The Exegetical Fallacy in Philosophy

A Plea for Philosophical Reading

One of the most irritating habits of analytic philosophers when they show a passing interest in the work of philosophers from the past is the professed ignorance of textual and philological detail. This used to be worse than it is in current analytical philosophy. Many detailed scholarly readings that roughly can be categorised as belonging to the analytic school of philosophy are published now that show great care for exegesis and philosophical argument in equal measure. But wilful exegetical ignorance of historical philosophical texts is still ubiquitous among philosophers who technically don’t work in the history of philosophy. It’s often seen as a badge of honour to be merely interested in the philosophical argument that can be based on Kant, say, rather than in an exegesis of Kant’s text. This is often also portrayed in terms of the difference between offering Kantian style arguments and engaging in Kant scholarship. Kantianism is not the same as Kant scholarship, it is argued, and the former can be wholly detached from the latter, as if one could indeed judge what is Kantian without having studied Kant. One can of course legitimately pursue Kantian philosophy without at the same time engaging in Kant scholarship, but Kantian philosophy worthy of the name cannot not be informed by solid scholarship.

I witnessed this animosity towards exegesis regularly when I did my Ph.D at the University of Warwick, England, back in the very late 90s and early 00s: not only analytic philosophers of mind (one particular person comes to mind, but he shall remain unnamed) were guilty of this behaviour, but also heavy-duty continental philosophers working on Deleuze and the like. I came across this bias all the time when I was in Mexico at the Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas in the mid-00s, which is an ardently analytic environment, most of its faculty having done their Ph.Ds at prestigious US philosophy departments. Some of its faculty showed outright aversion to the idea that exegesis is important (with the exception of the singular specialist in ancient philosophy and the solitary logician with an interest in Husserl). Reading Strawson on Kant was seen as the model. I wrote my first serious article on Strawson while I was there, but most people were either indifferent or angrily reacted to my taking it too seriously!

Ironically, when I subsequently worked as Assistant Professor of History of Philosophy & Metaphysics in Amsterdam, the animosity came more from my colleagues from the other, heavily continentally oriented chairs in the department of philosophy rather than from the affiliated Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, who you’d naturally expect to be much less if at all interested in the exegetical details of a philosophical text. (I spent many an hour discussing in detail Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason as well as Béatrice Longuenesse’s interpretation in her book Kant and the Capacity to Judge with my logician colleague Michiel van Lambalgen.)

However, this generally ahistorical attitude is not all that surprising, given that continental philosophy’s outright hostility towards the history of philosophy is one of its defining features. Continental philosophers typically ride roughshod over the thought of Descartes, Kant and Hegel — the grounding fathers of what is thought to be the worst invention in the history of philosophy: the Subject! — as much as analytical philosophy in its most dogmatic form shows a plain disregard for these figures or uses them for its own purpose.

I.

This mentality — implicit in both the analytical and continental schools of thought, both in principle hostile to exegesis — that you either engage in exegesis or pursue pure philosophical analysis rests on a false dichotomy. To show why, it is important to note that those on the other side of the aisle, as it were, the exegesis enthusiasts within the historical school of philosophy, are guilty of an equally fallacious type of reasoning. There is what I’d call the philosophical variant of the exegetical fallacy. This fallacy is a kind of argumentum ad verecundiam, a dogmatic appeal to the authority of the text.

An exegetical fallacy concerns, in its original sense in Bible exegesis, either a misreading or misunderstanding, or a misuse or misapplication of the original text (in Hebrew or κοινὴ Greek), that is, to portray a particular text passage in a way that was not intended in or by the original text. This is why the ability to read in the original Biblical languages (at least Hebrew and κοινὴ Greek) is such an important part of doing theology.

This original sense of exegetical fallacy is still in many ways valid with respect to philosophical texts as well. This holds especially true for the historical-critical editing and translation of philosophical texts, but it also concerns how a historical philosophical text should be read properly, keeping in mind aspects of semantic anachronism, semantic obsolescence (both are kinds of historical fallacy), semantic range (all-possible-meanings-in-one-passage fallacy), semantic reduction (one-meaning fallacy), semantic synonymity (the fallacy of artificial distinction or identification of meanings), and technical consistency (presumed-immutability fallacy).

However, I want to slightly vary the meaning of what constitutes an exegetical fallacy in its properly philosophical context (i.e. beyond mere philology and editorial scholarship), while the aforementioned philologically and lexically relevant semantic concerns do naturally still play a role in the background. Whereas the notion of exegetical fallacy in Bible studies appears to rest on the (perhaps false) assumption that it is possible to adjudicate on the validity of the interpretation of a text passage by going back to the original meaning in the original language, I think in philosophy at any rate such access to the original meaning of a text is unavailable — though turning to the text in its original language for comparison (e.g. German and Latin in Kant’s case, French and Latin in Descartes’ case) remains a wise guideline if one reads in translation.

