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5
INTERPRETATION
Hans H. Penner
To experience is to interpret. To misunderstand is to misinterpret. Most disagreements are probably
caused by misinterpretations. To interpret is to translate. All of these assertions sound like common
sense. What is a valid interpretation? How do we know, if at all, a good translation from a bad one? Is
it true that every generation makes its own translations. Do all texts need context for interpretation? If
so, what is context? What is text? Are there universal rules of interpretation? What is a symbol? These
questions and many more make this topic crucial for the study of religion.
Hermeneutics
Prom Hermes to Ricoeur
For many centuries the term "interpretation" was understood to be synonymous with "hermeneutics."
In fact, most entries in dictionaries and encyclopedias of religion refer us to "hermeneutics" when we
look up the entry "interpretation" (e.g., V. A. Harvey 1987). Hermeneutics, we discover, was at first
used as a technical term in philology, biblical studies, law and theology. Ir is on ly since the nineteenth
century, however, that the term has become important for theories in cultural studies, religion and
literary criticism.
Most stories about "interpretation" begin with the Greeks and the Greek word hermaios which refers
to the Delphic oracle. Some scholars think-but it is quite doubtful-that the term was derived from
Hermes, son of Zeus and Maia. Hermes is the wing-footed messenger of the gods and friend of
humans, an interpreter or translator. The significance of hermeneutics as a theory of
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interpretation, message or proclamation, a translation or transmission of knowledge from one domain
(the gods) to another (humans), is that this theory clearly entails a relation between language and
understanding. Thus, language and understanding become essential elements in theories of
interpretation. In fact, we might say that any theory of interpretation involves the triad:
interpretation - language - understanding.
The Art of Understanding
Friedrich Schleiermacher (1756-1834), the father of modem theology, was also called "the Kant of
Hermeneutics." Given his Kantian roots, Schleiermacher wanted to write a fourth critique, "The
Critique of Understanding." This is clear from his lectures on hermeneutics (1819) in which he claimed
that at the present time a general theory of understanding simply did not exist (Schleiermacher 1977).
Rejecting the speculations and abstractions of metaphysics and ethics as adequate foundations for
the study of religion, Schleiermacher sought for a theory of understanding that would unify the various
methods for interpreting texts, grammars and rhetoric.
Although Schleiermacher clearly did see the relevance of language in his quest for a unified theory
of understanding, he focused on the re-experiencing of the mental processes of the author of a text.
He concluded that the tension between the subjective mental processes of authors and the objective
context in which they exist can never be resolved. It is this tension between the particular and the
universal, the specific and the general, the part and the whole, the individual and history, that became
known as "the hermeneutical circle." The act of understanding entails knowledge of the particular, but
knowledge of the particular entails knowledge of the universal. In order to understand a text we must
understand the concrete, individual mental processes of the author. But, to know the author's mental
processes we must also know the historical context of the author. To know one presupposes that we
must know the other. This vicious circle is a major problem for many contemporary studies of
interpretation.
Schleiermacher is important to the topic of interpretation for three reasons. First, he established the
beginnings of a new "science," the "science of understanding." Second, this science is obviously
different from the search in the natural sciences for explanations by causal laws. Third, his emphasis
on religion as the feeling of absolute dependence (Schleiermacher 1928 [1821-1822]), an experience
to be differentiated from physical or moral feelings, marks the beginning of a general study of religion
that is not reducible to ethics, aesthetics or natural law.
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Interpretation
Lived Experience, lnterpretive Understanding and W orld- View
Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911) brings our subjeet into the modem world (see seleeted writings in Dilthey
1976). In faet, the terms Erlebnis, Verstehen and Weltanschauung (lived experienee, understanding
and world-view) are synonymous with Dilthey. Unfortunately, as Ermarth has pointed out, "It must be
said that his notion of understanding is, ironieally, one of the most misunderstood concepts in the
theory of knowledge and seienee" (1978: 242). Although it is true that Dilthey drew a sharp line
between the eultural seiences (Geisteswissenschaften) and the natural seiences, Ermarth shows
beyond doubt that for Dilthey the theoretical and methodological procedures in both were as rational
as can be. Nevertheless, it is ironie that the intellectual history of interpretation should rest on the
proper translation and understanding of Dilthey's famous assertion, "Die Natur erklären wir, das
Seelenleben verstehen wir" (We explain nature, we understand the mind). We will not be able to set
the reeord straight in this essay, but do recommend Ermarth's exeellent evaluation of Dilthey's theory
of interpretation and historical reason to anyone interested in the Verstehen debate.
