hermeneutics and intellectual history

Hermeneutics and Intellectual HistoryAuthor(s): Laurent SternSource: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 46, No. 2 (Apr. - Jun., 1985), pp. 287-296Published by: University of Pennsylvania PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2709640 .

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HERMENEUTICS AND INTELLECTUAL HISTORY

BY LAURENT STERN

Theories of interpretation have inherited the Kantian form of the distinction between what is found in experiencing the world and what is contributed in making these experiences intelligible. In the Kantian tradition our a priori concepts make the manifold of our intuitions intelligible. According to theories of interpretation, interpretations are offered in terms of concepts that interpreters contribute to a given text. These concepts depend on the interpreters' conceptual frameworks and they are not part of the texts that are interpreted. Two theories of interpretation will be discussed. Examples of the application of these theories in intellectual history will be provided by the work of Michel Foucault and Jiirgen Habermas.

I. "Every interpretation"-wrote Wittgenstein-"together with what is being interpreted, hangs in the air; the former cannot give the latter any support. Interpretations by themselves do not determine meaning."1 But if interpretations do not determine the meaning of a text, how can we determine its meaning? The answer has three parts, but only the first part is uncontroversial:

(1) The meaning of what another person said or what is written in a given text does not explain our understanding of what has been said or written. Unless "meaning" is used as a technical term, understanding the meaning of a word, a sentence or a text is the same as understanding that word, sentence, or text.

(2) The conventions of language use, and the shared practices associated with such use determine, what is said in a given text. Speakers or writers rely on these conventions and practices in communicating with their audiences, and rely on these conventions, even when expressing unconventional or idiosyncratic beliefs.

(3) The beliefs we attribute to a speaker or writer and what we take his words to mean are interdependent. To the extent that the choice between belief and meaning is underdetermined by the available evidence, there are no facts about which we can be right or wrong in determining the meaning of what was said or written.2 Reasons can support or defeat a given choice in attributing meaning to a text and belief to its author. However, since every choice is underdetermined by the available evidence, there cannot be a theory decisively supporting one choice rather than another.

Some of these claims are not restricted to a given philosophical tradition. Heidegger3 agrees that meaning (Sinn) is not a property attached to anything;

1 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, translated by G. E. M. Anscombe

(New York, 1953), paragraph 198. 2 This is one way of understanding Quine's thesis of the indeterminacy of translation.

See Donald Davidson, Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (Oxford, 1984), Essay 9

("Radical Interpretation") and Essay 10 ("Belief and the Basis of Meaning"). See also

Dagfinn Fjllesdal, "The Status of Rationality Assumptions in Interpretation and in the

Explanation of Action," Dialectica (1982), 36, 302-316. 3 Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit (Halle, 1927), 151.

287

Copyright April 1985 by JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS, INC.



288 LAURENT STERN

it is neither 'behind' anything nor freely floating anywhere. Meaning is not the object of understanding, rather it is what can be articulated in understanding.4 But he would claim that the meaning of a text is determined by interpretations. Both Heidegger and Wittgenstein discuss their theories of interpretation in the context of the '.. . as' locution, but their views are opposed. Wittgenstein5 aims at a distinction between 'seeing' and 'seeing as' and restricts interpretations to cases of seeing as; Heidegger6 defends the wide claim that all cases of under-

standing are cases of understanding as and all cases of seeing are cases of seeing as. These contrasting views generate either a restricted theory of interpretation, aiming at a careful distinction between interpreting and understanding or an 'oceanic'7 theory of interpretation, advancing the claim that the understanding of every text or utterance requires interpretation.

II. According to restricted theories of interpretation, if interpreting were a

precondition for understanding, the interpreting activity would be unintelligible: understanding an interpretation would require another interpretation which would invite further interpretation in an endless regression of successive inter-

pretations. Although every utterance or text can be interpreted, interpretation is not a necessary condition for understanding. Some texts can be understood without interpretation: what is obvious for a given audience need not be inter-

preted for that audience. The need for an interpretation arises when background conditions or assumptions required for the understanding of a given text are no

longer available for a potential audience of that text.

