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Gadamer on The Practice of the Artist and the Interpreter

14/11/2011 By Kelly Cooper

"There has long been a tension between the practice of the artist and that of the interpreter. From the artist’s point of view, interpretation appears arbitrary and capricious, if not actually superfluous. And this tension becomes all the greater when interpretation is attempted in the name and spirit of science. The creative artist finds it extremely difficult to believe that it is possible to overcome all the difficulties of interpretation by using a scientific approach. The problem of composition and interpretation actually represents a special case of the general relationship between the creative artist and the interpreter. As far as poetry and poetic composition are concerned, it is not uncommon to find the practice of interpretation and artistic creation united in one and the same individual. This suggests that poetic composition has a more intimate connection with the practice of interpretation than the other arts do. Even where we claim scientific status for our interpretation, this practice does not seem as questionable when applied to poetry as is generally believed. The scientific approach scarcely seems to go beyond what is involved in any thoughtful engagement with poetry. Nor is this surprising when we consider just how much philosophical reflection has penetrated the modern poetry of this century. The relationship between poetic composition and interpretation does not therefore simply arise within the context of science or philosophy alone. It also represents an internal problem of poetic composition itself, for poet and reader alike.

In discussing the question in this way, I do not wish to become involved in a dispute between the academic study of literature and the practice of writing about the claims of interpretation. I shall not attempt to rival the masterly expression of those who live by the word and know best how to use it. I should simply like to use my own craft of philosophical thinking to help people to see what they can all come to understand for themselves.

What explains this proximity between composition and interpretation? It is obvious that they have something in common. Both take place in the medium of language. And yet there is a difference and we know how profound it is. Paul Valéry pointed out this difference with great force: everyday language, as well as the language of science and philosophy, points to something beyond itself and disappears behind it. The language of poetry, on the other hand, shows itself even as it points, so that it comes to stand in its own right. Ordinary language resembles a coin that we pass around among ourselves in place of something else, whereas poetic language is like gold itself. Now to begin with, we must recognize that, despite this illuminating comparison, there are transitional cases that stand between poetically articulated language on the one hand and the purely intentional word on the other. And in this century we have become particularly familiar with the intimate fusion of both of these kinds of language.

Let us start with the extreme cases. On the one hand we have lyric poetry (which is no doubt what Valéry had in mind). In our own time we have witnessed a remarkable phenomenon: in Rilke or Gottfried Benn, for example, the language of science has actually invaded the language of poetry in a way that would have seemed quite inconceivable in great poetry only a few generations before. How has it come about that an obviously intentional word, a definition, or even a scientific concept can be integrated with the rhythmic flow of poetic language?

And now let us consider the other extreme of the novel, apparently the most flexible of art forms. Here the language of reflection that relates the things and events around us has always been at home, not merely in the speech of the fictional characters, but also in that of the narrator, whoever it may be. But do we not encounter something new here as well, even when compared with the bold innovations of the romantic novel? We have seen not only the disappearance of the narrative perspective, but the dissolution of the very concept of action itself, and the difference between the language of narration and the language of reflection collapses as a result" (Gadamer 2002:66-67).

Gadamer, Hans-Georg
2002(1986) The Relevance of the Beautiful: And Other Essays . Robert Bernasconi, ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

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Critical Interpretation

07/11/2011 By Kelly Cooper

"To develop a theory of critical interpretation, we require a comprehensive analysis of the hermeneutic presuppositions of understanding. As we have seen, every interpretive act is made possible by a largely implicit preunderstanding. This preunderstanding is internally differentiated into a symbolic sphere of basic beliefs and assumptions, a practical sphere of acquired habits and practices, and a subjective sphere that reflects biographical events and experiences. Such a three-dimensional conception of the background proved necessary for an adequate treatment of how social power structurally influences belief formation and how such influence can be called into question through critical interpretation. Only if the practical dimension is distinguished conceptually from the symbolic level is it possible to analyze how social power structures, rooted in social practices and institutions, leave their mark on particular symbolic forms that define reality for the agents independently of their awareness of social influence. Because these symbolic forms provide the background horizon of intelligibility for the individual, who is oriented in her experiences toward entities in the world, not toward the structural level of meaning formation, the influence of power on meaning remains concealed from the subject herself. Albeit always perspectivally shaped in a particular manner by the life experiences of each concrete individual, these holistic frameworks of meaning provide a general and social space of preunderstanding.

In response to these insights, critical hermeneutics undertakes to lay out a concept of reflexivity-in-interpretation that allows the individual to distance herself from the taken-for-granted background of symbolic assumptions and social practices. The critical practice of self-distanciation is to bring about a heightened sense of self-understanding, an enlightened insight into usually hidden linkages between symbolic relations and social networks of power. Such critical practice aims at a reflexive understanding of the usually unnoticed implications of meaning in the reproduction of social power mechanisms.

The double fact that every interpretation is grounded in some particular context and that every such context may be permeated by hitherto-unrecognized power structures may, however, pose a dilemma for the idea of critical hermeneutics; if there is no Archimedean, absolute standpoint or criterion from which to objectively adjudicate what counts as power, a standpoint that seemingly has to be free of any strain of power influence, then how can any evaluation of power be truly critical and liberating? If every critical stance derives from a necessarily situated and thus impure standpoint, and if, furthermore, the possible perspectives, symbolic orders, interpretive schemes , and so on, are multiple and contextually varied, how can one even begin to argue for a critical stance that analyzes objective forms of power lies in a dialogic reconstruction of the interpretive effect of self-distanciation. With the loss of the Cartesian and the Hegelian subject, the other becomes the point of departure for critical insight into the self. In critical interpretation, the reconstruction of the other and of her symbolic background serves as a critical foil from which to become, as it were, one’s own other. The insight thereby provided, to be sure, is never pure, context-free, or absolute. Yet if adequately developed, the perspective from the other’'s point of view proves all the more valuable, because it sheds a specific light on ourselves that we could not have generated by ourselves" (Kögler 1999:251-252).

Kögler, Hans-Herbert
1999 The Power of Dialogue: Critical Hermeneutics after Gadamer and Foucault. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

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Comfort with Ambiguity (Kinsella 2006)

04/11/2011 By Kelly Cooper

"Hermeneutics embraces ambiguity. According to GADAMER (1992) hermeneutics 'is entrusted with all that is unfamiliar and strikes us as significant' (p.70). Indeed, JARDINE (1992) states that it is the task of hermeneutics to restore life to its original difficulty. A hermeneutic view resists the idea that there can be one single authoritative reading of a text and recognizes the complexity of the interpretive endeavor. For instance, GADAMER (1996) explains that in textual analysis, from a hermeneutic perspective, the meaning of a text is not to be compared with an immovably and obstinately fixed point of view (p.388). Rather 'to understand a text always means to apply it to ourselves and to know that, even if it must always be understood in different ways, it is still the same text presenting itself to us in these different ways' (p.398). There cannot be any single interpretation that is correct in itself, as the historical life of tradition depends on being constantly assimilated and interpreted. In other words, GADAMER believes an interpretation has to adapt to the hermeneutical situation in which it belongs. [32]

WEINSHEIMER (1985) notes that, in keeping with the spirit of hermeneutics, GADAMER's work itself is not open to reductive analysis. Rather, his hermeneutic rigor resists neat antithesis and neat reconciliations and precludes pat formulations. He points out that GADAMER does not think in assertions, statements, and propositions that aim at unequivocal meanings in logical sequence. Rather, he thinks in questions. Even his answers open onto an unsaid, unasserted aura of meaning that can not be pinned down in univocal statements. [33]

Thus, a hermeneutic approach is open to the ambiguous nature of textual analysis, and resists the urge to offer authoritative readings and neat reconciliations. Rather, it recognizes the uniquely situated nature, historically and linguistically influenced, and the ambiguous nature of interpretation, and offers such for readers to engage with, or not, as they wish. [34]" (p.2.5).

