Dickman/Interpretation, 2. The Initiatives of Interpretation

Chapter Two, The Initiatives of Interpretation, will turn to an analysis of the mindset or consciousness of interpretation. This turn reframes interpretation, not in terms of its objects (namely, texts), but in terms of the subjectivity of interpreters themselves. The philosopher Edmund Husserl’s idealist phenomenology will help us unlock interpretation as a mode of consciousness structured by intentionality. Through this, we can achieve a level of self-consciousness or reflexivity about the predicament of all interpretive consciousness. Because consciousness is structured by history and culture, all interpretation is correspondingly structured. The structuring of interpretive consciousness is detectable in identification of prejudices and examination of the nature of prejudice. This will also require some examination of the subject position of colonialist Eurocentrism.