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Comments on Levy
| Article
# : |
12538 |
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Section : |
Modern Thought
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| Issue
Date : |
7 / 1987 |
1,155 Words |
| Author
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Morton A. Kaplan
Editor and Publisher |
THE WORLD & I prides itself on its openness to conflicting points of view, whether in politics or in scholarly theorizing. In this issue, we publish an article by David J. Levy in which he advocates hermeneutics--the interpretative exploration of meanings--as the key to the understanding of human matters and particularly moral concerns. Levy expounds a position to which one may reasonably take exception.
Hermeneutical explorations in the contemporary age have been associated with such thinkers as Heidegger and Derrida as well as Ricoeur and Voegelin. The first two philosophers reacted sharply against what they regarded as Greek metaphysics, a stance that distinguished them from Ricoeur and Voegelin, upon whom Levy bases his case.
Levy starts his argument with Plato's theory of recollection; that is, that there are paradigmatic truths that the mind is capable of recognizing. Aristotle bases his distinction between science and opinion on a similar assumption. According to Aristotle, the conclusions of scientific theories are true not because they are confirmed by evidence but because they follow from premises that the mind recognizes as true.
Although Aristotle, in contradistinction to Plato, does not have a doctrine of recollection--for him, experience rather than interpretation assists the mind in finding true premises--he retains the classic Greek belief in the ability of the mind to recognize truth because of something inherent in its being.
Modern positivistic science argued instead that the premises of a true theory are true because the theory is confirmed or, as Popper puts it, at least not falsified. Positivism ran aground on a number of shoals, which included the fact that all knowledge involves interpretation. This calls into question the argument that knowledge is objective, a difficulty that Levy seeks to correct by resorting to hermeneutics.
That resort is neither necessary nor sufficient. It would take too long to develop a suitable contemporary argument for modern science, but I can indicate the requirements of what I regard as a valid epistemology and philosophy of science and attempt to show how they affect Levy's position.
Inherent Truth and Empirical Evidence
First, let me grant that there must be some sense in which the
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