Validity in Interpretation by E D Hirsch Jr

Validity in Interpretation by E D Hirsch Jr

“Here is a book that brings logic to the most unruly of disciplines, literary interpretation. . . . This study is a necessary took for anyone who wants to talk sense about literature.”—Virginia Quarterly Review By demonstrating the uniformity and universality of the principles of valid interpretation of verbal texts of any sort, this closely reasoned examination provides a theoretical foundation for a discipline that is fundamental to virtually all humanistic studies. It defines the grounds on which textual interpretation can claim to establish objective knowledge, defends that claim against such skeptical attitudes as historicism and psychologism, and shows that many confusions can be avoided if the distinctions between meaning and significance, interpretation and criticism are correctly understood.

"Professor Hirsch demonstrates convincingly that objectivity is attainable in humane studies, and that it is not identified with the subject but with the evidenceA valid interpretation is not necessarily a correct one, but one which is more probably than any other on the basis of existing evidence. He makes a subtle and important distinction between a text’s ‘meaning’ (which does not change) and its ‘significance’ (which does), and brilliantly relates meaning to understanding (the necessary preliminary to interpretation) and interpretation to explanation. . . . In short, this is a work which future students of literary theory cannot afford to neglect."—Notes and Queries

E. D. Hirsch, Jr., is an emeritus professor at the University of Virginia and the author of The Knowledge Deficit, The Schools We Need, and the bestselling Cultural Literacy and the Dictionary of Cultural Literacy. He and his wife, Polly, live in Charlottesville, Virginia, where they raised their three children.

Linda Bevilacqua is the president of the Core Knowledge Foundation and was responsible for the development of the Core Knowledge preschool program that is now being used in over 1,200 preschool classrooms across the country. She and her husband, Jean-Jacques, live in Charlottesville, Virginia.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780300016925
ISBN 10	0300016921
Title	Validity in Interpretation
Author	E D Hirsch Jr
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Yale University Press
Year published	1973-09-10
Number of pages	304
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable