Interpretation, Relativism, and Identity: Essays on the Philosophy of Michael Krausz 149855475X, 9781498554756

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Interpretation, Relativism, and Identity

Michael Krausz. Photo courtesy of Brook Hedge

Interpretation, Relativism, and Identity Essays on the Philosophy of Michael Krausz

Edited by Christine M. Koggel Andreea Deciu Ritivoi

LEXINGTON BOOKS

Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB Copyright © 2018 by Lexington Books All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available LCCN 2017958893 | ISBN 978-1-4985-5474-9 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 978-14985-5475-6 (ebook) The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Introduction vii Christine M. Koggel and Andreea Deciu Ritivoi 1 Interpretation and the Man Mary Bittner Wiseman

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2 Multiple Interpretations and Singular Selves Garry L. Hagberg

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3 Identity and Its Narrative Discontents: Krausz on Self-Understanding and Self-Transformation Andreea Deciu Ritivoi

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4 Reflections on “Relativisms and Their Opposites” Paul Snowdon

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5 Robust Multiplism, or, New Bearings in the Theory of Interpretation Bernard Harrison

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6 Dialogue in the Work of Michael Krausz David B. Wong

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7 Replies and Reflections Michael Krausz

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Name Index

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Subject Index

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About the Editors and Contributors

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Introduction Christine M. Koggel and Andreea Deciu Ritivoi

This volume addresses three major philosophical themes: interpretation, relativism, and identity. Bringing together a cast of noted scholars in philosophy and literary studies, the book focuses on Michael Krausz’s distinctive contribution to the understanding of the interpretation of cultural phenomena, including artistic, literary, and religious texts, and the ways we make sense of our selves and our lives. Krausz is well known for his nuanced reflections about the relation between interpretation and ontology, the varieties of relativism, and the interpretive dimension of identity-construction. The lucid and trenchant way in which he treats these subjects is impressive. In recent years, Krausz has been exploring a non-traditional—albeit in some sense precisely traditional—philosophical genre, that of the dialogue. Krausz has participated in, but also staged exchanges between people who embrace opposing views about reality, human selves, and the attachments or detachments between them. In these exchanges, what is at stake are life orientations as much as conceptual distinctions. The contributors to this volume engage with all of these concerns in their dialogue with Krausz and with each other as they examine the book’s themes. The range and versatility of Krausz’s conceptual apparatus can benefit students and scholars with interests in interpretative endeavors, with different ontological commitments, and with different conceptual priorities and preferences. Krausz is an ecumenical thinker who has contemplated viewpoints that come from diverse philosophical camps. His ideas are derived from an overview of situations that demand interpretive activity—from practical circumstances to specialized fields in various cultural practices. In numerous philosophical endeavors, Krausz has laid the conceptual ground for the themes that animate his philosophical inquiries into interpretation, relativism, and identity. vii

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Krausz’s conceptual framework for the study of interpretation relies, for example, on three constitutive elements: the aim of interpretation, as well as its ideals and objects. He defines an interpretive ideal as an interpreter’s critical stance based on whether, for all objects of interpretation, interpreters should accept only one interpretation as the right one (singularism), or whether they should allow that for some such objects, multiple interpretations should be admitted (multiplism). It would be tempting to assume that singularism and multiplism are each aligned with particular domains likes the arts and sciences respectively. But for Krausz neither of these ideals uniquely apply to those domains. Further, according to his so-called thesis of detachability, neither singularism nor multiplism applies uniquely to such ontologies as realism, constructivism, or constructive realism. In turn, none of those ontologies necessarily entail either singularism or multiplism. Pressed by contributors to comment further about the connections between interpretive ideals and ontologies, or about the aim of interpretation, or about the limits of interpretation, and more, Krausz offers robust responses in his “Replies and Reflections.” Together, the queries and provocations posed by the contributors and the answers offered by Krausz present an enriched view of interpretation, as it applies to important questions about identity, life choices, and the conceptual foundations upon which we engage with such questions. It is characteristically generous of Krausz to invite and take seriously reflection on his work, even challenges to it, and the result benefits, we think, a broad readership. This volume originates from a symposium, “The Philosophical Works of Michael Krausz,” at Bryn Mawr College in November 2015. The symposium celebrated Krausz’s longtime career at Bryn Mawr. More importantly it reflected upon and honored the range, versatility, and lasting impact of his philosophical work. The core participants—Garry Hagberg, Andreea Deciu Ritivoi, Mary Bittner Wiseman, and David Wong—each explored different aspects of Krausz’s work that reflected the critical engagement with ideas that is the hallmark of Krausz’s approach. Christine Koggel chaired the symposium that ended with Krausz’s replies to each of the four papers. From this beginning emerged commitments from the five participants to expand and develop their original symposium papers for this volume: Mary Bittner Wiseman (Graduate Center, CUNY), Garry Hagberg (Bard College), Andreea Deciu Ritivoi (Carnegie Mellon University), David Wong (Duke University), with replies from Michael Krausz (Bryn Mawr College). In each case, the original symposium presentations were substantially rewritten for this volume. Two other prominent philosophers who have engaged with Krausz’s work over the years were invited to come on board as contributors: Bernard Harrison (Universities of Sussex and of Utah) and Paul Snowdon (University College London). The following summaries of the contributions reflect the ordering of the papers in the volume. The volume begins with Mary Bittner Wiseman’s “Interpretation and the Man.” Wiseman’s chapter traces the trajectory of Krausz’s work on interpretation—from the precise concepts he uses to interpret phenomena in the world to the challenges presented by interpretations of selves and lives. Wiseman likens Krausz’s



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works to a formal English garden with clear and distinct boundaries. Within them, flowers in various arrangements grow and take on their own lives. Wiseman then questions whether precision is possible for interpreting such things as human emotions and aspirations. When it comes to interpretation as it applies to the self and people’s lives, the formal garden metaphor asks to be complimented with reflections about what lies within and beyond the gardens, that is, within and beyond the limits of interpretation. Garry Hagberg’s “Multiple Interpretations and Singular Selves” continues the examination of interpretation by providing a clear overview of Krausz’s vital contribution to various theories of interpretation. Hagberg illustrates the productive tensions in Krausz’s corpus that is analytically precise yet plumbs the depths of human lives whose descriptions challenge the limits of language. In “Multiple Interpretations and Singular Selves” Hagberg sheds light on what it means to be a constructive realist in the face of such endeavors. In “Identity and Its Narrative Discontents: Krausz on Self-Understanding and Self-Transformation,” Andreea Deciu Ritivoi turns to specific questions about the self and identity. She focuses on Krausz’s conception of self-identity as a narrative. She, with Krausz, argues that through the life stories we tell about ourselves, we also construct a sense of who we are. But does that mean that we can tell any story we find convenient, or construct our selves however we choose—even if it flies in the face of what others would say about us or contradict other possible interpretations of our life narrative? Pondering the constructivist connotations of a narrative view of identity, Ritivoi shows that the narrative view is especially suited for Krausz’s conception of multiplism, and that it need not commit us to a relativist position whereby anything goes. In what he calls “another stage in a continuing dialogue,” Paul Snowdon inquires into Krausz’s account of relativism in his recent paper, “Reflections on ‘Relativism and Their Opposites’” (Krausz 2017). While Snowdon understands Krausz’s paper to outline what relativism might mean, he challenges Krausz to defend a particular version of it. Snowdon indicates that a possible outcome of some relativist projects is the unresolvability of disagreements between persons of different beliefs, cultures, or frameworks. Snowdon notes that while the relativist may claim that certain values are relative to reference frames, this still leaves open questions about its further claim that no absolute standards for adjudication between reference frames exist. Following upon Krausz’s definition of relativism, Snowdon raises questions about the relation between truth, goodness, or beauty and how they might be relative to reference frames. Indeed, how might one substantiate the thought that no absolute standards to adjudicate between reference frames exists? Bernard Harrison’s “Robust Multiplism, or, New Bearings in the Theory of Interpretation” identifies Krausz’s distinction between singularism and multiplism as a way to classify various enterprises that interpret literary texts. Harrison provides a nuanced reading of two key literary scholars, namely (singularist) Cleanth Brooks and (multiplist) Stanley Fish. The positions of both of their schools of thought in

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literary criticism can be aligned with one or the other of Krausz’s two interpretive ideals. Harrison shows that despite differences between literary scholars who aim at “deciphering” the text, or finding the “figure in the carpet” (the Brooks approach), the aim is always to understand and appreciate the meaning of the literary text. Harrison raises a fundamental question for literary interpretation: what kind of meaning are Brooks and Fish talking about? Harrison shows that the interpretation of a text constantly moves between different levels—individual words, sentences, complex paragraphs, the work as a whole. With these shifts, our aims and stances change as well. They are sometimes singularist (at the sentence level, for example) and at other times multiplist. The latter is especially important for what Harrison calls “bearing.” He says: “Bearing, the relevance of the text, in unforeseen ways, to this or that matter of human concern, corresponds to robust multiplism.” David Wong engages directly with Krausz’s dialogical work. He is a scholar of Chinese philosophy and intercultural dialogue and reflection. In “Dialogue in the Work of Michael Krausz,” Wong discusses Krausz’s recent books, in which the themes that have repeatedly captured his attention—relativism, absolutism, constructivism, selfidentity—take shape. They do so in the form of four fictional characters engaged in philosophical dialogue: Ronnie, Adam, Barbara, and Nina. Their assigned names reflect their philosophical positions: Ronnie is a relativist, Adam is an absolutist, Barbara is both, and Nina is neither. Wong takes seriously the exchanges among these four friends as a philosophical confrontation that relies on intellectual arguments, personal convictions, and experiences. For example, Nina has recently lost her brother, who was Barbara’s close friend. Wong probes the arguments that the friends advance in support of their positions, asks how they might be adjudicated, and, if tempted, how might one abandon one’s initial positions for another. For Wong, Barbara’s ecumenical position is the most attractive. As with Barbara, Wong accepts that individuals are conventional rather than inherent. But he reserves the right to form attachments with other persons. As he puts it, “there is no intellectual mistake in remaining attached to self and others even if we construe ourselves as purely conventional individuals in the sense I have specified.” The volume ends with Krausz’s “Replies and Reflections.” As the title suggests, Krausz has the final word as he replies to contributors and reflects further about the book’s themes. In so doing he offers new suggestions about the themes discussed here. As the editors of this volume, we believe that readers will benefit from the intellectual cohesion that arose from the interactions between its contributors, editors, and Michael Krausz. We also hope to have captured the good will and respect that has been a central feature not only of Michael’s work and engagement with philosophical ideas, but also of his relationships with philosophers and friends. We end by acknowledging those who helped bring this work to fruition. First and foremost, we thank Michael for the lively and engaging discussion that began at the symposium that honored him on his retirement and continued through to the production of this



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volume. We also thank the contributors to the volume. Each and every one of them not only displayed a commitment to following through on honoring Michael, but also their deep affection for someone whose ideas have prompted their own philosophical work. Their contributions are testimony to the important contributions that Michael has made to topics and arguments in a range of areas in philosophy and beyond. Thanks also go to Robert Dostal, chair of philosophy at Bryn Mawr College, who organized the symposium and retirement gathering for Michael and invited Christine Koggel back to Bryn Mawr to chair the symposium and celebrate with colleagues, students, and friends. Lastly, we thank Jana Hodges-Kluck, acquisitions editor at Rowman & Littlefield; Rachel Weydert, assistant editor to Jana Hodges-Kluck; and Lara Hahn, production editor, for attending to all the publishing details and our many inquiries with promptness and efficiency. Their support of the project as well as the support of our colleagues and families is much appreciated. We dedicate this book to Michael Krausz, whose work continues to inspire.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Krausz, Michael. 2017. “Relativism and Its Opposites.” In Realism—Relativism— Constructivism: Proceedings of the 38th International Wittgenstein Symposium in Kirchberg, edited by Christian Kanzian, Sebastian Kletzl, Josef Mitterer, and Katharina Neges, 187–202. Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter GmbH, 2017.

1 Interpretation and the Man Mary Bittner Wiseman

The Honorable Victoria Mary Sackville-West’s Sissinghurst Castle Garden, designed with her diplomat husband, Sir Howard Nicolson, stands as an apt figure for the work of the man whose work we are celebrating. The architecture of the garden, laid out by Sir Howard, is formal, while the contents of its beds are not. They are wild and beautiful, English gardens at their best.

THE FORMAL LAYOUT The formal layout of the gardens, room separated from room by high clipped hedges or pink brick walls, finds an echo in the formal rigor with which Michael Krausz analyzes his subject, making myriad distinctions as he carves out conceptual spaces. He distinguishes, for example, singularism, the view that every object of interpretation can have but one admissible interpretation, from multiplism, the view that some interpretable objects can have multiple, even incongruent, admissible interpretations. Having separated interpretations from their objects, Krausz asks for criteria of identity for both interpretations and their objects, mindful of the temptation of singularists and multiplists either to aggregate, making one of what naturally seems to be many, or to pluralize, making many of what seems to be one, in order to fit interpretive data to their theories. In an important move, Krausz takes pains to show that and how neither of the competing ideals of interpretation commits one to a particular theory about the ontological status of what is interpreted. That is, as he puts it, one can detach the ideal of interpretation from the ontological status of its object. In this way he undermines the tendency to associate singularism with realism and multiplism with constructivisim. The candidate ontological theories are realism, constructivism, and 1

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constructive realism. Realism is the view that there is a determinate world independent of any of the languages or other systems of intelligibility through which we can speak or grasp it, in short, a world independent of us. Whether or not we can know this world-in-itself is a question completely different from that of whether we are entitled or compelled to posit it. A second candidate theory is constuctivism, the view that there is nothing independent of some language or framework—some taxonomy or explanatory theory—that we have constructed. A third, constructive realism, mediates the two. It is, roughly, the view that there is a world independent of us but one that underdetermines what we can and do make of it through our languages, frameworks, and theories. It is not, however, completely indeterminate; it gives some data to our senses, but they are not enough by themselves to comprise a world. Constructivism (sometimes called conventionalism) leaves open the question of whether anything lies beyond its reach, in particular, of whether there is an utterly undifferentiated sensory matter, a raw stuff that touches us independent of any conventional or theoretical framework. This, what I will call “pure possibility,” this stuff perfectly innocent of language or theory, meets an interesting counterpart in work that has occupied Krausz in recent decades, work that has to do with what is beyond language or any sort of framework or, as he characterizes it, beyond the limits of interpretation. He also characterizes what this is as an “undifferentiated unity,” but I wonder wherein the unity lies. The material that is prior to or beyond the conventional is among the wild and beautiful English plantings that inhabit the formal rooms of Krausz’s gardens. I shall return to those things, raw sensory data or states of mind, that are for a spate of reasons beyond our cognitive pale. They are what are interesting. However, we are still examining the garden’s architecture, still looking at the shape, the form, of it. Interpretation and relativism are what give the garden its shape: interpretations are always relative to reference frames, which are in turn relative to the interests and purposes that lead to the choice of any frame of reference. His version of relativism can be characterized in two broad strokes. One is the claim that all values—including the grand trio of truth, beauty, and goodness—are relative to some reference frame or other. The other is that there is no principled way to decide among opposing frameworks. This is not to say that there is no way, but only that preference or taste or need or desire, not reason, is what will underlie a decision, if decision about what to choose there must be. While reason is the same in all, preference, taste, need, or desire is not. But choice there often need not be: entertaining different, even conflicting, points of view at the same time, with them in either rapid oscillation or restless tension, can cause a frisson that reveals something not hitherto seen and welcome for that. The notion of frame of reference, perspective, or point of view is not simple, and boundaries among them not easy to see. We shall address that issue later, for it is central to Krausz’s work. For the moment, however, I turn to interpretation, itself always relative to a point of view. Interpreting is the activity through which, I think Krausz would say, we construct a world and a self to live in it.



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INTERPRETATION He calls interpretations precisely what we can and do make of what we confront in our inquiries and in our lives. The scope of the concept as he uses it is broad, and some readers, this one at least, would like guidance as to what kind of thing can be interpreted. Can a violet be interpreted? Perhaps the question is wrong or truncated as the sentence “I want cake” is. One has to want to do something to or with the cake, eat it, buy it, bake it, serve it, or, as Wayne Thiebaud did, paint it. Similarly, something has to have been noticed, that is, felt or thought or said about the violet for there to be something to be made sense of, where to make sense of something is to assign meaning to or explain it. For example, meaning has been given to the flower or its color in various cultures: in Chinese painting violet symbolizes harmony because it is the combination of red (yang) and blue (yin). The color is a symbol of harmony, which is to say that it stands for or refers to harmony, as lilies in Western religious paintings stand for purity. To use X as a symbol for Y is to use it to refer to Y by virtue of something they are taken to share. Violet and white do not mean harmony and purity, respectively; they refer to them. However, to learn that violets self-seed and spread underground through rhizomes and that while their flowers and leaves are edible, their roots can be poisonous, is to have learned how they work, not what they mean. In a different vein, suppose that when downcast, one is soothed and made happy by coming upon a cache of violets on a hillside. Is that response to be interpreted? Does one ask what the experience meant to the person? Do we interpret ourselves as we try to get to know ourselves, to tell our story, often to try to write our stories? Krausz answers an emphatic “yes,” for this has become a topic of special interest for him of late as the titles of his 2007 Interpretation and Transformation: Explorations in Art and the Self and his 2013 Oneness and the Displacement of Self: Dialogues on SelfRealization show. The explorations as laid out in his latest books are among the most wild and beautiful and captivating of the flowers in his garden. Why wild? (They are wild) because so far as I know Krausz is the only analytic philosopher who is cultivating them. The bed in his garden with the wildest assortment of flowers is the one in which the Western idea of the individual self and the Vedantic idea of the Supreme Self lie in exquisite tension with the Buddhist idea that “all things are finally empty of inherent existence, including the individual self and the Supreme Self.” Krausz is quite clear that he explores the idea of the Supreme Self neither to endorse nor to reject it, but “to thematize the overarching theme that an individual self is identified in terms of some reference frame. In the absence of such frames, it cannot count as an object of interpretation,” (my emphasis) where the frames here are Western individualism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Krausz is implying, that is to say, that one could not come to any such notion of oneself without some accompanying conceptual scheme. I am not sure that is so on the ground that although the idea of a self can exist only within some framework, one’s idea of him or herself is not so simple. Perhaps “idea of ” should give way to “sense of ” oneself. If one’s self can be captured by all

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that can be predicated of it—I am American, female, mother, philosopher, 5’3’ tall, at this moment typing on a MacBook Air, and so on ad infinitum—then one’s own self can be known only against the background of some framework. If, however, the self is something like Descartes’s thinking thing or center of consciousness, then it is the interpreting, not the interpreted, entity or process. Many philosophers talk about the self, about whether it is a substance to be discovered or a work in process to be constituted. What does it mean, however, to count the individual self as an object of interpretation? I take it that it is not so much one’s own individual self that wants interpretation, or the self of someone else, but the idea of a self. “Interpreting” is here broadly used to mean “making sense of the idea of,” or analyzing the idea. We are back to the problem of the violet and the cake. Just as one cannot interpret a violet, but a sentence in which “violet” occurs, so one cannot interpret a self. The self, by Krausz’s lights, is a more or less self-constituting process or circumscribed activity, but we can no more interpret a process or an activity out of any context—which is not exactly the same as “without a frame of reference”—than we can a violet or a cake. Krausz does work with two examples of interpreting the self that do contextualize it: one an example of interpreting emotions, the other of interpreting life projects or plans. The first refers to an experience Krausz had when a colleague abruptly left the room upon hearing him tell a friend that his brother had died. Krausz was angry at first, finding the colleague heartless, but went on to consider other interpretations of the colleague’s behavior as, for example, his having shown tact in not staying to intrude on Krausz’s grief or discomfort at his not being able to handle death and the grief it brings. Krausz was interpreting his colleague’s reaction in order to discover what he ought to feel. This seems to be more accurately described as Krausz’s seeking other explanations for the colleague’s behavior and then interpreting his own emotions as responses to the behavior under the different descriptions the different explanations yield (personal communications). Perhaps, however, it is not interpreting the emotion, but trying to determine what emotion the situation warranted. Even so, one could say that this is a case of making sense of the situation in order to make sense of the emotion. The other example comes closer to the idea of interpreting oneself, for it is a case of examining a project whose goal is the realization of the self. Krausz’s daring lies in his exploring a case in which the self dissolves. He asks how that can be the realization of a self and examines eight paradoxes generated by this particular idea of self-realization. He is daring in the way Vita Sackville-West was in putting a riot of flowers in a classically formal garden. It is not what typically is done, and doing it is a way of saying that there is no one way that things have to be or be done. The choices of what flowers to plant where and what attitude to adopt toward certain positions are open. Herein lies Krausz’s pragmatism. Given that there is no principled way to choose among attitudes, as there is none to guide one’s choice among reference frames, one is apt to choose what works. Having noted that there are several attitudes one can take toward, for example, paradoxes, he concludes that “the handling of a paradox may be informed by one’s interests and purposes, be they the management



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of belief or self-transformation. In any case, I see no need to adopt a single general attitude toward paradoxes irrespective of interests and purposes” (Krausz 2007, 110). This raises the question of the grounds for the choices, so far as they are matters of choice, of these interests and purposes, a question that is crucial to Krausz’s enterprise. The question really is whether there are grounds for one’s interests and purposes, or if there are grounds, whether they are relative to a framework. If they are, we are in an infinite regress. People either just do have interests and purposes or they just do have grounds for those that they take as their own. That is to say, infinite regress there may be, but each of us declares a ground zero where the chain of reasons comes to an end. We have to stand somewhere, and the ground on which we stand must be still. However, it is a ground that is held still but could be put into motion. As Derrida noted, it is only necessary that something be held still, not that there is one ground that must stay put. And in a somewhat similar vein, Quine claimed that anything, even the law of contradiction, can be changed so long as other changes necessary to preserve coherence are made within the system to which what was changed belonged. However, we now hold this question of interests and purposes in suspension. Finally, and before I take a more focused look at what might lie beyond the limits of interpretation and its possible objects, I note one additional distinction: interpretation may have two goals, elucidation and edification, where the first is primary and has to do with beliefs, which always have intentional objects, and the second has to do with the interpreter’s attitudes, dispositions, orientations, whose sources are, it often seems to me, lost in the mists of time. It is always the interpreting agent that is edified and her interpretation’s object that is elucidated. In being edified the agent is perhaps transformed, and this can sometimes be a matter of her realizing herself. Elucidation is primary in that it is how an object is interpreted that affects the interpreter. Yet how an object can be interpreted is a function of the frame of reference within which it is interpreted, and the interpreter chooses the frame, which by itself determines what can be thought and felt and said. “Choice” might be too strong. It might be better to say that one finds oneself within a given framework and is likely to stay there until experience or education or desire show that there are other ways to be and to see. If there is dissonance between what the framework allows and what one feels and thinks, then one tries on or tries out other languages, other theories, other frameworks, other ways of couching the world and oneself. Dissonances and harmonies between frameworks and experiences, involving as they do the head, the heart, the belly, and the loins, might be what stops a threatened infinite regress. Choices there are, then, but they are hardly unconstrained. One might choose to plant certain flowers in certain beds, but they will flourish only if the soil and sun are right for them.

THE FLOWERS It is time to turn to what might lie beyond the limits of the interpretable, beyond the limits of singular or multiple interpretations, to what I referred to earlier as a

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realm of pure possibility, where not only the objects of interpretation but also the interpreting subject is involved. The interpreter reveals herself in interpreting this in this or these ways and that in that or those ways. She shows the interpreted object to have plucked these strings in her and not those, and when the interpretation is more nearly cognitive than visceral, she shows this rather than that to have come to her mind. The point is that she reveals or discovers herself in how she takes or is taken by what is before her. Of this one might say that a person can put into anything only what is already potentially in oneself at that moment. This is not, however, to imply a stable self with a fixed set of potentialities. As a multiplist and constructive realist, Krausz is committed to the view that there is virtually always more than one way to construct or construe the meaning of any fragment of language or work of art or life project. It is, however, the case that meanings become settled, often so settled as to seem natural and necessary. As such they can jar with one’s experiences, but if they do not, they are apt to put into shadow other meanings implicit in languages, artworks, and lives, attention to which would cast a different light on what we have become accustomed to think and to see. It is a matter of opening oneself up to these other meanings, other ways of seeing. Art does this for us, avant-garde art in particular. When, for example, James Joyce’s Ulysses was published in 1922, people didn’t know what to make of it when they read it as they read, say, Middlemarch. It had to be read in a new way, slowly and laboriously, as its language revealed its richness and newness, working on the reader who can read in a new way, sounding chords in her that had never been heard. Artworks read their audience full as much as their audience reads them. One can extend this to events and objects other than art. I want to begin our look at the flowers in the well-laid out garden with an experience that Krausz had when he was twenty-eight, one that foreshadowed his recent interests. It introduces the idea of ecstasy or selftranscendence as a step in the discovery of what provokes the ecstatic experience. We are here approaching a reference frame-free notion of truth. “True” here can be parsed as a relation between a language (reference frame, theory), an artwork, or a life story, on the one hand, and the experience of an individual engaged with the language, artwork, or life story in which there is a reflective equilibrium between the object of the experience and the experiencing subject, on the other hand. This leaves open the question as to how much the identities of the subject and object are what they are by virtue of their relation to each other. Krausz describes the occasion this way: “while visiting the studio of a friend and being surrounded by her large canvasses, I experienced myself inhabiting the space visually depicted in them. It corresponded to and somehow forged an ‘inner’ space with which I somehow felt familiar.” He went on to say “I felt an at-homeness, an at-oneness, a ‘non-duality’ in the space depicted in the large canvasses” (personal communications; see also Saarinen 2014). The truth for which this stands as an argument is that he found himself in the space of the shape and colors of the world, as they are in themselves and before they constitute the objects that furnish the world.



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In this experience, there was no world, only its raw materials. The shapes and colors were expressive no doubt: they defined and inhabited a space, but were not bearers of meaning. He felt himself to be one with the canvases, having been touched by the art as, for a dramatic example, Teresa of Avila is depicted in Bernini’s The Vision of St. Teresa (1647–1652), as having been touched by the love of God. A reformer with St. John of the Cross of the mendicant Carmelite Order of friars and nuns, Teresa had a visionary experience in which an angel pierced her heart with a spear of gold. “He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. . . . The soul is satisfied now with nothing less than God” (Teresa of Avila 2010, 164). The truth evidenced by this vision is that for Teresa there is nothing but God, from which it follows that there is no her. Although Krausz would not call his experience in his friend’s studio an ecstasy, as viewers have called that of Teresa, I want to focus on his melding into the space of the canvas as Teresa melded into the love that is God. Where is interpretation here? Those who underwent the experiences described them. They did not make sense of or assign meaning to them. They did not interpret them. Two particulars of the dissolve of A into B interest us: one is that it takes place in time, the other is that it makes a difference. As a result of what happened in his friend’s studio, Krausz became a painter. “I suddenly became visually much more highly sensitive, and, as a consequence, needed to paint. . . . Since that time, I have experienced the world differently” (Krausz 1981, 191). These experiences are beyond interpretation, and as such are not themselves flowers in the Sissinghurst Garden but are, rather, emblematic of how one experiences this garden with its perfectly formed beds filled with a riot of flowers. The flowers are the meanings assigned to languages, artworks, cultural artifacts, and life stories when those meanings are held lightly, held in full awareness that they are not the only possible ones—the Sissinghurst gardener can replace these flowers with those, as an interpreter can entertain these possible meanings of A in tandem with those possible meanings of B to see what happens. And sometimes what happens is that the world lights up and one says “Yes, that’s it!” This is because there is always more than one way to construct the meaning of any fragment of language or work of art or life project. Sometimes it is having experiences like that of Krausz finding himself in his friend’s canvases or Teresa having a vision in which she is pierced by the sword of an angel for one to have the world light up. Sometimes it is engaging with a work of avant-garde art for which one needs a new way of reading, reading in a creative, writerly way. Sometimes, if one is a woman, say, it is reading against the grain of what has been made and interpreted through the eyes of a man. Sometimes it is coming upon the work of Michael Krausz, whose paintings capture the movement of the conductor’s baton—painting and music made one—and whose philosophy entertains more possibilities than many philosophers do as he makes one of philosophy and life.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Krausz, Michael. 1981. “Creating and Becoming.” In The Concept of Creativity in Science and Art, edited by Michael Krausz and Denis Dutton. The Hague: M. Nijhoff. ———. 2007. Interpretation and Transformation: Explorations in Art and the Self. Amsterdam: Rodopi. ———, ed. 2010. Relativism: A Contemporary Anthology. New York: Columbia University Press. ———. 2011. Dialogues on Relativism, Absolutism, and Beyond: Four Days in India. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. ———. 2013. Oneness and the Displacement of the Self: Dialogues on Self-Realization. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Saarinen, Jussi Antti. 2014. “The Oceanic Feeling in Painterly Creativity.” Contemporary Aesthetics 12. Online at: http://www.contempaesthetics.org/newvolume/pages/article .php?articleID=704. Teresa of Avila. Saint. 2010. Teresa of Jesus: The Autobiography of Teresa of Ávila, translated and edited by P. Allison Peers. New York: Dover Publications.

2 Multiple Interpretations and Singular Selves Garry L. Hagberg

Michael Krausz’s work over many years and across many subjects offers the rare combination of humane depth, cultural breadth, and analytical precision; in this chapter I want to identify and discuss some central elements of his sustained contribution to our understanding of the nature and the content of interpretation, considering at the end the implications of this work of our understanding of self-interpretation.1

WORD AND WORLD Many discussions of interpretive pluralism in philosophical aesthetics, and still more in literary theory and cultural studies, could benefit from a fundamental point that Krausz makes clear: we must articulate interpretive pluralism in such a way that the plurality of interpretations address the same cultural entity. As Krausz shows, we can easily and mistakenly believe that pluralism’s plausibility depends on there being differently constituted cultural entities. For example, your Brothers Karamazov is different from mine in our varying subjective constitutions of the text, and so pluralism appears a natural theoretical option in that we are interpreting different objects. But with different interpretive objects, even if named similarly (like different people with the same name), interpretive singularism would be equally plausible. And with identifiably different interpreted objects unique to our own idiosyncratic readings, multiplism would be called for only if we each had different and competing interpretations of our Brothers Karamazov. Krausz has done more than anyone to clarify this 1.  I draw from Krausz’s Limits of Rightness (2000). I also allude throughout this chapter to his earlier Rightness and Reasons (1993) as well as to his Interpretation and Transformation (2007). This chapter incorporates some material from my earlier “Rightness Reconsidered” (2003) and from “In Language, Beyond Words” (2016a).

