she is unaware. Despite such hidden factors, meaning is determined not by
congruity with the private thoughts of the author, which would necessarily
require mindreading, but rather congruity with the author’s known public
acts, especially the act of writing.
It is possible, indeed inevitable, that readers will sometimes misunder-
stand authors. However, this impediment is not even close to being fatal
to Hirsch’s thesis. As he says, “It is a logical mistake to confuse the impos-
sibility of certainty in understanding with the impossibility of understand-
ing.” 5 Misunderstanding a particular text does not invalidate the general
supposition that authors can make their meanings known to readers any
more than the fact that hearers sometimes misunderstand speakers implies
that meaningful conversation is impossible. Just as one does not have to
“mindread” to engage in conversation, one does not have to “mindread”
to understand written texts. One simply has to assess the meaning of the
speaker/author’s public acts. Moreover, there will always be available to
the reader at least one public act by the author whose work is being read,
since the text itself memorializes the public act of the text’s composition.
Hirsch’s hermeneutical approach has often been attacked as a manifes-
tation of the genetic fallacy (confusing how an idea arises with the truth or
falsity of that idea). But Hirsch does not assert that just because writings
stem from authors what they say must automatically be true. Such think-
ing would involve the genetic fallacy. Instead, Hirsch simply asserts that
what a text means is rooted in its author’s intention, whether that meaning
asserts something true or false.
HIRSCH: RE-COGNITION
Implicit in Hirsch’s hermeneutical theory is the priority of conversation
over reading. Every person learns to communicate orally before he learns
to read, and by analogy conversation provides the basic communica-
tion model upon which reading is built. Certainly there is a difference:
Normally one hears speech from someone who is present; normally one
reads the words of an author who is absent. The most signifi cant distinc-
tion this implies is that the reader does not have the same opportunity as
the hearer to ask questions whenever someone’s meaning is unclear.
When a hearer asks for clarifi cation, this implies that the hearer is hav-
ing trouble reconstructing the meaning intended by the speaker. If no
clarifi cation is solicited, this implies that the hearer believes he has success-
fully reconstructed the speaker’s meaning.
ECHOING HIRSCH: DO READERS FIND OR CONSTRUCT MEANING? 85