Meaning and Distance

Philosophy and linguistics

1. A technique empirically put into practice

The example constantly taken, for our measurements of plausibility, is that of „Correspondences“, Baudelaire's poem — a convenient text since almost all highly educated people are familiar with it. Beyond the chosen example, the work in question is that of any imaginative work studied at length. Among the questions raised in relation to the interpretation of non-scientific texts, one of the most general is that of the soundness of the meaning each reader claims to draw from them, so that in this regard it is necessary to develop a method for determining the degree of confidence we can have in this domain. We set aside two empty sophisms: the one according to which the author plays no part in what he has said; the one according to which the interpreters contribute to what the author meant. We seek the original meaning, considered as a reality which, though certainly impossible to determine absolutely, can be located on the plane of apparent plausibility. We always study what the author consciously wanted, because even if thousands of ideas came to him involuntarily, he must have seen in his text, clearly or vaguely, in synthesis or in isolated fragments — through many reflections or reveries — a great many of the results of his intentions, themselves stable or fleeting, clear or dreamlike.

2. Interpretation of texts and distance between words

In order to filter the best interpretations of imaginative texts, we start from the idea that the greater the distance between words, the more the weakness of memory prevents their being connected in the most vivid manner possible, except when an explicit reminder of them exists.

3. Method, plausibility, and linguistics

We develop a calculation founded on this principle, and imitating that of probabilities. If the greatest plausibility is 1/1 = 1, we place a quantity, 2 for instance, in the denominator, for a given distance between the words to be connected in an interpretation. Then, we identify obstacles other than distance, and so we fill the denominator with the numerical equivalents of the risks of misunderstanding, as in 1/(1)(2)(2)(2), which gives a plausibility of 1/8. From Part I to Part VII, section by section, we explore more and more domains in which this technical method applies.

4. The book as a PDF — A philosophical and linguistic essay

We invite you to download in full the essay of fundamental poetics „Meaning and Distance“ in French, English, Spanish, Dutch or German. Successive editions of the book, increasingly complete, have been prepared, and we offer here the latest, in the hope that you will help us to improve it. This treatise sets out an empirical method intended to evaluate the plausibility of a category of interpretations aimed at non-scientific texts. The parts of the monograph have been legally deposited on the following dates: 6 December 1994; 25 February 2000; 10 May 2004; 23 January 2006; 13 June 2007; 18 May 2009; 31 August 2010; 22 June 2016; 15 June 2020. They are protected by copyright, and, more generally, all related rights are reserved.