Truth and Interpretation Research

Truth  and  Interpretation   The  theme  of  the  following  paper  is  the  relation  between  truth  and   interpretation.    After  elaborating  some  traditional  ways  of  construing  that   relation,  I  argue  that  there  is  a  justifiable  sense  of  determining  the  truth  of  an   interpretation  or,  alternatively,  determining  a  true  meaning  of  the  object  of   interpretation.    In  other  words,  the  paper’s  thesis  is  that  there  are  ways  of   discerning  truth  hermeneutically,  at  least  for  a  particular  sort  of  object  and   given  a  particular  conception  of  truth.    Before  taking  up  the  main  argument   for  this  thesis  and  applying  it  to  the  factors  of  interpretation,  I  describe  an   assortment  of  phenomena  that,  falling  under  the  heading  of  understanding,   are  directly  related  to  interpretation.    I  review  the  relation  between  these   phenomena  and  interpretation  as  a  means  of  specifying  a  general  sense  of   ‘interpretation.’i       1. Understanding  and  interpretation Interpretive  phenomena  typically  emerge  from  phenomena  of   understanding.    Understanding  is,  implicitly,  an  interpretation,  whether  we   are  talking  about  understanding  a  process,  a  tool,  a  sign,  a  language,  a  game,   an  art,  a  natural  phenomenon,  or  a  person.    ‘Understanding’  may  stand  for   grasping  how  something  works,  what  something  signifies,  how  to  speak  or   what  someone  is  saying  in  a  particular  language,  how  to  use  something,  how   to  play,  what  something  is,  or  who  someone  is.ii      Many  of  these  forms  of   understanding  are  interwoven  with  practices,  practices  of  participating  in  or   at  least  recognizing  what  is  understood.       The  observation  that  understanding  is  implicitly  interpretation  is   meant  to  convey  the  difference  between  understanding  and  interpretation  as   a  difference  between  implicitly  and  explicitly  taking  x  as  y.      It  may  be  helpful   to  introduce  ‘construal’  as  a  third,  umbrella  term,  where  ‘construing  x  as  y’  is   equivalent  to  ‘taking  x  as  y.’    Thus,  understanding  and  interpretation  are   implicit  and  explicit  ways  of  construing  things  respectively.      Interpretation   makes  explicit  what  is  understood,  i.e.,  what  is  construed  implicitly.      When  I   understand  and  accordingly  follow  a  traffic  signal,  I  typically  do  so   thoughtlessly  yet  meaningfully.      My  implicit  construal  of  an  object  as  a  sign   and,  indeed,  as  a  sign  signaling  a  specific  structure  and  directions  (think  of  a   four-­‐way  stop  sign)  can  be  made  explicit  and,  when  it  is,  my  understanding  is   interpreted.iii     With  this  terminology  in  place,  we  can  begin  to  specify  how   interpretation  emerges  from  and  is  grounded  in  understanding.      The  first   aspect  of  this  emergence  is  foreunderstanding.      Whatever  we  interpret,  we   interpret  in  terms  of  some  foregoing  understanding,  including  some   foregoing  understanding  of  what  we  interpret  and  how  we  interpret  it  (i.e.,  a   foreunderstanding  of  the  x  and  of  the  y  in  taking  x  as  y).    Even  in  extreme   cases  where  we  are  at  a  loss  for  words  or  hopelessly  puzzled,  the  object  of   our  ignorance  or  confusion  is  never  fully  opaque  to  us  (nor  is  the  meaning  of   ‘ignorance’  or  ‘confusion’).      When  we  understand  (implicitly  construe)   something  as  befuddling  or  mysterious,  we  have  some  means  of  contrasting   it  with  being  befuddling  or  mysterious.    Foreunderstanding  extends  beyond   these  elements  of  construal  to  the  aims  and  projects  that  ground  explicit   construals,  i.e.,  interpretations.    These  aims  and  projects  may  be  deliberate  or   unconscious  and,  when  made  explicit,  they  may  or  may  not  be  recognizable   by  the  one  who  understands.     The  second  aspect  of  the  emergence  of  interpretation  from   understanding  concerns  the  motivation  for  interpretation,  what  moves   someone  to  attempt  to  make  explicit  this  or  that  construal  at  the  level  of   understanding.    We  typically  interpret  or  look  for  an  interpretation  because   of  the  possibility  of  misunderstanding.    Given  foreunderstanding,  a  complete   failure  of  understanding  is  no  less  in  the  cards  than  a  completely  successful   interpretation.iv      ‘Misunderstanding’  here  thus  signifies  a  range  of   phenomena,  from  merely  shallow  and  incomplete  to  quite  faulty  and   misguided  sorts  of  understanding.      Given  the  prospect  and,  in  some  cases,   the  dangers  of  illusory,  anomalous,  or  simply  superficial  understanding,   clarifying  interpretations  are  needed.      