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matter; and having done this, he then pursues the more pressing question: Can there be multiple and equally admissible interpretations of the same interpreted cultural entity? And then once that is answered, to what extent does the self fit the mold of “cultural entity” (so that every insight we gain here concerning artistic or culturalartifact interpretation will apply with equal force to self-interpretation)? To begin to answer such questions, Krausz has shown us that we need to turn first to the question of the ontology of the cultural object. In the grip of the intuitively supported notion that: 1. any cultural entity subject to interpretation will possess a finite set of determinate properties, and 2. those properties will together constitute that object’s fixed identity prior to and separate from any interpretive intervention by the observer, we may then, seemingly naturally, 3. believe that such fixed-property realism would quite unproblematically imply interpretive singularism. On this view only that single interpretation formed in direct correspondence to those fixed properties is true; all others, failing the correspondence to fixity, would be false. But the polemical opposite to this singularist position quickly and naturally suggests itself as well. In the grip of the picture that: 1a. a cultural entity subject to interpretation will possess an indeterminate collection of properties that are in continual flux, where 2a. this flux is allowed by the constructivist nature of the object and sustained by the highly variegated and ever-evolving perceptual and interpretive interventions of the observer, we then, also seemingly naturally, 3a. believe that such variable-property constructivism would imply multiplism. It is then a short step from this more general ontological polemic between fixity and flux to claiming that this analysis applies not only to the interpretation of works of art but also to human selves (to which we will return below). It is, however, the signal achievement of Krausz’s work to have demonstrated that the contest between singularism and multiplism is detachable from ontological commitments, and that the intuitive linkages we may too-quickly grasp between realism and singularism (and correspondingly between constructivism and multiplism) are the conceptual equivalent of optical illusions. To fully settle the ontological question concerning the nature of the interpreted cultural entity would thus not be to also settle, by implication from that ontology, the single-right-interpretation question. If the veracity of the single-right-interpretation were ensured by the ontological fixity of the object, then we would also have ready to hand a stable criterion for the adjudication of any two competing interpretations. Simply stated, that interpretation that more closely approximates the ideal would be preferable. And then—keeping the deep analogy between the interpretation of works of art and the interpretation



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of human persons in mind—this interpretive logic would apply with equal force to the question of the interpretation of human selves, and indeed to self-interpretation. But, as Krausz—admirably allergic to oversimplification—has shown, matters are not as simple as this clearly structured ontological polemic might suggest. Krausz himself looks at the issue of singularism versus multiplism from a multiplicity of perspectives. He shows why (in a way that may be surprising to some) in some cases neither the interpretive ideals of singularism nor multiplism apply, precisely in those cases where we lack the grounds to determine if competing interpretations in fact address one object in common beneath the two interpretations (as we shall see below, self-interpretation may constitute one such case). Here Krausz demarcates what he has identified (this identification is itself another signal contribution) as the limits of rightness. And he shows that the very term “interpretation” is not univocal, and that we do not follow narrow and uniform rules for its singular and correct application. The concept of interpretation is used multifariously, and Krausz will not allow the unifying demands of theory to falsify the diversity of our practice (this he undertakes in a manner deeply congruent with both the letter and spirit of Wittgenstein’s writings). The diversity of interpretive practice Krausz has in view is explored through an expansive range of cases, including: Indian burial rites and attendant concepts of moral purification and transmigration; the paintings of Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Klee, and Anselm Keifer; Joseph Gingold’s Stradivarius; phlogiston and subatomic particles; contrasts between Hindu and Buddhist soteriologies; and Christo’s Wrapped Reichstag as a problem in artistic boundary indeterminacy. It is in the course of his investigations into these culturally enmeshed cases that his analysis turns to ontological options for the theoretical construal of the interpretive artifacts that lie between the polar extremes of realism and constructivism (again, in a manner free of misleading picture-driven presumptions concerning the linkage to the singularism/ multiplism debate). And this project is particularly significant for the achievement of a larger understanding of self-interpretation, precisely because the ontology of the self is often too quickly articulated in fixed-property realist or (polemically opposed) variable-property constructivist terms. Taking Wittgenstein’s critique of ostensive definition (here emphasizing that ostension alone does not individuate) as his point of departure, Krausz revivifies our appreciation of the importance of the intentional background for the individuation of the object to which we ostensively point, be it a broom (Wittgenstein’s famous example) or Christo’s Wrapped Reichstag. This is a conceptual opening that leads into Krausz’s distinctive articulation of constructive realism, which acknowledges that objects are not “given” as such. Instead they are—as shown by our worldinterpretive practices quite apart from what a desire for theoretical concision might like to find—“taken” within the intentional frame of the observer, that is, within the symbol system, or representational system (in a manner reminiscent of Nelson Goodman’s philosophical project (1978), of the observer. Challenging the insistent view that we can begin any such inquiry with a basic description of an uninterpreted reality, above which the interpretations float, Krausz acutely reveals some of the

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deep linkages between problems in metaphysics and the philosophy of language. For example, the description of an uninterpreted realist world of pre-represented objects will invariably proceed within a language, within an interpretive matrix. Thus it is, he argues, best to relinquish the desire or overcome the temptation to speak of that pre-interpreted world. But, the process of conceptual therapy Krausz takes us through does not deliver us into an ever-new world of chaotic flux and rampant subjectivism. It is a constructive realism he is after, and the contingency that there is must in some sense be constrained—we as interpreters cannot make the world into just anything we want, nor can we interpret ourselves into just anything. But then, on Krausz’s view, are these interpretations constrained by the conditions of the pre-verbal world unto itself, or by what we (as ontologically empowered linguistic interventionists) say about that world? Here we see the deeper power of Krausz’s project again. It is the presumed dichotomy undergirding the formulation of this question that Krausz rightly wants to unearth and remove: that undergirding is a deeply embedded formative influence on our thinking and our corresponding subsequent expectations as to how an answer, to be satisfying, must proceed. The constructivist point concerns the necessity of any description of the interpreted object proceeding inside of language, thus never to be free of constructivist interventions no matter how scientific our descriptive language sounds. The realist replies that this point concerns not what is, but rather only what we say about what is. But what Krausz sees here with bracing clarity and originality of vision is that it does not follow from the impossibility of elucidating realism cleanly, that is, in a manner free of the human hand’s rather smudgy intervention in the proceedings, that thus we might as well abandon the notion of constraints on interpretation. In truth we do not have to choose sides in a doctrinaire and polemically inflexible all-or-nothing fashion; for Krausz, the dialectical p or not-p structure is only the surface manifestation of an undergirding conceptual picture that we should therapeutically excavate and eradicate. Now, I am perhaps casting Krausz’s project in terms that are more Wittgensteinian than he actually uses, but be that as it may it is clear that Krausz both sees and says that the impulsion to ask the question—the answer to which would identify the constraints on interpretive chaos in (1) words, constructively, or (2) in the world, realistically—originates in an underlying conceptual picture of a bifurcated separability. That separability, having first severed our myriad and highly variegated connections and relations between what we in a metaphysical and highly generalized voice call on the one side words, and the other the world, then leads us seemingly inevitably to search out the one fundamental and ontologically significant relation that obtains between the two metaphysical categories. Thus in relation particularly to the problem of selfhood and the special nature of the autobiographical project—that is, the self taking itself as its object of investigation, we would bifurcate the self as an entity that is (a) in ontological fact hermetically sealed unto itself (analogous to the world as originally sealed from the word) and then only (b) contingently spoken about in the ontologically separate words we use to describe it. This is a complex matter, but most directly stated: the self is pictured as a fixed given, like the world on the ontologically bifurcated world-word conceptual template, and so the language of



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the self, autobiographical writing, is pictured as ex post facto descriptions that, like the words that describe but do not in part constitute the world on the realist model, are irremediably secondary to the prior facts that obtain in the pre-linguistic world. And so here again, this schematic model or philosophical picture engenders its polemical opposite: speaking of the world, the linguistic constructivist will argue that words make the world and exercise a constitutive power that they are unfairly denied on the opposing realist view. The corresponding constructivist view of the self is that autobiographical speaking and writing makes, or is linguistically constitutive of, the self. So the grand bifurcated categories of world and word are anything but innocent when we turn to the question of selfhood and autobiographical knowledge—on the contrary, they lay down grooves of thought of which it becomes very difficult to steer clear. But Krausz, it turns out, is an exceptionally skilled driver on these deeply grooved roads, and the vital point emerging from Krausz’s reflections is that we will feel impelled to espouse a radical constructivism only so long as we retain the dichotomy that the realist and constructivist share. And so moving with Krausz beyond this dialectic of polarized opposites that share a common foundational dichotomized picture, we can now start to more thoroughly grasp what he means by a constructive realism. In this articulation of realism the role of our interpretive practices is acknowledged without embracing a reckless interpretwhat-you-will, or saying-so-makes-it-so, constructivism. And so elements of realism, such as questions (1) of the “fit” of a description of a cultural object or entity, (2) of whether a given property is in the interpreted object, either the art work or the self, and (3) of the abiding qualities of a work or object or self that has gone unseen by its contemporary audience, all can and do arise in particular contexts of inquiry. And elements tipping toward constructivism arise as well. We find questions about (1) the “historied” nature of the perceiving eye or ear; (2) the perceptually prismatic nature of an aesthetic property we think we are seeing clearly (where the perceptual error is discerned in retrospect); and (3) the power of the particular background, interests, and sensibility of the interpreter where these powers become constitutive of that object’s relational properties. All these context-specific issues that arise within particular contexts of inquiry are accommodated within Krausz’s synthesis-ontology of constructive realism. His ontological position does not entail singularism, multiplism, or—here again moving beyond a dichotomy and what it enforces with regard to our expectations of an answer—either one in those cases that extend beyond what he terms the limits of rightness. A number of such particular interpretive issues arise in the case of Christo’s Wrapped Reichstag. Krausz uses this case to good effect to show that these issues taken together reveal an aesthetically significant boundary-indeterminacy in this work. Does it include only, and precisely only, the German parliament building, over sixty tons of billowing silvery fabric, and over ten miles of blue rope, all put in place around the building? Or, as Christo asserts, does it include both the pre-history of the work, its conception, its long and arduous process of obtaining permissions and the files of correspondence and drawings leading to those permissions, and also what

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we might then call the work’s post-history, that is, the revelers around the building, the art students sketching it, the storefronts displaying silver-in-blue wrapped objects, etc.? Here, as Krausz shows, precisely where one draws the line between work and non-work is constitutive of the work. But that line could be drawn at a number of different places, and from those demarcations a number of implications follow. Krausz shows how such cases quickly unsettle any presumption we may have concerning the “fixed-object with a finite list of properties” model, but on reflection it appears—and I think Krausz would accept this extension of his point—that such cases also quickly unsettle the opposite presumption concerning the power of the interpreter of the object as envisioned by the constructivist. Again, we can draw the lines in many plausible places. But, importantly, we cannot draw them just anywhere. For example, we cannot include the fabric and exclude the blue rope in the way we can include the fabric and the blue rope and not the documentation preceding the act of wrapping. Similar non-arbitrary constraints naturally emerge in the interpretation of selves, biographically or autobiographically. So (if to state the matter too briefly): the constitutive power of the judgments we make will indeed in particular respects be constrained by the properties of the object. And in some different respects those judgments exert work-determinative control over it. It is in this respect that, following Krausz, we can steer clear of the grooves described above.

INTERPRETATION AND INTELLIGIBILITY So interpretation, despite any lingering subjectivist impulses, is not merely a matter of saying just anything at any moment; not all interpretive words are born equal. There are gradations of plausibility and differences of credibility. And interpretation has, after all, an aim—without which the very concept of interpretation would not preserve its intelligibility. So how then do we go about describing the markers of progress; where and what are the guiding lights? Krausz, having carefully set out the logic of the polemically opposed positions of the singularist and the multiplist in interpretation, has observed that the multiplist may “deploy such multivalent values as reasonableness, appropriateness, or aptness” (Krausz 2016, 35) within the larger process of making a given interpretive line of thinking convincing or considering its plausibility. These values could of course be employed by the singularist as well, but with the essential difference that the singularist will use them in working toward the goal of the one true interpretation and not, with the multiplist, a true interpretation. Krausz’s fundamental point here is that a multifarious range of guiding lights can show the way in actual critical practice on the ground of particular cases. And I would want to add to this (an addition I think Krausz would accept) that these concepts themselves can and will differ in their precise meanings, their inflections, and their uses and articulations across variegated contexts of interpretive practice. So there will not be a single measure of interpretive progress, certainly for the multiplist but, importantly, also for the singularist (although again, they of course disagree over



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the number of interpretive destinations one can reach). So that is to say, interpretive reasonableness itself does not reduce to one thing—“reasonableness” is not an internally contained word with a hermetic fixity of meaning that allows it to function in one way as a single criterion of interpretive acceptability in all cases. Thus of Van Gogh’s The Potato Eaters, the formalist, the Marxist, the Christian, the feminist, the New Critic, the semiotician, and the Freudian will develop ways to articulate layers or aspects of meaning as they proceed in investigating the work, and what it is reasonable to suggest in each case may well be dependent upon what has been said, implied, intimated, or made possible, or opened as a linguistic avenue (that is, what has been put into play within the interpretive language-game) previously. To transplant this kind of sentence, “There is a psychodynamic conflict underway between the represented id and the implied superego; this we see present in the tension within the canvas between stark light and atmospheric darkness,” into a context in which the previous sentence was, “The private ownership of the means of production yields impoverishment not abstractly, but for real persons with real, individuated facial expressions of precisely the kind you see here,” would generate an interpretive non sequitur. Or perhaps (if it were not transplanted) it would convey in this case a rejection of Marxist interpretation and an insistence on Freudian interpretation in its place, where this insistence is carried within the falsely apparent form of a non sequitur. That would make it reasonable (if a bit aggressively so) within its context. But the larger point is in any case that the interpretive sentence does not carry its reasonableness internally within itself; the trajectory of the discourse within its demarcated context, its language-game, will determine that as the language progresses within its “atmosphere” (or as we would say in contrast to the internally or sententially contained falsely unitary or invariant model of reasonableness, its reasonableness will be determined from the outside of the sentence). And the same will be true of Krausz’s other concepts as listed: appropriateness, aptness (for example, a witness to the insistent Freudian might say that the remark was apt, if somewhat inappropriate). Here Krausz claims, for good reason (and a point of fundamental importance to self-understanding), that “multiplists allow that incongruent interpretations may be jointly defended” (Krausz 2016, 34). And I would suggest an addition to this claim as well, specifically that the defense of those incongruent interpretations may itself involve the use of incongruent criteria, or that, even where the same terms (reasonableness, etc.) are used across differing interpretations, those terms will be inflected differently and will have case-specific content shaped by their individual contexts. Given what we have seen above, Krausz of course does not claim anything like this, but if one were to say that they are the same words, so they have the same meaning, and they thus function as uniform cross-contextual measures of interpretive progress, one just wants to say (and Krausz, given the ground he has covered, is in a position to say): Look closer. (It is, essentially, what Wittgenstein said to Russell, and what those working in the tradition of Austin say to those working with the presupposition that if we can arrive at a definitive theory of direct reference we will have arrived at a clarification of the invariant essence of language.)

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In drawing the distinction between determinative and ampliative reasons (the former to persuade a person into accepting our, or one, interpretation as correct, the latter to fill in the content that makes the view we hold understandable to another, even if we continue to differ), Krausz, while offering a clarifying distinction, is also implicitly focusing our attention on what I take to be a central but easily missed point: we understand each other’s interpretations often precisely to the extent that we understand, in a nuanced and intricately contextually inflected way, the language we are using to describe the work in question. Why we say what we do about a work is often explained by what has come before in the language-game, what we have seen and said before, what we have seen as a result of what has been said, and what we have in place as what Richard Wollheim called our cognitive stock (1987)2 that interacts with what we perceive. These are—and Krausz’s discussion shows this—almost never simple matters, and the complexity is something that we understand through the gaining of a more exacting comprehension of the unbounded background from which the remarks and interpretive sentences we are hearing emerge, against which they have their force, and from which they draw their larger coherence and fittingness. The patterns of significance of which Krausz writes that may emerge differently from different people or groups of people are discerned within the language that, step by step, articulates the meaning-content of the work (or indeed the person) being interpreted or discussed. Krausz thus writes: “The strategies of aggregating and pluralizing objects of interpretation or aggregating and pluralizing interpretations themselves are mandated by no general rules for correct application. Rather, their appropriate deployment is a matter of piecemeal deliberation within the context of pertinent practices” (Krausz 2016, 38). Precisely—and this not only empirically is the case, but indeed conceptually must be the case, because both the general rules and the criteria measuring their correct application would have to be expressed in a fixed-content language that would have its sense prior to the aesthetic context within which that language has its life. And while we may have interpretive ideals, such “pertinent ideals should be understood within pragmatic, provisional, and unfolding interpretive conditions” (Krausz 2016, 38). So indeed, we may well have the interpretive ideal of clarity (and I cannot think of a case where we would not desire this, other than a case of false clarity that was hiding something else more important), but, like the criterion of reasonableness above, clarity will itself be a property discernible within the fabric of our evolving interpretive language, not a property we bring to any such language by first—prior to that evolving context—specifying hermetic word-content or the invariant criteria that content allegedly carries. I think Krausz sees this point itself very clearly within the context of his discussion of interpretation, and it is why his general statements (as with the one just above) invariably refer back to the relevant particularities available in—and only in—context. 2.  See esp. Wollheim’s “Chapter III: The Spectator in the Picture: Friedrich, Manet, Hals,” 101–86; consider in light of the present point in particular the discussion at 91–95 (Wollheim 1987). I offer a discussion in “Leonardo’s Challenge” (Hagberg 2016b).



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Now, regarding the nature of the object of interpretation, Krausz rightly insists: it is an intentional object. Krausz writes, “Intentional objects are endowed with meaning or significance within a field of cultural codes, norms, or the like. They are objects upon which meaning has been conferred, presented as having the meaning they do. Intentional objects are nodes of culturally endowed complexes” (Krausz 2016, 41). What I want to add to these reflections is that the phrase “intentional object” in the preceding could be replaced by “words, sentences, and the language we use” without loss of truth. Endowed with meaning (in multiform ways far more intricate and complex than any simplified additive picture where mental meaning is added to, or linked to, physical sound); bearers of significance, functioning within a field of norms and the like (I would define this as ranges of implications)—these phrases neatly describe the words we use and how we use them, and to say that words are “nodes of culturally endowed complexes” captures the matter in question perfectly. (If one needed a single word to serve as a polemical opposite to “atomism,” the word “complexes” would serve well.) So one can thus see here a double point: the language that makes up literature functions according to these descriptions that language is constituted of linguistic intentional objects; and then the non-linguistic3 artworks that function as intentional objects, as meaning-bearers, function in a way that is deeply analogous to language.4 The question of meaning, and the intricate and irreducibly complex human practices of discerning that meaning, are foundational to each and unite them.

INTERPRETING SELVES What significance, then, do these reflections hold for the interpretation of persons, of selves? If persons are cultural entities as described in the preceding, then we can return to the polemical theses considered at the outset, but now with persons or human selves as the focal point. In that case, we would have on the first pole: 1. any self-as-cultural-entity subject to interpretation will possess a finite set of determinate properties, and 2. those properties will together constitute that self ’s fixed identity prior to and separate from any interpretive intervention by an observer-interpreter, so we may then, seemingly naturally, 3. believe that such fixed-property realism would quite unproblematically imply interpretive singularism with regard to both the content and the interpretation of that person. On this view only that single interpretation formed in direct correspondence to those fixed properties of that given self is true; all others, failing the correspondence to fixity, would be misinterpretations or, as misunderstandings of a person, false. 3.  I suggest a way of seeing the verbal-to-musical connection in “Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, Linguistic Meaning, and Music” (Hagberg 2011). 4.  I examine various versions or articulations of this analogy in Art as Language (Hagberg 1995).

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But as above, the polemical opposite to this singularist position quickly and naturally suggests itself when we think of the interpretation of persons. So in the grip of the picture or conceptual model that: 1a. a self that is subject to interpretation will exhibit an indeterminate collection of emerging and receding properties that are in continual flux, where 2a. this flux of self-content is consistent with the constructivist nature of the self as a highly variegated and ever-evolving entity inviting and supporting similarly ever-changing perceptual and interpretive content on the part of the observer, we then, also seemingly naturally, 3a. believe that this variable-property constructivism of selfhood would imply interpretive multiplism. And again, but now from this side, this more general ontological polemic between fixity and flux demonstrates the parallel between the interpretation of works of art and the interpretation of human selves. But what I described as Krausz’s signal achievement above was that he showed the initially counterintuitive separability of this ontological debate from the interpretive contest between singularism and multiplism. Fixed-property realism does not in and of itself imply interpretive singularism, any more than variable-property constructivism implies in and of itself interpretive multiplism. By considering a number of cases throughout the arts and culture, Krausz showed that there are cases where neither singular nor multiple ideas of interpretation apply in a way that leaves nothing out. That is, we can stipulate that a person is fixed in accordance with thesis (1), and then stipulate that the correct interpretation of that person will be singularist, but this will in the case of a real person seem drastically oversimplified and inappropriately reductive. (Indeed the recognition and acknowledgment of the complexity of a person versus the oversimplifying reduction of that person can be a moral matter, but that is for another time.) Or we can stipulate as the polemically opposite methodological presupposition that a person, a self, is of a generic kind that is thoroughgoingly constructivist, so that the free-for-all multiplism discussed above is endorsed. But with the connections between the ontological claims and interpretive methods severed (and accordingly clarified), we will see these as what they are: stipulations. And that itself exposes these methodological and categorical simplifications on either side as themselves too free-for-all, themselves too unaware of the circumstantial details of context within which criteria for interpretive plausibility emerge. Both models of selfhood are too undisciplined (with fixed-property ontology conjoined to singularism falsely promising clarity and rigorous discipline). Interpretation, again, is itself not univocal, and its variations will manifest across different cases; this is true in life as it is in art. Human beings can be seen, in the terms discussed here, as cultural entities, and (although this is not the place to show this point at length) the logic of their interpretation can be very much like the Wrapped Reichstag case. We can make decisions about what we regard as foundational to the identity of the person, and if we establish and cement in place a commitment to truth, then a perceived moment of dissimulation will be



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seen against that background and taken for what it is—an exception to the rule rather than itself being an isolated person-defining foundation (although the exception, as an exception, will carry its significance for the interpretation of the person). And with that commitment, and that exception, in place, some further descriptions will then make sense within that person-interpreting language-game, and others not. This will be like including the fabric and the rope, but not the paperwork concerning the permissions. But then Krausz’s summarizing phrase was “constructive realism.” And this takes us, finally, to the issue not of other-interpretation, but of self-interpretation. It is true that, through the relational engagements of the kind that the classical American pragmatists emphasized, that we make significant contributions to the “making” or the composition of others through the encouragement and solidification of person-descriptions. But we would miss a lot of the significance here if we stopped at that point. Because we persons are not invariably transparent unto ourselves, and because we can re-interpret, or newly interpret, past action, we can find ourselves in a position of self-interpretation that incorporates everything already discussed concerning other-interpretation (and its deep analogy to the interpretation of a work of art). But in these cases the decisions we make concerning what is in and what is out as in the Reichstag case, and the ways in which we make sense of new additions to the unfolding interpretive language-game and consider and evaluate the contextually emergent inflections of our words, become not only in a weak sense self-defining (where the words we use are thought of as coming after the fact and then only contingently so, so that the truth of ourselves was in place prior to language or as Krausz says pre-dictively), but in a strong sense self-defining (where we are changed, solidified, or resolutely exemplifying one trait and not another) so that language (now postdictively) not only describes the case but significantly helps makes the case. It is as if the Wrapped Reichstag were making its own decisions as it proceeds, making itself what it is and determining its own identity and its own boundaries through a process of unfolding self-constitution. It is, to use a familiar image non-pejoratively, a kind of bootstrapping of selfhood. Any purely descriptive account of the language of selfidentity would systematically miss this; if the ontology were fixed in advance of any language, there would be no room for words to exert power. And on the other polar extreme of radical constructivism, there would be no recognition of the stability of the self-descriptions that demand acknowledgment and with which any ongoing constitutively empowered self-description must negotiate. The kind of truth that emerges in such cases is often like metaphorical truth:5 like Wittgenstein on the seeing of aspects,6 we see the truth of a self-defining remark or observation, and assess its interpretive power, by seeing initially unobvious similarities or likenesses, by seeing connections, by seeing subtly emergent patterns. This is not one-to-one matching of language to the world, not simple or direct verified cor5.  For an acute discussion and demonstration of how it is that we see the truth in a metaphor, see Ted Cohen, Thinking of Others (2008). 6.  For a set of informative articles on this category of perception, see Seeing Wittgenstein Anew, ed. W. Day and V. Krebs (2010).

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respondence. But nor is it entirely creative, entirely unconstrained or free-floating, entirely without gradations of plausibility or acceptability. That no man is an island, profoundly true, is not a truth one can verify by matching intrinsic and invariant properties to its subsequent flatly descriptive language. (Instructively, one can verify the very odd literal claim that no man is an island in this way, but that would have to be only humorously and deliberately mock-uncomprehending; Donne’s truth is not verified in anything like that way.) And Donne’s words do not constitute merely a claim that is no better than any other random description of a person or the nature of persons; the truth in it is not a matter of whimsy or shallow subjectivist preference. It is at this point that one can feel tempted to revert to a simple foundationalist model of self-description and self-interpretation, where we take simple stated correspondences to be the base upon which the more poetic descriptions rest. But on closer inspection (precisely of the kind Krausz steadfastly encourages), we find that such a model can apply, for example, to parts of bodies, but not to persons. That is, a medical doctor may begin with a diagnostic hypothesis concerning a lung, proceed through investigation and testing to a probable explanation of symptoms, finally settling on a confirmed diagnosis. And this can depend on a confirmed physical fact of the case, where the diagnostic language directly follows, and describes, that physical fact. Such cases can falsely revivify our sense of the applicability of the fixed-ontology model of person-interpretation, but that approach will not capture either the complexity or the phenomenology of the self. Indeed, perhaps the best refutation of descriptive reductionism, or physicalistic behaviorism, is to look at how we actually interpret and understand a person and then ask how much of this we can actually capture on the models of language that such reductionisms insinuate or presuppose.7 As I mentioned above, there will be cases, and considerations that arise within cases, that tip now toward realism, now toward constructivism. But they tip, they do not (unlike some medical diagnoses) wholly fall to one side or the other. It would be the rare exception, and not the rule, that would give us a case in which everything relevant to a moment of self-reflection or self-interpretation would be captured on one polemical model or the other without very significant remainder. The words, the instruments of such reflections, neither dig down to direct foundational correspondence nor fly up to airborne fancy. Like good metaphors. I identified above what I called the conceptual opening that leads into Krausz’s distinctive articulation of constructive realism, a sophisticated articulation of realism that acknowledges that interpreted objects are not in a simple empirical sense “given” as such. Rather, such objects are—as is shown in the real contexts of our interpretive practices—“taken” within the intentional frame of the observer, within the intellectual atmosphere of what Wollheim, as mentioned above, called cognitive stock. The self, in Krausz’s special sense, is an interpreted object, but interpreted by itself inside the mental world of its own cognitive stock, its own web 7.  As a correction to the impulse to simplify and to mistakenly take conceptual presupposition in such cases as simple empirical fact, see Krausz on reference frames, in Interpretation and Transformation (Krausz 2007), Chapter 8: “Changing Reference Frames, Changing Emotions,” 85–95.



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of “seeing-as” relations and aspect-perceptions, and its own interacting weave of metaphorical descriptions. So is there a general overarching or organizational rule to follow in putting together an overarching collection of self-interpretations, so that we end with a singular and unified sense of self that singly corresponds to one overarching self-description? Or: is there a singular foundational self-description as the reduced essentialized result of a collection of self-interpretations to which every subsequent self-interpretation must be first reconciled before being considered acceptable? With these questions in mind, let us again consider the passage quoted above, but in this case where “objects of interpretation” means not only “human selves” but (to encapsulate the project of self-knowledge and its active side as self-composition), “human selves interpreting themselves.” Krausz wrote, “The strategies of aggregating and pluralizing objects of interpretation or aggregating and pluralizing interpretations themselves are mandated by no general rules for correct application. Rather, their appropriate deployment is a matter of piecemeal deliberation within the context of pertinent practices” (Krausz 2016, 38). And so in self-investigation, the criteria relevant to the adjudication and further reflection on any self-interpretation will emerge, with its language intricately inflected in the way mentioned above, only within the circumscribed contexts of pertinent practices. It would take a volume to show how such case-sensitive criteria emerge within such interpretive practices (and this might well be accomplished through close philosophical readings of literature) and indeed exactly what those practices are and how they proceed. For now, however, with this final question concerning the possibility of a single “backbone” or foundational fixed-property self-description to the fore, one might recall that we say that we are individuals—that is, non-dividable singular selves hermetically internally contained. But there are cases (as in cases of collective action or joint intention of a kind irreducible to the sum total of individual intentions8) in which philosophers and anthropologists are now speaking with considerable plausibility of “dividuals” and “porous subjects” in contexts of distributed creativity. If Krausz is right (and I think he is), as we have just seen the sense of any such word-alterations or neologisms will be specified, given content, and inflected within particular contexts of human interpretation and understanding. Of course, whether we would ever want to replace the concept of an individual with that of the “dividual” is an open question (and I doubt it). But to augment our conception of selfhood in a way that extends beyond the boundaries of established preconceptions and that would capture more of the nuances of our complex practices would in any case prove beneficial, and it would correspondingly expand our grasp of the range and character of self-description and self-interpretation. In any case, with an enhanced and, thanks to Krausz, much more acute understanding of the conceptual models within which we can and are inclined to think about the interpretation of artworks and the interpretation (and self-interpretation) of persons 8.  I offer discussions of this matter in “The Ensemble as Plural Subject” (Hagberg 2017), and in “Playing as One” (Hagberg 2016c).

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(including, as we have seen, fixed-property grounded realism; variable-property unconstrained constructivism; interpretive singularism; interpretive multiplism; constructive realism; and the relations between all of these), he has shown us how and why it is that sometimes the right thing to say is: we are large, we contain multitudes.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Cohen, Ted. 2008. Thinking of Others: On the Talent for Metaphor. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Day, William, and Victor J. Krebs, eds. 2010. Seeing Wittgenstein Anew. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Goodman. Nelson. 1978. Ways of Worldmaking. Indianapolis: Hackett. Hagberg, Garry L. 1995. Art as Language: Wittgenstein, Meaning, and Aesthetic Theory. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ———. 2003. “Rightness Reconsidered: Krausz, Wittgenstein, and the Question of Interpretive Understanding.” In Interpretation and Its Objects: Studies in the Philosophy of Michael Krausz, edited by A. Deciu and G. L. Pandit, 25–37. Amsterdam: Rodopi. ———. 2011. “Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, Linguistic Meaning, and Music.” Paragraph 34 (3): 388–405. ———. 2016a. “In Language, Beyond Words: Literary Interpretation and the Verbal Imagination.” In Interpretation and Meaning in Philosophy and Religion, edited by Dirk-Martin Grube, 74–95. Leiden: Brill. ———. 2016b. “Leonardo’s Challenge: Wittgenstein and Wollheim at the Intersection of Perception and Projection.” In Wollheim, Wittgenstein, and Pictorial Representation, edited by G. Kemp et al., 117–59. New York: Routledge. ———. 2016c. “Playing as One: Ensemble Improvisation, Collective Intention, and Group Attention.” In Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies, edited by George Lewis and Ben Piekut, 481–99. New York: Oxford University Press. ———. 2017. “The Ensemble as Plural Subject: Jazz Improvisation, Collective Intention, and Group Agency.” In Creativity, Improvisation, and Collaboration: Perspectives on the Performance of Contemporary Music, edited by Eric Clarke and Mark Doffman. New York: Oxford University Press. Michael Krausz. 1993. Rightness and Reasons: Interpretation in Cultural Practice. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ———. 2000. Limits of Rightness. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. ———. 2007. Interpretation and Transformation: Explorations in Art and the Self. Amsterdam: Rodopi. ———. 2016. “The Ideals and Aim of Interpretation.” In Interpretation and Meaning in Philosophy and Religion, edited by Dick-Martin Grube, 34–49. Leiden: Brill. Wollheim, Richard. 1987. Painting as an Art. London: Thames and Hudson.

