Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Principle of charity

I am generally faithful to the principle of charity. In case of doubt, all else being equal, I will interpret a theory choosing the option that maximises its explicative value. Most of all, I try to avoid cases of absolute nonsense. If the answers offered to a problem by a certain theory seem to be patently wrong, I also try to determine whether they are not intended to answer a different kind of problem. By the way, this is also one of the exegetical tools adopted by Mīmāṃsā in reading the Veda.

What do readers do while dealing with non-sensical passages?

On my principles, see this post.

2 comments:

Amod said...

Hi Elisa - did you see this post of mine? It sums up my thoughts on the topic:
http://loveofallwisdom.com/2010/09/looking-for-coherent-authorship/

elisa freschi said...

Thanks Amod. I read your post when you wrote it and still agree with it now. I guess, however, that much of the difference between your approach and Janet Gyatso's one lies in the fact that you look at the text from a philosophical point of view (and not just from the point of view of the phenomenology of religious habits).

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