A  certain  foreunderstanding  together   with  the  possibilities  of  misunderstanding  usually  tips  us  off  whether   something  needs  to  be  interpreted,  for  example,  whether  a  passage  of  a  text   or  speech  calls  for  commentary  or  not,  whether  a  painting  demands  an   explanation,  or  whether  the  meaning  of  an  opponent’s  move  needs   elucidation.     The  interpretation  of  something  can  be  described  as  a  reconstrual  of   it.    The  interpretation,  in  other  words,  changes  the  understanding,  the   implicit  construal  of  something,  leading  to  a  new  understanding  or  re-­‐ understanding  of  it.    But  via  this  re-­‐understanding,  we  also  come  back,  not  to   the  identical  thing  from  which  we  began,  but  to  a  version  of  it.    Herein  lies  the   familiar  principle  of  the  hermeneutical  circle,  so  entrenched  in  biblical  and   juridical  practice  of  interpretation.v    This  re-­‐understanding  is  the  third   relevant  aspect  of  the  relation  between  understanding  and  interpretation.     Interpretations  can  be  transforming;  they  can  transform  the  understandings   of  things  and  the  practices  interwoven  with  those  understandings.    As   already  noted,  the  interpretation  need  not  be  recognizable  by  the  one  who   understands.    Indeed,  the  acceptance  of  a  reconstrual,  a  new  understanding,   may  only  come  quite  begrudgingly.    Understanding  has  the  weight  of   tradition,  constituted  by  préjugés  légitimes,  as  Gadamer  puts  it.vi   Given  the  foregoing  notion  of  re-­‐understanding,  two  different  types  of   interpretation,  what  I  dub  ‘internal’  and  ‘external’  interpretations,  present   themselves.    If  an  interpretation  makes  explicit  A’s  understanding  (A’s   implicit  construal  of  something  as  such-­‐and-­‐such)  such  that  A  is   subsequently  able  to  recognize  that  construal  as  her  own,  the  interpretation   is  internal;  otherwise  it  is  an  external  interpretation.    Every  successful  self-­‐ interpretation,  i.e.,  where  someone  makes  explicit  to  herself  how  she  in  fact   understands  matters,  is  an  internal  interpretation.      But  so,  too,  is  an   interpretation  made  by  someone  other  than  the  person  with  the   understanding  that  is  being  made  explicit.    For  example,  a  psychotherapist   might  interpret  a  patient’s  attitude  toward  her  husband,  i.e.,  her  way  of   construing  her  husband,  as  an  attitude  of  fear.    The  psychotherapist  says  to   the  patient:  “You  construe  your  husband  as  threatening.”    If  the  patient  is   capable  of  recognizing  that  the  psychotherapist  is  right,  the  interpretation  is   internal.    If  she  in  fact  accepts  the  psychotherapist’s  analysis  as  true,  she  may   be  said  to  have  a  second-­‐hand  self-­‐interpretation.   Once  an  understanding  has  been  made  explicit  via  an  internal   interpretation,  the  respective  understanding  undergoes  a  change.      In  the  just   depicted  scenario  of  the  patient,  she  may  continue  to  understand,  i.e.,   implicitly  understand  her  husband  as  this-­‐or-­‐that,  but  now  with  an   interpretation  in  mind,  namely,  that  to  take  him  as  this-­‐or-­‐that  is  to  take  him   as  a  threat  to  her.    That  interpretation  changes  the  dynamics  fundamentally,   even  if  she  cannot  stop  understanding  her  husband  as  she  did  before.     Moreover,  interpretations  often  become  habitual  and,  when  or  if  they  do,   they  become  “sedimented,”  contributing  to  a  re-­‐understanding.vii   A  fourth  aspect  of  the  relation  of  understanding  and  interpretation   falls  under  the  category  of  self-­‐understanding.    In  the  course  of  interpreting   anything,  we  understand-­‐and-­‐realize  ourselves.viii    This  fourth  principle  links   up  with  the  others  (foreunderstanding,  possibilities  of  misunderstanding,  and   re-­‐understanding).    The  self-­‐understanding  in  interpretation  is  no  less   implicit  than  the  foreunderstanding  and,  thanks  in  part  to  its  implicitness,  we   are  all  too  capable  of  misunderstanding  ourselves.    Our  re-­‐understanding  of   something  in  the  wake  of  interpretation  contributes  to  a  new  self-­‐ understanding,  though,  of  course,  the  latter  should  not  be  confused  with  self-­‐ interpretation.      The  understanding  generally  and  self-­‐understanding  in   particular  always  involve  a  level  of  opacity  that  interpretation  attempts  to   remove,  at  least  to  some  degree.      Just  as  we  typically  do  not  know  what  we   mean,  until  we  hear  what  we  have  to  say,  so  our  self-­‐understanding  only   becomes  perspicuous  in  the  course  of  interpretation.    Accordingly,  we  might   distinguish  the  pre-­‐interpretive  self-­‐understanding,  the  interpretation-­‐ driven  self-­‐understanding,  and  self-­‐interpretation  where  the  interpreter   turns  her  attention  to  her  interpretation  as  such.     2. True  interpretation Truth  is  often  distinguished  from  meaning,  and  verification  from   interpretation.  Meanings  are  interpreted,  truths  are  verified.    Yet  there  are   not  only  different  truths  but  different  accounts  of  truth  and  different   accounts  of  what  constitutes  a  verification.    Since  these  differences  are   differences  of  interpretation  and  since  the  discrepancies  among  them  call  for   interpretation,  they  put  in  question  –  at  least  prima  facie  –  any  sharp   distinction  of  truth  and  meaning,  interpretation  and  verification.      The  point   here  is  not  simply  that  truth  and  meaning  are  in  some  sense  parasitic  on  each   other,  i.e.,  that  truth  is  always  the  truth  of  what  is  meant  by  something  said   (or  done)  and  that  meanings  are  expressed  because  some  meanings  are  true.     The  conclusion  to  the  opening  argument  is  rather  that  determination  of  what   is  true  is  itself  a  matter  of  interpretation  and  thus  fully  ensconced  within  the   sphere  of  meanings.   My  aim  here  is  not  to  defend  the  foregoing  argument  or  its  conclusion.   But  the  conclusion  is  useful  because  it  states  in  no  uncertain  terms  that  truth   is  superfluous  in  matters  of  interpretation.    The  reduction  of  truth  in  this   unqualified  way  to  interpretation  effectively  eliminates  any  constraints  on   interpretation,  based  upon  considerations  of  its  truth.    For  the  sake  of  future   reference,  it  will  be  helpful  to  state  formally  and  name  the  thesis  of  this   unqualified  reduction  of  truth  to  interpretation.   The  unqualified  reductive  thesis  (UR):  the  truth  of  an  interpretation  is   nothing  but                  the  interpretation  itself.   By  not  allowing  for  any  means  of  determining  truth  that  escapes  the  vagaries   of  interpretation,  UR  amounts  to  a  denial  of  correspondence  theories  of  truth.   Whatever  is  said  to  be  the  truth  about  any  subject  matter  falls  fully  within   the  scope  of  meanings  and  their  interpretation.    In  other  words,  there  is  no   uninterpreted  phenomenon  to  which  the  interpretation  can  be  said  to   correspond.   If  this  thesis  is  unsettling,  it  is  no  doubt  due  to  two  common  beliefs   that  together  make  it  compelling  to  insist  on  distinguishing  verification  from   interpretation.    The  first  belief  concerns  the  difference  in  the  make-­‐up  of   interpretation  and  verification.      Meanings  and  interpretations  are  largely  of   our  individual  and  collective  making,  a  product  of  thinking,  imagining,  and   opining,  limited  only  by  our  ability  to  entertain  various  ideas  and  concepts.       By  contrast,  truth  and  verification  (as  the  distinctive  mode  of  determining   which  meanings  expressed  are  true)  restrict  the  scope  of  our  thoughts  and   imagination,  suggesting  constraints  that  cannot  be  simply  self-­‐imposed,  like  a   poet’s  adoption  of  meter  or  a  representative  government’s  tax  structure.    In   short,  according  to  this  first  belief,  meanings  and  interpretation  are   subjective,  truth  and  verification  are  objective.       The  second  belief  stems  from  the  fact  that  arguably  the  most   unambiguous  sorts  of  verification  are  those  typically  associated  and,  in  some   case,  even  identified  with  iterable  sensory  experiences  that  we  can  expect   normal  human  perceivers  commonly  to  have.    We  verify  assertions  through   perception,  through  direct  sensory  acquaintance  with  their  references.    To  be   sure,  sensory  perception  without  interpretation  is  blind,  if  we  may   paraphrase  Kant’s  famous  dictum.    The  warrant  for  the  assertions  supposes  a   common  interpretation  in  the  form,  at  the  very  least,  of  descriptions  in  a   shared  language.    (In  other  words,  those  “normal  human  perceivers”    must   also  have  acquired  certain  normal  abilities  to  use  language.)    Yet,  in  contrast   to  interpretations,  expressed  in  assertions  or  other  linguistic  descriptions,   the  colors  that  we  see  and  the  sounds  that  we  hear  are  at  some  level  not  of   our  making  or  choosing,  and,  while  part  of  the  interpretandum,  they  also   mark  a  limit  to  interpretation.    Hence,  at  least  when  it  comes  to  assertions   about  experiential  objects  or  states  of  affairs,  we  rely  upon  the  ways  they   present  themselves  in  perceptual  experience  in  order  to  ascertain  the  truth   or  falsity  of  those  assertions.    