Purpose: Establishing an abstract framework for interpretations. As such, help in solving concrete problems mainly indirect.
Epistemic effort: thought for multiple hours. Searched articles and research. Partially assisted by ChatGPT 5.5 (data+critique), but all ideas are my own. Did not scour extensively, but the lack of a clear, publicly-known answer on it made me write this post.
Epistemic status: High certainty this idea is useful. Medium certainty about specific details.
Philosophical interpretation is the process of assigning meaning to concepts, texts, experiences, or symbols to uncover deeper, often hidden, understanding. It involves critical analysis, contextualization, and, in many traditions, a creative dialogue between the interpreter and the subject to move beyond surface-level, literal comprehension. Two broad types of interpretation can be distinguished: interpretations of physical objects, and interpretations of concepts (conceptual model).
The Cambridge dictionary definition:
an explanation or opinion of what something means
According to them, when reading "The cat ran to Patagonia", people either "assign" a meaning or "find" some ~objective meaning (the wording "what something means" implies "means in general").
However, when reading, people are not focusing on "this thing means the cat ran to Patagonia", but instead retrieving the relevant concepts (cat, Patagonia, etc), imagining the scenario, and evaluating it[2] (e.g., being confused why the cat would run to Patagonia), via ~symbolic representations[3].
Thinking "this sequence of letters corresponds to that" is not part of what people are doing[4]. Uttering an opinion misses the internal, noncommunicative phenomenon and focus on the most obvious external feedback, which suspiciously for a dictionary doesn't match my interpretation of the actual usage of the word[5].
This may not sound particularly surprising for people here, but it's still a gap to be cleared when talking with most people. This is particularly relevant when fighting for a specific word meaning to be accepted.
You can also ~interpret stuff without parsing its original form, e.g. developing an opinion about a book, ideology, etc. based on a Wikipedia article or friend recommendation.
Conclusion:
the term is currently understood based on rough intuition
2. The term is ambiguous
Not surprising due to 1, but let's elaborate:
What can be interpreted?
I can reasonably be said to interpret: messages, books, films, noise, people (psychology, motivations, or behavioural predictions), people's speech, code, ideologies, my team winning, etc.
This does match a "everything with meaning", the following ambiguities are notable:
internal cognitive phenomenon, or utterance or other externalizations)?
not everything must have a physical form (people's character; ideologies; my team winning)
not everything must be "read" in the intuitive way (how do you read an ideology? do you read psychological motivations as you would this text? can you read the property "my team is winning"?[6])
interpretations I based from the agent's information N about subject (text) T don't necessarily have "nice relationships"
I can be not "about" T, e.g. if I is an empirical fact or vague philosophical realization, and T is fiction
N may not have a direct link to T (e.g. making opinions without based on tertiary sources)
(N, T) pair may produce multiple qualitatively different "interpretations" I_1, I_2 etc., according the "relevant aspects" in each context.
Example: "My interpretation of my mom is that [...]" could be about: her emotional state, how you predict she will act to some stimuli, her health prospects, your entire model of her, etc. All permit contexts where they match "the interpretation of my mum"
Similarly a (I, N) pair is not strongly correlated with any particular
interpretation may also indicate a minimum amount of effort and not refer to trivial aspects
explainable by "I wouldn't use terms that refer to ~model-sharing if my model doesn't merit being shared"
A natural question is "is interpretation the agent's model of T but filtered to the 'relevant aspects'?"[7]. "Interpretations", however, often are about something else than the text in general[8], the following matches better "The agent's relevant cognitive state subset for which information-on-T is important positive evidence in their current model".
For example, legal interpretations are normative and would require the legal system being capable of having models, which makes sense to me as a limited static intelligence, functionalist extension of the term "model" etc.
A secondary challenge is explaining beyond a vague "most relevant thing". When one says "My interpretation of Alice is X" they usually refer to a narrow slice of their psychology; I am unsure if this is fully explained by Gricean norms.
Main takeaways:
Relevant factors: Interpretation I of subject T made by agent A, based on their information N regarding T. Don't assume "trivial variables" without evidence.
Some but not all interpretations of X are restricted to being about X in typical word use.
Uttering "interpretation", people typically refer to a set of "relevant" parts of their model caused by "reading" X. This process seems unconscious.
3. Dividing into 3 dimensions
Interpretations come into a vast array of shapes and sizes, but the terms "interpretation" and "to interpret" are used liberally in a way that rarely reveals much about the shape beyond a vague "interpretation-shaped", at the cost of ambiguity, computation overhead, and increased risk of wrong conclusions.
The 3 dimensions below should help with this problem.
Definition on interpretation based on 3 'main' dimensions
X is part of the agent's interpretation of T if it is part of their cognitive state (beliefs, memory, disposition, etc.), and it is high in all of the following dimensions:
(now the dimensions diverge)
Objectual: How much X is about the semiotic content of T[9] (as opposed to being about something else).
Processual orientation: How much X originates from cognitive processes directed at understanding the semiotic content of T.
Textual originality[10]: The degree to which the informational content causally responsible for X is explained by T, rather than by text modifications, prior dispositions, or external influences.
(possible mnemonic: O|PO|TO)
In other words, an interpretation of T must be about T, the result of a cognitive process directed at T, and 'informationally caused' by T.
You can also use these dimensions to make categories like "high TO", "objectual", etc.
You may view my reasoning below:
My reasoning why these dimensions should be principal
It's epistemically suspicious even if pragmatically possibly useful to change scope to "actually about something else". When thinking about interpretation, one would have to think about "what if it's about something else?" -- an ambiguity whose effects are preponderantly negative. Thus, objectuality.
Similarly, even if you have all the relevant information regarding T indirectly, if you don't link it at most you'd be able to characterize this as a "latent" interpretation, since it doesn't guide action regarding T. Thus, PO.
I used TO to prevent "you think this is T but actually it's Y but you're concluding on T". The separation between "this podcast on utilitarianism" and "utilitarianism", or "evidence I have" vs "actual crime", is important. Thus, TO.
I'm not certain about the quantification-into-explanatory-power specifically, but it does set "what to look for" in a way that intuitively tracks how one would measure fidelity to the actual text T.
Lastly, if I is about T based on the agent's processing directed at T, based on something that closely tracks T, I don't see any reason not to call it an interpretation.
The examples will indicate specific aspects.
Below are 4 examples that show how these dimensions intersect or diverge.
They are optional (it's enough to skim).
Example 1: reading a fiction book
text: the book
When only reading from the source, PO and TO mostly merge.
Medium-low TO only: 'distractions' like random thoughts triggered, hunger, flashbacks etc. triggered by reading.
High TO only: agent's notion of ink color, page smell, etc.
High PO only: information (including theories, opinions, mental frameworks, etc.) on characters, fictional world, author, authorial intention, or external world, based on extratextual sources about the book;
High PO&TO: information on characters, fictional world, based on the text;
High PO&medium TO: information on author, authorial intention, or external world, based on the text; grand philosophical realizations made whilst reading;
High objectuality, high PO; low-medium TO: information about the book's text from articles, friends and other extratextual[11]sources about the book[12];
High PO, TO, objectuality: memories regarding the literal text; information or opinions on style and wording patterns; idea that the text creates a fictional world; info on narrator's biases; theories on allegories, themes, philosophies the text conveys; opinions on wording;
If the book were recommended but not read, the TO stuff would mostly disappear, and you would arguably not really be interpreting the book[13].
Example 2: Hearing gossip about your sister
text: the gossip
Here, almost everything is based on experiencing the dream, so PAP is necessary for most.
High TO without PO; variable objectuality: little (there is little "nontextual information" in this case)
Unknown but likely low TO only: unrelated ruminations, hunger etc. triggered by hearing the gossip.
High PO, medium-high TO: thoughts about your sister, gossip source, based on the gossip; undirected emotions caused by processing the gossip;
High PO, TO, objectuality: memories of the gossip; theories that link the gossip to the gossip source, your sister, etc.; the idea that what you heard is gossip; etc.
Example 3: Exemplius hears various people rant about [framework, ideology] on TV over the years, without bothering to "read" it in any way
Text: [ideology, framework] (I'll use communism)
high PO: "communism is based on the government stealing from the people"; "communism is attractive to the youth"; "Political experts warn about its danger"; etc.
High objectuality, high PO, low TO: "communism says that [...]"; "communism recommends [...]", "communism attacks religion"
High TO, PO, objectuality: "'communism' is a term used to describe a political ideology"
*all of these are subjective, so truth value is irrelevant.
Example 4: Analyzing a juxtaposition in a picture
Text: the juxtaposition from the picture
This underlines why PO is important. There is something fundamentally lacking if you don't know the subject is the juxtapostion in the picture, even if the beliefs are about something that does match aboutness ("this combination of colors").
Other significant cases include when the text is vague or ambiguous ("identity", "cause", "France", [location that is actually a maze that is actually a simulation]).