3 Identity and Its Narrative Discontents Krausz on Self-Understanding and Self-Transformation Andreea Deciu Ritivoi

An ecumenical thinker willing to engage earnestly with different viewpoints, Michael Krausz has made important contributions to several areas in philosophy, from debates about relativism to interpretation theory and aesthetics. Versatility is the hallmark of his style of reasoning, and is responsible in part for the wide applicability of his ideas. Yet in conceptual terms, Krausz is what his mentor Isaiah Berlin would have called a hedgehog: someone who digs deep into a particular hole, who “relate(s) everything to a single central vision, one system, less or more coherent or articulate, in terms of which (he) understand(s), think(s) and feel(s)” (Berlin 1953/2013, 2). In his case—in my reading at least—this central vision is connected to Krausz’s work on interpretation, which has consistently been a core concern for him. Drawn to different philosophical perspectives rather than focused on one particular framework, Krausz engages in a type of philosophical meditation that covers a wide array of topics and problems. What these all have in common is the fact that they demand interpretive activity—from understanding personal identity to artistic practices and Eastern philosophical beliefs. Over the years he has developed several key concepts, sometimes in dialogue with other scholars, as he does indeed in this present volume. Among these concepts, those that are pertinent to interpretation theory represent the philosophical issues that have consistently interested him. My goals in this chapter are to some extent modest: I wish to present the remarkable versatility of Krausz’s view of interpretation as it pertains to the interpretation of personal identity, and to show how his view deftly avoids both an essentialist (and, in my view, dubious) commitment to “inner potentialities” (Norton 1978) and a pernicious relativist “anything goes,” or “we are who we say we are” approach. My goals are more ambitious insofar as I try to offer, relying on Krausz’s concepts, a more nuanced analysis of the interpretation of identity as “postdictive construct of plausibly entertained present narratives” (Krausz 2000, 144). I will argue that Krausz 23

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offers a view of a narrative-based identity that addresses questions left unanswered, or at least not convincingly answered by narrative studies. The orthodox view in this scholarship is centered on a few fundamental tenets: that is, that narrative is a representational form that can make understandable and meaningful the raw experience of our lives (Mink 1978); that the self is the result of emplotting the events of our lives into significant sequences (Ricoeur 1992); that narratives embed identities in time and social relationships (Somers 1994); and finally, that narrative is an ontological condition of social life (White 1980). Widely known (and shared) as these positions have become, they are not without critics. Do all of us think of our selves in narrative terms, or should we even do so? Rising against what he perceives as “narrative imperialism,” Galen Strawson has argued that a narrative approach to identity fits particular ways of living and forms of engagement with one’s own temporality. As he puts it, “there are deeply nonnarrative people and there are good ways to live that are non-narrative” (Strawson 2004, 429). Distinguishing between Episodics and Diachronics—the former being individuals who don’t feel the need to connect different moments and events of their lives into a larger narrative framework, while the latter do—Strawson has insisted that there is no logically necessary or empirically verifiable reason to assume narrative is necessary for identity and that all of us define our selfhood as the byproduct of a story. Whether he is right or not remains beyond the confines of this chapter and has been my focus elsewhere (Ritivoi 2009). But I should still note that Strawson’s critique prompts an important question: what does a narrative understanding of identity offer in counter-distinction from non-narrative ones? What are the advantages and for that matter disadvantages of being a Diachronic versus an Episodic? I would venture to say that Krausz himself is a Diachronic. Indeed, his conceptual endorsement of a narrative view of identity, I would venture again, might be connected to his own life narrative and to his complex and multidimensional intellectual profile. In addition to being a philosopher, Krausz is also an accomplished painter and orchestra conductor with national and international experience. His varied interests feed into a multifaceted self-identity or even identities, which nonetheless hang(s) together coherently because it is held by a narrative. Over the years, I have witnessed parts of this story take shape; I have heard other parts of it recounted; and I have even taken part in the emergence of new parts. This rich, constantly reemerging story is the product of a diachronic perspective. The painter, the philosopher, and the conductor co-exist in one individual, named Michael Krausz, insofar as they inhabit different parts of a story that is nonetheless about a unified field of consciousness and about a coherent “personal program,” as Krausz himself would put it. In this chapter, I will engage with Krausz’s telling of a certain part of his narrative, which deals with his work as a visual artist. My focus in reflecting on this story will be on the role played by narrative not only in shaping the identity of a particular kind of thinker and creator (Krausz), but also providing insight into how narrative can be the foundation for self-understanding and for self-transformation.



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INTERPRETATION THEORY: A KRAUSZIAN PRIMER Offering a coherent and comprehensive theory of interpretation with its aims, main premises, and limitations is a challenging endeavor because interpretation is part and parcel of different kinds of domains such as literature but also the law, visual arts, religion, music but also science (insofar as one interprets empirical data), and also because the objects of interpretation, too, vary a lot, from a legal text to a poem, or from a symphony to an experiment. Interpretation plays an important role in the conduct of our daily lives and in shaping our selfhood across time: we interpret daily occurrences, place them in meaningful sequences, and the very way in which we construct our plans for the future as well as our remembering of the past are interpretive enterprises. Krausz’s theory of interpretation is carefully devised and founded on subtle and important distinctions and comprehensive in its reach. It is also particularly promising with respect to how we conceive of personal identity. Krausz has conceptualized identity formation as a process designed to generate connectedness among the varied experiences of a person, as well as signal a person’s responsiveness to the larger world that surrounds her, with all its events and situations. As I have read his work over the years, I have come to appreciate Krausz’s conception of interpretation especially as it pushes us to think about how we care for our selves, how we become responsible for our personal projects (whatever they are), and how we make our experiences into an examined life, to use a classic phrase, that is worth living. Self-reflection and self-understanding are key components of self-identity. Robert Nozick’s statement applies well to the purchase of Krausz’s theory of interpretation: “examination and reflection are not just about the other components of life; they are added within a life, alongside the rest, and by their presence call for a new overall pattern that alters how each part of life is understood” (Nozick 1989, 15). Krausz has developed a conceptual framework for the study of interpretation based on three constitutive elements: aim, ideals, and objects. He defines an interpretive ideal as the critical stance based on which interpreters decide whether to accept only one (singularism) interpretation using admissibility criteria to adjudicate among competing possibilities, or to show a more tolerant attitude and allow that for some objects, and under certain circumstances, multiple interpretations can be equally admissible (multiplism). In Rightness and Reasons Krausz argued that both singularism and multiplism are compatible with the ontologies of realism and constructivism. A singularist realist position would see the world as existing independent of any interpretation and as awaiting the right interpretation. A realist, however, can also be a multiplist who holds that objects of interpretation are themselves interpretation-independent, but that incongruent interpretations are ideally admissible of them (Krausz 1993). A singularist constructivist position “concedes that the object of interpretation is constructed (by a creator or by his or her culture) and with sufficient thick description of the conditions of its construction there must be a convergence toward a single admissible interpretation” (Krausz 1993, 3). The multiplist constructivist claims that, while that which

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is interpreted is interpretation-dependent, there might be more than one admissible interpretation. It is tempting to assume that multiplism applies primarily to interpretive efforts we encounter in areas where we can easily entertain more than one interpretation, such as the art. Yet Krausz is quite clear that singularism and multiplism are not aligned with particular metaphysical stances. For him, the difference between singularism and multiplism is not field-dependent. Nor is the distinction reducible to the more general difference between ontological positions, such as between a realism that would insist upon developing criteria that can establish which interpretation is correct and choose only the correct interpretation based on them, and a constructivism that would be much laxer and admit multiple possible interpretations. Indeed, one of the important contributions made by Krausz concerns the detachability thesis, according to which interpretative ideals are independent of a metaphysical and ontological perspective. As Krausz puts it, “the contest between singularism and multiplism is detachable from the contest between realism and contructivism” (Krausz 2000, 3). Whether a self is a “real” thing or a construct does not automatically entail that the self can be interpreted in one or in multiple ways. Krausz agrees that the detachability thesis does not render “metaphysics more generally understood” irrelevant to interpretive activity (Krausz 2000, 150). As he puts it, “the intentionality of cultural entities—their settings in regard to rules, norms, and the like—is a broadly metaphysical consideration without which one could not countenance pertinent entities as cultural to begin with” (ibid.). Narratives are cultural entities, constrained by the practices of a community, defined over time, and reified along plots that continue to be recycled through re-enactment and sharing among different members of the community. The story of the artist discovering his inspiration, or who starves for his art are not merely biographical vignettes or profiles, but also master plots that shape the meaning of the characters featured in them. Pressed to reflect on the connection between ontology and interpretation, Krausz has further clarified his position by offering a relationality thesis: whether a given object of interpretation answers to singularism or multiplism depends upon its identity (i.e., numerical) conditions, set within the context of the practice in which it nests. Whether singularist or multiplist conditions obtain in a given case depends on the number of object(s) of interpretation and the number of corresponding interpretation(s). The application of singularism or pluralism is a relational matter. (Qtd. in Ritivoi 2002, 315)

One important application of Krausz’s detachability and relationality theses—as I reviewed them above—concerns the narrative aspect of identity and its implications for self-understanding. Krausz has been particularly interested in identity conceived as a form of self-understanding but also as identity-transformation, and arguably, in the relation between them. Let me explain what these compound nouns mean, or how I understand them. Self-understanding signals that, however I might view or define my identity, now in the present moment or over time, I understand it. My



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actions, current and past, make sense to me as mine. I am aware of my wishes and intentions. I can account for my decisions and meaningfully pursue plans that take me closer to desired goals. Such self-understanding need not be perfect; it can include some degree of uncertainty, ambiguity, and ambivalence, but these remain nonetheless subsumed under a consistent frame that incorporates all my experiences and distills their meaning in connection to my general beliefs, values, intentions, and goals. The distillation of meaning is itself an interpretive process, as it requires a parceling of events that exist independent of myself or lies outside my control, such as an encounter with somebody who becomes an important person for me, or the loss of someone I value; the experience of disease or of being involved in a larger historical phenomenon, etc. In interpreting these events I endow them with meaning. In fact, the language I have used already is imbued with interpretation. By referring to the death of a person as “loss” I already am constructing one interpretation of the event rather than another one (as “just death”) based on which self-understanding takes a particular form, revealing an emotional connection, a particular way of assigning worth, and even establishing the contours of my selfhood (if by loss I mean that my selfhood is now somehow, however temporarily or permanently, diminished).

THE QUEST FOR SELFHOOD We can ask the more general question now: how does the interpretation of personal experiences, life stories, and the events that compose them lead to a particular understanding of one’s selfhood? And furthermore, a related question: how does the interpretation of personal experiences influence one’s ability to engage also in self-transformation and to be a particular kind of social and moral agent (that is, responsive to others’ needs, open to change, if not even vulnerable to it, aware of and attentive to larger contexts and problems)? I raise these question because, along with other scholars, especially Alasdair MacIntyre, I see self-understanding as an epistemic quest—I seek to know who I am—but also as a kind of moral enterprise (MacIntyre 1981). The events we experience are not morally neutral to us, and part of how we develop our sense of selfhood and acquire self-understanding depends on how we interpret the moral dimensions of an event, as well as how, based on such an interpretation, we consider our own change in a way that is both morally and socially responsible (that is, responsive to others’ demands and needs) and beneficial to our own plans and aspirations. The sequences of events based upon which we can and do evolve into what Krausz calls “personal programs” anchor selfhood in time. Personal programs allow us to imagine and plan for our future while we remember our past. They define a trajectory for self-transformation. As Krausz has argued, “the self develops in accordance with values of its adopted projects” (Krausz 2000, 144). Once we have adopted a project, we change to stay consistent with its premises and principles: “a project characteristically seeks its own autonomous consummation” (Krausz 2000, 145).

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To meet its demands, change is necessary, and it takes the form of development and progress rather than mere difference across stages of life. The problem of self-transformation is not insignificant to Krausz—and I use here on purpose the euphemism of stating it indirectly, because Krausz has been interested in it long before he addressed it directly in one of his more recent books (Krausz 2013). He has tackled it by using both reflections on his personal experience and philosophical argumentation. The son of Jewish immigrants who came to the United States after World War II, having escaped the Holocaust in Switzerland, Krausz has seen his parents change in response to the demands of life in a new country, as well as remain committed to Old World values: an overall intellectual Bildung, artistic pursuits, family. Krausz himself, trained as a philosopher but also as a musician, had to make a decision about his career trajectory. Such deliberation was part of living a professional life in the United States, a culture that encourages and promotes career specialization by often demanding “either-or” decisions: either philosopher and academic or artist; either musician or painter. The Frankfurt School philosophers, who were known for their artistic inclinations (Theodor Adorno as a pianist and Max Horkheimer as an amateur fiction writer) raised a few eyebrows in the United States. Perhaps Krausz himself inspired some suspicion to American colleagues, but whether he did or not, his pursuit of the arts was never merely a hobby. In one of his essays, Krausz recounts a formative encounter he experienced in his youth upon paying a visit to a friend who happened to be a painter. “I had not been particularly visually aware until I was twenty-eight,” he recounts in his artistic credo. Then, rather suddenly, painting came upon me. It was then that I visited the studio of noted artist, Leah Rhodes. Upon seeing her large shaped canvases, I had what John Dewey called a “consummatory experience.” I suddenly experienced myself in the space of Rhodes’s works instead of looking at them. I experienced an “interpenetration” of my self into the space of the painting. Suddenly, I became extremely visually sensitive—to spatial relations, to colors, and more. As a consequence of that experience, I needed to paint. As a matter of “inner necessity,” as Wassily Kandinsky would have put it, I had to paint; and paint I did—obsessively! After one year of intense work, I had my first solo exhibition at a local bank. It featured shaped canvases and abstract, minimalist serigraphs. That was the beginning. But what was this originating consummatory experience of selflessness—of non-duality between self and other, between subject and object, between artist and work—where binary oppositions are “dissolved” or “transcended?” (Krausz 2012)

In his friend’s studio, surrounded by paintings, Krausz found himself “inhabiting the space visually depicted in them, (a space which) corresponded to and somehow forged an ‘inner’ space” with which he felt somehow familiar. “I suddenly became visually much more highly sensitive,” claims the author, “and, as a consequence, needed to paint.” “Since that time,” Krausz writes further, “I have experienced the world differently” (Krausz 1981, 191).



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What I find interesting in Krausz’s description of this experience is his apparent focus on one particular, strongly articulated interpretation over any alternative interpretations. Krausz’s realization that he wants to become a painter is presented as an epiphany. The very definition of an epiphany assumes implacability and would seem to suggest a singularist interpretation of the experience in question. In a “peak experience” of this kind, what is revealed to the person in question is an inner necessity defined by Krausz as a claim of this type: “I have to paint,” or “I have to make music,” or “I have to philosophize,” or “I have to write poetry” (Krausz 2000, 144). The meaning of these statements changes if they are issued by painters, musicians, philosophers, and poets who define themselves in terms of their artistic vocation rather than by someone who made such a statement once and later disowned it. Put differently, an inner necessity, as Krausz sees it, is captured by a statement “I have to paint” if indeed there is a life narrative built around a person’s commitment to and practice of painting. Krausz believes that “the idea of self-transformation—or, more explicitly, self-realization—carries with it the idea of progress,” and asks “according to what measures might there be progress” (Krausz 1981, 192)? To this question we can add another one: what does progress mean in the context of a person’s self-identity? According to Krausz, “progress occurs if I come to experience more perspicuously, more expansively, more wakefully, perhaps more blissfully” (Krausz 1981, 192). Notice that this conception of self-transformation is not grounded in a putative essential self. Nor should we read Krausz’s revelation that he needed to paint as a discovery of an essential self. Still, the series of qualifiers (more perspicuously, more expansively, more wakefully, more blissfully) implies a progression, in the sense of continuity, across evaluative stances: it is the same self who can reflect on how it experiences in order to make the assessment of a progress in quality or intensity of the experiences themselves. A more basic question still remains: what if Krausz’s interpretation of his experience in the painting studio turns out to be, upon further inquiry, not the foundation of his subsequent self as a painter, and thus not the one that accurately explains the author’s subsequent development as an artist and as an individual? Or, what if Krausz’s painting career was not empirically connected in any verifiable way to the visit to the friend’s studio? Krausz would probably argue, I assume, that to ask such questions implies an essentialist perspective according to which there is an empirical self awaiting to be found and brought out, cultivated, and enriched, an “innate potentiality” more authentic than any other aspect or manifestation of the identity in question. Instead of such an essentialist’s position, Krausz recognizes potentialities and approaches them in light of “pertinent narratives” (Krausz 2000, 104) that can only be assessed in terms of their internal coherence and comprehensiveness, and not based on whether they conform to a real state-of-affairs (whatever that might be). A narrative’s coherence, furthermore, can only be established within its own salient reference frame. Even when seemingly different, perhaps even competing, reference frames might

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be at work—what a person thought defined her inner necessity at different stages of life—there need not be one particular version (or stage) of the self that is more authentic than the other. Krausz claims that “when telling the story of one’s own actualization, one posits a prior narrative self, but . . . the subject of the story . . . is a construction of the presently told story. One postdictively postulates the self . . . that makes the narrative intelligible” (Krausz 2000, 144). Selfhood, then, is a form of narrative achievement. I’d like to unpack further and probe deeper into this notion of “narrative achievement,” but to do so I need first to explain why a narrative perspective fits particularly well with Krausz’s views on self-identity as an interpretive project. First, the narrative perspective is neutral with respect to ontology (Ritivoi 2005), and thus it conforms well to the detachability thesis advanced by Krausz. As interpretive practices that select events from the continuum of lived experience and arrange them in sequences that ultimately form a plot, narratives do not require either singularism or multiplism, and can ultimately reckon with both. The truth of a story, if we can call it that, stems not from an alignment or correspondence with a state of affairs that can be established independently but from the plausibility of particular emplotment choices. Narrative truth is truthfulness; a story has verisimilitude rather than veracity. Good stories convince us not because they establish strong causal connections or because we can empirically verify them as truth claims. Stories convince us because they have an emotional impact: we do not want to check their accuracy and we do not verify their causal connections. Did Krausz become a painter because he was transformed by a visit to a friend’s studio? The question becomes irrelevant once we think of his career as a painter as having started with a visit to a friend’s studio. Is it really that different from a story about a painter whose career begins when he first admires a beautiful lake filled with water lilies? Both are stories that tell us more about the painter who recounts them than about an actual origin of their painting career, or about what kind of experience can inspire one to become a painter. As Peter Goldie points out, when we deal with autobiographical narrative (such as Krausz’s reflections in this essay), we have to consider a double interpretive task: “one has to interpret what is narrated; and one has, at the same time, to interpret the narrator’s perspective on what happened as expressed in the act of narration” (Galie 2012, 151). Krausz’s story about the visit to the friend’s studio might not tell us how he became a painter as much as it lets us know what kind of projects he—as an artist and a philosopher—values. It is a story about beliefs and values rather than about choices—or, put differently, it is a story in which actions and choices illustrate beliefs and values. Those beliefs and values belong to the interpreting self. We know this with more certainty than we can ever have regarding whether the narrated self—a younger Krausz who was not yet an artist—made a choice that defined the life trajectory of his future self. Does this mean that to interpret identity leads to insight into one’s current self, the very same that does the interpretation? I would argue that it does. Specifically, it gives us insight into the degree of reflexiveness of the current



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self as well as ability for not only self-understanding but also self-transformation. To emplot one’s life experience and reflect upon which narrative choices are more truthful than others is not only a deeply analytic endeavor but also one that creates a space for moral understanding: for regret or satisfaction, for new hopes and new commitments. The answer to the question above leads me to the second, and more important, reason the narrative perspective fits well with Krausz’s conception of identity interpretation. The narrative framework allows a blending, and when necessary even reconciliation, of points of view, that of the interpreting and of the interpreted self, thus creating a more compelling and more comprehensive conception of self-identity. One can infer from Krausz’s own work that a narrative conception of identity is also committed to moral responsibility, while also allowing for the active involvement of individuals in the lives they live, giving them the ability to be actively involved in the construction of their selfhood. The identity that emerges from Krausz’s retelling of the visit to a painter’s studio is framed within what he calls a “personal program” (Krausz 2000). The term “personal” denotes individual commitment but notice that this commitment is shared with others, be they friends who introduce him to the world of art, or previous artists (like Kandinsky, who is referenced by Krausz) who have experienced and written about their “inner necessity” to paint. The narrative achievement of a life that shapes a coherent identity—as an artist, in Krausz’s case— consists of plausible sequences of events, but what makes these plausible is that they are consistent with other(s’) stories. Krausz’s story belongs in a cultural repertoire. His personal program, while deeply meaningful to him, is nonetheless not idiosyncratic. It is meaningful and available to others as well. I have already alluded to the difficulties that the narrativist view of self-identity poses to interpretation theory. For instance, positing a prior narrative self from the vantage of the present leads to a hermeneutic circle: one’s understanding of oneself is composed of understanding various stages of one’s life story, while understanding each stage requires a broader understanding of the whole that composes the life story. This is not a vicious circle, as hermeneutics reminds us: it isn’t that I cannot understand myself at a particular stage of life without understanding the whole, while the whole escapes me because I don’t have knowledge about all its stages. As Hans-Georg Gadamer explains, “the movement of understanding always runs from whole to part and back to whole. The task is to expand in concentric circles the unity of the understood meaning. Harmonizing all the particulars with the whole is at each stage the criterion of correct understanding” (Gadamer 1988, 68). If we adapt this principle to selfhood, we move in concentric circles from stages to the whole, each time revising what we assume the whole to be based on new parts. Building on Gadamer’s insights into the interpretation of a text, we can claim that when we want to understand selfhood we are “always carrying out a projection” (Gadamer 1988, 71). Krausz imagining his future as an artist, upon discovering a drive to paint in his friend’s studio, is a form of self-understanding because it projects a particular stage of his self into a self expanded across time and life stages, of

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the artist he would become and be for the subsequent decades. Constructing the whole self through an interpretation of different stages of the self is precisely what institutes the self, and the seeming circularity is inescapable but also productive. Can we still ask who, then, is doing the interpretation? What is the connection between the self as interpreter and the self as product of an interpretation? Again, I think the relationship is one captured well by the concept of a hermeneutic circle: it implies a constant movement from one stage to a larger narrative, from familiarity to strangeness, from the present to the future. In Gilbert Ryle’s terms, we are always one step behind our own self insofar as we make sense of who we are by reflecting on our life story up to the very moment of the reflection. This “eternal penultimacy of the self ” (Ryle 1949/2000), however, produces not a blindspot but the need for a constant unfolding and negotiation. If we posit the emergence of a self is the ultimate aim of interpreting a life story, how can we prevent, conceptually, the emergence of convenient or even just highly contestable interpretations that frame the self in a positive light by default? If we construct our selfhood by picking the best way to tell our life story, does this mean that we can always choose to feature ourselves as heroes and never as villains or even merely average individuals? By convenient, I mean interpretations that the agent in question might favor simply because they are flattering or exculpatory, depending on the events. For example, could a general remembering himself stealing apples—to use John Locke’s famous example—from an orchard describe his childhood self as bold, adventurous, fearless, anticipating the future military man of action? Or, by contrast, could a remorseful old general interpret the childhood apple stealing as a sign of his moral failing and seek to connect it to other moral failings he regrets in his old age? The narrative plot takes different shapes depending on how a past event is interpreted, as well as on the sequence of events to which the interpretation connects it. Forming what Noel Carroll calls a “narrative connection” (Carroll 2001), events get interpreted and re-interpreted based on how they fit with the plot of a particular stage and with the plot emerging across subsequent stages. Krausz’s career as a visual artist confirms the original interpretation of an artistic awakening he experienced in the friend’s studio, just as much as the visit can be interpreted retrospectively, in the process of remembering, as the beginning of his career. The visit to the studio where he saw his friend’s artwork and the subsequent exhibitions where others saw his art become part of a narrative connection that makes sense to us, as readers, not because it is empirically verifiable—how could it be?—but because it holds together in the logic of a story told by an artist. The question left is this: are there any constraints on the narrative construction of one’s life story that will ultimately limit the interpretation, and if so, how are such constraints determined? We need answers that help us avoid the extremes, whether of a self that defines itself so that to skirt responsibility for anything that might present it in a negative light, or of assuming an “essence” of selfhood that exists in “real life” and must be discovered in order for the self-interpretation to be accurate. Krausz’s detachability thesis, which points out that a singularist or multiplist interpretation is



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detached from the ontologies of realism and constructivism, allows us to avoid these extremes. Take, for instance, constructivism: a singularist-contructivist view of selfidentity would not entertain the notion of a preexisting self awaiting to be discovered, even though it would insist on one posited self as accurately represented from the perspective of the self conducting the process of inquiry. A multiplist constructivist would be laxer in criteria of admissibility, and accept instead several possible selves to be reconstructed: we are never one person, and in our different roles we represent different selves, or at least self-like stages. We create more that one self-narrative, but these narratives belong on a narrative arc to provide “phenomenological continuity of consciousness over time that constitutes personal survival and generates personspecific capacities such as moral agency, the ability to engage in prudential reasoning and in relations of compensation (Schechtman 2007, 167). As a space for identity construction, a narrative not only connects us to our past and future but also establishes continuity across our experiences and thus allows us to make plans, reflect on our achievements, or indeed even refer to past experiences as “achievements” and to projected future ones as “hopes”—an interpretive move itself. The raw material of life takes shape within this narrative space and allows the protagonists of several stories—the story of a child stealing apples, the story of a general winning a battle—to come together into one character with a temporally expanded existence. Perhaps the singular nature of the noun “self ” is misleading insofar as it suggests one bounded entity that can be scrutinized before it can be understood, subjected to revisions and change, and assumed as one’s own. Both the language of ownership (my self ) and the deceptive category of the singular influence our understanding of selfhood in a way that leads to conundrums and invites an escape into realism that Krausz tries hard to avoid. The independence of interpretive ideals from a particular ontology, as Krausz views it, does not automatically resolve other difficult issues, such as how to live a good life, or how to be a good person (however we define “good” in these instances). Leaving aside the realist approach to self-identity, since Krausz is fully committed, as am I, to a social view of identity (which entails, to my mind, constructivism), what are our options within a constructivist approach? The singularist-constructivist approach might lead to more wholeheartedness and consistency, but it also limits the space for self-transformation. A self driven by a singularist ideal of interpretation might be uninterested in options and thus potentially immune to responsibility. The singularist approach would at least discourage an investigation founded on asking oneself: could I have made a different choice, or a different decision? Regret and taking responsibility for the past are important aspects of identity-construction that don’t fit into a singularist approach. Conversely, a self approached in the terms of a multiplist-constructivist conception risks being mired in ambivalence and lacking wholeheartedness, struggling to make decisions or to choose among several possibilities, actualizing potentialities, etc. In either case, whether we go the singularist-constructivist or the multiplistconstructivist route, self-transformation is a difficult proposition. I don’t believe

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such difficulty is a problem that needs to be resolved. Nor do I see Krausz wishing to ignore or eliminate it. Rather, it is precisely here where the concept of “narrative achievement” becomes paramount. For Krausz, the robustness of a life narrative lies in the extent to which the life projects we identify enrich the self from one state to the next. If we remain committed to our life projects, it is because they give us a sense of fulfillment, satisfaction, and enjoyment. Such might be the gain of a Diachronic over the worry-free and regret-free life of an Episodic who lives focused on moments that are not connected on a narrative arc. Let me return one more time to the story of the visit to the friend’s studio and what came afterward. As Krausz recounts, After one year of intense work, I had my first solo exhibition at a local bank. It featured shaped canvases and abstract, minimalist serigraphs. That was the beginning. But what was this originating consummatory experience of selflessness—of non-duality between self and other, between subject and object, between artist and work—where binary oppositions are “dissolved” or “transcended?” (Krausz 2012)

This (rhetorical) question has deep resonance in Krausz’s more recent writings. In the later part of his philosophical work, Krausz’s conception of self-identity has evolved through his engagement with non-Western philosophies, especially the Vedantic view of the Supreme Self. The Vedantic soteriology recognizes no duality subject-object, or self-other, and understands self-realization as based on overcoming individuality in the name of a Supreme Self (Krausz 2013, 105). The Supreme Self has no identity conditions—it cannot be described or circumscribed. As Krausz puts it, the Supreme Self is un-interpretable (Krausz 2013, 110). While Krausz turns to Eastern thought and especially the Buddhist view, other religion-based perspectives on interpretation would similarly challenge the duality subject-object in interpretation, and focus instead on the need for closing this divide. In The Star of Redemption, Franz Rosenzweig argued that our fear of death originates in the split between the I and the World. But doesn’t the duality between subject and object make interpretation possible? In other words, isn’t interpretation dependent on the existence of a subject that can turn its gaze upon an object? In the interpretation of self, the subject and object might coincide in the sense that the self is both the subject and its own object of reflection and interpretation, but the duality is still important for defining a diachronic self, who is also a self capable of reflection, understanding, and transformation. The latter, though, is inevitably connected to death: the ultimate form of change is the end of life, but without it there’s no temporal dimension to selfhood. Personal programs guide us through time and they also help us reconcile ourselves to the inevitable ending. As Frank Kermode put it, narrative teaches us finality by giving us the sense of an ending (Kermode 1967). A narrative view of selfhood is one that acknowledges the finitude of human experience but also renders it acceptable by making the path toward the end meaningful and exciting. Personal programs, as Krausz sees them, offer such meaning and ex-



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citement. They accompany us through life and they allow us to approach the end with a sense of self-fulfillment. Does narrative still play any role in a conception of selfhood that seeks to eliminate the division between subject and object? Without going into details here, I believe the answer is no. The Vedantic soteriology explored by Krausz acts as a litmus-test for the limits of interpretation because it reveals that, as the basis of selfidentity, interpretation requires duality and the afferent conceptualization. “Such is one limit of interpretation” (Krausz 2000, 121), to quote one of Krausz’s own poignant notes. It is an important admission coming from someone who has long been concerned with the limits of the interpretive activity, but this particular limit (for the interpretation of self-identity) has major consequences for how we come to view selfhood: as an ongoing negotiation of narrative versions and transactions between a self narrating oneself, historical and sociocultural circumstances, and a relevant community. Depending on how these variables come together in particular cases, singularist or multiplist approaches will be not just appropriate, but more poignant, compelling, or even possible.

CONCLUSION Krausz’s willingness to engage topics that are not commonly discussed in the Anglo-American philosophical discourse, such as crucial tenets of the Buddhist and Hindu doctrines, leads to important insights into the limits of interpretation. If, as he stipulated in earlier works, the core aim of interpretation is elucidation, which involves questions of admissibility and validation, one limit of interpretation is that it might require some elucidatory prompt, or it might simply not be needed. Measuring his concepts against Eastern ideas, Krausz does not simply subscribe or contest, but rather responds to them as a way to move beyond entrenched assumptions (as in the case of his discussion of the Vedantic notion of a Supreme Self, which illustrates a completely different way of thinking about selfhood, one that does not focus on individual agency). This approach produces some very interesting results with respect to the nature of the link between interpretation and selfidentity. It allows him to argue that an identity project constructed in accordance with the desideratum of complete fusion with a higher entity (the Supreme Self ) that deliberately resists analysis and defies options leaves no room for interpretive activity. Krausz’s work, with its thorough and detailed investigation of the process of interpretation, leads us to important conclusions, among which that identity interpretation allows for self-understanding as well as self-transformation. It is also the other aspects of his intellectual identity and personal programs that give his interpretation theory not only conceptual depth but also meaningfulness. Whether the story of the need to paint is subject to one interpretation or several matters less than the fact that its

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interpretation anchors an identity committed to a personal program. The question is not whether the interpretation reveals a putatively essential self—an artist awaiting to be discovered—but whether to interpret it as Krausz does expresses a decision and a choice: to live out an artistic life. The latter implies not only a continual transformation toward the adopted goal, but also a commitment to a set of values—creativity, beauty, and the constant striving required by craftsmanship. The richness and complexity of a selfhood defined in such terms is not only undeniable. It is enviable.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Berlin, Isaiah. 1953/2013. The Hedgehog and the Fox. 2nd edition. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Carroll, Noël. 2001. “The Narrative Connection.” In New Perspectives on Narrative Perspective, edited by Willie van Peer and Seymour Chatman, 21–41. Albany: State University of New York Press. Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 1988. “On the Circle of Understanding.” In Hermeneutics Versus Science: Three German Views, translated, edited, and introduced by John M. Connolly and Thomas Keutner, 68–78. Notre Dame: University of Notre-Dame Press. Galie, Peter. 2012. The Mess Inside: Narrative, Emotion, and the Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Krausz, Michael. 1981. “Creating and Becoming.” In The Concept of Creativity in Science and Art, edited by Michael Krausz and Denis Dutton, 187–200. The Hague: M. Nijhoff. ———. 1993. Rightness and Reasons: Interpretation in Cultural Practices. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. ———. 2000. Limits of Rightness. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield. ———. 2012. About My Art. http://www.krauszart.com/aesthetics-online-article-2012.html. Accessed September 1, 2017. ———. 2013. Oneness and the Displacement of Self: Dialogues on Self-Realization. Amsterdam: Rodopi. MacIntyre, Alasdair. 1981. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. Mink, Louis. 1978. “Narrative Form as a Cognitive Instrument.” In New Directions in Literary History, edited by Ralph Cohen, 107–24. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Norton, David. 1977. Personal Destinies: A Philosophy of Ethical Individualism. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Nozick, Robert. 1989. The Examined Life: Philosophical Meditations. New York: Simon and Schuster. Ricoeur, Paul. 1992. Oneself as Another. Translated by Kathleen Blamey. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ritivoi, Andreea Deciu. 2005. “Identity and Narrative.” In Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory, edited by David Herman, Manfred Jahn, and Marie-Laure Ryan, 231–35. London: Routledge. ———. 2009. “Explaining People: Narrative and the Study of Identity.” Storyworlds. A Journal of Narrative Studies 1: 25–41.



