The text (obviously) codifies meaning, but that meaning is often underdetermined by lack of understanding of the culture or the author’s idiosyncrasy, lack of acquaintance with the object of reference or simply because the corpus is not large enough to disambiguate; easily all of those at the same time, at least for old enough texts.
There can also be meaning that the author simply didn’t intend. In biblical interpretation, for instance, there have been many different (and conflicting!) interpretations given to texts that were written with a completely different intent. One reader reads the story of Adam and Eve as a text that supports feminism, another reader sees the opposite, and the original writer didn’t intend to give either meaning. But both readers still get those meanings from the text.
But that’s because the meaning is underdetermined, there is information (explicit meaning) within the texts that constraints the space of interpretations, but it still allows for several different ones.
How much the text is underdetermined is both a function of the text and of the reader, the reader may lack (as I said) cultural or idiosyncratic context, acquaintance with the object of reference; or the text (which is what provides the new information) being too short to disambiguate.
It seems to me that:
The text (obviously) codifies meaning, but that meaning is often underdetermined by lack of understanding of the culture or the author’s idiosyncrasy, lack of acquaintance with the object of reference or simply because the corpus is not large enough to disambiguate; easily all of those at the same time, at least for old enough texts.
Is there anything missing from this account?
There can also be meaning that the author simply didn’t intend. In biblical interpretation, for instance, there have been many different (and conflicting!) interpretations given to texts that were written with a completely different intent. One reader reads the story of Adam and Eve as a text that supports feminism, another reader sees the opposite, and the original writer didn’t intend to give either meaning. But both readers still get those meanings from the text.
But that’s because the meaning is underdetermined, there is information (explicit meaning) within the texts that constraints the space of interpretations, but it still allows for several different ones.
How much the text is underdetermined is both a function of the text and of the reader, the reader may lack (as I said) cultural or idiosyncratic context, acquaintance with the object of reference; or the text (which is what provides the new information) being too short to disambiguate.