Overview

This book questions the presupposition that interpretation is the basic problem of language and examines how assumptions about the constructed nature of the object of interpretation affect current discussions about interpretation in the humanities. The author is not taken by the universalizing claims of hermeneutics that everything is reducible to interpretation, but he is not interested in quarreling directly with those claims either. And with respect to the notion of invention that things don t simply exist but are produced, made up he likewise is interested neither in the objections usually brought against it nor in the strength of that notion in resisting them. Instead, he is interested in problematics that emerge from considering interpretation and invention together, as exemplified in close readings of three texts: Oscar Wilde s De Profundis, Friedrich Nietzsche s The Birth of Tragedy, and Immanuel Kant s Critique of Pure Reason, texts in which in very different ways, a recognizable claim is made according to which the facts (biographical in one case, historical in another case, and cognitive in a third case) are produced by their own descriptions and interpretations.

Full Product Details

Author:   Miguel Tamen
Publisher:   Stanford University Press
Imprint:   Stanford University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 14.00cm , Height: 1.40cm , Length: 21.60cm
Weight:   0.318kg
ISBN:  

9780804734325

ISBN 10:   0804734321
Pages:   176
Publication Date:   01 January 2002
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Undergraduate ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Introduction 1. Invention and interpretation 2. Can a life be invented 3. Can art be made 4. The roots of invention Notes Index.

Reviews

"""Tamen has an extremely distinguished mind, both as a thinker and as a reader of texts. He also has an independent mind and thinks things out for himself, though he knows, and adroitly refers to, previous scholarship. The three central chapters on works by Wilde, Nietzsche, and Kant are truly remarkable, based on brilliant interpretations of key passages that are unfolded and explicated in detail. These are dazzling readings of great originality and persuasive insight."" - J. Hillis Miller, University of California, Irvine ""This brilliant book is a very thoughtful, very original, set of reflections on the nature of interpretation, and on the distinction between making and finding - between putting something into the text and finding features intrinsic to it. Philosophically sophisticated, it is a powerful and effective intervention in contemporary debates in literary theory."" - Richard Rorty, Stanford University ""[The Matter of Facts] is an impressive accomplishment that betrays an original mind. The great strength of Tamen's investigation lies in his determination to concentrate exclusively on the problematics at hand, instead of engaging in fruitless ad hominem arguments."" - Germanic Notes and Reviews"

Tamen has an extremely distinguished mind, both as a thinker and as a reader of texts. He also has an independent mind and thinks things out for himself, though he knows, and adroitly refers to, previous scholarship. The three central chapters on works by Wilde, Nietzsche, and Kant are truly remarkable, based on brilliant interpretations of key passages that are unfolded and explicated in detail. These are dazzling readings of great originality and persuasive insight. --J. Hillis Miller, University of California, Irvine This brilliant book is a very thoughtful, very original, set of reflections on the nature of interpretation, and on the distinction between making and finding--between putting something into the text and finding features intrinsic to it. Philosophically sophisticated, it is a powerful and effective intervention in contemporary debates in literary theory. --Richard Rorty, Stanford University [The Matter of Facts] is an impressive accomplishment that betrays an original mind. The great strength of Tamen's investigation lies in his determination to concentrate exclusively on the problematics at hand, instead of engaging in fruitless ad hominem arguments. --Germanic Notes and Reviews

Tamen has an extremely distinguished mind, both as a thinker and as a reader of texts. He also has an independent mind and thinks things out for himself, though he knows, and adroitly refers to, previous scholarship. The three central chapters on works by Wilde, Nietzsche, and Kant are truly remarkable, based on brilliant interpretations of key passages that are unfolded and explicated in detail. These are dazzling readings of great originality and persuasive insight. - J. Hillis Miller, University of California, Irvine This brilliant book is a very thoughtful, very original, set of reflections on the nature of interpretation, and on the distinction between making and finding - between putting something into the text and finding features intrinsic to it. Philosophically sophisticated, it is a powerful and effective intervention in contemporary debates in literary theory. - Richard Rorty, Stanford University [The Matter of Facts] is an impressive accomplishment that betrays an original mind. The great strength of Tamen's investigation lies in his determination to concentrate exclusively on the problematics at hand, instead of engaging in fruitless ad hominem arguments. - Germanic Notes and Reviews

'Tamen has an extremely distinguished mind, both as a thinker and as a reader of texts. He also has an independent mind and thinks things out for himself, though he knows, and adroitly refers to, previous scholarship. The three central chapters on works by Wilde, Nietzsche, and Kant are truly remarkable, based on brilliant interpretations of key passages that are unfolded and explicated in detail. These are dazzling readings of great originality and persuasive insight.' J. Hillis Miller, University of California, Irvine

Author Information

Miguel Tamen is Senior Associate Professor of Literary Theory at the University of Lisbon. He is the author of Manners of Interpretation: The Ends of Argument in Literary Studies.

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