On An Interpretation Of Interpretation:

Phenomenological Hermeneutics?
Interpreting One Hundred Views Of Mount Fuji By Hokusai

	This paper concerns itself with a general phenomenological investigation of the process of interpretation. I hope to balance a systematic theoretical exposition with a non-systematic practical approach by examining (with the reader or listener of this essay) a small number of woodblock en-gravings from the series 100 Views Of Mt. Fuji by Hokusai.
	In the first section of this paper I will discuss my vision of the hermeneutic process. I will discuss what constitutes, in accordance with my understanding, the phenomenological grounds for the process of hermeneutic comprehension, the complex involvement of a hermeneutic(al) circle on various levels of engagement, the role of deconstruction, the nature of the relationship between phenomenological and hermeneutical perspectives, how interpretation is evaluated and the consequences this exposition of mine has for a philosophical treatment of this subject.
	In the second section I will supplement this previous theoretical exposition through a selective investigation of certain aspects of this hermeneutic process by putting in play a practical examination of a small number of prints selected from 100 Views Of Mt. Fuji. This series of mono-chromatic prints, 102 in total, was published in two small books in the 1830's with its concluding volume released in the late 1840's. As an artwork I find it has a remarkable depth and, in our engagement with this text, it has, I believe, the potential to illuminate certain aspects of this complex process of interpretation. Most of the prints in this series certainly appear to be set up with this intention of interpretation, namely, an invitation to interrogate, and be interrogated by, this visual text and discover within its confines more than that which appears to merely present itself on a first inspection. 
	A short `conclusion' will attempt to integrate these two sections of this paper, or essay, summarizing the miscellaneous aspects focused upon in our practical treatment of this process of interpretation and the role they might play within our understanding of the totality of the hermeneutic process in general?

An Introductory Theoretical Exposition

1.	Phenomenological Grounds For Hermeneutic Comprehension 

	In the way of a first point I would like to note my acceptance of the position, as proposed by Gadamer, e.g., that sees the interpretive process dealing with a clarification of what we already understand and not directly with what we as yet do not appreciate. All understanding appears to be mediated from where we already find ourselves in the world; in this world of already pre-constituted meaning and meaningfulness. Hermeneutic comprehension is in these terms of reference none other than a clarification of what is already, more or less, to hand. We may be mistaken but we can never be absolutely mistaken! Our very engagement with a text itself recognizing the intentional object of our examination as an artifact of human intentionality. By text is included all deposits of human intentionality although in the context of this paper artistically intended depositional traces are more the objects of our investigation. 
	A tentative differentiation between aesthetically oriented and non-aesthetically oriented texts turning, with respect to the former, on the reinforced presence of provocational structures or functions; i.e., those structural-functions that provoke the reader of that text to follow an essentially intersubjective promotion of the resolution of textually introduced dissonance by the means of some pathway, or pathways, as more or less dictated by their experiential reception of that text subjected to aesthetic reflection. Let me briefly unpack what this definition exactly means in a hermeneutically oriented frame of reference whose concern is the interpretation of an aesthetic, or artistic, dimension.
	In an initial reading of an aesthetic text certain relatively non-controversial evocational structures will be discerned. These structural-functions analogue certain distinct phenomena on a 1:1 basis. E.g., the depiction of a wave in a representational artwork in a visual medium will present a wave-like form which in the context of the artwork and its intended audience will be more or less automatically interpreted as a wave-representation. The disposition of these evocational structures in the artwork's presentation will introduce an element of relative dissonance in those features that appear to differ from the overall flavour of that artwork. A provocational structure functioning in a provocational mode, first, by virtue of its difference to the rest of the text, and second, by virtue of the resolutional pathway, or pathways, suggested by the artwork through those elements of analogical similarity that link dissonant foreground with consonant background. These particular points will be discussed later on in this paper in a more practical setting. The dispositional nature of this provocational dissonance and provoked resolutional directedness establishing the particular style, and general genre, of that text.
	In our initial engagement with a text we bring to that intentionally formed artifact certain pre-judgments or prejudices. To a certain extent the text also announces itself. Surrounding the text is an aura of indications that bring to our attention what type of text we are basically dealing with. To this extent the text has a certain vocation. An aesthetic text announcing itself via an aesthetic aura; those aspects of the material expression that suggest that the text has aesthetic pretensions, e.g., a title, an aesthetic layout, some form of artistic frame, a complexity of design, a promised richness of aesthetic interest if subjected to the appropriate depths of aesthetic reflection, etc.
	To break through this textual aura the text must be interrogated in such a manner as to allow it to also interrogate us; in the midst of this reciprocity a virtual conversation is effectively put into play along with an appropriation of the text and its reciprocal appropriation of us; an appropriation complete with all forms of interpretation as a form of reaction to this unfolding psychic state of interaction.
	Although our prejudices are brought to bear upon a text in our interpretation of it, in historical time and space, an existentially open interpretation is only gained, in my opinion, by the imposition of a transcendental suspension that balances those prejudicial appropriations by entertaining those same structural-functions with a certain equal degree of suspicion. All forms of judgment as I have argued elsewhere, whether hermeneutical, phenomenological, existentially responsive; whether aesthetical, ethical, essential, pragmatical, etc., must be conducted through the auspices of an informed transcendental suspension. In my own phenomenological examination of the phenomenon of judgment it is my understanding that the act of judgment is entered and left through the auspices of the transcendental suspension; a psychic balance put in place between analytical processes and synthetical processes, a neutralization and transcendence of all forms of value, e.g., factual, aesthetic, ethical, etc. In the midst of this informed transcendental suspension the existential spontaneity of the act of judgment can manifest its re-interpreted appropriation and concomitant appropriateness of judgment as its response to the interpreted text to hand. This introduces us, via the transcendental suspension, to the hermeneutic circle, in all its levels of complexity, whose productivity establishes the very performance of interpretation.

