Introductory remarks

As shown by philosophical hermeneutics, “the world”, that is the world as we know it, has been revealed through constitutive activity which is normally concealed, so that the world may appear. When one starts an investigation of some aspect of the world as it manifests itself from one's vantage point (the “object” of that inquiry), one constantly runs the risk of mistaking what appears – from a certain stance, in a given theoretical paradigm, within some horizon, at a certain level of spiritual development, as established in the history of expression – for “raw reality” or “brute facts”. Hysteron proteron fallacy, or putting the cart before the horse, is thus a constant risk in the social sciences and human studies: one tries to explain the genesis of an entity, invoking entities available only as a result of that genesis. A cognitivist example will serve as the point of departure in section 5.1., in which I would like to follow empirically a basic question concerning language genesis: should it be explained in mentalistic or in expressive terms? I will present some glimpses into the genetic relations between “language, thought, and reality” as a hermeneutical antidote to the mentalistic hysteron proteron approach. The antidote is to turn away from what has been constituted and focus on the process of constitution.