10.13125/CH/4950
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2533-1825
4950
1
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urn:nbn:it:unica-27794
Mirela Oliva
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Critical Hermeneutics
Meaning and Spirit in Betti’s Hermeneutics
Text.Serial.Journal
https://ojs.unica.it/index.php/ecch
5
Articles
2021-10-21
2021-10-21
2021-10-22
2021-10-22
253-274
1
Mirela Oliva
2021/10/21
10.13125/CH/4950
253
2533-1825
1
274
urn:nbn:it:unica-27794
Meaning and Spirit in Betti’s Hermeneutics
https://ojs.unica.it/index.php/ecch/article/download/4950/4943
5
Critical Hermeneutics, 5(1), (2021)                       Received: 15/10/2021
Biannual International Journal of Philosophy             Accepted: 20/10/2021
http://ojs.unica.it/index.php/ecch/index                 Published: 21/10/2021
ISSN 2533-1825 (on line); DOI 10.13125/CH/4950




          Meaning and Spirit in Betti’s Hermeneutics


                                     Mirela Oliva




Abstract
Betti’s account of meaning is spiritual. Betti follows in Hegel’s footsteps
and explores the objectivations of the spirit, which he calls representa-
tive forms. The interpretation of these forms must capture their mean-
ing from inside and refrain from attributing them an extraneous mean-
ing. Betti invokes, in this sense, the classic hermeneutic canon Sensus
non est inferendus, sed efferendus. Interpretation is however not a
mere transmission of content from the text to the interpreter but a
spiritual union between the interpreter and the objectivation of the
spirit. This spiritual nature of meaning makes up the originality of Betti.
Keywords: Meaning, Spirit, Hermeneutics, Phenomenology




Meaning is a philosophical concept in progress1. Following the Latin
sensus that appeared in Roman and Medieval philosophy, modern
“meaning” (or “sense”) came into philosophical focus, especially in the
19th and 20th-century philosophy, along with the theme of language.
Betti’s notion of meaning belongs to the continental approach, although
it differs in many ways from scholars like Dilthey, Husserl, Heidegger,
Gadamer, or Ricoeur. A philosopher of law, Betti draws mainly from
Hegel and the Roman humanistic tradition. His notion of meaning is
spiritual. Meaning arises from dynamic creations of the living spirit



1
    See Figal 2009: 149.
Oliva, Meaning and Spirit in Betti’s Hermeneutics




(cultural products and human expressions like art and literature, law,
theology, history). We can recognize it because we have a spiritual
nature that partakes in the life of the spirit. The strength of Betti’s
position resides in this spiritual character, absent in other philosophers
of meaning. This paper outlines Betti’s view on meaning. I discuss his
preference for objectivations of the spirit and question, in the last part,
the exclusion of nature from the realm of meaning.


1. Meaning and spirit
In the first part of the 20th century, hermeneutics was not simply a
method of interpretation but an attempt to propose a type of
knowledge different from the scientific knowledge that became more
and more dominant. This contraposition with science generated a novel
approach to human life that natural science could not capture in its
historical movement. At the same time, it also exposed philosophy to
new vulnerabilities visible in the notion of meaning, as we will see in
the second part of this paper. After several books on jurisprudence,
Betti concentrated his scholarly effort on a general theory of interpre-
tation. Since the law practice largely relies on interpretation, it is no
surprise that Betti expanded his research to hermeneutics. He pub-
lished in the same period as Gadamer, but Betti remained less known
than Gadamer in philosophical circles.
       Like other hermeneutic scholars, Betti’s theory of interpretation
investigates the notions of meaning and understanding. However,
while Gadamer and those following him take their cue from Heidegger,
Betti is suspicious about Heidegger’s question of the meaning of being2.
For him, the expression “meaning of Being” (Sinn vom Sein) rests on
a terminological confusion. It associates two incompatible terms: Being
as such, which is independent of the understanding person, and


