Volume 10, Issue 1

The contribution clarifies from an epistemological and hermeneutical perspective some of the indispensable assumptions which are generally made during hypothetical deductive and hypothetical inductive inferences in text interpretations, but which are rarely reflected as such. The modes of inference of the natural sciences often serve as a model for, e. g., a ›hermeneutics of nature‹, even though these modes of inference cannot be directly compared to those of the humanities (1). In order to understand the conditions for making such a comparison, we consider the problem of interpretation conceived as the problem of the arbitrariness of interpretations. This problem, which has the three components of question, of evaluation, and of knowledge, can be solved by a concept of interpretation in which the arbitrariness is avoided or limited by a methodology of text interpretation (2). Meeting the general demands of a theory/methodology of interpretation requires us to explicitly specify the underlying concepts of meaning and interpretation (3). When interpretation is understood as relating a text to a context, the concept of meaning fixes a primary context for this text-context relation. The concept of interpretation associated to the concept of meaning distinguishes further contexts, possibly in a hierarchical order. Relations between different interpretations can then be analyzed as relations between the concepts of meaning and interpretation. Furthermore, disputes about the sense and relevance of questions can then be understood analytically as well as historically. We illustrate this with the example of the question whether Don Quixote was a Marrano. This will show that even with fixed concepts of meaning and interpretation no a priori criteria for the definitive closure of the interpretation of a work of literature can be given (4). Inferences of interpretation presuppose relations of meaning, by which we understand a relation between the signifier and the signified. For poetic texts the manifold dimensions of the differences between semantic, exemplifying, and analogical relations of meaning have to be taken into account, which may, with respect to a given text, be mutually in competition or in support. We illustrate this with the example of Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s Chandos letter. Exemplifications and analogies often enlarge the spectrum of meaning of poetic texts (5). Among the requirements of text interpretations we also count general background assumptions. In addition to heuristic assumptions there are presumptions. While hypothetical assumptions do not have to be justified a priori and while assertions do require proof, for a presumption the burden of proof lies with the critic. The status of a presumption is determined by the epistemic situation in which the interpretation is carried out (6). When the validity of two hypotheses of interpretation is to be compared, the hypotheses have to be evaluated. The evaluation of the plausibility of an interpretation can refer to either the initial hypotheses or the results of the interpretation. We observe that, just like in the natural sciences, evaluative decisions are underdetermined. In this context we also briefly comment on some assumptions concerning the ›inference to the best explanation‹ (7). Finally, we deal with the often raised suspicion of circularity of hermeneutic arguments. This suspicion is frequently declared to be the central difference between inferences in the natural sciences as opposed to inferences in the humanities. Historically, the hermeneutic circle and its inevitability is an invention of modernity. It can be shown systematically that not every circular inference needs to be vicious. Rather, whether it is vicious or not is rather determined by the epistemic situation. As long as the implicit knowledge that guides an argument is not fully explored, the circular or non-circular character of an argument cannot be judged (8).

Hermeneutics has for a long time been the central philosophical approach informing the study of the humanities. This has, however, in the eyes of some, isolated the study of humanities from the study of nature. My primary claim is that the commonly perceived divorce between the natural sciences and humanities rests on faulty theories of both scientific methodology and the nature of explanation and interpretation as defended by prior schools of philosophy such as hermeneutics. In this paper I argue that it is time to reconsider the humanities and to base research in the humanities on a philosophical approach that rests its claims on naturalized and pragmatic considerations. Such a naturalistic view reflects not only the practice of this research better than hermeneutics, but brings the aims of scientific study of cultural phenomena in closer contact with the aims we find in the scientific study of natural phenomena. The article thus gives a naturalized account of the humanities by focusing on the similarities between the scientific practices within the natural sciences and the human sciences. Hence, I take issue with Hans-Georg Gadamer’s view that understanding always involves interpretation. I also deny that understanding is associated with linguistic meaning and that all understanding is historically determined. In much recent literature the analysis of interpretation presented by the postmodernist schools has exacerbated this situation with its mistaken doctrine that understanding rests on interpretation in both the natural sciences and the human sciences. In contrast, I hold that understanding is a cognitive organization of information and beliefs. Such a conception opens up for the attribution of understanding to other beings apart from humans. Animals, just as humans, possess instinctive and acquired understanding without being involved in any act of interpretation. I also maintain that even if we isolate reflective understanding to human beings, this still does not give us reason to hold that all understanding is the immediate result of an interpretation. For instance, experiencing the world around us or reading a simple text often does not engage us in an interpretation of