The same dynamic is at work when a person reads. She attempts to
reconstruct what the author meant by his words. However, if the reader
has diffi culty doing this, it is not normally possible to ask the author to
clarify his meaning.
The terms Hirsch usually uses to describe what takes place when some-
one reads are “re-cognition” or “re-cognitive interpretation.” 6 He uses
“re-cognitive” rather than “cognitive” because he wants to make clear
that what happens in the mind of the reader is grounded in the intention
of the author.
Some critics believe Hirsch’s approach is incompatible with such liter-
ary concepts as gaps and gap-fi lling, multivalence, and overcoding. This
simply is not true. While authors often invite the reader to use her imagi-
nation when reading a text, the author’s intention remains determinative
even when she asks her reader to fi ll gaps. Similarly, the author may evoke
more than one resonance or suggest more than one possibility at a par-
ticular point in a text. Such devices are standard components of literature.
H IRSCH: IS BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS SPECIAL?
Hirsch is also aware that some types of literature are intended to speak into
the indeterminate future. For instance, some documents state principles
that will govern future affairs even though presumably the future will be
unlike the author’s present in signifi cant ways. Clearly the framers of the
US Constitution intended to devise a structure for future decision- making.
Similarly, an axiom governing biblical hermeneutics is that the canonical
scriptures are meaningful, not only to their original audiences, but also to
all of God’s people who will ever live until the Second Coming. 7 Does the
existence of such open-ended literature preclude the possibility of mean-
ing being anchored in the intention of the author? Hirsch is aware of this
challenge:
Is the case different with the Constitution and the Bible? Does the identi-
fi cation of valid interpretation with re-cognitive interpretation do justice to
texts which would lose their function if their meaning were limited to what
the author knew and consciously or unconsciously intended? Must these
texts be put in a special category, and if so, does that nullify the claim that
the underlying principles of interpretation are the same everywhere? This
kind of question caused Gadamer to insist that all textual interpretation
must go beyond the author, must mean more than he or any individual86 G.W. MENZIES