(Follow the link above for a story on constitutional interpretation)
The view of originalism is that the constitution should be interpreted according to what it meant to the founders and is the typical conservative view of interpretation.
The "living constituion" view is less well defined and seems to want to account for the need for the constitution to have relevance in different historical/cultural realities than those in which it was written. There is a spectrum of course, but this view tends to be the progressive approach to the constitution.
It seems that Critical Realism (as I understand it following Lonergan, Meyer, Wright etc.) has something to offer in such a debate. Neither can the text's meaning within it's original horizon be neglected, nor can the fact that historical and social realitites are constantly in flux be disregarded in interpretation. If interpretation is truly a fusion of horizons (in Lonergan's understanding, not Gadamer's) then both the original meaning of the text and the needs of present historical reality need to be respected in the interpretive event.
2 comments:
"both the original meaning of the text and the needs of present historical reality need to be respected in the interpretive event"
i agree with you here, but this is a very tricky thing. determining original meaning alone is daunting. i think somewhere in that mix is the creativity and wisdom of the interpreter; basically a second author.
I agree, any interpretation of original meaning is always going to be provisional and open to correction. I agree that interpretation is a creative activity although before being a second author an interpreter had better be a good listener. (or perhaps an engaged, critical investigator)
Also, I think Gadamer is right that the reader's horizon is transformed in the interpretive event so that we should expect that reader/interpreter's transformation. This means that on a certain level the same interpretive event never happens twice- though I would say this doesn't preclude that there is any consistency in the range of acceptable meanings that do justice to the text.
An interesting way of thinking how the interpretive event changes the horizon of the interpreter that connects to the constitutional example is the way that legal rulings become precedents- every time the U.S. Supreme Court rules (essentially interpreting the constitution) they add to the history of interpretation and transform the horizon- creating new precedents, reaffirming precedents or perhaps overturning old ones (perhaps on the basis of the meaning of the constitution as they have provisionally reconstructed it?).
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