what we see or read. This is something we comprehend directly whenever we have acquired the relevant concepts in virtue of which we grasp our daily life. In contrast to the hermeneutic tradition I present a model of interpretation which, I believe, can bridge the much decried divorce between the disciplines leading to a unified view of the natural sciences and the human sciences. Interpretation, as I understand it, is an active cognitive procedure by which we attempt to solve a representational problem in cases where we don’t have any immediate comprehension. We have no such immediate grasp of the matter if what we see or read doesn’t fit into our background beliefs and knowledge. The purpose of interpretation is to yield understanding of what something – taken to represent something else – actually is representing, or how something unfamiliar might be represented. Thus an interpretation is the creation of either a hypothesis in virtue of which we explain what something symbolizes, stands for, designates, refers to, etc., or a hypothesis in virtue of which we construct a way of grasping an unknown phenomenon. In both cases the interpreter or the audience, or both, would gain an insight into something that was not understood prior to the interpretation. The above explication of interpretation and understanding paves the way for a unified approach to both the natural sciences and the humanities. If understanding is nothing but an organism’s organization of information and beliefs, then it seems quite evident that the empirical methods for gaining understanding in the natural sciences cannot be different from those we must use to acquire understanding in the humanities. The evolution by natural selection has established in our predecessors a disposition to detect false beliefs and stick to true beliefs. Humans are by nature intentional beings that learn from their cognitive successes and cognitive failures. So the justification of the use of empirical methods in the humanities as well as in the natural sciences is that these methods are grounded in a certain innate cognitive practice of belief acquisition. The capacity of learning is based on the cognitive mechanism of induction, and the modern specification of various types of empirical methods are abstracted and generalized from our mind’s reflection upon the cognitive practice that rests on this mechanism. In opposition to Dilthey and his school, Gadamer claimed that the humanities were not unique in demanding the use of methods different than those used in the natural sciences. However, he argued that objective interpretation of a text was not within the range of literary study. His reason for saying so was that any interpretation is bounded by a historical perspective and that the author’s intention has no role to play in an interpreter’s interpretation of a literary text. I believe he is wrong. I argue that Gadamer ignored a distinction between the act and the topic of interpretation. All interpreters are situated in a historical context and their interpretive hypotheses may be coloured by the existence of such a context. But if the topic of one’s interpretive hypotheses is the author’s intentions, which exist independently of hypothesis itself, and if one uses adequate evidence and empirical methods to justify these interpretations, the resulting insight will be as objective as something can be. Therefore, I conclude that a naturalistic stance to the humanities is superior to any hermeneutic stance.

The Norwegian philosopher Dagfinn Føllesdal and his German colleague Heide Göttner argued independently from one another that the interpretation of literary texts proceeds by the hypothetico-deductive method. In this paper I critically examine their view. My interest, however, is systematic rather than exegetical. After elucidating the claim and working through some case studies, I discuss several objections raised in the debate. My central point is that the view runs into a dilemma: there is no variant of the view which is both tenable and capable of showing that the interpretation of literature is a respectable scientific activity. Among other things Føllesdal (1979) and Göttner (1973) argue that the justification of hypotheses in interpretations of works of literature proceeds by the hypothetico-deductive method. I refer to this as the HD-view. Systematically, it has much to offer. If interpretation is hypothetico-deductive, then it seems to inherit all the alleged merits of this method: exactness, intersubjectivity, reliability, and rationality, among other things. Interpreting literary works would turn out to be a proper scientific activity subject to the same general standards as, say, experimental physics. The interpretation of literary works is thereby demystified and rendered comprehensible. Also, the HD-view would speak in favor of the idea that all empirical science is equal, unified by a single method and the same general goals, among them, arguably, pursuing the truth and generating knowledge. In the first section of my paper I elucidate the HD-view in more detail. The key element of the view is the hypothetico-deductive method. The idea of the HD-method is roughly this. One forms a hypothesis which often cannot be directly verified (e. g., all ravens are black), deduces from this hypothesis in conjunction with auxiliary assumptions (e. g., this is a raven) all kinds of empirical consequences (e. g., this raven is black), and checks these consequences: observation either confirms or disconfirms them. If the consequences are disconfirmed, the hypothesis (or the auxiliary assumptions) should be discarded. If, however, the consequences are confirmed, the hypothesis (and the auxiliary assumptions) is also confirmed (to a certain degree) – it fits in with our experience. Importantly, the HD-method concerns not the genesis but the justification of a hypothesis. After pointing out some of the philosophical issues surrounding the HD-method, I distinguish several variants of the HD-view that will play a role when assessing the objections directed against it. Finally, I discuss issues that arise when transferring the HD-method to the interpretation of literature, such