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Rosenzweig, Franz. 1985. The Star of Redemption. Translated by William W. Hallo. Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press. Ryle, Gilbert. 1949/2000. The Concept of Mind. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Schechtman, Marya. 2007. “Stories, Lives, and Basic Survival: A Refinement and Defense of the Narrative View.” In Narrative and Understanding Persons, edited by Daniel D. Hutto, 155–78. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Somers, Margaret. 1994. “The Narrative Constitution of Identity: A Relational and Network Approach.” Theory and Society 23: 605–49. Strawson, Galen. 2004. “Against Narrativity.” Ratio 17: 428–52. White, Hayden. 1980. “The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality.” Critical Inquiry 7, no. 1 (Autumn): 5–27.

4 Reflections on “Relativisms and Their Opposites” Paul Snowdon

I intend this paper to be a tribute to Michael Krausz, whom I have known and admired for many years, the origins of our friendship being, somehow, lost in the mists of time. This tribute takes the form of engaging, with sympathy but also critically, with some of the ideas he proposes in his recent paper “Relativisms and Their Opposites” (Krausz 2017) in the hope that this will simply be another stage in a continuing dialogue, from which I have learned so much. No last words are spoken in this chapter. Indeed, when I wax critical in the first part the best description would be that I am simply asking questions and when I wax more positive toward the end of this chapter the best description of what I say would be “pure speculation.”

INTRODUCTION Krausz’s purpose in the paper is not to argue in favor of any particular form of relativism, but rather to say what relativism is, and also to indicate how it can escape some objections that are standardly brought against it. We should all agree that the task of saying in a clear way what the term “relativism” stands for is a highly important one.1 After all, unless we know what relativism is there is no point in debating its merits. We should also agree, I think, with him when he says that “relativism” stretches across a range of views, and should be thought of as a “cluster concept” term, used in different but related ways by philosophers. No simple elucidation of the term is possible. 1.  It is my impression that “relativism” is a term that is regularly used in popular intellectual discourse. Of course, it is used there without explanation. There are obvious dangers in this, and it is most welcome that Krausz should attempt to say what relativism actually is.

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Now, although the aim of Krausz’s paper is not to argue for relativism, it seems to me not totally inaccurate to suggest that espousal of relativism is often the upshot either of a sense of the irresolubility of disagreements between different groups in relation to certain questions, often to do with evaluation, for example, ethical or aesthetic evaluation, or of a sense of the huge difficulty involved in translating and making sense of the thought of other cultures that one encounters. I do not mean it is the right response to these puzzling matters, nor that these are the sole sources of its appeal, but that they do motivate its acceptance. (Of course, one of the problems here is just how adoption of relativism represents a resolution of these deep puzzles.) Now, part of Krausz’s life has been a passionate interest in the arts, painting, and music, but also a passionate interest in the philosophy of Eastern cultures, both of which are prime examples of things that generate an interest in relativism. Krausz is, therefore, highly qualified in this way, as well as in lots of others, to be our guide to this way of thinking. Now, there are, I think, two basic questions about relativism; one is—what is it?—and this is what Krausz’s paper focuses on. But the other is—why believe in relativism? Krausz does not give his thoughts on the second question, although he does share his critical views on certain reasons that have been given for not believing in relativism. The definition or elucidation that Krausz favors is this: “relativism [is] the view that such values as truth, goodness, or beauty are relative to a reference frame, and no absolute overarching standard to adjudicate between competing reference frames exist” (Krausz 2017, 187–88). Krausz continues his elucidation by expanding his comments on what he calls the “variables” in this definition. Before looking in more detail at some of the things that Krausz says, there are certain aspects of this elucidation about which some questions suggest themselves, which I wish to lay out immediately. First, the elucidation is conjunctive in structure. It says (abbreviating somewhat)—certain values are relative to reference frames—and—there is no absolute standard of adjudication. One natural question is: what is the relation between these two claims? Could the first be true, without the second being true? Is there any way in which the second could be true even if the first is not? Of course, if there is any independence between the two claims it might be asked if one is more important or significant than the other. Second, it is natural to raise two questions about the second conjunct. One, it seems to me, is this: the second conjunct employs the term “absolute,” but what general significance does that term have? The worry is that “absolute” means something like “non-relative,” but since the whole conjunctive claim is meant to say what relativism is, it may be wondered whether it can employ a term that presupposes we already know what relativism is. Leaving aside its independence from the overall characterization, what does this second conjunct mean? (These issues are discussed briefly in the section “Conjunctions and Absolutes.”)



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Third, one obvious issue is: what are the elements, called by Krausz “values,” that relativism is characterizing in some way? What restriction, if any, does the term “value” introduce? (These issues are discussed in the section “Values.”) Fourth, there are two very fundamental issues raised by the first conjunct. First, what exactly is meant by a “reference frame?” Second, what exactly is it for a value (or for discourse about a value) to be relative to a reference frame? (These issues are discussed in the section “Reference Frames and Relativity.”) These seem to me to be the vital issues raised by the proposed elucidation. But I also want to engage with the very interesting things that Krausz says about “polymorphism.” (These issues are discussed in the section “Polymorphism.”)

VALUES Krausz’s initial and primary suggestion is that relativism claims that “such values as truth, goodness, and beauty” are “relative to a reference frame” (Krausz 2017, 187). Now, this remark, I think, prompts the following question: is it being claimed, or at least implied, that a relativist position can only be adopted in relation to discourse that counts as about values? Indeed, why refer to values in the definition? On the face of it if there is a repeatable way of treating a type of discourse that counts as being relativistic it must be possible to at least entertain or propose it as treatment for claims that are not explicitly about values (of some sort or other). It cannot be said in response that although this is possible no one would consider relativism except in relation to such value discourse, since in the course of Krausz’s paper other examples of its application seem to be alluded to. Thus, in discussing reference frames Krausz envisages a relativistic treatment of discourse about the geometrical properties of space. In no obvious way can that subject matter be described as about values. At this point I can envisage two possible replies being made. The first is that the only significance of the term “values” in the definition is to stand for any subject matter. No restriction is intended to subjects that would qualify as concerning value in what we might call a strong or strict sense. (I shall make no attempt to articulate what that strong sense is.) If that is the right response then my next few remarks are inspired by a misunderstanding. The second reply is that such examples as the geometrical one do concern truth, and truth is a value in the strong sense. It may be said, then, that such an example counts as being covered by the elucidation even when “value” is read in what I am calling “the strong sense.” I want to explore some issues raised by this response. One problem that immediately arises, it seems to me, is that although we do link talk of truth and value—thus, ever since Frege we talk about the truth-value of a sentence—it is far from clear that this use of “value” is the use of that term we make when we talk of ethical and aesthetic values. Rather talk of truth values seems to be more akin to the talk of the value of a certain variable in a formula, relative to an

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assignment of values to other variables in the formula. The idea of a truth value is the idea encapsulated in a formula such as the value of P* (a complex formula ) = T given certain (semantic) assignments to its component elements. If this is right, our talk of truth values does not mean that truth is a value in the way moral and aesthetic values are values. We can add that in normal speech, independent of the talk of logicians, the notion of value plays no explicit role in our verdicts about truth. We simply say: that is true (or false). The reply that will be made to this observation is that the idea of truth as a value is not founded on, or derived from, the fact that we (philosophers and logicians) talk of truth-value. That might be agreed not to be a good basis for such an idea. The idea is, rather, that truth is a genuine value in the sense in which, say, beauty is an aesthetic value. We hit a problem at this point. It seems reasonable and defensible to talk of, say, beauty being a value, or, perhaps, speaking meta-linguistically, of “beauty” being a value-term, but what does this more precisely mean? I find that very hard to say, and so my discussion has to be somewhat intuitive. I want, though, to make three points against the idea of truth as a genuine value. (A) If truth is, genuinely, a value, then it is presumably a positive value, that is to say, a good. And falsehood is correspondingly a bad. On the face of it, though, we do not really conceive of truth or falsehood in that way. We do not think of a true claim as something that is in that respect good, or a falsehood as something that is bad. We would not say that a false sentence is bad in some way, or that a true one is good in some way, or that a true sentence is better than a false sentence. Now, I agree that this does not settle matters, but it seems to me to count against the idea that truth is actually a real value. (B) The idea that truth is a value might seem correct given the importance of truth to us. We want to know the truth and we want, usually, to speak the truth. Truth is of central importance to our cognitive and communicative lives. Does that mean that truth should be called a value? Consider the importance in medical life of disinfecting things. It is obvious that this centrality in the life of medical practitioners is simply a consequence of the importance of what it achieves given the goals of safe medicine. There is, thus, no need to think that the notion of disinfecting is somehow a value notion in order to explain its centrality to medical practice. Rather it picks out a process that has importance because of its role for us. It seems reasonable to me to think that the same goes for truth. Roughly, believing truths rather than falsehoods tends to improve our practices, because then we will be guided by accurate information, and, for a similar reason, speaking the truth, given the actual interpersonal role of communicative activity, is to be encouraged. (C) Another contrast between truth and the other features that are cited as values is that truth represents a dimension of assessment of discourse in general, while not being the explicit topic of discourse on many occasions, whereas beauty or moral goodness are topics of our discourse, things that we talk about, and are not dimensions of



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assessment of discourse in general. Whether or not we should call it a value, the role of truth is not the same as that of beauty or goodness. Suppose, though, contrary to what I have been tentatively suggesting, that truth should be described as a value, and so that it is let through by intrusion of the term “value” in the elucidation, another worry arises. The idea of truth amounts to the idea of the accuracy of claims, so it is something that arises in connexion with (almost) all discourse, including, surely, discourse explicitly about values in ethics or aesthetics. So, if being assessable as true or false makes discourse potentially amenable to a relativistic treatment there seems to be no reason to mention any other value as being required to ground a relativistic treatment, or to be what relativistic treatments concern. To this it will be said that we need to leave room for the idea of a relativism that is restrictive, restricted, say, to aesthetic discourse, or ethical discourse, and not applied to all truth assessable discourse, and so we do need a list that does not simply contain the notion of truth. Now, I agree with that, and do believe that it would not be right to simply mention truth as a notion or feature that is treated in a relativistic way. But we are left with three worries even given this point. One is whether, even if truth is a value, the notions or features that relativism can be applied have to be values? Another is whether truth really is a value. But the third worry is this: if one allows that one does not have to be a universal relativist, it becomes somewhat unimportant in saying what relativism is to lay down what it applies to. Rather, one can simply say what a relativistic treatment of an element is, and allow that to which this sort of treatment is applied to remain uncircumscribed. There is, however, a final query that I wish to voice in this section. Krausz simply says that relativism claims that “such values as truth, goodness or beauty are relative to a reference frame” (Krausz 2017, 187). My worry is that this strikes me as grammatically or formally like saying “water is relative to a reference frame” or “London is relative to a reference frame.” I hope that these two sentences ring oddly to anyone who reads them. If I heard anyone say these I would be inclined to protest, considering the first one, that water is a stuff that we find in the world and drink and how can a stuff be relative to a reference frame? Similarly, I am inclined to say that, for example, beauty is something there in the world, possessed by, for example, Nicole Kidman, but not by Donald Trump, and how can something in the world be relative to a reference frame? I take it, therefore, that saying “beauty is relative to a reference frame” is to identify a claim that is not meant to be grammatically parallel to the claim “water is relative to a reference frame.” But if so, it is not made clear in Krausz’s elucidation of what a better formulation would be. Where should the elucidation go? I take it that the first step would be to formulate the claim as: statements (or thoughts) about beauty, for example, are relative to a reference frame. Relativity to a reference frame is, that is, a proposed property of what philosophers are talking about when they talk about propositions. To what extent Krausz explains what that property of claims or thought is we shall consider next.

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REFERENCE FRAMES AND RELATIVITY I turn now to the questions I listed fourth in the introduction. What are reference frames? And what is it for a suitable type of object to be relative to a reference frame? Now, although there are indeed two questions here, they are connected. One could answer the question—what are reference frames?—by saying: they are the things to which certain types of claims (or maybe all claims) are relative according to relativism. This answer represents one tie between the two questions. Something cannot be a reference frame unless that is a potential role it can play. Michael Krausz’s response to the first question is to list things that, I am assuming, have been said by different relativists to be reference frames. Here is a selection for that list: “paradigms, symbol systems, world versions, systems of belief, languages, points of view, . . . forms of life, or conceptual schemes, . . . cultures, tribes, . . . countries, . . . historical periods” (Krausz 2017, 189). The first thing that strikes me about the list is its great variety. The justification for this, I assume, is that all these candidates have been proposed as “reference frames” by different thinkers who count as relativists. Be that as it may, one puzzling aspect is how such a variety of things, manifestly different, can all be candidates to play the same role, the role of being reference frames. Now, to what extent that really makes sense entirely depends on what a reference frame is, and that remains to be investigated. I want to expand these comments on reference frames. First, some simplification seems possible. It looks to me as if the candidates are of four sorts; namely, languages (symbol systems), conceptual schemes (paradigms), beliefs and theories (world versions, systems of belief, points of view), and groups (cultures, tribes, countries, historical periods). So maybe we can allow that the candidate reference frames can be reduced to four broad categories. At least we can say that (assuming that the presented cases are all candidates) so long as we should not allow that there might be other potential reference frames, which a relativist program might appeal to with as much legitimacy as to them. Whether that needs exploring depends on what properties a reference frame needs to fulfill its theoretical role—that of marking off a unifying aspect of a group of judgers, and being able to figure as something to which their judgments can be relativized. This latter requirement represents a functional role that reference frames must be able to play, and it does, one would have thought, impose significant limitations on what can count as a reference frame. Second, one obvious rule about reference frames stands out. Suppose that we are considering an apparent disagreement between two groups, G1 and G2. The suggestion is made that we need to relativize the judgments made by G1 to something they possess, and those made by G2 to something they possess. It is obvious that the contrasting reference frames cannot be something in common between the groups. Thus, if both G1 and G2 speak English we cannot relativize to a language or symbol system. Equally, if they belong to the same period, say the late seventeenth century, we cannot relativize their disagreements to a historical period. We cannot, as far as



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I can see, add to this the further rule that if there is a cognitive dispute between two groups that cannot be treated by relativizing the dispute to dimension D (say, language), since the two groups are the same in that respect, then no disputes can be resolved (or treated) by relativizing to dimension D. If we could, the two principles combined would have very wide implications, but there is no obvious rationale for this second principle. Any such restriction will have to be argued for on functional grounds. The third comment is, as I shall put it, that within the general categories there is room for considerable variation, which may not fit their role as “reference frames.” Thus consider that (disputed by Davidson, but retained by many) notion of a conceptual scheme. Suppose A and B share a conceptual scheme that contains the concepts of god and existence. Compatible with sharing that conceptual scheme A could be an atheist, and B a theist. The same is, of course, true if two people share a language. They can come to have and express in that language remarkably opposed views and theories. Now, presumably, since the role of a reference frame is to be some shared thing that unifies the ideas and thoughts of a one group as opposed to another, and relative to which their utterances (or some of them) need to be interpreted (in some sense) the assumption of a shared reference frame must impose some significant unity on them. The same problem arises in a very clear way when we consider the candidates’ reference frames under the banner of groups—say belonging to a certain society. It is quite clear that the members of a single society can have radically divergent ways of thinking and methodologies. Consider that society that was late seventeenth-century Britain, containing members of the Royal Society, as well as very primitive and superstitious religious thinkers, or early twenty-first-century America, with the diverse groups it contains. It does not look to me as if any sensible relativizing approach could relativize in its account to such amorphous entities. However, at this point, having raised some issues about reference frames I want to identify what seems to me to be the most significant lacuna in Krausz’s explication. According to Krausz, relativism is the claim that certain values are relative to a reference frame. He then identifies what values are, and, as we have just seen, what reference frames are. However, what is not explicitly explained or expanded is what it is for something of the former sort—a value—to be relative to something of the latter sort—reference frames. We might say that in explicating the relational claim—values are relative to reference frames—Professor Krausz eloquently illuminates what the relata are, but not what the relation is relative to . . . itself means. This means that the elucidation leaves the very heart of relativism unilluminated. I can envisage two possible responses to this claim. The first is that the nature of this relation does not need clarifying since it is known what it is. But that is, surely, not true. The second is that it is not really capable of clarification or properly explicable. But that would make relativism in its essence inexplicable, which would be an unfortunate consequence. I think that this lacuna has two further unfortunate consequences. The first is that the concept of a reference frame also becomes obscure. Something is left out

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of our understanding of reference frames, even if we are given a comprehensive list of candidates, if we do not know the role of a reference frame. It is that to which a certain discourse (about a value) is relative. But that role is unknown if “being relative to” is unexplained. The second consequential obscurity is that it remains unclear, as I shall put it, what the point of relativism as a thesis about a certain domain of discourse is. To expand this a little, I am tempted to ask two rather imprecise and perhaps not properly formulated questions. Does relativism begin at home or away? By this I mean, is it thought that reflection by us on our own modes of thought (and judgment) reveals the correctness of a relativistic account of some of them, or is it by reflection by us on alien modes of thought that we come to recognize the truth of relativism as applicable to them? Of course, in either case we then generalize in the opposite direction. Because we don’t know what we are looking for when we look for relativities, we don’t know where we, as it were, find them initially. Is relativism a good thing or a bad thing? Is the point to discourage us (and others) from thinking that we (or they) have a superior mode of investigation to us? That would diminish confidence. Or is it to encourage us (and them) to hold that alternative modes of thought cannot have an absolute superiority? That would increase confidence? Not knowing quite what it is rather obscures how we should react to it. So far, the direction of discussion has been rather negative, and now I want to explore, briefly, a more positive response to what I am calling the central lacuna. If the relation of being relative to, in which some judgments or forms of discourse are supposed, by relativists, to stand to reference frames, is, so far, totally opaque, we might make progress by trying to interpret it along lines of already acknowledged relativities in language and thought. Here is one possible lead to follow. If I, at place p1, call by phone S who is at place p2, and ask “Is Oxford far away?” it is obvious that to engage with the import of my inquiry S needs to fix on a place in relation to which I wish to know its distance from Oxford. One candidate would be the place I am in, another the place S is in, and there are, clearly, other spatial candidates. So we can say that although there is no explicit relativization in my discourse, in my actual question, to a specified place, there is an implicit relativization, determined by something or other, about the speakers and the context, which needs to be agreed on by the participants. It is, surely, not controversial that relativities of this sort exist, even though they are not explicit at the surface of the language. The suggestion, then, is that this provides a model for the postulation of unobvious relativities in other sorts of discourse. Now, in some respects philosophy is like chess, in that in chess some people can make a suggestion about an opening, say, that others already know is wrong. In philosophy too, one can make a proposal that those better thought out know is wrong. That may be the case here. But if we, possibly in error, do take such acknowledged examples of relativities as our paradigms, three consequences seem to follow. First, in our example, acknowledging the relativity does not lead to abandoning the application to what might have been said in response to the question of the quite



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standard concept of truth. No one would say that in the light of the acknowledged relativity to a place (in the question about distance) a new notion of truth or a new mode of assessment for what we might call cognitive accuracy is called for. Once it is understood by the participants that my query should be relativized, say, to London where I happened to be, we would all quite happily say that one answer was false and another true. Second, acknowledging the relativity has no epistemological consequences about the absence of absolute standards of accuracy. Just as I can answer, with complete accuracy and without hesitation given that I have a tape measure, what the length of my table is, so, once the relativity is settled, I can, with complete confidence and accuracy, answer it. So, on this model of relativization the second conjunct in Krausz’s characterization would by no means follow. This sort of relativization is epistemologically neutral. Now, it might be that these two points in themselves should lead us to say that taking such an example of relativization as our model for the philosophical purpose of understanding relativism is a mistake. But this is to simply assume these consequences have been correctly drawn by relativists, and it remains a moot point whether they have been. There is a third critical point that I wish to link to these observations. Although it has been acknowledged that the direction of interpretation of relativism that I am pursuing might be incorrect, it has the consequence that someone arguing for relativism has to find grounds for locating in the relevant discourse an implicit relativization to some truth relevant parameter. This leads me to scrutinize the remarks by Nelson Goodman that Krausz quotes (Krausz 2017, 195). Goodman says: “we cannot find any world-features independent of all versions. Whatever can be said truly of a world is dependent on the saying . . . informed by and relative to the language or other system we use” (Goodman 1996, 144). Is there here anything that might demonstrate a genuine but hidden relativity? The initial remark that this little argument elicits is that the first premise in it, which is that “whatever can be said truly of a world is dependent on the saying” can be taken in two ways, one of which is trivial, the other of which seems false (to me). The false reading is this: no one would say that whether there are atoms depends on someone saying something. There cannot be any such dependence since there were atoms long before anyone said anything. Indeed, if evolution had not produced speakers, a rather recent development in the history of the world, there would still have been atoms. But if there is no dependence of the existence of atoms on someone saying something, there is no dependence of its being true that there are atoms on someone saying something. This simply reflects what is an acknowledged equivalence between there being atoms and its being true that there are atoms. Neither atoms nor truth depend on speech. Any theory of truth needs to be consistent with this. However, the other way to take the quotation is as saying that speaking truly depends on speech, which it obviously does. Although truth does not depend on speech, speaking truly obviously does. The next question is what this trivial dependence of speaking the truth on speech implies. Now, it does not follow from this triviality that a group with a language is

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restricted in what it can say, since the expressive powers of a language evolve and change over time. What was inexpressible at one time becomes expressible in the same language at another time. Let us allow, though, that there are restrictions on what possessors of a single language at a time can say. We can put this by saying that what can be said at a time is relative to the language. But the important point is that this relativity is not the same as the thesis that there is a substantive relativity that has to be recognized when engaging with what is being said, and that should be taken into account when assessing what is said. That would be like saying in response to the question whether when S says that Oxford is far away that it is obvious simply in virtue of the fact that he used language that there must be a hidden relativity. The point is that such a hidden relativity is not obvious simply in virtue of the fact that language is being assessed. Thus, if I have the language in which to say that it is raining where I am, and I say it explicitly, the question of the truth of my remark depends on nothing other than that state of the weather where I am. Or so it would seem to me. There is no substantial relativity of that issue on anything else, and certainly not on the language used to make the claim. Or, at least, Goodman’s remark does not bring anything like that out. In this section I have suggested that Krausz has left the idea of relativity to a framework rather unclear. I do not, of course, think that anything I have said here means that the idea cannot be clarified.

CONJUNCTIONS AND ABSOLUTES I raised some initial questions in the introduction about the two-sided structure of relativism, as elucidated by Krausz, and about the significance of the second conjunct. I want in this section to take up these issues. First, what is the relation between the two conjuncts? Could the first conjunct, asserting that certain judgments by a group are relative to a reference frame, be true without the second conjunct being true? I wish to argue that the answer to this question is yes. One thing needs clarifying initially. When the second conjunct talks of adjudication it seems to be implied that one group (say, G1) is saying things that the other group (G2) is denying. We need to think that the content of the contrasting claims is about the same phenomenon, the difference being that they disagree over some matter to do with the topic. If the idea of disagreement cannot be applied to their respective claims then it makes no sense to talk of adjudication, which essentially requires a dispute. This must be so despite, according to the first conjunct, that G1 is speaking relative to one reference frame, and G2 relative to another one. What is being ruled out here is that it is part of the implication of a certain discourse being relative to a frame of reference that the resulting judgment must be correct. If, therefore, it is consistent with the first disjunct that the claims of the two groups are inconsistent, and there is no guarantee that either side is correct, it seems that it is possible for there to be some overarching standard to adjudicate between the claims in question, and so between the reference frames.



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Suppose it is said that if both G1 and G2 are speaking relative to different reference frames then they cannot have an absolute way to adjudicate the dispute, and that, therefore, it follows from the first conjunct that there is no absolute standard. This response seems to me to overlook two things. The first is that on the assumption that G1 and G2 are both speaking relative to distinct reference frames it does not follow that there is no such standard accessible to others. Second, why couldn’t either G1 or G2 actually have such a standard, even if they hadn’t employed it, or perhaps, properly understood its significance? So this attempt to generate a verdict on the second conjunct from the first seems dubious.2 There is a complication that needs addressing. I think that it is built into the idea of an “absolute overarching standard” of adjudication that it is not something that is “relative to a frame of reference.” Although we are somewhat in the dark as to quite what that means, or so I have been suggesting, it follows from this that if it can be shown that all discourse and thought must be relative to a frame that there cannot be absolute standards of adjudication about anything. That is, universal relativism does rule out standards of adjudication. My proposal is, then, that even if it is correct to say that two groups, G1 and G2, are, when talking about domain D, talking relative to different reference frames, it does not follow from this that there is no absolute standard of adjudication between their claims. So, the second conjunct would then need distinct support if the relativity to a framework is argued in relation to a limited range of domains. What, though, of the other way round? Could the second conjunct be true even if the first one was not? Again, it seems to me that the answer is—yes. I do not need to argue that the second conjunct is correct, but that it might be even if the first is not. It seems clear that there could be areas of theoretical dispute where there is no overarching standard for adjudicating between the alternatives. Consider the question whether god exists. Reasons can be offered in favor and against, but there is no standard for adjudicating the dispute. Again, there could be scientific disputes where because of evidential poverty no definitive adjudication is possible. This is not to say that there might be no areas at all of disputation where there are standards of adjudication, an idea that is somewhat extreme.3 But there might be domain limited disputes without the possibility of decisive adjudication, even where participants cannot be counted as speaking relative to a reference frame. The final worry that I raised in the introduction—which is that the whole twosided elucidation was needed to explain what relativism is, but that “absolute” seems to mean “non-relative” and so presupposes the very notion that is being elucidated— can, I think, be laid to rest. Given the independence between the two conjuncts, the 2.  It is relevant to this issue to point out that just as theories evolve over time, so do attitudes to standards of adjudication. Thus, there may be periods where no one possesses a criterion or test for adjudication between two claims, but that given clearer or more inventive thought, or the development of technology, a method of adjudication is found. Talk of there being no standard of adjudication needs relativizing to times! 3.  Would anyone say that we do not as the kinds of observers that we are possess standard for adjudicating the claim that it is pouring down where we are?

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notion of frame-relativity should emerge in the first conjunct and could therefore be employed in understanding the second conjunct.

POLYMORPHISM Krausz, toward the end of his account, puts forward and writes in an apparently approving manner, about a view that he calls “polymorphism.”4 The thesis is that “no description nested in any reference frame can be taken to capture a presumed inherent or ultimate constituent of reality” (Krausz 2017, 197–98). The supporting examples have a similar structure, involving on the one hand what we might call a common sense or pre-scientific claim, and, on the other side, a scientific characterization of what is in some sense the same thing. One example is that we prescientifically would describe water as thirst quenching. If we think of it or describe it as electrons in empty space “the property of thirst quenchingness does not apply.” In the other example we would describe a certain part of my body as “my hand,” but scientists would describe it as a collection of cells, or a collection of subatomic particles. The idea is that within one framework—cell biology—the scientific collection would be regarded as “basic,” but that is only within that chosen frame that it is basic, and within common-sense observation another notion is basic. Neither description supposedly captures “inherent constituents of reality irrespective of domains of inquiry.”5 I want to suggest that there are difficulties in this way of thinking, polymorphism, and there is available what seems to me to be an alternative and quite plausible way of thinking about the phenomenon in question. Let us take the example of water. Now, one thing to notice is that the example can only make sense if it is taken that the ordinary describer and the scientific describer are in some important sense talking about the same thing. If, say, the ordinary describer was talking about one sort of stuff (or thing) and the scientist talking of another, the fact that their descriptions are contrasting would show nothing. That would be as sensible as arguing that if I say Shakespeare died in the seventeenth century and someone else said that Henry James died in the twentieth century (not the same description) that neither description should be taken to be simple sober truths about different authors. There has to be a sense of competition between descriptions that requires they are in 4.  I hesitate somewhat to say that Michael Krausz himself accepts polymorphism, rather than presenting it as an idea, with supporting examples, which is worth considering. 5.  The claim that polymorphism aims at is that no description counts as capturing “presumed inherent or ultimate constituents of reality.” I have not paid particular attention to these terms, taking it that the idea is that characterizations of what is there are relative to a frame of reference, with science and ordinary thought being taken as distinct frames of reference. However, it may be that the target is the common idea that some characterizations of things capture their essential nature, although some do not. Then polymorphism is saying that what counts as essential is relative to reference frame. Nothing can count as absolutely essential. This is a challenging and very interesting claim, which I do not engage with, beyond saying in this footnote that the examples that are used in the argument do not seem to bear in any special way on the notion of essential property.



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some sense of the same thing, otherwise there is no competition, and nothing to adjudicate. But then the example invites the question: what is the single thing that normal people call “water” and the scientist offers the alternative description of as “electrons?” The answer cannot be that that entirely depends on the frame that we choose. The fact that the frames are frames about a single thing and what that is is an agreed relation between the frames, and there must surely be some way of saying what it is they are both talking about. Crudely, each would allow that they are talking about some stuff that is in a certain container, over there, say. That is a reference that they both share. The fact that both the descriptions are of a single object means that they are simply characterizing the thing agreed to be there, the shared thing, in different ways. But now the question is, it seems to me, why is there any competition at all between the descriptions offered? The reason that is given is that the property of being thirst quenching is no longer applicable when the item is thought of as a collection of electrons. But, what is the basis for that claim? There is nothing odd in saying that a collection of a particular sort of electron (in a specific container) is precisely what is, for humans, thirst quenching. If it is said that a single water molecule is not thirst quenching we can agree, but when talking about water what we should say is that a very small amount of water is also not actually thirst quenching. Another possible contrast is that in describing water as thirst quenching we are relating that power—to quench thirst—to creatures of our kind, whereas the scientific description of what is there—so and so electrons—involves no reference to humans. That again is true, but it is not puzzling. What should be said is that stuff of that scientifically described sort is what is thirst quenching when ingested by creatures of our sort. This describes it in broader terms, but it is not a description that lapses when we capture what is there, in that cup, in scientific terms. In fact, the role of the scientific description is to say what is there with the thirst quenching power in terms that in relation to other scientific analyses—of ourselves—will explain why it has that power. It does what we call quenching thirst because it has the scientific nature it has and we have the scientific nature we have. The whole explanatory role of science requires that the powers we pick out in relation to the macroscopic objects around water are grounded in and so still apply to the object with that scientific nature. Here is a way that seems natural and acceptable to me to think of this. We, the things doing the thinking and speaking and exploring, are relatively large-scale animals who are capable of thinking about and latching onto the macroscopic objects and features around us. We could not acquire any knowledge of the world unless we had a nature, which means that some things about our environment are simply obvious to us. If all our basic cognitive mechanisms never made things obvious we could not get started at all. Without it we would not, of course, survive. However, what we find obvious in our basic engagement with the world concerns things such as it is raining or hot, or there is a hole in that rock. Partly, in the terms of J. J. Gibson, we can simply tell certain things that our environment affords us.6 Our basic thinking 6. Invoking Gibson’s notion of an affordance at this point (because it links to the idea of thirstquenching-ness) should not lead us to suppose that all basic observation and primitive thought concerns

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is shaped by that. So we can register that some stuff is thirst quenching for us. Our interaction with that stuff reveals to us that it quenches our thirst. Now, approaching the world in this way is not something that we chose, any more than we chose to be mammals, or to have two legs, etc. That is our basic cognitive nature. What animals of our sort learn in these ordinary, pre-scientific ways depends strongly on the culture we inhabit and what shared knowledge there is, and the sort of environment surrounding us. Thus the kind of information that an aboriginal struggling to survive in high temperatures and bleak landscapes would acquire is different to the information people in cultures and environments like ours pick up. As environments change so some cultures lose their point. However, in relation to the fundamental contrast in the examples supporting polymorphism, the crucial development is the emergence of science with its amazing success. Part of our nature is a desire to explain the way the world as we find it is. The crucial thing is that we are explaining the world about us, about which we have acquired information in the way described above. This explanatory desire is not in itself a framework or set of concepts, but is prompted by a desire to answer “why” questions, and apply the amazing intelligence that we are given to different degrees. Viewed this way, the scientific enterprise is not to be contrasted with what we might call ordinary description and thought, but is grounded in that thought itself. It is an illusion to regard the resulting descriptions as competing with those it begins from. They are rather fuller descriptions of the same things. And that compatibility is fundamental to science’s success and role.7 Let me end with two further thoughts. Talk of frames of thought and description is perfectly natural and captures things there are. But such things are the possession of us, and to so much as think about them we need to acknowledge that we have them, and their presence depends on our presence. And on investigation that amounts to the presence in the world, that is, in reality, of certain sorts of animals. Frameworks cannot displace that world; they are simply a dependent part of the world belonging to certain large animals. Second, the aim of science is to understand the things that we recognize are in that world. Our thought has to be recognized as targeted on and engaged by things and features in our environment. The topic of our investigations is the external world. We simply have developed more and richer descriptions of what that is, descriptions that relate less to ourselves than the forms of description we tend to start with, and that our cognitive nature makes obvious to affordances. Thus perception of color in our environment is not directly to do with affordances. Equally, it seems implausible to think of basic spatial perception as relating to affordances. Simply seeing that one object is further away than another need not offer any affordance. 7.  The theme I am developing here is that ordinary thought and observation is of the very world that science theorizes about, so it cannot be that a recognized property of, say, water simply lapses from the stuff when described by science. Traditionally, the issue that science has raised for ordinary thought has been that, supposedly, according to science things do not have some of the properties that common sense ascribes them. Thus, it is said that objects consisting of atoms cannot be, what we mean by, “solid.” There has been supposed to be, as Sellars would put it, a conflict between the manifest image and the scientific image. If, though, there is a threat of such a conflict it simply means we either need to show there is no conflict or we have to make a choice. This is a quite different problem from that of “polymorphism.”



