Re: brouhaha

Robbie -- It's too bad you're not interested in continuing the conversation. I
think that we could make some progress from this point.

If you think you might want to continue, then read on. If not, you may as well
delete this response now.

I agree that the parts you think need to be dropped need to be dropped, and I
agree that the argument probably hinges upon the word "meaning." But I think
that divergent meanings arise when a text is placed in different contexts, and
that all meaning is the product of some kind of contextual placement of a text.
Even relating a text to a small set of "great ideas" of some sort (let's just
accept these for now) is a form of context.

For example, why would a psychoanalytic reading of _The Iliad_ be an example of
the "applicability" of that text but, to drag up an old example, Homer's rage is
an example of "meaning." Probably because rage is an idea you think could have
existed in the author at the time of the writing of Homer's text, but
psychoanalytic theory obviously was not.

The very distinction between "meaning" and "applicability," then, begs the
question within a discussion of meaning as authorial intent. If we're trying to
establish whether or not authorial intent is the basis of meaning, there's no
use dragging up distinctions that assumes what we're trying to prove to begin
with. That is the very definition of "begging the question," or circular
arguments.

I would argue that textual meaning is always the product of text + context, and
that the author as context only generates a limited range of meanings that
aren't necessarily privileged before any others. The goal of the interpreter
and his/her audience determines appropriate contexts to apply to the reading of
a text. Historical and biographical are naturally the first ones we think of,
that's all.

Jim

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Received on Sun Apr 20 15:21:59 2003