as the role of hypotheses, auxiliary assumptions, data and observation. The second part of my paper concerns Føllesdal’s and Göttner’s case studies and their positive arguments for the HD-view. I go through their examples (interpretations of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt and Walther’s Nemt, frowe, disen kranz ) and point out some general worries, in particular with the deductive parts of their reconstructions. The third and final section addresses several objections that have been raised against the HD-view. Some argue that the view is too strict: other methods of justification are used in interpretations. Others argue that the view is too broad: some (kinds of) interpretation hypotheses cannot be justified by the HD-method. A third objection has it that the view fails because some interpretations cannot, even in principle, be (dis)confirmed. Some take the view to be a false descriptive claim. Others take it as a misguided normative claim. Finally, the view is said to be insufficient because it does not supply criteria to decide between rival interpretations. None of these objections is found to be fatal. However, the HD-view must be modified to circumvent each objection. These modifications result in the following variant of the view: the justification of empirical hypotheses in argumentative interpretations of literary works can be reconstructed as proceeding, among other things, by the HD-method. Although this claim seems tenable it is far from the original view. This would not be a problem, if it were to meet the main goal the HD-view was meant to achieve, viz. show that the interpretation of literary works is a kosher scientific activity. Unfortunately, the modified variant does not deliver the goods. Only a fragment of all interpretations of literary works conducted in literary studies is rendered scientific. This result does not do justice to scientific practice. And it does not offer a methodology for all interpretations. The result is a dilemma: the modified version of the HD-view is correct but misses its goal whereas the original version does meet this goal but is incorrect. The choice is between admitting that the project failed and saying something false. The second horn of the dilemma – meeting the goal but saying something false – is no option for a rational being. Thus, friends of the original idea should opt for the first horn: admit that the project has failed and make something of the modified variant. One way to go is to become revisionary and claim that only a fraction of all interpretations conducted in literary studies is actually scientific. This entails a ban from science for a bulk of current interpretative practice. I am not aware of anyone in the literature who defends this position. It is certainly not the position of Føllesdal or Göttner. And it faces the problem of explaining why the interpretations characterized by it are the only scientific ones. I conclude that it is still a desideratum of literary studies to come up with a convincing methodology of interpretation.

In the field of empirical analytic sciences, the approach of ›Rational Reconstruction‹ offers a way to use older theories that are fruitful in the Humanities even today, rather than merely explicate their historical value. It denotes a procedure that attempts to adapt a historically earlier theoretical approach, in its precision and consistency, to current meta-theoretical standards, yet without altering the underlying concept of this approach in the process. According to this conception, the goal is to represent what it is that a theory could accomplish were it expanded and supplemented by new levels of knowledge. In contrast to classical hermeneutics, Rational Reconstruction is thus geared toward an approach that is not purely descriptive but also prescriptive, insofar as the criteria of precision and logical consistency are combined with the criterion of similarity (resemblance to the starting theory). In addition to a historical, diachronic consideration of theories, Rational Reconstruction displays its particular appeal in precisely the possibility of also explicating theoretical approaches in a systematic, synchronic manner, that is, in compliance with current standards of the theory of science as well as the content of theoretical findings. In addition to providing information about a historical theory, the result of such a reconstruction is in particular the elaboration of historical theories in regard to their content and (methodological) structure through a contemporary updating. To this end, we have to maintain a balance between a descriptive and a prescriptive method: The Rational Reconstruction must neither overrun the descriptive function, by attempting to justify any given theoretical approach, nor shall its prescriptive function lead through the backdoor, as it were, to the stipulation of new theoretical approaches. Nevertheless, there remains a wide range of possibilities within which Rational Reconstruction can become a fruitful procedure. Precisely because it is not only concerned with showing what a theory wished to state at the time of its formation, there arises both the extreme that theories cannot be rationally reconstructed and the extreme that in the end the scientific criteria have to be expanded in order to do justice to an existing theoretical approach. Seeking to elaborate this scope of Rational Reconstruction with reference to hermeneutic interpretive approaches, this essay differentiates and discusses by way of example four paradigmatic cases, namely: 1. Rational Reconstruction as a means to – further – explicate existing theories ( rationality explication ). In this case, it can be shown that the basic structure of a method of interpretation already fulfills contemporary standards of the theory of science, and merely can be made more transparent. By explicating the hypothetical-deductive method in the interpretation of literature, we show in the following what an adequate implementation of the criteria of rationality underlying it might look like in the framework of an interpretive praxis; 2. Rational Reconstruction applied to theories which by all means lay the