There are no texts, there are only interpretations
At times it appears that we exist in a world where all we have access to are mere interpretations, that we are condemned to remain rooted in our personal perspectives, cut off from all forms of pure textuality. This view has led some to believe that the statement above is correct, that there are no texts, only interpretations. Can we decide whether this is true or false ? What would Wittgenstein say if he were to confront this modern philosophical conundrum ? Let's look at what Wittgenstein has to say about interpretations, its rules and its limits.
Perhaps this statement can be translated into a comparable philosophical question: How do we understand a thing ? How are we to proceed from unknown to known ? According to W, our understanding is only a guess at the answer. For example, let's look at the learning-process. Is the process of learning simply a process of interpreting those axioms and premises that are given ? As Wittgenstein-as-educator might argue, this will not do because even though a teacher might present a student with texts--he might even present secondary sources which offer the student access to a critical history of interpretation--still, this is not enough. The process of learning is always accompanied by a further interpretation of the material; that is, the interpretation of the student.
Regardless of the manner in which the material is presented, the unsuspecting student will always be forced to begin with a guess at the intended meaning behind the material. The student will always be forced to interpret, to look at the material with a critical eye from the perspective of an individual and an eye that will serve as a site for the convergence of both perspective and meaning. This may be also be understood as the site of interpretation. But when a student has been familiarized with a number of avenues of thinking, why is it that he would choose one particular line of interpretation over another ? While Wittgenstein does not explicitly address the effects of an ideologically-based consciousness, I would suggest that this is the answer: when confronted with a text, the individual interprets the material in a way that accords to the particular ideology they subscribe to.
Our memories of an experience can be understood as the recollections of having one's actions and/or mental processes affected in a particular way. However, as individual subjectivities we want to resist this notion of having our minds being influenced by an outside force, as if this would presuppose or posit some kind of external control which is responsible for our actions, our thoughts and our lives. What we wish to posit instead is the notion that we each possess a unique individual will which is rooted in the consciousness of our individual perspective. When we see a red rose and marvel at its beautiful color, we usually do not consider that this piece of sense-data in unique because it has been received by us exclusively. Common sense will tell us that in order to indicate this color to someone else, we must refer to it by means of the object itself. We do not point to ourselves and proclaim us to be the artist who has created this color; rather, we are only receivers of sense-data from an individual perspective. This stands in opposition to our relationship to legal codes, which are grounded in the notion of the continuous identity of the body; we wish in this instance to take our bodies out of the picture: we refer to the object not by pointing to our hands or with our bodies, but by applying our mental perceptions to the object.
Indeed, our perspectives have such a great influence on the way we perceive the world around us that our impressions of objects and events are quite often completely unlike the objects or events themselves. Our perceptions of a work of art, say, a literary work, are to be seen as intrinsically our own. However, it is not within our rights to say, simply because a reader has met the work from the standpoint of his own perspective, that they are the creator of texts. Wittgenstein is adamant about this point: although interpretation is an essential process in the social medication of texts, it may not be said that texts are blank fields which are only formed through the reader's response in the form of a projection onto the text. It may only be said that the reader supplies the context through which the work of art is received, and this context is the continually changing consciousness that has evolved through history.
But more specifically, at what point does Wittgenstein draw the limits of interpretation ? In the Interpretations, he conceives of the intepretive process as being a characteristic notion of human psychology. As in the Blue Book's craving for generality, he points out what we can circumvent the ceaselessly circular process of intepretation by recognizing a logical flaw in the argument which would have us confront a continual barrage of interpretations. According to Wittgenstein, it is possible that at some point the interpreter may have assimilated a rule which is not an interpretation. Although we might wish to consider the effects a rule has on different interpretations, we are prevented from doing so by the demand that we constrain our use of the word interpretation. Interpretations themselves have a use-value of practically nil; they remain as they are, negligible and ineffectual, unable to direct either the shape or the form of the textual material will assume. While it is true that an individual's subjective interpretations of a text cannot be directly refuted, there is no way to authenticate this interpretive perspective as the right one for all others; it falls to the rules that are not interpretations to play the role of inter-subjective standards and also to serve as the limits of interpretation: these, then, are the texts which exist outside the world of intepretations, the texts which the statement tries to ignore.
Knowing that Wittgenstein advanced a philosophy that proclaimed the disappearance of the problem of philosophy, we might also expect him to announce that there is no position, no textual body, and no interpretation that is not an interpretation from the vantage point of an individual perspective. Wittgenstein foresaw this difficulty and made a number of statements that summarize his thoughts on the textual limits of interpretation. However, in the light of all of these thoughts, one thing we are able to see mostly clearly standing among his propositions: inasmuch as the statement, "There are no texts, only interpretations" is true, so is the reverse statement also true, "There are no interpretations, there are only texts."
