"Interpretive
Procedures: Reading of Sealed & Open Canons:
Hermeneutics, Cybernetics, & the Differential"
Wolfgang Iser
Structures of interpretation
have developed in the course of history, and they can be
marked off from each other by their respective frameworks
brought to bear on the state of affairs to be interpreted.
There is not so much a conflict of interpretation but rather
a competition between different types, the more successful
of which strive for a monopoly by ruling out all other forms
of interpretation. Therefore premises, assumptions, and
strategies of interpretation have to come under scrutiny.
Furthermore, interpretation is dependent on what is interpreted:
It is bound to be different a) when certain types of text—such
as holy or literary ones—are transposed into other
types such as the exegesis of canonical texts or cognitive
appraisals of literary texts; b) when cultures or cultural
levels are transposed into terms which allow an interchange
between what is foreign and what is familiar; c) when immeasurables
such as God, the world, and humankind, which are neither
textual nor scripted, are transposed into language for the
purpose of grasping and subsequently comprehending them.
Finally we shall address the question: What does interpretation
as translatability entail? Why do we have to translate something
into a different register, and what is the need of such
an activity indicative of?
A reader of relevant material will be provided and can be
bought at the Department office. Further required reading:
Franz Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption, trans.
William W. Hallo, University of Notre Dame Press, 1975.
