THE RELEVANCE OF A READERS KNOWLEDGE WITHIN A PERSPECTIVAL VIEW OF READING

The widely endorsed practice of activating relevant knowledge prior to reading is challenged in this paper. It is argued that the endorsemen t is derived from a god's eye point of view that fails to acknowledge that relevance can be determined only by readers with respect to and i n the course of making their own interpretations. To sustain this conc lusion, the paper first outlines a perspectival (perspective-relative) view of reading that includes theoretical positions on the relation o f reading to inferring meaning, on the importance of understanding fir st-person intentionality, on the intelligibility of the concept of tex t information, on the distinction between literal and inferential inte rpretations, on what it means for readers to integrate their knowledge with text information, and on why the concept of interpretation is mo re suitable than the concept of comprehension for theorizing about rea ding. This perspectival view of reading provides a means to make coher ent sense of interpretations, at one and the same time, being justifia bly relative to readers' different beliefs and purposes for reading, a nd also constrained by universal interpretive standards of adequacy. T he paper thence proceeds to show that, as a consequence of the nature of inference, the relevance of a reader's knowledge to a text interpre tation is founded on a relation that is created as part of the interpr etative act, and is not something to be sought in its own right. The p aper concludes by arguing that having specific knowledge is not the ma in desideratum in interpreting texts. Rather, the main desideratum is using effectively the knowledge one has.