===== PAGE 1 =====

Understanding: A Phenomenological-Pragmatic
Analysis. By Gary B. Madison. Westport, Connecticut:
Greenwood Press, 1982.

Professor Gary B. Madison, an outstanding proponent of hermeneu-
tics, finds this sort of philosophy beset by unfair criticism.' Herme-
neutics, which seeks dialogue based on “common understandings,”
has been rudely rebuffed by critics guilty of “egregious misunder-
standings.” Some of these errors are “so to speak, honest ones. ...
Others are, quite frankly, dishonest ones, obstacles deliberately
thrown in the path of the uninitiated by opponents of hermeneutics
who have every interest in slowing its progress.” Some of the “more
vituperative critics of hermeneutics, in rejecting it wholesale, discard
in the process all claims to intellectual integrity.”

Madison does not state whom he has in mind in his charges. His
remarks place any reviewer in a difficult position. Whether my
remarks are “vituperative” or lacking in “intellectual integrity” must
be for others to judge. In an effort to steer clear of such charges,
however, I shall for the most part confine myself to an exposition of
Madison’s own views rather than a criticism of them from my own
perspective. I shall endeavor to show that the alleged misunderstand-
ings of the critics in fact accurately characterize Madison’s main
statement of his approach to the theory of knowledge, his large
treatise Understanding.’ Madison escapes relativism only because he
uses this term in an idiosyncratic way. As the critics use the term,
Madison is a relativist. Nothing directly follows from this contention
about other philosophers of this movement, e.g., Gadamer and
Ricoeur; but for now it is assumed that Madison’s own views are
similar to those of other hermeneutic philosophers.

The first two of the misunderstandings of hermeneutics Madison
has noted can be usefully considered together, as they are closely

Gary B. Madison, “Hermeneutical Integrity: A Guide for the Perplexed,” Market
Process 6, no. 1 (Spring 1988): 2-8.

2Ibid., p. 4.

bid, p. 1

“Ibid.

SIbid., 7.

Gary B. Madison, Understanding: A Phenomenological-Pragmatic Analysis (West-
port, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982).
The Review of Austrian Economics, Vol. 4, 1990, pp. 215-22
ISSN 0889-3047

215


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216 - The Review of Austrian Economics, Volume 4

related. Contrary to criticism, Madison claims that hermeneutics
neither rejects reason nor entails relativism. Hermeneutics does not,
to be sure, accept “the position that has dominated philosophy since
the time of Plato, which holds that human beings are endowed with
-a special kind of faculty called reason by means of which they can
intuit or otherwise discover absolutely indubitable, eternally valid,
objective truths.”” Claims to truth of this kind are ncompatiols with
the “maintenance of a free and democratic society.”

How does that last contention go, again? Suppose someone claimed
to know with certainty that people should be free to criticize one
another.. Is this belief inconsistent with a free society? Why does
thinking a proposition absolutely true prevent one from listening to
criticism of it?

. The Declaration of Independence claims certain “truths to be
self-evident.” Were the signers of the Declaration advancing claims
- incompatible with the free society they thought they were establish-
ing? Madison may, if he wishes, “bite the bullet” and contend that the
signers misunderstood the basis for their own belief in a free society.
He can hardly deny that in this and like cases a considerable prima
facie case against his views needs to be met.’

By the way, if claiming absolute truth did create difficulties for
existence of a free society, how would this show that we do not have
absolutely true beliefs? Perhaps it would be better if we kept our claims
to them to ourselves, ofi this assumption; but that is a different issue.

Instead of a supposed method of attaining truth that has universal
validity, hermeneutics, Madison states, “holds to a: fallibilist and
pluralist view of reason.” It denies that the so-called scientific method
is the only valid procedure of investigation, regardless of the topic.
Like Mises, advocates of hermeneutics distinguish understanding
human action from explanation | in physics. Both Austrian economics
and hermeneutics reject “scientism.”

The charge of relativism so frequently directed at hermeneutics
also in Madison’s view misfires. Hermeneutics does reject the view
that knowledge rests on self-evident grounds. But this is far from
saying that hermeneutics “license[s] an all pervasive intellectual
permissiveness, as immoderate critics would have us believe. » Her-
meneutics seeks mutual understanding, based on the common
grounds, in part unarticulated, that render conversation possible in
the first place. We cannot attain absolute truth: but we can seek a
reasonable consensus.

