NOTES
- When Hirsch speaks of the “author,” this does not necessarily imply a
single person writing at a single authorial moment. Hirsch is aware that
some texts have multiple authors and complex compositional histories.
- Some have criticized Hirsch’s account of the matter as being overly sim-
plistic. Are authors not impacted subtly and unconsciously by the conven-
tions of the society in which they live? Do they not tap into tropes and
conventions that are communal and that have been constructed by many
minds? Is not language itself a communal venture with the meanings of
words constantly being defi ned and redefi ned by myriad users? The short
answer to these charges is that Hirsch is not interested in the social or psy-
chological dynamics that lead the writer to write as he does. What he
means by authorial intention is what may be known from the author’s
public acts, including especially the texts he produces. That the author fol-
lows certain conventions or tropes is simply part and parcel of that author’s
public acts and the meaning he intends should be assessed accordingly.
- Implicit in Hirsch’s arguments is a connection between the concepts “author”
and “authority.” This etymological relationship is based on a phenomenologi-
cal relationship between the two that seems self-evident and almost primal.
- E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Validity in Interpretation (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1967), 14.
- Hirsch, Validity , 17.
- Hirsch, Validity , 24 (note 1) and 122–124.
- The situations of the framers of the Constitution and the biblical authors
are not identical. As far as we can determine, none of the human authors
of the Bible (except perhaps Moses?) knew his words would be written
down and granted perpetual authoritative status. Also, the doctrine of
divine inspiration suggests that books of the Bible also had a divine author
in addition to their human authors, unlike the Constitution.
- Hirsch, Validity , 123.
- Hirsch, Validity , 123.
- Hirsch, Validity , 124.
- Hirsch, Validity , 124–125.
- I. Howard Marshall, Beyond the Bible: Moving from Scripture to Theology
(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004), 34.
- While Hirsch does not regularly use the terms “empirical author, “empiri-
cal reader,” “implied author,” or “implied reader,” the term “implied
author” does appear in his The Aims of Interpretation (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1976), 6.
- Gotthold Lessing, Philosophical and Theological Writings , ed. H.B. Nisbet
(Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy; Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2005), 87.
ECHOING HIRSCH: DO READERS FIND OR CONSTRUCT MEANING? 99