2
    Betti 2015 [1955]: (vol. I) 71 [104]. See also Danani 1998: 129–131.



254
                                             Critical Hermeneutics, 5(1), (2021)




meaning, which is dependent on the understanding person. As Betti
derides it, Heidegger’s “pompous expression” induces us into error be-
cause it makes us believe that there is a way to capture Being in its
objective totality. In the end, the expression could not stand on its
own. Heidegger is forced to re-direct his analysis toward a more mod-
est goal, namely not Being as such but the existence of the human
individual, the empirical ego (“je meinige”). In so doing, Heidegger re-
duces Being to the datum of human individual existence and experi-
ence, thus abolishing the distance between Being and the empirical
subject. This restriction of Being to the empirical subject blocks access
to the ontological problem. There is no place in Heidegger for a super-
individual spirituality that would purge the ontological problem of this
psychological subjectivism and validly pose the question of meaning.
Betti affirms, like Heidegger, that the human being is open toward Be-
ing (“apertura verso l’essere”)3 but tries to determine this openness
differently. We can explain human openness toward being either as a
drive to overcome the insecurity of immediate needs, or as an original
richness within the human person. Betti opts for the second explana-
tion. The human being is open to Being not because it is deficient but
because it is spiritual. The human being is a spirit that explores and,
at the same time, remains conscious of what transcends itself.
       With his critique of Heidegger’s “meaning of being”, Betti moves
the problem of understanding and meaning within the Hegelian realm
of the spirit. Hegel’s notion of spirit has an Aristotelian undertone, as
it is not a static, abstract substratum but self-movement. In its self-
movement, the spirit creates new products that break with previous
structures:




3
    Betti 2015 [1955]: 71 [103].



                                                                            255
Oliva, Meaning and Spirit in Betti’s Hermeneutics




        Spirit is indeed never at rest but always engaged in moving
        forward. But just as the first breath drawn by a child after its
        long, quiet nourishment breaks the gradualness of merely
        quantitative growth – there is a qualitative leap, and the child
        is born – so likewise the Spirit in its formation matures slowly
        and quietly into its new shape, dissolving bit by bit the struc-
        ture of its previous world, whose tottering state is only hinted
        at by isolated symptoms (Hegel 1977: 6).


        Betti picks up on Hegel and starts from what he calls “the living
spirit” (spirito vivente)4. He describes the life of the spirit like Hegel:


        [...] it is an impressive phenomenon with its own specific
        characters of the spirituality that preserves, accrues and de-
        velops itself following an appropriate law of autonomy. In its
        comprehensive unity, continuity, and organic totality, this
        spirituality parallels its course to that of the unceasing muta-
        tion of the individuals and even beyond their ephemeral life,
        transferring itself from generation to generation like a vivid
        flame (Betti 2015 [1955]: 37 [35]).


        The self-movement of the spirit is expressive, as the spirit objec-
tivizes itself in various products like words, music, art, human com-
portment. These objectivations of the spirit have a sensible form:


        Anywhere we come into the presence of sensible forms
        through which another human spirit speaks to our spirit, our
        interpretive faculty springs up to action in order to find out
        the meaning of these forms. Everything – from the fugitive


4
    Betti 2021: 10; Id. 2015 [1955]: 35 [29].



256
                                                 Critical Hermeneutics, 5(1), (2021)




        spoken word to the silent document and the mute archeolog-
        ical residue; from a piece of writing or a cypher and artistic
        symbol; from an articulated language to a figurative or musi-
        cal expression; from an ordinary declaration to personal com-
        portment; from our face’s expressions to the forms of our
        conduct and character – all that comes to the attention of our
        spirit from that of another spirit calls upon our sensibility and
        intelligence to be understood (Betti 2021: 4)5.


        Betti calls these objectivations of the spirit “representative forms”
(Betti 2021: 5). The form is the sensible appearance of the represented
content. It has a unitary structure in which perceivable elements are
intertwined and communicate content. The sensible nature of these
forms is not accidental; on the contrary, it is a peculiar combination
between the ideal objectivity of values and the real objectivity of the
sensible world. This combination has a spiritual value, which is depend-
ent on the sensible, concrete form. Betti differentiates spiritual values
from logical and ethical values. The latter can be Platonically intuited
without sensible support. However, the first need sensible support and
are grasped not through intuition but interpretation (Betti 2015
[1955]: 45 [53]). The connection between spiritual values and repre-
sentative forms appears especially in artistic activity and in human ac-
tion. The interpretation of art cannot dispense of its sensible configu-
ration, in the same way in which juridical interpretation cannot abstract
from the laws, institutions, and structures involved in human action.
We can equate, I believe, the spiritual value of representative forms
with their meaning. The interpretation of these forms is nothing else
than a process of understanding their meaning (senso).




