Interpretive sociology: The theoretical significance of verstehen in the constitution of social reality

ed from experiencing-in-the-world or being-together; they would simply be idealizations whose sense would be a function of their formally designated features or consequences. Their sense would not stand revealed in nor constitute the context of a relationship and there would not be, therefore, a context to provide the common identity which unifies individuals into a community. Being common means the intersubjectively valid and experientially binding quality of the same symbol or sign for the members of a group who communicate with each other in the same language. It does not mean, as the postulate of dualism implies, the similarity of different events or behaviors in virtue of common fea? tures, i.e., elements belonging to the same logical class. The intentional meaning is that which is presented in experiencing as a unified quality; reflection on such meaning can generate a catalog of its features (conse? quences, patterns, etc.) or elements, but these atomistic aspects in no fashion constitute its sense. On the contrary, the noematic quality makes possible their delineation in a catalog of features which, therefore, can serve as a guideline for the production and/or communication of the noematic meaning. Interpretive meanings constitute the sense of interpersonal behaviors prior to a reflection which aims to establish a formal code of their behavioral appearances or expres? sions. The latter type of code regulates the sense of meaning by formalizing the features associated with its constitutive presentation. Gurwitsch contends that the presumption that reflection serves to create, as opposed to disclose, a code of interpretation ex nihilo rests upon a postulate of "object constancy" according to which the world is a res extensa standing sepa? rate from the res cogitans which comprehends it. It is a mistake to universalize or to make this postulate the basis of all consciousness although it is at the heart of the context of meaning of modern science. As Jacques Monod ([1970] 1972, pp. 21, 31, 41, 70, 149) has noted, although the postulate of objectivity is the This content downloaded from 157.55.39.104 on Sun, 19 Jun 2016 06:40:24 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms THEORETICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF VERSTEHEN 123 value premise or interpretive principle of modern science, it cannot be proven by science; on the contrary, the postulate constitutes the scientific field of conscious? ness and, therefore, a particular value rationality or structure of interpretation. Monod rightly insists upon the rationality as well as value foundation of science; he shows that the postulate constitutes a context of social relations sustained by commitment to the "ethic of [scientific] knowledge." More generally, there can be a variety of contexts of meanings or "finite provinces of meaning" (Schutz, [1945] 1967b) which comprise domains of noematic or intentional experiencing, that is, contexts of value-rational activity. In addition, the interpretive structures of highly specialized provinces of meaning, such as science, depend on the inter? pretive structures of the everyday province of meaning for the provision or initial understandings of the objects with which they deal. (See Scheler, [1912] 1954, Chap. IX; Schutz, [1945] 1967b.) Intentionality refers to a structure or code which constitutes the meaning of relationships. (See May, 1969, p. 232.) The intentional organization of a field of consciousness divulges the meaning of relations within the immediacy of experi? encing them, prior to reflection on them. The code according to which relations are constituted in their interpretable sense makes possible the reflection through which the relations are severed into their behavioral features or components and the abstract meanings corresponding to them. This division makes possible another type of code which regulates the correspondence between the formal behaviors and abstract meanings. Hence, it is necessary to consider constitutive codes of interpretation which present and simultaneously communicate the sub? stantive sense of interpersonal relations while they are experienced, not only regulative codes, or, in Schutz's terminology, meta-schemes, which provide one with the guidelines to express methodically the behavioral appearances of specific interpretive senses even when the latter are not concretely presented in relation? ships. (Searle, 1969, pp. 33-^2, has developed the distinction between constitu? tive and regulative codes.) Since regulative codes are methodologically oriented they are senseless without reference to the constitutive codes through which the interpretive structure of substantive meanings is presented. The standards of ex? pression established by regulative codes would be arbitrary and meaningless if they did not find their evidence in the experiencing and relationships organized by constitutive codes. For this reason Gendlin (1962) has argued that reflection, expression, and communication must find their confirmation through a resonance with the meaning presented in relational experience itself. Clearly, the regulative codes provide the forms of expression through which substantive meanings pre? sented in relations can be socially communicated but the utilization of these forms in communication does not guarantee the presentation of substantive meanings; the interpretive sense constitutive of a relation is separate from the forms used to express that sense, although in relations constituted by social values, such as love, understanding and communication must converge in the same activity if the values are to be intersubjectively realized. For instance, in This content downloaded from 157.55.39.104 on Sun, 19 Jun 2016 06:40:24 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms