Holism without Skepticism… Circular Interpretation

BOHMAN, J.F. (1991) Holism without Skepticism: Contexualism and the Limits of Interpretation. In: D.R. HILEY, J.F. BOHMAN, and R. SHUSTERMAN (Eds.) The Interpretive Turn. Cornell University Press. pp129-154

“The universality of interpretation, they argue, is a direct consequence of the fact that no cognitive activity can privilege a particular content as ‘given’ or ‘self-verifying’ apart from the context of all other contents and activities. If this is true, then it follows that all such activities are interpretive and that any belief or practice can be understood only in light of all other beliefs and practices. Hence, sceptical contextualism is a two-step thesis: first, that interpretation is universal and hence ubiquitous in every cognitive activity; and second, that it is holistic and hence takes place only against the background of all our beliefs and practices. Together these two theses imply that no interpretation can be singled out as uniquely correct, since the assertion that it is so would itself be an interpretation within a particular context. Thus, this conclusion is but one way of expressing the famous ‘hermeneutic circle:’ everything is interpretation, and interpretation is itself indeterminate, contextual, and circular.” (p130)

Annotation:
As interpretation itself is mediated through socio-cultural contexts and personal experiences what is interpreted makes sense to the interpreter but may not be ‘correct’ when compared to the interpretations of others. If it is accepted that interpretation in itself is contextual and circular, and open to revision and change with fresh insights then the hermeneutic circle offers a way to manage any individual and collective interpretation. In the circle the individual interpretation is examined phenomenologically, and referred back to the interpretations of the collective mass to reveal commonalities in the interpretations. Only then can a real sense of what is the agreed interpretation be arrived at. 

Representational Theory… Inauthentic Mediated World

KENNEY, K. (2005) Representational Theory. In: K. SMITH, S. MORIARTY, G. BARBATSIS and K. KENNEY (Eds) Handbook of Visual Communication: Theory, Methods, and Media. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. pp99-116.

“Behaviourists attempt to observe and measure the real world directly. Phenomenologists are exclusively interested in a person’s introspective experience. Semioticians and rhetoricians try to understand the linkages between our internal world and the external world, and that linkage is necessary, they believe, because the external world is always mediated by our senses and our mind. Whereas rhetoricians have investigated how humans create and manipulate symbols in order to persuade other humans, semioticians have been more interested in how humans (and other animals) interpret all kinds of signs, including symbols, that were created by other people, as well as natural signs, including symbols, that were created by other people, as well as natural signs that may have resulted from plants, animals, or inorganic matter. Both rhetoricians and semioticians, therefore, are concerned with how ‘signs’ mediate’ between the external world and our internal ‘world,’ or how a sign ‘stands for’ or ‘takes the place of’ something from the real world in the mind of a person.” (p99)

Annotation:

We exist in a mediated world that in the digital age is sometimes a re-mediated world. This existence can be framed as inauthentic (a Heideggerian concept). How someone navigates and orientates their way through this mediation, making sense of and interacting in their world is important to understand for interaction design. There are a variety of qualitative methods to observe and reveal this processing. Kenney discusses what aspects Behaviourists, Phenomenologists, Semioticians, and Rhetoricians are interested in studying, and where they overlap or conflict with each other.

The main grouping between semiotics and rhetoric focus on the relationship within the internal and external world of the processing of semiotic signs, how the message is (re)mediated, perceived and understood. Behaviourists obviously are interested in the exhibited behaviour within the world, of the manifestation of how this process affects them. Whereas the phenomenologist is interested in the internal processes of how they experience the perception, understanding and reaction to the message that changes their behaviour.

Visual communication in this context is concerned with both the internal and external processing of the semiotic-facilitated meaning. It is concerned with the shaping of the semiotics externally in the design, but can also be used to reveal and visualise the phenomenological internal processes of the experience, to “convert the sheer impact of the world into pictures of simulacra” (Harman, 2007, p#)