Alhassanain(p) Network for Heritage and Islamic Thought

Alhassanain (p) Network for Islamic Heritage and Thought

Hermeneutical Foundations for Islamic Social Sciences

Some scientists seem to support the idea of theislamisation of knowledge and some have evolved into considering hermeneutics as a possible solution.

But which sciences could be transformed through the hermeneutics process? Which source would the scientists use in the process? What are the sciences and the frameworks in which transformation would be possible?

All the above issues and more are being dealt with in this amazing book.

Author(s): Dr. MuhammadLegenhausen

Publisher(s): The Institute for Compilation and Publication of Imam Khomeini's Works

www.alhassanain.org/english

Table of Contents

Abstract 3

1. Introduction: The Project of Islamic Social Sciences 4

Notes 9

2. Hermeneutics 10

Notes 12

3. Applications of Hermeneutics 13

Notes 17

4. Islamic Hermeneutics 18

Notes 23

5. Applied Islamic Hermeneutics 24

Notes 27

6. Islamic Social Sciences 28

Notes 30

7. Concluding Reflections 31

References 32

Abstract

A brief review of some of the major proposals for the project of Islamic social sciences are given. It is observed that in all of these proposals, interpretation and understanding are crucial. Hermeneutics is introduced in the broad sense of the study of interpretation and understanding, and a brief review of its developments is given, with an emphasis on the work ofGadamer . Some of the problems of the application ofhermenteutics are discussed along with suggestions about the rational evaluation of competing views that may be formulated in initially incommensurable languages.

The idea of religious hermeneutics is next developed with reference to the positions that have been taken byBultmann ,Plantinga , and Nasr; and on this basis three grades of religious hermeneutics are distinguished. An attempt is made to overcome some problems for an Islamic hermeneutics with reference to proposals by WilliamChittick and Leo Strauss. Problems with the application of an Islamic hermeneutics are reviewed and solutions offered.

The view that the objectivity of science precludes religious science is rejected in favor of the view that objectivity does not depend on neutrality but on articulation, the process of making assumptions and presuppositions explicit and to formulate them with ever greater precision (where this is appropriate).

Complications that arise for the application of an Islamic hermeneutics for the social sciences are surveyed, and it is proposed that the application of an Islamic hermeneutics for the social sciences must be developed in a dialectical relationship to the scientific traditions whose secularity gave rise to the calls for sacred science, and in particular for Islamized social sciences.

Keywords: hermeneutics, sacred science, Islamized science, interpretation, understanding, philosophy of the social sciences,Bultmann ,Gadamer , Nasr,Plantinga .

1. Introduction: The Project of Islamic Social Sciences

A number of Muslim authors have advocated the development of Islamic Social Sciences. Sometimes, this is seen as a part of a generalIslamization of knowledge, while others focus on the social sciences and humanities as being particularly biased by assumptions contrary to Islam. The term "Islamization of knowledge" was first introduced in 1978 bySyed MuhammadNaquib al-Attas . His discussion of theislamization of knowledge is worth reviewing, since he brings together the ideas:

(1) that the sciences as developed in the West are biased in a manner that is unacceptable from an Islamic point of view;

(2) that this bias is particularly prevalent in the human sciences; and,

(3) that this bias occurs because of flaws in interpretation.

Al-Attas argues that knowledge imported into the Muslim world from the West is "infused with the character and personality of Western culture and civilization andmoulded in the crucible of Western culture.."1 He continues that the elements and key concepts of Western culture need to be identified and isolated.

These elements and key concepts are mainly prevalent in that branch of knowledge pertaining to the human sciences, although it must be noted that even in the natural, physical and applied sciences, particularly where they deal with interpretation of facts and formulation of theories, the same process of isolation of the elements and key concepts should be applied; for the interpretations and formulations indeed belong to the sphere of the human sciences.2

Finally, theIslamization of knowledge is to be achieved, according the Al-Attas , by replacing the Western elements and key concepts by Islamic ones, so that the sciences may be remolded "in the crucible of Islam."