5
    See also Betti 1988: 3.



                                                                                257
Oliva, Meaning and Spirit in Betti’s Hermeneutics




       The dependence of meaning on the sensible form reflects the du-
ality of the Italian senso, which is both a perceptive sense (hearing,
sight) and an intelligible content (signification). This duality follows, of
course, the original Latin term sensus, which became senso in Italian,
sens in French, Sinn in German, sens in Romanian, and sentido in
Spanish. Hegel, who works with opposites, is keen to emphasize this
duality in the German Sinn:


       ‘Sense’ is this wonderful word which is used in two opposite
       meanings. On the one hand it means the organ of immediate
       apprehension, but on the other hand we mean by it the sense,
       the significance, the thought, the universal underlying the
       thing. And so sense is connected on the one hand with the
       immediate external aspect of existence, and on the other
       hand with its inner essence (Hegel 1975: 129)6.


       Betti does not explore this duality in detail. However, since mean-
ing belongs to the sphere of representative forms, it seems that it only
yields within the realm of sensible objectivations of the spirit and thus
carries this duality of the original sensus.
       Immaterial entities have, consequently, no meaning. At the same
time, we should note that not all sensible entities have meaning. Betti
restricts his theory of understanding and interpretation to the objecti-
vations of the spirit, namely to cultural products and history. Only they
carry meaning that calls us to interpret. Natural phenomena, on the
other hand, are not the object of understanding and interpretation
(Betti 2015 [1955]: 67 [96])7. They abide by natural laws. Knowing
them entails explaining them through the category of causation. We



6
    On Hegel's notion of meaning, see Ionel 2020; Clark 1960.
7
    See also Betti 1988: 18.



258
                                             Critical Hermeneutics, 5(1), (2021)




mistakenly use, sometimes, the term “interpretation” to designate this
type of knowledge. We might say, for instance, that a doctor “inter-
prets” the symptom of a sickness. But this is an improper way of speak-
ing. In reality, the doctor does not interpret but just diagnoses based
on natural laws and causation. Given his general knowledge of that
sickness, the doctor moves from symptom to its cause.
    Betti admits that we can talk about the meaning of natural phe-
nomena in a derivative way. He distinguishes, in this sense, between
interpretation and attribution of meaning. When we employ the ex-
pression “the book of nature”, we attribute to nature a meaning that is
not immanent in its appearance. The attribution of meaning has an
aesthetic or religious nature, but is not an interpretation and thus does
not yield truth in the same way an interpretation does. It has a specu-
lative nature and reflects the worldview of the person who attributes
meaning. It can generate lyrical emotions or interior experiences and
eschatological visions different from the meaning understood in the
primary sense (Betti 2015 [1955]: 68 [95]). The spirit is at work both
in interpretation and attribution of meaning, but in different ways:


    The cognitive power of the spirit is actualized both in the in-
    terpretation and the conferring of meaning, but the first pro-
    cess (the interpretation) and the second one (conferring of
    meaning) relate to different requirements. The spirit confers
    sense to the whole universal world in general (and this does
    not happen in the interpretation), but in a manner more preg-
    nant and elevated the spirit confers sense to objects that in
    the world possess the spirit’s same nature. From this point of
    view, when referred to the world, the attribution of sense is
    fortuitous, while when referring to human beings it is re-
    garded as planned (Betti 2021: 36).