One purpose of interpreting is to make available for the reader's use what was previously not understood or only partially understood. What was alien becomes naturalized, what was unfamiliar becomes domesticated. In interpreting for a given audience, we invite the understanding of a text as a text in a new and different context that we propose. The assumptions and background conditions that we assign to that text are part of the new context. We invite the

understanding of that text as we interpret it. But familiarity with the assumptions and background conditions that we assign to a given text only provides a satisfactory resting place from the viewpoint of the reader's needs, desires, expectations, and beliefs. A change in the reader's viewpoint may require a

reinterpretation of that text.

The purpose of such reinterpretation is the displacement of what is familiar in favor of understanding a text in a new light that is in accordance with readers' beliefs. However, interpreting or reinterpreting does not have a theoretically satisfactory terminal point that is independent of readers' beliefs and desires. "What happens is not"-according to Wittgenstein-"that this symbol cannot

4 Ibid., "Verstanden aber ist... nicht der Sinn, sondern das Seiende, bzw. das Sein. Sinn ist das worin sich Verstdndlichkeit von etwas halt. Was im verstehenden Erschliessen artikulierbar ist, nennen wir Sinn."

5 Wittgenstein, op. cit., Section xi.

6 Heidegger, op. cit., Sections 32 and 33. 7 Theories that conflate interpreting with other activities, e.g., reading or translating,

have been called by my friend and former colleague, John R. Moulton, "oceanic theories."



HERMENEUTICS AND INTELLECTUAL HISTORY 289

be further interpreted, but I do no interpreting. I do not interpret, because I feel at home in the present picture."8

III. Restricted theories of interpretation show their superior power in Michel Foucault's analysis of discourse about social practices and institutions. Social scientists will admit that these practices and institutions are results of a historical development and that we learn about them by pursuing three different lines of investigation. What were the acknowledged beliefs and overt intentions of those who promoted these practices? Understanding what they said or wrote will answer these questions. What were their beliefs and intentions that they could not or would not fully articulate? Methods of deep interpretation-Marxist or psychoanalytic methods are good examples-offer to assist in answering these questions. Finally, what caused the emergence of these practices and institutions? Theories about social change offer explanations concerning these problems.

Detailed discussions of Foucault's work will account for important differences between his early, middle, and late work.9 These differences do not affect matters that are important here. He achieved his results by relying primarily on an investigation of the overt and admitted intentions and beliefs of the promoters of social practices. He was not concerned with deep interpretation or traditional social theories. Traditionally, deep interpretation aims to uncover what is implied or intimated in speech or writing in support of a given social practice or institution. Such methods aim to disclose unavowed interests and to reveal hidden truths about social groups or individuals. Expected secondary benefits of these methods are emancipation from oppression or liberation from repression. According to Foucault, these methods are deficient on both counts: they neither achieve their goals nor do they bring about their expected benefits.

Instead of deep interpretation, Foucault urged the investigation of the acknowledged intentions and beliefs of the promoters of social practices. Such investigation reveals the connection between power relations and knowledge, provided that a number of methodological precautions are observed:'1 (1) concern with local or regional rather than central forms of power; (2) focus on the direct

application of power; (3) understanding of individuals or social groups as prod- ucts of power rather than as holders of power; (4) analysis in an ascending order from the everyday and local forms to the more centralized forms of power; (5) examination of knowledge as a product of the exercise of power. These methodological precautions permit and facilitate our understanding of the historical forms of the connection between power and knowledge. Where power is directly applied in everyday and local contexts, the connections between power and knowledge can be observed and we need not resort to deep interpretation. The advantage gained cannot be overestimated.