According to the nephew of Al-Attas ,Farid Alatas , the approach taken by his uncle was influenced by the Sufi tradition, and emphasized the need for proper inspiration (ilham ) to inform one's research.

We are really talking about what my uncle once told me: it is theIslamization of the mind. The way I understand it, the discussion is about the way Islam provides the metaphysical and epistemological basis for knowledge. Those concerned are not interested in creating an Islamic sociology or an Islamic physics, but what they say is that, whatever your discipline, there is a particular metaphysical and epistemological framework that is provided by Islam.3

Al-Attas insists thatIslamization is not merely a matter of taking Western sciences and adding some Islamic decorations. He proposes a much more thorough and profound reworking. Nevertheless, it is by no means clear that his aims could be achieved by a replacement of elements and key concepts, or how this replacement could be carried out.

Some understanding of how Al-Attas sought to carry out the project can be gained by examining the manner in which he directed the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC).Alatas explains that this institute "was created specifically to Islamize knowledge, not only to teach the various branches, but also to provide that metaphysical andepistemololgical basis that should be infused by all scholars and teachers, whatever the discipline."4 As currently organized, however, ISTAC has no philosophy department, and without one, it is difficult to see how the metaphysics and epistemology that Al-Attas viewed as the basis forislamization might be provided.

AsFarid Alatas understands theIslamization of the social sciences, we should not expect anislamicized sociology, economics, or political science to rival secular versions of these sciences, rather researchers who are well grounded in the Islamic epistemology and metaphysics should use concepts drawn from them to provide a framework in which to carry our empirical research.

The only way in which Islam can be brought into closer alignment with knowledge is if people start to do empirical work. And that takes me to my own understanding of these matters. I think that, rather than to talk about Islamizing knowledge, one should actually look at Islamic traditions as sources of concepts and ideas, and do actual research with that.5

Alatas goes on to explain that he proposes that historians, sociologists, and other social scientists should look at work done by classical Muslim thinkers, such asBiruni , extract key ideas from them, "and undertake empirical historical research with these ideas."

A rival approach to theIslamization of knowledge was initiated byIsma'il Faruqi in 1982.6 This approach was integrated with several other goals, including the reform of Islam, the salvation of the West, and a substantive view of how the modern sciences were to be Islamized. In order to carry out this program,Faruqi participated in the establishment of the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) in 1981.

Faruqi proposed to adopt the best of Western science and technology, but to base it on Islamic principles and values that would guide the further development of the sciences. He agreed withSalafi ideas of the need to return to a pristine original Islam, but he considered this original Islam to be fundamentally rational, and open to dialogue with non-Muslims. He found inspiration in bothAbd al-Wahhab and in Muhammad Abduh.7

His program for theIslamization of knowledge was ideological and advocated the strengthening of Islamic identity. According toFaruqi , theIslamization of knowledge is to "recast knowledge as Islam relates to it., I.e. to redefine and reorder the data, to rethink the reasoning and relating of the data, to reevaluate the conclusions, toreproject the goals-and to do so in such a way as to make the disciplines enrich the vision and serve the cause of Islam."8

At the heart of his vision was theIslamization of knowledge. He regarded the political, economic, andreligiocultural malaise of the Islamic community as primarily due to the bifurcated state of education in the Muslim world with a resultant lack of vision. He believed that the cure was twofold: the compulsory study of Islamic civilization and theIslamization of modern knowledge.9

Faruqi's program ofIslamization is summarized by IbrahimRagab as having three main components:

1) Mastery of modern disciplines, and the critical assessment of their methodologies, research findings, and theories within the Islamic perspective.

2) Mastery of the Islamic legacy, and the critical assessment of Islamic scholarship against :

a) a pristineRevelational perspective

b) current needs of theUmmah , and

c) modern advances in human knowledge.

