"All of this and so much more": Original Intent, Antagonism and Non-Interpretivism

Pier Giuseppe Monateri, Univ. of Turin, Italy

Abstract

In this paper I start from a discussion of ``originalism" as a practice of interpretation pointing at the intent of the framers as ``the" governing factor in interpretation. My first step is to contrast it with the approach of non-interpretivism. Then I discuss ``interpretation" itself as a package to depict social practices of meaning production, focusing on three peculiar historical settings : Alexandria, Scholasticism, and the ``birth" of Hermeneutics. My aim is to show the ``essentialist" move of posing the concept of ``meaning" as a key factor in the ``ideology" of interpretation. Such a discussion is introductory to a reappraisal of the current debate about criticism, and the distinction between interpretation and use-of-the-texts. I then examine archeology as a radical alternative to interpretive practices. But my final step will be to shift away from the blunt opposition between interpretivism and non-interpretivism, to suggest a more complex arrangement based on an ironic misuse of interpretivism, and a framing of interpretation as an antagonistic process.