Beneath Interpretation… Implying a Conscious Processing

SHUSTERMAN, R. (1991) Beneath Interpretation. In: D.R. HILEY, J.F. BOHMAN, and R. SHUSTERMAN (Eds.) The Interpretive Turn. Cornell University Press. pp102-128

“In short, I am arguing that though all understanding is selective, not all selective understanding is interpretive. If understanding’s selection is neither conscious nor deliberate but prereflective and immediate, we have no reason to regard that selection or the resultant understanding as interpretation, since interpretation standardly implies some deliberate or at least conscious thinking, whereas understanding does not. We can understand something without thinking about it at all; but to interpret something, we need to think about it.” (p114

Annotation
Shusterman is arguing, “all understanding is selective, not all selective understanding is interpretive” (p114) as since interpretation implies a conscious processing of information to arrive at a meaning, any prereflective and/or immediate understanding does not result in an interpretation. He concludes that, “We can understand something without thinking about it at all; but to interpret something, we need to think about it.” (p114)