II.

The philosophical variant of an exegetical fallacy is characterised by at least the following assumptions, positions that are not necessarily always jointly and equally entertained:

(a) The only criterion for the proper understanding of a historical philosophical text is exegetical, that is, the text adjudicates on what is the originally intended meaning of the text (the originality argument)

(b) A singular text passage in a historical philosophical text can be understood in separation from both its immediate and wider textual context (the isolatability argument)

(c) A historical philosophical text can only, or chiefly, be understood in its historical philosophical context (the historicist argument)

(d) The exegetical understanding of a historical philosophical text must be separated from the philosophical understanding of that text (the separabillity argument)

(e) The philosophical understanding of a historical philosophical text is secondary to its exegetical understanding (the ‘second-fiddle’ argument)

(f) Purely exegetical interpretations of a historical philosophical text trump purely philosophical readings of such texts (the exclusivity argument)

As said, the philosophical variant of the exegetical fallacy is a kind of argumentum ad verecundiam, a false appeal to the authority of the text. This is evident in assumptions (a), (d), (e) and (f).

III.

Let me start with (b) and (c). Assumption (b) might be a minority position. Dieter Schönecker has proposed something in this vein, with his ‘Kommentarische Interpretation’ approach. He believes that we should be able to parse the meaning of a text passage without immediately resorting to its context, textual as well as historical. This assumption is a sub-category of assumption (a). Though I’m somewhat sympathetic to this view in the sense that the meaning of a text should certainly not be reduced to its historical context (c), it is hard to see how a text passage can be understood entirely apart from its textual context. It runs the risk of disregarding aforementioned exegetical problems concerning semantic range, semantic reduction and technical consistency since, in the ‘Kommentarische Interpretation’ approach, the semantic context of the occurrence of a specific term or notion is ex hypothesi ignored. (b) then does play a role in our consideration if only because any appeal to the text should at the very least not take place in complete isolation from the wider textual context.

Assumption (c) is an increasingly frequent position adopted in the history of philosophy. There appears to be a growing trend in overzealous, uncontrolled historical reconstruction. Too often history of philosophy is simply pumped up history of ideas. While it can be useful or even important for the philosophical understanding of a historical philosophical text to point out its historical context, there is a significant risk of historicist reductionism. Moreover, an emphasis on comparative historical reconstruction appears to assume a kind of hermeneutical ‘view from nowhere’ (which sounds like an oxymoron). In one sense this can be good because it avoids introducing an interpretative, philosophical bias; but on the other hand, it falsely assumes one can indeed compare philosophical texts as if it were possible to step outside of the perspectives that are being compared altogether and neutrally, objectively determine their conceptual connections.

A case in point is trying to understand Kant by studying his rational predecessors and the influence they may have had on him — this endeavour is not new (important figures like Heinz Heimsoeth and Gottfried Martin come to mind) but is growing in popularity lately (I’m currently reviewing a book for Kant-Studien that argues that Kant’s revolution in metaphysics should in fact be seen as merely a ‘reformation’ of metaphysics). This can certainly be useful, but when the thought systems of a Wolff, Crusius, Tetens et al are employed as frameworks from within which, even if only in a very global sense, the formation of Kant’s thought is to be analysed and understood, Kant’s explicit departure and very critique of these rationalists’ systems of thought, the very rationale behind the Critical philosophy, is ignored even though it may still be true that he inherits at least some of the elements from their thought systems. The historical background of Kant’s philosophy can be understood and appreciated properly, i.e. philosophically or conceptually, only from within the new paradigm that Kant claimed for his philosophy. Kant’s own parameters are the criteria for understanding his philosophy philosophically.

In philosophy, there isn’t a set of neutral, universal philosophical criteria — apart from basic principles of logic — in virtue of which particular philosophical conceptions can be objectively validated. Of course, comparative studies may provide additional evidence for the use of a certain concept or conceptual constellation, but the parameters for philosophical understanding are set within a particular philosophical system (and this holds for any philosophical system).

Trying to understand Kant from without, in particular from within the perspective of his predecessors (or indeed from the perspective of his successors, for that matter), comes down to subverting or at least diminishing Kant’s philosophical intentions, the so-called Copernican revolution, and conflates conceptual genesis with causal origin. A particular idea or notion might be historically traceable to a predecessor, but that in itself says nothing about the meaning of the idea and its application in the wider context of a particular philosopher’s system of thought. The semantic range of the term might have been expanded or changed altogether, for one thing. One should be careful not to succumb to the fallacy of semantic obsolescence, i.e. to transpose an older, no longer valid meaning of a term or idea to the later context. (The same holds mutatis mutandis for readings that take Kant as point of departure, such as Fichte and Hegel in the immediate historical vicinity, or contemporary Kantian readings such as that of John McDowell and Sebastian Rödl; their take on Kant should be measured by the internal parameters of Kant’s thought, not their own. What those parameters are is of course a question of interpretation. A balance must be found between the right amount of detailed exegesis and philosophical analysis.)