"Madison, “Hermeneutical Tntegrity,” p. 1. :
8Madison’s political views are set forward in his The Logic of Liberty. Incidentally,
if Madison examines my forthcoming review of this book in the International Philo-
sophical Quarterly, he will find the claim thst Iam biased d against him hard to maintain.
Ibid. p. 4.


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Book Reviews 217

Madison counters the “foundationalist” view he opposes in the
following way: “It is really difficult to know what some critics have
in mind when they appeal to absolute [“objective” in their sense]
grounds. An absolute ground would have to be a ground which does
not itself have a ground, a groundless ground, which sounds. like a
meaningless notion ...”"°

Madison’s argument depends on a blatant ambiguity in the use of
“groundless.” To claim that a proposition is self-evident is to say that
its truth does not depend on something else. Its truth is apparent “on
inspection” and requires no further grounds to justify it. But “ground-
less” in this sense does not mean “arbitrary,” a different sense of
“groundless”: just the point of claiming self-evidence is to say that a
proposition is not arbitrary. Of course Madison may deny that there are
self-evident truths, but this requires argument rather than assertion.

‘Whether or not “foundationalism” is correct, I certainly do not
wish to claim that anyone who rejects this position counts as an
irrationalist or a relativist. Whether or not these latter terms apply
to a philosopher’s position depends, it seems to me, much more on the
role it accords reason than on whether it is “foundationalist.” Many
moral “intuitionists,” e.g., think that one can directly grasp the truth
of various moral propositions but do not think these derivable from
a basic principle or ground. Sir David Ross and H. A. Prichard, who
held this position, are not usually thought of as irrationalists.

~ No formal definition of “irrationalism” or “relativism” will be

offered here. But as the critics of hermeneutics use these terms,
someone who denies or very strictly limits the ability of reason to
attain truth counts as an irrationalist. “Truth” here is understood in
a way in which these two statements are not equivalent in meaning:
(1) “X is true” and (2) “A consensus accepts X.” Further, the truth of
the second statement normally does not provide sufficient evidence
for the truth of the first statement.

A relativist claims that most or all of someone’s beliefs reflect the
perspective of a group to which the person belongs. Most people in
Western societies give great credence to the laws of physics: as
relativists see things, this fact reflects not the unavoidable truth of
physics but an assumption present in our modern “worldview.” Rela-
tivists hold either that people cannot distinguish between what their
perspective inclines them to favor and what is true or, more ex-
tremely, what someone’s perspective suggests to him is the truth (“for
him” as is sometimes added).

If the disputed terms are taken this way, it will soon be apparent
that Madison is both an irrationalist and a relativist. Why then does
he deny this? The answer lies in his much more restricted analysis

10Ibid., p. 4


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218 The Review of Austrian Economics, Volume 4

of the terms, according to which he has indeed been unfairly charac-
terized by the opponents of hermeneutics.

The critics and Madison thus can reach agreement. The dispute over
the first two charges arises only because of the differing ways the principal
terms in them have been understood by the parties to the dispute.

One further caveat. The material presented below does not show that
one ought not to adopt Madison's views. It is only an attempt to say what
those views are.

To return to the main thread of Madison’s case, let us now put his
statements within the context of his treatise on Understanding. In
the Introduction, Madison informs us that by “its very nature, there-
fore, science is hostile to cultural diversity, for each culture repre-
sents a different conception of what reality is, and, from a purely
descriptive point of view, there are as many ‘realities’ as there are
cultures. This violates the basic working premise on which science is
built: the oneness of truth and reality.”"

This sounds relativistic, but perhaps Madison himself does not mean
to adopt the “purely descriptive point of view.” The start of Chapter 1
closes this loophole: “Let us begin by boldly asserting a thesis in violation
of all apparent scientific rationality: the understanding of the world
characteristic of another culture cannot be adequately expressed in the
language of Western science, for science is but one way of analyzing and
understanding reality and for this very reason cannot legitimately claim
to be universal.”"*

In defense of his denial of universality, Madison cites with favor the
hypothesis of Benjamin Whorf that thought is relative to language. The
various languages carve up the world in differing ways that are not
perfectly translatable from one language to another. Students of Aus-
trian theory will note the radical dissimilarity of Whorf’s views with
those of Mises. Mises’s opposition to polylogism is especially to the point
here.