Deep interpretation can be validated only by reference to a theory. The theory, in turn, is validated by results reached with the help of the same method of deep interpretation that the theory is expected to validate. We are turning

8 Wittgenstein, Zettel, ed. G. E. M. Anscombe and G. H. von Wright, translated by

G. E. M. Anscombe (Oxford, 1967), paragraph 234. 9 For an account of Foucault's work see Hubert L. Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow, Michel

Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics (2nd ed., Chicago, 1983). 'o Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-

1977, ed. Colin Gordon (New York, 1980), 96-102.



290 LAURENT STERN

around in a circle. This may not be a sufficient reason for our rejection of deep interpretations together with their validating theories. However, they do not explain a wide variety of phenomena nor do they provide for emancipation from oppression. One of Foucault's examples may be helpful here." How can we understand the repression since the sixteenth or seventeenth century of infantile sexuality? Methods of deep interpretation advert to the dominance of a social class for whom forms of expenditures that do not lend themselves to the con- stitution of productive forces are condemned and repressed. But this explanation is vacuous: the dominance of the same social class could also explain encour- agement of sexual precociousness, for this would result in a large and rapidly expanding labor force. Although deep interpretation may bring about a change in the subject's self-understanding, this change could at the same time establish the exercise of a more devious form of power rather than an attenuation of prohibitions.12 Self-understanding achieved with the help of an external authority figure-the confessor or the psychoanalyst-does not guarantee liberation from repression or emancipation from oppression.

Foucault was primarily a historian. A restricted theory of interpretation determined the scope of his concerns. He provided understanding of acknowledged intentions and beliefs of promoters of social practices independently of what he established concerning the prevalent connection between knowledge and power relations. In establishing that connection, he offered an interpretation of social practices and institutions. But the understanding of the overt beliefs and avowed intentions that he provided is independent of that interpretation.

IV. According to 'oceanic' theories, our understanding of a text is determined exclusively by our interpretation. Such theories are either circular or self- defeating. They are circular in a wider sense than deep interpretations. The charge of circularity is raised in connection with the problem of the hermeneutic circle: understanding a symbol depends on understanding a larger unit, which in turn requires understanding its constituent symbols. Within this circle interpretations become self-validating. Each interpretation creates the facts13 it wants to explain; we can no longer speak about conflicting interpretations of one and the same text; finally, we can no longer distinguish between interpretations and what they are interpretations of.

Second, it can be argued that such theories are self-defeating. Since we understand at least some interpretations without further interpretation, understanding an interpretation cannot require a never ending chain of further interpretations. Even charges of duplicity have been raised against proponents of 'oceanic' theories.14 Interpreters rely on their readers' understanding of what they have written within the constraints of the conventions of language use. At the same time their interpretations defeat even these ordinarily accepted constraints, on the grounds that interpreting without prior constraints is a precondition of understanding. Accordingly, proponents of 'oceanic' theories claim a

" Foucault, op. cit., 100. 12 Foucault, Histoire de la sexualitY, 3 vols. (Paris, 1976-1983), I, 19. 13 For examples, see Arthur C. Danto, The Transfiguration of the Commonplace

(Cambridge, 1981), 115-135. 14 This is one way of putting M. H. Abrams' charge against 'deconstructive' critics.

See "The Deconstructive Angel," Critical Inquiry (1977), 3, 3.




privilege for their own texts that they are unwilling to extend to texts written by others. The conventions of language use and the shared practices associated with such use provide for the understanding of their texts, yet they deny such understanding to texts written by others.

V. Jiirgen Habermas advocates a restricted theory of interpretation.15 How- ever, his practice of interpretation presents us with a choice typical of 'oceanic' theories. Theories in the social sciences are ordinarily supported by the claim that they offer an adequate understanding of social practices or a better understanding of these practices than provided by rival theories. The same body of evidence supports theories and their metatheoretical justifications. In Habermas's work metatheoretical considerations become discontinuous with both the theories and the empirical evidence supporting them. Metatheories that are restricted to the examination of conceptual matters in a given discipline or to the discussion of the internal coherency of a theory in that discipline can make valuable contributions. Writings in the philosophy of physics or the philosophy of history are examples of such contributions. But Habermas's metatheoretical discussions are not restricted to matters of internal coherency or conceptual issues.