IV.

With respect to assumption (a), the most radical manifestation of the exegetical fallacy, I think discussion of a particular historical philosophical text must in principle be philosophical, and not purely exegetical, i.e. it should be focused on the argument(s) that the historical text presents, naturally taking into account the exegetical demands on evaluating the presentation of that argument. A historical philosophical text is intended to present a philosophical argument as much as any contemporary philosophical text, and it should first of all be taken as such, also in history of philosophy. History of philosophy should not be treated as if it were a completely separable discipline from philosophy pure, with a wholly separable and unique set of criteria. History of philosophy is philosophy foremost. Ideally, philosophy should, at least partially, be history of philosophy, too, which it too often is not. Philosophy is a historical discipline through and through, but with a particular, unique slant: it cannot be reduced to its history, it’s not simply history (see the discussion of (b) above).

One regularly observes people, even among the current crop of more analytically oriented scholars (I’ve witnessed this in my own field of Kant scholarship at conferences, for example), making a direct appeal to the text as if this sorts out the interpretative problem, and settles the debate. It is falsely assumed that even merely one (ostensibly) contradicting passage will ipso facto invalidate a particular interpretation — the fallacy of selective evidence can be committed in the critique of a particular interpretation as much as in the interpretation itself. With an interpretative conflict about the meaning of a historical philosophical text or a particular text passage or set of text passages, one frequently resorts to claiming that the other discussant’s philosophical reconstruction of the text can be dismissed as the text ostensibly ‘clearly’ contradicts it, while the correct interpretation is precisely what’s at issue (the use of words like ‘clearly’, ‘obviously’ are typical informal fallacies of emphatic appeal).

Interpretative conflicts cannot be settled merely by appeal to the text, as this is plainly question-begging. No one interpretation can lay claim to having access to, and knowing, the true, original meaning of the text. Hence, assumption (a) is false. While a necessary condition of the philosophical understanding of a historical philosophical text, exegesis by itself won’t resolve an interpretative conflict. It’s thus an exegetical fallacy to argue that the text alone will adjudicate on a debate about the right interpretation of a historical philosophical text or text passage or set of text passages. One should avoid making use of an appeal to the text if it is not embedded in a philosophical argument, taking into account the wider philosophical as well as textual context (contra (b)). Exegesis and philosophical understanding are mutually necessary conditions on the interpretation and understanding of a historical philosophical text.

V.

And herewith we arrive at assumptions (d) and (e), which hang together. It is a fundamental mistake to think that exegesis of a historical philosophical text can be neatly separated from philosophical analysis, and that a philosophical understanding of the text is always secondary to its exegetical understanding. One must of course take into account the exegetical desideratum of avoiding semantic anachronism as well as philosophical anachronism, the latter often a problem in analytic philosophy, as I pointed out at the beginning. (These are not the same, incidentally: semantic anachronism is when a particular technical term is interpreted in a way that is historically incompatible with the original meaning in the text or at least ambiguous with respect to the text, e.g. the meaning of the term ‘representation’ and its development across the history of modern philosophy; philosophical anachronism more in particular is when a reading of a historical philosophical text is framed in terms of a particular concept or idea coming from contemporary thought that is foreign to the context of the historical philosophical text, e.g. talking about intentionality or normativity, say, in the context of Kant’s philosophy; this is unfortunately a frequently occurring fallacy among analytic philosophers reading historical philosophical texts.)

While proper philosophical analysis of a historical philosophical text cannot really take place without exegetical diligence, the reverse, namely, exegesis of a historical philosophical text divorced from its philosophical understanding, is simply an impossibility. It suggests philosophical neutrality, which is hermeneutically impossible. In other words, it mistakenly assumes that an exegetical reading is interpretation-free, and that philosophical interpretation comes after the meaning of the text has been ascertained. Exegesis of a historical philosophical text is by definition already interpretation, and so also already carries with it a particular philosophical understanding of the text. Unfortunately, in a particular school of thought in the history of philosophy, the separability argument as well as the second-fiddle argument are widely shared assumptions.

VI.