For  the  purposes  of  this  paper,  it  is  important   to  add  that  this  second  belief  cuts  two  ways;  that  is  to  say,  truth  and   verification  are  largely  a  matter  of  assertions  and  perceptions.      The  second   belief  underlying  the  usual  distinction  between  interpretation  and   verification  is  a  belief  in  the  paradigmatic  status  of  sensory  perception  as  a   means  or  even  part  of  the  criterion  of  determining  the  truth  in  contrast  to  the   meaning  or,  better,  a  true  meaning  in  contrast  to  a  merely  possible  meaning   of  an  assertion.ix   However,  whatever  the  merits  of  these  two  beliefs  when  it  comes  to   statements  about  perceivable,  physical  objects,  matters  are  far  murkier  if  one   supposes,  on  the  basis  of  those  beliefs,  that  the  truth  or  a  true  meaning  can   be  assigned  to  intended,  human  creations  (such  as  artistic  and  cultural   works).      How  do  we  verify  an  interpretation  as  objective  and  true  (the  first   belief)  when  the  object  of  interpretation  is  no  less  a  product  of  human   subjectivity  than  interpretation  itself?    Moreover,  even  if  we  acknowledge   that  sensory  experience  is  necessary  to  gain  access  to  artworks,  media,  or   communication  (gestures,  speech  and  writing),  it  is  hardly  sufficient  to   determine  their  true  meaning(s).    In  other  words,  the  paradigm  of  a  truth-­‐ making,  observable  object  or  state  of  affairs  simply  does  not  transfer  without   further  ado  to  human  products  (thus,  limiting  the  import  of  the  second   belief).       The  foregoing  considerations  suggest  a  more  qualified  statement  of   the  thesis  of  the  reducibility  of  truth  to  meaning,  along  the  following  lines:   The  qualified  reductive  thesis  (QR):  the  truth  of  an  interpretation  is  the   coherence  of     its  overriding  meaning  with  the   meanings  of  the  interpretatum  or   interpretata  (the  thing  or  things  already   interpreted)  that  are  part  of  the   constitution  of  the  interpretandum   If  UR  amounts  to  a  denial  of  truth  as  correspondence  or,  at  least,  the   superfluousness  of  considerations  of  truth  as  correspondence,  QR  affirms   that  truth  as  a  form  of  coherence  provides  a  criterion  of  interpretation,  such   that  it  is  not  merely  redundant  to  speak  of  ‘true  meanings’  and  ‘true   interpretations.’    Truth  here  is  always  in  medias  res  and  the  res  are   interpretations.    There  are  three  patent  ways  in  which  QR  delimits  UR.    First,   it  restricts  the  subject  matter  of  interpretation  (and  thus  a  possibly  true   interpretation)  to  those  things  whose  make-­‐up  already  involves   interpretation.    The  most  obvious  such  things  are  works,  i.e.,  intended,  human   creations  (literary,  artistic,  cultural).    Second,  QR  supposes  an  overriding   (primary)  meaning  distinct  from  other,  subsidiary  and  presupposed   meanings.    An  “overriding  meaning  of  an  interpretation”  stands  here  for  an   interpretation  of  the  main  elements  of  a  work,  taken  as  a  whole.x    This   qualification  leaves  some  room  for  the  input  of  factors  that,  while   underdetermining  the  overriding  meaning,  are  not  themselves  directly   subject  to  the  interpretation  that  produces  that  meaning.      For  example,  the   experience  of  a  shade  as  Poussin  blue  need  not  determine  the  overriding   meaning  and  interpretation  of  Poussin’s  Arcadia.      Moreover,  if  there  is  a   compelling  account  of  the  truth  of  the  claim  that  someone  looking  at  the   painting  perceives  blue  rather  than  some  other  color  in  its  top  left  corner,   that  verification  and  truth  may  be  relatively  independent  of  perceiving  it  as   Poussin’s  blue  or  perceiving  the  painting  in  terms  of  some  allegedly,   overriding  interpretation  of  it.   3. Discerning  truth  through  the  factors  of  interpretation The  preceding  section  contains  a  formal  statement  (QR)  of  a  theory  of  true   interpretations,  i.e.,  a  way  of  maintaining  a  sense  in  which  truth  can  matter  to   interpretation  and  serve  as  a  criterion,  whether  delivering  a  true   interpretation  is  the  main  task  of  the  interpreter  or  not.xi      The  aim  of  this   final  section  is  to  argue  for  the  cogency  of  this  thesis  through  closer   consideration  of  the  factors  involved  in  interpretation.    If,  as  supposed  by  QR,   the  object  to  be  interpreted  includes  elements  that  have  already  been   interpreted,  there  are  plainly  three  distinct  factors  of  interpretation  in   general.xii    The  three  factors  are:     3.1  the  interpretandum  in  itself,  i.e.,  what  is  to  be  interpreted  and  its   distinctiveness;     3.2  the  interpretandum  as  effect,  i.e.,  its  relation  to  the  conditions  (fons   interpretandi)  responsible  for  it,  e.g.,  in  the  case  of  a  work,  its   producer  (artist,  author,  sculptor,  director,  etc.);  and     3.3  the  interpretandum  as  cause,  i.e.,  its  relation  to  the  interpreter.   