dear all, I4ve just read through the old `literature debate` again and there are
still a lot of arguments which are far from being clear to me. I very much hope
that some of you are interested in going through a couple of points anew.
For example:
I4m referring to Dan Sperber answering Ian MacKenzie. Dan Sperber writes:
"Comprehending of any text, in the most down-to-earth sense of comprehension, is
comprehension of the speaker4s communicative intention. Without such
comprehension, a literary text would not be worth interpreting in any grander
sense of 4interpretation4 (or would not be more worth such grand interpretation
than unintended texts such as cadavres exquis are)."
1.
As far as I understand, Dan Sperber4s claim here is not, that we will only be
able to comprehend a literary text if we can infer the author4s informative
intention but that wanting to infer it, that is, developing hypotheses about it,
is a nessecary and sufficient condition for comprehending.
Furthermore we `can only want to infer it4, if we do recognise a literary text
as ostensive behaviour, that is if we recognise the communicative intention.
Am I right so far?
2.
Dan Sperber additionally seems to claim that there is a correct and an incorrect
comprehension, the correct one is the one the author intended, for instance a
certain reference of a pronoun, the incorrect one is the one the author did not
intend. Wether it is easy to distinguish them is another question.
I4d like to raise two objections:
1.
As far as I see it, the author4s communicative intention does only function as
an incentive for interpreting and does not touch the interpretive possibilities
as such at all. The interpretive possibilities are determined by the way we have
learned to use our language. It is perfectly possible that we
comprehend/interpret a text and only after that get to know that this text was
generated by a machine. Would this touch any of the interpretive possibilities?
The question is, if we would want to comprehend a text, if we knew that it was
generated by a machine (or a cadavres exquis). But this in turn depends on the
way we have been trained to deal with (literary) texts. For quite a long time we
have been trained, I think, to ask for authors and not, for instance, for the
potential of language as a material. With a shift of focus it would of course be
worth to comprehend/interpret a text without identifying it as ostensive
behaviour.
2.
As soon as you cease to consider authorial intention, you can give up the idea
of `correct4 or `incorrect4 comprehension. Even within a hermeneutic framework
`correct4 or `incorrect4 with reference to author4s intention is nothing you can
verify or falsify. So why entertain these ideas? This does not mean that there
are no criteria for `correct4 or `incorrect4 comprehension/interpretation. These
criteria are supplied by text structure/rules of language use etc. rather than
by author4s intention.
I4d appreciate comments!
cheers, Matthias
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