Lastly, regarding the last assumption (f) the following can be said: the presumption must be that a philosopher reading a historical philosophical text, who may or may not be a scholar of the relevant philosopher, has understood the text, and that his or her approach to the text is well-intended. One should not claim exegetical exclusivity, that is, assume that the other discussant doesn’t know how to read a text properly and that only oneself has a proper understanding of the text just because one is committed to a putatively purely exegetical reading. Apart from the fact that this reasoning is question-begging, the purely exegetical reading of a historical text is a myth; there is no unadulterated access to the original meaning of the text. All readings of a historical philosophical text are to a more or lesser extent exegetical as well as philosophical readings. This is even true in such cases where the philosophical reader professes to be not that much interested in the exegetical details concerning the text at issue, and is chiefly interested in the philosophical purport of the arguments presented in a particular historical philosophical text. I am thinking her in particular of how the work of P.F. Strawson and more recently John McDowell (in the case of Kant as the historical figure) is perceived (I say ‘perceived’, because in reality both are at times quite exegetically detailed and text-focussed).

Any ostensibly purely philosophical analysis is nonetheless ineluctably based on a particular reading of the historical philosophical text that is being addressed, with all its conceptual and philosophical as well as exegetical biases and prejudices, and it may or may not be exegetically accurate or detailed according to certain scholarly standards (either intentionally or unintentionally). Such a reading cannot be dismissed out of hand just because the reading is not based on a detailed scholarly exegesis and is rather philosophically focussed. It should be taken seriously regardless, and be criticised on its philosophical merits, both generally, conceptually, logically, and with regard to the arguments of the historical philosophical figure at issue, thereby taking into account exegetical exactness as providing additional grounds for criticism.

Often one hears the claim, made by the exegetical zealots among historians of philosophy, that a particular (often analytic) interpretation of a historical philosophical text might be interesting philosophically, but that it is not exegetically accurate, therefore it can be dismissed out of hand as a reading of a particular historical philosophical text. As mentioned, this happens often with Strawson’s The Bounds of Sense, and also with McDowell’s Mind and World, both pivotal works in the Kantian understanding of central philosophical problems. The broad dismissal of both works (and these are just two famous examples from relatively recent Kant scholarship) as exegetically pertinent readings is unjustified. This is the philosophical exegetical fallacy in its purest and most patronizing form: one lays claim to exegetical exclusivity (f) while maintaining the view that only pure exegesis adjudicates on the proper understanding of a historical philosophical text (a).

VII.

Concluding, texts from the history of philosophy are to be understood primarily in their philosophical-argumentative intentions, while of course paying attention as much as possible to the exegetical desiderata of reading historical texts, ideally (but not necessarily) in their original language, and keeping in mind the many interpretative pitfalls, semantic and philosophical anachronism being the most pernicious ones. As Robert Pippin wrote not so long ago, the philosophers from the past are our philosophical interlocutors. They have something philosophical to tell us.

Pippin writes that for philosophers who consider the history of philosophy a way of ‘doing philosophy’, understanding ‘what a philosopher meant to say’, includes ‘understanding why the philosopher felt entitled to claim what he claimed’; ‘there is no separation between assessment and understanding’ (Pippin 2015:3). He writes:

This involves trying to reconstruct a philosopher’s arguments with some charity and respect (often very hard to do, perhaps because one might have to fill in gaps in an argument when they are seen to occur), or in effect “philosophizing along with” the philosopher. The German Romantics, especially Friedrich Schlegel in his Gespräch über die Poesie, even invoked a kind of term of art for this and argued it was essential for philosophy, not just explicative: symphilosophieren, philosophizing with or together. [...] [T]o treat the philosophers as living interlocutors in philosophy (or to bring them back to life), not as dead figures of mere historical interest [...]. These ghosts of the past will not speak to us unless we “revivify” them with such a genuinely philosophical mode of address. We must be so invested in this encounter that we are willing to admit that some of our most deeply held philosophical convictions can be challenged by these ghosts. (Pippin 2015:3)

The last sentence in this quotation is particularly important: We must approach the text as readers willing to listen and learn from past philosophers, not to ‘ventriloquize [one’s] own ideas in the historical figure’s, importing an alien, incompatible framework, and contorting the historical figure’s ideas until they fit ours’ (Pippin 2015:3–4). This goes against the typical ‘analytical’ retrofitting approach to historical philosohical texts, but Pippin rightly also cautions against the overly reverent attitude of those who think history of philosophy is ‘intellectual history, not philosophy’ (Pippin 2015:1). I agree with Pippin’s proposal that ‘interpreting (and even criticizing) a historical figure can be a way of advancing, working through, coming to understand better, and defending a philosophical position’ and that this ‘project is possible without anachronism, on the basis of sound scholarship and solid textual knowledge, but animated by more philosophical than historical intentions’ (2015:5). Philosophical understanding of a historical philosophical text is what should be aimed for, but such understanding should not be divorced from exegetical knowledge about what a philosopher ‘actually’ said.

The greater part of the concluding section was taken, in a revised form, from ‘The Current Status of Research on Kant’s Transcendental Deduction’ in which I was rather more critical of analytical approaches to Kant’s texts than I'm here.

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Reference:

PIPPIN, R. (2015), Interanimations. Receiving Modern German Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).

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© Dennis Schulting, 2022.