Strategies  for  refuting  UR  typically  consist  in  construing  one  or  more  of  these   factors  as  entailing  a  true  meaning  and  a  possibility  of  verification  that  marks   the  closure  of  interpretation.      Various  reasons  why  these  strategies  fail  have   already  been  suggested  and,  in  what  follows,  I  further  elaborate  these   reasons  with  respect  to  each  factor  of  interpretation.    At  the  same  time  I  hope   to  show  how  these  three  factors  can  be  incorporated  into  a  useful  conception   and  practice  of  true  interpretation,  based  upon  QR.     Some  caveats,  however,  are  immediately  in  order.    First,  these  factors   are  by  no  means  always  clearly  isolable  from  one  another  but  each  can  be   taken  as  supplying  an  avenue  to  a  true  meaning  in  contrast  to  a  mere   interpretation.    Second,  the  references  to  cause  and  effect  here  are  not   intended  in  the  sense  of  supplying  necessary  and  sufficient  conditions.    For   the  purposes  of  this  analysis,  it  suffices  for  a  painting,  for  example,  to  be   taken  as  an  effect  if  a  painter  can  be  identified  (or  even  if  it  is  the  sort  of   object  requiring  a  painter).    So,  too,  it  suffices  to  take  it  as  a  cause  if  it  has  an   effect  on  the  interpreter  such  that  that  effect  enters  in  some  way  into  the   interpretation.    Third,  as  already  signaled  in  the  first  part  of  this  paper,  I  take   ‘interpretation’  in  a  broad  sense  (in  keeping  with  ordinary  usage)  to  signify   any  instance  of  explicit  construal  (explicitly  taking  x  as  y).    In  other  words,  to   interpret  is  to  determine  the  meaning  (y)  of  some  phenomenon  (x),  including   artificial  and  natural  things,  i.e.,  things  that  can  be  traced  to  human  and/or   non-­‐human  causes  or  conditions.      However,  in  what  follows  I  focus   principally  on  the  interpretation  of  works,  as  I  attempt  to  explain  the  sense  in   which  truth  can  and  cannot  be  a  criterion  of  their  interpretation.    My  aim   again  is  to  establish,  on  the  basis  of  QR,  the  possibility  of  true  interpretations.     3.1    The  interpretandum  in  itself   In  regard  to  the  first  factor,  the  interpretandum  necessarily  corresponds  at   some  level  to  the  modes  of  access  to  it.    For  example,  the  access  may  be  visual   or  aural  and  the  interpretandum  might  be  a  natural  object  (e.g.,  clouds,  a   weather  pattern,  a  forest),  natural  or  artificial  images  (e.g.,  a  reflection  in  a   lake,  a  photograph,  a  portrait)  and  sounds  (e.g.,  a  loon’s  yodel  or  a  piece  of   music),  written  or  spoken  words,  or  a  combination  of  some  or  all  the  above   (as  in  sculpture  or  opera).      Given  such  access  and  the  capacity  for  it  to  be   shared,  there  may  be  levels  of  common  acquaintance  or  even  understanding   of  the  interpretandum.    At  a  staging  of  Hamlet,  for  example,  everyone  in  the   audience  sees  the  skull  in  Hamlet’s  hands;  everyone  understands  the  same   sentence  “Alas,  poor  Yorick”;  everyone  recognizes  Hamlet’s  staging  of  “The   Mousetrap”  as  a  play  within  a  play,  and  so  on.    As  in  everyday  experience  and   discourse,  we  have  an  acquaintance  with  things  and  an  understanding  of  how   to  talk  about  them  that  allow  for  what  are  commonly  accepted  to  be   uncontroversially  true,  indefeasible  descriptions.    Indeed,  insofar  as   discourse  is  communication  about  something  at  all,  it  necessarily  supposes   truthmakers  (objects,  facts,  events)  and  the  capacity  to  refer  to  them.      This   supposition,  moreover,  is  one  with  the  old  insight  that  illusion  and  deceit   presuppose  veracity.       The  distinction  often  made  in  ordinary  discourse  between  description   and  interpretation  issues  from  a  certain  level  of  confidence  assigned  to   descriptions  of  experience,  as  elaborated  above.    To  be  sure,  these   descriptions,  like  the  languages  in  which  they  are  formed,  are  historical,   cultural,  and  environmental  (think  of  the  pre-­‐Copernican  descriptions  of   planetary  motion  or  the  variety  of  descriptions  of  ‘snow’  in  different   cultures).      They  are  part  of  the  re-­‐understanding  that,  as  noted  in  part  one,   ensues  from  previous  interpretations.      Nevertheless,  like  the  facts  and   experiences  they  describe,  those  descriptions  are  reliable  and  iterable,   providing  a  secure  foundation  for  common  sense.    Against  the  background  of   such  descriptions,  interpretations  become  necessary  only  when  the   possibility  of  misunderstanding  presents  itself,  for  example,  when  we  are   confronted  with  optical  illusions  or  erratic  behavior,  or  when  the  curiosity  of   a  restless  mind  gets  the  better  of  it.         Yet  the  appeal  to  true  descriptions,  while  certainly  supposed  in  many   a  practice  of  interpretation,  does  not  suffice  to  salvage  a  sharp  distinction   between  truth  and  meaning.      Thus,  they  cannot  be  the  basis  for  refuting  UR.     The  main  reason  the  appeal  to  true  descriptions  in  this  regard  fails  is  that   descriptions  are  not  themselves  free  of  interpretation.    True  descriptions  are   interpretations  that  correspond  with  some  foreunderstanding  and  that   foreunderstanding,  it  bears  iterating,  is  an  implicit  way  of  taking  something  –   implicit  with  respect  to  what  we  take  it  as  and  why.    In  this  connection  one  is   reminded  of  Heidegger’s  critique  of  Husserl’s  project  of  a  presupposition-­‐less   phenomenology,  one  that  merely  describes.    As  Heidegger  points  out,  since   those  phenomenological  descriptions  are  for  the  sake  of  grounding  science   and,  indeed,  a  certain  conception  of  science,  they  fail  to  be  neutral,  as  would   any  other  sort  of  description.xiii     Something  analogous  occurs  in  interpretation  of  literary  works  and   visual  arts.    Here  there  are  at  least  four  levels  of  foreunderstanding  and  re-­‐ understanding  typically  at  work  in  such  interpretations.      Consider  the   following  ways  of  categorizing  a  work,  embedded  in  the  following  claim:   “It  is  a  work  of  art,  a  powerful  tale  of  tragedy,  but  woefully   sentimental.”   The  claim  supposes  a  foreunderstanding  on  four  distinct  levels  or  categories:   (a) artistic  or  literary  (e.g.,  “a  work  of  art”) (b) type  of  work  (e.g.,  “tale,”  “painting,”  “book,”  “poem”) (c) genre  (e.g.,  “tragedy,”  “drama,”  “comedy,”  “Romantic,”  “Realist”) (d) aesthetic,  expressive,  or  metaphorical  (e.g.,  “powerful,”  “sublime,” “sentimental”). Each  level  of  foreunderstanding  is  not  simply  an  implicit  construal,  but  also  a   re-­‐understanding,  the  product  of  a  foregoing  interpretation  that  is   subsequently  ingrained  and  taken  for  granted.    The  debates  over  the  proper   application  of  the  predicates  listed  from  (a)  to  (d)  amply  illustrates  their   interpretive  character.xiv         Controversies  surrounding  (d)  in  particular  –  i.e.,  what  constitutes  the   aesthetic,  expressive,  or  metaphorical  –  often  stem  from  the  fact  that  in   ordinary  discourse  there  are  descriptions  commonly  accepted  as  indefeasible   and,  indeed,  without  recourse  to  interpretation.    In  these  cases,  we  carry  over   into  the  interpretation  of  the  work  the  distinction  between  ready-­‐made,   indefeasible  descriptions  and  controversial  ones,  in  need  of  interpretation.       To  take  a  celebrated  example,  Lessing  and  Winkelmann  agree  that  Laöcoon’s   face  in  the  famous  sculpture  by  that  name  does  not  express  the  pain  that  one   would  expect  in  such  a  situation;  they  only  differ  on  why  the  expression  is   softened.xv    But  sometimes  even  descriptions  are  controversial  (is  Mona   Lisa’s  smile  a  smirk?  Is  the  woman  in  Vermeer’s  Woman  Holding  a  Balance   pregnant?  Is  the  Washington  Monument  a  building?    Is  the  Sissinghurst   Castle  Garden  an  example  of  an  English  garden,  a  French  garden,  or  both?).       The  controversy,  moreover,  need  not  be  about  the  fittingness  of  the   description  so  much  as  the  vagueness  or  ambiguity  of  the  terms  of  the   description.    For  example,  what  precisely  does  Coleridge  mean  when  he   speaks  of  “the  sense  of  sublimity”  that  arises  from  Hamlet’s  unhealthy,   constant  preoccupation  “with  the  world  within”?    Or  when  Iago  is  described   as  “motiveless  malignity”  (Coleridge),  “a  moral  pyromaniac”  (Harold   Goddard)  or  the  “ontotheologian”  of  evil  (Harold  Bloom)?  Or  consider  the   ironic  praise  given  to  “non-­‐post-­‐modern”  critics  for  being  “old  fashioned.”   There  are  no  shortage  of  such  examples  of  phrases  and  words  of   interpretation  that,  while  clearly  not  devoid  of  meaning,  cry  out  for   interpretation  themselves.xvi       In  all  the  cases  cited  in  the  last  two  paragraphs,  the  question  of  the   controversial  description  makes  sense  only  against  the  background  of  a   shared  acceptance  –  to  be  sure,  no  less  a  matter  of  interpretation  –  of  the   subject  and  the  terms  in  which  it  is  described.      