Varieties of Interpretation

Abstract

As rational agents , our understanding of the world and of ourselves is predominantly a result of some interpretive activity directed on some object of interpretation . We interpret vagaries of nature, traffic signals, musical scores and performances, visual arts, speeches and writings, smiles and tears, gestures and attitudes, practices and symbols, aches and twinges, and so forth. It is hard to expect that we can discern, if at all, some general pattern in these activities. In the meantime, it is natural to settle for some version of what may be called pluralism , the idea that human interpretive practices differ as interpreters and objects of those practices differ. What is the extent of pluralism? Can we say that, even if there is no general account of interpretations , there are certain interpretive strategies that enable us to distinguish between, say, cultural and non-cultural entities? Two of these strategies are singularism, where one interpretation emerges as the right one, and multiplism, where several interpretations obtain at the same time. It is said that the so-called cultural entities display both the strategies. I will argue that the notion of interpretation varies so much even across cultural entities such as literature , painting, and especially music that it is implausible that unitary notions of interpretive strategies may be detected across cultural entities.

The messy matter of human life should not be distorted to fit the demands of an excessively simple theory.

Hilary Putnam

This is a revised version of a paper published as Mukherji (2003).