Dilthey raised the eoncept of interpretation to a level of general validity. He called the critieal theory
"hermeneuties," a fundamental seience eneompassing all modes of interpretation. His theory oE
interpretation begins with "lived experience." This is the familiar, unreflective, everyday world which
involves a tacit knowledge and orientation. We often call this level of interpretation pretheoretical.
Ermarth makes the crucial observation that for Dilthey this level of interpretation is anything blit
"private" or "esoterie," since it is constituted by language, history and community (1978: 248).
The aim of all human sciences is to relive and represent this lived experience on a more conceptual
and abstract level. Although he gave many examples of this task-the applieation of general rules of
truth, eomparative procedures, the importanee of linguistie, logical and symbolic structures in this
elementary level of human interpretation-it is cleaq that throughout his life Dilthey found the notion of
"lived experience" very difficult to articulate.
Regardless of the difficulties with Dilthey's view of lived experience and interpretation, it is of
profound importance for our critical analysis of interpretation in the history of the study of religion.
Dilthey rejected such notions as "pure conseiousness," "subjectivity" or a "transcendental ego" as the
foundation for a theory of interpretation. As Ermarth (1978: 228) puts it:
To be experiencing is already a kind of proto-interpretation, for we do not exist de novo out of our
own immediate subjectivity but rather "live through" life in a va st network of accumulated meanings
and life-values. In what might seem paradoxical or logically circular move, Dilthey suggests that
such a general experienee of life is not only the pre-condition
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of human understanding, but also its result. Experience of life and understanding are mutually
implicated and work together reciprocally to promote ever-higher levels of consciousness.
Once again we find the hermeneutical circle at work here. Dilthey resolves this paradox by
grasping both horns of the dilemma. The question of the logical priority of either the historical context
or the logical form must be suspended. This basic relation is a reciprocal one: experience and understanding,
the temporal and the logical exist in a double relationship. Dilthey seems to resolve the
dilemma, says Ermarth, "in terms of the relation of identity-in-difference which permeated German
thought ever since Nicholas of Cusa: it is a Grenzbegriff (limiting concept] which we must assume but
cannot demonstrate conclusively" (1978: 285-286).
The consequences of this theoretical shift remained ambiguous in Dilthey's life. Although he would
certainly reject the Nietzschean notion that "language is a lie," the first cause of our alienation from
lived experience, Dilthey remained caught betwixt and between the extreme forms of romantic
subjectivism and philosophies of radical historicism. Although his theory did produce insights into the
importance of language and community, Dilthey remained wary of language throughout his life.
The influence of the romantic presupposition that language betrays experience not on ly infected
Dilthey's thinking but remains a powerful idea in the history of the study of religion into our own time.
When all is said and done it is clear that Dilthey thought there was an unbridgeable gap between lived
experience and expression. Although it may be impossible to resolve interpretive problems by a
transcendental reduction into a pre-linguistic life of pure experience, Dilthey posited "a gap between
inner and outer modes of existence and stres sed that there were dimensions of inner life which
cannot find expression in language ... While expression may be natural, it is partial and wanting in
comparison to the ineffable fullness of lived experience" (Ermath 1978: 281). As Dilthey put it, "in a
certain sense all knowledge, like poetry, is only symbolic" (quoted in Ermarth 1978: 251).
Lived Experience, lnterpretation and W orld- View
Dilthey was well aware of one important consequence of his Kantian theory of interpretation: we can
no longer speak of knowing things as they are in themselves. The levels of interpretation from lived
experience to abstract, formal, logical thought were no longer secured by the existence of a rational,
universal subject. Knowledge of a world an sich (in itself) became knowledge Ansicht (in perspective).
The outcome, Dilthey knew, was "the subjectivity of the modern way of looking at things" (Ermarth
1978: 323). Looking at things
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Interpretation
from a vantage point, a perspective, is a necessary condition for lived experience. Perspectives are
"world-views."
