Beneath Interpretation… Distinction Between Understanding and Interpretation

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

“we can only test our prior understanding by subsequent interpretation (…). Considerations of this sort have led Gadamer and other hermeneutic universalists to the radical claim that ‘all understanding is interpretation.’ But this claim, I have argued, is not only uncompelling but misleading in suggesting that we can never understand anything without interpreting it. For in many cases we are simply satisfied with our initial understanding and do not go on to interpret; there are always other and usually better things to do. Moreover, if we could never understand anything without interpreting it, how could we ever understand the interpretation itself? It, too, would have to be interpreted, and so would its interpretation, and so on ad infinitum. As Wittgenstein notes, ‘Any interpretation still hangs in the air along with what it interprets.’ Interpretation must ultimately depend on some prior understanding, some ‘way of grasping…which is not an interpretation.’ This is just a point of philosophical grammar about how these notions are related: understanding grounds and guides interpretation, while interpretation enlarges, validates, or corrects understanding. We must remember that the distinction is functional or relational, not ontological. The prior and grounding understanding ‘which is not an interpretation’ may have been the product of prior interpretations, though now it is immediately grasped. Moreover, it need be an explicitly formulated or conscious understanding, and the ground it provides in not an incorrigible ground.” (p122)

Annotation
Shusterman sees the distinction between understanding and interpretation not as ‘all understanding is interpretation,’ nor a metaphysical state of being (ontological), but as relational or functional. The relationship can be described as, “understanding grounds and guides interpretation, while interpretation enlarges, validates, or corrects understanding” (p122). As he points out if understanding is interpretation and we could never understand anything without an interpretation, then “how could we ever understand the interpretation itself?” (ibid.).  Hirsh (1976) agrees and urges that when the person interprets they first are trying to match what they sense with what they already know in order to first understand before and interpretation and explanation can begin.  Validation is a factor in interpretation and can be placed within systematic process of understanding > construction of meaning > interpretation > validation. When validation is achieved it is “only with respect to known hypotheses and known facts” (Hirsch, 1967, p170). Palmer (1969) points out that in itself understanding is a preliminary act of interpretation from which future interpretations are built. 

Hermeneutics: Interpretation Theory… The Dialectical Nature of the Circle

PALMER, R.E. (1969) Hermeneutics: Interpretation Theory in Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.

“Understanding is a basically referential operation; we understand something by comparing it to something we already know. What we understand forms itself into systematic unities, or circles made up of parts. The circle as a whole defines the individual part, and the parts together form the circle. (…) an individual concept derives its meaning from a context or horizon within which it stands; yet the horizon is made up of the very elements to which it gives meaning. By dialectical interaction between the whole and the part, each gives the other meaning; understanding is circular, then. Because within this ‘circle’ the meaning comes to stand, we call this the ‘hermeneutical circle’. Of course the concept of the hermeneutical circle involves a logical contradiction; for, if we must grasp the whole before we can understand the parts, then we shall never understand anything. Yet we have asserted that the part derives its meaning from the whole. And surely, on the other hand, we cannot start with a whole, undifferentiated into parts. Is the concept of the hermeneutical circle invalid? No; rather, we must say that logic cannot fully account for the workings of understanding. Somehow, a kind of ‘leap’ into the hermeneutical circle occurs and we understand the whole and the parts together. Schleiermacher left room for such a factor when he saw understanding as partly comparative and partly intuitive and divinatory matter. To operate at all, the hermeneutical circle assumes an element of intuition. With its spatial image, the hermeneutical circle suggests an area of shared understanding. Since communication is a dialogical relation, there is assumed at the outset a community of meaning shared by the speaker and the hearer. This seems to involve another contradiction: what is to be understood must already be known. (…) One must already have, in some measure, a knowledge of the matter being discussed. This may be termed the minimal preknowledge necessary for understanding, without which one cannot leap into the hermeneutical circle.” (pp87-88)

Annotation:

Palmer, unlike Hirsch, champions the hermeneutic circle. He argues that the circular, seemingly logical contradiction he summarises as “if we must grasp the whole before we can understand the parts, then we shall never understand anything” (p87) does not make the hermeneutic circle invalid. He sees this interaction between the parts and whole in order to make an interpretation can happen as the dialectical nature of the circle creates a shared area for understanding. He sees not contradiction to logic as, “One must already have, in some measure, a knowledge of the matter being discussed” (p88). To understand this further it is important to see this act of understanding as referential, “we understand something by comparing it to something we already know” (p87). The form understanding takes therefore happens within a horizon of meaning and pre-understanding, and forms itself into a systematic unity of meaning, which contains parts that form the whole meaning. To understand something then both the whole unity and the parts that make up that meaning need to be understood. Understanding is therefore circular as each gives the other meaning, and the meaning arises within the hermeneutic circle. Any misunderstanding of a part of a meaning will skew the understanding of the whole meaning, and lead to interpretations that are not true. Therefore an individual aspect of an experience gains it’s meaning from its context within the experience. It is a part of the experience that if understood in itself and in its context, can lead to a full understanding of the whole experience. Like ways, if the whole experience is considered first then it will be clear that it is made up of different aspects that need to be studied and interpreted to see what is actually happening. The experience gains understanding when seen in its context, yet the context is derived from different parts that allow the experience to be seen as a whole. Palmer argues that ‘logic’ does not solely create understanding; intuition has a part to play (as has been seen). To enter the hermeneutic circle to understand and interpret meaning, it takes an intuitive leap to understand both the parts and the whole together, and not a logical step.

A Heideggerian Phenomenological Perspective on the Concept of Person… Not Functionalist or Deterministic

LEONARD, V.W. (1994) A Heideggerian Phenomenological Perspective on the Concept of Person. In: P. BENNER (Ed.), Interpretive Phenomenology: Embodiment, Caring, and Ethics in Heath and Illness. Sage Publications, Inc. pp43-64

“Disputes in hermeneutic interpretation resolve based on the plausibility of alternative interpretations, and the plausibility of an interpretation, cannot be reduced to a-priori-derived, cut-and-dried criteria.” (p61)

Annotation:
Ihde (2009) states that a criticism of phenomenology is that it is perceived as antiscientific and “locked into idealism or solipsism” (p23). Hirsch (1967, p166) criticises the hermeneutic circle’s circularity of thinking as an imprisonment of thought that can lead to self-confirming hypotheses in the interpreter. The nature of interpretation as understood within a holistic and phenomenological perspective acknowledges that a ‘correct’ interpretation cannot be produced by functionalist or deterministic hard science, as science is not suited to the explaining how humans process and experience the world. From a functionalist and deterministic perspective the hermeneutic methods are viewed at best with scepticism and at worst academic hostility.

Validity in Interpretation… Guesswork

HIRSCH, E.D. (1967) Validity in Interpretation. New Haven: Yale University Press

“The methodical activity of interpretation commences when we begin to test and criticize our guesses.” (p203)

Annotation:

Testing and criticising the guesswork inherent in interpretation means that a validation can be reached. The interpretation is only as good as the facts, knowledge and experience the interpreter has at the moment of interpretation.

Validity in Interpretation… Validation

HIRSCH, E.D. (1967) Validity in Interpretation. New Haven: Yale University Press

“Every interpretation begins and ends as a guess, and no one has ever devised a method for making intelligent guesses. The systematic side of interpretation begins where the process of understanding ends. Understanding achieves a construction of meaning; the job of validation is to evaluate the disparate constructions which understanding has brought forward. Validation is therefore the fundamental task of interpretation as a discipline, since wherever agreement already exists there is little practical need for validation. Such a consensus may, of course, be quite temporary, since the wit of man is always devising new guesses, and his curiosity is always discovering new relevant information. A validation is achieved only with respect to known hypotheses and known facts: as soon as new relevant facts and/or guesses appear, the old conclusions may have to be abandoned in favour of new ones.” (p170)

Annotation:
Validation is a factor in interpretation that has yet to be raised. So the systematic process that is involved is understanding > construction of meaning > interpretation > validation, and validation is achieved “only with respect to known hypotheses and known facts” (p170). Validation leads to agreement that the interpretation is ‘correct’ until new facts or suggestions change the interpretation. Hirsch suggest that a guess to meaning begins and ends any interpretation. 