I'm not making a list with "high PO" etc. here because the fiction book example generalizes fairly well
4. Taxonomy of interpretations
The categories below are likely not highly surprising, but even if they are obvious you probably can't use them if your model of interpretation still is a fuzzy cloud (in these aspects).
4.1. Based on subject
Often you aren't focused on directly parsing the letters about you, except instrumentally for another objective. In this framework I'll explain such phenomena by you're effectively reading a related abstract phenomenon T', not T. In other words, redefining the text if you're focused on something else.
Thus, below are some 'derivative texts'[14] categories (and implicitly, categories for interpretations that analyze these):
Others' interpretation:
The degree to which Exemplius believes this is what the author intended
(Distinct from what the sentence "means")
The degree to which Exemplius believes this is what others would (objectually etc.) interpret it as
May be on some specific group(s): all 8 billion people; whoever read the essay; Japanese traditionalists; mathematicians.
May be normative (set by some authority)
May be institutional verdict or intersubjective consensus, or tool "intelligence", rather than classical anthropocentrism.
Direct:
The text itself, not something else.
This adds recursion: You can interpret how mathematicians interpret how economists interpret some economic recession, or the recession itself. You may also think of this as a noncommutative "textual algebra".
4.2. Based on interpretation content
There are many ways for something to be about the text. I'll highlight 3 particularly important types
Evaluating reality match
The accuracy in representing reality (according to you, intersubjective agreement etc.), regardless of what others may think.
A related but distinct type is internal coherence (independent of extratextual information, or not).
Quantifying metrics
utility, good vs bad
aesthetic, beautiful vs ugly
speed, quick vs slow
complexity, simple vs complex
emotional (e.g. how much you feel sorrow upon seeing X)
Forming knowledge
Forming a model of the phenomena described in the text
knowledge (memorizing)
understanding
etc.
4.3. Hypothetical vs actual
Actual
Hypothetical
I note that there can be a "mix" of hypothetical and actual. E.g. hypothetical interpretation made by actual people (in a hypothetical scenario) of an actual text
These distinctions are mostly obvious and uninteresting, so I won't elaborate more.
A few examples regarding this taxonomy
thinking about how a friend might interpret an apology: hypothetical forming-knowledge on another's evaluating matching reality interpretation (whether your hypothetical apology is true)
evaluating "A, B => C" -- direct; coherence, truth of premises
Memorizing a poem -- can be both intersubjective or direct, depending on agent's model and context; forming knowledge
Determining the interpretation of a hypothetical audience to a post about an absurd Google Maps suggestion -- hypothetical other's interpretation (itself based upon Google Maps' actual 'interpretation' of something
5. End
This introduction is hopefully sufficiently comprehensive enough. For integration into your daily life, you may use the questions "is this an interpretation?" and "what type of interpretation?" (both according to the framework above).
I'll correct any mistake or unclear aspect.
Depending on success of this post, I plan further work on interpretations, and lack of clarity as a phenomenon.
Some conclusions:
It's better to think of interpretation as a clearly defined cognitive process.
Track tacit assumptions when reading or writing about an interpretation. Separate conceptual outliers[15] from the label "interpretation".
When thinking of people's reactions, resolving disagreements, or simply reading "interpretation" or similar[16], try using this framework.
Further reading
As implied in the beginning, I didn't find interesting preexisting work tailored specifically to this question. However, the following article may be interesting:
simplifying to the relevant aspects also happens with with words like "cause", "[X's] fault", "motivation", "way". I suspect that the same phenomenon applies here.
example: if you had a vague philosophical insight from a book, you might say that's your interpretation of it, but the vague philosophical insight isn't "about" the book
some may say that other works (e.g. Minecraft) practically include the wiki, community, etc. I agree with this ~functionalist view, and consider that this makes the name of a work inherently ambiguous in this aspect.
if the agent wanted to critique the review only etc., they still need to build in parallel some sort of understanding of the book, and also orient their cognition towards that (PO).
Purpose: Establishing an abstract framework for interpretations. As such, help in solving concrete problems mainly indirect.
Epistemic effort: thought for multiple hours. Searched articles and research. Partially assisted by ChatGPT 5.5 (data+critique), but all ideas are my own. Did not scour extensively, but the lack of a clear, publicly-known answer on it made me write this post.
Epistemic status: High certainty this idea is useful. Medium certainty about specific details.
This post was inspired by Ruling Out Everything Else.
1. Popular definitions are lacking
Looking at the Wikipedia definition for interpretation (in philosophy)[1]:
The Cambridge dictionary definition:
According to them, when reading "The cat ran to Patagonia", people either "assign" a meaning or "find" some ~objective meaning (the wording "what something means" implies "means in general").
However, when reading, people are not focusing on "this thing means the cat ran to Patagonia", but instead retrieving the relevant concepts (cat, Patagonia, etc), imagining the scenario, and evaluating it[2] (e.g., being confused why the cat would run to Patagonia), via ~symbolic representations[3].
Thinking "this sequence of letters corresponds to that" is not part of what people are doing[4]. Uttering an opinion misses the internal, noncommunicative phenomenon and focus on the most obvious external feedback, which suspiciously for a dictionary doesn't match my interpretation of the actual usage of the word[5].
This may not sound particularly surprising for people here, but it's still a gap to be cleared when talking with most people. This is particularly relevant when fighting for a specific word meaning to be accepted.
You can also ~interpret stuff without parsing its original form, e.g. developing an opinion about a book, ideology, etc. based on a Wikipedia article or friend recommendation.
Conclusion:
2. The term is ambiguous
Not surprising due to 1, but let's elaborate:
What can be interpreted?
I can reasonably be said to interpret: messages, books, films, noise, people (psychology, motivations, or behavioural predictions), people's speech, code, ideologies, my team winning, etc.
This does match a "everything with meaning", the following ambiguities are notable:
A natural question is "is interpretation the agent's model of T but filtered to the 'relevant aspects'?"[7]. "Interpretations", however, often are about something else than the text in general[8], the following matches better "The agent's relevant cognitive state subset for which information-on-T is important positive evidence in their current model".
For example, legal interpretations are normative and would require the legal system being capable of having models, which makes sense to me as a limited static intelligence, functionalist extension of the term "model" etc.
A secondary challenge is explaining beyond a vague "most relevant thing". When one says "My interpretation of Alice is X" they usually refer to a narrow slice of their psychology; I am unsure if this is fully explained by Gricean norms.
Main takeaways:
3. Dividing into 3 dimensions
Interpretations come into a vast array of shapes and sizes, but the terms "interpretation" and "to interpret" are used liberally in a way that rarely reveals much about the shape beyond a vague "interpretation-shaped", at the cost of ambiguity, computation overhead, and increased risk of wrong conclusions.
The 3 dimensions below should help with this problem.
Definition on interpretation based on 3 'main' dimensions
X is part of the agent's interpretation of T if it is part of their cognitive state (beliefs, memory, disposition, etc.), and it is high in all of the following dimensions:
(now the dimensions diverge)
(possible mnemonic: O|PO|TO)
In other words, an interpretation of T must be about T, the result of a cognitive process directed at T, and 'informationally caused' by T.
You can also use these dimensions to make categories like "high TO", "objectual", etc.
You may view my reasoning below:
My reasoning why these dimensions should be principal
It's epistemically suspicious even if pragmatically possibly useful to change scope to "actually about something else". When thinking about interpretation, one would have to think about "what if it's about something else?" -- an ambiguity whose effects are preponderantly negative. Thus, objectuality.
Similarly, even if you have all the relevant information regarding T indirectly, if you don't link it at most you'd be able to characterize this as a "latent" interpretation, since it doesn't guide action regarding T. Thus, PO.
I used TO to prevent "you think this is T but actually it's Y but you're concluding on T". The separation between "this podcast on utilitarianism" and "utilitarianism", or "evidence I have" vs "actual crime", is important. Thus, TO.
Lastly, if I is about T based on the agent's processing directed at T, based on something that closely tracks T, I don't see any reason not to call it an interpretation.
The examples will indicate specific aspects.
Below are 4 examples that show how these dimensions intersect or diverge.
They are optional (it's enough to skim).
Example 1: reading a fiction book
text: the book
When only reading from the source, PO and TO mostly merge.
Medium-low TO only: 'distractions' like random thoughts triggered, hunger, flashbacks etc. triggered by reading.
High TO only: agent's notion of ink color, page smell, etc.
High PO only: information (including theories, opinions, mental frameworks, etc.) on characters, fictional world, author, authorial intention, or external world, based on extratextual sources about the book;
High PO&TO: information on characters, fictional world, based on the text;
High PO&medium TO: information on author, authorial intention, or external world, based on the text; grand philosophical realizations made whilst reading;
High objectuality, high PO; low-medium TO: information about the book's text from articles, friends and other extratextual[11]sources about the book[12];
High PO, TO, objectuality: memories regarding the literal text; information or opinions on style and wording patterns; idea that the text creates a fictional world; info on narrator's biases; theories on allegories, themes, philosophies the text conveys; opinions on wording;
If the book were recommended but not read, the TO stuff would mostly disappear, and you would arguably not really be interpreting the book[13].
