Principles of Validity in Interpretation: On Hirsch’s Method of in Defense of the Author’s Intent

Abstract

Hirsch inherits the objective viewpoint of Schleiermacher and Dilthey’s partial texts, criticises psychologism, historicism, and the proponents of semantic autonomy by distinguishing between meaning and significance, defends the determinacy of meaning, and demands a return to the author’s original intention. The existence of word meaning determines the composition of text meaning. Hirsch requires the determination of the intrinsic genres in context and convention, to guess based on the inherent genres, verify interpretations with higher probability, and approach the intended meaning of the speaking subject. Hirsch proposed that verifying the validity in Interpretation is to imaginatively reconstruct the speaking subject through the evidence provided in a certain text to determine to what extent the explanation conforms to the author’s intention.