same claim to rationality yet, due to earlier states of knowledge, cannot as optimally implement them as is possible with the content and meta-theoretical knowledge of today. Here, Rational Reconstruction can help to expand and clarify (even more) such theoretical approaches ( rationality elaboration ). Titzmann’s sketch of an integrative literary history serves here as an ideal exemplification of a theory representing a constructive starting point that can be profitably deepened through further conceptual precision; 3. Rational Reconstruction as evidence of the non-rational: It holds for some theories that structurally they do not fulfill basic meta-theoretical requirements, and not in the least because they themselves programmatically reject these requirements. Rational Reconstruction here serves as a means for exemplifying this refusal ( rationality negation ). A pertinent example from the field of deconstructionism will show the impossibility of a rational reconstruction of this approach, on the one hand, and the additional value that it nonetheless can have for literary theory, on the other hand. 4. Rational Reconstruction as a touchstone for scientific criteria: In the case of a theory containing variations of precision and consistency, which in this form have previously not been contained in the meta-theoretical canon of scientific criteria, the procedure of Rational Reconstruction can contribute to the expansion or adaptation of these criteria. We would like to show that there are areas in which, for good reasons, previous models of rationality should be expanded and supplemented ( rationality adaptation ). The examples used in this essay provide a look at the possible application of Rational Reconstruction. The essay thereby shows how an utterly heterogeneous set of theoretical approaches can be constructively and fruitfully elaborated in an improved (more precise) variant and hence, if need be, revived. Likewise, it can be shown that the procedure of Rational Reconstruction is able to demonstrate the limits of rationality of certain theories and, as a result, to obtain the added value of rational precision and constructiveness for the entire discipline.

Some narratives are explanatory, and some explanations are given by narrating. But are there explanations which are explanatory because they are narratives, as many seem to think? In this paper, I analyse and reject the idea that such special, narrative explanations exist. Since the concepts of narrative and explanation are contested, both concepts need to be explicated in order to investigate whether narrative explanations exist. As for explanation, the idea that some narratives are explanatory because they are narratives is often expressed by saying that the narrative form contrib­utes to the explanatory force of the explanation. Unfortunately, the notion of explanatory force is but a rather vague picture. It is not entirely clear what a contribution to explanatory force might consist in. After explicating what counts as an explanation, I therefore propose to substitute the notion of explanatory force by a more precise account. The one that is chosen for the purposes of this paper (but not the only possible choice) is van Fraassen’s account: explanations are seen as at least answers to how-questions or why-questions which are relevant for the explanandum in the right way. From this, the tasks follow for anyone claiming that some explanations explain because they are narrative: an explanation which is explanatory because it is a narrative should, firstly, be an answer to a why- or how-question which is relevant to the explanandum in a way that can be traced back to defining or typical features of narratives. Secondly, the explanation should not be reducible to other well-known ways in which explanations can be relevant for their respective questions, such as causality. Thirdly, the explanation should be able to deal with the typical problems of theories of explanation, i. e. they should be able to deal with the canonical list of problem cases for any theory of explanation from the debate in the philosophy of science. My explication of the notion of narrative already stands in this context. In order to find relevance relations between answers to how/why-questions and explananda which could make an explanation essentially narrative , I search popular conditions for ›narrative‹ given by Lamarque, Henning and Ryan. ›Narrative‹ has been defined in quite different ways. Definitions of ›narrative‹ especially differ in complexity. Lamarque’s definition is chosen because it is minimal in this respect. Henning’s definition, on the other hand, is arguably the most complex definition available at the moment. To show that these definitions probably exhaust the possible candidates for relevance relations, they are complemented by a list of definitorial features by Ryan, who in turn compiled many modern definitions. The three definitions of ›narrative‹ give us a list of six relevance relations: sequentiality, i. e. a narrative explanation is explanatory because it lists a sequence of events leading up to the explanandum ; meaningful connection, i. e. a narrative explanation is explanatory because it shows the explanandum to be connected to other events in a meaningful way; storyness, which consists in the combination of the first two candidates; intentionality, i. e. a narrative explanation is explanatory because it gives someone’s reasons for bringing about the explanandum ; dramaticity, i. e. a narrative explanation is explanatory because it puts the explanandum at the end of an emotional sequence; and closure/completeness, i. e. a narrative explanation is explanatory because it puts the explanandum at the end of a story. In the main part of the paper, these inherently narrative candidates are then identified in the literature on narrative explanation, and I subsequently ask whether they can provide a relevance relation between explanandum and explanans which fulfils the three conditions given above for any explanation that is explanatory because it is narrative. As it turns out, none of them fulfils even the first two of the three conditions. Essentially, three types of