what is the meaning of this?
There's an article here about Roberts' nomination to the Supreme Court and interpretation of words in the Constitution. In it, the writer makes a few good points about the difficulity of determining meaning.
First, as especially Wittgenstein argued, words do not merely mean
whatever the person who utters or inscribes them intends them to mean.
If I tell you I'll meet you here at 3, it's no good later saying I
meant "there" by "here" and "6:15" by "3." As Wittgenstein points out,
what I can possibly intend by saying something is itself limited by the
linguistic practices in which we engage together. But, though it's not
true that my words mean whatever I intend them to mean, it's also not
true that they mean whatever you may take them to mean. It's as clear
as anything could be that misunderstandings are possible. In fact,
intention is clearly relevant to some extent: for example, poetic or
highly figurative speech, or even more clearly, cases of sarcasm or
irony in which I say precisely the opposite of what I mean.
. . .
This dilemma is captured in the philosophical term for textual
interpretation: "hermeneutics." According to theorists of hermeneutics,
such as the great German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer, we can never
divest ourselves fully of ourselves, never approach the past as people
approached it when it was their present. We bring with us our language,
our experience, our prejudices, our history. What the Constitution
means is always what it means to us. We cannot merely see what the text
says: Even trying merely to see what the text says is engaging in
interpretation.
It is true that even merely trying to see what the text says (without reading our own biases, hopes, wants, and needs into the interpretation) is still only an interpretation, and therefore flawed. Nevertheless, that is the sort of interpretation I generally prefer.
First, as especially Wittgenstein argued, words do not merely mean
whatever the person who utters or inscribes them intends them to mean.
If I tell you I'll meet you here at 3, it's no good later saying I
meant "there" by "here" and "6:15" by "3." As Wittgenstein points out,
what I can possibly intend by saying something is itself limited by the
linguistic practices in which we engage together. But, though it's not
true that my words mean whatever I intend them to mean, it's also not
true that they mean whatever you may take them to mean. It's as clear
as anything could be that misunderstandings are possible. In fact,
intention is clearly relevant to some extent: for example, poetic or
highly figurative speech, or even more clearly, cases of sarcasm or
irony in which I say precisely the opposite of what I mean.
. . .
This dilemma is captured in the philosophical term for textual
interpretation: "hermeneutics." According to theorists of hermeneutics,
such as the great German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer, we can never
divest ourselves fully of ourselves, never approach the past as people
approached it when it was their present. We bring with us our language,
our experience, our prejudices, our history. What the Constitution
means is always what it means to us. We cannot merely see what the text
says: Even trying merely to see what the text says is engaging in
interpretation.
It is true that even merely trying to see what the text says (without reading our own biases, hopes, wants, and needs into the interpretation) is still only an interpretation, and therefore flawed. Nevertheless, that is the sort of interpretation I generally prefer.