Vladimir Lazurca

The argument of this dissertation is built through sustained and critical dialogue with several figures in the (Western) history of hermeneutical thought and pivots on a problem that defined the early development of hermeneutics: the problem of the criterion for interpretation. This problem poses a unique set of philosophical challenges and moves us in the direction of a distinguishing mark, not merely for the justification of some particular interpretation, but a mark that would testify to the legitimacy of hermeneutical inquiry itself. Although this dissertation pays tribute to the far-reaching, substantial, and severely neglected history of hermeneutics, and contributes to expanding our understanding of the hermeneutical beyond canonical figures and boundaries, tribute is not its main objective. Instead, the deeper profit of this amplified vista – which stems directly from my retrieval of the problem of the criterion – is the recovery of a systematic unity of approach to the hermeneutical stretching across the confines of historiographical division. It is thus the reconstruction of an integrated line of thought, rather than lines of historical influence, that is the chief purpose of this work. Specifically, this dissertation aims to provide (1) the reconstruction of a line of response to the problem of the criterion for interpretation – and the problem of grounding interpretation; (2) the general formulation of this line of argument as one that involves a transcendental modality, and (3) its defense. To these ends, Chapter 1 retrieves the problem of the criterion for interpretation, initially posed in the context of a strand of semantic skepticism endemic to the German Enlightenment called “exegetical skepticism”. Chapter 2 examines the doctrine of hermeneutical probability in the work of Christian Thomasius, distinguishes it from exegetical skepticism, and diagnoses its failure to reply to the skeptic. Chapter 3 provides an analysis of Christian August Crusius' reply to the problem of the criterion and associates it, if successful, to the idea of “transcendental grounding”. Next, Chapter 4 leverages the apparent similarity between the Crusian and Gadamerian positions into an opportunity to further define transcendental grounding as an approach to understanding in Gadamer. Chapter 5 then presses the Crusian line of argument further and reconstructs a Gadamerian reply to the problem of the criterion, defending it against the skeptic. Aims (1) and (3) thus attained, the final two chapters shift focus form the hermeneutical to the transcendental in pursuit of aim (2). Accordingly, Chapter 6 identifies an engagement with a version of the problem of the criterion in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, the Transcendental Deduction specifically. And, finally, Chapter 7 draws a comparison between the proof-structure of Kant's Transcendental Deduction and the transcendental line of reply to the problem of the criterion that will have been my focus.

While the skeptical undercurrents of early modern thought have received sustained scholarly attention, such work has tended to be inattentive to hermeneutical or exegetical skepticism. This is a form of skepticism that threatened to stop hermeneutical theorizing in its tracks and absorbed several central hermeneutical concepts in its orbit. Hermeneutical probability was one of them. In this paper, I aim to examine whether the doctrine of hermeneutical probability as it was originally formulated by Christian Thomasius is a surrogate of exegetical skepticism. I argue that not only is the examined view incompatible with skepticism, but that it can indeed articulate a promising response to it. Since general reflection on probability shaped the philosophical landscape of the Early German Enlightenment, the viability of the Thomasian view has much broader ramifications that extend beyond hermeneutics to historics, ethics, and physics.

Exegetical scepticism is a strand of scepticism about meaning running through the German Enlightenment. This paper provides the first modern account of its tenets, critics, and proponents, and argues that it shares essential features with modern varieties of meaning-scepticism that have been a preoccupation among philosophers of language since the middle of the twentieth century. I argue that exegetical scepticism is a type of epistemological scepticism first introduced as a philosophical position in a theological debate between August Pfeiffer (1640–1698) and Philipp Jacob Spener (1635–1705). Under contention, so I argue, was the idea that interpretation is never certain because it is necessarily underdetermined by the evidence. Following the effects of this controversy, I show that exegetical scepticism caused a great deal of unrest in German letters in the eighteenth century and can be seen to contribute to the great proliferation of hermeneutical theories in the Aufklärung, indeed to the very birth of hermeneutics as a standalone discipline. Bringing this type of scepticism to contemporary attention supports a reassessment of issues at the heart of meaning-scepticism and hermeneutics itself, and a reconsideration of the histories of Enlightenment scepticism and hermeneutics.

This paper develops a counterexample to Davidson’s elaborate model of conventionless communication, first articulated in his (1986) and defended in his (1994a). The first part contains an analysis of the model and its assumptions. Then, in a second part, I present a case focused around the concept of overhearing. It subtracts active interaction from the model and reveals that, under these novel conditions, communication makes further demands on it, namely conformity of the prior interpretive theory of all but one of the interacting members. The analysis of the case concludes, in the third part, that Davidson’s account is unsuited for explaining communication where active interpretive interactions are excluded. And hence, for describing the full range of our linguistic competence.

This paper examines Gadamer's and Davidson's dialogical models of interpretation. It shows them to be comparable, but importantly dissimilar with respect to the kind of agreement they require for communication to be possible. It is argued that this difference entails different concepts of alterity: they model not only how we talk, but implicitly who we can intelligibly talk to. Another important contribution of this paper is to uncover a distinction in Gadamer between two kinds of agreement missed so far by all commentators. The final section of this paper defends a second thesis, namely that the degree of agreement required by the models is proportional to the conceptual difference it can make intelligible. Hence, the extent of graspable cultural difference is not only an empirical matter, but is entailed by our choice of model.