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us. No reflection on frameworks or frames can make the presence of such things as ourselves or the objects around us in the world, that is to say in reality, problematic or out of our reach.

CONCLUSION I have tried to argue that Krausz’s elucidation of relativism leaves the notion of discourse (or thought) being relative to a frame of reference unclear. I have also argued that the puzzles raised by polymorphism can be resolved without bringing relativism in, and they do not support it. But when all is said and done, these remarks amount simply to a request by an admirer and friend that Michael Krausz say more about these matters.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Goodman, Nelson. 1996. “On Starmaking.” In Starmaking: Realism, Anti-Realism, and Irrealism, edited by Peter McCormack, 143–50. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Krausz, Michael. 2017. “Relativism and Its Opposites.” In Realism—Relativism— Constructivism: Proceedings of the 38th International Wittgenstein Symposium in Kirchberg, edited by Christian Kanzian, Sebastian Kletzl, Josef Mitterer, and Katharina Neges, 187–202. Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter GmbH.

5 Robust Multiplism, or, New Bearings in the Theory of Interpretation Bernard Harrison

Michael Krausz, in “The Ideals and Aim of Interpretation,” an excellent recent survey of the issues that have occupied much of his work in philosophy (2016), takes the aim of interpretation to be elucidation. Elucidation, in turn, “deals with uncovering the meaning or meanings of its objects of interpretation” (Krausz 2016, 34). Opinion divides over the question of whether elucidation should, or can, in all cases result in a unique determination of meaning. As Krausz puts it, “Singularists hold that for any object of interpretation—say a work of art, music or literature— only one single admissible interpretation exists. Multiplists hold that, for some objects of interpretation, more than one admissible interpretation exists.” Singularists tend to regard multiplism as the first step on a very short and slippery slope ending in the sort of relativism or irrationalism often characterized, or caricatured, as the view that “anything goes.” Multiplists, on the other hand, hold “that good reasons may be offered for preferred interpretations. At the same time, such reasons do not result in a singularist condition” (Krausz 2016, 36). I want to suggest in this brief essay that the multiplist, at least a multiplist of Krausz’s type, may make things more difficult than they need be for him or herself by agreeing at the outset that the aim of interpretation is, in all fields and in all circumstances, the elucidation of “meaning,” at least unless the possible senses of that term are carefully distinguished and differentiated from one another. In philosophy it is often helpful to restrict discussion to some suitably chosen field in which abstract conceptual choices can be usefully exemplified, and their practical consequences assessed in concrete terms. For present purposes I shall refer in that capacity to literary-theoretical debate of the past half-century, a period during which philosophical debates over ideals of interpretation have frequently found echoes in the sometimes anguished debates, over New Criticism and “Critical Theory” or “post-modernism,” that have divided opinion in literary studies. 55

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To a great extent these debates have been dominated by “French Theory” originating in the writings of a range of philosophers and social theorists—Derrida, Foucault, Lacan, Deleuze, and others—whose work raises issues of translation and cultural transfer sufficiently difficult to have led, recently, some to question whether their bearings on Anglo-American literary theory were ever, quite, what many in the Anglo-Saxon literary world took them to be (Cusset 2008). Hence I shall leave all that aside, here, and concentrate instead on two native-born leaders of opinion, whose differences well illustrate a certain understanding of the conflict between singularism and multiplism, The first is the Cleanth Brooks of The Well-Wrought Urn (1968), a main source of theoretical inspiration for the American New Criticism of the 1940s and 1950s. The second, a major contributor to the debates over “Theory” a generation later, is the Stanley Fish of Is There a Text in This Class? (1980). Brooks held that the author of a literary work imposes upon the diverse elements that enter into its composition a unified and unifying structure of meaning that perfectly expresses, in a successfully achieved work, the author’s intentions in composing the work in the first place, and that it is, hence, the main business of the literary critic to decipher and expose to view: The structure meant is a structure of meanings, evaluations, and interpretations, and the principle of unity which informs it seems to be one of balancing and harmonizing connotations, attitudes and meanings. . . . It unites the like with the unlike. It does not unite them, however, by the simple process of allowing one connotation to cancel out another. . . . The unity is not a unity of the sort to be achieved by the reduction and simplification appropriate to an algebraic formula. It is a positive unity, not a negative; it represents not a residue but an achieved harmony. (Brooks 1968, 159)

The idea that what the critic has to unravel, for the benefit of the puzzled reader, is the principle of unity of the work, expressed as a “structure of meanings,” appears to carry with it a clear commitment to singularism as an ideal of interpretation. It implies, that is to say, that the question of the purport, the meaning, of a work of literature in one in respect of which there can be only one fully adequate answer: one “truth of the matter.” And that impression is confirmed by Brooks’s willingness to raise the question of the “adequacy” or “error” of his own readings of works. By this time the reader will have made up his mind whether the readings proposed in The Well-Wrought Urn are adequate. (I use the word advisedly, for the readings do not pretend to be exhaustive, and certainly it is highly unlikely that they are not in one detail or another in error.) (Brooks 1968, 158)

Fish is equally committed to a version of multiplism. But it is one, as we shall see, that differs sharply from Krausz’s understanding of that term. Fish’s argument takes its rise from the anecdote that gives the book its title. A student at Johns Hopkins University, having taken a course with Fish, asks a colleague of Fish’s, with whom the



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student now proposes to take a class, “Is there a text in this course?” The colleague replies, “Yes, it’s the Norton Anthology of Literature,” whereupon, as Fish puts it, the trap (set not by the student but by the infinite capacity of language for being appropriated) was sprung: “No, no,” she said, “I mean in this class do we believe in poems and things, or is it just us?” (Fish 1980, 305)

The moral Fish draws from this story is that the utterance Is there a text in this class “has two literal meanings,” between which interpretation must decide. It is “obviously a question about whether there is a required textbook in this class,” but within the circumstances to which he [the colleague] was alerted by his student’s corrective response, the utterance was just as obviously a question about the instructor’s position (within the range of positions available in contemporary literary theory) on the status of the text. (Fish 1980, 306)

This brings us to Fish’s central claim concerning the interpretation, not only of this utterance, but of literary texts in general. Neither the student’s nor the instructor’s sense of the import of the student’s initial question were the outcome of “a private, idiosyncratic interpretive act.” On the contrary, they were “a function of public and constituting norms (of language and understanding).” The norms in question, however, are clearly not, as he puts it, embedded in the language (where they may be read out by anyone with sufficiently clear, that is, unbiased, eyes) but inhere in an institutional structure within which one hears utterances as already organised with respect to certain assumed purposes and goals. (Fish 1980, 306)

It is just as well, Fish now suggests, that judgments of the purport of utterances are not made on an individual and idiosyncratic basis. For, In literary criticism this means that no interpretation can be said to be better or worse than any other, and in the classroom that means that we have no answer to the student who says my interpretation is as valid as yours. (Fish 1980, 317)

Fish intends his account, that is to say, not to court, but rather to offer a means of avoiding, interpretative relativism. He proposes that It is only if there is a shared basis of agreement at once guiding interpretation and providing a mechanism for deciding between interpretations that a total and debilitating relativism can be avoided. (Fish 1980, 317)

As we saw in the case of the student’s query, however, though there is always a “structure of norms” embedded in any given context of discourse, this structure can change completely in passing from one context of discourse to another. Noting that

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to many critics, this will appear not so much a rejection as a defence of relativism, Fish argues that this response, while “unassailable,” is “beside the point.” The shared basis of agreement sought by Abrams and others is never not already found, although it is not always the same one. Many will find in this last sentence, and in the arguments to which it is a conclusion, nothing more than a sophisticated version of the relativism they fear. It will do no good, they say, to speak of norms and standards that are context specific, because this is merely to authorise an infinite plurality of norms and standards, and we are still left without any means of adjudicating between them and between the competing systems of value of which they are functions. In short to have many standards is to have no standards at all. On one level this counterargument is unassailable, but on another it is beside the point. (Fish 1980, 318–19)

It is beside the point, Fish argues, so far as any given individual reader is concerned, because any such reader is embedded in some institutionally rule-bestowing context or other. Hence, since everyone is situated somewhere, there is no one for whom the absence of an asituational norm would be of any practical consequence, in the sense that his performance or his confidence in his ability to perform would be impaired. So while it is generally true that to have many standards is to have none at all, it is not true for anyone in particular (for there is no one in a position to speak “generally”) and therefore it is a truth of which one can say “it doesn’t matter.” (Fish 1980, 319)

Even if it did not matter for that reason, however, there is another for which it does. A New Critical singularist of the type of Cleanth Brooks, say, holds not only that there exist common norms for the correctness of critical judgment, but that these norms operate in such a way that critical judgment is ultimately, in some sense, controlled by the text. If Fish is correct, this cannot be so. If the meaning, the purport, of a literary text can be made to change by the adoption of a new set of context-specific norms of interpretation, then the text can have no meaning “of its own.” Its status becomes that of an intrinsically vacuous, meaningless field of signs into which any “meaning” one chooses can be read, given only the adoption of some appropriate set of norms of interpretation. Whatever this or that critic finds to be the general sense of a given work is in no sense “read off from it,” but rather read into it. And the same is true for any other “reading” of that work. Critical “readings” become, in other words, not discoveries but artifacts of critical scrutiny, in roughly the sense in which the canals that astronomers once fancied themselves to have discovered on the surface of mars turned out in fact to be artifacts of eyestrain, or of dirty or otherwise defective telescope lenses. Moreover, pace Fish, this objection cannot be met (or dismissed) by the counter argument that while true in general, it is “not true for anyone in particular” since “there is no one in a position to speak generally.” Every reader coming fresh to a literary text, and not only professional ones, sees it in the light of a new world, about



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which there are discoveries to be made, hidden meanings to detect and unravel. If on the contrary, as Fish’s argument seems to show, the text is not a “world” or a “space” to be investigated, but rather something in the nature of a looking glass, a limpid sheet of words capable only of reflecting back whatever set of presuppositions this or that reader brings to it, then the whole enterprise of reading is, quite simply, pointless. Brooks’s account of the task of criticism rejects this consequence of Fish’s argument. And so does Krausz’s version of multiplism, which holds that “good reasons” may be offered for “equally admissible” even if not “equally preferable” interpretations. On Krausz’s account, also, “multiplism allows that some singularist conditions may obtain” (Krausz 2016, 35). In the context of literary interpretation, in other words, Krausz’s version of multiplism leaves open the possibility that while some aspects of a text respond to multiplism, others respond to singularism. And with that, of course, comes the possibility of a distinction between discovery and reading-in. That, though, further distances Krausz from Fish, for whom there just are no “asituational norms,” and for whom, therefore, singularism can never be more than an appearance belying the reality of a more fundamental underlying multiplism. In terms of Joseph Margolis’s distinction between robust and radical relativism it seems fair, then, to describe Fish as a defender of radical multiplism, and Krausz as a defender of robust multiplism. A robust relativism, according to Margolis, is one in which ascription of values cognitively weaker than “true” or “false” “presupposes a domain to which the stronger values apply” (Margolis 1986, 19), while “Radical relativism . . . fails to make provision for non-relativistic truth claims” (Margolis 1986, 21). Fish’s arguments plainly fit the latter description, their whole purpose, after all, being to establish the non-viability of any such provision in literary contexts. Intuitively I find a robust multiplism of the type espoused by Krausz more plausible as an approach to literary studies than the singularism offered by Brooks and other New Critics, and defended by traditionalist literary theorists over the past forty years against the forces of “Theory” and “post-modernism.” It is intrinsically plausible, after all, to think that there may be more to be made of a great work of literature than has as yet been enshrined in the critical tradition to date, and that however “correct” the reading offered by a critical consensus may seem, other readings may yet emerge that, without displacing the consensual reading, may dispose of at least as much power as the latter does to organize the text in new and enlightening ways (or, what comes in practice to essentially the same thing, to dispose of as much or more “textual support”). Is there any way of defending a version of Krausz’s robust multiplism, adapted to the purposes of literary theory, against Fish’s and other versions of radical multiplism? I think there is, but that it is one that requires us, as so often in philosophy, to be alert to the variety of possible meanings, in context, of the word “meaning.” In one rather basic sense, what a sentence means is what it says, or asserts, or expresses. In this sense, the meaning of “Please shut the door” is given by any sentence expressing the request it expresses; the meaning of “Grass is green” is given by any

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sentence asserting the greenness of grass. Fish sometimes writes as if meaning at this basic level were as much subject as the interpretation of literary texts to the varying norms inherent in “institutional structure(s) within which one hears utterances as already organised with respect to certain assumed purposes and goals” (Fish 1980, 306). And that impression is strengthened by the fact that his argument against the possibility of “acontextual norms” of interpretation begins in an example that, in effect, presupposes the dependence on contextual norms of the meaning of a sentence, “Is there a text in this class?” in precisely that basic sense; the sense in which the meaning of a sentence is just “what it says.” It looks, then, as if Fish’s radical multiplism is supposed to go, as it were, “all the way down”: to apply not only to the “meaning” of literary texts, but also to sentencemeaning. A moment’s thought, however, is sufficient to show that that can’t be right. Unless there is agreement, at some level, between persons supposedly able to speak a language L, on what a sentence S, supposedly a sentence in L, can mean, then we have no reason to suppose S to be a sentence, rather than an arbitrary series of marks or sounds. It is a condition for the existence of a natural language L, in other words, that, as Fish puts it, there exist “norms embedded in the language (where they may be read out by anyone with sufficiently clear, that is, unbiased, eyes)” (Fish 1980, 526). How much of what we ordinarily call “meaning” belongs to sentence-meaning in this basic sense? Certain forms of ambiguity certainly do. To take an early example of Chomsky’s, any competent speaker knows that “They are flying planes” can function equally well as an answer to “What are those dots in the sky?” and “What are those men doing gathered on the hilltop?” The possibility of either meaning for the sentence, following as it does the conventions of English grammar and syntax, is necessarily available to any competent speaker of English. What about the ambiguity of (a) “Is there a text in this class” between (b) “Is there an assigned textbook for this class?” and (c) “Are you going to take Professor Fish’s line about the non-existence of literary texts except as projections of diverse and contextually accessible norms of interpretation?” My native speaker’s grasp of English assures me that, while there is a coincidence of sentence-meaning between (a) and (b), there is no such coincidence between (a) and (c). Pace Fish’s explicit contention, that is to say, the conversation between Fish’s colleague and the student fails to introduce “two literal meanings” of “Is there a text in this class?” What Fish is talking about, in other words, is not “literal meaning” (sentence-meaning, in our terms), but “meaning” in the quite different sense of “purport.” In stating the purport of an utterance by someone, A, in the form of a sentence S, we are not concerned with the meaning (in the sentence-meaning sense) of S, but rather with the nature of A’s motives in uttering S. The question is not, “What did what A said mean?” but rather, “What did A mean by saying that?” Here Fish is quite right: in puzzling questions of this kind, questions concerning purport, the only thing that can help us is access to some unknown and for the moment alien set of contextual assumptions (in this case, assumptions about what Professor Fish gets up to in his classes). But while that is true of ambiguities of meaning in the sense of purport, it is not, and manifestly



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could not, be true of ambiguities of meaning in the sense of sentence-meaning. Those have, for the reasons given, to be accessible to every competent speaker. And along with them, in the category of matters accessible to every competent speaker, go a number of other things, including, for example, the privileges of occurrence of terms in sentences, what sentences imply or entail, the force of metaphors, the force of puns, and so on through the traditional litany of rhetorical devices. Sentence-meaning, then, is responsive to singularism. There is never, that is, going to be more than one story about what a sentence means, or can mean, in that sense of “means.” By the same token we have in sentence-meaning a good instance of the “domain to which the stronger [truth] values apply” presupposed by robust multiplism. By contrast, meaning in the sense of purport, clearly, responds to radical multiplism. Is there, now, a sense of “meaning,” and in particular a sense of “meaning” responsive to literary concerns, that might also appear responsive to robust multiplism of the type advocated by Krausz? I think there is. It is to be found, I suggest, in sentences like “What does the closure of the rail line mean for our business?”; “What does the rediscovery of the missing leaf from the Cambridge Songs MS mean for the performance of early medieval music?” Such queries raise questions concerning the bearings of one matter upon another. I want to suggest that very often, when we ask what is the meaning of this or that literary work, or offer an account of its meaning, what we are actually asking or offering is an account of the bearings of the literary text, or some aspect or aspects of it, upon some matter of human concern. Two such accounts may, as Krausz suggests, oppose one another, in the sort of sense in which a Christian account of the bearings of a given text may oppose a Marxist one. Or they may be compatible, but simply different, or they may be different, but complementary. And in all of these cases, differing accounts of the text, answerable to multiplism, may receive support from aspects of the text answerable to singularism—meeting the requirements of robust multiplism, that is to say—and ultimately (though in practice matters are going to turn out to be a little more complex than this),1 from the sentence-meanings of the individual sentences of the text. If we are to begin to put flesh on this suggestion we need, no doubt, an example of how the re-construal of debates about meaning as debates about bearings might work, in practice, in a literary context. The one I shall offer here concerns Jewish interpretation of religious law (Halakhic Midrash). I have three reasons for making what might seem an odd choice of example. The first is that biblical interpretation, both Christian and Jewish, is often held up as a glaring example of the human capacity to read into valued texts significances far greater, and far other, than they could be supposed with any degree of plausibility actually to contain:2 a line of criticism that, of course, echoes the radical multiplism of Fish’s critique of literary interpretation in general. The second is that the basic idea that there may exist a useful analogy between literary criticism and Midrash is not merely some crotchet of my own 1.  For a very much fuller account of the complexities, see Harrison, What Is Fiction For? (2015). 2.  See, for example, Kermode, The Genesis of Secrecy (1979).

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invention. I borrowed it from an insightful paper by the distinguished American critic Geoffrey Hartman (1994). The third reason is that the theory of interpretation underlying the practice of Midrash enshrines a distinction that parallels fairly exactly the distinction proposed here between the sentence-meaning of a text, or passage, and its bearings. Midrash is (one type of ) commentary undertaken by Jewish rabbinical scholars, either on Jewish Law (Halakhah), or on the ethical and narrative elements (Aggada) in Jewish religious writing. The study of Halakhah is understood as the attempt to work out the full practical implications of God’s commandments—both those communicated in the Torah and those considered to be enshrined first in the Oral Law and later taken up into the Talmud. In this concern to get straight the bearing of God’s commands on all the twists and turns of everyday life, Hartman observes, “non-Jews were taught to see only a crass and stubborn literalism, a mean-spirited, materialistic frame of mind, rather than what David Weiss Halivni has called the predilection of Midrash for justified law” (Hartman 1994, 338). Jewish scholars have traditionally emphasised both fidelity to the canonical text and the power of the canonical text to speak, under Midrashic interpretation, in surprising and new ways. “Turn it and turn it about,” says the Talmud (Avoth, 5:25), “for everything is in it.” Midrash, says Hartman, is “an exceptional form of commentary.” It is exceptional because of its close yet supple relation to a canonical text, because of the way exegesis turns into exegesis plus, or “literature”—in short, because of matricial qualities that allow us to see the creative yet text-permeated mind at work. (Hartman 1994, 355)

This remark, of course, addresses the very problem concerning us here: how the “text-permeated mind,” in line with the requirements of a robust multiplism, can be both “creative” in its interpretations and faithful, after its fashion, to the content of the text. The critic inclined, like Fish or Kermode, to scepticism, will have none of this. To him, just as to a critical singularist like Brooks, exegesis, to count as exegesis, must be faithful to something discernible as “the one true meaning of the text”: if it is “original” or “creative” it isn’t exegesis, but rather embroidery and wishful thinking. Jewish “learning,” in short, is just another instance of the pre-modern mind kidding itself that it is achieving objective understanding, when in fact it is merely doting on the reflection of its own face in the opaque and endlessly ambiguous surface of the text, open as it is to any imposition of meaning, since whatever meaning of its own it may once have had is too remote and too drowned in the depths of time to matter. Hartman canvasses the possibility of this way of disposing of the possibility of any illuminating analogy between literary criticism and Midrash, without, it seems to me, quite taking it by the horns. The very advance of contemporary theory towards Midrash makes Jewish scholars more zealous to avoid contamination. There is fear that the motive for Midrash will be mistakenly reduced from Everything is in the text, and what the text signifies is its relevance to



Robust Multiplism, or, New Bearings in the Theory of Interpretation 63 the actions and thoughts of the interpretive community, to Everything is text, and the text is a structure of imaginary relations, a text without issue. (Hartman 1994, 343)

One thing that militates against that depressing conclusion is that there are rules not only understood, but formulated, for the conduct of Midrash. Among those rules is a set of distinctions concerning different kinds of meaning, or levels of interpretation. The two that most concern us are, respectively, P’shat, pronounced pehshaht, and meaning “simple,” and D’rash, pronounced Dehrash, and meaning, effectively, “drawing out,” or “what is drawn out.” There are various rules of hermeneutical procedure providing criteria of adequacy for the process of Midrashic drawing-out, most of which need not concern us. One of them, however, does concern us. P’shat, Midrashic scholars tell us, is “the plain simple meaning of the text”: the understanding of each sentence “in its natural, normal sense, using the customary meanings of the words being used.” A concept, that is to say, very close to the notion of sentence meaning, as defined above. One central rule governing Midrash is that it must preserve P’shat, since otherwise objective exegesis cedes to the reading-in of meaning (eisogesis)—becomes, in other words, the empty game of arbitrary invention of meaning that critics like Fish or Kermode suspect all literary interpretation of being. The Babylonian Talmud, for instance, enshrines this principle as follows: Talmud Shabbat 63a—Rabbi Kahana objected to Mar son of Rabbi Huna: But this refers to the words of the Torah? A verse cannot depart from its plain meaning, he replied.

Midrash can, of course, mean various things. But quite a lot of the time, it seems to me, what Midrash does is to preserve P’shat while drawing out the meaning (D’rash) of P’shat in the sense of its meaning-for—that is to say, its bearing on—some matter of current concern. An example of what I have in mind occurs in a famous passage of Halakhic Midrash in the Talmudic tractate Bava Mezia (The Second Gate), 59b. The sages are discussing whether a certain clay oven, which has become ritually impure, could be purified. All except Rabbi Eliezer, a great scholar, agree that it cannot be. When the other sages refuse to accept his arguments, Rabbi Eliezer says (and as a veteran of professional philosophical debate myself, I feel keen sympathy with this plainly much-tried man), “If the Halakhah is according to me, let that carob tree prove it.” The carob tree duly moves from its place a hundred cubits, and this opening miracle is promptly followed by a stream of water running uphill, and finally by the intervention of a divine voice that says, “What have you to do with Rabbi Eliezer? The Halakhah is according to him in every place.” At this point—and this is the point at which Midrash enters the story—another Rabbi, R. Joshua, rises and says, “It is not in the heavens” (Deuteronomy 30:12). The Talmudic passage continues, “What did he mean by quoting this? Said Rabbi Jeremiah, ‘He meant that since the Torah has been given already on Mount Sinai, we do not pay attention to a heavenly voice, for You have written in Your Torah, Decide according to the majority’” (Exodus 23:2).

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Pretty clearly, I think, the meaning—the purport—in context of the words “What did he mean by quoting this?” is, roughly speaking, “What did he suppose to be the bearing of this citation” on the matter concerning us? That, at any rate, is the question that Rabbi Jeremiah promptly answers. Let us look again at Rabbi Joshua’s citation. The passage in Deuteronomy from which the citation is taken begins with God’s promise to reward the keeping of His commandments, and continues, “For this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not too hard for thee, neither is it too far off. It is not in heaven, that thou shouldst say: ‘Who shall go up to heaven, and bring it unto us, and make us to hear it, that we may do it?’” The bearings of the passage in Deuteronomy are thus homiletic and pastoral. It argues against those who want to find reasons for avoiding the performance of the Mitzvot (the divine commandments that form, in part, the basis of Jewish Law [Halakhah]) that they cannot complain, at least, that the Law is—ineffectually—laid up in heaven. What R. Joshua has seen is that, despite this, the passage also has, just as it stands, and without the need to do any violence whatsoever to its P’shat (in effect, its sentence-meaning), a powerful bearing on whether we can, or should, treat miracles as arguments in determining questions of Halakhah. R. Joshua’s point is that, were we to do that, we should be treating the law as indeed, “in the heavens,” at which point we should have simply to abandon Deuteronomy 30:12, since we should, in effect, have declared it (a declaration, incidentally, tantamount to apostasy) to be false. R. Jeremiah then drives home that argument by pointing out that not only Deuteronomy 30:12 would have to be abandoned, but also Exodus 23:2; and the matter is settled. The passage is plainly important for the general character of Judaism, in at least two ways. First of all, it divests the notion of miracle of any serious epistemic role in religious debate—any role in determining the content of the central moral and doctrinal claims of the religion—in a way in which, it has to be said, Christianity does not. There would be no need, in other words, for a Jewish Hume to write Chapter X of the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Rabbis Joshua and Jeremiah have done its main work for him already, on grounds, indeed tangentially related, via R. Jeremiah’s adaptation of Exodus 23:2, to Hume’s own. Secondly, the passage presents a formidable obstacle to the idea of a human being’s claiming either divine powers or direct personal access to divine authority; perversions, again, to which Christianity has, over the centuries, proved from time to time dismayingly receptive. Judaism here, in short, opts definitively, with Hume, for the rule of rational argument and majority decision over mystery, magic, and personal charisma. But, leaving all those, perhaps more important, questions aside, what we also have here, pace Kermode, Fish, and others, is a hermeneutic process that draws out (D’rash) from a text—Deuteronomy 30:12—new meaning in the sense of new bearings, new—while leaving the plain literal sense (P’shat) of that text—in our terms its sentence-meaning—unaltered. The main objection to radical multiplism, noted earlier—an objection shared both by critical singularists of Brooks’s type and by robust multiplists—is what



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makes it impossible to think of the results of interpretation as controlled by, or discovered in, rather than read into, the text. Midrash clearly evades this objection. It does so because it offers a form of interpretation that leaves the meaning of the text, considered as equally accessible to all speakers, unaltered. Its deals in discovery, rather than reading-in, because its concern is not with the meaning of the text (in the root sense of sentence-meaning outlined above) at all, but rather with the relevance of the text to, its bearings-upon, this or that matter of human concern. For that reason also, Midrashic interpretation in no way imposes what Derridians like to call “closure” on the text. On the contrary it leaves it open, in the enigmatic fecundity of its plain (sentence-)meaning, to the indefinite possibility of further such discoveries. To sum up, we have distinguished three senses of “meaning,” corresponding to three distinct ideals of interpretation (Krausz’s term). Sentence-meaning, comprising all those aspects of meaning in L accessible to any competent speaker merely on the basis of simple inspection of any well-formed utterance in L, corresponds to singularism. Purport, the intention in uttering S attributable to a speaker A in the light of circumstances of utterance, corresponds to radical multiplism, on the one hand because it is dependent on contextual circumstance in a manner that prescinds entirely from considerations of sentence-meaning, and on the other because the range of relevant conceptual circumstance is both unpredictable and indefinite in extent. Finally, bearing, the relevance of the text, in unforeseen ways, to this or that matter of human concern, corresponds to robust multiplism. Where does that leave the notion of the meaning of the literary text taken as a whole, a notion dear not only to Brooks, but to a long tradition of literary scholarship going back at least to Coleridge? It is, I suggest, one of those artificial concepts formed by bundling together several distinct and not entirely compatible notions far better understood separately. In the present case the concepts concerned are, respectively, the unity of the text, the bearings of the text, and the intentions of the author. It is certainly true that reading a work of literature with understanding commonly involves grasping it as unified. But the kinds of unity involved are diverse in character, and it is by no means clear that they necessarily combine to outline a single, unified meaning for the work, if “meaning” in this context is to mean, as it effectively does, “significance for human life and its concerns.” The unity of a work of literature has, very often, far more to do with its internal structure and the conventions of genre than with what it has, or might have, to “tell us” concerning the vicissitudes of human life and experience. Thus the “unity” of a poem is largely a matter of its coherence as a systematic structure of imagery, metaphor, metonymy, and connotation, its “movement” from inception through a field of relationships created on all these levels by the author’s choice of words. As to what, if anything, the poem “tells us,” that is quite another matter. Archibald MacLeish’s celebrated “A poem should not mean, but be” catches, for that matter, the feeling of many literary, but not especially theoretically oriented, minds that a concern for “message” is, and ought to be, marginal to the experience of reading a poem. In the same sort of way the “unity” of a novel is constituted by whatever overarching narrative structures happen to be integral to the nature of the story

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it has to tell, not by the demands of some single “message” that the reader is supposed to “get out of” the book. To grasp the “unity” of Hardy’s Jude the Obscure, say, is to enter into, and be moved by, the successive vicissitudes of Jude’s life; it is not to grasp some great secret, some piece of knowledge, that it was Hardy’s intention to use the conventions of fiction as a means of communicating to us. To be sure, the novel bears in many ways, some obvious to any intelligent reader since its publication, some yet to be discovered, on many matters of concern to us: marriage, class, the decay of rural life and religion being just some of them. But the unity of the novel has to do not with its dealings with them, but with its dealings with Jude. But where, it might be asked, does that leave the third element of the traditional notion of the meaning of the literary text, to wit, the intentions of the author? I am inclined to doubt, once again, that our sense of the character, intentions, and identity of the person whose book we are reading, of Jane Austen, say, or Herman Melville, has much to do with the unity of the text. It is the product, on the one hand, of what one might call specificity of voice, of what is personal and distinctive in the author’s style, and on the other hand, of how those specificities mesh with the specificities of bearing that each reader discovers in the book. As these latter develop and deepen, through the long history of a book’s reception by successive generation of readers, our sense of a writer’s personality and character may change. In this way the general sense of Sterne’s character, as a morally frivolous and at times mildly pornographic writer, current at the turn of the century, altered greatly during the twentieth century as critics, from Fluchère onward, began to see a different, and considerably more serious side to him. But judgments of this kind, though by no means as arbitrary as the radical multiplism of writers like Fish would make them, are never simply final, or “correct.” In literature there is always the indefinite possibility of a new aspect, a new bearing, making itself apparent. In literary studies rightly understood, in other words, robust multiplism rules.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Brooks, Cleanth. 1968. The Well-Wrought Urn (Rev. ed.). London: Denis Dobson. Cusset, François. 2008. French Theory: How Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, & Co. Transformed the Intellectual Life of the United States. Translated by Jeff Fort. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Fish, Stanley. 1980. Is There a Text in This Class?: The Authority of Interpretive Communities. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Harrison, Bernard. 2015. What Is Fiction For? Literary Humanism Restored. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Hartman, Geoffrey. 1994. “Midrash as Law and Literature.” Journal of Religion 74 (3): 338–55. Kermode, Frank. 1979. The Genesis of Secrecy: On the Interpretation of Narrative. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Krausz, Michael. 2016. “The Ideals and Aim of Interpretation.” In Interpretation and Meaning in Philosophy and Religion, edited by Dick-Martin Grube, 34–49. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Margolis, Joseph. 1986. Pragmatism Without Foundations: Reconciling Realism and Relativism. Oxford: Blackwell.

