relevant citation.
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21 For an argument to the negative see the concluding lines of this paper.
22 Brodbeck, Rudner, op. cit., p. 83.Google Scholar
23 Ibid., p. 83.
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27 Ibid., p. 69.
28 See for example Habermas, J., ‘Vorbereitende Bemerkungen zu einer Theorie der kommunikativen Kompetenz’ in Habermas-Luhmann, Theorie der Gesetlschaft oder Sozialtechnologie, Frankfurt a. Main, 1971, p. 101 ff.Google Scholar
29 I am aware that this interpretation is not universally accepted; but it serves the purpose here of highlighting some differences between Winch and Wittgenstein.
30 This point is made by Habermas, , op. cit., p. 243.Google Scholar
31 American Philosophical Quarterly 1 (1964). The numbers in the text of this section refer to this article.
32 Oxford 1937.
33 Second Edition, Tubingen 1965.
34 See for example the contributions of these authors - as well as Gadamer's replies to them - to the collection Hermeneutik und Ideologiekritik, Frankfurt a. Main, 1971. I do not mean to imply that this is the first time that hermeneutic reflection was brought into contact with the philosophy of the social sciences. There have been many points of contact, including Dilthey himself and Max Weber.
35 See for example the criticisms of Alasdair Maclntyre in ‘Is Understanding Religion Compatible with Believing?’, read to the Sesquicentennial Seminar of the Princeton Theological Seminar in 1962.
36 Gadamer, , op. cit., p. 362.Google Scholar
37 Ibid., p. 362 ff.
38 The remarks that follow are based largely on the second section of the second part of Gadamer, op. cit., pp. 250-360.
39 Ibid., p. 280.
40 Compare Danto, A. C, Analytical Philosophy of History, p. 142.Google Scholar
41 Gadamer, , op. cit., p. 279.Google Scholar
42 See Gadamer, , op. cit., p. 291.Google Scholar
43 Ibid., p . 291.
44 Maclntyre, op. cit.; quoted in Winch, , 1964, op. cit., p. 323.Google Scholar
45 Winch, , op. cit., p. 323.Google Scholar
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47 A focal point of this discussion will have to be a reconsideration of the problem of objectivity/relativity in the social sciences. While Winch and Gadamer seem to emphasize relativizing factors in our access to social phenomena, it is by no means obvious that the recognition of the necessity of interpretively appropriating the ‘participant's unreflective understanding’ is incompatible with empirical procedures of testing proposed explanations. A proposed reconstruction of a rule system can, for example, be tested in a fashion very similar to the usual procedure, that is, quasi-deductively. If it is claimed that a certain activity of group G is properly understood as embodying the system of rules S, then if G is in a situation where S is applicable we are able to make a prediction about G's behavior. If the prediction turns out to be incorrect, the hypothesis may be in need of some revision, or there may be disturbing factors that have to be considered, or (and here is a difference) the hypothesis may be correct and we may be dealing with a case of rule-breaking (which would have to be explained on other grounds).