Validity in Interpretation… Criticism of the Hermeneutic Circle

HIRSCH, E.D. (1967) Validity in Interpretation. New Haven: Yale University Press

“Every interpreter labors under the handicap of an inevitable circularity: all his internal evidence tends to support his hypothesis because much of it is was constituted by his hypothesis. This is another description of the relationship between an intrinsic genre and the implications which it generates. An interpretive hypothesis – that is, a guess about genre – tends to be a self-confirming hypothesis. Thus the distressing unwillingness of many interpreters to relinquish their sense of certainty is the result not of native close-mindedness but of imprisonment in a hermeneutic circle.” (p166)

Annotation:
Hirsch criticises the hermeneutic circle’s circularity of thinking as an imprisonment of thought that can lead to self-confirming hypotheses in the interpreter. 

Validity in Interpretation… Succinct Definition of a Hermeneutic Circle

HIRSCH, E.D. (1967) Validity in Interpretation. New Haven: Yale University Press

“We found the types of meanings we expected to find, because what we found was in fact powerfully influenced by what we expected. All along the way we construe this meaning instead of that because this meaning belongs to the type of meaning we are interpreting while that does not. If we happen to encounter something which can only be construed that, then we have to start all over and postulate another type of meaning altogether in which that will be at home. However, in the very act of revising our generic conception we will have started all over again, and ultimately everything we understand will have been constituted and partly determined by the new generic conception. Thus, while it is not accurate to say that an interpretation is helplessly dependent on the generic conception with which an interpreter happens to start, it is nonetheless true that his interpretation is dependent on the last, unrevised generic conception with which he starts. All understanding of verbal meaning is necessarily genre-bound. This description of the genre-bound character of understanding is, of course, a version of the hermeneutic circle, which in its classical formulation has been described as the interdependence of part and whole: the whole can be understood only through its parts, but the parts can be understood only through the whole. This traditional formulation, however, clouds some of the processes of understanding in unnecessary paradox. It is true that an idea of the whole controls, connects, and unifies our understanding of parts. It is also true that the idea of the whole must arise from an encounter with parts. But this encounter could not occur if the parts did not have an autonomy capable of suggesting a certain kind of whole in the first place. A part – a word, a title, a syntactical pattern – is frequently autonomous in the sense that some aspect of it is the same no matter what whole it belongs to. A syntactical inversion such as ‘Fair stands the wind for France’ is perceived as an inversion no matter where it occurs, and knowing that such an aversion belongs in a certain type of utterance and not in another, we experience the invariant aspect of the part as a trait which characterizes one type of meaning rather than another. Then, having experienced that trait, we come to expect others belonging to the same type, and this system of expectations, at first vague, later more explicit, is the idea of the whole that governs our understanding. Of course, we may make a wrong guess, and, of course, it is true that our guess does control and constitute man of the traits we subsequently experience, but not all traits are genre dependent (the same ones can belong to different genres), and not everything in verbal understanding is variable. Understanding is difficult, but not impossible, and the hermeneutic circle is less mysterious and paradoxical than many in the German hermeneutical tradition have made it out to be. Consequently, to define the hermeneutic circle in terms of genre and trait instead of part and whole not only describes more accurately the interpretive process but also resolves a troublesome paradox. This description does, however, raise problems of its own -  the most important one being that ‘genre’ still represents an imprecise and variable concept.” (pp76-77) 

