Conventions and interpretation
pp. 127-132
in: Leendert Mos (ed), Annals of theoretical psychology, Berlin, Springer, 1986Abstract
Conventions of discourse, like bodily habits and social roles, guide beings along narrow enclosed paths. Interpretation opens up these well-worn ways by breaking new ground and providing new directions. It opens the closure of convention by disclosing new ways of seeing and being. However, the standardization of interpretation in turn conventionalizes it, making the once new routine. I will explore this dialectics of closing and opening, of convention and interpretation, by pointing out through interpretation ways in which Lindseth's constructions in his chapter have been unnecessarily narrowed by convention. This is most evident in his treatment of science. I will consider several ways in which his discourse could be opened around this topic before proceeding to broaden Lindseth's ideas on hermeneutics and psychoanalysis.