3) Creative synthesis of the Islamic legacy and modern knowledge; a creative leap "to bridge over the gap of centuries of non- development"10

The work of IIIT has been subject to much criticism11 for being rhetoric without substance, for poor quality of IIIT publications, and for the conceit that the true meaning of knowledge is privy to those working in accordance with its own ideology. Although these criticisms have been raised against theIslamization of knowledge project, in general, IIIT seems to have borne much of the brunt of it.

Kalin faultsFaruqi's project for using Islamic labels that obscure deeper philosophical issues involved in the current discussions of science, and for focusing on the social sciences to the exclusion of the natural sciences, despite the fact that his original project aim at Islamizing all the knowledge imported from the West.Kalin observes two outcomes ofFaruqi's project and the work of IIIT: an over-emphasis on social sciences and constituting "knowledge"; and neglect of the secularizing effects of the modern scientific worldview.

This leaves the Muslim social scientists, the ideal- types of theIslamization program, with no clue as to how to deal with the questions that modern scientific knowledge poses. Furthermore, to take the philosophical foundations of modern, natural sciences for granted is tantamount to reinforcing the dichotomy between the natural and human sciences, a dichotomy whose consequences continue to pose serious challenges to the validity of the forms of knowledge outside the domain of modern physical sciences.12

IIIT has responded to the criticism by reformulating the program as first conceived byFaruqi in a series of papers.13 Faruqi's plan was seen as too "mechanical" and alternatives are proposed that aim at greater flexibility, and propose drawing on the ideas about theIslamization of knowledge that have been drawn up by others.14

Yet another call for theIslamization of knowledge may be derived from the works ofSeyyed Hossein Nasr, although he calls his project one of reviving the sacred sciences, rather thanIslamization , and emphasizes the idea that the religious traditions of the world share a perennial wisdom opposed to the cultural and intellectual trends that emerged from European modernity.15

Nasr calls for a return to sacred science in a number of his writings, most prominently in hisKhowledge and the Sacred (1981) and The Need for a Sacred Science (1993), although his position is stated in his earliest work on Islamic science.16 Nasr does not limit his criticism of modern science to the social sciences, but takes the modern scientific revolutions in the natural sciences to have ushered in a worldview that is incompatible with and dismissive of sacred science.

In recent reflections on his life, Nasr writes:

...many people have made claims to be the originator of one of the most important intellectual exercises that is taking place in the Islamic world today and which they call the ''Islamization of knowledge,'' the effort to incorporate Western knowledge into the Islamic framework. I have never liked the usage of this term, but the fact is that I spoke about this integration in 1957/58 when I wrote my book Science and Civilization in Islam parallel with my Ph.D. Thesis, although this book was not published until a few years later. It was then 1957, at least ten, fifteen years before other people such asIsma'il al-Faruqi andNaquib al-Attas , who are now known for this project, came to the fore that I wrote about the integration of all knowledge into the Islamic worldview.17

Nasr argues that the modern science that emerged with the scientific revolutions of the 17th century is a direct challenge to the traditional worldview, particularly as developed in Islamic civilization. Hence, modern science and technology are not to be considered as value-free. It imposes a value system inimical to Islamic civilization. Nevertheless, modern science is not to be simply abandoned. Muslims should master the modern sciences, but critically. It is the responsibility of Muslim scientists to formulate a critique of modern science based on the Islamic intellectual tradition.

On the positive side, the work of Nasr on sacred science has the great merit of showing how sacred sciences must be integrated with ecological concerns, and with Islamic ethics, more generally.18 On the negative side, it is not clear how the positive gains made by the modern sciences are to be integrated in sacred science.

There are many other Muslim thinkers who have tackled the problem of Islam and modern science. My purpose is not to survey all the views, but only to introduce the discourse about the problem in order to highlight the importance of interpretation in how we understand the relation between Islam and science. However, we do well to consider the words with whichMuzaffar Iqbal concludes a survey of Muslims' views of the relationship between Islam and modern science.

