This is the Spanish translation, by Cláudio Abreu and René Campis, of Wolfgang Stegmüller’s German text “Walther von der Vogelweides Lied von der Traumliebe und Quasar 3 C 273 – Betrachtungen zum sogenannten Zirkel des Verstehens und zur sogenannten Theorienbeladenheit der Beobachtungen”, published in 1979.

Philosophy and Structure. On why it is necessary for hermeneutic philosophy to make use of structural theory. In this essay I give reasons for the thesis that hermeneutic philosophy has to adopt considerations on structural theory in order to avoid the paradox of historism. Concepts of structure like 'criticism', 'centralism', 'creativity' etc. possess both a metaphilosophical and an empirical status which enables us to compare and to combine differend and opposed philosophies by means of common structures. Such an hermeneutic reflection (...) on philosophical structures requires the methodical work of fiction and selection. Otherwise relativism concerning the evaluation of philosophical traditions would be the result. (shrink)

In his recent paper "Indeterminacy, empiricism, and the first person" John R. Searle tries to refute Willard V. O. Quine's famous "indeterminacy of translation thesis" by arguing that this thesis is in fact a reductio ad absurdum of Quine's own "linguistic behaviorism". Searle accuses Quine of being "antimentalistic" and suggests that the "absurdity" of Quine's thesis might be avoided if a full-fledged "intentionality" were tolerated in the debate on meaning. - This anti-Quinean approach in some respects reminds of the "improbable (...) debate" between Searle and Jacques Derrida ten years ago, when Derrida had split and "deferred" intentionality by showing that the essential "iterability" of signs inevitably infects every intentional act with an unremovable "non-presence". In this paper it is argued that Searle's attacks on Quine and Derrida have both failed - and that there are structural similarities between these two failures which reveal some interesting parallels between Quine's and Derrida's philosophy. (shrink)

My concern in what follows is to give a comparative report on some important lectures held at the Hegel-Kongreß 1981 in Stuttgart. In discussing the views of Quine, Hacking, Davidson, Putnam and Habermas I want to confront them with some details of Rorty's recent critique of our philosophical tradition. At last I try to give a tentative answer whether there is an end or a turning-point for current analytical philosophy.