On Habits of Interpretation

A Philosophical Happy Hour on Obstinate Views and the Discovery of Meaning

Does it feel sometimes as though the reality you inhabit is not shared with others?  A recent Benedictine College commencement speech deemed controversial may well illustrate the point: some saw in these comments (particularly those beginning at 11:49) a demand that women “get back in the kitchen” and that they should be “barefoot and pregnant”, that they do not belong outside the home—and so on.  As others have noted, no such statement is made, nor is the speaker addressing all women (even all women in the United States), but, rather, specifically the young women in the crowd.  The whole speech is easily seen, but even excerpts cannot make it seem as bad as claimed, given the facts.

How can the outrage continue, when the evidence of what was said is simply there, for all to see?  It seems, prima facie, that the context ought to evaporate any misunderstanding, and thereby dispel the anger.  Contrariwise, however, those who are outraged cannot seem to understand why others are not.

Can the two perspectives be reconciled?  Is either side in the grasp of an ideology?[1]  Are both?  Must we shrug ourselves into relativism?

Paradigms of Interpretation

“That’s your interpretation.”  There is a good chance that, if ever you have verbally disagreed with someone in your life, you have heard this assertion.  Within its three words, much more is said.  Simultaneously it signifies: “it is not my interpretation”; “it is not absolutely true”; and probably, “it is [at least somewhat] wrong”.  Behind these, however, it says even more, which “more” seldom surfaces in the course of such a disagreement.  Often implied in our modern disputes, that is, are beliefs that everyone has a right to form and hold an interpretation, a right to express it, and a right to ignore the interpretations of others.

This, I would like to suggest, is a profoundly inhuman way of thinking.  It is not a matter of rights to form and hold interpretations.  One does this simply as being human.  If you think, you think by interpretation.  Even the simplest presentations of “fact” must be interpreted—and can be interpreted quite differently, depending upon how differently different people think.

But what causes these difference of interpretation?  And are there superior or inferior ways—modes, methods, approaches, habits—of interpretation or of forming the paradigms through which we interpret the world?

Obstinate “Objectivity”

One area to explore is the belief in “objectivity”.  That is, what often we find relegated to the realm of “mere” interpretation are those truths which cannot be empirically or “scientifically” investigated.  But very few things, it seems, are so simple as not to brook potential disagreement—so simple and clear that interpretations cannot diverge.  Even more poignantly, nothing ever is encountered that does not have relations to other aspects of existence.  In consequence, even the simplest and most straightforward of facts finds itself entangled almost inevitably in an interpretive context.

Put otherwise, if we relegate all matters of interpretation to a “subjectivity”, contradistinguished against the “objective”—where “cold, hard truth” resides—and yet find that “objective” realm largely empty, we find ourselves largely devoid of the possibility for agreement.

Forming Better Habits

Rather, as we would like to explore in our conversation: are there better ways to form habits of interpreting the world?  What is interpretation at its fundamental level?  What role does language play in the formation of interpretations?  Come join us and offer your insights or just listen!

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[1] Zizek 1989: The Sublime Object of Ideology, 49: “An ideology is really ‘holding us’ only when we do not feel any opposition between it and reality – that is, when the ideology succeeds in determining the mode of our everyday experience of reality itself.”