What is needed is a major intellectual revolution in the Muslim world that would recover the lost tradition of scholarship rooted in Islam's own primary sources. This would lead to the emergence of a new movement helping Muslims to appropriate modern science and technologies like the movement that digested an enormously large amount of scientific and philosophical thought that entered the Islamic tradition during the three centuries of the earlier translation movement.

Only such a recasting of moderns scientific knowledge has the hope of germinating the seeds of scientific thinking in the Muslim mind that is not laden with scientism. Only such a revolutionary change in thinking can liberate the Islam and science discourse from its colonized bondage and produce genuine Islamic reflections on the enterprise of modern science-an enterprise that looms large in all spheres of contemporary life and society.19

In sum, we find that the project or projects for developing Islamic social sciences are interwoven with a number of related issues.

1) Which Islamic school of thought is to provide the framework for the development of Islamic social sciences: Traditionalism,Salafism , Sufism, modernism? In other words, proposals for theIslamization of the social sciences have been made from specific ideological perspectives, and developments of Islamic social sciences need to clear the hurdle of ideology if they are to have any chance at success. No science can develop if practitioners are condemned on the basis of ideology rather than scientific contribution.

2) Is the development of Islamic science to cover all the sciences or is it to be limited to the social sciences and humanities? Are we to expect Muslim mathematicians to develop a modern Islamic mathematics, for example, that rejects the existence of transfinite numbers because of the rejection of actual infinities in classical Aristotelian/Islamic mathematics?

3) Will Islamic social science reject the methods and findings of modern Western social sciences, or will it reinterpret them and offer a critique? More generally, what exactly is to be the relation between theIslamicized sciences and the modern Western sciences?

4) To what extent can modern Western science be separated from scientism? Some philosophers of science, such as Richard Dawkins, insist that modern science is essentially atheistic, while many others, such as AlvinPlantinga , claim that it is not modern science that rejects any transcendent reality, but only thescientistic assumption that there is nothing in existence that cannot be investigated and described by the methods of the modern sciences.

My hypothesis is that the question of interpretation is crucial to finding a solution to all these issues, and that since the study of interpretation is hermeneutics, we should examine the issues of hermeneutics in relation to the social sciences in order to understand how best to approach the issues mentioned above and others.

Notes

1. Al-Attas (1993), 162.

2. Al-Attas (1993), 162.

3.Alatas (2008).

4.Alatas (2008).

5.Alatas (2008).

6.Faruqi (1982).

7. See Esposito andVoll (2001), 29.

8.Faruqi (1982), 15.

9. Esposito andVoll (2001), 32.

10.Ragab (2005).

11. See, for example, Stenberg (1996);Abaza (2002);Kalin (2002);Alatas (2008). A more general criticism ofIslamization , from an Iranian émigré's postmodernist perspective, with more sarcasm than substance, may be found inShayegan (1992).

12.Kalin (2002), 61.

13. SeeSulaiman (2000).

14. SeeSulaiman (2000);Bennet (2005); and especiallyIqbal (2008), who provides a detailed analysis of the views of Nasr, among others.

15. For criticism, seeLegenhausen (2002).

16. Nasr (1978), based on his Ph. D. dissertation (Harvard) completed in 1958.

17. Nasr (2010), 78.

18. See, especially, Nasr (1996), and Nasr (1993), Ch. 8 and 9.

19.Iqbal (2008), 188.

2. Hermeneutics

To begin with, we need a working understanding of hermeneutics, and this is itself a rather contentious issue, for the term is used both for a discipline and for a school of thought. In ancient Greece, the term was used in a general way for problems of interpretation and understanding.1 In the Middle Ages, the term was used for Biblical exegesis. It is generally agreed that hermeneutics remained tied to the issue of textual exegesis until the 19th century and the work of Schleiermacher (1768-1834) andDilthey (1833-1911).

Following the Romantics' idea that all understanding is interpretive, Schleiermacher andDilthey (especially the latter) expanded the notion of hermeneutics. Schleiermacher, for the first time, offered a general hermeneutics for the interpretation of any text, not just the Bible and ancient texts.Dilthey takes us beyond the understanding of texts, to the interpretation of history and society.

