Date: Tue, 4 Nov 1997 23:15:43 -0500
From: George Trail <gtrail-AT-UH.EDU>
Subject: Re:       Re: PLC: "Deconstruction"


[Brackets, per usual, g]
 the
>> only means you have for getting at it is interpretation.
>
>True, but would you allow that the less clear the
>intention, the less effective the work? I am
>assuming the author has an intention.
[No. The intention of _Ulysses_ is almost inconceivable. We can take shots
at it. But there is not possible verification outside of creatig the
"going" reading.]


>
>> Interpretation is
>> necessarily a play between construeal and construction.
>
>I'm not up on the jargon. Does "construeal" have
>something to do with the real "construct" as
>opposed to the phoney construct?

[No, not jargon. Construeal is simply how we "construe" a work, how we "put
it together.]
>
>
>
>> And then we have no
>> way outside of interpretation to decide which we are leaning towards more.
>
>Very true. I've always felt that our experience
>with art means we describe it, interpret it, and
>evaluate it. Like Bradley, I think the evaluation
>depends on unity, complexity, and intensity of
>the work.

[Could you go for, the unity, complexity, and intensity we find in the work?]
>
>If "leaning towards more" means leaning towards
>what you call construreal or towards construction
>(which I'm beginning to think is our
>misinterpretation or adding on something that
>isn't there), then interpretation is very
>important.
>
>
>> You can always pretend that you are ardently keeping the author in mind, and
>> thereby practice the art of self-deception with regards to interpretaion.
>
>Why pretend? Unless one is trying to get an
>article published in a journal that only academic
>types read. The author certainly counts, doesn't
>she (that's for GT) ?

[We pretend in order to deceive ourselves into the conception that we are
not complicit in the construction of "meaning." Many would prefer that we
discover it, rather than cooperate in its creation. You are, I think, one
of that many. But there is hope for you, on accounta trog that you are you
got a sense of humor. ]

>
>
>> Deconstruction seems to want to make explicit the self-deception involved,
>> however, and perhaps re-set in motion that play between construeal and
>> construction.
>
>Oh, one of the jobs of deconstruction is to
>ferret out self-deception? Wouldn't intellectual
>honesty, a much older phenomenon, do in this
>matter?

[It can't. Honesty is in itself a construct (see Nietzsche). That is why
even Sigmund needed an analyst.]
>
>Cheers,
>
>Bill Ball

Spit first, then reply.
g




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