Intentionalist Interpretation: A Philosophical Explanation and Defense

(Hardback)

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The tension between the roles of authorial intention and the text itself is a basic concern of contemporary hermeneutics. Challenging much of the current thinking in the field, this volume argues that the text itself, in its various forms, is an untenable criterion for correct interpretation, and through compelling moral and epistemological arguments defends an intentionalist approach to interpretation. After discussing the shortcomings of earlier intentionalist theories, Irwin proposes a new, normative approach, urinterpretation, which is based on an author construct, the urauthor, that includes several elements traditionally seen as separate from the author. The book closes with a theoretical application of intentionalism to philosophical, literary, and legal texts.

Reviews

"William Irwin's Intentionalist Interpretation is a very useful defense of the importance of authors' intentions to literary interpretation, a view generally incompatible with reigning critical orthodoxies, first New Critical and later Deconstructionist, for at least the last half century, but lately reasserted. I especially appreciated the judicious, sympathetic, but not uncritical discussions of writers in the Continental tradition such as Foucault and Gadamer--discussions that help to show the possibility of fruitful dialogue between them and philosophers in the Anglo-American tradition."-Gary Iseminger Carleton College, Minnesota
"Irwin puts forth a clear, cohesive, carefully conceived and interesting theory of the interpretation of texts. It is an intentionalist theory which differs in substantive ways from its predecessors. Along the way, Irwin also illuminates a number of core issues from the distinction between descriptive and normative hermeneutics and the alleged death of the author to the status and interpretation of literary, legal and philosophical texts. A very helpful contribution to an ongoing debate."-David Weberman Fellow in Law and Philosophy, Harvard Law School

Author Bio

WILLIAM IRWIN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at King's College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. He is the author of scholarly articles and reviews on hermeneutics, Sartre, and philosophical pedagogy. He has edited a collection of essays entitled Seinfeld and Philosophy.