Both Schleiermacher andDilthey bring philosophical reflection to hermeneutics.Dilthey , however, also limited the range of hermeneutics by making a sharp distinction between the natural sciences and the human sciences orGeijtejwijjenjchaften , and between explanation and understanding. He held that the natural sciences explain nature, while the human sciences seek to provide understanding (Verjtehen ) of historical life. The goal of hermeneutics, according toDilthey , is understanding, not explanation.

AlthoughDilthey's firm distinction between the natural sciences and the social and other human sciences became entrenched in most subsequent discussions of hermeneutics, we can ignore this controversy, since our concern here is with the social sciences. Suffice it to say that there is a growing recognition that the natural sciences depend on interpretive assumptions no less than the humanities, and that the relation of explanation and understanding is closer thanDilthey imagined. It is through explanations that one gains understanding, and the ability to explain requires understanding.

With the publication of Heidegger'sSein undZeit in 1927, hermeneutics takes what is called an ontological turn. Heidegger considers human existence,Dajein , to be essentially interpretive. In earlier thinkers the "hermeneutic circle" was understood as the mutual dependence of the understanding of the whole of a text and its parts, and also the mutual dependence of the understanding of a tradition and the texts that constitute it. In Heidegger, another form of hermeneutic circle arises in the recognition of the mutual dependence of an understanding of the world and self-understanding.

.[B]ecause Dasein is fundamentally embedded in the world, we simply cannot understand ourselves without the detour through the world, and the world cannot be understood without reference toDasein's way of life. This, however, is a perpetual process. Hence, what is precarious here is not, as in the earlier hermeneutic tradition, the moment when we are able to leave the hermeneutic circle, where our interpretative endeavors culminate in a lucid, clear, and indubitable grasp of the meaning of the text. What matters, Heidegger claims, is the attempt to enter the circle in the right way, with a willingness to realize that the investigation into the ontological conditions of my life ought to work back on the way in which my life is led.

With this turn towards ontology, the problems of philology become secondary. Hermeneutics now deals with the meaning-or lack of meaning-of human life: it is turned into an existential task.2

AsRamberg andGjesdal go on to explain, after Heidegger, the most important development of hermeneutic theory comes withGadamer's Wahrheit undMethode (1960).Gadamer accepts Heidegger's ontological view of hermeneutics, but delves further into how hermeneutics may serve as a basis for theGeijtejwijjenjchaften . ForGadamer , the reader and the text are in a mutually dependent relationship that is his version of the hermeneutic circle.

Through the dialogical interrelation between the reader and a textual tradition, a "fusion of horizons" may be achieved through which understanding takes place. In order to explain how an effective engagement with texts is possible,Gadamer refers to Aristotle's views of practical reasoning (phronesis ), and Kant's theory of judgment. There is no set method that can be applied to every text, but rather the reader must develop sensitivity and appreciation of the texts that are to be engaged.

Gadamer's theory has given rise to much criticism. Some have argued in favor of a more classical approach to texts, as in the tradition of Schleiermacher. Others, likeHabermas , have argued thatGadamer's theory gives too much authority to tradition. However, the greatest criticism ofGadamer's hermeneutics is the charge of relativism.Gadamer has responded to the charge, as have others on his behalf, and these responses have elicited further criticism. It is not my purpose to review the debate, although I will say that the criticism seems more fittingly applied to certain interpretations ofGadamer's work, likeRorty's , than toGadamer's own views.

A number of further developments in hermeneutic theories are also not directly relevant to the purpose of our inquiries, such as the debate over communicative ethics, and the relation between hermeneutics and genealogy.Gadamer retainsDilthey's distinction between the natural sciences and theGeijtejwijjenjchaften , while a number of more recent hermeneutical studies have convincingly argued that the natural sciences are as much involved in interpretation as the social sciences.3 What is relevant to the project of Islamic social sciences and the more generalsacralization of the sciences, is the application of hermeneutics to the social sciences.