problems befall the candidates. Some, like sequentiality, cannot guarantee that a narrative is explanatory. One can provide counterexamples of narrative sequences which are not explanatory. Others, like meaningful connection, turn out to be mere placeholder terms for a relevance relation, i. e. they do not tell us what the relevance relation consists in. Some candidates can be reduced to well-known relevance relations like causality, thereby giving up on the idea that narrative explanation is different from other types of explanation. Finally, some candidates display a mix of all these problems. I conclude that there is no special type of explanation which is explanatory because it is narrative. The last section of the paper then situates these considerations in their historical contexts, starting with Hempel’s theory of explanation. The question is asked why the idea of a special, narrative type of explanation seemed attractive in the first place. I come up with three tentative answers: the widespread discontent with Hempel’s theory of scientific explanation, the availability of narrative as an obvious but allegedly underrated aspect of explanations, and the availability of a list of candidates for which narrative explanation was supposed to work. None of these historical reasons, however, is ultimately conclusive.

This essay inquires into the possible application of the method of Inference to the Best Explanation (method of IBE) in the context of philological hermeneutics. Taking as its point of departure the diagnosis that the methodological foundation of literary studies is insufficiently elaborated, I presuppose an empirical conception of literary studies and attempt to find a remedy for this defect by turning attention to the method of IBE. The basic idea of IBE, as used in different scientific contexts, is to infer the accuracy of a hypothesis from its explanatory power. The user of the method of IBE runs through several successive processes of filtering or selection and at the end of them tags the »best« explanatory hypothesis. I will briefly present this operational sequence and then address the questions of what is possibly meant by an explanation and a »best« explanation. In the framework of the second sub-question answered in greater detail, I discuss a series of criteria established in the theory of science (simplicity, mechanism, unity, precision, range) which enable an explanation to be qualified as »better« than another. The second part of the paper then concretely refers these fundamentals of the theory of science to philological hermeneutics. First, I suggest that we understand methodological considerations as independent from literary-theoretical background convictions: Many literary scholars advocate a pragmatic pluralism which states that certain literary theories, for instance structuralism or discourse analy­sis, already inherently contain the criteria of good quality for interpretations. Correspondingly, a hierarchy of interpretations over and above all theories would not make sense, as we can only refer to numerous »best« explanations. Although I do not hold the opinion that this pragmatic pluralism is convincing, I do not directly argue against it, but instead show that the applicability of the method of IBE does not have anything to do with this problem. As a matter of principle, namely, the method of IBE allows everything known to an interpreter about a text to become relevant in the framework of generating and selecting hypotheses. Literary-theoretical conviction will thus only pertain to the fine-tuning of the mechanism according to which hypotheses are judged as better or worse, but not to the structure of the method of interpretation itself. The idea that hypotheses are generated, selected, and then judged according to specific criteria in accordance with the method of IBE, is not affected by the content of the criteria. The next section consists of a philological concretization of the explanatory virtues discussed more generally in the first part in terms of theory of science. Several examples make clear that these virtues do indeed have a place in philological hermeneutics. Problematic, however, are the criteria of simplicity and mechanism: the former because within the framework of philological interpretation the aesthetic appreciation of the interpreter can become relevant and this can possibly be conveyed by complex instead of simple interpretations, and the latter because it seems problematic to refer in the field of intentional connections to causal mechanisms in a more narrow sense. Moreover, because the criteria I discuss are not quantifiable, there will be several cases in which hypotheses neither satisfy them entirely nor at all, but rather only in part or in a certain respect. An additional advantage of the method of IBE is that it can deal with this vagueness to the extent that it recommends a comparative procedure for the filtering of hypotheses. It is not a matter of deciding absolutely whether an explanation corresponds to an explanatory virtue, but rather of making comparative statements such as hypothesis A corresponds to such a virtue more or less than hypothesis B. In conclusion, I address a potential problem for a literary-studies application of the method of IBE which I call the problem of data identification. It consists of the fact that we first have to explain what we regard as the data material in the interpretation of literature that we then seek to explain by way of the method of IBE. I approach this problem in two ways: First, in my opinion, it can be ascribed to the epistemological insight into the theory-ladenness of (observational) statements and thus proves to not be specific to philological hermeneutics; second, it seems to me overestimated in its scope. By briefly recalling the meaningful distinction between descriptive and interpretive statements about a text, I try to elucidate that, even in the framework of text interpretation, there are by all means operations which are not particularly laden with or dependent upon theory. All in all, this leads me to a positive conclusion regarding the prospects of the method of IBE, especially in literary studies.

