“Grasping” Is Interpretation-Laden

The relationships between the different levels and models regarding what is nec­essary for taking the respective perspective for interpreting the “entities” which are accepted as ontologically “real” is certainly shaped and schematized by what is methodologically necessary as a requirement of recognition.

We might and should for practical and theoretical reasons hypostatize, even realistically postulate, “a reality in itself” but nevertheless this can only be con­ceived of and captured or referred to in an interpretative manner: Even the ideal limiting-concept of it would only be an interpretational concept as seen from a higher level. Still for the mentioned practical, pragmatic and even hypothetical-realistic reasons for existence and constitution of reality in itself may be and should be conceived of as the interpretation-independent “Other of inter- pretation”—to be sure in necessarily interpretative make-up. In no activity or process of “grasping” we can transcend beyond the horizon of our interpretations; we cannot leave our “universe of interpretativity” so to speak—metaphorically. We have to work with our interpretative forms, patterns, even with our biological inherited, pregiven schemes of, e.g., sense perceptions etc., lending themselves to primary interpretations. Indeed, we may mean and refer to a “reality in itself”, nevertheless only in an interpretatively structured pattern or mode of shaping. We have, however, to be clear that even this is, methodologically and epistemologically speaking, a model, even though applied throughout in practical life to resistant realities.

This would sound relatively complicated, but the basic idea is very simple. It figures under the transcendental meta-perspective or—more generally—a method­ological one along the lines of the question: What have we to presuppose as faculties of formation on our side and what schematization and scheme-stabilizations are to be activated or developed, respectively, in order to (re) cognize the (accessible “world factors” and “realms” of the) world and even to manipulate or influence part of it by our actions? This is certainly the question regarding necessary presuppositions as already focused on by Kant; a characteristic difference is only that Kant believed that there is a general fixed pattern of pre­suppositions built into the “Reason” (“Vernunft”) and the “Understanding” (“Ver­stand”) of any rational being, namely the categories which might (according to Kant) already be derived from the logical form(s) of judgment (i.e., of propositional statements, see my 1968, chap. I). That, however, cannot be upheld in the very specific Kantian presentation (ibid.). Not only are the forms modifiable (recognition may follow a probabilistic form or just empirical trends instead of logical excep­tionless determination), and humans as active beings do not only avail themselves of some biologically fixed primary schematizations and interpretational patterns, but they have to develop many of them parallel or similar to the development of language and culture as well as enculturation, socialization etc.

In understanding ourselves as existing beings, we can do that only if we also have a counterpart, a world from which we would distance us, if by way of interpreting (i.e., using interpretative forms) again, or which epistemologically speaking we distance from our subject-dependent unity of representations and subject-constituting activities (schematizations).

Natural-philosophically speaking it may be perhaps the most interesting point here to ask: How does it come to be that in nature a being did occur which would in a relatively reliable manner represent and recognize the world and is able to embed and recognize itself within this world attempting to bring to light “what connects the world in its most inner constitution” or at least entertaining a consciousness of this attitude towards nature and the modeling of “nature”. Thus, the fact that humans develop theoretical consciousness, knowledge, cognition and recognition means that one part of nature, namely the sentient and cognitive human being is so to speak able as pars pro toto to recognize not only nature but also herself or himself. Only in humans in a certain sense (and this is a very basic natural philosophical idea) “Nature” would have developed a certain concrete living being which is able at least partially to recognize nature “in itself” and interpret it as “reality in itself”. This is on the one hand a very high and valuable faculty as admired by Kant in the famous closing section of his Critique of Practical Reason: On the other hand, it also would impose the responsibility and obligation, to use this recognitional faculty in an adequate manner. Humans are therefore in a special situation within nature: They have special faculties, but also special obligations to develop these talents for recognition and knowledge—and also necessarily obli­gations and responsibilities for acting, say, from a moral point of view with regard to any other such beings or even other living creatures.

Designing, acting, recognizing, knowing are indeed essentially interpretative and interpretation-dependent activities, at times interactionally impregnated ones. But the human being can certainly not only be characterized as the cognitively recog­nizing being as traditional theoretical philosophy would have it (animal rationale) and also not merely as the acting being as philosophical anthropology in the last century thought, but as the being of construing and constituting interpretations both in the cognitive as well as in the practical action-oriented realm. It is the being which does not only act goal- and aim-oriented, but which would also in turn judge and evaluate the goals, means and the procedural strategies—and finally also the very interpretations and interpretation products as well as interpretative constructs being used. Thus, the acting being is also the being evaluating actions and per­formances, indeed the valuating and normative as well as goal-oriented performing being capable of self-reflection: The human being is the actively designing, inter­preting and meta-interpreting as well as reflecting and reflectively reflecting being encroaching necessarily by its constructed and reconstructed models into “reality”, in part modifying, manipulating and reshaping part of it. It does not only structure the representation and interpretation of this reality, but also restructure and change it by manipulating, by interacting with the world always and by necessity with social partners in it. Anything procedural in all these connections is intricately, even intimately shaped by scheme-interpretations.

Humans are thus the interpreting beings par excellence (as Nietzsche already would have said). Beyond that they are also capable of distancing and reanalyzing reconstructing their interpretations from a higher level of interpretation or per­spective: Therefore, they are not only the interpreting beings par excellence, but also the meta-interpreting or supra- or super-interpreting ones (cf.

