Hirsch, ''Objective Interpretation''

"'The meaning of a word sequence is directly imposed by the public norms of language, that the test as a 'piece of language' is a public object whose character is defined by public norms'" (Hirsch 19). Click here!

"It is necessary to establish that the context invoked is the most probable context" (Hirsch 25).

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/AngelaPalumbo/2009/02/the_logic_in_authors_intent.html#comments

the text won't speak unless we listen...
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/BethanyMerryman/2009/02/speak-to-me.html

Your Definition of Objectivity Sounds Subjective to Me
“It is necessary to establish that the context invoked is the most probable context. Only then, in relation to an established context, can we judge that one reading is more coherent than another. Ultimately, therefore, we have to posit the most probable horizon for the text, and it is possible to do this only if we posit the author’s typical outlook, the typical associations and expectations which form in part the context of his utterance” (Hirsch 25).
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/GretaCarroll/2009/02/your_definition_of_objectivity.html

Psychological Reconstruction?

“Not only the criterion of coherence but all the other criteria used in verifying interpretation must be applied with the reference to a psychological reconstruction” (Hirsch, Jr. 27).
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/JennaMiller/2009/02/psychological-reconstruction.html

Struggling with textual meaning. What means what when and why? “…The textual meaning has nothing to do with the author’s mind, but only with his verbal achievement, that the object of interpretation is not the author but his text.” (19)

"The interpreter's goal is simply this: to show that a given reading is more probable than others" (Hirsch 24). Since it is impossible to show another persons true meaning, when often times the writer may or may not know this for themselves, it is the job of the interpreter, or critic to try to the best of their ability to find the most logical meaning fo the text. I used this quote because it seems to me that it would be very difficult for any person to remove themselves so much from their own thoughts to be able to look at a work as something unto itself.

"Textual meaning is not a naked given like a physical object. The text is first of all a conventional representation like a musical score, and what the score represents may be construed correctly or incorrectly."

"The array of possibilities only begins to become a more selective system of probabilities when, instead of confronting merely a word sequence, we also posit a speaker who very likely means something" (Hirsch 19).

Jumping the gap from the possible to the probable.

"Since the meaning represented by a text is that of another, the interpreter can never be certain that his reading is correct. He knows furthermore that the norms of langue by themselves are far too broad to specify the particular meanings and emphases represented by the text, that these particular meanings were specified by particular kinds of subjective acts on the part of the author, and that these acts, as such, remain inaccessible." (Hirsch 23)

"The fact that the term 'criticism' has now come to designate all commentary on textual meaning reflects a general acceptance of the doctrine that description and evaluation are inseparable in literary study.”

-From E.D. Hirsch Jr.’s “Objective Interpretation” in Donald Keesey’s Contexts for Criticism, page 18

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/EricaGearhart/2009/02/the_fact_that_the_term.html

"The critic is right to think that the text should speak to us."
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/CoreyStruss/2009/02/judging_a_book_by_its_cover.html

"The burden of this section is, then, an attack on the view that a text is a 'piece of language' and a defense of the notion that a text represents the determinate verbal meaning of the author," (Hirsch 19).
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/BethanyBouchard/2009/02/an_author_cannot_mean_what_he.html