                                                                            259
Oliva, Meaning and Spirit in Betti’s Hermeneutics




      Betti invokes the classic hermeneutic canon “Sensus non est in-
ferendus, sed efferendus” affirmed especially in Biblical hermeneutics
to defend the primary sense of meaning8. This canon offers the crite-
rion for a correct interpretation: meaning is located within the inter-
pretandum, and should not be inferred from exterior sources: “[...] the
meaning must be that which is found in the datum and is obtained from
it; it is not a meaning transferred from outside into it” (Betti 2015
[1955]: 70 [102]). Consequently, the interpretation is objective be-
cause it only relies on the intrinsic data of what is to be interpreted.
The attribution of meaning, by contrast, cannot be objective because
it unilaterally depends on the system of convictions and beliefs of the
interpreter who confers meaning. Thus, “meaning should not be as-
signed unduly and surreptitiously to representative forms, but, on the
contrary, must be deduced from them” (Betti 2021: 14). This primacy
of the sensus efferendus over the sensus inferendus informs Betti’s
canon of the autonomy of the object. The representative forms have
their own law of formation, inner necessity, coherence, and rationality.
Interpretation must rely on their immanent determination. Even when
it considers the context of their genesis, the interpretation remains at-
tached to their intrinsic order and does not bring any exterior scope.
Betti’s second hermeneutic canon requires, indeed, the coherence of
meaning within a totality so that parts are understood in view of a
whole. For instance, when deliberating on a single criminal action in
court, the juridical process needs to consider the “specific individual
personality that the author manifested in such conduct” (17). Carla
Danani notes that, for Betti, the meaning of representative forms in-
cludes potentialities that they open up precisely because they belong
to the spirits’ dynamic totality (Danani 1998: 128).


8
 See, for instance, the XVIIIth century German Biblical hermeneutics: Pfeiffer 1704:
163, “Sensus literalis non est inferendus, sed efferendus”; Opitz 1704: Tabula VII,
9: “Sensus in Scripturam non inferendus, sed ex eadem efferendus est”.



260
                                             Critical Hermeneutics, 5(1), (2021)




     While insisting on the immanent character of meaning, Betti does
not lose from sight the activity of the interpreter. This activity is at-
tuned with the spiritual nature of meaning. Since what has meaning
is an objectivation of the spirit, it speaks to the spiritual core of the
interpreter. For this reason, the meaning of representative forms is not
a mere transmission of content from one person to another, but a sort
of spiritual union between the interpreter and what is to be understood.


     The doors of our mind can be opened only from the inside and
     by a spontaneous impulse: what one receives from the exte-
     rior is simply the stimulation to vibrate interiorly in harmony
     with the impulse and to find an accord in commonality (Betti
     2021: 6).


     Following Hegel, Betti contends that there is a communal spiritu-
ality that unites human beings. This communal spirituality is not a sub-
stance with its own conscience but an “interior structure or form in a
continuous living becoming” (Betti 2015 [1955]: 36 [32]) Human per-
sons cannot detach themselves from this communal spirituality, which
is like the atmosphere that they breathe. But, at the same time, com-
munal spirituality also carries significations that raise us up to higher
levels:


     [...] the human spirit can run through this path or course to
     its end only because it establishes with the significative con-
     tents a confront that springs from life as something other
     than itself, something objective, something higher (Betti
     2021: 71).


     From the standpoint of the interpretation’s spiritual nature, other
hermeneutic theories might appear reductive. Betti takes issue, first,



                                                                            261
Oliva, Meaning and Spirit in Betti’s Hermeneutics




with the Heideggerian and Gadamerian notion of pre-understanding.9
Prima facie, this notion seems correct because it shows that the inter-
preter is not merely passive. Indeed, Betti’s third canon of interpreta-
tion affirms the actuality of the understanding. According to this canon,
understanding is an event in the interpreter’s life because it engages
her personal experience. However, at a closer look, Heidegger’s and
Gadamer’s view of pre-understanding endangers the objectivity of the
interpretation. It does not capture the spontaneity of the living spirit,
which alone makes possible meaning and its communication. On the
contrary, spiritual pre-understanding is constituted by the spiritual
horizon of the person:


      Thus, every new experience becomes, for reasons of a certain
      assimilation, alive part of our spiritual cosmos, and conse-
      quently every time that new experiences are received in that
      cosmos, they are subjected to its own identical vicissitudes
      (21).


