Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 09 – 13 What a thinker intends to accomplish and what the thinker’s work makes possible are not necessarily the same. This distinction is particularly important in the history of ideas, where concepts and arguments may acquire consequences very different from those intended by their authors. Gurvitch’s discussion ofContinue reading “Excursus 144 — On Authorial Intention and Intellectual Consequence”
Tag Archives: interpretation
Excursus 122 – On the Interpretive Authority of Early and Late Writings
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 07 – 27 When philosophers and scientists write repeatedly on the same subject over many years, an important methodological question arises: Which writings should be given the greatest interpretive authority when reconstructing the author’s position? A useful comparison may be drawn from the natural sciences. A scientist may publishContinue reading “Excursus 122 – On the Interpretive Authority of Early and Late Writings”
Excursus 121 – On the Interpretation of Early Philosophical Writings
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 07 – 27 The growing scholarly interest in the early writings of major philosophers and scientists reflects a legitimate desire to understand the genesis of their ideas. Early manuscripts, notebooks, correspondence, and unpublished reflections often reveal conceptual beginnings, abandoned alternatives, and the gradual emergence of positions that later becameContinue reading “Excursus 121 – On the Interpretation of Early Philosophical Writings”
Excursus 115 – On Reading Earlier Philosophers Through Later Traditions
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 07 – 08 Throughout the history of ideas, later intellectual traditions have frequently interpreted earlier thinkers through conceptual frameworks that arose only afterwards. Such reinterpretations may illuminate genuine continuities, but they may also obscure important differences by attributing to earlier authors concepts, intentions, or doctrines that belong primarily toContinue reading “Excursus 115 – On Reading Earlier Philosophers Through Later Traditions”
Excursus 093 – On the Two Stages of Historical Inquiry
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 07 – 19 Historical inquiry is often presented as a branch of the humanities, whereas the natural sciences are regarded as fundamentally different modes of investigation. In practice, however, modern historical research increasingly proceeds through two complementary stages that draw upon both domains. The first stage seeks to establishContinue reading “Excursus 093 – On the Two Stages of Historical Inquiry”
Excursus 084 – On the Distance Problem
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 07 – 19 The interpretation of intellectual traditions often proceeds through successive layers of commentary. A philosopher may be studied through later philosophers, a scientist through historians of science, or a political thinker through subsequent schools of interpretation. Such mediation is both inevitable and frequently valuable. Yet it alsoContinue reading “Excursus 084 – On the Distance Problem”
Excursus 025 – On Epistemological Distortion
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 06 – 30 The epistemological distortion identified by Bacon in Aphorism I:45 of the Novum Organum (1620)—the tendency of the human mind to impose order and correspondence where none existed—has numerous modern analogues. In theoretical physics, critics have argued that some highly mathematical theories risk allowing formal elegance andContinue reading “Excursus 025 – On Epistemological Distortion”
Hossein Jorjani 