One should consider only great works of greater minds, as only they count. This is the reason why common interpretive ground for these works should be sought after by people realizing that world philosophy is in statu nascendi. (..) Brief sketch of Watson's theory [of texts / meaningful (semantic) creations]. The gist of it may be formulated very simply: every text has four dimensions: It is an authors text; it is about something; it is somehow organized; and it comprises in itself the principle of its functioning. Watson calls these four dimensions "archic variables." (..) Just as Aristotle's conception revealed the "architectonics of being," and Kant's conception the "architectonics of knowing," Watson's theory should reveal the "architectonics of meaning." (..) We are also convinced, just as Watson and Dilworth are, that a philosophically justified position with respect to the diversity of philosophical opinions, conceptions, and traditions is badly needed. (..) we have to say that we find their results less satisfactory than their projects and programmatic declarations. (..) When discussing the key question of choosing four instead of five or 500 archie variables, they take recourse not to an argument but to an analogy - the analogy to four causes of Aristotle's theory. (..) Real philosophers try to solve philosophical problems within philosophical theories! (..) We do not believe that philosophers working on their problems will hang up in their studies "ordering principles" of Watson's and Dilworth's theory and make use of them as frequently and willingly as their colleagues from chemistry departments use Mendeleev's periodic table. To put the same in still different words: We reject this theory because we find quite a different way of doing philosophy to be right. We think, in consequence, that quite a different attitude to our philosophical heritage is appropriate. This is as it should be, as our opinion conforms to the expectations of one of the authors: The principle of translatability requires that the discoveries presented here can be assimilated by other modes, each in its own way. In fact, rejection and assimilation are by no means mutually exclusive, but proceed simultaneously." |