Assumptions About Meaning

March 26, 2007

Matt,

I appreciate your explicit citation of Heidegger. Honestly, I have not read more than 70 pages of Heidegger, so I am not able to really assess your thinking in connection with his philosophy. However, your post has inspired me to give Heidegger another try.

For my own sake, I’ll just keep things simple and list some assumptions I have about interpretation, etc. and connect those, as best I can, to our conversation. I want to make clear that these statements are not a foundation for a doctrine and are more akin to raw proposals that I want to test by reading and other encounters with the O/other.

1. I assume there is no meaning to be found in a message. In other words—meaning does not reside in any text—there is nothing there or out there, in the text, in the world, to be discovered. I assume meaning is always constructed (and this not to say unreal)—is always generated.

2. The text or message or body of the O/other provokes the generation of meaning. I am not saying there is NO meaning - there is meaning – there are meanings – however, I am saying that other and other (and other, etc.) generate meaning - and always given their particular (and not always chosen – and if chosen, chosen from among a limited number of options) ideological/communal/cultural/etc. interests (as you noted). In this connection, I want to respond to your statement, Matt: “Certainly the discursive and institutional structures shape the formation of ‘alternative’ positions but I still very much hold a space for the human imagination, courage, vision, and other virtues which ‘the system’ cannot produce.” I am all about vision, courage, etc. But I would say the meaning of these concepts, etc. are not trans-cultural and are, therefore, the product of ‘the system.’

3. I assume, for the Christian interpreter, that the various Christian traditions and, in particular, the Gospels, the messages re: Jesus, are the sources with which the Christians wants to get textual…and are the sources that shape the way the Christian views “reality.”

…a few assumptions I want to test. I think I will give AKM Adam’s Faithful Interpretation: Reading the Bible in a Postmodern World a read and go from there.

My response to you, Matt, is fragmentary—but this is simply because I am thinking through this and not because I am not giving due attention to your thought. I want to close with one more bit:

I also think communities who do not, in advance of the encounter, adopt meaning or an ideological foundation (e.g., the ‘heterosexual contract’) – are better suited for the task mediating disagreement.

Posted by Tony Posted in Posts by Tony, Re: Messages