Dear Folks,
As promised, a quote from Leo Strauss' essay on Spinoza in Persecution and
the Art of Writing. Not at all the elitist view of reading the greats that
I had mistakingly come to think Strauss might have been advocating. In any
case I thought it might be fun to read in light of the discussion of what
Peirce was about in the New Elements.
QUOTE:
To understand the words of another man, living or dead, may mean two
different things which for the moment we shall call interpretation and
explanation. By interpretation we mean the attempt to ascertain what the
speaker said and how he actually understood what he said, regardless of
whether he expressed that understanding explicitly or not. By explanation we
mean the attempt to ascertain those implication of his staements of which he
was unaware. Accordingly, the realization that a given statement is
ironical or a lie, belongs to the interpretation of the statemnt, whereas
the realization that a given statement is based on a mistake, or is the
unconscious expression of a wish, an interest, a bias, or a historical
situation, belongs to its explanation. It is obvious that the
interpretation has to precede the explanation. If the explanation is not
based on an adequate interpetation, it will be the explanation, not of the
statement to be explained, but of a figment of the imagination of the
historian. It is equally obvious that , within the interpretation, the
understanding of the explicit meaning of a statement has to precede the
understanding of what the author knew but did not say explicitity: one
cannot realize, or at any rate one cannot prove, that a statement is a lie
before one has understood the statement in itself.
The demonstrably true understanding of the words or the thoughts of another
man is necessarily based on an exact interpretation of his explicit
statements. But exactness means different things in different cases. In
some cases exact interpretation requires the careful weighing of every word
used by the speaker; such careful consideration would be a most inexact
procedure in the case of a casual remark of a loose thinker or talker. In
order to know what degree or kind of exactness is required for the
understanding fo a given writing, one must therefore first know the author's
habits of writing. But since these habits become truly known only through
the understanding of the writer's work, it would seem that at the beginning
one cannot help being guided by one's preconceieved notions of the author's
character. The procedure would be more simple if there were a way of
ascertaining an author's manner of writing prior to interpreting his works.
It is a general observation that people write as they read. As a rule,
careful writers are careful readers and vice versa. A careful writer wants
to be read carefully.
END QUOTE
Hey ain't this a joy! I could go on but I'm getting tired of typing and
there really is no good stopping point. Elsewhere he points out that
writers do not always state their views in the most pointed or blatant way
because throughout history ideas that run counter to the powers that be are
not tolerated. This does not in my view endorse some elitist interpretation
of any of the great writer's of the past. On the contrary -- just an
honest commmon sensical acknowledgement of the tendency of those in charge
to punish and therebye suppress the expression of opposition views.
In my view there can be no justice without equality of power -- there can
be a temporary peace achieved by supression, but this is neither just nor
lasting.
As the doctors say the above is has been signed but not read -- in this
case typed but not checked for errors. That's a great one isn't it --
signed but not read. The ability to deny responsiblity should be so easy.
But in fairness to the doctors I don't think they ought to be held
repsonsible for what others might make of a mere procedural note -- really
I don't.
Jim Piat
---
Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