"World-view" is a central concept for most approaches to the study of religion. Ir is a notion that is
seldom defined or described in explicit terms. Here is one of the best descriptions of world-view that I
have discovered. According to Ermarth (1978: 326-327), Oilthey thought of world-view as
at one remove from reality-it is not reality itself, but an interpreta ti on of reality. This interpretation
is not merely an aggregate of separate experiences but tends toward an integrated whole. The
world-view is not given to us like a discrete fact or object in the world; it is a total outlook
compounded of experience, reflection, and interpretation. It is not purely theoretical, scientific, or
"philosophical" in character; it is not constructed like an argument or hypothesis-though it is not
therefore irrational. Ir contains unconscious attitudes and deep presuppositions, but these are not
wholly inaccessible, since lived experience is permeated by incipient elements of silent thought and
reflection. The world-view unites different levels of meaning and integrates different aspects of
experience.
The world-view is not knowledge, science, or "theory" in the strict sense: it might be called a
belief-system. Ir is not simply the construction of purely rational thought, for, as Oilthey stresses,
man does not think, let alone believe, by sole means of theoretical reason. The world-view is not a
logical system of judgments but a configuration which integrates cognition, volition, and affection; it
is a synthesis of facts, values, and ends. Compounded of both subjective and objective conditions,
the world-view arises from the perspective of factual states of affairs but also from the deepest
attitudes of personality, which Oilthey sometimes called "moods of life."
World-views are products of history, not just inner life for they reflect the influence of cultural
tradition, nationality and epoch. . . There always remains an elusive and unfathomable personal
factor in the formation of any world-view, but no world-view is wholly individual, for it is constituted in
relation with other persons and other world-views ... World-views are "creative, formative, and
reformative." [Finally], transparent to those who hold them, world-views require great effort
"underground" in order to be brought into view. This is the task of the hermeneutic science of
world-view-a science extending beyond the conventional bounds of epistemology and even
philosophy itself.
Faced with the doctrine of a multiplicity of world-views Dilthey clearly recognized two perplexing
problems.
The first problem is known as conceptual or cultural relativism. Briefly, if the theory of world-views is
true then truth and the content of truth is relative to a particular world-view. Pressed to its logical
conclusion, relativism asserts
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that world-views are incommensurable, that is to say, not translatable, since there is no universal truth,
ar grammar that provides a bridge between them. As Peter Winch (1970) once put it, "what is real and
what is unreal shows itself in the sense that a language has." Thus we cannot conclude that the belief
system of one religion rather than another is "in accord with reality" or that it is mistaken, because
what is or is not in accord with reality is dependent on the sense that the language of that religion has.
It is not just opinions, interests, lifestyles ar skills that are relative to a culture but fundamental
concepts; it is the very propositional attitudes that constitute cognition and culture that are culturally
specific. Benjamin Lee Whorf seems to think that people actually live in different worlds (see Carroll
1956: 213). Truth is relative to a world-view. The first problem then is one of translation. It is not
religions that are ineffable, inscrutable, incapable of interpretation ar trans lati on but languages and
cultures themselves. Notice, the logic of relativism does not claim that we have good ar bad
translations; rather, it claims that translations are impossible because cultures or languages are
incommensurable.
The second problem is as devastating as the first. What do we make of relativist propositions as
such? What sense does it make to say that "all worldviews are relative to some context," or that "what
is real and what is unreal is given in the sense that a language has?" Are these statements also
relative to some context or language? If not, are such statements applicable to all worldviews? Are
they universal? An affirmative answer to this question seems to entail a contradiction. There seems to
be one statement, the statement that relativism is true, that escapes the claims of relativism. We can
put this argument in slightly different terms. How could we go about validating the hypothesis that
meaning, beliefs, truth, aré culturally determined? Is it not the case that the question itself arises out of
a specific cultural context, a particular language? In order to answer these questions does not the
relativist somehow have to rise above all contexts, including the language in which the hypothesis is
stated, to judge whether it is true? Relativism entails its own destruction.
Most scholars, including Dilthey, do not follow the logic of relativism to its absurd end. The slippery
slope of relativism is checked by an appeal to "the given." For some scholars this is usually described
under the rubric of "phenomenology" where the given of religion is posited as transcendence, the
sacred ar ultimate reality. What recent introductory ar specialized text on religion would disagree with
the following interpreti ve principles?
1. Religious symbols reveal a modality of the real that is not evidenced in immediate, empirical reality.
2. Religious symbols point to something real, the sacred, a presystematic ontology.
3. Religious symbol s entail a multiplicity of meanings.
4. Religious symbols signify a unity, destiny and integrating function for
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Interpretation
human beings. Religious symbols express the contradictory aspects, the coincidentia oppositorum
of ultimate reality.
5. Religious symbols have the capacity for expressing paradoxical situations or structures of ultimate
reality that are otherwise quite inexpressible.
6. Religious symbol s bring meaning into human existence. (Eliade 1959a)
Dilthey, of course, would have little to do with Mircea Eliade's romanticism. Nevertheless, fully aware
of the profound consequences of the antagonism between the relativism of historical consciousness
and the claims of universal world-views Dilthey did yearn for the universal truth that is disclosed in the
dialectic relations that hold between the conditioned relations of history (see Ermarth 1978: 337).
History and interpretation, for Dilthey, yield a paradoxical double relation of meaning and truth.
Dilthey's problem can be described as follows: How do we explain the claims of universal truth if
lived experience, subjectivity or consciousness is constituted by history, language and culture?
Moreover, how do we explain the persistent ignorance of human beings with regard to the relative
truth value of their religious symbols and world-views?
There is, of course, another, an alternative solution. We can simply deny that religious language or
beliefs contain any cognitive or propositional values whatsoever. Interpret religion as expressive of
emotions, as similar to poetry or music, or as dramatic, and the problem is solved. As one scholar put
it, "if they think deeply about it they will see that their religious beliefs are purely symbolic" (Beattie
1966: 69-70).
Unfortunately, this solution is illusory since we may ask the same question all over again: why do
human beings believe that their religious beliefs and symbols are cognitive, that they assert truth
values about the world? Marx, Freud, Durkheim and Weber give us various answers based on the
premises of functionalism. Although people do believe, albeit falsely, that their world-views are true,
the persistence of such beliefs functions to fulfill certain needs that must be satisfied both for the
maintenance of the person and society. Religion, according to the functionalists, is what it does. The
truth value of religion is in its use. A proper interpretation of religion is thus reduced to the satisfaction
of certain needs-semantics is reduced to causality. This solution seems to avoid the pitfalls of
interpretive relativism. Unfortunately, it do es not escape the devastating critique of functionalism that
demonstrates the invalidity of the theory on both logical and semantic grounds (Penner 1989).
lnterpretation and Present Meaning
Hans-Georg Gadamer's Truth and Method (1989 [1960]) remains the definitive work on interpretation
in the post-Dilthey tradition. Thoroughly at home in
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this tradition, Gadamer locates his theory in the radical historicism of Martin Heidegger (1889-1976).
Gadamer takes Dilthey's contextual hermeneutics to its logical conclusion. If the author and
intentionality are irrelevant to the interpreta ti on of a text, then the text itself has an autonomous
meaning. But, given the historicity of interpretation, the autonomous meaning of a text is always a
"meaning for us." As Hirsch puts it, "reduced to its intelligible significance, the doctrine of the
autonomy of a written text is the doctrine of the indeterminacy of textual meaning." "No method can
transcend the interpreter's own historicity, and no truth can transcend this centra I truth" (Hirsch 1967:
249, 245). Interpretation becomes a never ending proces s or production and the notion of a "true" or
final interpretation is simply a misunderstanding of the interpretive process. In brief, there is no fact of
the matter.
Gadamer is well aware of the consequences of a theory of interpretation that denies that there are
any criteria for deciding whether one interpretation is more valid than another. Hirsch quotes
Gadamer: "There is no criterion of validity. Nor does the poet himself possess one . . . rather, each
encounter with the work ranks as a new creation. This seems to me an untenable hermeneutic
nihilism" (Hirsch 1967: 251). Interpretation is always participation in a present meaning (Gadamer
1989: 370; Hirsch 1967: 252). This is indeed relativism with a vengeance. And, as Hirsch
demonstrates, no appeal to relations between past and present will overcome the contradictions
inherent in such hypotheses.
lnterpretation, Double Meaning and Symbol
Paul Ricoeur begins his long monograph on Freud with the following premise: "language itself is from
the outset and for the most part distorted: it means something other than what it says, it has a double
meaning, it is equivocal" (Ricoeur 1970: 7). From this basic premise Ricoeur goes on to define
interpretation: "to interpret is to understand a double meaning." Hermeneutics is defined as "the theory
of the rules that preside over an exegesis-that is, over the interpreta ti on of a particular text, or of a
group of signs that may be viewed as a text" (1970: 8). Thus, "double meaning" is the "hermeneutic
field," the object of interpretation, and this field is called "symbol" (1970: 7). Moreover, symbols are a
group of expressions "that share the peculiarity of designating an indirect meaning in and through a
direct meaning and thus call for something like a deciphering, i.e., interpretation, in the precise sense
of the word. To mean something other than what is said - this is the symbolic function" (1970: 12).
After a very confusing, if not mistaken, interpreta ti on of Ferdinand de Saussure's concept of sign
and signification, Ricoeur states that the difference between a sign and a symbol is that "in a symbol
the duality is added to and superimposed up on the duality of sensory sign and signification as a
relation of
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lnterpretation
meaning to meaning, it presupposes signs that already ha ve a primary, literal, manifest meaning.
Hence, I deliberately restrict the notion of symbol to doubleor multiple-meaning expressions whose
semanric texture is correlative to the work of inrerpretation that explicates their second or multiple
meanings" (1970: 12-13). "In hermeneutics symbols have their own semantics, they stimulate an
inrellectual activity of deciphering, of finding a hidden meaning" (1970: 19).
The problem is this: we simply do not have an agreed up on set of rules that could be called a
general theory of hermeneutics. On the conrrary, what we find is a situation in which modes of
interpretation are in conflict.
Several years later Ricoeur thought that it might be best to take linguistics into account and to trace
the history of hermeneutics back through Gadamer, Dilthey and Schleiermacher (Ricoeur 1976, 1981).
There is indeed much erudition and insight in these essays along with a great deal of complexity,
dialectics, opacity and confusion. Yet, the one thing that remains steadfast and clear is that symbolic
inrerpretation manifests a double meaning: faith versus suspicion, proclamation versus iconoclasm,
alienation versus belonging, reader versus inrerpreter, text versus author, text versus reader,
language versus speaking, understanding versus explanation, sign versus icon, theories of logic
versus theories of iconicity, hermeneutics versus phenomenology.
For Ricoeur, symbols not only entail a double meaning, but a surplus of meaning. Symbol, like
metaphor, "tells us something new about reality." "Symbolic signification, therefore, is so constituted
that we can only attain the secondary signification by way of the primary signification, where this
primary signification is the sole means of access to the surplus of meaning. The primary signification
gives the secondary signification, in effect, as the meaning of meaning" (1976: 52, 55). Symbolic
meaning is opaque to linguistic interpretation. Symbolic meaning "resists any linguistic, semantic, or
logical transcription" (1976: 57).
Ricoeur's theory of inrerpretation, especially as it relates to symbolic meaning, ends where
Schleiermacher began. "As I said," concludes Ricoeur, "a general hermeneutics does not yet lie within
our scope" (1970: 494). We might add, and it never will if, as with Dilthey, Gadamer and Ricoeur, we
begin with the ineffable fullness of lived experience, if the symbolic remains opaque to inrerpretation.
Summary
There are three fundamenral assumptions in the history of hermeneutics that remain central to the
study of religion.
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1. Experience as lived experience (Erlebnis) is a unified primary interpretation of life. Ir is this lived
experience that must be grasped by the scholar. For purposes of study we may focus on different
modalities of lived experience, such as "poetic" or "estranged" or an experience of "the sacred."
Scholars of religion have usually described the experience of the sacred as "a total," "cosmic,"
"ultimate" or "transcendental" experience. However, the validity of the concept of lived experience as
the given and the scholar's interpretation of that experience are left either unresolved or never raised.
2. Lived experience, together with consciousness and interpretation, is thoroughly and radically historical.
This thesi s leads us into the inescapable problems of relativism. The question of truth is either placed
in "brackets" or dissolved into incommensurable truths of different world-views. Eliade, as you may
recall, dealt with this problem by calling it a "fall into history," "a second fall" which he thought to be the
mark of modernity (Eliade 1954).
