Our analysis must be called philosophical mainly because of what it is
not: it is not a linguistic, philological, literary, or any other special kind
of analysis (study). The advantages are these: our study will move in
the liminal spheres, that is, on the borders of all the aforementioned
disciplines, at their junctures and points of intersection.

The text (written and oral) is the primary given of all these disci-
plines and of all thought in the human sciences and philosophy in gen-
eral (including theological and philosophical thought at their sources).
The text is the unmediated reality (reality of thought and experience),
the only one from which these disciplines and this thought can emerge.
Where there is no text, there is no object of study, and no object of
thought either.

The "implied" text: if the word "text" is understood in the broad
sense--as any coherent complex of signs--then even the study of art
(the study of music, the theory and history of fine arts) deals with
texts (works of art). Thoughts about thoughts, experiences of experi-
ences, words about words, and texts about texts. Herein lies the basic
distinction between our disciplines (human sciences) and the natural
ones (about nature), although there are no absolute, impenetrable
boundaries here either. Thought about the human sciences originates
as thought about others' thoughts, wills, manifestations, expressions,
and signs, behind which stand manifest gods (revelations) or people
(the laws of rulers, the precepts of ancestors, anonymous sayings,
riddles, and so forth). A scientifically precise, as it were, authentica-
tion of the texts and criticism of texts come later (in thought in the
human sciences, they represent a complete about-face, the origin of
skepticism). Initially, belief required only understanding--interpretation.
This belief was brought to bear on profane texts (the study of lan-
guages and so forth). We do not intend to delve into the history of the
human sciences, and certainly not into philology or linguistics. We are

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