The Linguistic Turn in Hermeneutic Philosophy. - Review - book review

Criticism, Summer, 2000 by Moshe Gold

The Linguistic Turn in Hermeneutic Philosophy by Cristina Lafont, translated by Jose Medina. Cambridge, Mass., and London, England: The MIT Press, 1999. Pp. xviii 377. $45.00.

With The Linguistic Turn in Hermeneutic Philosophy Cristina Lafont confronts both Anglo-American and German reflections on language. According to Lafont, even though critics tend to stress the differences between the two traditions, with the German tradition analyzing natural languages and emphasizing language as a means of understanding (not just as a vehicle of knowledge), both traditions lead to similar problems, such as linguistic relativism. Reopening the classic question of reason's relation to language, Lafont tries to put an end to extreme forms of linguistic relativism and linguistic reification, which she sees as dangerous, but not necessary, results of "the linguistic turn." In fact, she repeatedly emphasizes that her agenda is to "preserve the linguistic turn while nevertheless calling into question ... the thesis that meaning determines reference" (225). The author analyzes the linguistic turn in the German tradition of the philosophy of language to critique and extend Habermas's theory of communicative rationality. In an effort to defend a workable theory of communicative rationality, she argues that language has both a "world-disclosing function," a constitutive role in our interpretive experiences of objective and subjective worlds, and a "referential function," a capacity enabling us to refer to an objective world independently of our different interpretations of that world. In spite of a tendency to repeat herself, Lafont has written a significant contribution to the ongoing debates concerning meaning and reference.

According to Lafont, the linguistic turn in the German tradition of the philosophy of language begins in the "Hamann-Herder-Humboldt" tradition, a tradition that emphasizes the "world-disclosing" function of language. A shared thesis of this tradition is that "linguistic expressions are held to determine, if not what there is, at least what there can be for a linguistic community-what such a community can say (i.e., believe) that there is" (xii); in other words, for writers in this tradition, meaning determines reference. If so, Lafont asks, how can we gain knowledge about reality? Her answer is that language can take us beyond what we believe because it can refer. If a particular description of a referent turns out to be wrong, she claims, we can learn from our mistakes and change our description. Indeed, by developing what she calls (borrowing terminology from Hilary Putnam) an "internal realist" strategy, Lafont hopes to retain a realist perspective, which emphasizes normative elements in our cognitive actions, within a pragmatist strategy, which emphasizes interpretive and creative elements in those actions.

Starting with Hamann, Lafont shows how the German tradition takes issue with the classical instrumental view of language as a mere tool for designating independently existing objects; language does not supply names that designate such objects. In Lafont's account, the German tradition believes that language constitutes thought. From this perspective, we cannot even think without being involved in an already given language, and we can critique any philosophy of consciousness that elevates reason to a transcendental state (for reason cannot be removed from and cannot come before language). In turn, Lafont critiques the "Hamann-Herder-Humboldt" tradition, showing how the, thesis that meaning determines reference leads to the reification of language. In other words, she claims that once words designate concepts instead of independent objects, when all reference is indirect, the function of language is reduced to its constitutive character, its "world-disclosing" function. In short, language's "referential" function gets lost.

Lafont argues that Heidegger and Gadamer sustain the thesis that meaning determines reference, with Heidegger placing language's world-disclosing function before its pragmatic aspects. Gadamer continues the hermeneutic focus on the world-disclosing function of language, but, for Lafont, Gadamer provides a complex model of conversation absent in the work of his predecessors. As Lafont explains, the "understanding toward which a conversation is directed is always an understanding with someone and about something" (97). In this hermeneutic sense, we leave ourselves open to another person's claim, and if understanding is possible in a particular situation, there is a presupposition of solidarity In Lafont' s analysis, if we stress the social character of language, the defining feature of language becomes intersubjectivity; that is, people participate in the activity of language, an activity that is part of a complex dialogic process of understanding.

The first section of the book, comprising some one hundred pages, provides a clear, readable narrative of what Lafont sees as the main features of the German tradition of the philosophy of language. Moreover, this section provides Lafont with a historical background against which to situate Habermas's conceptions of language, conceptions that Lafont explicates and critiques for the rest of her book. Lafont is determined to give both the communicative dimension and the cognitive dimension of language their due; indeed, she consistently refers to her central argument that we should no longer defend the reification of language as world-disclosure. Instead, she argues for the use of current theories of "direct reference" to bring the designative ("referential") function of language back into play Accordingly, Lafont finds in Habermas's later thought a dialectic "between an intersubjectivity to be produced through communication, and an intersubjectivity always already produced, thanks to the `lifeworld' shared by speakers" (126). From this perspective, she maintains, we can acknowledge that our relationship with the world is symbolically mediated.