Example 2: Hearing gossip about your sister
text: the gossip
Here, almost everything is based on experiencing the dream, so PAP is necessary for most.
High TO without PO; variable objectuality: little (there is little "nontextual information" in this case)
Unknown but likely low TO only: unrelated ruminations, hunger etc. triggered by hearing the gossip.
High PO, medium-high TO: thoughts about your sister, gossip source, based on the gossip; undirected emotions caused by processing the gossip;
High PO, TO, objectuality: memories of the gossip; theories that link the gossip to the gossip source, your sister, etc.; the idea that what you heard is gossip; etc.
Example 3: Exemplius hears various people rant about [framework, ideology] on TV over the years, without bothering to "read" it in any way
Text: [ideology, framework] (I'll use communism)
high PO: "communism is based on the government stealing from the people"; "communism is attractive to the youth"; "Political experts warn about its danger"; etc.
High objectuality, high PO, low TO: "communism says that [...]"; "communism recommends [...]", "communism attacks religion"
High TO, PO, objectuality: "'communism' is a term used to describe a political ideology"
*all of these are subjective, so truth value is irrelevant.
Example 4: Analyzing a juxtaposition in a picture
Text: the juxtaposition from the picture
This underlines why PO is important. There is something fundamentally lacking if you don't know the subject is the juxtapostion in the picture, even if the beliefs are about something that does match aboutness ("this combination of colors").
Other significant cases include when the text is vague or ambiguous ("identity", "cause", "France", [location that is actually a maze that is actually a simulation]).
I'm not making a list with "high PO" etc. here because the fiction book example generalizes fairly well
4. Taxonomy of interpretations
The categories below are likely not highly surprising, but even if they are obvious you probably can't use them if your model of interpretation still is a fuzzy cloud (in these aspects).
4.1. Based on subject
Often you aren't focused on directly parsing the letters about you, except instrumentally for another objective. In this framework I'll explain such phenomena by you're effectively reading a related abstract phenomenon T', not T. In other words, redefining the text if you're focused on something else.
Thus, below are some 'derivative texts'[14] categories (and implicitly, categories for interpretations that analyze these):
This adds recursion: You can interpret how mathematicians interpret how economists interpret some economic recession, or the recession itself. You may also think of this as a noncommutative "textual algebra".
4.2. Based on interpretation content
There are many ways for something to be about the text. I'll highlight 3 particularly important types
4.3. Hypothetical vs actual
I note that there can be a "mix" of hypothetical and actual. E.g. hypothetical interpretation made by actual people (in a hypothetical scenario) of an actual text
These distinctions are mostly obvious and uninteresting, so I won't elaborate more.
A few examples regarding this taxonomy
5. End
This introduction is hopefully sufficiently comprehensive enough. For integration into your daily life, you may use the questions "is this an interpretation?" and "what type of interpretation?" (both according to the framework above).
I'll correct any mistake or unclear aspect.
Depending on success of this post, I plan further work on interpretations, and lack of clarity as a phenomenon.
Some conclusions:
Further reading
As implied in the beginning, I didn't find interesting preexisting work tailored specifically to this question. However, the following article may be interesting:
using it because it's presumably more rigororous, and also because the interpretation article is currently a disambiguation page.
see this Cambridge book excerpt
humans cataphorically and anaphorically integrate information into sensorimotor stimulation
even if it were for humans, such ~metacognition is arguably a separate phenomenon.
e.g. "Their interpretation was": [think X is false], [punch the perceived threat], etc.
in other words, how do you read a property?
simplifying to the relevant aspects also happens with with words like "cause", "[X's] fault", "motivation", "way". I suspect that the same phenomenon applies here.
example: if you had a vague philosophical insight from a book, you might say that's your interpretation of it, but the vague philosophical insight isn't "about" the book
using "semiotic content of T" to clarify that extratextual context like author's biography, book smell etc. are not included.
here, originality means "the property of being an origin"
some may say that other works (e.g. Minecraft) practically include the wiki, community, etc. I agree with this ~functionalist view, and consider that this makes the name of a work inherently ambiguous in this aspect.
if the agent wanted to critique the review only etc., they still need to build in parallel some sort of understanding of the book, and also orient their cognition towards that (PO).
this is why I put TO as a "fundamental" dimension: this operationalizes "interpretations of X better be about X"
or ontologically parasitic, if you prefer.
as per the sections on ambiguity, main dimensions, and types
for example, "intention", "reading", or even "conclusion".
my suspicion is: not fully