6 Dialogue in the Work of Michael Krausz David B. Wong

Michael Krausz is one of the few contemporary philosophers to have produced serious philosophy in the form of dialogues. In two short, elegant volumes he brings into conversation four friends who represent four distinct philosophical approaches to the questions of relativism and absolutism, in the first book, and to the questions of Oneness, self, and non-attachment in the second (Krausz 2011, 2013). Even though one of my main areas of research has been relativism and absolutism in ethics, I want to concentrate on the second book, not only because I find the questions of the second fascinating and gripping, but also because I want to step back a little from my first order philosophical commitments (at least for most of this chapter) and in a meta-philosophical way talk about the virtues of doing philosophy in dialogue, especially in the way that Krausz does dialogue. Most contemporary philosophy is done and articulated from a monological point of view. It purports to give us the truth (the absolute truth or at least the most warranted point of view). I am not expressing disapproval of this typical way of doing philosophy. But we should have more works that present multiple, substantial, and well-defended philosophical perspectives in encounter with each other over philosophical issues of great importance. Moreover, there is distinct value in having this dialogue come from one person, because even if Nina (one of the characters in the dialogue on Oneness) is right, and the distinction between human individuals is purely conventional, it carries a great deal of power in our conventional world. We experience this power much of the time in the form of pressure, a lot of it internalized, to be an “x,” whether x be a relativist, absolutist, a Hindu non-dualist, or a defender of the human within the divine. We experience pressure to have an identity that is coherent and well-integrated, but too often this means in practice shutting oneself off from the force of opponents’ arguments and to the possibility of their having a set of commitments that are as defensible as one’s own. When I say “as 67

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defensible as one’s own,” I don’t mean to rule out the stance that one’s own positions are true and the others false (and where truth and falsity are taken in an absolute sense and not a relativist sense), but rather to rule out the stance that we have such access to the truth that we can say that all other positions are less defensible than one’s own. We may or may not have the truth but our access to it is limited and even if we have the truth our ability to defend it may not be any better than those who believe something different. It is not just monologues versus dialogues. There are dialogues, and there are dialogues. The foil for a Krauszian dialogue is the Platonic type, which typically has its designated one or more patsies who set up Socrates for his zingers. None of the four friends who appear in the dialogues are patsies. They represent recognizable philosophical viewpoints and defend their views and probe other views with thoughtful intelligence and fairness to those prepared to disagree. Moreover, each participant in the dialogue drives the others to clarify his/her position in ways that are ultimately helpful to each. A good example of this occurs in the first day of conversation between the friends, when Nina explains to the others what is involved in her being unattached to others—unattached to her twin brother Norris who has recently died, and unattached to her friend Barbara, who loved Norris. Her efforts to become unattached are not merely motivated by the practical concern to be free from suffering, but are grounded, she says, in the way things are (Krausz 2013, 7). All relationships between individuals are conventional as opposed to ultimate, and that is because the very distinctions between individuals are conventional. They are not real in the ultimate sense. At the ultimate level there is the One, from which nothing can be distinguished, which is formless, nameless, and unchanging. Ronnie asks Nina whether her position amounts to rejecting individuals. Nina says yes, she rejects individuals insofar as they are conventionally existing individuals. Barbara asks what is the difference between being unattached and being detached. Nina says that detachment takes place at the conventional level, where one distinguishes between different individuals and separates oneself from others. By contrast, being unattached on the ultimate level means that one’s attitude is neutral because there is no one to separate from. Nina’s friends are drawing out the consequences of her position, but it is not the typical reductio in philosophy, where the intent is to refute a position by drawing out implausible consequences. Of course, Nina’s friends may find the consequences of her position difficult if not impossible to accept. Ronnie seems pretty close to finding it impossible to accept Nina’s position that the One cannot be talked about, grasped by human intelligence or consciousness or the mind, that we cannot know the formless, the nameless, and the unchanging. Ronnie holds that intelligence, consciousness, and mind are all we’ve got. He also holds the relativist position that all knowledge is relative to a reference frame and that there is no fact of the matter as to which frame is correct. In this respect he differs not only from Nina but also from Adam, who holds that the ultimate constituents of reality are individual objects in relationship to one another.



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The philosophical differences between the friends run as deep as they can get, yet they are not in battle with one another. Ronnie states his positions, not in the spirit of refuting Nina but rather in the spirit of clarifying a deep difference between him and his friend. I suppose the friends would not mind it if they managed to persuade others to adopt their point of view, but the strongest impulse seems to be to understand one another through probing for the consequences of one another’s positions. Even if Nina has become unattached, she remains a friend to the other three in this sense. As the friends drill down into each other’s positions, it seems that they reach their respective bedrocks, where they cannot go further in contesting each other’s assumptions. That does not mean that the conversation stops; it just moves on to a related but somewhat different subject. One gets the sense that the friends are circling around their subject, and insofar as Nina’s views of the One are at the subject, there is a good reason for this circling. A consistent theme of the dialogue is that if Nina is right about what is ultimate, there are no words that will adequately represent it. Adam says to Nina that to say that we as individuals are embodiments or manifestations of the One is too dualistic for her purposes (Krausz 2013, 22). The others join in pressing Nina on the apparent contradiction between the One that admits of no dualism and the dualism implied by being an embodiment or manifestation of the One. Nina responds that they are using words to try to designate the inexpressible. The best they can do is to use this or that phrase to suggest what we are getting at without taking it literally. If words can only take us so far, however, it is natural to question how much one can really know of the One. From Nina’s point of view, it is only natural to keep on circling the One with words, in the hopes that her friends will “get” more of what she means to convey. Barbara, who expresses some sympathy for Nina’s view of the One, might share some of that motivation. As for Ronnie the relativist and Adam, an objective realist of the more familiar sort, it is more a matter of arriving at a deeper understanding of where each friend stands. Adam asks whether Nina is making an assertion at all when she says the One is beyond words, or if she is rather using words as a vehicle to get into a certain state of mind. Nina says that she does want the truth, but ultimately something beyond the truth. Adams suggests that when Nina says, “Thou art that,” she wants to be the space the words indicate, and she agrees that is a very good way to put it. Adam here displays analytical acuity in pursuing the basis of Nina’s position that Oneness is bliss, but this acuity is not put in the “gotcha” spirit of much analytical philosophy. Rather, the ultimate result of the sympathetic and generous spirit suffusing the whole of Krausz’s dialogues is that each point of view gets its best possible articulation and defense. Krausz’s dialogues indicate the possibility of combining epistemic virtues that are difficult to combine: openness and generosity toward competing points of view, and a vigorous application of one’s analytical and critical powers. However, at this point, a puzzle arises. Can we get so good at understanding the force of another’s point of view that we undermine conviction in our own? The four friends seem to maintain their distinctive points of view at the end. Adam, Barbara,

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Nina, and Ronnie are very intelligent and informed people, and on the issues they discuss, no one seems to have a clear upper hand in the argument over the others. What are the implications of such a situation? If one is initially inclined toward one of those positions, can one recognize that the arguments for and assumptions underlying competing positions are equally forceful? If one does recognize them as equally forceful, should one have less belief in one’s own position? If their reasons are really as good as one’s own, should one suspend belief in one’s own? Or is one entitled to believe as long as one’s own reasons are as good as theirs? This puzzle about the epistemic constraints of belief in cases of reasonable disagreement has become an intense topic of discussion lately. In the particular case of Krausz’s four friends, matters become further complicated through entertaining the possibility that language and duality itself may be called into question. In order for the puzzle of belief in cases of reasonable disagreement to be a puzzle in the way it is usually thought to be, we must presuppose that a problem arises from the incompatibility of the perspective of the four friends, but if this incompatibility is itself a matter of conventional duality, then we may not even be able to pose the puzzle. And of course this brings us back to the points in the conversation where it is brought up that the friends may have reached the limits of language and thought in any orthodox sense. I wonder how Krausz assesses the force of the arguments and assumptions underlying each position, and to the extent that he thinks there is a legitimate standoff, does he find it more difficult to land on any particular position? I confess that part of my motivation for this question is what seems to me to be an important structural feature of the dialogue in the second book: Nina’s views seem to be pretty much at the center of attention. Each of the other friends is reacting to Nina’s views. These views receive the most elaboration as well as the most probing. Does this reflect what is going on for the author of this book? Another virtue of a Krauszian dialogue is that the attitude of the friends is so conducive to conversation that one wants to jump in. So to close, I would like to jump in and express some sympathy for Barbara’s position. She is sympathetic to Nina’s metaphysics, as I said earlier, but does not want to leave behind the human nor its value to her in ascending to the ultimate. At times she puts this in terms of living on two levels, or going back and forth between them. According to Nina, the practical benefit of the unattached stance is release from suffering, fear of dying, and the loss of others in one’s life. According to Barbara, one pays too high a price for that benefit. Nina’s reply is that there is no price to be paid since there is no individual, ultimately, to pay it (Krausz 2013, 16–17). Adam points out that the pain is still there, but Nina says that the pain of the individual would be erased. Adam, or Barbara, could reply that there still is pain here, but we may assume that there might not even be pain anywhere, at least not any pain contributed by someone like Nina. After all, Nina declares herself unattached to Norris and to Barbara, and presumably that means she does not feel grief.



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Let me interject my own voice into the conversation and state the sense in which I accept that there is no individual there ultimately. I accept that we are clusters of psychophysical properties and events that stretch over a certain period of time. To be an individual is to be such a cluster, and there is no necessity in the way we conceptualize and pick out individuals and distinguish them from one another. So I accept a view of the human individual that lies in the territory marked out by Buddhism and Hume. If, to be ultimately real, it is required that one’s existence be independent of the ways we conceptualize things, including ourselves, then I agree, we are not ultimately real (this may not be the sense in which Hindu non-dualism holds in the ultimate unreality of individuals, and I trust that Krausz will explain how it isn’t). It does not follow for me, however, that we need to be any less attached to our own existence or to those of others with whom we have relationships. There is no requirement that love, for example, be attached only to the ultimately real. This is the important truth, I think, that lies in Barbara’s position. There is no intellectual mistake in remaining attached to self and others even if we construe ourselves as purely conventional individuals in the sense I have specified. To me, then, the remaining question is whether it is a good idea to remain so attached. It may not be a good idea if we are crushed or utterly destroyed by loss. Even so, Martha Nussbaum would hold that devastation is a price worth paying (Nussbaum 1996). I think there are other less disastrous ways to remain attached. Given these other ways, I think Barbara is clearly right: to become unattached in order to achieve immunity to grief means that one pays too a great cost, at least as calculated in human terms. Immunity to grief means immunity to love. Some of the most fruitful philosophical texts with which I am most familiar and that present views on such subjects are Daoist texts, and in particular the Zhuangzi. The similarity to some of the central themes in Nina’s Hindu non-dualism is striking. In one place (chapter 5, “Signs of Abundant Virtue”) the sage is described as one in whom “That’s it; that’s not” is not present. The source of everything is humorously characterized as the “Big Lump” because it lacks differentiation. There are even four friends, four masters (chapter 6, “The Great Ancestral Teacher”), who regard “death, life, existence, and annihilation as all the same thing” (Zhuangzi 2011, 237). When one of the masters is taken very ill and near death, the friend who comes to visit him tells his weeping wife and children not to grieve. He whimsically wonders whether the one who makes all the changes will make his friend “a rat’s liver or a bug’s arm” (Zhuangzi 2011, 238). But there are other moments where the Zhuangzi sounds more like Barbara than Nina. There is the story of the death of Zhuangzi’s wife (chapter 18, “Perfect Happiness”). Huizi, Zhuangzi’s friend and philosophical sparring partner, comes to console him and finds him beating on a pot and singing. Huizi says, “It is bad enough to refuse to bewail the death of someone with whom one has brought up children and grown old together, but what could be more shameful than to drum upon a pot and sing?” (Zhuangzi 2011, 123). Zhuangzi replies, “Not so. When she first died, do you

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suppose that I was able not to feel the loss?” But then, he says, he recognized that her birth, life, and death were part of a process that goes back beyond the beginnings of life, shape, and energy, and that in death she has gone to become a companion with spring and autumn, summer and winter, in the processions of the four seasons. When someone was about to lie down and sleep in the greatest of mansions, I with my sobbing knew no better than to bewail her. The thought came to me that I was being uncomprehending towards destiny, so I stopped. (Zhuangzi 2001, 124)

This depiction of Zhuangzi’s reaction is notable for its complexity. He does not display the absolutely imperturbable state of the four masters but rather feels her loss and sobs upon his wife’s death. The second stage of his reaction, however, is to embrace the whole that includes all transformations, including his wife’s birth and death. Notice, however, the tenderness in his description of her lying down and going to sleep in the greatest of mansions. Even in the frame of mind that embraces the whole, Zhuangzi does not deny the existence of his wife nor her place in the whole nor his attachment to her. The stories of the four masters and the death of Zhuangzi’s wife illustrate a pervasive feature of the Zhuangzi text: it displays a range of apparently incompatible responses to life and death and leaves us to puzzle over them. Though I never cease to puzzle, I nevertheless choose, and I choose the valuing of the human and of the whole, the refusal to sacrifice one to the other that is implied by the second story. The second story points to the possibility of occupying two perspectives: there is the human perspective of attachment to those who loom large in our lives; the other perspective is that of tian or Heaven, and it is of the whole, from which accepting our lives as extremely brief interludes in an infinite flux. Because we have human form, the Zhuangzi says, we congregate with others of our kind and grieve over their loss; but because we are creatures who are capable of imaginatively identifying with the whole, we can avoid wounding our persons with our likes and dislikes (Zhuangzi 2001, 85). Our ability to experience life from both perspectives allows us to attach and to love, but then to be resilient in the face of loss. Most of the time, the human perspective assumes the foreground, but when we face great loss, the perspective of tian helps to protect us from being mortally wounded. The logically fastidious among us will object to the incompatibility of these perspectives. But since we have a near bottomless capacity to hold contrary beliefs anyway, I say, let us use it when it helps. There is much in this strand of the Zhuangzi that resonates with Barbara’s point of view, just as the story of the four masters resonates with Nina’s point of view. Barbara holds that enlightenment should be compatible with having friends and loved ones. Otherwise one will be a lonely person. Nina responds that loneliness is not applicable, and she is speaking from the absolute point of view, as the masters in the Zhuangzi story are speaking from the point of view of the dao. Barbara says one can be involved in relationship and say, “Thou art that.” One can maintain dual consciousness as awareness of self as relative being and as the absolute. Nina



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responds that one can’t have it both ways. Relative awareness will impede awareness of the absolute. And this resonates with the moment in the four masters’ story when weeping family members are shooed away by a master who tells them not to be afraid of change, but to welcome it. When one has two compelling voices in dialogue, the better part of wisdom can be not to declare a winner but to let them speak to the audience. Let me close by giving the final reason why I chose to discuss dialogue in Michael’s work. I have had the great fortune of being a friend to Michael and engaging in dialogue with him. Each conversation is a great adventure and exploration with him. I have learned much from him but even more importantly have learned much with him. Our exchanges are suffused with Michael’s warmth and generosity. Thank you, Michael, and let our adventures continue.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Krausz, Michael. 2011. Dialogues on Relativism, Absolutism, and Beyond. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. ———. 2013. Oneness and the Displacement of Self. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Nussbaum, Martha. 1996. The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Zhuangzi. 2001. Chuang-Tzu: The Inner Chapters. Translated by A. C. Graham. Indianapolis: Hackett. ———. 2011. “Zhuangzi,” translated by Paul Kjellberg. Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy, edited by Bryan Van Norden and Philip J. Ivanhoe. Hackett Publishing. Second Edition. Kindle Edition.

7 Replies and Reflections Michael Krausz

In 2015, Bryn Mawr College honored me by sponsoring a symposium on my philosophical works. I am grateful for the college’s support and encouragement during my forty-five years at that special place. The present volume is an outgrowth of that symposium. I take pleasure in thanking the six contributors to this book. They provided me the opportunity to revisit some of the enduring themes in my philosophical work and, in light of their remarks, to elaborate upon them, and in some cases, to modify them. Special thanks go also to my friends and colleagues Christine Koggel and Andreea Deciu Ritivoi, who edited the volume. Given constraints of space, my treatments of each of the contributions will be selective. I will comment on each of the chapters in turn—some at greater length than others.

MARY BITTNER WISEMAN, “INTERPRETATION AND THE MAN” In her evocative chapter, Wiseman considers my treatment of the aim of interpretation; ideals of interpretation; objects of interpretation; and limits of interpretation. A brief review of the relevant concepts in my work will be helpful before addressing Wiseman’s thoughts about interpretation. Aim of Interpretation In various places, I have suggested that interpretation characteristically aims to make sense of, or to uncover the meaning, or meanings of, pertinent objects of interpretation. I call this aim “elucidation.” When I speak of elucidation as the 75

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characteristic aim of interpretation, I recognize that the concept of interpretation is “essentially contested.” In W. B. Gallie’s sense, interpretation has no intrinsic, invariant, or immutable aim (Gallie 1955–1956, 167–98).1 Elucidation contrasts with “edification.” These two aims are analytically distinct, although they may be pursued simultaneously. Among other functions, edification may help to console an interpreter or assist in an interpreter’s self-realization. But when employed in this manner, I have suggested that such activity would not amount to interpretation per se. Yet, without thematizing the point, Wiseman appears to disagree with my suggestion that elucidation is the sole aim of interpretation. She says: interpretation may have two goals,2 elucidation and edification, where the first is primary and has to do with beliefs, which always have intentional objects, and the second has to do with the interpreter’s attitudes, dispositions, orientations, whose sources are, it often seems to me, lost in the mists of time. It is always the interpreting agent that is edified and her interpretation’s object that is elucidated. In being edified the agent is perhaps transformed, and this can sometimes be a matter of her realizing herself. Elucidation is primary in that it is how an object is interpreted that affects the interpreter. (Wiseman, p. 5 in volume)

While I endorse Wiseman’s characterization of edification, we seem to disagree about counting edification as an aim of interpretation. She speaks of elucidation as the primary aim, thereby allowing for edification to be a secondary aim of interpretation. In contrast, I hold that edification should not count as an aim of interpretation. Edification might count as an ancillary result of, but not strictly speaking an aim of interpretation.3 Ideals of Interpretation Under the general heading of the aim of interpretation, I have identified two distinct ideals of interpretation: singularism and multiplism. Singularists hold that for any object of interpretation—say, a work of art, music, or literature—only one single admissible interpretation exists. Multiplists hold that, for some objects of interpretation, more than one admissible interpretation exists. Singularists require that for all cases, a one-to-one relation between an interpretation and its object of interpretation exists, while multiplists require that for some cases, a one-to-many relation exists between its interpretations and its one shared object of interpretation. While singularists think of opposition between contending interpretations in exclusive terms, multiplists hold that opposition between contending interpretations need not be understood in exclusive terms. A multiplist allows that there may be opposition between contending interpretations, but such opposition would be without exclusivity. “Incongruent” interpretations may be admissible. 1.  For an opposed essentialist conception, see Gokhale (2016, 194–285). 2.  In my work, I use the term “aims.” 3.  For further discussion of this topic, see my reply to Harrison’s contribution in this volume.



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Notice that the distinction between singularism and multiplism addresses those cases that serve the aim of elucidation. One might, though, entertain the idea that a parallel distinction might serve the aim of edification; that is, an edificatory singularist might hold that only one admissible way to console or to self-realize exists. As well, an edificatory multiplist might hold that for some cases, more than one edificatory way exists.4 Objects of Interpretation When speaking of objects of interpretation, I refer to intentional objects, objects endowed with meaning or significance within a field of cultural codes, norms, or the like. They are objects upon which meaning has been conferred. They are objects that have been endowed with meaning within the context of some cultural setting. They are already taken as something in one way or another. They are not uninterpreted “givens.” Accordingly, Wiseman asks, “What does it mean . . . to count the individual self to be an object of interpretation?” (Wiseman, p. 5 in volume). I suggest that, if a self—indeed one’s own self—is an object of interpretation, it must be an intentional object. That is, if we are to make sense of our self we need to do so in some terms as provided by some real or improvised accompanying scheme or point of view or reference frame. Reference Frames When I think of reference frames, I think of such cognates as perspectives, points of view, contexts, or the like. So it seems natural to me, for example, to think of Advaita Hinduism or Tibetan Buddhism as serving as reference frames, insofar as they provide a way of understanding one’s self and the world. They provide distinct terms in virtue of which one may do so. I expect Wiseman would agree. In my recent paper, “Relativisms and Their Opposites” (Krausz 2017, hereafter referred to as [RO, 2017]), I suggested that one might choose between reference frames in accord with one’s purposes and interests. Wiseman agrees. Yet she goes further, asking, “How might purposes and interests be grounded?” Her answer invokes the idea of “finding oneself.” Here is Wiseman’s welcome addendum: How an object can be interpreted is a function of the frame of reference within which it is interpreted, and the interpreter chooses the frame, which by itself determines what can be thought and felt and said. “Choice” might be too strong. It might be better to say that one finds oneself within a given framework and is likely to stay there until experience or education or desire show that there are other ways to be and to see. If there is dissonance between what the framework allows and what one feels and thinks, then one tries on or 4.  The question of this parallel distinction will arise again in my discussion of Harrison’s and Wong’s contributions.

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tries out other languages, other theories, other frameworks, other ways of couching the world and oneself. Dissonances and harmonies between frameworks and experiences, involving as they do the head, the heart, the belly and the loins, might be what stops a threatened infinite regress. Choices there are, then, but they are hardly unconstrained. (Wiseman, p. 5 in volume)

I agree with Wiseman. We already “find ourselves” in one or another frame or set of frames, especially as we encounter dissonances on occasions of significant change. Limits of Interpretation Wiseman raises fruitful questions concerning limits of interpretation. Specifically, she asks in effect, whether “non-dualistic experiences”—such as my epiphany as Wiseman recounts it—are beyond interpretive activity. I am inclined to answer yes. For, as I have said, even the notions of “epiphany,” “non-duality,” or “experience” are interpretively loaded; that is, the phenomenon to which they seek to address will— at least to a limited degree—have already been made intelligible in terms of some sharable symbol system or reference frame. They will have already been presented as minimally intentionalized. Accordingly, the bare phenomenon will remain elusive. Of course, when they are post-dictively referred to as “non-dualistic experiences,” that is, conceived as intentional objects of some sort, then their perceived natures will have been shaped or modified into something different from that to which they supposedly refer. In other words, intentional objects are always already minimally interpreted. They presume a distinction between a subject and object, or between self and other. In contrast, non-dualistic phenomena precede their intentionality. Such phenomena are experiences not-yet. Here is another way to consider this point. One might ask, “To what extent can descriptive resources capture non-dualistic phenomena without alteration or modification?” While we may be tempted to describe such phenomena as non-dual, it is somewhat misleading to say that it can be so “described,” for “description”—as an intentional achievement—itself is dualistic. I have mentioned the possibility of regarding Advaita Hinduism as a reference frame. Yet can we countenance it as a frame if it ostensibly points to a space of non-framedness altogether? This question underlies discussion about the intelligibility of the Advaita mantra “Thou Art That,” or in its first person variant “I am I”—where the mantra is understood to entail, “I am the Divine One.” What constraints, in other words, should we place upon the plausibility of such a framework—if framework it be? Shall we take seriously—as a framework—one that promises to transcend the realm of duality? After all, the Advaita idea of Oneness suggests absence of duality.5 5.  Wiseman is right to stress that the One is beyond numerality. It is beyond “undifferentiated unity.” Indeed, to speak of unity in the phrase “undifferentiated unity” is to ascribe an inappropriate measure of duality.



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A paradox emerges here. The orthodox Advaitist holds that only the inexpressible boundless One exists. It is the One beyond bounds, beyond numerality. So, does that mean that what one might at first wish to capture in an object of interpretation always remain elusive—that it cannot answer to any intentional description, thus rendering it as not interpretable? Can the One be an intentional object? I think not. It is beyond interpretation. For all that is interpretable, is already intentionalized, already minimally dualized. Here is another constraint on fixing upon the possibility of a contest between the Advaitic and Buddhist conceptions of reality. Much of my reflection about multiplism is motivated by what appears to be a competition between interpretations, including ostensive competitions between Advaitic Hinduism and Tibetan Buddhism as I understand them. In a general sense, they appear to be talking about the “same thing,” namely, the nature of reality. Yet, “reality” is so general and abstract as to make it difficult to determine whether their supposedly opposing views are indeed addressing the same thing. The orthodox Advaitist asserts that individual selves do not exist. The Buddhist says that they do exist, but they are empty of inherent existence. This difference of views looks like a difference in interpretation of the same thing: inherent individual selves. But since the Advaitist holds that the One, the Supreme Self, is the only existent that does exist, that it does so inherently, and that it is beyond predication, it is unclear whether sameness of the two beliefs can be determined. At first blush, it appears that they are disagreeing. But given their respective specifications about what they appear to be talking about, the question of whether they are talking about the same thing remains elusive—the similarities in their uses of the word “self ” or “Supreme Self ” notwithstanding.

GARRY L. HAGBERG, “MULTIPLE INTERPRETATIONS AND SINGULAR SELVES” In his compendious chapter, Garry Hagberg discusses the ideas of “interpretation,” “constructive realism,” “incongruent criteria,” and the “interpretation of self.” The Idea of Interpretation Hagberg reminds me of what, in other instances, I have urged about the term “interpretation.” He says: [Krausz] shows that the very term “interpretation” is not univocal, and that we do not follow narrow and uniform rules for its singular and correct application. The concept of interpretation is used multifariously, and Krausz will not allow the unifying demands of theory to falsify the diversity of our practice (this he undertakes in a manner deeply congruent with both the letter and spirit of Wittgenstein’s writings). (Hagberg, p. 11 in volume)

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How then might I square my comments about the lurking shift of aims with my proposed refinements about the use of the concept “interpretation?” My answer is straightforward. There is nothing inconsistent about conceding that “interpretation” is a cluster concept while offering a clarification about its use. To say that the concept is a cluster does not mean that we should not disentangle the ambiguities that the concept—at a point in the history of its usages—has inherited. Perhaps Wittgenstein might agree.6 Hagberg, in turn, addresses the question of the self and the limits of interpretability when he rehearses the contest between constructivism and realism, and what compromise might lie between them. He says: the linguistic constructivist will argue that words make the world and exercise a constitutive power that they are unfairly denied on the opposing realist view. The corresponding constructivist view of the self is that autobiographical speaking and writing makes, or is linguistically constitutive of, the self. So the grand bifurcated categories of world and word are anything but innocent when we turn to the question of selfhood and autobiographical knowledge. (Hagberg, p. 13 in volume)

Hagberg backgrounds the question of self by asking, how are the boundary conditions of an object of interpretation determined? He recalls my suggestion that, according to the constructivist, one may pluralize or aggregate an object of interpretation. He elaborates: Precisely where one draws the line between work and non-work is constitutive of the work. But that line could be drawn at a number of different places, and from those demarcations a number of implications follow. Krausz shows how such cases quickly unsettle any presumption we may have concerning the “fixed-object with a finite set of properties” model, but on reflection it appears—and I think Krausz would accept this extension of his point—that such cases also quickly unsettle the opposite presumption concerning the power of the interpreter of the object as envisioned by the constructivist. Again, we can draw the lines in many plausible places. But, importantly, we cannot draw them just anywhere. (Hagberg, p. 14 in volume)

I happily accept Hagberg’s elaboration. To this I would add that the case of the individual self—as an object of interpretation—is also subject to aggregating and pluralizing. My Constructive Realism Hagberg rightly characterizes my constructive realism as one that: acknowledges that objects are not “given” as such. Instead they are—as shown by our world—interpretive practices quite apart from what a desire for theoretical concision 6.  See my discussion of Harrison’s contribution.



Replies and Reflections 81 might like to find—“taken” within the intentional frame of the observer, that is, within the symbol system, or representational system (in a manner reminiscent of Nelson Goodman’s philosophical project), of the observer. Challenging the insistent view that we can begin any such inquiry with a basic description of an uninterpreted reality, above which the interpretations float, Krausz acutely reveals some of the deep linkages between problems in metaphysics and the philosophy of language. For example, the description of an uninterpreted realist world of pre-represented objects will invariably proceed within a language, within an interpretive matrix. Thus it is, he argues, best to relinquish the desire or overcome the temptation to speak of that pre-interpreted world. But, the process of conceptual therapy Krausz takes us through does not deliver us into an ever-new world of chaotic flux and rampant subjectivism. It is a constructive realism he is after, and the contingency that there is must in some sense be constrained—we as interpreters cannot make the world into just anything we want, nor can we interpret ourselves into just anything. (Hagberg, pp. 11–12 in volume)

Incongruent Criteria In his discussion of multiplism, Hagberg is attuned to the possibility that incongruent interpretations may be applied to a given object of interpretation. The case that I took to be standard in this regard (in Rightness and Reasons, for example) is the multiple interpretability of Van Gogh’s painting, “The Potato Eaters”—where multiplism operates under the aim of elucidation (Krausz 1993). Yet a parallel kind of multiplism arises when different sorts of criteria are involved; that is, when there is a lurking shift in the purpose of our attention, one implicating a shift from the activity of interpreting to a different sort of activity like edification. In that shift, different criteria of adoptability apply. It is a shift in the sort of activity under consideration. If that shift displays a multiplism, it is a multiplism of a different kind from the sort that I have taken as standard. I suggest that it amounts to interpretation no longer. Such a displacement of activity then serves a distinctly different sort of activity than interpreting, and along with it different criteria for adoptability.7 Consider again the following example of a shift from the aim of elucidation to the aim of edification. I have suggested that the Advaita utterance, “Thou Art That” (or its first person version, “I Am That”) exhibits an equivocation as regards which of two aims it seeks to address: elucidation or edification. In pursuit of elucidation, it is offered as an assertion about a presumed fact of the matter. At the same time, its repetition in appropriate meditative repose is pursued as a vehicle to facilitate a palliative re-direction of one’s attention—from the vicissitudes of human concerns to a “divine” space of One-ness or non-duality. Such a shift of aim exhibits a kind of “iterative logic,” as I have called it, in which the reference of “Thou” or “I” is displaced in the course of the repetition of the utterance. When “successful,” it will have altered one’s consciousness in such a way as 7.  See my discussion of Harrison in this volume. See also my discussion of “directional” singularism and “directional multiplism,” particularly in the context of my discussion of the work of David Norton, in Interpretation and Transformation: Explorations in Art and the Self (Krausz 2007, 140–47).

