< previous page page_24 next page >

Page 24
15a618ec9e7a226e83a3ec91f2bb0396.gif 15a618ec9e7a226e83a3ec91f2bb0396.gif
2. Hamlet: Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?
15a618ec9e7a226e83a3ec91f2bb0396.gif 15a618ec9e7a226e83a3ec91f2bb0396.gif
Polonius: By th' mass, and 'tis like a camel indeed.
15a618ec9e7a226e83a3ec91f2bb0396.gif 15a618ec9e7a226e83a3ec91f2bb0396.gif
Hamlet: Methinks it is like a weasel.
15a618ec9e7a226e83a3ec91f2bb0396.gif 15a618ec9e7a226e83a3ec91f2bb0396.gif
Polonius: It is back'd like a weasel.
15a618ec9e7a226e83a3ec91f2bb0396.gif 15a618ec9e7a226e83a3ec91f2bb0396.gif
Hamlet: Or like a whale?
15a618ec9e7a226e83a3ec91f2bb0396.gif 15a618ec9e7a226e83a3ec91f2bb0396.gif
Polonius: Very like a whale.
15a618ec9e7a226e83a3ec91f2bb0396.gif 15a618ec9e7a226e83a3ec91f2bb0396.gif
(Hamlet III.2)
2. Two Poles
The opposition between these two quotations reminds us that all along the course of history we are confronted with two ideas of interpretation. On one side it is assumed that to interpret a text means to find out the meaning intended by its original author orin any caseits objective nature or essence, an essence which, as such, is independent of our interpretation. On the other side it is assumed that texts can be interpreted in infinite ways.
Taken as such, these two options are both instances of epistemological fanaticism. The first option is instantiated by various kinds of fundamentalism and of various forms of metaphysical realism (let us say, the one advocated by Aquinas or by Lenin in Materialism and Empiriocriticism). Knowledge is adaequatio rei et intellectus. The most outrageous example of the alternative option is certainly the one outlined above (ch. 1, section 6), that is, the paradigm of the Hermetic semiosis.
3. Hermetic Drift
I shall call Hermetic drift the interpretive habit which dominated Renaissance Hermetism and which is based on the principles of universal analogy and sympathy, according to which every item of the furniture of the world is linked to every other element (or to many) of this sublunar world and to every element (or to many) of the superior world by means of similitudes or resemblances. It is through similitudes that the otherwise occult parenthood between things is manifested and every sublunar body bears the traces of that parenthood impressed on it as a signature.
The basic principle is not only that the similar can be known through the similar but also that from similarity to similarity everything can be connected with everything else, so that everything can be in turn either the expression or the content of any other thing. Since "any two things resemble one another just as strongly as any two others, if recondite resemblances are admitted" (Peirce, C.P. 1934:2.634), if the Ren-

 
< previous page page_24 next page >