There have been many dialogues between naturalism and phenomenology, most of which are either superficial critiques of each other, or they just express their own positions and then draw a rigorous boundary between themselves. Of these, little can promote mutual understanding. A productive dialogue needs to focus on a question that concerns both of them. The meaning of language is such a question that plays a special role in both traditions. ″The Phenomenological Illusion″ by John Searle, with its detailed analysis and accurate critique of phenomenology from the perspective of naturalism, provides a chance to deepen the dialogue between them. In this article Searle first outlines the position of naturalism, on the basis of which he then poses a challenge to phenomenology. According to him, there are three ″basic facts″ or ″basic realities″ that must be assumed as a starting point, which are atomic physics, evolutionary biology, and embodied brain neurobiology. The central philosophical question is to clarify the relationship between basic reality and relevant human reality. After carefully analyzing the main premises of phenomenology, he concludes that phenomenology commits a mistake that he calls ″perspectivalism″, that is, to treat the perspective from which something is observed as a part of its being. In short, phenomenology will reduce basic reality to certain kinds of human reality such as transcendental consciousness, Dasein, etc. Thus ″the things themselves″ pursued by phenomenology are just a kind of illusion caused by this mistake. In his view, Heidegger's conception of meaning is an example of this type of illusion. According to naturalism, the question of the meaning of language lies in how to interpret the relations between physical signs and relevant human realities. However, in his famous book Being and Time, Heidegger clearly proposes that all sounds — including words — are always already experienced as meaningful, which from the perspective of naturalism skips the key step of the question of meaning. Although his diagnosis of Heidegger contains certain misunderstandings, especially about the distinction between the meaning of language and that of being, his clear-cut critique constitutes a significant challenge towards Heidegger's thought, for Heidegger does trace the meaning of language back to that of being and thus seems already assuming our apprehending of meaning. After carefully scrutinizing his following text, however, we find that Heidegger does not stop there. What Heidegger does further is to disclose the temporal structure of meaning though the so-called hermeneutical circle. His unique contribution to the question of meaning lies in disclosing an internal relationship between meaning and time, which in fact have some common insight with Wittgenstein who maintains that the meaning of words lies in their use, and that use is a temporal process. Although the naturalistic view appears more natural and even more suitable for common sense, it also faces certain similar dilemma after being further questioned. W. V. Quine's critique of empiricism constitutes such a challenge. According to Quine, our knowledge of the world always takes place in a system of knowledge, which means that there is no bare reality which is assumed by naturalism as the basic reality, since they have always already been interpreted. The theory of truth in the field of analytics also demonstrates from another angle that there are insurmountable logical difficulties of naturalistic solutions themselves, for the conceptions of truth and meaning are related to each other internally. It is still a challenge for naturalism whether the relation of meaning and truth can be clarified radically in a way of logical analysis. This internal relation is just where Heidegger begins with his thinking. Different from naturalism that is negatively trapped in a circular-definition, phenomenology actively accepts it and then demonstrates the meaning of the circular-structure which is just the structure of the meaning itself. The Heideggerean conception of meaning is a vivid display of this meaning-structure.
蔡祥元. 自然主义视角下的海德格尔意义观——兼论现象学与自然主义的视域差异[J]. 浙江大学学报(人文社会科学版), 2017, 3(6): 216-.
Cai Xiangyuan. The Heideggerean Conception of Meaning from the Perspective of Naturalism: On the Distinction between the Perspectives of Phenomenology and Naturalism. JOURNAL OF ZHEJIANG UNIVERSITY, 2017, 3(6): 216-.