Is Radical Interpretation Possible?

1994 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerry Fodor ◽  
Ernie Lepore
Keyword(s):  
Radical Interpretation

IS DOOYEWEERD A PANENTHEIST? — COMMENTS ON FRIESEN’S ‘95 THESES ON HERMAN DOOYEWEERD’

2009 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-141
Author(s):  
Gerrit Glas
Keyword(s):  
Historical Event ◽  
Philosophical Thinking ◽  
Radical Interpretation ◽  
Special Sciences ◽  
Basic Concepts

What is the purpose of Friesen’s 95 theses and what is the audience he has in mind? The title refers to a major church historical event and suggests that — like in 1517 — we are dealing with a concise statement of a new and radical doctrine that is unfolded in opposition to an established canon. But who is the opponent in this case? What is the established canon that is rejected? And what is new or radical in the summary? Dooyeweerd’s philosophy was definitely new and radical at the time of its conception. It still has an enormous potential for the special sciences. It offers important resources for any (transcendental) critique of ‘immanence’ philosophies. However, on first reading and without knowledge of the context, Friesen does not seem to aim at offering a new or radical interpretation of Dooyeweerd’s philosophy. I read the 95 theses as an attempt to wipe off the dust, to provide the overall picture, doing justice to aspects that (maybe) were neglected or (maybe) were wrongly understood in the reformational tradition. However, the audience he has in mind seems to be one that is already familiar with the basic concepts and the thrust of Dooyeweerdian thinking; not an audience that is opposed to reformational philosophical thinking, but one that might be helped by a succinct summary in order to encourage further study and discussion.

Radical Interpretation

2002 ◽  
pp. 31-83
Author(s):  
Timothy McCarthy
Keyword(s):  
Radical Interpretation

General Character of the Opposition

2020 ◽  
pp. 3-27
Author(s):  
Christopher Hasty
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
General Character ◽  
Radical Interpretation ◽  
Rhythm And Meter ◽  
Periodic Repetition

This introductory chapter presents the opposition of rhythm and meter as a contrast of (1) rhythm as variegated pattern and meter as periodic repetition; and (2) rhythmic and metric accent or, more broadly, rhythm as event and meter as a measurement of the duration of that event. These oppositions are sufficiently commonplace that it has not been necessary to invoke the work of specific theorists except to document the most radical interpretation of metrical accent as durationless. In one form or another, these two interpretations can be found in most current writing on rhythm and meter. Although these interpretations need not be seen as incompatible, there has been a tendency in more systematic treatments to posit one or the other as fundamental. Ultimately, it is in the opposition of meter and rhythm that one encounters most poignantly the opposition of law versus freedom, mechanical versus organic, general versus particular, or constant repetition of the same versus spontaneous creation of the ever new.

Bauer, Bruno (1809–82)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence S. Stepelevich
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Strong Influence ◽  
Gifted Students ◽  
Critical Philosophy ◽  
Biblical Hermeneutics ◽  
Radical Interpretation ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Historical Writings ◽  
Radical Atheism ◽  
Bruno Bauer

The career of the Hegelian theologian Bruno Bauer is marked by his sudden turn from a reasoned defender of Christianity into one of its most extreme critics. His radical interpretation of Hegel’s philosophy, which he first used to defend orthodox biblical hermeneutics, ultimately led him to become, as one of his admirers said, the ‘Robespierre of theology’. As the leader of the so-called ‘Young Hegelian’ school, Bauer was one of Hegel’s most gifted students. However, his condemnation of theology in general and his thesis that the New Testament was merely the fictional product of an unknown author contributed to the general distrust of Hegelianism among religious thinkers. Although his many theological and historical writings now remain largely unread, his ‘Critical Philosophy’ and his radical atheism exerted a strong influence upon Marx, who was his student and friend, and is still evident in such contemporaries as Jürgen Habermas.

Radical translation and radical interpretation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger F. Gibson
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Data ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Radical Interpretation ◽  
Truth Theory ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S

Radical translation is the setting of a thought experiment conceived by W.V. Quine in the late 1950s. In that setting a linguist undertakes to translate into English some hitherto unknown language – one which is neither historically nor culturally linked to any known language. It is further supposed that the linguist has no access to bilinguals versed in the two languages, English and (what Quine called) ‘Jungle’. Thus, the only empirical data the linguist has to go on in constructing a ‘Jungle-to-English’ translation manual are instances of the native speakers’ behaviour in publicly recognizable circumstances. Reflecting upon the fragmentary nature of these data, Quine draws the following conclusions: - It is very likely that the theoretical sentences of ‘Jungle’ can be translated as wholes into English in incompatible yet equally acceptable ways. In other words, translation of theoretical sentences is indeterminate. On the assumption that a sentence and its translation share the same meaning, the import of indeterminacy of translation is indeterminacy of meaning: the meanings of theoretical sentences of natural languages are not fixed by empirical data. The fact is, the radical translator is bound to impose about as much meaning as they discover. This result (together with the dictum ‘no entity without identity’) undermines the idea that propositions are meanings of sentences. - Neither the question of which ‘Jungle’ expressions are to count as terms nor the question of what object(s), if any, a ‘Jungle’ term refers to can be answered by appealing merely to the empirical data. In short, the empirical data do not fix reference. The idea of radical interpretation was developed by Donald Davidson in the 1960s and 1970s as a modification and extension of Quine’s idea of radical translation. Quine is concerned with the extent to which empirical data determine the meanings of sentences of a natural language. In the setting of radical interpretation, Davidson is concerned with a different question, the question of what a person could know that would enable them to interpret another’s language. For example, what could one know that would enable the interpretation of the German sentence ‘Es regnet’ as meaning that it is raining? The knowledge required for interpretation differs from the knowledge required for translation, for one could know that ‘Es regnet’ is translated as ‘Il pleut’ without knowing the meaning (the interpretation) of either sentence. Beginning with the knowledge that the native speaker holds certain sentences true when in certain publicly recognizable circumstances, Davidson’s radical interpreter strives to understand the meanings of those sentences. Davidson argues that this scenario reveals that interpretation centres on one’s having knowledge comparable to an empirically verified, finitely based, recursive specification of the truth-conditions for an infinity of sentences – a Tarski-like truth theory. Thus, Quine’s radical translation and Davidson’s radical interpretation should not be regarded as competitors, for although the methodologies employed in the two contexts are similar, the two contexts are designed to answer different questions. Moreover, interpretation is broader than translation; sentences that cannot be translated can still be interpreted.

Radical interpretation

2013 ◽  
pp. 95-124
Author(s):  
Bernhard Weiss
Keyword(s):  
Radical Interpretation

A Less Radical Interpretation of Davidson and Quine

Dialogue ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Sinclair
Keyword(s):  
Radical Interpretation

scholarly journals Verdade, interpretação e objetividade em Donald Davidson

2005 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
José Maria Arruda
Keyword(s):  
Key Words ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Propositional Attitudes ◽  
Donald Davidson ◽  
Radical Interpretation ◽  
Analytic Tradition ◽  
Philosophical Hermeneutic ◽  
Principle Of Charity ◽  
Radical Interpreter ◽  
Philosophical Importance

Donald Davidson foi um dos filósofos mais influentes da tradição analítica da segunda metade do século. A unidade de sua obra é constituída pelo papel central que reflexão sobre como podemos interpretar os proferimentos de um outro falante desempenha para a compreensão da natureza do significado. Davidson adota o ponto de vista metodológico de um intérprete que não pode pressupor nada sobre o significado das palavras de um falante e que não possui nenhum conhecimento detalhado de suas atitudes proposicionais. Neste artigo, eu apresento inicialmente a estrutura e os pressupostos da filosofia da linguagem de Davidson; passo depois a uma discussão sobre a importância do princípio de caridade para seu projeto interpretativo e, por fim, procuro apontar as diferenças do projeto de Davidson com a hermenêutica filosófica. PALAVRAS-CHAVE – Interpretação radical. Princípio de caridade. Hermenêutica. ABSTRACT Donald Davidson was one of the most influential philosophers in the analytic tradition in the last half of the twenthy century. The unity of his work lies in the central role that the reflection on how we are able to interpret the speech of another plays in undestanding the nature of meaning. Davidson adopts the standpoint of the interpreter of the speech of another whose evidence does not, at the outset, pressupose anything about what the speaker’s words mean or any datailed knowledge of his propositional attitudes. This is the position of the radical interpreter. In this paper, I begin with an account of the assumptions and structure of Davidson’s philosophy of language; after this I discuss the philosophical importance of the principle of charity for the theory of radical interpretation and, at the end, I compare Davidson’s interpretative project to the philosophical hermeneutic. KEY WORDS – Radical interpretation. Principle of charity. Hermeneutics.

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