Chapter 3, “Separate Reality,” compares in some detail belief in
witchcraft with belief in science. Madison relies for his information on
witchcraft on the classic studies of the Azande in the South Sudan by
Sir Edward Evans-Pritchard. He rightly notes that witchcraft for these
tribesmen is a carefully elaborated system. According to Madison, “A
system as such cannot be falsified [emphasis in original] ... it is obvious
that’magic involves circular reasoning. It cannot be criticized for this,
however, since circular reasoning is not a defect in any system qua
system. Indeed all systems of belief are circular, including science ...

But regardless of what people believe, does not science work in a
way that witchcraft does not? Physical bodies obey the laws of grav:

"Madison, Understanding, p. 9.

“Ibid., p. 12.

"Ibid., pp. 88-89.


===== PAGE 5 =====

Book Reviews 219

itation, even if they are located in the Southern Sudan.

To Madison, this point is far from decisive. “The fact of the matter
is, however, that magic also ‘works.’ Indeed, it could be laid down as
a general principle that any sufficiently developed system is bound to
work [emphasis in originall. ... It is extremely difficult, therefore, to
see how it could be maintained that science is better, more rational,
or truer than magic in the absolute sense of the terms.”

Space does not permit a full summary of Madison’s magnum opus,
and with some regret one passes by his discussions of analogy, metaphor,
and imagination and moves directly to the culmination of the work.

The climax of the work comes in this passage: “As a result of our
attempt to overcome the rationalist tradition—the tradition in West-
ern thought—we have been led into a position of skepticism.”® Mad-
ison proceeds to raise against himself the objection that skepticism
is self-refuting: “More precisely, when one says that all knowledge is
belief and is historically and culturally conditioned (such that there
is no one ‘true’ world that is identically the same for all), is he not
making a statement that claims to be universally valid and therefore
contradicts what it says?”'°

Our author seeks to escape this predicament by distinguishing
sharply between direct experience and theory. Like the Greek skeptic
Sextus Empiricus, he thinks it valuable to show the equal “validity”
of contradictory beliefs about experience.

If one asks why, Madison replies with perfect forthrightness: “The
skeptical critique can begin to have its desired effect only when, as a
result of ‘setting things in opposition’ one comes to see the relativity
and groundlessness of one’s habitual beliefs. ... This is anything but a
comforting realization. It is, in fact, the ‘dark night’ of the understand-
ing. The state of mind produced by a successful skeptical critique is
anxiety.”"’

To this anxiety, three responses are possible. One can ignore the
lesson of skepticism and retreat to one’s previous condition of servi-
tude, i.e., to dogmatism. If one does not seek escape from anxiety, then
either one “may lose the battle and, overcome with realization of the
folly of all belief systems, succumb to madness. Or one may win the
battle and achieve a kind of knowledge—the knowledge of the ulti-
mate impossibility of knowledge—which can be called wisdom.”**

We are at last in a position to see why Madison so vigorously
repudiates relativism.'® Relativism denies that there is a reality

141bid., pp. 99-100.

51bid., p. 277.

1®1bid., pp. 278-79.

""Ibid., p. 284.

181hid.

19Gee for example, ibid., pp. 20 and 115.


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220 - | : The Review of Austrian Economics, Volume 4

apart from the various cultural systems of belief. Each society has its
own “truth” and there exists no absolute perspective from which the
different cultures can be judged.

For Madison, the problem with relativism is not that it repudiates
truth but rather that it makes truth too readily accessible. There is
indeed a reality beyond. our culturally determined outlooks, but of it
we can know nothing, other than its bare existence.

Now we can see the basis'of Madison's protest. As he uses the term,
he is not a relativist, since he does believe in the existence of reality.
As the critics see matters, this view is still relativistic since Madison
thinks that nothing except the existence of reality can be grasped in
a way that is not relative of culture: A similar point applies to the
issue of irrationalism.)

Madison and the critics are both right,” since euch group is using
the terms “irrationalist” and “relativist” differently. Madison's de-
fense here is as the critics see it, really an admission. Further,
Madison’s use of the term “relativist” is, to say the least, highly
unusual. He is perfectly free to invent a non-standard use of the term
according to which hermeneutics is not a relativist view. It is going
rather too far to “criticize the critics” for intemperate usage because
they, in .accord with ordinary. usage, conclude that hermeneutics is a
type of relativism.

Madison thinks that hermeneutics has heen subjected to one more
unfair charge. Hermeneutics, contrary to the critics, is relévant to
economics. Although he does not mention me, I'think his commerits refer
to a passage of my “Hermeneutics versus Austrian Economics.”

Madison’s comments are as follows: “The more vociferous critics
of hermeneutics inform us that while hermeneutics may have some
idle entertainment value as a mode of . philosophy, it has nothing
whatsoever to say to practicing economists. As evidence they point
out that neither Gadamer nor Ricoeur has written on economic
issues. This argument is such as to perplex even a hermeneuticist,
who is not a person to scorn the values of rational argumentation. If
the issue is the relevance of hermeneutics to economics, then it is
obviously quite irrelevant whether Gadamer or Ricoeur has or has
not written on economic issues. In that case it is up to other people,
economists in particular, to draw out the relevant implications.”

Though lacking the desire to perplex Madison, I did indeed note that
the major hermeneutic philosophers have not written about economic
theory. I did not say that neither has written on “economic issues”;
Ricoeur has written a ‘number of socialistically inclined essays.

pavid Gordon, “Hermeneutics versus Austrian Economics” (Occasional Paper;
Auburn, Ala.: The Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1986).
2 bid. p.6


===== PAGE 7 =====

Book Reviews 221

Heidegger, to mention someone Madison passes over here, has quite
a bit to say about politics.

To turn to the substance of the argument, I do not at all claim that
because particular writers have not discussed economic theory, her-
meneutics has been proved irrelevant to economics. The comment to
which Madison takes exception was but one step in an unsuccessful
inquiry to determine why hermeneutics is thought by some to be
relevant to economics. If there were a particular economic doctrine
associated with the movement, this would of course answer the
question. I raised the issue of the hermeneuticists’ economic views
simply to explore a possible reply to skepticism about the relevance
of hermeneutics to economics.

Before turning to the major item in dispute, I hope I do not again
arouse perplexity in Professor Madison if I object to his phrase “idle
entertainment value.” Certainly it is very far from my view that if a
style of philosophy is unrelated to economics, it is for that reason
lacking in seriousness or value. Whether Madison has me in mind
here I am unable to determine; but one would like to know who among
the “vociferous critics” has taken this position.

But this is by the way. The major hermeneutic philosophers have
endeavored to show that understanding arises from a given context
that to a large extent is practical in nature and not verbally articu-
lated. Science, in their view, is not an absolutely true system that
stands in sovereign independence above all else. It emerges from the
world into which we are “thrown,” as Heidegger puts the matter.

If one finds this position illuminating, fine. But it does not rule
out or even throw into question any scientific discipline or technolog-
ical process. It does subject to challenge certain philosophical inter-
pretations of science, but it leaves the sciences strictly alone.”

An economist can be as completely “scientistic” as he pleases and
remain a good hermeneuticist. Madison, on the contrary, contends that
“while hermeneutics does not ... mandate a method or set of methods for
any discipline, it nonetheless does have something important to say on
the issue of methodology.” If “we hold that the proper object of econom-
ics is human subjects, a hermeneutic approach ought to be pursued and
a scientistic one dismissed.” The “hermeneutical critique of objectivism,”
if taken to heart by economists, will free the discipline “to become what
it ought to be if it is to be genuinely human science.”

Here one must ask: why should economics be a discipline that

22 An excellent article showing the irrelevance of hermeneutics to social science is
Mark Okrent, “Hermeneutics, Transcendental Philosophy and Social Science,” Inquiry
27 (March 1984): 23-50. Okrent, far from being prejudiced against hermeneutics, is a
strong proponent of Heidegger's philosophy.

23Gordon, “Hermeneutics versus Austrian Economics,” p. 6.

241bid., p. 6.


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222 The Review of Austrian Economics, Volume 4

endeavors to understand human beings? Hermeneutic philosophy
neither requires nor suggests this, any more than it tells psycholo-
gists or biologists what to do. If “human science” entails the use of
hermeneutics, all Madison is saying is that if one postulates that
economics is a hermeneutic discipline, then it will turn out to be one.
If, however, one claims that since Austrian economics does view
economics as a “human science,” it can benefit from attention to
hermeneutics, I have no a priori objection. “The proof of the pudding
is in the eating”; and if a hermeneutic economics is in the offing, let
us see it. I do venture one prediction: we have a long wait in store for
us.

David Gordon
The Ludwig von Mises Institute