Interpretation: Ways of Thinking about the Sciences and the Arts

Preface

vii Preface Interpretation is an activity that cuts across the arts and sciences. Its ubiquity served as the motivation for making this colloquium all about interpretation. We sought to cover many aspects and domains in which interpretive practices were found. So the essays collected here deal with the general nature of interpretation, with contrast or not between interpretation and hermeneutics, with the interpretation of philosophical texts, of human action, in medicine, of the brain, and finally of wine. One set of essays has an unusual structure. Nicholas Rescher wrote a paper on interpreting philosophical texts, and we asked Catherine Wilson and Andreas Blank to choose a text, and then see how well Rescher’s claims tested out against their interpretation of that text. The chosen text was the mill passage from Leibniz’s Monadology. The essays in this volume are revised versions of presentations given at the eighth meeting of the Pittsburgh-Konstanz Colloquium in the Philosophy of Science held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from Thursday , October ≤, to Sunday, October ∑, ≤≠≠∫. The Pittsburgh-Konstanz Colloquium in the Philosophy of Science is a joint undertaking of the Center for Philosophy of Science of the University of Pittsburgh (USA) and the Zentrum Philosophie und Wissenschaftstheorie of the University of Konstanz (Germany). The program co-chairs are editors of this volume. The colloquium was sponsored by Fritz Thyssen Foundation in Cologne (Germany) and the Harvey and Leslie Wagner Endowment (University of Pittsburgh ). The event was held in honor of Gereon Wolters’s contribution to the Pittsburgh-Konstanz collaboration over the years. The editors thank Barbara Diven Machamer for reading the page proofs and Tara Gainfort and Benny Goldberg for indexing the volume. ...