Meaning Between the Openness of Reading and Textual Closure: From Hermeneutics to Deconstruction

Abstract

This study seeks to determine the nature of the text and how
hermeneutics and deconstruction approach the text, the reader, and the act of reading. It proceeds from the problem of meaning as situated between these two approaches. Texts of various kinds have produced conflicting positions: some view the text as a field for the free play of meanings, while others see it as containing latent meanings that require an objective interpreter to decipher their codes. As Paul Ricoeur suggests, the text affirms a meaning or an idea that was meant to be spoken but could not be, and therefore became written and fixed. Classical hermeneutics maintains that meaning can be reached, whereas philosophical hermeneutics denies the possibility of attaining an objective and final meaning, since the text remains open to multiple readings and understandings. This position stands in marked contrast to deconstruction, which treats the text as a site for uncovering gaps and inconsistencies, since no single meaning can be secured once the author is considered dead.