Kinsella, Elizabeth Anne (2006). Hermeneutics and Critical Hermeneutics: Exploring Possibilities within the Art of Interpretation [47 paragraphs]. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 7(3), Art. 19, http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0603190.

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Political Culture and Multiplicity of Subcultures

23/06/2011 By Kelly Cooper

"Originally, the suggestive unity of a more or less homogenous nation could ensure the cultural embedding of a legally defined citizenship status. In this context, democratic citizenship could form the focal point of social ties of mutual responsibility. But today we live in pluralistic societies that are moving further and further away from the model of a nation-state based on a culturally homogeneous population. The diversity of cultural forms of life, ethnic groups, religions, and worldviews is constantly growing. There is no alternative to this development,except at the normatively intolerable cost of ethnic cleansing. Hence republicanism must learn to stand on its own feet. The central idea of republicanism is that the democratic process can serve at the same time as a guarantor for the social integration of an increasingly differentiated society. In a society characterized by cultural and religious pluralism, this task cannot be displaced from the level of political will-formation and public communication onto the seemingly natural substrate of a supposedly homogeneous nation. The latter would merely serve as a facade for a hegemonic majority culture. For historical reasons, in many countries the majority culture is fused with the general political culture which claims to be recognized by all citizens regardless of their cultural background. This fusion must be dissolved if it is to be possible for different cultural, ethnic, and religious forms of life to coexist and interact on equal terms within the same political community. The level of the shared political culture must be uncoupled from the level of subcultures and their prepolitical identities. Of course, the claim to coexist with equal rights is subject to the proviso that the protected faiths and practices must not contradict the reigning constitutional principles (as they are interpreted by the political culture).

The political culture of a country crystallizes around its constitution. Each national culture develops a distinctive interpretation of those constitutional principles that are equally embodied in other republican constitutions—such as popular sovereignty and human rights#8212;in light of its own national history. A 'constitutional patriotism' based on these interpretations can take the place originally occupied by nationalism. This notion of constitutional patriotism appears to many observers to represent too weak a bond to hold together complex societies. The question then becomes even more urgent: under what conditions can a liberal political culture provide a sufficient cushion to prevent a nation of citizens, which can no longer rely on ethnic associations, from dissolving into fragments?" (Habermas 1998:117-118).

Habermas, Jürgen
1998 The Inclusion of the Other: Studies in Political Theory. Ciaran Cronin and Pablo De Greiff, eds. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press

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Ricoeur on Interpretation

25/05/2011 By Kelly Cooper

"To speak of interpretation in terms of an operation is to treat it as a complex of language acts—of utterances—incorporated in the objectifying statements of historical discourse. In this complex several components can be discerned: first, the concern with clarifying, specifying, unfolding a set of reputedly obscure significations in view of a better understanding on the part of the interlocutor; next, the recognition of the fact that it is always possible to interpret the same complex in another way, and hence the admission of an inevitable degree of controversy, of conflict between rival interpretations; then, the claim to endow the interpretation assumed with plausible, possibly even probable, arguments offered to the adverse side; finally, the admission that behind the interpretation there always remains an impenetrable, opaque, inexhaustible ground of personal and cultural motivations, which the subject never finishes taking into account. In this complex of components, reflection progresses from utterance as an act of language to the utterer as the who of the acts of interpretation. It is this operating complex that can constitute the subjective side correlative to the objective side of historical knowledge" (Ricoeur 2006:337).

Ricoeur, Paul
2006[2004] Memory, History, Forgetting. Kathleen Blamey & David Pellauer, trans. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

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Memory, History, Forgetting on Amazon.com

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