The Rhetoric of Interpretation

Abstract

Contemporary thought about the nature of interpretation, especially in the human and social sciences, tends to stress the ways it differs from simple description, on the one hand, and from explanation on the other. This is not to suggest that interpretation, description and explanation are in any way mutually exclusive operations; indeed, we could well characterize description and explanation as different kinds of interpretation or, conversely, regard interpretation itself as a kind of explanation which features description over formal argument or demonstration as its modus operandi. But if we do wish to stress the differences between interpretation on the one side and both description and explanation on the other, we would have to insist on the propaedeutic and heuristic aspects, the pre-classificatory and preexplanatory functions of interpretation. We might wish to say that interpretation is what we do when we are uncertain how properly to describe some object or situation in which we have an interest and unsure about which of several available analytical methods should be used to explain it. As thus envisaged, interpretation is a product of thought in the preliminary stage of grasping an object by consciousness, thought in the effort of deciding, not only how to describe and explain such an object, but whether it can be adequately described or explained at all. Because interpretation typically entertains different ways of describing and explaining some object or situation deemed worthy of the