ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the way in which the question of interpretation is most frequently posed in contemporary philosophy. The question of interpretation is the debate concerning the nature and goals of the activity that consists in interpreting. In the current sense of the word, a gloss is held to be interpretative of the text whose gloss it is: Its function is to interpret the text. The difference between the predicates of interpretability and interpretatively is therefore the following: In the case of the interpretable, nothing forbids us to interpret, whereas in the case of the interpretative, everything, or nearly everything, forbids us to refrain from interpretation. "Philosophical hermeneutics" is the name generally given to the argument that interpretation is necessary in order to use language. But certain philosophers would reject characterizing interpretation as the substitution of an interpreted text for an interpretable text. Both text and interpretation, taken in their formal senses, are only terms in an operation of substitution.
