Published: 2025-08-20

Philology and Interpretation

Tomasz Kunz Logo ORCID

Abstract

In this paper, I advocate for rational and empirically verifiable strategies of interpretive action, emphasizing philology as a source of establishing intersubjectively acceptable criteria of legitimacy. Such criteria serve to prevent the evaluation of interpretation from being based solely on rhetorical persuasiveness. I reject both the absolutization of difference and the pluralism of interpretation-often equated with the act of writing itself-as well as the instrumental view that relegates interpretation to a merely subordinate role in relation to theory. Above all, however, I argue for a model of interpretation that, rather than emphasizing the subjective, individual, and event-like nature of reading, contributes to the construction of a shared space of understanding and communication based on rational argumentation. I propose that interpretation should be understood not only as a cognitive activity, but also as one with didactic, community-building, and therapeutic dimensions – an activity that fosters cooperation, negotiation, and the reconciliation of meanings, grounded in a philologically conceived text as a meeting ground for diverse individual perspectives. Support for this model can be found in several theoretical frameworks: the concept of collective reading developed by American sociologist Susan Long; Wayne Booth’s notion of coduction from his work on the ethics of reading; and Roma Sendyka’s term creative dependence, introduced in her reflections on reflexive and relational forms of identity.

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Kunz, T. (2025). Philology and Interpretation. Postscriptum Polonistyczne, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.31261/PS_P.2025.35.01

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Domyślna okładka

2025
Published: 2025-05-26


ISSN: 1898-1593
eISSN: 2353-9844
Ikona DOI 10.31261/PS_P

Publisher
Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego | University of Silesia Press

Licence CC Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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