      Second, Betti criticizes Anglo-American semiotics, which is natu-
ralistic and assumes a behaviorist approach to signs. Such an approach
entails a quantitative evaluation and thus cannot mount to the spiritual
nature of understanding (Betti 2015 [1955]: 66 [95]). Against this ap-
proach, Betti maintains that “the hermeneutic theory is exactly the
spiritual process of the understanding, with which a thinking spirit re-
sponds to the message of another spirit, which speaks through


9
 Ivi, 22. Gadamer responds to Betti's criticism in Gadamer 1993: 387–425. See also
Danani 1998: 129–131; Zimmermann 2015: 133–134. Palmer 1969: 46–66. Richard
Palmer contrasts Betti's objective hermeneutics with Gadamer's existential herme-
neutics: “If a distinction is to be made between the moment of understanding an
object in terms of itself and the moment of seeing the existential meaning of the
object for one's own life and future, then it may be said that this latter is clearly the
concern of Gadamer, Bultmann, and Ebeling, while the nature of "objective" inter-
pretation has been Betti's concern” (56).



262
                                               Critical Hermeneutics, 5(1), (2021)




representative forms” (Ib.). To avoid hermeneutic reductionism, we
must thus uphold that meaning emerges from objectivations of the
spirit and speaks to spiritual interpreters.


2. Critical reflections on Betti’s account of meaning
In this part, I will discuss some merits and flaws of Betti’s account of
meaning. The main merits reside, I believe, in its spiritual character,
and seemingly retrieval of the duality of sensus (sensible/intellectual).
Betti owes both features to Hegel’s philosophy, and the actuality of his
hermeneutics might also recall Hegel’s actuality. On the other hand,
possible issues with his account regard the exclusion of natural phe-
nomena from the realm of meaning and the rejection of causation
dubbed a mere scientific construct.
    Betti’s spiritual account of meaning can address the concerns of
some scholars that meaning is merely subjective, indicating a subjec-
tive reaction to an object. For instance, John Haldane warns that we
should employ “meaning” carefully to avoid constructivism. The her-
meneutic constructivist, in his view, maintains the existence of an ob-
ject but conceives the process of making sense in terms of positing an
intermediate foil between us and the object:


    [...] we are imaginative and creative animals that construct
    an intermediate surface between ourselves and the purely
    material world, an intermediary lining on which we draw and
    colour our compositions. This is a concession to objectivity,
    allowing that there is something we seem to see which calls
    for our attention and earns our regard, but it is also and fun-
    damentally a form of subjectivism inasmuch as it regards the
    source of that ‘something’ as lying within us (Haldane 2008:
    140).




                                                                              263
Oliva, Meaning and Spirit in Betti’s Hermeneutics




      Joshua Hochschild voices a similar concern regarding the expres-
sion “meaning of life”, which, in his eyes, emerged in modern times on
the soil of subjectivism, nihilism, and skepticism. The quest for life’s
meaning irrupts from emotional distress and aims to establish a mean-
ing that satisfies the subject:


      [...] the question of the meaning of life seems formulated
      precisely to avoid both the moral field and metaphysical
      frame. Meaning is subjective, placing an emphasis on the in-
      terior life, feelings, emotions, awareness, consciousness
      (Hochschild 2021: 502)10.


      Betti’s spiritual account excludes subjectivism because both the
interpreter and the interpretandum have a spiritual nature. They do
not meet in an intermediary space constructed by the interpreter but
in the horizon of the living spirit. The interpreter discovers in the object
she interprets something higher than herself. Even if it touches her
emotions, it does so to elevate her, not to maintain her into her bubble.
      Moreover, Betti’s spiritual account of meaning combats reduction-
ism. As we have seen, Betti rejects behaviorist or structuralist accounts
of meaning and signs. His approach brings meaning to the highest
common denominator, not to the lowest. It is very similar, in this
sense, to Viktor Frankl’s approach to meaning, which rejects Freud’s
and Adler’s psychological reductionism and frames the search for
meaning in spiritual terms. Frankl claims that Freud’s psychoanalysis
and Adler’s individual psychology appeal to the lowest human drives:
sexuality in Freud’s case, and the inferiority complex, will to power,
status drive, or social interest in Adler’s case. Psychology should,



10
  I responded to Hochschild's concerns in “No Meaning for Believers? A Reply to
Joshua Hochschild”, published in the same issue.



