.H 4
The need for interpretation.
.PP
Consider the hypothesis that the rationalization of experience
in exposition and argument
is invariably constructive and beneficial,
that it extends the acuity of the senses,
that it enhances the ability to act,
that it provides control and correction
to an otherwise opaque existence,
that it constitutes the single most important medium
of communication,
and the only true community of thought,
and that, in general,
it adds a new and different dimension to our lives.
.PP
To be sure, rationalization can be all this,
it is plausible to argue that
rationalization fulfills all these functions,
but less felicitous aspects of rationalization ought not to be denied.
Rationalization can also 
create misleading and deceptive conceptual artifacts;
it can generate fantasies and myths that absorb and dissipate
man's intellectual and emotional resources,
concealing his mistakes and short-comings,
fictions by means of which
he puts himself into the best possible light,
and screens with which he conceals his errors
from himself and from all others whom he is able to persuade
to believe him.
.PP
I know of no device, in any given instance,
to distinguish the alternnative,
to determine to what extent a given rationalization fulfills
a beneficial,
and to what extent it has a detrimental function.
In every instance, I believe,
it will be necessary to look to the consequences
of the conceptual invention
to assess its value;
and where the conceptualization presents itself
as it were with built-in value,
proclaiming and assertings is validity on its face,
there one must be tough and critical,
and disregard what the argument claims in its own behalf
and ignore its claim to truth;
and test it against experience,
to determine how well it will hold up.
.PP
The foregoing considerations suggest
that criticism and interpretation will be the task of every reader
of any given text,
and this one is no exception.
Notice that the process of interpretation
will function somewhat in the manner
of a filtering or converting device;
inasmuch as that it is when a reader takes a text seriously,
thinks and worries about it,
when, in order to fulfill the task of interpretation,
the reader reads passionately, which is to say
that he cares about what he reads and that its truth matters to him:
then the process of interpretation will serve not so much as a filter
to eliminate and exclude what appears meaningless
or incongruous or incorrect;
but the process of interpretation will supplement
the text and thereby correct that error.
That which was meaningless becomes meaningful in its meaninglessness
when it is interpreted.
The process of interpretation corrects the error which it detects.