2.	Hermeneutic And Hermeneutical Circles

	At this stage I would like to introduce a distinction between a hermeneutic circle and a hermeneutical circle. The latter being the basic phenomenological form of the former when considered as a phenomenon in its own right; a phenomenon that sees the development of textual meaning and con-textual meaningfulness regardless of whether such significance is generated in a phenomenologically motivated investigation, a hermeneutically oriented examination or a general existentially driven entertainment of a text either in the act of being read or in the midst of that creative act involved in its manufacture. In our engagement with a text various overlapping hermeneutical circles are also engaged and exercised in the trans-textual appreciation of that text. E.g., as in the relationship between the parts of the text and the totality of that text, between that text and other texts of a similar genre, between that text and its cultural milieu, between that text and our acquaintance with the sum total of all other texts that have been brought to our attention, etc. Central to each level of circular hermeneutic activity lies a hermeneutical circle of meaning-meaningfulness creation-recreation entered and left through a moment of transcendental suspension and exercised through moments of transcendental analysis/reduction and transcendental synthesis/reconstitution. In our passing from various levels of relative textual meaning to relative contextual meaningfulness the moment of transcendental suspension allows us to engage such a potential level of intentional interrelatedness whilst the moments of analysis and synthesis allow us to actualized, or re-actualized, intentional constitution being thematized, or re-thematized, therein or there between. Put simply suspension allows us to engage that already pre-constituted whilst analysis and synthesis mutually re-constitutes meaning and meaningfulness respectively in and between those levels of hermeneutical appropriation currently subjected to conscious entertainment. I have argued elsewhere that analysis is a phenomenologically oriented process of essential description whereas synthesis is a hermeneutically oriented process of interpretation or prescription. In an aesthetic text evocational structures simulate and stimulate phenomenologically oriented investigational processes, whereas, in an informative contrast, provocational structures are the province of a more hermeneutically oriented process of contextualization. However, it must be realized that these three moments co-define each other and cannot stand alone. E.g., the balance of analysis and synthesis (partially) co-defines the moment of suspension, suspension minus analysis co-defines synthesis, suspension minus synthesis co-defines analysis. Although all this might sound complicated in truth a very simple series of ideas is encapsulated, namely, engagement is met through suspension; meaning and meaningfulness is generated through analysis and synthesis respectively; and, all terms define each other with no one term being completely self-dependent or independent, i.e., all facets of the process are interdependent (and non-self-referential). By the means of this intentional fluidity significance can be both engaged and created or re-created. Essentially, each term in this circular process is given its significance through the deconstruction of its co-defining partners.

3.	The Role Of Deconstruction In Interpretation

	Deconstruction is one of those fashionable terms in certain circles of philosophical endeavour and other related enterprises. However, I wish to re-appropriate this term in accordance with my own phenomenological-hermeneutical interpretation, imposing a definitive transformation in significance upon its otherwise vague and generalized meaning and meaningfulness. As just previously noted I stated that each dialectical moment in a circular process of semantic generation was co-defined by the other two moments of that process. Therefore, I would propose that through a deconstruction of one or two of those moments some other moment can be relatively defined or re-constructed. E.g., a deconstruction of suspension I would argue would produce either the moment of analysis or synthesis, the deconstruction of analysis would produce first a moment of suspension and then, on further deconstruction, would produce synthesis, and vice versa with respect to the deconstruction of synthesis.
	I perceive that various levels of deconstruction can be exercised. E.g., a logical self-deconstruction would involve our noting that a series of co-involved logical propositions would, or should, deconstruct when taken as a totality. Recently, I have come to the conclusion that the world of conversation is not non-contradictory, that, indeed, contradiction is more the common currency and the only thing logical about it is the need to resolve, to varying degrees, the dissonance induced by such discourse. That, in effect, in a natural language logical discourse is naturally, but non-ostensively or covertly, dissonant in a cognitive domain. Moreover, the natural endeepening of this deconstructive process, in a deconstruction of the logical sphere, reveals the dialectical nature underpinning the semantic generation of textual meaning and contextual meaningfulness, hence dialectical deconstruction. In this  treatment of the dialectical as trans-logical and the logical expression as the cognitive content of a conceptually-oriented act of intentionally constructed  linguistic activity the in-depth deconstruction of the same must result in the deconstruction of the individually treated aspects of suspension, analysis and synthesis. Deconstruction then is nothing mysterious in this regard, merely an undoing of a certain structural-function through a process of suppression, reversal, re-construction and/or re-constitution. To a certain extent deconstruction is a re-contextualization of that structural-function back into its associated horizon of co-definitional thematization. Lastly, I perceive a third level of deconstructive-philosophical activity, namely the deconstruction of the phenomenal/phenomenological nature of the hermeneutic(al) circle itself through the overt/covert imposition of closure upon the phenomenal/phenomenological sphere of constitution initiating an automatic inverse process of covert/overt deconstruction. The phenomenally and/or phenomenologically `constituted' cannot absolutely be considered to be `just the constituted' except provisionally without some reference to a transcendental activity of `constituting' hence the desire to force such overt/covert closure must cause some form of a covert/overt irruption of meaning in order to preserve some semblance of meaning and meaningfulness under these extreme, unnatural conditions. 
	Hence in accordance with this overview just sketched deconstruction can be seen to operate naturally and philosophically on textual, contextual and trans-textual levels of constituted-constituting. Generally, in this paper, I will use this term deconstruction to mean a re-contextualization of phenomenological structural-functions (e.g., evocation) back into its associated hermeneutically oriented context, situation, horizon, etc; a returning of a meaningfulness to that `meaning' originally derived (and selectively deprived) through a process involving some form of phenomenal/phenomenological essential-analysis (which itself was realized through a process of deconstructing its associated horizon(s), situation(s), fields(s) of introduction, etc.). Effectively, this is achieved through a process of co-thematizational re-contextualization.

4.	Hermeneutical Versus Phenomenological Investigation

	Underlying the hermeneutical circle of suspension, analysis and synthesis respectively I envisage archetypal relationships that ground the constitution of phenomenal constitution and phenomenological investigation, namely, a corresponding circle between the transcendental moments of Ego, Object and World. By archetypal is meant an artificial, simplistic, primitive or fundamental vision of the phenomenological process in the constitution of phenomenal meaning or the re-constitution of the same in a process of phenomenological investigation. I have argued elsewhere that a suppression of one or two of these three moments results in one of six different types of value creation and recognition. E.g., aesthetic value has been described as a relationship promoted between the polarities of the intentional Object and the transcendental Ego (through a suppression of the moment of the World, i.e., through a suppression of the horizon or horizons currently engaged in the execution of those investigations and in the constitution of that investigated. This complex digression has been raised to indicate the nature of the role between phenomenological interest and hermeneutical interest, the latter having its center in the deconstruction of the former and its promotion in the latter, i.e., hermeneutical investigations are the result of a deconstruction of the phenomenological interest in essential-descriptions in a contextualization achieved through a returning of this phenomenal material back to a reconstruction or reconstitution  of the associated contexts or situations involved in such re-appreciation. As already noted the evocational-provocational distinction parallels this same relationship, matters of a more hermeneutical persuasion taking a greater interest in provocational structural-functions.

