Interpretation

We are all interpreters. No matter what we come across, it impresses a certain meaning onto us. That meaning is subjective. If that same meaning is shared by most or all, it becomes universal or practically so. Never does it become objective. We do not have access to the objective, to the thing-in-itself.

What shapes our interpretive framework is not of our own making. It is influenced by everything outside of us. It is first and foremost a response to the external world. Everything about every organism is a response to the external world. And since the external world is always in a state of flux, we change with it, evolving to better suit it—better in the sense of survivability (and to reproduce is a subcategory of survivability). Therefore, our opinions are not so much true or untrue as evidence of our circumstances. Just as if we were to read the genes of a given animal, we would be able to infer its surroundings, so too if we read, say, the words of a given author, we are able to infer his inner world and therefore his surroundings. Nietzsche was right when he said that all philosophies are unconscious autobiographies.