Skip to main content

three remarks on interpretation

Image
By
Gianni Vattimo: [O]ne cannot talk with impunity of interpretation; interpretation is like a virus or even a pharmakon that affects everything it comes into contact with. On the one hand, it reduces all reality to message -- erasing the distinction between Natur and Geisteswissenschaften, since even the so-called "hard" sciences verify and falsify their statements only within paradigms or pre-understandings. If "facts" thus appear to be nothing but interpretations, interpretation, on the other hand, presents itself as (the) fact: hermeneutics is not a philosophy but the enunciation of historical existence itself in the age of the end of metaphysics[.]

Martin Heidegger: Hermeneutically -- that is to say, with respect to bringing tidings, with respect to preserving a message... it is on purpose that the first page of Being and Time speaks of "Raising again" a question. What is meant is not the monotonous trotting out something that is alwasy the same: but to fetch, to gather in, to bring together what is concealed within the old.

Santiago Zabala: If this is true, then the pharmakon of Being must be interpretation itself, because it is not only what allows Being to come through (the remedy) but also what rejects it (the poison). Interpreting is the only act, practice, or way capable of reaching the Being of beings and allowing the Being of beings to reach us.

All found in: Zabala, Santiago (2007). "Pharmakons of Onto-Theology". In Zabala, Santiago. Weakening Philosophy: Essays in Honour of Gianni Vattimo. McGill-Queen's University Press. p. 231 and p. 241

And a bonus remark from me, which is that interpreting in a semiotic sense (e.g. Kockleman) has been part of the discussion here for a while.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The plot thickens (with Herbert Spencer)

By Semiophrenic
In a paper attempting to outline the conceptual domain of comparative psychology , Herbert Spencer discusses the quality of impulsiveness in relation with human races (bearded and unbearded). Among his "sundry questions of interests" about the relationship between mental energy, evolution, complexity, etc. are the following notes: ( b ) What connection is there between this trait and the social state? Clearly a very explosive nature - such as that of the Bushman - is unfit for social; and, commonly, social union, when by any means established, checks impulsiveness. ( c ) What respective shares in checking impulsiveness are taken by the feelings which the social state fosters - such as the fear of surrounding individuals, the instinct of sociality , the desire to accumulate property, the sympathetic feelings , the sentiment of justice? These, which require a social environment for their development, all of them involve imaginations of consequences more or less distant; and th...
4 comments
Read more

Vitruvius Pollio, The origin of the dwelling house

By
 Chapter 1 of Book II of "Ten Books on Architecture", available from Project Gutenberg .  Sections 1, 2, and 7 (from the Richard Schofield translation published by Penguin rather than the one here) are quoted on pp. 218-219 of Spheres II by Peter Sloterdijk.  Pay particular attention to Section 2. 1. The men of old were born like the wild beasts, in woods, caves, and groves, and lived on savage fare. As time went on, the thickly crowded trees in a certain place, tossed by storms and winds, and rubbing their branches against one another, caught fire, and so the inhabitants of the place were put to flight, being terrified by the furious flame. After it subsided, they drew near, and observing that they were very comfortable standing before the warm fire, they put on logs and, while thus keeping it alive, brought up other people to it, showing them by signs how much comfort they got from it. In that gathering of men, at a time when utterance of sound was purely individual,...
1 comment
Read more