Una teoría cognoscitiva de la interpretación

Abstract

The author discusses some features of R. Hernández Marín’s theory of interpretation: in particular, the thesis according to which interpretive sentences are descriptive, i.e., true or false sentences. Such a thesis supposes interpretation to be a non-discretional, genuinely cognitive activity. According to the author, on the contrary, each normative text is (at least, diachronically) equivocal, i.e., potentially expresses more than one meaning. As a consequence, the choice of one determined meaning is a discretionary act, conditioned by the dogmatic assumptions, methodological decisions, and value judgments of the interpreter. It follows that interpretive sentences are not cognitive, but ascriptive (just as stipulations are). Independently of any assumption about the ontology of norms, such a conclusion requires the distinction between normative sentences and their meaning (understood as a product of interpretation).