Histoires et Théories de l'Interprétation – HERMES

This project aims at investigating the nature of interpretation in a plurality of disciplinary fields (such as Literature, Medicine, Law, Sciences of Religion), to identify issues and conflicts between competing theories of interpretation (especially between objective and subjective theories) and to analyse the conditions of possibility of a unified theory of interpretation. The three main objectives are thus: first to reflect on the problem of interpretation itself in an interdisciplinary perspective ; second, to establish a map of various theories of interpretation and of the contemporary debates around these theories ; third, to elucidate via cross-dialogue, contemporary debate and ancient texts, with particular attention to a comparative and diachronic perspective. These objectives shall be pursued through five strands of research, corresponding to five distinct research-poles, working in network, which has been specially established for this project. 1) History of Interpretation. This strand aims at clarifying the evolution of ancient hermeneutical structures, in particular in the domain of Medicine and Exegesis between the sixteenth and the seventeenth Century. The modalities of the promotion of literal meaning and the emergence of a hermeneutics of facts will be at stake. Particular attention will be given to the role of pictures and it will be studied whether there is such a thing as specific history of the interpretation of pictures. 2) The Nature of Interpretation. This strand aims identifying and classifying theories of interpretation in various disciplinary fields. The very concept of 'interpretation' will be explored and analysed. Various theories will be discussed (e.g. psychoanalysis or structural theories of meaning) and scrutinised under the angle of their contemporary explanatory capacity in confronting them with recent findings in semantics and cognitive sciences. Objectivist, relativist, originalist will, among others, be opposed in Law as in Literature; the problem of the place of the author (the issue of his 'return') as well as of intentionality will be particular focus of the discussion. 3) Decipher, Translate, Comment: Philology and Interpretation of Literary Texts. This strand aims at studying the new orientations of philology through its ambiguous relation of affinity and opposition to hermeneutics. The present renewal of philology as well as the rediscovery of hermeneutics in the German tradition will be the object of critical scrutiny. Efforts will be made in order to confront these recent evolutions with an archaeology of philology (in particular with the works on the practice of commentary in the Classical period). Translation, traditionally associated with interpretation, will be given special attention in a renewed perspective. 4) Uses and Impacts of Interpretation. In this segment of the project, we shall try to define the practices and effects of interpretation in a mainly cognitive approach and to analyse the problem of 'applications of interpretation' in a diachronic perspective. The research will focus on the practice of reading and the interpretive effects it induces. The main theories of reading will be identified and scrutinised. Political uses of interpretation will also underscored, in particular in the domain of Law and Theology. The 'violence of interpretation' will be analysed. 5) Theories of narrative, Interpretation, Fiction. In this strand of our research, we shall focus on theories of narrative with particular interest on recent contributions of narratology to theories of interpretation. It will be shown that many theories of the narrative, which purport to exclude interpretation do in fact presuppose it and contain a 'hidden hermeneutic'. This will be exemplified in a study on narratives for the youth. We shall then work on the fictionalisation of interpretation in a diachronic perspective and examine its status, its modalities, its issues, especially through interdisciplinary research (Law and Literature). The possibility of a literal and objective meaning is one of the main guidelines of the project: the historical emergence of this concept will be studied (1 segment); it will be discussed in the contemporary debate between post-deconstruction and new realism, psychoanalysis and cognitivism (2nd strand); it will be examined through the contradictions of Philology (3rd strand); the theories of reading (4th strand); or the black holes of the theories of the narrative (5th strand). Interdisciplinary thinking is equally at the heart of the project. It will be asked whether Literary Studies require a particular theory of interpretation, what is at stake when one theory of interpretation circulates between disciplines, and how a new distribution of subject-matters would have to be organized, if such a need there is.