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to shift the reference from the ordinary human self to the presumed transcendental Supreme Self. Once its assertive claim has been entertained or supposed (it’s not clear whether belief is required), its repetition will have displaced the referent from an ordinary human self to something quite beyond the bounds of its initial self. With this displacement from elucidation to edification come distinctly different kinds of criteria for adoptability.8 Again, when used as a palliative device, such utterances cease to satisfy the aim of interpretation—the simultaneity of the two incongruent aims (elucidation and edification) notwithstanding. While both aims may operate simultaneously, they are analytically distinct. So, I urge that one should make explicit what criteria are in play and explore the basis for their disharmonies. This is especially important when different aims and their criteria are in play at the same time, when, for example, we think we are elucidating when we are edifying. Again, I affirm that the aim of edification is not an aim of interpretation.9 Interpreting Self Hagberg provides a natural segue to consider Ritivoi’s contribution when he asks: What significance, then, do these reflections hold for the interpretation of persons, of selves? If persons are cultural entities as described in the preceding, then we can return to the polemical theses considered at the outset, but now with persons or human selves as the focal point. (Hagberg, p. 17 in volume)

He adds: Because we persons are not invariably transparent unto ourselves, and because we can re-interpret, or newly interpret, past action, we can find ourselves in a position of self-interpretation that incorporates everything already discussed concerning otherinterpretation. (Hagberg, p. 19 in volume)

ANDREEA DECIU RITIVOI, “IDENTITY AND ITS NARRATIVE DISCONTENTS: KRAUSZ ON SELFUNDERSTANDING AND SELF-TRANSFORMATION” Ritivoi’s evocative contribution highlights the interpretability of the self. Here, I shall concentrate on her invitation for me to reflect about how my philosophical views about interpretation might apply to my personal experiences. By way of background to her contribution, first let us revisit my detachability thesis.10   8.  See Krausz (2013).   9.  See my comments about “bearings” in my reply to Harrison. 10.  I wish to forestall any confusion between the logical thesis of detachability (discussed here) and personal “detachment.” The latter concerns a personal or psychological attitude one might take up in



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The Detachability Thesis My detachment thesis concerns the relationships between the ideals of interpretation (singularism versus multiplism) in contrast with designated ontologies (realism, constructivism, and constructive realism). I have argued that the mentioned ontologies do not entail either one of the ideals of interpretation, and vice versa: the ideals of interpretation do not entail any one of the mentioned ontologies. In that limited sense, the ideals and ontologies are logically detachable. Ritivoi invokes my detachability thesis as a background to her inquiry about the self as a possible object of interpretation. In so doing Ritivoi prompts a fresh set of questions as applied to the self. She asks: how does the interpretation of personal experiences influence one’s ability to engage also in self-transformation and to be a particular kind of social and moral agent (that is, responsive to others’ needs, open to change, if not even vulnerable to it, aware of and attentive to larger contexts and problems)? (Ritivoi, p. 27 in volume)

As regards my personal experiences, Ritivoi cites the example of my “epiphany,” which I experienced in my friend’s art studio in 1971, in consequence of which I had to paint, and then to pursue a career as an artist. Here are three questions I think Ritivoi is asking. First, in what sense was it that I had to paint? Second, was it a result of an interpretation? Third, how am I to judge whether the follow-through of the compulsion was progressive? My answers can be only partial. In regard to the first question, I shall be brief. When I looked at my artist friend’s large shaped canvas I experienced an “epiphany” (as I have called it elsewhere). I experienced myself as being “in” and “of ” the infinite space of the painting—“at-one” with it, with no duality, with no veil of separation between me and it. I needed, urgently, to explore that space of non-duality. I was fascinated and curious by the freedom it foretold. Yet, in the days that followed I began to be suspicious and fearful of that unknown space of non-duality. However, over time, I could not forget it. It satisfied a felt need. But even to say this much is too much. For terms such as “experience,” “epiphany,” “at-one,” or “non-dual” are, as I have said, interpretively loaded. Here arises Ritivoi’s second question. She asks: What if, however, Krausz’s interpretation of his experience in the painting studio was incorrect, and turns out to be, upon further inquiry, not the one that accurately explains the author’s subsequent development as an artist and as an individual? (Ritivoi, p. 29 in volume)

With this question, Ritivoi is right to suggest that my experience of non-duality (John Dewey might have called it a “consummatory experience”) does not necessitate the face of characteristically human anxieties. For example, one might seek relief from death anxiety by “detaching” oneself from the human world. I shall take up questions in regard to personal “detachment” when considering Wong’s remarks.

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a compulsion to paint; that is, it might have manifested itself in other ways. So was I “wrong” to have responded as I did? Was my judgment that I had to paint incorrect? I cannot say. I am not sure even whether this question is appropriate. Indeed, what sort of grounds might demonstrate such an error if indeed it was one? So, does my description of my experience explain my subsequent development as an artist and as a person? Hardly. For as a point of personal history, on numerous occasions I considered whether I should ignore what I had “experienced” as insignificant or too disruptive to act further upon it. But I chose not to ignore it. Of course, there is no way to compare my eventual life with what might have been. There is no “case control” with which to compare. Yet Ritivoi might ask, “What, precisely was the ‘object of interpretation’ when I ‘experienced’ the ‘episode’ (allow me that word)—as an ‘epiphany’ or moment of ‘at-oneness’—that would account for the compulsion?” Was it my raw felt need to pursue or, was it a more “intentionalized object of interpretation” that was compelling? Or, perhaps, both? I can reply by asking yet further questions. At what point might Ritivoi’s question of correctness arise—at the moment of its raw occurrence or later upon further reflection? Was I incorrect to describe it in the terms I did? Was I wrong to have described it as I did? Indeed, was I wrong to have described it at all? If I was mistaken to have identified it in the way I did, how might I have corrected it? What alternative descriptions would do, implicating different descriptive terms nested perhaps in alternative reference frames? Would any alternative expressions be loaded in ways analogous to those I have invoked? Yet a deeper question arises. How might that raw phenomenon, to which my description points, be the object of interpretation, since any description will inevitably be cast in terms of some symbol system or reference frame? Isn’t that which gets to be interpreted always already and inevitably interpretation-loaded? Put otherwise, if there is a distinct object of interpretation here, what is it? Is it that which I “experienced,” which preceded my description? Does that which I experienced present itself as already having been described, thus disqualifying any answer as to what it is that “preceded” the description?11 So, in what way might my description of that life-altering episode as an “epiphany” be incorrect? In what way might my characterizing it as initiating compulsion be incorrect? In what way might my remark that it gave rise to a more fulfilling life be incorrect? I cannot say. I do not think it was an “interpretation” of my episode that brought on the compulsion. Here is Ritivoi’s third question: “How am I to judge whether the follow-through of the compulsion was progressive?” Insofar as a judgment of progress could be made, we should keep in mind that it would be based on a post-hoc reconstruction; that is, any progress that I might have made can be understood only in terms of a rational reconstruction, an after-the-fact 11.  See Saarinen (2014).



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narrative. Ritivoi correctly reports that I have written, “progress occurs if I come to experience more perspicuously, more expansively, more wakefully, perhaps more blissfully” (Krausz 2007, 98). This quote should be taken as a report of how, over time, I came to experience myself differently. Thus, the epiphany occasioned a life more fulfilling, more rich, more freeing than the one I imagined possible before it. Clearly this way of describing my self-transformation reports a change, over time, in my ability to imagine what a freer life might be like. So what, then, is the connection between my “postulating” self and my “posited” self? The postulation and interpretation of my present self is perpetually a subject of renegotiation, constrained by its fittingness with my presently received construal of my own past. But such a postulation is not without its limits. One limit concerns the idea of self-recognition. I inherited this idea of self-recognition from Isaiah Berlin in one of many conversations I had with him as first rehearsed in his Philosophy of History seminar (co-taught with Patrick Gardiner) at Oxford in 1968. When discussing a version of determinism that precluded the possibility of free will, he remarked that if he were presented with what he judged to be a thoroughly conclusive argument for such a version, he could still not accept it. For if he did, he could no longer recognize himself to be the person he takes himself to be. Effectively, he offered self-recognition as a criterion for actually embracing a philosophical position. (This, as Wiseman might say, was his “ground zero.”) Following Berlin, then, whatever postulation of my self I would consider, it would need to accord with whoever I take myself to be, open to periodic revision. Accordingly, Ritivoi correctly notes that, on my account, the idea of self-transformation “is not grounded in a putative essential self nor should we read Krausz’s ‘revelation’ that he needed to paint as a discovery of an essential self ” (Ritivoi, p. 29 in volume). Put otherwise, I hold that the self is a narrative achievement. It is not a substantive preexisting thing that awaits discovery independent of its postulation and self-reflection. In regard to justifying my choices and to judging whether they amount to progress—regardless whether initiated by such experiences as the one I have described as non-dualistic—I find Bernard Harrison’s following remark insightful. In a private communication he wrote: I think there are many practices that we may enter into that may, or may not, turn out to be justifiable only after we enter into them. An example is marriage, when a man and a woman take one another to be wife and husband, but whether they were justified in doing so can be ascertained only afterwards, and in addition depends, of course, to a great extent on how each has chosen to conduct himself/herself over the years in the face of the various problems that all marriages encounter. . . . Certainly we can seldom tell in advance, except in the broadest terms, what will make us, or others, happy. In general, I suspect that there might be a distinction to be drawn between what one might call “motivating reasons” and “justifying reasons.” For any action we choose to take, it follows from the fact that we took it that we had motivating reasons

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for taking it. Justifying reasons on the other hand are much harder of access, and very often accessible only ex post facto.12

In addition to the example of marriage, Harrison might well have mentioned vocational ones, like becoming an artist or becoming a philosopher.

PAUL SNOWDON, “REFLECTIONS ON ‘RELATIVISMS AND THEIR OPPOSITES’” In his penetrating contribution, Snowdon discusses many questions concerning relativism—including the variables mentioned in my definition of relativism. In his comments, he restricts himself to RO, 2017. My definition of relativism is a rational reconstruction of how it is characteristically used. He provides fresh challenges to several concepts mentioned in it. Yet, the main argument of my paper concentrates on the invalidity of the self-referential argument against the characteristic definition. Since Snowdon does not mention my main argument about invalidity as such, I shall summarize it before discussing Snowdon’s reservations about several of the pertinent concepts mentioned in the definition. As I said, the main argument of my paper seeks to show the invalidity of the selfreferential argument against relativism as I find it in its characteristic usages. Here is the definition: Relativism is the view that values such as truth, goodness, or beauty are relative to a reference frame, and no absolute overarching standards to adjudicate between reference frames exist. (Krausz 2017, 187–88)13

I offered this definition as a matrix in virtue of which numerous philosophical questions might be raised about its variables. I hasten to add that I do not propound relativism as here defined. Rather, I endorse an uncharacteristic notion that Joseph Margolis has propounded, which he terms “robust relativism.”14 In any event, in RO, I argue that the standard self-referential argument against relativism is invalid. Here is the standard argument. If someone asserts, “Relativism is true,” we may ask in what sense of “true” is relativism supposed to be true? If the sense of truth our interlocutor invokes is absolutist, then the claim of relativism’s truth is self-referentially contradictory. This charge of self-contradiction is often taken to be decisive. It is this apparent contradiction that is the main concern of RO.15 12.  Email from Bernard Harrison, “Re: naaseh v’nishman. June 7, 2016 2:12 PM.” Quoted here with permission from Bernard Harrison. 13.  For representative samples of relativism see Relativism: A Contemporary Anthology, ed. Michael Krausz (2010). 14.  See, for example, Margolis’s classic article, “Robust Relativism” (1976). See also my “Interpretation, Relativism and Culture: Four Questions for Margolis” (1999). 15.  The second strand of absolutism sometimes associated with absolutism is universalism. Universalists hold that certain non-trivial characteristics apply to all peoples at all times and in all cultures. And the third strand is foundationalism. It affirms that no description nested in any reference frame can be taken



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Notice that in the second conjunct, relativism is defined in terms of a negation of “absolute” standards of adjudication. But “absolute” is ambiguous. It may be disambiguated in terms of at least three possible strands: realism, universalism, or foundationalism. In other words, for the term “absolute” in the second conjunct of the definition, let us substitute the strands: “realist,” “universalist,” or “foundationalist.” Such a substitution yields the following more explicit formulation of the second conjunct as, “no realist, universalist, or foundationalist overarching standards to adjudicate between competing reference frames exist.” RO argues that whatever one’s philosophical misgivings might be about realism, universalism, or foundationalism, when the relativist negates any or all of them, no contradiction follows. Neither the negation of realism, nor the negation of universalism, nor still the negation of foundationalism is self-contradictory. Put otherwise, if we conceive of relativism as a negation of one or more of the offered strands of absolutism, relativism is not self-refuting. Put still otherwise, if we disambiguate absolutism into some version of the three considered strands, the self-refuting argument against relativism dissolves. QED. Three caveats are in order. First, the demonstration of the invalidity of the selfreferential argument does not establish the rightness of relativism. It only shows the invalidity of the self-referential argument against relativism. Second, such a demonstration does not show that relativism—as otherwise defined—cannot be defended. Third, the sense of realism that the main argument deploys is what Patricia Hanna and Bernard Harrison label as “referential realism”; that is, the claim that the world and it objects are independent of human invention and that it is accessible to inquirers. Thus, it could serve as an adjudicator between reference frames. Such is my sketch of the main argument of RO. Snowdon offers conceptual analyses of numerous variables embedded in the definition. Of course, faults that might be found with the present definition of relativism do not entail that no adequate definition of relativism can be offered. That possibility remains open. I surmise that Snowdon thinks that relativism is wrong. But I am not sure where for him the wrongness lies. Does he think that my definition of relativism is inadequate but could be improved upon? Or does he think that any definition of relativism would be suspect because, at a fundamental level, relativism is altogether incoherent? I cannot tell. In any event, he raises important questions about numerous “variables” mentioned in the present definition. In what follows, I shall comment on Snowdon’s observations about: values; conjuncts; reference frames; the meaning of the phrase “relative to”; realism; and foundationalism. Space limitations prohibit my considering more. Value When considering the first conjunct of the definition of relativism (“such values as truth, goodness, and beauty are relative to a reference frame”), I offered “value” to capture a presumed inherent or ultimate constituent of reality. Later, I shall address polymorphism, a variety of non-foundationalism.

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as a term roughly synonymous with “variable.” My use of that term accords with Snowdon’s insights about the relationship between truth and other “values” such as “goodness” and “beauty” that are valuable in distinctive ways. Snowdon takes goodness and beauty to be predicates of value in their own right. He rightly observes: Talk of truth values seems to be more akin to the talk of the value of a certain variable in a formula, relative to an assignment of values to other variables in the formula. The idea of truth value is the idea encapsulated in a formula such as the value of P* (a complex formula) = T given certain (semantic) assignments to its component elements. If this is right our talk of truth values does not mean that truth is a value in the way moral and aesthetic values are values. (Snowdon, pp. 41–42 in volume)

Conjuncts In turn, Snowdon raises helpful questions about the relationship between the two conjuncts of the definition of relativism; that is, what is the relationship between the first conjunct (“values such as truth, goodness, or beauty are relative to a reference frame”) and the second conjunct (“no absolute overarching standards to adjudicate between reference frames exist”). He rightly suggests that the first conjunct does not entail the second, and the second does not entail the first. They are logically distinct. To say, “truth, goodness, or beauty are relative to a reference frame” is logically compatible with the possibility that absolute overarching standards to adjudicate between reference frames do exist. As well, to say, “absolute overarching standards to adjudicate between reference frames exist,” does not entail that values “such as truth, goodness, or beauty are relative to a reference frame.” In other words, these conjuncts, while complimentary, are detachable or logically independent of one another. Note that the question of adjudication raised in the second conjunct does not even arise if the first conjunct were false. Of course, it would also not arise if the first conjunct were incoherent. Accordingly, Snowdon asks: Could the second conjunct be true even if the first one was not? Again, it seems to me that the answer is—yes. I do not need to argue that the second conjunct is correct, but that it might be even if the first is not. It seems clear that there could be areas of theoretical dispute where there is no overarching standard for adjudicating between the alternatives. (Snowdon, p. 49 in volume)

Reference Frames and Their Cognates RO provides a list of cognates of reference frames. In turn, Snowdon collects and usefully categorizes them as to types: languages, conceptual schemes, beliefs and theories, and groups.16 16.  For a discussion of Donald Davidson’s treatment of conceptual schemes, see my “Relativism and Its Schemes” (Krausz 2006). It suggests that however compelling Davidson’s critique of the idea of a conceptual scheme might be, its applicability to other cognates of reference frames remains open.



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Snowdon expresses some doubts about the idea of reference frames. He worries that we should not assume that reference frames can constitute the furniture of the world (more on that later). Yet he acknowledges that the idea of a reference frame is serviceable when he says: Talk of frames of thought and description is perfectly natural and captures things there are. But such things are the possession of us, and to so much as to think about them we need to acknowledge that we have them, and their presence depends on our presence. And on investigation that amounts to the presence in the world, that is, in reality, of certain sorts of animals. (Snowdon, p. 52 in volume)

Relative To Snowdon’s account of the idea of “relative to” seems to me to be most damaging to relativism. He asks what it means for truth, goodness, or beauty to be relative to a reference frame. He says: No one would say that in the light of the acknowledged relativity to a place . . . a new notion of truth or a new mode of assessment for what we might call cognitive accuracy is called for. Once it is understood by the participants that my query should be relativized, say, to London, where I happen to be, we would all quite happily say that one answer was false and another true. (Snowdon, p. 52 in volume)

So, to say, “B is relative to A” is not yet to say that the truth of such an utterance amounts to an instance of relativism. To say that my computer’s keyboard is fourteen inches long, for example, does not amount to an example of relativism. Realism One of the disambiguated strands of absolutism (in RO) is realism. Snowdon’s worry about realism arises in his discussion of science. He says: The aim of science is to understand the things that we recognize are in the world. Our thought has to be recognized as targeted on and engaged by things and features in our environment. The topic of our investigations is the external world. We simply have developed more and richer descriptions of what that is, descriptions that relate less to ourselves than the forms of description we tend to start with, and that our cognitive nature makes obvious to us. No reflection on frameworks or frames can make the presence of such things as ourselves or the objects around us in the world, that is to say, in reality, problematic or out of our reach. (Snowdon, pp. 52–53 in volume)

This and other passages suggest to me that Snowdon has in mind something like a conception of realism that allows for transparent access to the ways of the world or to reality. It would be a realism that Patrician Hanna and Bernard Harrison call a “referential realism.” It is the view that there is one kind of link between language

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and some aspect or element of reality whose existence is prior to and independent of language. This sort of realism would qualify as a strand of absolutism insofar as its access would provide means for adjudication between reference frames. It is the kind of realism that I suggested is one of the values negated in the second conjunct of our reconstructed definition of relativism. I take this opportunity to express my own predilections on this matter, even though it does not bear directly upon the main argument of RO. In contrast to referential realism, I endorse another sort of realism, one propounded by Hanna and Harrison. It is a realism, but a realism of a relativist kind. I hasten to emphasize, however, that it is not the sort of realism that could serve to adjudicate between reference frames—one based upon access to an uninterpreted world.17 More fully, in their excellent work Word and World, Hanna and Harrison oppose a realism that they call “referential realism” (Hanna and Harrison 2004). (Again, I surmise that Snowdon’s realism is of this kind.) In contrast, I favor the sort of realism that Hanna and Harrison advance, which they call “relative realism.” They affirm that objects of reference are objects of human invention. Such objects are always already presented as something that is embedded in practice, one whose features and aspects have been singled out for presentation in the way they have. Accordingly, the idea of a practice-independent entity—despite its existence having been conceded— can have no adequational or adjudicatory role. Relative realism assumes that, while there is no direct way of relating word to world, it does so via pertinent practices that “engage” or “embed” the world. Hanna and Harrison say: All talk of what an expression “designates” or “refers to” is in the end merely a shorthand way of talking about the manner in which that expression engages with, or is involved in, some practice or other. . . . The supposed entities in the case would then dissolve, not quite into thin air, but into modes of engagement. The mode of engagement of an expression with a practice, now, is clearly not part of the furniture of the natural, extralinguistic world. On the contrary, it is quintessentially a work of human invention, as much a fabrication of ingenuity in the forging of convention as, say, the Petrarchan Sonnet form or the rules of golf. It would follow, in other words, that when we speak of the entities referred to or designated by expressions, we speak, so far as we speak of anything at all, of fabrications of the mind. (Hanna and Harrison 2004, 49–50)

With respect to reference, practice takes priority over any presumed practice-independent entity. For, an entity is already presented as something that is embedded in practice. Accordingly, the idea of a practice-independent entity can have no adjudicatory function. Hanna and Harrison summarize: [It is] a view that, while it offers from one point of view, a version of Relativism, offers from many other points of view a defense of rather robust kinds of Realism. A relatively 17.  See my treatment of varieties of constructive realism, one of which is Hanna and Harrison’s “relative realism” (Krausz 2000, 65–66).



Replies and Reflections 91 Realistic view, then, and one whose Realism depends, in important respects, on its Relativism. What better name for it, accordingly, than Relative Realism? (Hanna and Harrison 2014, 60)

The (minimal) realist element of Hanna and Harrison’s kind of relative realism would not qualify as a candidate for a strand of absolutism, for it could not function to adjudicate between reference frames or its cognates. Hanna and Harrison’s version of realism accords with Nelson Goodman’s “relativism with restraints,”18 except for the fact that—on my reading—while Goodman maintains a principled silence about an uninterpreted world, Hanna and Harrison have quite a lot to say about it—including its inability to provide adjudicatory resources. Their view concedes the existence of an uninterpreted world. Yet in the first instance it is, from an epistemological point of view, without power of adjudication. Given my remarks about Hanna and Harrison’s relative realism, I turn to Snowdon’s comments about what I have called “polymorphism.” I shall be brief. In RO, I characterized polymorphism as a kind of non-foundationalism (a denial of one of the possible candidates for absolutism in our definition of relativism). I quote from a pertinent passage in RO. The polymorphist affirms that no description nested in any reference frame can be taken to capture a presumed inherent of ultimate constituent of reality. For example, if we describe water in a glass as thirst quenching, a realist might take that description as a truth about a frame-independent way of the world. Yet a polymorphist emphasizes that the water understood only as a middle-sized phenomenon is what affords satisfactions of middle sized organisms such as human beings, dogs and cats. Yet when we redescribe the water in terms of electrons in empty space, the property of thirst-quenching does not apply. In this way, polymorphism holds that relevant properties must be understood elliptically, that is, within one reference frame or another. (Krausz 2017, 197–98, emphasis added)

Notice that this characterization of polymorphism speaks to what can be intelligibly said. It does not assert that reference frames create things in the world. Rather, it affirms the more modest claim that how we see and describe things inevitably amount to seeings “as,” or descriptions “as.” Polymorphism addresses the question, what can intelligibly be said, rather than what there is. Thus, Snowdon’s question, “How can something in the world be relative to a reference frame?” is misplaced. In turn, we can choose the terms in which we describe ourselves as persons (capable of experiencing death anxiety, for example) or as subatomic particles (where reports of anxieties do not apply). The power of water to be thirst quenching to human beings may not depend upon the purposes and interests of them. Yet, it remains that human beings may choose to deploy the terms of one or another frame to foster their purposes and interests. It is a choice in virtue of which one might see or think of oneself as human or not, depending upon different purposes and interests. Ac18.  See Peter McCormack (1996).

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cordingly, the Advaitist and Buddhist choose to experience the “world” in different ways, even if one or both of them on occasion are wrong to do so.

BERNARD HARRISON, “ROBUST MULTIPLISM, OR, NEW BEARINGS IN THE THEORY OF INTERPRETATION” Having addressed Harrison’s view about relative realism to contrast with Snowdon’s referential realism, I now turn to Harrison’s evocative contribution to this volume. In it, he offers an original account of how multiplism is exemplified in pursuit of both elucidation and edification Harrison’s broad understanding of the meaning of meaning allows that bearings are a kind of meaning. Now if we agree that the aim of interpretation is the elucidation of meaning of a designated text, then it would turn out that the pursuit of bearings indeed is a pursuit of interpretation. Yet I suggest that the pursuit of bearings is not a pursuit of interpretation as such. The assumption that it does so capitalizes on an ambiguity of “meaning.” To disambiguate “meaning,” I employ Harrison’s own important distinction between meaning of versus meaning for. “Meaning of” concerns interpretation of a designated object of interpretation while “meaning for” concerns the edification of inquirers. That is, I understand elucidation of a designated object of interpretation as aiming to uncover meaning of, not meaning for. As I understand bearings, they concern “meaning for.” They concern edification. So talk of how bearings edify, I suggest, amounts to comments that allow whatever seems relevant to “current concerns.” Consequently, I think of bearings as concerning commentary—yes, Midrashic commentary too—rather than interpretation. If my understanding of bearings is correct, it concerns reactions to a text, rather than an elucidation of a text. One might say that bearings are “beyond” or “besides” “interpretation”; that is, I allow that bearings may operate simultaneously with, or alongside, elucidation or interpretation. But bearings are analytically distinct from interpretation. Yet, while Harrison might agree with my claim that these aims—while simultaneously pursued—are analytically distinct, he may well insist that they are intimately related in such a way that meaning of constrains what is admissible as meaning for. Meaning for “grows out of ” meaning of. To be able to benefit from the consolation of meaning for, one needs to embrace the meaning of the text. For example, quite apart from any transcendental matters (from “heaven,” so to say), to be able to benefit from the recitation of the Jewish blessing of thankfulness, the Shehecheyanu, one needs to embrace its meaning of. (This example is Harrison’s.) Put otherwise, meaning for is not merely contingently related to meaning of. In my terms, interpretation (meaning of ) is analytically distinct from edification (meaning for). But interpretation (meanings of ) does constrain commentary (meanings for). While analytically distinct they are intimately connected; that is, the benefits of the practice of such a recitation depend upon the embrace of its meaning



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of. Without such a proviso, one’s meaning for turn out to be an occasion for what Harrison refers to as “put upons.” To retrace our steps, consider what Harrison says: Very often, when we ask what is the meaning of this or that literary work, or offer an account of its meaning, what we are actually asking or offering is an account of the bearings of the literary text, or some aspect or aspects of it, upon some matter of human concern. Two such accounts may, as Krausz suggests oppose one another, in the sort of sense in which a Christian account of the bearings of a given text may oppose a Marxist one. Or they may be compatible, but simply different, or they may be different, but complimentary. (Harrison, p. 61 in volume)

And in all of these cases: differing accounts of the text, answerable to multiplism, may receive support from aspects of the text answerable to singularism—meeting the requirements of robust multiplism, that is to say—and ultimately (though in practice matters are going to turn out to be a little more complex than this), from the sentence-meanings of the individual sentences of the text. (Harrison, p. 61 in volume)

With these last remarks, Harrison has given us a kind of philosophical gift. In my Rightness and Reasons—as a way to exemplify what I meant by multiplism—I offered the incongruence between the Marxist and psychoanalytic handlings of the Van Gogh painting. That discussion arose under the heading of elucidation as the aim of interpretation. Yet now, thanks to Harrison, we can see how that example may also exemplify multiplism, this time in pursuit of edification—even though (contra Harrison) I hold that edification should not count as an aim of interpretation. In fine, I can now offer the Marxist and psychoanalytic handlings as meanings for (as well as meanings of ), which would look something like this. The Marxist interpretation might be offered for edification by one who wishes, say, to secure a psychologically tenuous hold on an ideological stance, a stance of “current concern” as Harrison puts it. That exercise, presumably, would be a matter of invoking a bearing. A similar account for edification would hold for one who advances a psychoanalytic offering. It could be offered as a way, say, of securing a tenuously held commitment to a theory of therapy. In both cases, the bearings would concern meaning for. For whom? For the benefit of each of the proponents of the interpretation. But it would not serve the meaning of. Of what? Of the painting! Yet—and here again, is the overriding point—the pursuit of meaning of and meaning for may occur simultaneously, even though they are analytically distinct. So, in answer to the question, “How much should go under the heading of interpretation?” I suggest that not all meaning-seeking is interpretive. Properly understood, “bearings” do not fall under the heading of interpretation. Further, criteria for admissibility of a candidate interpretation would vary according to meaning of or meanings for.

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However, am I too hasty to draw such a conclusion? Harrison offers a rich alternative account when he speaks of Midrash. He offers a telling passage. I shall consider it in two parts. Jewish scholars have traditionally emphasized both fidelity to the canonical text and the power of the canonical text to speak, under Midrashic interpretation, in surprising and new ways. “Turn it and turn it about,” says the Talmud (Avoth, 5:25), “for everything is in it.” Midrash, says Hartman, is “an exceptional from of commentary.” (Harrison, p. 62 in volume)

Midrash could, as Geoffrey Hartman says, indeed be an exceptional form of commentary—which however does not mandate that it is an exceptional form of interpretation. Indeed, if P’shat is what Harrison means by “canonical text,” why should we not leave P’shat as the distinctive aim of interpretation? That is, if everything turns out to be in the service of Midrashic interpretation, have we allowed too much in the exercise of interpretation? Yet in the same passage Harrison continues by quoting Hartman. Midrash (says Hartman), is exceptional because of its close yet supple relation to a canonical text, because of the way exegesis turns into exegesis plus, or “literature”—in short, because of matricial qualities that allow us to see the creative yet text-permeated mind at work. (Harrison, p. 62 in volume)

I conjecture that “having everything in it” means to include the text’s affordances for edification. But what it affords can mean too much to be interpretation. It may be commentary or exegesis “beyond interpretation.” But it is interpretation no longer. Harrison says: Midrash can, of course, mean various things. But quite a lot of the time, it seems to me, what Midrash does is to preserve P’shat while drawing out the meaning (D’rash) of P’shat in the sense of its meaning-for—that is to say, its bearing on—some matter of current concern. (Harrison, p. 63 in volume)

Harrison suggests further that Midrash offers a form of interpretation that leaves the meaning of the text, considered as equally accessible to all speakers, unaltered. It deals in discovery, rather than reading-in, because its concern is not with the meaning of the text (in the root sense of sentence-meaning outlined above) at all, but rather with the relevance of the text to, its bearings-upon, this or that matter of human concern. (Harrison, p. 65 in volume)

Finally, here are his last two sentences: In literature there is always the indefinite possibility of a new aspect, a new bearing, making itself apparent. In literary studies rightly understood, in other words, robust multiplism rules. (Harrison, p. 66 in volume)



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Surely, a kind of multiplism may rule. But need it be an interpretive multiplism of a designated object of interpretation? So, to repeat, here are my questions for Harrison. Does Harrison agree that the overriding aim of interpretation is elucidation; that is, to find the meaning or meanings of a designated text? If so, is all meaning-search interpretation? If it is, then bearings would fall under the umbrella term “interpretation.” But the remaining question is, “Even if search for bearings is a kind of meaning-search, might one reasonably deny that the search for bearings should fall under the umbrella term of ‘interpretation?’” Suppose readers come to the text with purposes and interests that are extraneous to interpretation. Suppose they come to it to “try on” a Jewish frame to ascertain its political, psychological, or spiritual fittingness. Suppose they read the text to be inspired by it, in order, say, to move on with self-realization more broadly. Are we to count bearing as including such purposes and interests? And if so, why is bearing not seen as “putting-upon” meaning to the text rather than uncovering the meaning or meanings of the text? In short, if we allow that the limits of interpretation are the limits of what concerns us, have we allowed too much? Still, if we agree that Midrashic “turnings” allows for multiplism in the realm of edification, multiplism would not be restricted to the realm of elucidation or “interpretation.” This, I take it, is the philosophical gift that Harrison has given. That that gift concerns an aim besides that of interpretation does not detract from its being a valuable gift.

DAVID B. WONG, “DIALOGUE IN THE WORK OF MICHAEL KRAUSZ” On Self-Realization: Nina or Barbara In his insightful contribution, Wong prods me to locate myself in regard to contrasting construals of the nature of the self. As well, he inquires into the attitudes of attachment and non-attachment as they arise for those who understand selves in inherentist or non-inherentist ways. Specifically, Wong asks me to locate myself in regard to the views of two of the four fictional characters in my book Oneness and the Displacement of Self. As regards self-realization, the contrast between Nina and Barbara is most revealing.19 In accord with an orthodox Advaita understanding, Nina holds that only the formless, changeless, permanent, ineffable, all-permeating One ultimately or “inherently” exists. The One is not to be understood as a number, to be distinguished from other numbers. The One is beyond numerality. For dialectical purposes, I assigned to Nina what I call the “orthodox” Advaita conception of the One as an ontologi19.  In my Dialogues on Relativism, Absolutism, and Beyond: Four Days in India (2011), the contrast between Ronnie (the relativist) and Adam (the absolutist) is most revealing. The same characters appear in my Oneness and the Displacement of Self (2013).