3. For better or for worse, interpretive theory since Dilthey views the history of science with suspicion. The
debate about whether the study of religion is or is not a "science of religion" is the best evidence for
this suspicion. The contemporary emphasis on pluralism, dialogue and discourse, rather than on
analysis, comparison, universal rules and unity are some of the products of the suspicion.
There is one question that remains fundamental: how would one go about confirming that the basic
premise of what we could call the history of hermeneutics is true? Sellars called this basic premise
"the myth of the given" (Sellars 1997).
Interpretation, Language and Belief: Outline for a New Theory
lnterpretation: A Radical Proposal
As usual, some of the problems that hermeneutics struggles with are real, and many of the insights
are important. However, there may be a way out of the paradoxes and contradictions we encountered.
First of all, let us simply drop the quest for "the given." In other words, let us resist the notion of
"lived experience" as the starting point for our theory of interpretation. This is a radical proposal. Ir
entails the conscious removal of all theological and metaphysical traditions that continue to haunt the
study of religion; all notions of "the given," the numinous, transcendence, ultimacy, the flux of
experience, sensations, the really real and the like need to be set aside.
Let us begin, instead, with the simple assumption that we are all interpreters who have the uncanny
ability of making sense out of what others say every day
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of our lives. As Davidson says, "without interpretation there would be no such thing as speech, no
such thing as communication" (1980: I.1.). He points out that our ability to interpret goes far beyond
the important point made by linguists about our "knowing a language." As interpreters we are able to
identify many of the beliefs, intentions, desires, fears and hopes of those we interpret. The point here
is "that there is no way of understanding the words unless we are correct in much of what we think the
speaker thinks and knows." The ability to interpret, therefore, entails a massive agreement between
speakers about the world. To disagree, to detect false beliefs, presupposes that agreement. As
Davidson points out, "without a fund of agreement, there would be no comprehending the differenceswe
would not know what we were differing about . . . But of course it would be a mistake to think that
because we can be wrong about anything, we can be wrong about everything" (1980: II.3).
Second, let us make and consistently hold to a distinction between language and speech, meaning
and use, competence and performance, semantics and pragmatics as we build a theory of
interpretation. There is nothing more confusing in the hermeneutic tradition, and in the study of
religion, than the use of these terms in writing about interpretation, semantics and meaning. As
Davidson points out, "there is no single relation between what our words mean and what we want to,
or do, accomplish by uttering them." As Saussure said, "I speak a language" (1983 [1916]). Thus
interpreta ti on entails the principle of the autonomy of meaning.
Here is a simple example. We might think that the sen tence, "Alan Turing invented the computer"
is meaningful when it is used to inform us that Alan Turing invented the computer. But what if the sen
tence is used to tell a lie, amuse us, irritate us or to create interest in graduate work? Davidson put it
this way: "what we say does not depend on what we want or intend to achieve beyond words, in the
saying" (1980: III.8). In fact, we may not know whether a person is joking, quoting a source or
asserting something, yet have no doubt at all about what the sen tence as uttered means.
Communication thus depends upon interpretation, not on shared speech or use of language. Thus
Dilthey and his followers are quite correct in asserting that no amount of know]edge about an author's
intentions allows us to interpret what the sentences mean. But, the popular saying, "tell me its use and
I will tell you its meaning" is, as with most popular sayings, wrong.
Third, our theory of interpretation must be holistic; the parts cannot stand alone. Examples: no
language, no belief; no language, no speech; no belief without many other beliefs. To put it in other
terms, no theory of interpretation will be successful if we begin block by block or attempt to posit a
"given" as the foundation for interpretation (Penner 1994, 1995).
Fourth, to interpret entails that we share a world with others. This is not something we might
discover as an empirical facto Community, social relations, a shared world with others is coeval with
interpretation. To interpret is to assign
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meanings to the sentences of a speaker; to assign meanings to sentences is to assign truth conditions
to what the speaker says. We understand what a speaker says because "means" translates as
"believes true." lf this were not the case, lying would be impossible. Thus to interpret makes the
speaker our "co-believer."
lnterpretation Entails Truth Conditions
Whatever the outcome regarding the acquisition of language, we may be certain that,
Before the utterer of sounds can be said to have said something [asked a question, asserted
something, made a promise] he must intend to achieve his purpose by dint of having caused an
interpreter to understand his words. To have this intention, to be a speaker, the utterer must have a
complex picture of the thoughts and abilities of his audience, and this he cannot have unless he is
himself an interpreter. (Davidson 1980: III.8)
Davidson makes it clear why this mu st be the case:
An interpreter has the concept of objective truth-the way things really are, in contrast perhaps to how
they are believed to be-because in order to interpret, he must know under what conditions a sentence
of a speaker is true, and because he must, in arriving at this knowledge, make use of facts about when
the speaker holds a sentence true. The interpreter cannot fail, therefore, to recognize that a speaker
holds some sentences true that are not, which is to say he attributes a false belief to the speaker.
Truth is thus from the start conceived as objective and intersubjective. (1980: llI.89)
To put this in other terms, there are two principles at work when I interpret what you say (utter). The
first says that we both have an indefinite number of beliefs that we agree upon as true. This principle
holds for all speakers and hearers, that is, for all contexts of interpretation, whether it be from English
to English, Hindi to English or Japanese to Russian. The second principle tells us that the first principle
must hold if I interpret what you say to be false. That is to say, we must first of all be in a linguistic
context of massive agreement before we can disagree. Thus to assert that people live in different
worlds, or that they hold incommensurable world views, or that something can be true in one culture
but false in another, is incomprehensible. This conclusion should not be taken to imply that therefore
all cultures or religions are the same. lt should be clear that "translatability" or "interpretation" entails
different languages, cultures, religions (see Penner 1995).
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lnterpretation Entails Translatability
This theory of interpreta ti on entails a crucial principle for the study of religion: interpretation is a
community project. "My image of myself, like my picture of others and the world, is a joint creation"
(Davidson 1980:I.1). Once again, this is in agreement with Dilthey and those who have worked on the
concept of "lived experience." The difference, of course, is that the dualism of "subject-object" and the
"ineffable" given of experience have been dropped. Moreover, we avoid the pitfalls of relativism
because to interpret means to translate. The notion then that someone speaks an uninterpretable
language is incomprehensible--language entails translatability. Thus, it makes no sense to say,
"people live in different worlds" or that language is a world-view, schema, paradigm, episteme,
symbolic model or framework for the "given" of experience. In brief, language is not a representation of
anything. As Davidson points out, "Nothing, however, no thing, makes sentences true: not experience,
not surface irritations, not the world, can make a sentence true" (Davidson 1984: 194; Penner 1995).
lnterpretation Entails Literal Meaning
Finally, if what we may call a "truth-conditional theory of interpretation" is anywhere near right, then the
notions of "hidden meaning," "double meaning," "second meaning," all of which require deciphering
language as a code, also become incomprehensible. This strikes at the heart of a long tradition in the
study of religion, myth, ritual and belief as symbolic, or, as Ricoeur thinks, as containing a "double
meaning." What we must learn to do is ask the following question as we read books and articles on
religion: why do scholars of religion assert that religious language contains a hidden or symbolic
meaning, or, that the task of interpretation is to equip ourselves with the right translation code?
It is precisely at this crucial pause in our reading that the importance of theory will disclose itself to
us. When we raise the question, "what is the right, fitting, adequate translation code?" we are raising
the question of theory. As we have noted, some scholars think that the most adequate interpretive
code tells us that religion is void of propositional content, that is, religion does not contain truth values;
religious language, religious symbolism is neither true or false, containing nothing of cognitive
significance. Religion, as they say, is like music (as if music is not cognitive). Or, we often read that
religion is symbolic, bearing a special or double meaning that can be deciphered only on its "own
plane"; a va lid interpretation can be given only by those who are themselves religious or have
experienced "the other," "the sacred" or "the numinous." The important point to remember is that such
assertions entail an interpretive theory that is founded on "the myth of the given."
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Hans H. Penner
The fact that after more than one hundred years we have not reached agreement on just what the
code or double meaning is should have alerted us to the possibility that it may well be wrong to
approach religion as a schema or framework that symbolizes, represents or transforms some content,
Erlebnis (lived experience) or "the given."