Perhaps this statement can be translated into a comparable philosophical question: How do we understand a thing ? How are we to proceed from unknown to known ? According to W, our understanding is only a guess at the answer. For example, let's look at the learning-process. Is the process of learning simply a process of interpreting those axioms and premises that are given ? As Wittgenstein-as-educator might argue, this will not do because even though a teacher might present a student with texts--he might even present secondary sources which offer the student access to a critical history of interpretation--still, this is not enough. The process of learning is always accompanied by a further interpretation of the material; that is, the interpretation of the student.
Regardless of the manner in which the material is presented, the unsuspecting student will always be forced to begin with a guess at the intended meaning behind the material. The student will always be forced to interpret, to look at the material with a critical eye from the perspective of an individual and an eye that will serve as a site for the convergence of both perspective and meaning. This may be also be understood as the site of interpretation. But when a student has been familiarized with a number of avenues of thinking, why is it that he would choose one particular line of interpretation over another ? While Wittgenstein does not explicitly address the effects of an ideologically-based consciousness, I would suggest that this is the answer: when confronted with a text, the individual interprets the material in a way that accords to the particular ideology they subscribe to.
Our memories of an experience can be understood as the recollections of having one's actions and/or mental processes affected in a particular way. However, as individual subjectivities we want to resist this notion of having our minds being influenced by an outside force, as if this would presuppose or posit some kind of external control which is responsible for our actions, our thoughts and our lives. What we wish to posit instead is the notion that we each possess a unique individual will which is rooted in the consciousness of our individual perspective. When we see a red rose and marvel at its beautiful color, we usually do not consider that this piece of sense-data in unique because it has been received by us exclusively. Common sense will tell us that in order to indicate this color to someone else, we must refer to it by means of the object itself. We do not point to ourselves and proclaim us to be the artist who has created this color; rather, we are only receivers of sense-data from an individual perspective. This stands in opposition to our relationship to legal codes, which are grounded in the notion of the continuous identity of the body; we wish in this instance to take our bodies out of the picture: we refer to the object not by pointing to our hands or with our bodies, but by applying our mental perceptions to the object.
Indeed, our perspectives have such a great influence on the way we perceive the world around us that our impressions of objects and events are quite often completely unlike the objects or events themselves. Our perceptions of a work of art, say, a literary work, are to be seen as intrinsically our own. However, it is not within our rights to say, simply because a reader has met the work from the standpoint of his own perspective, that they are the creator of texts. Wittgenstein is adamant about this point: although interpretation is an essential process in the social medication of texts, it may not be said that texts are blank fields which are only formed through the reader's response in the form of a projection onto the text. It may only be said that the reader supplies the context through which the work of art is received, and this context is the continually changing consciousness that has evolved through history.
But more specifically, at what point does Wittgenstein draw the limits of interpretation ? In the Interpretations, he conceives of the intepretive process as being a characteristic notion of human psychology. As in the Blue Book's craving for generality, he points out what we can circumvent the ceaselessly circular process of intepretation by recognizing a logical flaw in the argument which would have us confront a continual barrage of interpretations. According to Wittgenstein, it is possible that at some point the interpreter may have assimilated a rule which is not an interpretation. Although we might wish to consider the effects a rule has on different interpretations, we are prevented from doing so by the demand that we constrain our use of the word interpretation. Interpretations themselves have a use-value of practically nil; they remain as they are, negligible and ineffectual, unable to direct either the shape or the form of the textual material will assume. While it is true that an individual's subjective interpretations of a text cannot be directly refuted, there is no way to authenticate this interpretive perspective as the right one for all others; it falls to the rules that are not interpretations to play the role of inter-subjective standards and also to serve as the limits of interpretation: these, then, are the texts which exist outside the world of intepretations, the texts which the statement tries to ignore.
Knowing that Wittgenstein advanced a philosophy that proclaimed the disappearance of the problem of philosophy, we might also expect him to announce that there is no position, no textual body, and no interpretation that is not an interpretation from the vantage point of an individual perspective. Wittgenstein foresaw this difficulty and made a number of statements that summarize his thoughts on the textual limits of interpretation. However, in the light of all of these thoughts, one thing we are able to see mostly clearly standing among his propositions: inasmuch as the statement, "There are no texts, only interpretations" is true, so is the reverse statement also true, "There are no interpretations, there are only texts."
posted by Andrew B. Noselli at 11:31 AM
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