Interpreting a text

Check Your Progress Exercise 2 
Note: i) Use the space given below for your answer. 
ii) Check your progress with the model answer given at the end of 
the unit. 
1.
What do you understand by textual and contextual reading? 

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BLOCK –I 
Text and Context 
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2.
Explain two integral ingredients of interpretation. 
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1.4 MEANINGS AND CONTEXTS 
Meanings change as contexts change. For example, Filmer’s 
Patriarcha
(1680) 
which believed that all kings are Adam’s heir and were absolute and divine rulers 
was challenged by John Locke’s book 
Two Treatises of Government
(1689). 
Locke said that absolute monarchy is not acceptable and it is not possible to 
prove that all kings are Adam’s heir. Even in the situation wherein both Filmer 
and Hobbes spoke about political obligation, the nature of ruler was different. For 
Filmer, the political obligation was justified in the name of divinity of the king. 
For Hobbes, political obligation was justified in the name of contract done 
between men for self-preservation of individuals. As facts are dynamic, no 
reading is innocent. They are filtered through and coloured by other reader’s 
readings. There is a need for regular reappraisal of one’s own received values and 
validity of interpretations. There can be plurality of theories. Lakatos called it 
“three-cornered fight”. 
Finding truth is a process of constant validation and falsification. However, it is 
not necessary that the process of finding truth is always done in fairness. When 
the process of finding truth relies on fairness, then the product is called 
scholarship. When the process of finding truth is based on partisan cause, then 
the product is called politics. For Terence Ball, scholarship is not politics and 
politics is not scholarship.

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