Epistemological realism and the indeterminacy of meaning. Is systematic interpretation possible?

Summary

This paper tries to show how the irreducible indeterminacy of textual meanings can be reconciled with epistemological realism which normally presupposes independently existing but determinate objects of knowledge. E.D. Hirsch's project of objective interpretation, including his most recent attempts to show that meanings, in spite of their openness to future modifications, are historically determined objects of knowledge, is being criticized. The paper argues that his use of the semantics and the reference theories of Kripke, Putnam, and others forces him to give up, against his own intention, his methodologically important distinction between meaning and significance. Within such theories a strict separation of linguistic knowledge of meaning and world knowledge can no longer be upheld. Since the application of individually and historically variable world knowledge is unavoidable in the process of understanding texts, the textual meanings reconstructed by readers will always remain indeterminate.

However, this state of affairs does not force us to abandon epistemological realism as it can be shown that the meanings of words and texts are not objects of knowledge in the usual sense. Meanings are cognitive capacities which make our knowledge of external objects possible. They are thus not themselves objects of knowledge. Systematic interpretation of texts in the sense of obtaining objective knowledge is therefore impossible. Nonetheless, suitably developed psycholinguistic theories of text comprehension allow us, at least in principle, to explain systematically how interpretations come about.