In general however, it has to be taken into account, that the model of this scheme-interpretational (re)constructive realism of a pragmatic sort is itself an epistemological model on a meta-level which is in turn interpretatively (or for that: meta-interpretatively) shaped. The model and methods of applying interpretative constructs are themselves but interpretative constructs or even-products, they are so to speak interpretative meta-constructs. The interpretationist approach certainly has the advantage of possibly being reflexively applied to itself on the highest level IS6 of the interpretation hierarchy. (Certainly the highest meta-level of interpretative types has to be considered as a cumulative category somehow, if potentially, containing the higher levels of meta-interpretations already.) Thus, methodologi­cally speaking we do not end up in a contradiction or performative paradox or an epistemological circular argument. This is avoided by the very fact of providing the levels of interpretations in differentiating the perspectives.

By providing the levels of interpretation and the respective level-connected perspectives it is possible to avoid a vicious reflective circle of argumentation regarding the meta-interpretation of interpretations. Thus there is no trilemma of interpretations like Agrippa's skeptical dilemma in antiquity (later on called the “Munchhausen Trilemma” in critical rationalism (cf. Albert 1968)). Such a tri­lemma could only originate if we would conceive of a traditional foundationalist philosophy but not as a hypothetical methodology of epistemological constructions of a basically “prometheic”^[91] discipline predesigning, constructive or anticipatory provenance. No trilemma of foundation would occur, possibly just a pragmatic indispensability and inevitability in the mentioned sense that we always can only recognize and act in an interpretation-dependent manner.

Thus, we do not end up in a vicious circle at all—not even in a virtuous circle (Vollmer), but rather in a spiral leveling itself up the steps to higher planes of interpretation types. Like acting also interpreting is a set of routines and customs or rules, routines, being anchored in society and shaped by cultural norms, institu­tionalizations etc. (at least this refers to interpretative levels of IS3 through IS₆). Any social phenomenon and regulation whatsoever is itself interpretative. Indeed and again, this does not lead to a circular foundation because the respective model of constructive and reconstructive philosophizing bound to levels of interpretations may be pragmatically interpreted—again and again—from a higher level respec­tively. This is true for a pragmatic shaping of actions as well as for the under­standing of any cognition and recognition in science, philosophy and everyday circumstances. Indeed, philosophy should not operate on a remote plane separate from a common-sense understanding in everyday acting, even if it would critically reflect the extant hypostatizations of everyday conceptions, the respective objecti­fying, at times illusionary and skewed as well as manipulative ideological distor­tions or misrepresentations. Philosophy devotes itself to critically further developing constructive thought in a pragmatical context and feed-back. It should in this colloquial sense also remain “realistic”. This is true for thinking, recognizing as well as for acting. We have to pragmatically and inevitably hypostatize a real world in which we act as against potential resisting events, “things” or processes. To reject such a world of objects in themselves would render a performative paradox analogous to the petitio tollendi in the foundation of logics.^[92]

One might ask, where in the last analysis is “the real anchoring” of this interplay in the turbulence of interpretations? Do we need a fixed ground, so to speak an Archimedean point of philosophizing, from which to start off? Indeed, we don't— except the feedback to everyday language and our respective instruments of our theoretical, symbolic, socio-cultural constructions and media residing in a quasi Wittgensteinian manner in social practices and institutions. It is not necessary to have a fixed Archimedean point of action and interpretation as a fundamentum inconcussum of philosophizing. (This would indeed amount to a rationalist foun­dational philosophizing in a nowadays outdated absolute-rationalistic sense.) Instead, we know that we can successfully act and recognize as well as even, at least in part, anticipate “reality” in a relatively reliable manner. We know that without scheme-interpretation we can neither (re)cognize nor act. We may thus design a non-Archimedean philosophy of pragmatic relative foundational procedures with­out recurring to an epistemologically speaking ultimate and absolute, non-inter- pretative ground or a last fundamental security. Nevertheless, we can and must in “real life” connections pragmatically treat the “external world” as “real” (in a sense) constituting the context for our actions and as a counterpart to goal-oriented behavior even though we sometimes cannot absolutely and without doubt sever objective and interpretation-free “objects” independently of our interpretative constructs—which are in turn related to activities and potential actions. We cannot as we saw do without scheme-interpreting.

In a sense, we move in interpretation circles and even spirals, we usually do not consciously conceive of the respective levels and meta-levels: In acting and grasping we cannot get out of the “horizon” or “universe of interpretation”. But again, this does not mean that only interpretations would exist or be conceived of as the only real processes. On the contrary, we could not think of a viable procedure and successful applying interpretative constructs without locating our actions and the very processes of interpreting in “real world” connections. As we saw, even cognizing and recognizing as a sort of action is always embedded in and bound to the world, even a “world in itself”. To repeat, interpretation is not everything, but without interpreting and world embedding nothing could be possibly grasped and/or understood. (Even formal procedures of thinking and representations are in the last analysis dependent on the development of action capabilities of a living being, i.e., on the embedding in a real world constellation and in social connections, e.g., in society, culture, language, institutions etc.)

5