Just as the project of theIslamization of the sciences is contentious because it is associated with rival ideological positions among Muslim thinkers, so, too, hermeneutics is contentious because of the rival political and broadly philosophical positions taken by its advocates. It is my purpose to try to bracket such issues as much as possible in order to consider how what Al-Attas called "elements and key concepts" of Islam may form a basis for interpretation to be employed in the social sciences. So, I will use the term hermeneutics in the very general sense of the study of interpretation, whether or not this study conforms to the views of Schleiermacher,Gadamer ,Ricoeur , or anyone else. Furthermore, the thinking of the major contributors to hermeneutic theory is also a matter of some controversy, especially in the case ofGadamer . I will assume in what follows that various points made byGadamer in the development of his hermeneutic theory may be accepted without accepting the pernicious forms of relativism that have been attributed to him.

Notes

1. This is suggested by Aristotle's work,Ilepl 'Epµ1vsim; orPeri Hermeneias , known by its Latin name, DeInterpretatione .

2.Ramberg andGjesdal (2009).

3. SeeIhde (1999).

3. Applications of Hermeneutics

Gadamer has taught us that interpretation is based on presuppositions. This would lead to relativism if presuppositions were taken to be equally justified although arbitrary.Gadamer denies this. A valid interpretation has to be guided by its object, not imposed on it; dynamic, not fixed.

Another way to blunt the edge of relativism is to take up the project of making presuppositions explicit. Presuppositions become usefully serviceable when they are made explicit, even if in a very general fashion. So, if some assumption, A, is discovered that stands behind an author's support for a theory, T, and if A is itself a matter of dispute, so that there are those who reject A and favor A', and they use A' to buttress their support for T', we could still seek to achieve greater objectivity by claiming not that T (or T') is the best theory, without qualification, but merely that given A, T is the best theory, and that given A', T' might be the best theory. This is not to say that such claims are asserted absolutely, without any interpretive assumptions. Whether T is best given A might be subject to dispute between those who base an affirmative answer to this question on the basis of further differing assumptions.

So, one might explicate: according to assumption B, T is the best theory under assumption A. If this is disputed one may argue that according to assumption C, it is the case that according to assumption B, T is the best theory under assumption A. The regress is only potentially vicious, as when one faces a dialogue partner like the Tortoise, in Lewis Carroll's famous story.1 In practice, dialogue partners are not so obstinate.

According toGadamer , in order to understand a text or an event, we need to reach an understanding (Verständigung ) with our speech-partners. How can this occur for the social sciences if one group of researchers takes a positivistic approach to science while another aspires to a sacred science or to an Islamized science? There would appear to be no way for there to be any "fusion of horizons," since the assumptions that inform the rival views of social science are contradictory.

The place to look for a fusion of horizons in such circumstances may be found through the explicit hypothesizing of assumptions. Even the materialist should be willing to grant that on religious assumptions a theory T might be judged superior to rival theories. Likewise, one need not be an intuitionist to discover theorems of intuitionist logics. Generally speaking, one need not accept assumption A in order to reach an understanding with those who do accept the assumption about how such assumptions might influence judgments about the merits of theories.

The natural sciences after the 17th century were formulated in a language that sought neutrality with regard to all human meanings and values. This was the basis of their claim to objectivity. Today, however, because of advances in the history and philosophy of science, it is generally recognized that the practices of modern science are based on their own norms; and a growing number of scholars admit that these norms are neither unquestionable nor unique.

In the case of the social sciences, dependence on Western cultural norms and values is more conspicuous than it is in the natural sciences. The problem of ethnocentrism in the social sciences is fairly widely recognized. For example, different cultures often bear conflicting views of human nature that are so deeply ingrained that researchers cannot simply suspend them at will in order to produce a more universal social science. What they might be able to manage, however, would be an investigation into how human nature is seen in another culture, and how this would influence views about the issues studied by social scientists. This exercise will heighten awareness of the researcher's own suppositions at the same time as it focuses attention on the alternative sets of suppositions that are to be found in other cultures.

