Interpretation as Consistency
In his article, “Writer, Text, Work, Author”, Alexander Nehamas attempts to offer an alternative conception of interpretation. His version proposes that the aim of interpretation is not to uncover the meaning of a text, but to find consistency.
Nehamas claims that “…interpretation is the activity by means of which we try to construe movements and objects in the world around us as actions and their products”. Texts become actions and interpretation then becomes the business of explaining the relation between those actions in a consistent manner.
To aid in bringing about this consistency Nehamas introduces his notion of the 'author'. Nehamas makes a distinction between 'writer' and 'author': (1) Writers are historical persons who exist outside of their work in truth, that is, writers perform actions that do not pertain to their works, (2) The author figure emerges from the whole oeuvre; authors do not precede the work in truth, (3) The author is a “transcendental” figure that is neither identified with the writer nor composed wholly in a work. As a result of this distinction, all of the actions that are literary works, that can form part of the oeuvre are attributed exclusively to the author figure.
The picture of interpretation Nehamas presents is one of an un-ending process. He calls it a “broadening, extensive process”. The idea is that more and more information is used to shed light on some particular act or set of actions. Thus, as time continues on, we get more and more material with which to further our interpretation. Furthermore, interpretation is about establishing what the work is. “The most we can assume in interpreting a text is that it constitutes a work, not that we know what that work is.”
My problem with his view is that it seems to lose the work. If interpretation is an on-going effort to establish what the work is, we don’t ever appear to arrive at something we can appreciate. Furthermore, we attribute value to works, but if Nehamas’ conception of interpretation is correct, we can never be sure of the features a work possesses and hence cannot assign value to the work in light of those features.
Nehamas claims that “…interpretation is the activity by means of which we try to construe movements and objects in the world around us as actions and their products”. Texts become actions and interpretation then becomes the business of explaining the relation between those actions in a consistent manner.
To aid in bringing about this consistency Nehamas introduces his notion of the 'author'. Nehamas makes a distinction between 'writer' and 'author': (1) Writers are historical persons who exist outside of their work in truth, that is, writers perform actions that do not pertain to their works, (2) The author figure emerges from the whole oeuvre; authors do not precede the work in truth, (3) The author is a “transcendental” figure that is neither identified with the writer nor composed wholly in a work. As a result of this distinction, all of the actions that are literary works, that can form part of the oeuvre are attributed exclusively to the author figure.
The picture of interpretation Nehamas presents is one of an un-ending process. He calls it a “broadening, extensive process”. The idea is that more and more information is used to shed light on some particular act or set of actions. Thus, as time continues on, we get more and more material with which to further our interpretation. Furthermore, interpretation is about establishing what the work is. “The most we can assume in interpreting a text is that it constitutes a work, not that we know what that work is.”
My problem with his view is that it seems to lose the work. If interpretation is an on-going effort to establish what the work is, we don’t ever appear to arrive at something we can appreciate. Furthermore, we attribute value to works, but if Nehamas’ conception of interpretation is correct, we can never be sure of the features a work possesses and hence cannot assign value to the work in light of those features.
posted by luvell anderson at 9:12 PM
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