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

塞尔从自然主义立场出发，批评现象学犯了视角主义的错误，并将其困境解读为“现象学的幻象”，认为海德格尔的意义观就是这种幻象的典型。塞尔的这个解读没有足够注意海德格尔有关语言意义与存在意义的区分。从自然主义视野看，海德格尔将语言意义追溯至存在意义的做法看起来预设了意义的存在，并且陷入了某种循环之中。但海德格尔并没有停留在这里，而是借此循环进一步揭示出意义的时间性结构。反之，通过考察自然主义意义观的基本思路可以发现，意义与真之间也存在某种循环定义或论证的关系。自然主义者没有看到现象学思考的着力点正是此意义与真的相互交织处。与自然主义被动地陷入“循环-定义”不同，现象学主动地接受并展示这个“循环-结构”自身的意义。海德格尔的意义观就是此意义结构的一个生动展示。

The Heideggerean Conception of Meaning from the Perspective of Naturalism: On the Distinction between the Perspectives of Phenomenology and Naturalism

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.