Annotation:
Hirsch is primarily discussing a hermeneutic circle in the specific context of literary theory. Despite this, and with some careful parsing of his thoughts to apply to interpreting experiences, he does give a very concise definition of how a hermeneutic circle works. The interdependence of the parts and the whole of an experience is crucial to understanding and interpretation as, “the whole can be understood only through its parts, but the parts can be understood only through the whole” (p76). This is succinct and helpful. Further to this he identifies an important point that a part of an experience must in itself suggest an autonomy for it to be identified as a ‘part’ of something ‘bigger’. The part must be whole in itself. Before this discussion gets bogged down in abstraction leading to a nano-level explication of the nature of a thing, which will stall the flow of an idea, let’s just accept that a whole is made of parts, and that whole could be a part of something else. If we accept that concept then this will get easier. How the understanding and the interpretation of what constitute a part of an experience and a whole of an experience is what happens within the hermeneutic circle. But Hirsch is critical of the inherent paradox within this process. He suggest replacing part with a genre (of experience) and a trait (the whole) it not “describes more accurately the interpretive process but also resolves a troublesome paradox” (p77), but in doing so he does admit the idea of genre is still “an imprecise and variable concept” (ibid.).

The Aims of Interpretation… Kant & Lebenswelt

HIRSCH, E.D. (1976) The Aims of Interpretation. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

“Kant’s procedure shows very clearly that it was he and not the twentieth-century phenomenologists who first conceived the value-laden objects of cultural experience as epistemological ultimates. It was he, not ourselves, who first discovered the irreducible connection of ‘fact’ and ‘value’ in the Lebenswelt [_{world of lived experience}]. For Kant argues that the objects of cultural experience, no less than those of primary sensation, are constituted by the mental organization of the perceiver.” (p101)

 

Annotation:
It is not important here to enter an argument of who came up with what, but Kant’s argument that the objects of our socio-cultural experience, on which our interpretations are based, are attributed meaning by the perceiver. The objects in themselves do not hold meaning until they are perceived. 

The Aims of Interpretation… The Nature of Interpretation is to Construe

HIRSCH, E.D. (1976) The Aims of Interpretation. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

“As a first step, I propose that interpretive theories should not lump together the descriptive and the normative aspects of interpretation; the theorists should disengage the descriptive dimension of hermeneutics, which concerns its goals. For the goals of interpretation are determined ultimately by value-preferences, and interpreters do not exhibit more agreement in their than the generality of people. (…) Stated bluntly, the nature of interpretation is to construe from a sign-system something more than its physical presence. That is, the nature of text is to mean whatever we construe it to mean. I am aware that theory should try to provide normative criteria for discriminating good from bad, legitimate from illegitimate constructions of a text, but mere theory cannot change the nature of interpretation.” (p75)

 

Annotation:
Hirsch apologises for stating bluntly that, “the nature of interpretation is to construe from a sign-system something more than its physical presence.” (p75). In this is the act of meaning-making that a designer intends to communicate through the visual communication in the design – where the interpreted meaning can mean whatever the designer construes it to mean. The sign system they use is semiotics, the interpretation is controlled by the visual communication decisions in the design, and how it is interpreted can be understood if it is approached phenomonologically. This is where the hermeneutic circle is important as it reveals the specifics of the experience. This may be descriptive, but presented through a Visual Communication Phenomenological Methodology it can visualise the internalised. 

The Aims of Interpretation… Meaning as Postulation

HIRSCH, E.D. (1976) The Aims of Interpretation. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

“On the other hand, if we did not, in actual speech, constantly adjust our original meaning postulates, we could never speak or understand language with novelty, flexibility or precision. Language requires not only our intuition that this meaning is only provisional. Both intuitions are right; they do not conflict; they are, in fact, coordinate. Still, it is fair to say that the more comprehensive intuition is the one that goes beyond our isolated meaning-expectations and recognizes their provisional character whenever we actually use and understand language.” (p63)

 

Annotation:
Meaning is provisionally a postulation until the fullness of understanding can be arrived at. How a meaning comes out of a position of postulation and develops into an accepted ‘fact’ does depend on the intuition of the person to know that there is no conflict of reasoning on which the meaning is built. 