Once such suppositions are identified, two sorts of evaluations may be made: first, the plausibility of the basic assumptions may be considered; and secondly the merits of various alternative theories based on these assumptions may be debated with regard to accuracy, explanatory value, depth, range, cohesion, and other theoretical virtues. One should certainly not be content to take cultural biases as arbitrary givens, for this would indeed be to surrender to a more pernicious relativism than that which comes with the admission of someperspectivalist theses, and one thatGadamer goes to some pains to avoid.

As Charles Taylor analyzesGadamer's position, pernicious relativism is not to be avoided by aspiring to the ideal of neutrality with regard to assumptions about metaphysics, human nature, etc., but by (1) allowing for change and development in the horizons; and (2) aiming for the most comprehensive fusion of horizons; although this aim is a regulative ideal that will never reach complete universality. As Taylor sees it, comprehensiveness is:

….an important ideal bothepistemically and humanly:epistemically , because the more comprehensive account would tell us more about human beings and their possibilities; humanly, because the language would allow more human beings to understand each other, and to come to undistorted understandings.2

If by comprehensiveness Taylor merely means an account that fuses together incompatible perspectives, it is unlikely that the epistemic and human advantages he seeks will be achieved. It is not a mixing of perspectives that is wanted, but a standing back from perspectives so as to be able to compare them and understand the differences in views that will result from different underlying assumptions once these are, however vaguely, identified. The identification of underlying assumptions in another culture not only will help one to understand that culture, but it will also assist in the identification of features of one's own worldview that might otherwise go unnoticed.

Gadamer uses the term "horizon" for the general framework through which one views a topic. Horizons include what Al-Attas calls "elements and key concepts" as well as prejudices, assumptions, habits of thought, attitudes and dispositions to various emotional reactions and judgments. It includes the affective and cognitive aspects of one's outlook. Horizons change, evolve, atrophy, weaken and strengthen, both individually and socially, and in this regard horizons are comparable to languages, especially when we speak of specialized languages, such as the language of modern rights theories, the language of internal medicine, the language of the mass media in China, and so on.

The comparison of conceptual frameworks to languages can also be found in AlasdairMacIntyre's works, especially in Whose Justice, Which Rationality?3 MacIntyre admits a deep indebtedness toGadamer , although he addresses some specific disagreements with him.4 WhileGadamer concentrates on how speakers of different languages can come to an understanding,MacIntyre highlights the conflicts that can occur between languages and the ways that languages are in internal conflict. Epistemological crises occur when it is found that one's own language does not have the resources needed to translate important ideas from another language. When this happens, one's language will adapt and expand its capacities, or it will prove impotent and be displaced by the stronger linguistic tradition.

Something similar occurs in a scientific revolution, as understood by Kuhn andLakatos ; and Kuhn has stated that incommensurability may be understood as untranslatability.5 Problems arise that cannot be adequately handled with the concepts that have been developed in the research programs of some normal science. Revolutionary science is developed with terms that enable it to propose solutions to the problems, and, asSellars has emphasized, that are able to explain why things behave in accordance with laws to the extent they do, and why they deviate from laws.6

To extend this idea to a comparison between theories, we may say that T will be considered superior to T' when T can explain why T' was as successful as it is, and why, in some cases, it fails.Sellars , it may be noted, also uses the terms "language" and "conceptual framework" as if they were synonymous.

When crises arise, if they are overcome, they are overcome through a translation process, and through the work of reason. Reason cannot be applied directly to adjudicate between differences when these differences are expressed in languages that may not be commensurable. Hence, the work of translation is a prerequisite for reason's examination of the strengths and weaknesses of the arguments to be found for each competing view. This is a common thread that runs through the works ofGadamer ,MacIntyre , andSellars .