264
                                              Critical Hermeneutics, 5(1), (2021)




however, do justice also to the higher human drives, namely to the
spiritual nature of the human person. To Freud’s will to pleasure and
Adler’s will to power, Frankl opposes the will to meaning, which springs
from a person’s spiritual core (Frankl 1986: xvii). The quest for life’s
meaning is not a process of invention but one of discovery. Frankl’s
experience in concentration camps showed him that meaning is ulti-
mately not about what we expect from life but about what life expects
from us, what tasks life poses to us, what purpose we need to fulfill.
Frankl insists that this spiritual quest is not a secondary rationalization
or sublimation of lower drives but constitutes, on the contrary, the pri-
mary drive of human beings:


    Man’s search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life
    and not a ‘secondary rationalization’ of instinctual drives. This
    meaning is unique and specific in that it must and can be
    fulfilled by him alone; only then does it achieve a significance
    which will satisfy his own will to meaning. There are some
    authors who contend that meanings and values are ‘nothing
    but defense mechanisms, reaction formations and sublima-
    tions.’ But as for myself, I would not be willing to live merely
    for the sake of my ‘defense mechanisms’, nor would I be
    ready to die merely for the sake of my ‘reaction formations’.
    Man, however, is able to live and even to die for the sake of
    his ideals and values! (Frankl 2006: 99).


      The second merit of Betti’s account is to draw attention to the
sensible dimension of the interpretandum. The representative forms
are indeed sensible objectivations of the spirit. As we have seen, Hegel
maintains the duality of Sinn, namely sense as perceptive power (hear-
ing, seeing), and also intellectual content or signification. The current
scholarship on meaning does not account much for this duality,



                                                                             265
Oliva, Meaning and Spirit in Betti’s Hermeneutics




focusing instead on the intelligible signification. There are only a few
exceptions. Gerhard Sauter decries the intellectualization of meaning
in modern times and promotes a return to the original duality of sensus
(Sauter 1995: 152). For instance, we cannot answer the question
about the meaning of life from a purely intellectual, abstract stand-
point. To answer it, we must be involved in concrete experiences that
reveal meaning. Only within such experiences can we make claims
about life’s meaning. More recently, Jean-Luc Nancy takes Hegel’s af-
firmation of Sinn-duality to support his own philosophy of sens. For
Nancy, sens is not just a signification but the very movement of signi-
fications within the concrete world. Hegel’s Sinn-duality testifies this
global pervasiveness of the sens:


        Sense is the ideality of the sensible and the sensibility of the
        idea: it is the passage of the one in the other. Sense is thus
        total and infinite; it is the infinite relation to self of everything,
        the whole as such (Nancy 2002: 49).


        Finally, Steven Crowell’s work on meaning in Neo-Kantianism and
phenomenology reveals that the notion of meaning attempts to bridge
Plato’s two realms, the sensible and the non-sensible.11 Crowell attrib-
utes to the Neo-Kantian Emil Lask the groundbreaking discovery of this
new space of meaning. For Lask, meaning is the objective unity of the
categorial form and material. As Crowell notes, Lask


        conceives material purely functionally, as that which is clari-
        fiable by way of logical form. Material is thus not defined by
        a certain way of being given, but by its functional relation to




11
     Crowell 2001: 40.



266
                                                Critical Hermeneutics, 5(1), (2021)




        the category; it is that in the full object which is clarified,
        made intelligible (48).


