On Interpretation

I feel weird saying this, but it seems I would have to disagree with Aristotle here. I would almost say the opposite in fact; one can find a large group of people (albeit not "all men") who speak the same language and write in the same script, that's relatively superficial, but their backgrounds and upbringing result in sometimes wildly different interpretations of text. The Bible and the U.S. Constitution being two significant examples. I suppose he may just be talking about experiences themselves and not the meanings one attaches to them or something, in which case I guess I would agree.

but the mental experiences, which these directly symbolize, are the same for all, as also are those things of which our experiences are the images.


I believe that in general mental phenomena like thinking and loving are similar from person to person, although there will be defining qualities for this or that persons thought, love etc.

Also there is a broadly similar experience of outer phenomena - for example the cat one the mat will look similar to most who see it. But it may have overlayed meanings, like being mine, or being a symbol of good luck, or having escaped from the ship etc which are more personal interpretations.

I think that many people are idealistic about certain interpretations, and for instance want to universalise their religious beliefs or lack there of, so that all humanity can be as well grounded as they are. I think that is possibly a bit of a pipe dream as things stand, as the world is so vast, complex and dynamic. As such, the idea of uniformity in interpretation (cf Habermas*?) would take more effort/work than any of us - even collectives - can give. It would be like trying to tame the weather. So we will have to get used to a fair degree of diversity (cf Lyotard*?), whether we like it or not.


*IIRC the philosopher Habermas things communities can progress towards a shared consensus through rational engagement, where as Lyotard thinks more about hetrogeneity and local meanings.

My limited exchanges with multi-lingual people provide anecdotal evidence that the thought processes of one language differ from another. That is, I've been told that when one thinks in one language and then switches to thinking in another language, one's way of processing the world changes.

I would guess then that syntax, comparative etymologies, etc. shape a language and the thinker in that language.

Salvador Dali: "To look is to invent".

Resha Caner said:

Does that make communication hopeless?

Click to expand...

No I do not think so. I think Dalis comment was metaphor, although he might have said it was literal being possibly an iconoclast of "good sense" and a surrealist. He actually wrote a book or two, and a declaration of a right of a man to his imagination and madness (or something similar), so I suppose he had some faith in words. Then again I think we invent some of the meaning in the perceptual world, for instance we might imagine details of otherwise indistinct faces when we see cars drive by, or ages gone bye looking at an antique.

Resha Caner said:

Does that make communication hopeless?

Click to expand...

Depends on what exactly you expect from it.

Resha Caner said:

It sounds like he is saying that we all have a common basis for understanding the world, and that it is a mere matter of semantics that one person interprets a written or spoken passage differently than another.

Click to expand...

Actually, I don´t see how this is what the quoted paragraph means or implies.
But let´s say it did:
I´d disagree. Pretty much everyone agrees that "murder is wrong". However, that´s how the term is defined, so this doesn´t come as a surprise.
People still disagree as to what constitutes a killing "murder".

We have a semantic agreement that doesn´t do away with the factual disagreeements.

On another note I think everyone has experienced at least once that the "I love you" from another person later turned out not to mean what they thought it had meant.

Resha Caner said:

I find stuff like this curious - speaking of the subjectiveness of meaning and then saying it is still possible to communicate with one another.

How does one rationalize it?

Click to expand...

Well I think that surrealism is meant to highlight the role of the imagination, dreams and unconscious "irrational" processes so any explicit raitonalisation would miss the point of the exercise.