Arguments about the concept of adequacy (›Angemessenheit‹) of interpretation are as constitutive for many hermeneutic theories of meaning as they are for the interpretive praxis derived from these theories. This essay seeks to illustrate by way of exemplary approaches by Georg Friedrich Meier (1718–1777), Johann Martin Chladenius (1710–1759) and Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768–1834) that very different notions are prevalent within hermeneutics as to what counts as an adequate interpretation. For instance, the ascription of logical adequacy as a criterion for the adequacy of a judgment about a literary text means something like »internal coherency«, whereas rhetorical adequacy means the orientation of an author or speaker to his public and the situation of utterance. This semantic wiggle room of ›Angemessenheit‹ is presumably the result of the linguistic convergence (homonymy) of very different concepts. ›Angemessenheit‹ is on the one hand used synonymously with »adequacy«, (»Adäquatheit«) from the Latin adaequare , »to make equal«, while on the other hand it is used synonymously with to prepon , or decorum/aptum , from rhetoric or the ancient doctrines of harmony and proportion. The goal of the following elaborations is not, however, a (linguistic) historical derivation of diverse forms of ›Angemessenheit‹. By means of a complex example for the interpretive deployment of (il-)legitimate anachronisms, the semantic conceptions of the three hermeneuticists mentioned above will be exemplified and analyzed with respect to the question of which bids for a specifically historically adequate text interpretation are submitted by them. The example presented is complex, not only because it allows for diverse ascriptions of historical adequacy but also because it displays the entanglement of the representational, interpretive, and theoretical levels of these ascriptions. The example is Goethe’s interpretation of Leonardo’s Last Supper , an artwork in which certain visual elements originate from the time of the artist instead of that of Jesus (on the representational level). Goethe interprets the deployment of these visual elements as intentionally ›adequated‹ by Leonardo to the context of reception (interpretational level). The discussion of this interpretation against the background of the three hermeneuticists presented here (theoretical level) enables us to specify Goethe’s understanding of ›historical adequacy‹ and reveals the premises that he himself does not explicate. These presuppositions of understanding make him identifiable as the proponent of a particular hermeneutics of his time, because its conception of meaning is based on the same premises. Using the scheme »a is suitable for b with respect to c«, we can with some clarity reconstruct the problem areas (among others, author, spatiotemporal contexts, reader, hypothetical reader models) associated with adequacy on the interpretive and theoretical levels. However, it will also be shown that a field of reference for arguments about adequacy which limits the scope of statements (»with reference to c«) is seldom explicated. It has to be deduced from precisely those premises which are axiomatic for a specific theory and its conception of meaning. If we compare the explicit arguments, the argumentative fields of reference, and the axiomatic premises of each hermeneutic with one another, we can very clearly prove that 1) there is no one hermeneutic conception of meaning and that 2) there is no one form of historical adequacy. However, these forms share the depth with which they are implemented into the construction of each theoretical structure. For which fields of reference – that is, legitimate contexts of interpretation – are characterized as ›adequate‹ depends in large part on how a conception of meaning conceptualizes ›historical adequacy‹. Against this background, a position can be taken with regard to the two arguments discussed repeatedly over the course of the essay: i) Arguments for adequacy are to be understood as hermeneutic topics and can in this way count as unproblematic aspects of theories of meaning. ii) Arguments for adequacy provide – contrary to i) – references to a previously insufficiently reflected type of argument in literary studies that hardly provides a solution to historically determined difficulties of understanding. The argumentative reference to specifically historical adequacy certainly invokes the central problems of a conception of meaning, but it does not explicate the strategies for solving them. The vagueness that results from such an attempt at reconstructive explication not only indicates the insufficient reflection of this type of argumentation (thesis ii). It also raises the question of whether adequacy – just like plausibility (cf. Winko 2015) – as a soft criterion of theory-building and interpretive praxis in literary studies can even be precisely identified; or, taken praxeologically into focus with regard to the function of its use, whether adequacy is claimed for arguments in literary studies precisely owing to its indeterminateness.