In introducing his major work Habermas disputes the claim that he offers a metatheory: "The theory of communicative action is not a metatheory but the beginning of a social theory concerned to validate its own critical standards."16 However, since he does not provide empirical evidence in support of a social theory, readers must disregard this claim and ask: How does he support his views? He does not present them directly. They are offered as improvements on theories in the social sciences that rely on empirical evidence or as corrections to philosophical views that discuss conceptual issues. His major writings can be understood as reconstructions of various theories in the social sciences. In his view, the reconstruction of a theory is equivalent to its decomposition and reconstitution for the purpose of achieving its goal. His reconstruction of psychoanalysis and historical materialism follow the same pattern. He accuses both Marx17 and Freud18 of mistaken self-understanding. Both considered their own contributions as contributions to an empirical science. If we reject their "scien- tistic self-misunderstanding," their insights become available for a critical social theory that is guided by concern for human autonomy, emancipation from

oppression, and liberation from repression. However, if we reject the self-understanding of Marx and Freud, we must

also reject their fundamental claims. According to Marx, relations of production are causally determined by forces of production. Relations of production are

explained by forces of production and not the other way around.19 In Habermas's reconstruction, new productive forces can also be explained by the evolution of

5 Jiirgen Habermas, Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns, 2 vols., (Frankfurt, 1981), I, 189-96, translated by Thomas McCarthy, The Theory of Communicative Action (Boston, 1984), I, 131-36.

16 Habermas, op. cit., English translation, I, xxxix. 17 Habermas, Knowledge and Human Interest, translated by Jeremy J. Shapiro (Boston,

1968), 45-46. 18 Ibid., 252. '9 For the most thorough discussion of this point see G. A. Cohen, Karl Marx's

Theory of History (Princeton, 1978), Chap. VI, esp. 172-74.



292 LAURENT STERN

productive relations.20 According to Freud, neurotic disorders are causally determined by repression. In Habermas's reconstruction successful therapy terminates not only the pathological effect, but affects the causality of the unconscious: "Psychoanalytic therapy is not based, like somatic medicine, which is 'causal' in the narrower sense, on making use of known causal connections. Rather, it owes its efficacy to overcoming causal connections themselves."21

It has been argued against Habermas that if successful therapy terminates the pathological effect, causal connections are exploited rather than overcome.22 Confronted with interpretive claims that seem obviously incompatible with the texts, we must decide between two alternatives. Should we reject these reconstructions of historical materialism or psychoanalysis as obviously false or incoherent? Or, should we defend them as radical reinterpretations of the work of Marx and Freud, analogous to the fundamental reinterpretations of Homer and the Old Testament, when they were first declared to have allegorical rather than literal significance? The second alternative is available only if the following conditions are satisfied: (1) a given interpretation attributes claims to a text that are in the view of its naive or conservative readers not only false, but obviously false; (2) the interpretation assigns a meaning to the fundamental claims of that text that is wholly dependent on the interpretation proposed; (3) this non-literal

interpretation is offered in defense of the 'spirit' of that text. If these conditions are satisfied and there is evidence of institutional sanctions23 for a given non- literal interpretation, we may be confronted by an application of an 'oceanic' theory of interpretation.

The disagreement among Habermas's readers need not be decided here. Some argue that his claims about major texts of Marx and Freud are false or incoherent. Others suggest that the goals of historical materialism and psychoanalysis are well served by his radical reinterpretation. We may reject his interpretations and we may even reject other applications of 'oceanic' theories. Wherever such theories are applied, the resulting interpretations appear incompatible with the texts that are interpreted. But not all applications of 'oceanic' theories should be rejected. Their indiscriminate rejection implies not only wide support for conservative or naive readings of texts but also legislates the exclusion of non-literal interpretations that are not defended by such readings.

VI. Restricted theories distinguish between meaning and interpretation. Ac- cording to these theories, interpretation occurs ordinarily in addition to our understanding a given text. The conventions of linguistic usage and the practices associated with such usage determine the understanding shared by writers and readers of texts. This understanding constitutes the stable meaning of texts. Given such stable meaning, we take a further step in interpreting: we invite our audience's understanding a given text as a text within a new context. Conflict among interpretations is intelligible against the background of a stable meaning. Also, a shared understanding is considered primarily a precondition rather than a result of interpretation.

20 David Held, Introduction to Critical Theory (Berkeley, 1980), 270. 21 Habermas, Knowledge and Human Interests, 271. 22 Adolf Griinbaum, The Foundations ofPsychoanalysis (Berkeley, 1984), 12. 23 See my "On Interpreting," The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism (1980), 39,

126-28.




Restricted theories cannot be supported by a knockdown argument, although they offer solutions to problems where 'oceanic' theories fail. Since according to restricted theories the choice between beliefs we attribute to a writer and what we take him to mean by his words are interdependent and every choice is underdetermined by the available evidence, no theory can support one choice rather than another and no reason can eliminate all but one choice. A given choice may be supported by the best available reasons, but even that choice will be beyond the edge of certainty. If certainty about our assignment of meaning and belief could be claimed then the precondition for interpreting could be established. The advantage of restricted theories is impaired by the joint assertion of the following three claims: (1) meaning and interpretation are distinguishable; (2) a stable meaning is a precondition of interpreting; (3) however, it is impossible to know whether an interpretation is made against the background of a stable meaning, since the meaning of a text cannot be assigned with certainty. Ac- cordingly, restricted theories do not clearly prevail over 'oceanic' theories.

Since 'oceanic' theories do not distinguish between meaning and interpretation, the predicament of restricted theories cannot arise. But interpreters obtain this extrication at the price of entanglement in a worse predicament. Since the constraints on both the meaning assigned to a given text and its interpretation are provided only by the interpreter's convictions and powers of persuasion, interpreters rather than what is being interpreted become the focus of attention.24 In the Kantian tradition objects given in experience must conform to the cat- egories of the understanding. 'Oceanic' theories urge another Copernican turn: texts must conform to the interpreter's understanding. Constraints on interpretation are provided only by interpreters and institutions controlling interpretation.25 Texts do not provide such constraints.

VII. Interpreting is prompted by the need to understand a text or to understand it more completely or differently. The concepts used in understanding it are part of one's conceptual framework. The discontinuation of interpreting is dependent on one's beliefs and desires. Accordingly, the constraints on interpreting are provided by interpreters rather than by what is being interpreted. Within very wide limits texts can be made compatible with interpretations. As the history of interpretations of the Old and New Testaments or of Homer shows, interpretive claims need not be discredited even when they appear to be inconsistent with the texts they are interpreting. Apparent inconsistencies between interpretation and text can be explained or explained away by claiming that the text has a non-literal significance: it is a work of irony, it is an allegory, or it contains metaphorical expressions.

In practice interpretation provides more constraints than either restricted or 'oceanic' theories suggest. Ordinarily it is taken for granted that interpreters

24 See for example, Stanley Fish, Is There a Text in This Class? (Cambridge, 1980), 180: "My fiction is liberating. It relieves me of the obligation to be right (a standard that simply drops out) and demands only that I be interesting (a standard that can be met without any reference at all to any illusory objectivity). Rather than restoring or recovering texts, I am in the business of making texts and of teaching others to make them...." Fish later repudiated this claim; see 174.

25 Frank Kermode, The Genesis of Secrecy (Cambridge, 1979) and "Institutional Control of Interpretation," Salmagundi, 43 (Winter, 1979).



