The Hermeneutics of Artificial Text
The paper justifies the necessity of using the research background of hermeneutics to study artificial texts and also proposes the first conclusions about these texts in the context of this background.
Writing perceived from a technological perspective has been called text because it materializes as text, although there may be different materializations. The transmission of successive incarnations allows, at the basic level that we are at, a smooth passage from language, through writing, to text, although each of these fields, especially the two extreme ones, has become the subject of extensive and separate research. As part of this transmission, one of the most important historical assumptions made for language in the context of the possibility of its technical machine imitation should be recalled at the outset. They were set by René Descartes in the treatise entitled A Discourse on the Method from 1637. This treatise is important primarily because it became one of the foundations of the civilizational project of the Western world, the axis and central point of which is man. Machines, as Descartes wrote, “would never be able to use words or other signs by composing them as we do to declare our thoughts to others. For we can well conceive of a machine made in such a way that it emits words, and even utters them about bodily actions which bring about some corresponding change in its organs (. . .); but it is not conceivable that it should put these words in different orders to correspond to the meaning of things said in its presence, as even the most dull-witted of men can do” [4] (p. 46). Events related to the development of the technology called large language models (LLM), taking place in the field of natural language processing (NLP), belonging to the area of the so-called artificial intelligence, completely contradicted Descartes’ strong position.
According to the definition given by Jurafsky and Martin, the language model is a model “that assign probabilities to sequences of words” [5] (p. 30). A similar definition was provided by Goodfellow et al.: “A language model defines a probability distribution over sequences of tokens in a natural language”
The most important premise of the reasoning presented here is the observation that an artificial text is equivalent to a text whose author is a human being. This premise takes on special importance in the context of the role played by the text. A field of study that has developed an advanced reflection on this topic is hermeneutics, which was initially limited to the procedure of interpreting the text. However, with the progress of research, it became clear that the text is a field on which fundamental issues of a cognitive and even existential nature take place. It also turned out to be an important component of social processes. In this situation, each instance of the text becomes an interference in these areas. The reflection that has developed in this direction has led to the observation that the text is, in fact, a condition of these processes rather than their secondary component.
The question then arises about how an artificial text will exist in this context. The main guidelines in this regard are provided by Bleicher, who identifies three main strands of contemporary hermeneutics: hermeneutical theory, hermeneutic philosophy, and critical hermeneutics. On the other hand, they can be understood as extended fields of the text’s functioning and, thus, the fields of its impact on reality. Strand one “focuses on the problematic of a general theory of interpretation as the methodology for the human sciences (or Geisteswissenschaften, which include the social sciences)” [17] (p. 1). Thus, it covers the issue of the creation, circulation, and functioning of meaning in the communicative perspective. This perspective is inevitable to expand to the level of knowledge issues. Text “can consequently no longer be the objective re-cognition of the author’s intended meaning, but the emergence of practically relevant knowledge in which the subject himself is changed by being made aware of new possibilities of existence and his responsibility for his own future.” [17] (p. 3). Thus, the text becomes an autonomous agent of a cognitive nature, updating epistemological issues, which results from the nature of this process in which knowledge (meaning) is produced “through the dialogical dialectical mediation of subject and object” [17] (p. 3). Strand three comes through the example of Jürgen Habermas’s contribution, which “challenges the idealist assumptions underlying both hermeneutical theory and hermeneutic philosophy: the neglect to consider extra-Linguistic factors which also help to constitute the context of thought and action, i.e., work and domination” [17] (p. 3). The last strand updates the social context, showing the impact of the text on even the fundamental phenomena of power and domination.
Artificial text eliminates symmetrical and equal dialogicality. The circumstances of the creation of an artificial and natural text are completely different; this applies to the process of shaping the argument, its meaning, the choice of means of expression, etc.;
The artificial text changes the communication situation, hitherto based on a dialogic scheme. The communication situation also ceases to be symmetrical;
The artificial text undermines the existing scheme of representing the world in language/ text. An artificial text is created as a result of completely different-than-natural creative processes, interpreted in any aspect, i.e., technical, rhetorical, etc.;
An artificial text changes or even excludes the institution of context in many of its aspects, including political and social ones. Natural texts always function in the context of other texts. This continuity is interrupted in the case of an artificial text.
destroys the poetic function of the text
“Being that can be understood is language” Gadamer
text is fundamental to the perception and understanding of the presence of man in the world. In particular, the aforementioned reflection concerns both the metaphysical (epistemological and ontological) foundations of this presence and also the broad social context.
It can, therefore, be assumed that artificial texts will lead both to the reconstruction of philosophical reflection devoted to man and social changes of an empirical nature.