A truth-conditional theory of semantics leads us to the inevitable conclusion that there is no such
thing as symbolic, secondary or double meaning. The quest for such meanings is illusory. We must
give up the idea that the semantics of religious language has a content or a meaning other than literal
meaning because there simply is none (see Davidson 1984: 245-264, 183-198). There are no exits
from the scheme / content theory of interpretation.
What we must grasp, and grasp firmly, is the premise that there is no such thing as "religious
language" in need of a special grammar, semantics or code book. We must also hold firm to a second
premise, the distinction between the meaning of a sen tence and its indefinite uses in a variety of
contexts. Saussure was right to argue that we must make a theoretical distinction between language
and speech for a development of an adeguate theory of interpretation (Saussure 1983 (1916); Penner
1989). This proposal is a wager: a valid general theory of interpreta ti on may yield an adeguate theory
of religion-I speak (use) a language; I practice a religion.
I am aware that any proposal that stresses theory goes against the stream in the academic study of
religion. Nevertheless, it seems clear that to interpret religion or the practice of religion, we need a
theory about what religion and ritual are. Given the above proposal, I am suggesting that we follow the
success in linguistics and explain ritual, for example, as the "practice," "pragmatics" or "context" of
religion, just as we explain how someone is able to "speak" (use) a "language," or how certain
"ideolects" (religions) entail the same linguistic system (religion). This theory would make a distinction
between the semantics and structure of religion as a cognitive system and the use, context or practice
of the system in various societies and cultures. In other words, we would divide the theoretical task
into an explanation of the semantics / syntax of religion and an explanation of the pragmatics of
religion.
"I practice religion," then, discloses two theoretical tasks that we could call the "semantic task" and
the "pragmatic" or "use task." The theory explains religion as constituted by the relation between these
two elements. Two things need to be said about this theoretical approach to the interpretation of
religion. First, and most obvious, although the two parts of religion can be divided among scholars of
religion, they are inseparably linked in the history of religions, just as the division between "language"
and "speech" or "competence" and "performance," though separable in theory, are inseparable in the
history of languages. Second, and not so obvious, we cannot derive the first element from observing
or studying the second. We cannot derive semantics, language, competence from a study of
pragmatics, speech,
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Interpretation
performance or use; we must first of all know the world before it can become useful to us. The popular
notion of "family resemblance" will not do simply because it presupposes what we are in need of: a
theory of resemblance that allows us to pick out the families.
My appeal to linguistics is simply founded on the fact that religion is thoroughly based in language,
both in beliefs and in practices. If the "myth of the given" is true--and I think it is-then we have no
choice but to face and resolve the theoretical task before us. Interpretation demands theory. If the
linguistic model is inadequate, then my question is, "with what do we replace it?"
Suggested Readings
Davidson, Donald
1984 "On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme" and "What Metaphors
Mean," pp. 183-198 and 245-264 in lnquiries in to Truth and lnterpretation. Oxford: Clarendon.
1989 "The Myth oE the Subjective," pp. 159-172 in Michael Krausz (ed.),
Relativism: lnterpretation and Confrontation. Notre Dame: University of
Notre Dame Press.
Dilthey, Wilhelm
1976 Selected Writings, Hans Peter Rickman (ed. and trans.). Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Ermarth, Michael
1978 Wilhelm Dilthey: The Critique of Historical Reason. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg
1989 Truth and Method, Garret Barden and John Cumming (trans.). New
York: Crossroad; original German edn, 1960.
Gumperz, John]. and Stephen C . Levinson, editors
1996 Rethinking Linguistic Relativity. Studies in the Social and Cultural
Foundations of Language, vol. 17. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Harvey, Van Austin
1987 "Hermeneutics," pp. 279-287 in Mircea Eliade (ed.), The Encyclopedia of
Religion, vol. 6. New Yorle Macmillan.
Hirsch, E. D.
1967 Validity in lnterpretation. New Haven: Yale University Press. Penner, Hans. H.
1995 "Why Does Semantics Matter to the Study oE Religion?" Method and
Theory in the Study of Religion 7: 221-249.
Sellars, Wilfrid
1997 Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind, With an Introduction by Richard
Rorty and a Study Guide by Robert Brandom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.