The Semiotics of Embodied Interaction… Horizon for Understanding

O’Neill, S. (2008) Interactive Media: The Semiotics of Embodied Interaction. London: Springer-Verlag.

“For Umberto Eco, for example, meaning is no longer an individual construct, as in the arbitrary semiotics of Saussure. It is now seen as the result of a process in which an individual takes part in society through the coding and decoding of his/her relationship with the cultural values and societal norms of the time.” (p72)

Annotation

Umberto Eco’s semiotics is far more embodied with an active relationship for a person, in their background culture and society, in interpreting the coding and de-coding of the norms for understanding. This makes any meaning arrived at not as an individual construct but one that is constructed from both the individual’s internal pre-understanding and external socio-cultural factors that form a horizon for the understanding. For Palmer (1969) the pre-understanding of the individual and the horizonality of the context in which the individual is interpreting the meaning dictate the terms in which any meaning is constructed.

Beneath Interpretation… Danger of Absolutism

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

“First, the distinction between understanding and interpretation (…) cannot be distinguished by epistemological reliability, where understanding implies univocal truth while interpretation connotes pluralistic error. Nonetheless, understanding and interpretation are epistemologically different in terms of their functional relations: understanding initially grounds and guides interpretation, while the latter explores, validates, or modifies that initial ground of meaning.” (p125)

Annotation
There is a danger of seeing interpretation and understanding in absolute terms distinguishing the former as pluralistic, relativist opinion-based, while the latter as a justified belief based on only one possible meaning of truth. Interpretation “explores, validates, or modifies” (p125) the understanding of an established meaning that is grounded in our pre-understanding.

Beneath Interpretation… When Interpretation Halts

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 seek an interpretation because we are not satisfied with the understanding we already have – feeling it partial, obscure, shallow, fragmented, or simply dull – and we want to make it fuller or more adequate. Yet the superior interpretation sought must be guided by that prior inadequate understanding. We no longer feel the need to interpret further when the new, fuller understanding that interpretation has supplied is felt to be satisfactory.” (p123)

Annotation
To seek interpretation is to not be satisfied with our existing understanding, but this pre-understanding guides our seeking for new interpretations. Once the new understanding is satisfied by the new interpretation then the interpretive process halts. 

Hermeneutics: Interpretation Theory… Understanding Unnderstanding

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

“Understanding is not a tool for something else – like consciousness – but rather the medium in which and through which one exists. It can never be objectified, for it is within understanding that all objectification takes place. An existing human being cannot survey understanding from without; understanding is always the position from which all that is seen is seen. No understanding, just because it stands under everything, is not an empty and amorphous mass, a flickering translucence totally filled with the sensations of the present moment. On the contrary, understanding is always necessarily ‘in terms of’ the character of the seeing that is handed down, of our understanding of the present situation, and of a sense what the future can or will hold. Thus this ground upon which we stand in understanding has a fairly definite topography, and every act of interpretation stands within its horizon.” (p228)

Annotation:
All objectification is contained within understanding, so understanding in itself can never be objectified. It is an internal process within the individual. The pre-understanding of the individual and the horizonality of the context in which the individual is experiencing a need for understanding, are important as these dictate the terms in which any understanding arises.

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.

Hermeneutics: Interpretation Theory… Hermeneutic Circle

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

“For the interpreter to ‘perform’ the text, he must ‘understand’ it: he must preunderstand the subject and the situation before he can enter the horizon of its meaning. Only when he can step into the magic circle of its horizon can the interpreter understand its meaning. This is that mysterious ‘hermeneutical circle’ without which the meaning of the text cannot emerge.” (p25)

Annotation:

Palmer’s defining of the hermeneutic circle comes from building up out of pre-understandings and horizonality. To explain and experience the interpreter needs to understand the experience, which comes from testing and building from pre-understandings of similar experiences. From pre-understandings the interpreter can then focus interpretation from within a horizon of the experience, a context in which the meanings of how it is experienced are focused.

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… 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.