Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Interpretation

Dworkin’s thoughts on interpretation, more specifically the fluidity of it, were pretty intriguing to me. I had not thought of interpretation of an art work as altering although it really does make sense that it not be set and that there be different interpretations over time and even by the same person when viewed through a different perspective. This idea of interpretation not as the intent or frame of mind of the author does however seem to pose a problem when it comes to interpreting law. Using this sort of readily alterable stance on interpretation I think would make the interpreting of law and the application of it from those interpretations difficult in a way that would set up precedent. I do think that more thought needs to be applied when interpreting things than just the mindset of the author or the history or past equated with the work, but this far into the reading I am thinking that there need to be a way of ranking these interpretations as to know which one may be more suitable to the situation than others, which Dworkin did not really seem to think was very plausible.

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