294 LAURENT STERN

uncover rather than produce the texts that they interpret. Also, their interpretations are discredited if it can be proven that they are merely reading into a text what they establish by hindsight and what could not be available to the author of that text. Finally, interpreting has a precondition: if none of the

assumptions, beliefs, and background conditions that permit understanding a

given text are available, interpreters must at least assume that what they are

interpreting contains or indicates a somewhat consistent and at least partially true set of beliefs.26 In practice this requirement will be adjusted to account for stories, jokes, lies, irony, and parts of speech that are not ordinarily understood as either true or false. It will be further adjusted to account for symbolical, metaphorical, allegorical, and even unsound expressions of quite rational human needs, emotions, desires, wishes, hopes, or fears. Interpretations originate within the interpreters' perspectives. Their perspectives are limited by their assumptions about what is reasonable and by their beliefs about the world in which they live. If this precondition of interpreting is not satisfied and interpreters cannot assume that the texts they confront are by their own standards at least partially consistent and contain or indicate some beliefs they can share, they may be able to recite what is written in these texts, but they can neither understand nor interpret them.

However, if the precondition of interpreting is satisfied and all available evidence has been accounted for, interpreters must adapt their concepts to the texts they confront in order to make sense out of these texts. The discovery of the available evidence and the contribution of concepts accommodated to a given text lead to interpretations that can at least compete with rival alternatives. But no alternative interpretation can provide the interpreter with a determinate sense of a text that is independent of the interpreter's perspective and conceptual framework.

Although they are not sharply separated, discovery and invention both play a role in interpreting. We may find evidence pointing to the use of language, the background conditions, and the assumptions of a given author's text. Sup- porters of intentionalist doctrines may even discover authorial intentions,27 but the interpreter contributes the concepts used in understanding ancient texts. Chroniclers of the eleventh century may have written about the death of kings, battles, miracles, or the plague.28 Later historians use these chronicles and many other available documents in order to find evidence about class struggle, life style, social mobility, or conspicuous consumption. These concepts of a later vintage might well have been incomprehensible to eleventh-century chroniclers or their contemporaries, for the interpreter's understanding is part of a conceptual framework certainly not waiting to be discovered among the data of a given subject matter. At best, these concepts fit the facts within that subject matter.

Interpretations are admitted among the viable alternatives on the strength of the discovered evidence. Unless the connection between an interpretation and what it is the interpretation of can be established, interpretations made up in the absence of or contrary to the evidence are rejected. For it can be argued

26 Davidson, op. cit., 137. 27 E.g., P. D. Juhl, Interpretation: An Essay in Literary Criticism (Princeton, 1980). 28 Paul Veyne, "L'histoire conceptualisant," in Faire de l'histoire, ed. Jacques Le Goff

and Pierre Nora, 3 Vols. (Paris, 1974), I, 67.




that the interpreter merely reads his interpretation by hindsight into the text, he projects his own views onto the text and he does not offer an interpretation. Also, what is communicated in that text is obscured and what is written is merely used as grist for the interpreter's mill. Since the interpreter's contribution is not connected with the evidence that can be discovered among the data of a given subject matter, such interpretations do not prevail against available alternatives.

VIII. Since the practice of interpreting provides more constraints than restricted or 'oceanic' theories, it would be futile to expect support for interpretive decisions from these theories. A given interpretive decision may be an application of both theories, and incompatible interpretive decisions may be applications of just one theory. For example, both restricted and 'oceanic' theories may be applied in offering the same allegorical interpretation to a given text and incompatible literal interpretations may depend on different applications of just one theory. However, both theories rule out some claims advanced on behalf of interpretive decisions. For example, interpretations are often said to "bring out" the meaning of a given text, but such claims cannot be defended, according to restricted theories. For if an interpreter merely gave the meaning of a text, no interpretation took place and if interpreting did occur, he did more than draw attention to the understanding shared by the writer and readers of that text. However, since successful interpretations are unobtrusive,29 we are occasionally mistaken in claiming that interpreting did not occur. Also, acceptance of an interpretation is often solicited under the pretense that it merely states what is meant in a given text.

Neither restricted nor 'oceanic' theories support the claim that interpretations can be true or false. They can be felicitous and pertinent or infelicitous and irrelevant for a predetermined purpose, but they cannot be right or wrong independently of any purpose. True presuppositions may guide an interpretation and factual claims may result from it. However, if interpretations could also be true, the difference between descriptions and interpretations would be obliterated. In claiming that an interpretation is felicitous, we endorse that interpretation; our endorsement implies that we share the interpreter's predetermined purpose and viewpoint for interpreting. But endorsement and approval, even if unqual- ified, do not yield the claim that what is endorsed is true. This can be seen by contrast to true presuppositions and consequences; we are not merely endorsing them, we are claiming that they correspond to facts and their truth is independent of predetermined purposes or viewpoints.

What we find in a given text imposes limits but does not determine with finality any interpretation. Since the interpreter's perspective and conceptual framework cannot be ignored, the validity or likelihood of his interpretations cannot be demonstrated to the satisfaction of those who do not share that perspective. Also, whether we interpret to naturalize what was previously alien or reinterpret to displace the familiar, we cannot postulate a background of shared assumptions and beliefs between interpreters and authors of texts. In the absence of such shared assumptions, interpreters face a problem Herodotus once faced. According to Herodotus, if we match Egyptian and Greek mythology,

29 Hans-Georg Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode (Tibingen, 1960), 375-376.



296 LAURENT STERN

Isis is Demeter, Osiris is Dionysus, Horus is Apollo, and Bubastis is Artemis.30 Egyptians and Greeks have different conceptions of their gods, but the gods worshipped under different names are the same everywhere. But Herodotus could not reconcile the Greek conception of Heracles with his knowledge of Egyptian customs and with his assumptions about human nature. He solved the problem by suggesting that there were two Heracleses: a god and a demigod. Depending on their assumptions and beliefs about their own world, interpreters must decide: Are the objects and concepts of their own world, understood differently, referred to in a text that is interpreted? Or, are the conceptions of these objects and concepts so incompatible with the interpreters' assumptions and beliefs that the references are to objects or concepts that are alien to the interpreters' world?

Interpreters confronted with texts that originated in historically remote times or in geographically faraway places may ascribe their own beliefs to the authors of these texts, or they may assign them beliefs they consider reasonable. They will then understand or infer what is written in accordance with the attributed beliefs. On the other hand, based on their understanding of the constituent parts of a given text, they may offer an account of what is written and infer the authors' relevant beliefs-no matter how bizarre they are. This option has been discouraged by maxims of interpretive charity, urged at least since Vico: beliefs in alien cultures must be understood so that they come out to be reasonable in the context of what members of these cultures have been taught and what they experienced. As a result of the interpreters' predominant choice, they can be accused of ignoring the diversity of beliefs in alien cultures or of disregarding what they share with these alien cultures.

Even after the discovery of all the available evidence and the exclusion of unacceptable interpretations that are consistent with the evidence, there is no reason to believe that we shall have eliminated all but one interpretation. Since interpreters cannot demonstrate the validity of their interpretations to the sat- isfactions of those who do not share their conceptual frameworks, dogmatic claims on behalf of an accepted interpretation are undermined. Among those who share a common perspective and conceptual framework, a given interpretation is accepted as reasonable on the strength of the discovered evidence. However, the constraints that rule out as unacceptable some interpretations determine that not every interpretation is given equal hearing. Specifically, interpretations that challenge all our beliefs will not be given a hearing. Since it is a precondition of interpreting that what we interpret must be at least partially consistent and contain or indicate beliefs that we can share, we cannot interpret or understand interpretations that challenge all our beliefs. Self-defeating forms of skepticism and relativism are thereby effectively repudiated.31

Rutgers University.

30 Herodotus, II, 43-45, 59, 144, 156. 31 See also Joseph Margolis, "The Nature and Strategies of Relativism," Mind (1983),

92, 548-67.



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