        Moreover, Betti’s account of meaning implies that immaterial en-
tities have no meaning. Robert Nozick holds a similar view (Nozick
1981: 600)12. Nozick’s point of departure is not the duality of sensus
but the relational nature of meaning. Every time we question the
meaning of something, we are looking for something that is not imme-
diately visible in its appearance. If I find chocolate candy on my car
tires and ask why the candy is there, it is because the motive of the
situation is not immediately apparent. The meaning of the situation is
a relationship between that situation and something else: perhaps the
author’s intention to prank car drivers, celebrate the coming Christ-
mas, or simply show sympathy for her neighbours. Meaning is thus
relational; it entails a relationship with something else. Going up the
ladder of meanings, Nozick concludes that there must be something
that is the source of meaning, although it has no meaning itself. If it
had meaning, then it would have a relationship with something else,
and therefore it could not be the source of meaning anymore. Nozick
calls it the Unlimited, after the Kabbalist term Ein Sof.
        Thus, Betti’s Hegelian view on meaning and representative forms
can add to the discussion about the sensible/intelligible duality of Sinn.
Perhaps in discussing Betti, we could also revisit his source of inspira-
tion, Hegel, and clarify how the current scholarship on meaning can
benefit from a Hegelian view. We can recall, here, Gadamer’s punch
line “We all stand in the shadow of Hegel” (Gadamer 1988: 94).
        I turn now to some objections we could raise against Betti’s notion
of meaning. The exclusion of natural phenomena from the realm of
meaning seems the most problematic part of his account. Confining


12
     See also Oliva 2019.



                                                                               267
Oliva, Meaning and Spirit in Betti’s Hermeneutics




meaning to the sphere of cultural products, human life, and human
history runs counter to our everyday use of “meaning”. One example
given by Nozick is “Smoke means fire” (Nozick 1981: 574). In this
sentence, “meaning” indicates a causal relationship between smoke
and fire. Smoke indicates that there is fire nearby. Following Nozick’s
relational account, we can say that the meaning of natural objects con-
cerns their relationship with something else, their role in their environ-
ment (for instance, the blooming of a flower is part of spring, and so
on). This intuitive ubiquity of meaning comes to the fore in phenome-
nology and hermeneutics, which have made meaning universal, appli-
cable to all entities, including the natural ones (Oliva 2018). Husserl
connects this universality to the intentionality of consciousness:


      In other words, to have a sense [of something] or ‘to have
      something in mind’ is the basic character of all consciousness
      that for that reason is not only any experience at all, but a
      ‘noetic’ experience, one having a sense (Husserl 2014: 178).


      For Heidegger, meaning is “that wherein the intelligibility of some-
thing maintains itself” (Heidegger 2008: 193).
      One could argue that Betti is not the only hermeneutic scholar that
restricts the realm of meaning to cultural products. Gadamer, too, fo-
cuses his entire work on what Betti calls representative forms: art,
tradition and history, and language. Once embarked on the interpreta-
tion mission, the hermeneutic scholar will unavoidably restrict his in-
terpretation to cultural products, excluding natural entities. But even
Gadamer has to make room for natural entities. Gadamer admits that
there is also a language of things in underscoring the inner belonging
of word and thing. He distinguishes between the nature of a thing (Na-
tur der Sache), its essence, and the language of things (Sprache der
Dinge), their concrete manifestation. The essence of a flower and the



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blooming of a flower are two distinct features. The blooming is the
manifestation of the flower; it captures its meaning in its concrete life.
       More recently, hermeneutic scholars have promoted a hermeneu-
tic realism that goes beyond cultural products. Günter Figal develops
an account of objectivity aiming at re-establishing the theoretical in-
terest for all things. Figal distinguishes between reference and enact-
ment. He stresses that our relationship with things is not fully ex-
hausted in our life enactment but entails a more primordial sense of
reference (Figal 2010: 172). Following Figal, Theodore George pro-
poses the concept of displacement, which is our exposure to exterior-
ity. According to George, we have a responsibility to understand not
only for pragmatic reasons but also because things compel us to un-
derstand (George 2020: 48).
       Given his tenacious defense of objectivity within the horizon of the
spirit, Betti would surely prefer to sit on the side of hermeneutic real-
ism. Antonio Olmi (1995) shows indeed how Betti’s canons of interpre-
tation avoid pitfalls of other hermeneutic theories and lay the ground
for a hermeneutic realism. Likewise, Gaspare Mura appreciates Betti’s
pursuit of truth and its moral and educational import, which reflects
the humanist ideal of educating the whole person (Mura 2005: 197)13.
In this sense, Mura promotes a truthful (or veritative) hermeneutics
(ermeneutica veritativa) that, unlike what he calls the weak herme-
neutics (ermeneutica debole), does not abandon the ideal of truth nor
the trust that human beings can reach it and perfect themselves in
their nature. However, to fully achieve this hermeneutic realism or
truthfulness, Betti’s hermeneutics would need, I believe, to include also
natural entities.
       Moreover, the Bettian account might also need to reconsider cau-
sation. Betti’s idea that causation is a scientific construal dismisses the


