ABSTRACT
Interpretation and interrogation are not the same. Yet they occupy the same space. The hermeneutics of Heidegger, Gadamer, and Ricoeur offer an account of interpretation that moves away from the egocentric, subject-based, self-directed conception that is most commonly associated with Husserlian phenomenology. There is no authority here, only authenticity and authorization. Similarly Merleau-Pontean interrogation opens up a field in which questioning takes priority, where the answers are located neither in the questioner, nor in that which is questioned. In both cases, interpretation and interrogation happen in the space of difference where the production of discursive meaning is decentered and "praxical." Their task is to raise questions rather than answer them, to ask about rather than conclude for, to make a place where positions can occur rather than speak from positions.
