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288 18 What Is the Ethics of Interpretation? Pol Vandevelde In this essay I attempt to draw some of the implications of the difference between “interpreting better” and “interpreting differently,” and I characterize these implications as leading to an ethics of interpretation or a politics of interpretation. The dispute over whether an interpretation may be accorded the status of better as opposed to merely “different” has been at the center of interpretation theory, especially since the rise of Romantic hermeneutics. This dispute revolves around the question of whether the text to be interpreted exerts constraints on the interpreter of such a nature that a “should” or an “ought” marks the interpretative enterprise, thus imposing on it an ethical character. If the constraints do not reach such a level, it follows that the decisions interpreters make are simply a matter of debate, options, and choices that are determined within the interpretation community, and these issues are part of the politics of interpretation. In the present essay I will focus only on the interpretation of texts, although what I say also applies with some modifications to other objects of interpretation. In order to schematize the issue, one might imagine the opposition between a vertical and a horizontal axis. Along the vertical axis, interpretation unfolds from a starting point that is not itself an interpretation, like an original that has to be rendered or to which justice is to be done. The vertical axis thus manifests a transcendent dimension, making it the case that interpretation is not self-grounding and self-justifying. Alternatively , along a horizontal axis interpretation moves laterally, linking to a previous text that is only its pre-text, both as its chronological precedent and its motivation. The horizontal axis points to the autonomy of interpretation , so that the object to be interpreted is identified from within the interpretive framework.1 What complicates the schema is the existence of another paradigm that overlaps with the vertical and horizontal schema: interpretation as dialogue or as text. The former model has been dominant for ages, al- 289 W H A T I S T H E E T H I C S O F I N T E R P R E T A T I O N ? most passing for self-evident. It has become part of common sense that, when we interpret a text or a document, we try to recover what was meant. Now, if there is something meant, there was a meaner, someone with whom I could in principle, even if only virtually, enter into a dialogue . The second model of the text became a plausible candidate after the role of language or signs in general became recognized as at the core of any thought, intention, or belief. If indeed I need words or signs to articulate my own thoughts, I appeal to a semiotic system that minimally exceeds what I can intend. For, while I can claim to own my beliefs and intentional states, I do not intend my words or my language and certainly not all the oppositions, connotations, long-gone metaphors, and etymological prejudices that have accrued to these words and to this language in general. If interpretation unfolds along the model of a dialogue, the vertical dimension of going back to what was meant takes place within a diachronic framework, and the ethical aspect consists in a debt the interpreter has not just to a text but to a person, singular or plural. Such a model may also entail the imperative that we develop a sensitivity to, and thereby learn to recognize and acknowledge the claims that a work makes on us. By contrast, if interpretation unfolds along the model of the text, the horizontal dimension of linking to a text takes place within a synchronic framework, and the ethical aspect weakens significantly into a debate with fellow readers and interpreters, so that only the ethos of practitioners remains relevant. In what follows I will use the term “ethics ” for the stronger dialogical attitude of being in debt or accountable to someone, and use “politics” when it is only a matter of debate among interpreters, even if their ethos is very much involved. In order to flesh out the debate and refrain from being too schematic , I appeal to three figures: Hans-Georg Gadamer, Jacques Derrida, and Friedrich Schlegel. These figures will help illustrate the different paradigmatic oppositions between ethics and politics, interpreting better and interpreting differently, and interpreting as dialogue and as writing another...

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