Such  debates  about  the   interpretandum  at  these  different  levels  undermine  the  notion  of  a  true   interpretation  based  upon  appeals  to  correspondence.    Yet  they  also   demonstrate  that  considerations  of  truth  as  coherence  are  often,  indeed,  not   merely  germane  but  necessary  to  interpretation,  thereby  lending  support  to   QR.    For  even  if  truth  is  not  the  aim  of  interpretation  (and  there  is  no  reason   that  it  need  be),  the  interpretation  must  suppose  the  identity  of  the   interpretandum,  something  that  can  typically  be  ascertained  or  determined   through  canons  of  coherence.   3.2    The  interpretandum  as  effect   Particularly  where  we  do  not  immediately  understand  a  work  of  art  and  thus   recognize  the  possibility  of  misunderstanding  it,  nothing  would  seem  to   make  more  sense  than  to  ask  the  artist  why  she  created  it.    In  other  words,   we  look  to  an  artist’s  intentions  in  creating  a  work  to  determine  its  meaning.     Since  the  artist’s  intentions  are  plainly  external  to  the  critic’s,  the  appeal  to   the  artist’s  intention  introduces  an  element  of  objectivity  into  the   interpretation.      Assuming  the  parallel  of  this  non-­‐subjective  input  with  that   provided  by  the  sensory  experience  of  a  physical  object,  theorists  of   interpretation  have  repeatedly  argued  that  the  artist’s  intention  provides  a   criterion  for  true  interpretations  where,  indeed,  truth  is  a  matter  of   correspondence  with  a  state  of  affairs  (what  the  artist  or  writer  intends  or   intended).    In  other  words,  these  theorists  contend  that  the  path  to  a  true   interpretation  consists  in  considering  the  interpretandum  as  the  effect  of  its   creator  or,  in  other  words,  looking  to  the  fons  interpretandi,  the  conscious  or   unconscious  process  responsible  for  the  work.    If  this  cause  is  independent  of   the  effect  and  if  determination  of  this  cause  yields  the  true  interpretation,   then  this  strategy  amounts  to  a  denial  of  UR.   Yet  the  identification  of  a  work’s  meaning  with  its  creator’s  intentions   cannot  be  right  without  further  ado  since  the  work  can  mean  things  that  the   creator  did  not  mean.      A  work  has  more  than  one  meaning.    Moreover,  how   often  do  we  find  ourselves  trying  to  find  the  right  words  or  apologizing  that   what  we  said  was  not  what  we  meant?    The  problem  with  this  strategy,   however,  is  not  simply  the  fact  that  we  misspeak  or  that  what  we  said  fails  to   capture  what  we  meant.      After  all,  in  a  polished  work  in  contrast  to  everyday   discourse,  the  author  or  artist  may  present  the  work  to  the  public,  confident   that  the  work  expresses  her  intention.    But  even  if  we  acknowledge  that  the   work  is  precisely  what  its  creator  intended,  its  meaning  cannot  be  confined   to  that  relationship.    For  whenever  we  speak,  write,  or  otherwise  express   ourselves,  we  also  always  say,  write,  or  express  more  than  we  mean  because   the  saying,  writing,  and  expressing  –  however  carefully  crafted  –  say  more   than  we  can  thereby  intend.xvii      Meanings  proliferate  and,  with  them,  truths.   A  further,  practical  problem  with  this  strategy  is  the  issue  of  access  to   the  creator’s  intentions.      This  problem,  at  times  no  doubt  insurmountable,   lends  legitimacy  to  what  Wimsatt  and  Beardsley  dub  “the  intentional  fallacy.”   To  be  sure,  these  theorists  of  interpretation  plainly  overstate  matters  with   their  contention  that  “the  design  or  intention  of  the  author  is  neither   available  nor  desirable  as  a  standard  of  judging  the  success  of  a  work  of   literary  art.”xviii    While  a  work’s  meanings,  including  its  true  meanings,  are   not  reducible  to  its  creator’s  intentions,  a  work  depends  upon  a  creator,  its   meanings  depend  upon  its  creator’s  intentions,  and  those  intentions  may  be   relevant,  even  highly  relevant,  to  giving  a  true  interpretation  of  the  work.       For  example,  the  work  may  exhibit  personal  qualities  and  a  style  that  are   fully  understandable  only  by  consideration  of  the  artist  or  writer.xix     However,  incorporation  of  considerations  of  the  author’s  intentions  in   determining  a  true  interpretation  of  that  author’s  work  is  consistent  with  QR   (where,  of  course,  ‘artist’  may  substitute  for  ‘author’).    Indeed,  depending   upon  the  purposes  of  interpretation,  determination  of  those  intentions  may   be  not  simply  coherent  with  some  overriding  interpretation,  but  may   themselves  constitute  the  overriding  interpretation  itself.   