the interpretation of
symptoms
the interpretation of
cultures.
The Interpretation of
Dreams is the discovery of meanings in dreams
Discovering intentionality
unconscious ideas
meaning in the meaningless
forces become meanings
instincts express themselves
symbolically
symptoms are a mysterious
language
signs needing interpretation.
Symptoms speak
The body is an utterance
Man is a Logos, a word,
to be interpreted
a code to be deciphered
not a machine to be
manipulated.
Libido speaks, desire speaks,
love speaks,
It is the unspoken meaning
Like the Delphic oracle
It does not say but
signifies.
Recovering the original
meaning of semantics:
A theory of signs and
wonders
Oh wonder of wonders!
The dumb things speak.
Interpretation is translation.
Every sentence is bilingual,
or allegorical, saying one
thing and meaning another.
Every sentence is translation.
Translation, or hermeneutics.
Hermeneutics, the form
of philosophy today
the form of theology
today
the search for meaning.
Hermeneutics from Hermes,
the god, Mercury--
Hermes the Thief,
the original trickster, shape shifter--
Hermes
Trismegistus,
Thrice Greatest Hermes, the greatest magician--
Translation is metamorphosis
"Bless thee, Bottom,
how thou art translated!"
A secret art, a hermetic
language
There is always hiding,
as well as seeking
And we never say what
we mean.
Even psychoanalysis
is a hermetic language
not to be taken literally.
Hermes the interpreter
interpres divium,
interpreter of the gods,
inter: he is
the go-between
He is psycho-pomp, conductor
f souls,
Between two world
as above so below,
Interpreter between
macrocosm and microcosm
between our own thoughts
and our own bodies
between Consciousness
and the Unconscious.
And on the battlefield
Hermes is the herald
that comes between the combatants
the mediator
the herald, or angel,
or messenger,
The herald voices say, Peace
on earth, good will to man.
Interpretation mediates
between languages
undoing the consequences
of the Fall
the Tower of Babel
re-membering the unity
of human language
restoring human communication.
A language that makes peace
not war
A language that make
love not war
And therefore it does
not argue
argumentation is the
logic of contention
based on separate identities
fixed definition
single meaning
self-assertion.
Interpretation seeks a class-less
consciousness; it does not classify.
And does not criticize.
Susan Sontag didn't
say what she meant
(she needs to be interpreted)
The new sensibility is not
against interpretation but against criticism
It says, Judge not
And it says, Forgive
us
For we know not what
we do or say.
And we are all in the
same boat or body.
Here Comes Everybody.
Going beyond the I-Thou
relationship
The interpreter is the
third person, the mediator.
Instead of the representative
who fights on our behalf
The mediator who unifies
the whole scene.
It is a synthesis.
It is the third person
who makes it a crowd
Of us
A community of interpretation.
We Three.
A Trinity in Unity;
neither confounding the Persons; nor
dividing the Substance.
Josiah
Royce, forgotten
voice of American idealism, says:
Interpretation seeks
a city out of sight, the homeland where,
perchance, we learn
to understand one another.
Interpretation seeks
consent rather than conviction
discovering what you meant all along.
A language of listening rather than assertion
discovering another
meaning
(there is always another
meaning)
discovering another's
meaning
Just being an interpreter
Surrendering a bit of
the asserting ego
Listening to the voice
of the other
obedient--
This listening is the philosophy
of Husserl the epoche:
A suspension, a pause
A suspension of hostilities,
Which is also an epoch,
the beginning of a new era.
Stop, look, and listen.
Waiting,
waiting for--
Thinking is writing
expectation
The psalmist says expectans expectori
I have waited waitingly.
Heidegger says Thinking
is in every instance a letting
be said of that which
shows itself, and accordingly an answer
to that which shows
itself.
Let it speak, let it
show itself
The Freud it instead
of the Freudian ego
The impersonal id
The collective unconscious
The over-soul
The language: let it
speak to us.
Thinking is not a statement
but an answer
an interpretation
saying it again another
way
an echo; amen, even--
A response
Poetry call us to respond
or correspond
Till all the woods do answer
and their echo ring,
The chorus
or choir
invisible
O may I join the choir invisible.