The Aims of Interpretation… Preunderstanding Parallels

HIRSCH, E.D. (1976) The Aims of Interpretation. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

“Hence, I think Heidegger was right to extend the range of hermeneutics beyond the limited domain of man-made representations, since the fundamental character of interpretation is the same in all our cognitive processes. What Heidegger called the priority of pre-understanding is described by developmental psychologists as the primacy of the genre; by cognitive theorists (particularly those concerned with scientific knowledge) as the primacy of the hypothesis. On this theory, all cognition is analogous to interpretation in being based upon corrigible schemata, a useful phrase I take from Piaget. The model of a corrigible schemata, which was exemplified in the description of Piaget’s experiments, is, I think, a more useful and accurate model than that of the so-called hermeneutic circle. Unlike one’s unalterable and inescapable pre-understanding in Heidegger’s account of the hermeneutic circle, a schema can be radically altered and corrected.” (p32)

 

Annotation:
Heidegger’s pre-understanding that comes with a person to any experience has parallels in both psychology and cognitive theory. Psychologists refer to the primacy of the genre, while cognitive theorists refer to the primacy of the hypothesis. Hirsch suggest that these are analogous, and that “cognition is analogous to interpretation” (p32). But unlike a hermeneutic circle, (s)he prefers a schemata than a circle. The argument and preference is that a schema is easier to be “radically altered and corrected” (ibid.). It needs to be remembered here that Hirsch is concerned not with interpreting the interaction of experience but only speech between more than one person (which is a specific subset within an interaction experience). 

The Aims of Interpretation… ars intelligendi and ars explicandi

HIRSCH, E.D. (1976) The Aims of Interpretation. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

“From very early times the idea of interpretation has combined and, to some extent, confused two functions, the understanding of meaning and the explication of meaning. One of the earliest distinctions in hermeneutics discriminated between these two functions: the ars intelligendi, the art of understanding, and the ars explicandi, the art of explaining. Obviously, an interpreter must first construe or understand a meaning before he explains it to others. Nevertheless, it is useful to stick to the broad term ‘interpretation,’ which fuses the two functions, since they do go together whenever any interpretation is explicated. To focus on the prior activity, one can simply use the term ‘understanding.’” (p19)

 
Annotation:
Interpretation fuses two functions together: the understanding of meaning with the explication of meaning. In hermeneutics this has been identified as ars intelligendi (understanding) and ars explicandi (explaining). The two functions can sometimes be confused and interchanged so Hirsh urges that when the person interprets they first are trying to match what they sense with what they already know in order to first understand before and interpretation and explanation can begin. A subtle difference between understanding and interpretation as the latter results in a conclusive outcome. In comparison understanding is more passive than active. 

The Aims of Interpretation… Breaking the Hermeneutic Circle

HIRSCH, E.D. (1976) The Aims of Interpretation. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

“If one had, then, to choose a hermeneutical model it should hardly be one that entirely excluded the possibility of Husserl’s brackets. The brackets implied by the terms ‘meaning’ and ‘significance’ do in fact represent something that most of us believe we experience in verbal discourse, namely, an alien meaning, something meant by an implied author or speaker who is not ourselves. Whenever we have posited another person’s meaning, we have bracketed a region of our own experience as being that of another person. The paradox of self and other in verbal discourse is even easier to accept (because more widely experienced) than the paradox of part and whole in the hermeneutic circle. No doubt the paradoxical doubling of personality involved in the verbal intercourse is a bracketing experience for which some persons have greater talents than others, but it is nonetheless a widespread experience. The hermeneutic circle, on the other hand, as I shall point out at the end of the next chapter, has now been shown to be an inadequate model for what actually happens in the interpretation of speech. The magic circle is breakable.” (p6)

Annotation:
Hirsch believes that, in the context of interpretation of speech-based discourse at least, the hermeneutic circle breaks down. The premise is that within an individual’s interpretation there is a part of someone else’s thoughts. In Bohman’s holism this is a given part in the hermeneutic circle, but Hirsh sees this as a paradox where there exists at the same time an interpretation that is both a part and a whole. The notion of Husserl’s ‘bracketing of self’ to set aside any influences that are ‘other’ to the current experience of interpretation is one that Hirsh advocates if a hermeneutical model is to be chosen to understanding the act of interpretation. Heidegger prefers to present the concept of pre-understanding to correspond to, and challenge Husserl’s bracketing of an experience.