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cal claim of reality. Nina propounds the orthodox version of what her Swami had offered. I have put the orthodox Advaita vision in Nina’s fictional voice rather than that of her actual guru, Swami Shyam. In my experience, Swami Shyam was often more concerned with facilitating realization in his devotees—each of whom would come to him with different dispositions and needs. Often his utterances were offered less as contributions to a theory but more as occasions to facilitate realization.20 Now notice what follows from Nina’s representation. If only the One “ultimately” or “inherently” or “essentially” exists there can be no dualities. That means that no individuals ultimately exist. That, in turn, means that—insofar as individuals must exist for there to be relationships between them—no relationships between individuals ultimately exist. What otherwise would be described as relationships between individuals is, on her account, delusional. I distance myself from Nina’s orthodox ontological claim, for I affirm that individuals and their relationships exist. While they exist non-essentially or noninherently, they nevertheless exist. That is the view that I have represented in the voice of Barbara. Wong agrees with Barbara and me. He affirms that relationships between noninherent, conventional beings exist. While Nina disallows even the existence of non-inherent individuals, Wong allows the existence of non-inherent individuals, and thereby the relationships that might arise between them. Wong allows for relationships between beings that are “conventional” or empty-of-inherent existence. In this regard Wong, Barbara, and I seem to follow the Tibetan Buddhist principle of emptiness of inherent existence. Attachment The difference between Nina’s orthodox Advaita and the Tibetan Buddhist conception of existence invites different attitudes about personal attachment and detachment. Orthodox Advaitists and Tibetan Buddhists both value detachment as an attitude to help eliminate or at least to minimize human suffering. But they understand detachment in decidedly different ways. If, as the orthodox Advaitist affirms, only the One exists—and therefore no individual exists—it would seem easy to see how one might take up an attitude of detachment toward otherwise existing human beings. In contrast, the Buddhist allows for the existence of individuals and their relationships; that is, if such existence is understood in terms of emptiness of inherent existence. The Buddhist allows the question, “In what way can non-inherent existing human beings detach and be detached?” That is the question that Wong, Barbara, and I favor. For us, relationships between conventional or non-inherent beings may conventionally or non-inherently exist. 20.  Swami Shyam died on February 15, 2017, at approximately ninety-three years of age; the exact date of his birth is unknown.



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The difference between Nina and Barbara, therefore, amounts not only to a difference in the beliefs they embrace, but to a difference in a mode of engagement with human life. It is reflected in the kind of human life that those respective beliefs promise. Both Ways Now one might ask, can one have it both ways?; that is, could one conceive of oneself as human and as not human—if not simultaneously, then sequentially? Can one conceive of oneself as not divine and divine? Can each of these possibilities find their place in a single consciousness? Barbara might have entertained such a possibility as she found Nina’s reclusive way of life both unattractive and attractive at the same time. Barbara might have wished to benefit from the solace that she might derive from her embracing the possibility that she might not be human and thereby not susceptible to human pains, and the possible joy and love associated with human life. As Wong notes: According to Nina the practical benefit of the unattached stance is release from suffering, fear of dying, and the loss of others in one’s life. According to Barbara, one pays too high a price for that benefit. Nina’s reply is that there is no price to be paid since there is no individual, ultimately, to pay it. (Wong, p. 70 in volume)

But could Barbara have it both ways? Perhaps Barbara might hope for some benefits by partially endorsing Nina’s beliefs—in the mode of dual levels consciousness, or sequential embrace, or the simultaneous embrace of the human level and nonhuman level simultaneously within tolerable degrees of commitment—however that might be calibrated. However, Nina’s reply to Barbara’s comprising strategies is that unless one yields, uncompromisingly, to the space of Oneness, one cannot be released from human suffering. In contrast, Wong favors Barbara’s view on these matters. He says: Barbara holds that enlightenment should be compatible with having friends and loved ones. Otherwise one will be a lonely person. Nina responds that loneliness is not applicable, and she is speaking from the absolute point of view. . . . Barbara says one can be involved in relationship and say, “Thou art that.” One can maintain dual consciousness as awareness of self as relative being and as the absolute. Nina responds that one can’t have it both ways. Relative awareness will impede awareness of the absolute. (Wong, p. 72 in volume)

Here, then, is Wong’s insight as regards detachment and attachment. As inherent selves, we can be attached or unattached. As conventional selves, we can be attached or unattached. So being inherent or not inherent does not entail either being attached or unattached. Non-inherent existence entails neither the possibility of detachment nor non-attachment, for you can non-inherently exist with or without attachment. In turn, attachment entails neither inherent existence nor non-inherent existence.

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For you can have detachment with either inherent existence or non-inherence. Put otherwise, it is logically admissible to remain attached to others, even if we construe ourselves and others as conventional (non-inherent) individuals. Wong and I agree with Barbara. Immunity to grief means immunity to love as well. To become unattached in order to achieve immunity to grief means that one pays too great a price—at least as calculated in human terms. Of course, this calculation is possible if—unlike Nina—we allow that human beings exist inherently or non-inherently. In other words, it is a mistake to think that the denial of inherence guarantees non-attachment, and non-inherence does not disallow having an attached relationship. Further, recognition that we are conventional (non-inherent) does not mean that one cannot have robust caring intimate relations between human persons. The fact that individuals are not inherent or ultimate does not keep Wong—or the rest of us—from sustaining meaningful human relationships. That is Wong’s insight. Self as Non-Inherent Given Wong’s insight, it remains to reiterate what, after all, is a human being. Here is Wong’s answer. He says: I accept that there is no individual there ultimately. I accept that we are clusters of psychophysical properties and events that will stretch over a certain period of time. To be an individual is to be such a cluster, and there is no necessity in the way we conceptualize and pick out individuals and distinguish them from one another. So I accept a view of the human individual that lies in the territory marked out by Buddhism and Hume. If, to be ultimately real, it is required that one’s existence be independent of the ways we conceptualize things, including ourselves, then I agree we are not ultimately real. (Wong, pp. 70–71 in volume)

He continues: It does not follow for me, however, that we need to be any less attached to our own existence or to those of others with whom we have relationships. There is no requirement that love, for example, be attached only to the ultimately real. This is the important truth, I think, that lies in Barbara’s position. There is no intellectual mistake in remaining attached to self and others even if we construe ourselves as purely conventional individuals in the sense I have specified. (Wong, p. 71 in volume)

Wong says further: To me, then, the remaining question is whether it is a good idea to remain so attached. It may not be a good idea if we are crushed or utterly destroyed by loss. . . . Barbara is clearly right: to become unattached in order to achieve immunity to grief means that one pays too great cost, at least as calculated in human terms. Immunity to grief means immunity to love. (Wong, p. 71 in manuscript)



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In the end, Nina leaves us with an irony. If we choose to see ourselves as non-human (or beyond human), we effectively deny the existence of the person who would seek solace in the first place. That is, we would deny the existence of the person who might otherwise have been attracted to adopting Nina’s view to start with. Conclusive vs. Decisive Finally, Wong asks: I wonder how Krausz assesses the force of the arguments and assumptions underlying each position, and to the extent that he thinks there was legitimate standoff. Does he find it more difficult to land on any particular position? I confess that part of my motivation for this question is what seems to me to be an important structural feature of the dialogue in the second book. (Wong, p. 70 in volume)

How indeed might one be drawn to embrace an interpretation different from one’s own when pertinent reasons seem inconclusive? My distinction between conclusivity and decisiveness might help. When confronted with arguments for or against a particular belief we might recognize that the grounds for their adoption are inconclusive. Yet—given the exigencies of life—we might be called upon to act in one way or another. Moreover, sometimes, we are called upon to act with decisiveness—with determination—if practical success will be achieved. This predicament is not uncommon when facing such life choices as when, for example, we ask ourselves whether we should move forward with a human relationship, with one or another professional commitment, with one or another political or religious affiliation. (Yes, some such decisions can be “urgent.”) Without conclusive grounds, we may be pressed to make choices with decisiveness. For the effectiveness of our actions may require an attitude of decisiveness all the while it being understood that we do not have conclusive grounds for the choices that we’ve made. So when Wong asks how we should proceed in regard to the beliefs of Nina versus Barbara, my answer is that we should think about the plausibility of a prospective belief in relation to the modes of life and attitudes that they would engender. The question is no longer one concerning what to believe, but how to act. In the case of inconclusivity between beliefs and their supporting reasons, it would be reasonable to ask, “Which of the competing beliefs or attitudes should I take up?” with an eye toward the likely consequences of doing so in regard to one’s mode of life. Which should I try on? Which will allow me to recognize whom I take myself to be?

CONCLUDING STATEMENT As I anticipated in my opening remarks, my replies and reflections have amounted to elaborations and some modifications of previously held views. For their discerning

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interventions, I offer grateful thanks to the commentators and the editors. For, besides my counting each of them as good friends, they have shown themselves to be attentive and insightful critics. They have provided for me an opportunity to continue my ongoing inquiries into the nature of interpretation, relativism, identity.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Gallie, W. B. 1955–1956. “Essentially Contested Concepts.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series 56: 167–98. Gokhale, Pradeep P. 2006. “Some Reflections on Michael Krausz’s Account of Meaning and Interpretation.” In Interpretation and Meaning in Philosophy and Religion, edited by DirkMartin Grube, 174–85. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Hanna, Patricia, and Bernard Harrison. 2004. Word and World: Practice and the Foundations of Language. New York: Cambridge University Press. Krausz, Michael. 1993. Rightness and Reasons: Interpretation in Cultural Activity. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ———. 1999. “Interpretation, Relativism and Culture: Four Questions for Margolis.” In Interpretation, Relativism and the Metaphysics of Culture: Themes in the Philosophy of Joseph Margolis, edited by Michael Krausz and Richard Shusterman, 105–24. Amherst, NY: Humanity Books. ———. 2000. Limits of Rightness. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. ———. 2006. “Relativism and Its Schemes.” In Davidson’s Philosophy and Chinese Philosophy: Constructive Engagement, edited by Bo Mou, 37–53. Leiden and Boston: Brill. ———. 2007. Interpretation and Transformation: Explorations in Art and the Self. Amsterdam: Rodopi. ———, ed. 2010. Relativism: A Contemporary Anthology. New York: Columbia University Press. ———. 2011. Dialogues on Relativism, Absolutism, and Beyond: Four Days in India. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. ———. 2013. Oneness and the Displacement of Self: Dialogues on Self-Realization. Amsterdam: Rodopi. ———. 2017. “Relativisms and Their Opposites.” In Realism—Relativism—Constructivism: Proceedings of the 38th International Wittgenstein Symposium in Kirchberg, edited by Christian Kanzian, Sebastian Kletzl, Josef Mitterer, and Katharina Neges, 187–202. Berlin/ Boston: Walter de Gruyter GmbH. Margolis, Joseph. 1976. “Robust Relativism.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 35 (1): 37–46. ———. 1991. The Truth about Relativism. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. McCormack, Peter, ed. 1996. Starmaking: Realism, Anti-Realism and Irrealism. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Saarinen, Jussi Antti. 2014. “The Oceanic Feeling in Painterly Creativity.” Contemporary Aesthetics 12. Online at: http://www.contempaesthetics.org/newvolume/pages/article. php?articleID=704.

Name Index

Brooks, Cleanth, 58, 59, 62, 65; The Well Wrought Urn, 56 Carroll, Noel, 32 Davidson, Donald, 45 Deleuze, Gilles, 56 Derrida, Jacques, 5, 56 Descartes, René, 4 Dewey, John, 28, 83 Fish, Stanley, 57–64, 66; Is There A Text in This Class? 56 Foucault, Michel, 56 Frege, Gottlob, 41 Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 31 Gibson, J. J., 51 Goodman, Nelson, 11, 47, 48, 81, 91 Hagberg, 79–82 Hanna, Patricia, 87, 89–91 Harrison, Bernard, 85–87, 89–95 Hartman, Geoffrey, 62, 63, 94 Horkheimer, Max, 28 Hume, David, 71, 98; Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 64

Kandinsky, Wassily, 28, 31 Kermode, Frank, 34, 61–64 Krausz, Michael: “The Ideals and Aim of Interpretation,” 55; Interpretation and Transformation, 3; “Relativisms and Their Opposites,” 39, 53, 77, 86; Rightness and Reasons, 25, 81, 93 Lacan, Jacques, 56 MacIntyre, Alasdair, 27 Margolis, Joseph, 59, 86 Nicolson, Howard, 1 Nozick, Robert, 25 Nussbaum, Martha C., 71 Rhodes, Leah, 28 Ritivoi, Andreea Deciu, 82–85 Sackville-West, Victoria Mary, 1, 4 Snowdon, Paul, 86 The Star of Redemption (Rosenzweig), 34 Strawson, Galen, 24 Thiebaud, Wayne, 3

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Name Index

Wiseman, Mary Bittner, 75–77 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 11, 12, 15, 19, 78, 80 Wollheim, Richard, 16, 20

Wong, David, 95 Wrapped Reichstag (Christo), 11, 13, 19 Zhuangzi, 71

Subject Index

boundary-indeterminacy, 13 Buddhis(m)(ts), 3, 11, 34, 96; conception of reality, 79; contrasts between Hinduism and, 11, 35, 92, 96; Hume and, 71, 98; as reference frame, 77. See also emptiness of inherent existence

absolute, 40, 72, 97; standards, 40, 47, 49, 86–88; truth, 67, 68 absolutism, 46, 67, 72, 86n15, 97; disambiguation of, 87, 89, 90, 91. See also relativism adjudication of competing interpretations, 10, 21, 48, 88, 91; absolute standards of, 40, 49, 87; between reference frames, 90 admissibility criteria, 25, 33, 35, 93 agreement/disagreement, 40, 44, 48, 57, 60, 70 ambivalence, 27, 33 appropriateness, 14, 15 aptness, 14, 15 argument, self-referential, 86 art, 14; avant-garde, 6, 7; interpretation of, 10, 13, 18, 19, 27, 55, 76; Krausz’s, 31, 32, 83 asituational norms, 59 assumptions: contested, 69, 70, 99; contextual, 60; entrenched, 35 at-homeness, 6 at-oneness, 6, 84

claims: accuracy of, 43; adjudication between contrasting, 48, 49; constructivist, 25; not explicitly about values, 41; ontological, 18; relative, 44; religious, 64; truth, 30, 59 cognitive: accuracy, 57, 89; disputes, 45; nature of human beings, 52, 89; stock, 16, 20 collective action, 21 conceptual models, 21 constructivism, 1, 11, 20, 25, 26, 33; radical, 13, 19; realism and, 2, 80, 83; variable-property, 10, 18, 22 conventionalism. See constructivism Critical Theory. See post-modernism cultural entit(ies)(y), 9, 10, 17, 18, 26, 82

beliefs, 27, 30, 44, 88; competing/contrary, 72, 97, 99; Eastern philosophical, 23; intentional objects of, 5, 76; sameness of, 79

Daoist texts, 71, 72 descriptions, 4, 17, 84; “as,” 91; dualistic, 78; ex post facto, 13; intentional, 79; metaphorical, 21; nested in reference 103

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Subject Index

frames, 50, 51, 86, 89, 91; poetic, 20; scientific vs. ordinary, 52; self-, 19, 21; thick, 25; of uninterpreted reality, 11, 12, 81 detachability thesis, 26, 30, 32, 82, 83 diachronics, 24 dialogue, Krausz’s, 67, 69, 70, 73, 99; vs. Platonic, 68 discovery vs. reading-in, 59, 65, 94 duality, 70; interpretation and, 35; non-, 6, 28, 34, 71, 78, 81, 83; subject-object, 34 Eastern beliefs, 23, 34, 35, 40 ecstasy, 6, 7 edification, 5, 76, 77, 81, 82, 92–95 elucidation, 35, 39, 41, 43, 45, 77; conjunctive, 40; vs. edification, 76, 81, 82, 92; interpretation and, 5, 75, 92, 93, 95; of meaning, 55; of relativism, 49, 53; value and, 43 emotion, interpretation of, 4 emptiness of inherent existence, 96 episodics, 24 exegesis, 62, 63, 94. See also literature experience, human, 5, 65, 77, 85; Advaitist/ Buddhist, 92, 96; consummatory, ecstatic/epiphanic/visionary (of nonduality), 6, 7, 28, 29, 34, 83, 84; interpretative, 3, 78; life/lived, 30, 31, 72; moral value of, 27; raw, 24 falsehood, 42 foundationalism, 86, 87, 91 Frankfurt School, 28 French Theory, 56 goals, 27, 57, 60 hermeneutic circle, 31, 32 Hinduism, Advaita, 78, 79; contrasts between Buddhism and, 11, 92, 96; as reference frame, 77 “I am I,” 78 identity: coherent, 31, 67; criteria of, 1; fixed, 10, 17; intellectual, 35;

interpretation, 30, 36; narrative-based, 24; personal (self-), 18, 19, 23, 25, 29, 33, 34, 66, 82; transformation, 26 individualism, 3 inner necessity, 28–31 intention(ality)(s), 27; achievement, 78; author’s, 56, 65, 66; of cultural entities, 26; description, 79; frame of observer, 11, 20, 81; joint, 21; objects, 5, 17, 76, 77, 78, 84 interpretation: admissible, 1, 10, 25, 26, 55, 76; aim of (goals of ), 5, 35, 55, 57, 60, 75, 76, 82, 92–95; case-sensitive criteria in, 21; cognitive, 6; constitutive elements of, 25; diversity of practice, 11; fixed-ontology model of person-, 20; ideals of, 1, 10, 16, 25, 33, 56; identity, 31, 35; Midrashic, 62, 65, 94; objects of, 6, 16, 21, 25, 55, 75–77; of person(al experience)(s), 17, 18, 21, 23, 27, 82, 83; religion-based perspectives on, 34; of self, 34, 35, 79; singularist or multiplist, 29, 32; theory, Krausz’s, 23, 31, 35 Judaism, 64; Jewish Law (Halakhah), 62, 64; Jewish religious writing, ethical and narrative elements in (Aggada), 62 judgement, 58; relativized, 44 language: appropriability of, 57; descriptive, 20; expressive powers of, 48; game, 15, 16, 19; interpretive, 16, 21; invariant essence of, 15; limits of, 70; linguistic intentional objects, 17; multiple ways to construe, 6; natural, 60; possibility beyond, 2; reality-language relationship, 12, 89; as reference frame, 44–47, 81 literary criticism, 57, 61, 62 literature: exegesis vs., 62, 94; intentions of author, 65; interpretation of (singularist vs. multiplist), 25, 55–57, 59, 66, 76, 94; language of, 17; philosophical readings of, 21 meaning, 3, 63, 92; conferred, 17, 26, 77; content, 16; implicit in language,



Subject Index 105

6; interpretive process of, 27; literal, 60; meaning of vs meaning for, 92–94; of objects of interpretation, 55, 75; personal programs and, 34; possible, 7; sentence (of text), 56, 58, 60–66, 95; unity of understood, 31, 56 Midrash, 61–63, 65, 94 multiplism, 1, 9–14, 25, 26, 30, 35, 56, 76, 77, 79, 81, 83; constructivist, 25, 33; directional, 81n7; edificatory, 77; interpretive, 18, 22, 32, 95; radical vs. robust, 55, 59–66, 92–94. See also singularism narrative(s): after-the-fact, 84, 85; autobiographical (self ), 30, 32–35; based identity, 24, 26; coherence of, 29; elements of Jewish writing (Aggada), 62; overarching structures, 65; truth, 30, 31 New Critic(ism)(s), 15, 55, 56, 58, 59 nonattachment, 67, 98 norms, 17, 26, 57, 77; acontextual, 60; asituational, 59; of interpretation, 58, 60 objects, 53, 89; intentional, 5, 17, 76–78; interpretated, 1, 9, 20, 80; of interpretation, 5, 6, 11, 16, 21, 25, 55, 75, 77; macro-/microscopic, 51, 52; of reference, 90; pre-represented, 12, 81, 87; ultimate constituents of reality, 68 Oneness, 3, 67, 69, 78, 97. See also duality ontology: of cultural object, 10; fixedproperty, 10, 18–20; interpretation and, 1, 26, 33; narrative perspective and, 30; of self, 11; synthesis, 13 ownership, language of, 15, 33 perception, aspect, 21 personal program, 24, 31, 36 persons, human, 72, 91; interpretation of, 10, 11, 17, 18, 21, 82; nature of, 20; real, 15; relationships among, 98; specific capacities, 33 perspective, 2; diachronic, 2; essentialist, 29; human vs. tian, 72; metaphysical or

ontological, 26; narrative, 30, 31; of self, 33. See also frames of reference pluralism, interpretive, 9. See also singularism polymorphism, 41, 50, 52, 53, 91 possibilit(ies)(y):competing, 25, 33; indefinite, 65, 66, 94; pure, 2, 6 post-modernism, 55, 59 pragmatism, 4 progress, 28, 29, 46, 85; interpretive, 14, 15; judgment of, 84 realism, 1, 25, 26, 33; constructive, 2, 11–13, 19, 20, 79, 80, 81, 83; fixedproperty, 10, 17, 18, 22; referential, 87, 89, 92; relative, 90–92. See also absolutism; constructivism; singularism reality (quality of being real), 71, 98 realization, self, 4, 29, 34, 76, 95 reasonableness, 14–16 reference frames, 4, 41, 44–46, 49, 50, 77, 89; adjudication between, 48, 86, 88, 90, 91; competing, 29, 40, 44, 84, 87; interpretation relative to, 2 relationality thesis, 26 relativism, 2, 23, 39–48, 53, 55, 58, 67; conjuncts of, 48, 49, 87, 88; interpretive, 57; as negation of absolutism, 87, 91; radical/robust, 59; “relative to,” 89; self-referential argument against, 86, 87; universal, 49. See also absolutism relativization, 46, 47 responsibility, moral, 31–33 rightness, limits of, 11, 13 self(hood), 6, 12, 13, 18, 19, 21, 24, 25, 27, 30–36, 67, 71, 80, 95, 98; authentic, 30; as cultural entity, 10, 17; diachronic, 34; essential, 29, 36, 85; frame dependent, 4; interpenetration of self intopainting, 28; interpreted, 31, 32, 77; non-duality between self and other, 28; as object of interpretation/ investigation, 12, 18, 19, 82, 83; ontology of, 11; phenomenology of, 20;

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Subject Index

postulating vs. posited, 85; preexisting, 33; relativity of, 72; Vedantic Supreme, 3, 34, 79, 82; whether construct or real, 26; Western idea of individual, 3 sentences:interpretive, 15; meaning of, 59–65, 93; truth-claims, 60; truth-value of, 41, 42 separability, 12,18 singularism, 1, 11, 13, 25, 26, 30, 56, 59, 61, 65, 76, 77, 83, 93; directional, 81n7; interpretive, 9, 10, 17, 18, 22. See also multiplism state of affairs, real, 29, 30 subjects, porous, 21 Talmud, 62, 63, 94 temporality, 24 textual support, 59 “Thou Art That,” 69, 72, 78, 81, 97 thought, 13 , 52, 53, 70; alien modes of, 46; content of, 3, 5, 19, 30, 40, 77; Eastern, 34; properties of, 43;relativistic account (frames of ), 46, 49, 89

transcendence, self, 6 transformation, self, 5, 24, 26–29, 31, 33–36, 82, 83, 85 truth: absolute vs. relative, 67–69, 86; claims, 30, 59, 60; of the matter, 56; narrative, 30; as a value, 2, 6, 17–20, 40–43, 47, 61, 88, 89 uncertainty, 27 understanding, 21, 34, 69; Advaita, 95; moral, 31; movement of, 31; objective, 62; self, 15, 24–27, 31, 35, 77 unity: of poem or literature, 65, 66; positive, 56; of reference frames, 45; of understood meaning, 31; undifferentiated, 2, 78n9 values, 2, 27, 30, 36, 86, 90; aesthetic, 41– 43, 88; multivalent, 14; Old World, 28; relative to reference frames, 45; truth, 41, 42, 59, 61, 88 Vedantic soteriology, 34, 35

About the Editors and Contributors

Christine M. Koggel is professor of philosophy at Carleton University in Ottawa. She was formerly the Harvey Wexler Professor of Philosophy at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. She is the author of Perspectives on Equality: Constructing a Relational Theory (Rowman & Littlefield 1998), editor of Moral Issues in Global Perspective (1999), and the second edition of an expanded three volumes of Moral Issues in Global Perspective (2006). With Wesley Cragg, she has coedited the fourth and fifth editions of Contemporary Moral Issues (1997 and 2005). She is coeditor (with Rockney Jacobsen) of Our Faithfulness to the Past: The Ethics and Politics of Memory (2014), authored by Sue Campbell and published posthumously. She also has interests in Wittgenstein, particularly in Wittgenstein’s account of meaning as use as it applies to moral concepts. Her most recent research is in the areas of development ethics, feminism, and relational theory, where she has numerous publications in journals and edited collections and has guest edited special issues on care ethics, gender justice and development, and injustice. She has held offices with the Canadian Society for Women in Philosophy, the International Development Ethics Association, and the American Philosophical Association. Andreea Deciu Ritivoi is professor and head of the Department of English at Carnegie Mellon University. Her research interests include rhetorical theory and Continental philosophy, narrative and identity, exile and transnationalism, Eastern European societies, and controversy. She teaches courses on contemporary rhetorical theory, argument, research methods, international communication, and narrative theory. She is the author of Yesterday’s Self: Nostalgia and the Immigrant Identity (Rowman & Littlefield 2002), Paul Ricoeur: Tradition and Innovation in Rhetorical Theory (2006), and Intimate Strangers: Arendt, Marcuse, Solzhenitsyn, and 107

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About the Editors and Contributors

Said in American Political Discourse (2014). She is also the editor of Interpretation and Its Objects: Studies in the Philosophy of Michael Krausz (2004) and of Outrage! Art, Controversy, and Society (2012) with Richard Howells and Judith Schachter. Ritivoi has also collaborated with Michael Krausz on his philosophical memoir/ dialogues Roots in the Air (2018). She is currently working on a book about the political subjectivity of exiles during the Cold War and its impact on American foreign policy. *** Garry L. Hagberg is the James H. Ottaway Professor of Philosophy and Aesthetics at Bard College and has also held a chair in the School of Philosophy at the University of East Anglia. Author of numerous papers at the intersection of aesthetics and the philosophy of language, his books include Meaning and Interpretation: Wittgenstein, Henry James, and Literary Knowledge (1994), Art as Language: Wittgenstein, Meaning, and Aesthetic Theory (1995), and Describing Ourselves: Wittgenstein and Autobiographical Consciousness (2008). He is editor of Fictional Characters, Real Problems: The Search for Ethical Content in Literature (2008), Art and Ethical Criticism (2010), and Wittgenstein on Aesthetic Understanding (2017). Coeditor of A Companion to the Philosophy of Literature (2009) and editor of the journal Philosophy and Literature, Hagberg is presently writing a new book, Living in Words: Literature, Autobiographical Language, and the Composition of Selfhood, and editing a volume, Stanley Cavell on Aesthetic Understanding. He is also writing two other books, one on the depiction of self-constitution in film and another on aesthetic issues in jazz improvisation. He has performed on about a dozen CDs as a jazz guitarist and is coauthor, with Howard Roberts, of the three-volume Guitar Compendium: Technique, Improvisation, Musicianship, Theory. Bernard Harrison is currently emeritus E. E. Ericksen Professor of Philosophy in the University of Utah and an emeritus professor in the University of Sussex. He is one of a number of analytic philosophers whose interests include literature and its relationships with philosophy and the history of ideas. His literary work includes Inconvenient Fictions: Literature and the Limits of Theory (1991), What Is Fiction For? Literary Humanism Restored (2015), and numerous papers. His more strictly philosophical writings include work on epistemology, ethics, the philosophy of Wittgenstein, and the philosophy of language. His most recent book on such topics, Word and World: Practice and the Foundations of Language (2004), coauthored with his Utah colleague Patricia Hanna, offers a systematic rethinking of the philosophy of language, as it has developed since Russell and Frege, on the basis of a new reading of Wittgenstein. He is currently at work on a study of the nature of anti-Semitism, and the continuity between its traditional and contemporary forms. It develops and carries further some of the ideas proposed in his The Resurgence of Anti-Semitism: Jews, Israel and Liberal Opinion (Rowman & Littlefield 2006).



About the Editors and Contributors 109

Michael Krausz is the Milton C. Nahm Professor Emeritus and research professor in the Department of Philosophy at Bryn Mawr College. He is the author of Rightness and Reasons: Interpretation in Cultural Practices (1993), Limits of Rightness (2000), Interpretation and Transformation: Explorations in Art and the Self (2007), Dialogues on Relativism, Absolutism and Beyond: Four Days in India (2011), and Oneness and the Displacement of Self (2013). He is coauthor (with Rom Harré) of Varieties of Relativism (1996) as well as editor of Relativism: A Contemporary Anthology (2010). Krausz has contributed to and edited or coedited ten additional volumes on interpretation, relativism, creativity, identity, and the philosophy of R. G. Collingwood, Andreea Deciu Ritivoi’s edited Interpretation and Its Objects: Studies in the Philosophy of Michael Krausz (2003) is a festschrift that includes replies by Michael Krausz to scholars from the United States, England, Germany, India, Japan, and Australia. As a visual artist, Krausz has had thirty-four solo and duo exhibitions in the United States, the UK, and India. As a musician, he conducted several professional orchestras in Bulgaria and, from 2004 to 2014, was the artistic director and conductor of the Great Hall Chamber Orchestra at Bryn Mawr College. Paul Snowdon is Emeritus Grote Professor of Mind and Logic at University College, London. He was at University College, London, from 2001 to 2014, and before that he was, for thirty years, a fellow in philosophy at Exeter College, Oxford. His research covers metaphysics, especially the nature of persons and selves; the philosophy of mind, especially perception, action, know-how, and the mind/body problem; and also the history of twentieth-century Anglo-American philosophy. He is the author of Persons, Animals, and Ourselves (2014), coeditor (with Stephan Blatti) of Animalism: New Essays on Persons, Animals, and Identity (2016), and author of numerous papers in journals and edited collections.  Mary Bittner Wiseman is professor emerita of philosophy and comparative literature at the CUNY Graduate Center and of philosophy at Brooklyn College. She is the author of The Ecstasies of Roland Barthes (1989) and editor of Subversive Strategies in Contemporary Chinese Art (2011). She has published articles in the areas of aesthetics, ethics, and feminism that include “Water and Stone: Contemporary Chinese Art and the Spirit Resonance of the World” in Contemporary Aesthetics (2010) and “The Dancer and His Dance” in Philosophy and Literature (2014). She has lectured and taught in Paris, Beijing, and other cities in China. She is a former trustee of St. John’s College and the American Society for Aesthetics. David B. Wong is the Susan Fox Beischer and George D. Beischer Professor of Philosophy at Duke University. Before this he was the Harry Austryn Wolfson Professor of Philosophy at Brandeis University and the John M. Findlay Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Boston University. His books include Moral Relativity (1984) and Natural Moralities: A Defense of Pluralistic Relativism (2006). Moral Relativism and Chinese Philosophy: David Wong and his Critics (ed. by Yang Xiao and Yong Huang

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About the Editors and Contributors

2014) is a book of critical essays on Natural Moralities with responses by Wong to the essays. Wong has coedited (with Kwong-loi Shun) Confucian Ethics: a Comparative Study of Self, Autonomy and Community (2004). He has authored papers in a number of journals as well as chapters in edited collections. He has written articles on moral relativism for A Companion to Ethics, The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and The Encyclopedia of Ethics as well as articles on comparative philosophy and Chinese ethics for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Wong is codirector with Owen Flanagan of the Center for Comparative Philosophy at Duke.