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<blockquote data-quote="Desdichado" data-source="post: 2279222" data-attributes="member: 2205">Not at all, although coming from a more &quot;practical arts&quot; background, as you call it, may have jaundiced my view of it.&nbsp; Even an opinion that enjoys fairly widespread consensus is still just an opinion, is what I'm getting at.&nbsp; It's not &quot;factual&quot; in the sense that a chemical equation is, for example, its an interpretation.&nbsp; Subsequent generations may interpret works completely differently.&nbsp; It's unlikely that we really understand Homer's works, for instance, all that well relative to his native audience, because we're too far removed from them in time and culture.&nbsp; We can make a better claim at understanding James Joyce's work, but even so, different people emphasise different aspects of his work, and thus interpret it differently, even if they don't strictly disagree with their collegues.I guess my point is, that while &quot;symbolic understanding&quot; might be an interesting exploration in its own right, I think it takes itself way too seriously, and tends to forget that the methodology on which it is based is incapable of rendering &quot;truth&quot; about the work except in the context of the reader, or else by accident.<img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/laugh.png"&nbsp; class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing&nbsp; &nbsp; :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" />&nbsp; Not offended, just turned off.&nbsp;&nbsp; <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin&nbsp; &nbsp; :D"&nbsp; data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></blockquote>

[QUOTE="Desdichado, post: 2279222, member: 2205"] Not at all, although coming from a more "practical arts" background, as you call it, may have jaundiced my view of it. Even an opinion that enjoys fairly widespread consensus is still just an opinion, is what I'm getting at. It's not "factual" in the sense that a chemical equation is, for example, its an interpretation. Subsequent generations may interpret works completely differently. It's unlikely that we really understand Homer's works, for instance, all that well relative to his native audience, because we're too far removed from them in time and culture. We can make a better claim at understanding James Joyce's work, but even so, different people emphasise different aspects of his work, and thus interpret it differently, even if they don't strictly disagree with their collegues. I guess my point is, that while "symbolic understanding" might be an interesting exploration in its own right, I think it takes itself way too seriously, and tends to forget that the methodology on which it is based is incapable of rendering "truth" about the work except in the context of the reader, or else by accident. :lol: Not offended, just turned off. :D [/QUOTE]

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