3.3    The  interpretandum  as  cause   The  earlier  discussion  of  the  problems  surrounding  (d)  –  describing  the   interpretandum  in  aesthetic,  expressive,  or  metaphorical  terms  –  anticipates   some  of  the  problems  involved  in  identifying  a  true  interpretation  with  the   interpretandum’s  effect.      Bringing  a  distinctive  perspective  to  the   interpretandum,  each  critic  experiences  it  differently  and  may  describe  it  in   ways  that,  even  if  not  idiosyncratic,  demand  interpretation  in  turn.    In   practice,  to  be  sure,  a  critic  is  often  deemed  successful  for  having  the  knack  to   capture  elements  of  the  interpretandum  in  words  or  other  words  that   resonate  or  suitably  provoke  those  who  have  also  experienced  the   interpretandum.      But  this  mark  of  success  introduces  a  particular  problem   besetting  the  strategy  of  looking  to  the  interpretandum’s  effect  for  a  true   interpretation.    The  problem  can  be  expressed  in  a  single  question:  its  effect   on  whom?    Demographics,  it  turns  out,  are  not  irrelevant  to   understandability,  interpretation,  or  truth.xx    But  the  determination  of  whose   aesthetic  point  of  view  is  relevant  accords  with  the  conception  of  true   interpretation  outlined  in  QR.     So,  too,  the  emotional  impact  of  the  interpretandum,  insofar  as  it  is   shared,  conveyable,  and  even  further  shaped  by  an  interpretation,  can  indeed   be  central  to  the  task  that  the  interpreter  sets  for  herself.    But  whether   consideration  of  the  emotional  expression  of  a  work  is  central  to  the   overriding  interpretation  or  only  subsidiary  to  that  overriding  interpretation,   it  is  not  sufficient  by  itself.      In  order  to  capture  the  expressiveness  of  a  work,   an  interpretation  must  be  about  the  work  and  not  about  something  else.    In   other  words,  it  must  not  fail  to  sustain  the  identity  of  the  interpretandum  and   it  does  so  by  cohering  with  other  descriptions  of  it  (regardless  of  whether   these  are  indefeasible  or  not).    Herein  lies  the  basis  for  legitimate  complaints   against  the  so-­‐called  “affective  fallacy”  where  the  interpretation  confines   itself  to  describing  the  emotional  effect  of  a  work,  as  though  the  work  (as  the   cause  of  that  effect),  were  itself  superfluous.xxi    Yet  considerations  of  truth  in   the  sense  of  QR  can  certainly  be  applied  to  these  and  other  effects  of  a  work   (on  a  possible  audience,  viewership,  readership,  etc.).       Concluding  remarks   The  aim  of  the  foregoing  paper  has  been  to  outline  a  conception  of  the   relation  of  truth  and  interpretation  in  general  and  to  show  that  truth,  so   conceived  (namely,  in  the  form  of  the  coherence  of  interpretations)  serves  a   legitimate  and,  in  some  respects,  even  essential  function  in  interpretation.       This  conception  of  truth  and  interpretation  does  not  preclude  a  variety  of   aims  of  interpretation  but  suggests  how  the  truth  of  the  interpretation   remains  significant,  regardless  of  the  aim.    A  further  virtue  of  the  view   glossed  here  is  that  QR,  the  qualified  reduction  of  truth  to  interpretation,  is   compatible  with  taking  all  three  factors  of  interpretation  seriously  and,   indeed,  interactively.xxii       A  final  qualifying  remark  concerning  the  limitations  of  the  analysis   given  in  this  paper  is  in  order  here.    The  foregoing  meditation  on  the  relation   of  truth  and  interpretation  has  suggested  that  truth  as  correspondence  must   give  way  to  truth  as  coherence,  at  the  very  least  in  regard  to  the   interpretation  of  works.    There  is,  however,  a  third  way  of  understanding   truth,  namely,  in  terms  of  the  historical  ground  of  the  ways  that  the   interpretandum  presents  itself  to  and  absences  itself  from  the  interpreter.       Truth,  so  construed,  is  the  truth  of  an  interpretation  but  an  interpretation   that  (a)  concretely  supposes  untruth  and  errancy  and  (b)  cannot  be  reduced   to  any  single  one  of  the  factors  of  interpretation  (e.g.,  author,  work,   interpreter)  but  instead  involves  them  all  –  and  more.    This  way  of   understanding  truth,  inspired  by  Heidegger,  provides  a  necessary  corrective   to  a  potential  tendency  to  collapse  meanings  and  their  coherence  into   something  for  which  human  subjectivity  is  solely  responsible  or  into  some   ahistorical,  transcending  identity.    For  if  truth  is  a  matter  of  the  coherence  of   interpretations,  that  coherence  and  the  incoherence  it  supposes  are   grounded,  not  in  those  interpretations,  but  in  an  unfinished  history  of   interpretations.