13
     See also Korzeniowski 2010.



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Oliva, Meaning and Spirit in Betti’s Hermeneutics




Aristotelian discovery that causation is the primary nexus of reality. To
be fair, Betti is not alone in his exclusion of causation from the realm
of meaning. In a previous paper14, I showed how, starting with
Heidegger, phenomenology dubbed causation a mere artificial con-
struct. Heidegger criticizes the notion of causation because it is just a
reflex of the productive comportment of the Dasein. We project on
things the kind of processes we engage in when we make artifacts.
Thus, causation is not a genuine feature of things but only our mental
construct. Following Heidegger, other contemporary phenomenologists
(David Cooper, Lawrence Hatab) exclude causation from the realm of
meaning. Meaning is primary, causation is secondary and derivative:


        Scientific thematization disregards this existential horizon by
        way of conversion into measurable elements of mass, weight,
        and gravitational force, an explanatory order derived from
        factical settings through procedures of abstraction, quantifi-
        cation, and causal reckoning – but no longer attentive to the
        meaning of such settings (Hatab 2020: 18).


        However, we can hardly deny that the relationship between fire
and the burning of a house is evident in our experience. This relation-
ship relies on the intrinsic properties and powers of fire, along with the
house’s intrinsic properties, which make it vulnerable to being burnt by
fire. To capture it, one does not need to assign any exterior meaning
in the manner of Betti’s attribution of meaning. On the contrary, one
must only recognize its inner nature and structure in the first-hand
experience we have of a causal process. Betti’s exigency of objectivity
cannot thus dispense of understanding natural entities and their man-
ifestation in causation. But causation does not yield only in the material


14
     Oliva [forthcoming].



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natural sphere. It also works in human action and in history. Thus, the
rehabilitation of causation must occur both in the domain of material
natural entities and in the domain of human action and creation.


Conclusion


Betti’s account of meaning is spiritual. Betti follows in Hegel’s footsteps
and explores the objectivations of the spirit, which he calls representa-
tive forms. The interpretation of these forms must capture their mean-
ing from inside and refrain from attributing them an extraneous mean-
ing. Betti invokes, in this sense, the classic hermeneutic canon “Sensus
non est inferendus, sed efferendus”. Interpretation is however not a
mere transmission of content from the text to the interpreter but a
spiritual union between the interpreter and the objectivation of the
spirit. This spiritual nature of meaning makes up the originality of Betti.
It also offers a compelling philosophical complement to the psycholog-
ical work of Viktor Frankl, who is equally committed to a spiritual view
of meaning.
     At the same time, Betti’s attention to the sensible dimension of
representative forms recalls the original duality of the Latin sensus, the
basis of the modern terms of meaning/sense in several languages. This
duality is not sufficiently explored in the current scholarship on mean-
ing, and Betti’s account could contribute to revisit it.
     Some of Betti’s positions are questionable, even by his own stand-
ard. Indeed, his exclusion of natural entities from the realm of meaning
seems to contradict his ideal of objectivity. The current discussion on
hermeneutic realism would probably amend Betti’s account to make
room for all entities. Moreover, his view on causation as a derivative
concept disregards that causation is a primary phenomenon, not a
mental   construal.   This   view   is   similar   to   other    positions     in




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Oliva, Meaning and Spirit in Betti’s Hermeneutics




phenomenology and hermeneutics. By revising it, we need to re-dis-
cuss general commitments of the entire phenomenological and herme-
neutic field.




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