Translation alone, however, is not enough. Explanations need to be formulated if there is to be any advance in understanding. Either outstanding problems are solved with the aid of the language of a new paradigm, into which the language of the previously dominant theory is translatable, or the users of the language of the previous paradigm are able to translate the new ideas into their own idiom, and offer similar explanations.

Even if we reject the sharp distinction between natural and social sciences and accept the notion of an "expanded hermeneutics", there are levels of interpretation in the human sciences that are distinctive7 (although present to some extent in animal sciences, too).8

When a group of researchers, R, undertake inquiry about some set of objects, O, there will always be a set of interpretive concepts, frameworks, or a "horizon", H, applied by R to O in order to formulate some account or theory about O, T. It is in terms of these concepts that R will attempt to justify T. Secondly, there generally will be rival groups,Ri ,...Rj , such that they will each use their own horizons, Hi ,...Hj , to inquire about O, and produce their own accounts or theories. R will have to take into account the research ofRi ,...Rj , which will require some understanding of Hi ,...Hj . This will result in modification of H, except in cases in which Hi ,...Hj , --or elements of Hi ,...Hj that differ from H-- are rejected. In cases of this sort of rejection, R must either justify the rejection by showing the superiority of H over its rivals, or by showing that the assumption of H leads to a better account of O than the accounts based on the rival horizons.

In the case of the human sciences, there will be the additional complication of trying to understand all that is involved in the agency of the human phenomena constituting O, whether this is economic activity, the history of some military campaign, a text, or a work of art. In other words, when O is a human phenomenon, it will come with its own horizon, HO; but the relation of H to HO will be much different than the relation between H and Hi ,...Hj . Hermeneutics from Schleiermacher toGadamer has focused on the relation of H to HO. When O is a human phenomenon, what is sought by the researcher is an account of the reasons behind O. An understanding of HO is sought through a fusion of horizons in order for R to come up with T about O.

The agents involved in O are not required to have an account or theory of their own conduct, however, and if they do, they incidentally become another group of rival researchers. The relation between H and Hi ,...Hj , is between the horizons, languages, or conceptual apparatuses or frameworks used to construct or formulate alternative accounts or theories of O; while the relation between H and HO is between an interpretative horizon and a horizon in which reasons are given. When we claim that agents in a society believe, know, act and have intentions (to cite a famous passage inSellars ), "we are not giving an empirical description of that episode or state; we are placing it in the logical space of reasons, of justifying and being able to justify what one says."9

In conclusion, we may say that all science is to some extent interpretive, and that the social sciences are especially so. Furthermore, interpretation is essentially a normative enterprise, that is, it involves considerations of what are to count as good reasons for holding beliefs and performing actions. Finally, understanding in the social sciences will require the researcher to be able to come to an understanding of the agents that are the objects of investigation by learning to recognize what they take to be appropriate reasons for their beliefs and actions, and this will require a fusion of horizons. This fusion of horizons, however, does not require the researcher to agree with targets of inquiry.

There is a difference between agreement and empathy, and between empathy and understanding. One may learn the language of Calvinism, for example, without becoming a Calvinist; one may learn to recognize the reasons for the moves players make on a soccer field without ever playing the game. What is required for understanding is to gain the ability to negotiate the space of reasons that constitutes a horizon, to recognize the elements of a horizon that contribute to the way in which reasons are given and requested, and in so doing, to identify the similarities and differences with one's own way of looking at things.

In addition to identifying the factors that may contribute to understanding, an effective application of hermeneutics to the social sciences must also be cognizant of factors that lead to misunderstanding, to which we will turn in our discussion of Islamic Hermeneutics.

Notes

1. Carroll (1895).

2. Taylor (2002), 135.

3. SeeMacIntyre (1988), especiallych . XIX.

4. SeeMacIntyre (1994a),MacIntyre (1994b), andMacIntyre (2002).

5. Kuhn (1994), 161.

6.Sellars (1963), 121

7. See Taylor (2002).

8. SeeMacIntyre (1999), 21 ff., for issues ofnormativity with regard to animals.

9.Sellars (1963), 169.