But in all seriousness, just as when the arm is raised to strike, it hurts us if the blow does not land and is wasted on the air; also as the sight, to make a pleasant view, must not be lost and led away in the vague reaches of the air, but must have some bound to sustain it at a reasonable distance; […] so it seems that the soul, once stirred and set in motion, is lost in itself unless we give it something to grasp; and we must always give it an object to aim at and act on (Montaigne, Essais I.4).

Michel de Montaigne, 16^th century French estate-owner, mayor of Bordeaux, and O.E. (Original Essayist), wrote that the soul will disperse its energies on whatever object is put before it. What Montaigne calls the soul [in French, l’ame] we may more likely call the mind or thought. Rather than occurring in a pure realm of ideas and concepts, thoughts latch onto particular things in the world, shaping and being shaped by the world in turn. The type of objects to which I most often find my thoughts attaching themselves to have been books. However, another thing I have found is that interacting with books is not very straightforward. Reading any particular book requires also an active interpretation of what I am reading. By ‘interpretation’ I mean the process of coming to understanding the meaning of something—a text, a verbal statement, an astrological sign. With books, interpretation is central to the act of reading, just as thought is central to the act of speaking.

Oftentimes texts which theorize about interpretation must themselves be interpreted by the reader. Thus, interpreting literature (‘literature’ for me includes written philosophy, novels, poetry, drama, etc.) can pose a special problem. A specific example of such a tricky interpretative-loop is found in the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s provocatively titled book The Anti-Christ. In this book, Nietzsche critiques Christianity not as a religion, but rather as a historical tradition of interpretations of a particular book: The Bible. Nietzsche’s problem with Christianity is that, despite being a tradition based upon interpretation of The Bible, he does not believe that Christians tend to have good reading practices. Nietzsche’s argument thus turns directly to the problem of interpretation:

Another mark of a theologian is his incapacity for philology. Philology should be understood here in a very general sense, as the art of reading well, – to be able to read facts without falsifying them through interpretations, without letting the desire to understand make you lose caution, patience, subtlety. Philology as ephexis[1] in interpretation: whether it concerns books, newspaper articles, destinies, or facts about the weather, – not to mention ‘salvation of the soul’ … (Antichrist §52).

Nietzsche here touches upon the core difficulty of interpretation that I am trying to get at here: understanding the meaning of anything—an article, the meaning of a person’s life, the weather—requires careful attention while minimizing one’s own prejudices and presumptions. Such interpretation does not misunderstand the intention of a writer due to haste, or what the interpreter already thinks is necessary before judgment is passed and this takes practice. Interpreting well is thus a practice both in the sense of something that requires consistent repetition and in the sense that one becomes gradually better at it over time, by continuing to participate.

A practice of interpretation is thus a guidepost for the project that I am beginning with the Notes of an Amateur Philosopher (The NAP). In the next few weeks I am going to consider some interpretative questions that have arisen throughout my reading of Joseph Frank’s excellent biography of Fyodor Dostoevsky before turning to the historical changes in conditions of belief in religion considered by Charles Taylor in The Secular Age. These first few projects, along with a more thorough study of a number of works by Søren Kierkegaard beginning in January, will represent the first steps in a program of reading and communication in which I hope to understand more of the themes and ideas running through different books that I find meaningful.

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[1] A Latin term in the philosophy of the Skeptics meaning “suspension of judgment.”

Works referenced in this post:

Michel de Montaigne. The Complete Essays of Montaigne. Translated by Donald M. Frame. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1958.

Friedrich Nietzsche. The Anti-Christ in The Anti-Christ, Ecce Homo, Twilight of the Idols and Other Writings. Edited by Aaron Ridley and Judith Norman. Translated by Judith Norman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.