5.	The Phenomenon Of Hermeneutic Appreciation

	It is my understanding that from the basis of the relatively non-controversial, rapid appreciation of evocational structures an interpretive process takes place that sees a transformational movement from the reception of the inscribed phenomenal simulations depicted in the artwork under perceptual examination to the evoked re-simulation of the various phenomenal states of affairs analogued, or depicted, in the former. A wave-form, e.g., is either directly analogued, or depicted realistically and then analogued, and through such a translational transformation our conceptual understanding of a wave-like experience is simulated or, i.e., evoked. 
	A process of hermeneutic comprehension is a higher order process manipulating and experiencing the relationship between evocational translations and is more concerned with the intuitive analoguing of provocational structures. An experience of interpretive power and success being experienced through the resolutional satisfaction experienced through the sense of relief obtained in the establishment of an interpretation that promotes such an expansive hierarchically inclusive transformational facility. Although an interpretation can never be treated as absolute (except provisionally) the degree to which an interpretation integrates itself as an harmonious explanation of the evocational structures to hand is it to that extent to be regarded as more definitive in this provisional sense. In moving from one frame of reference to a higher order frame of synthesis the successful passage of the assemblage of those translated evocational structures establishing in direct proportion the relative merit of that interpretation. Moreover, the power of that relatively more successful integration of structure should also assist in the re-evaluation of those evocational structures and the resolution of previous problematic areas in our interpretation of that artwork. In this resonance between evocational and provocational levels of appreciation we can also introduce the concept of invocational structures. Evocational structures are normally read without much difficulty even if some are meant to be overwritten by the provocational reading of that artwork. On the other hand there are often structures in a work of art that need to have meaning either speculatively supplied and/or iconographically identified. The apparent provocationally resolved interpretation of the text canceling, suspending or reinforcing such invocational readings, or re-writing the same, in the context of that latest provocationally read interpretation. In this regard invocation, either speculative and/or iconographical in orientation, is placed halfway between an evocationally directed reading and a provocationally dictated reading. In the more practical second half of this paper I hope to demonstrate this intuition we have for interpretational competence based upon this sense of transformational expansion and translation, this sense of integration and interpretive power and the sense of provocational relief obtained in a relatively more powerful provocational reading of a text.

6.	The Philosophical Consequences Of This Exposition

	The dialectical nature of the intentional process, and its deposition of textual artifacts, has a series of important philosophical consequences which I would like to draw to your attention at the end of this paper. Suffice to say that we must adopt a middle path in our hermeneutical endeavour between an intentionally definitive absolutism and an intentionally non-definitive relativism without being locked into either or both positions. Moreover, we must also tread a path between a phenomenological process of description and a position that involves an element of hermeneutically derived prescription or interpretation in such a manner that allows us to arbitrate both aspects. However, let me note the collective ramifications of these various issues in the third, and last, section of this paper.

Part II - An Interpretation Of Interpretation In Practice

An Interpretation Of A Series Of Woodblock Prints 

	The following prints are selected from Hokusai's 100 Views Of Mt. Fuji. In this work, published in three volumes, from 1834 onwards, 102 views of Mt. Fuji are depicted with much ingenuity by Hokusai just after his famous series The 39 Views of Mt Fuji (actually 49 were eventually published in that series). This latter work was printed in colour in 1833 whereas the selections we will study are produced with black and grey inks only. In my opinion this use of a lack of colour, just after this former series, was a spur for Hokusai to look for an aesthetic richness in some other direction or dimension (other than colour). Indeed, most of these views bear a richness of potential interpretation with which in attempting to unravel I have used to highlight some of my own views on this subject of the nature of interpretation. 	
	From a phenomenological perspective it is my observation and belief that the intentionality of the artist is something that can be discerned in an artwork. However, this discernment of intention need not rule out an element of contradiction between competing interpretations on the grounds that intentionality need not be completely determined in its activity, or, for that matter, be purely confined to one logical frame of reference. On the other hand an approach that adopts a pure relativism or ambles around the edges of an artwork merely deconstructing its frame, or boundaries, I also find  equally misguided. The hermeneutic position which I wish to articulate essentially tries to avoid these two untenable extremes of the absolutist interpretation versus the relativist interpretation; adopting certain phenomenological-hermeneutical grounds in an attempt to navigate between, and transcend, the ideal of some definitive uni-modal declaration versus the activity of some non-definitive multi-modal performance. At the same time I also hope to bypass another pair of unnecessarily antagonistic polarities, namely, the exercise of phenomenological description versus hermeneutical interpretation or prescription. As I have argued in Part I both of these aspects co-define each other with the act of interpretation necessitating some form of essential or situational deconstruction central to the phenomenon under investigation. That meaningfulness is a returning of meaning to its situation or context, i.e., its horizon, whereas meaning is derived from a process that sees the deconstruction of the corresponding horizon, or situation, of that under investigation. Both of these processes becoming thematized through a process of mutual co-thematization, such an activity being re-viewed consciously through the auspices of a transcendental suspension defined, among other things, by a balance entertained between these two process-orientations.
	In a previous essay I argued that the fundamental aesthetic experience of an artwork, good or poor in the quality of its aesthetic construction or expression, was entertained as a resolution of dissonance which as a form of psychic relief could only be experienced as form of pleasure, namely, transcendental pleasure. But the question could be asked in the material or phenomenal presentation of an artwork how could an aesthetic dimension be discovered in what is essentially a superficial presentation viewed from the restrictions concomitant with that perspective under which it would be entertained? Put quite bluntly we could ask is there room for an aesthetic interpretation in conjunction with the reception of the phenomenal presentation of that artwork? With this problem in mind, among others, let us interpret together the following woodblock prints.

1.	No. 44: The First Hanging Scroll

	Would someone first like to describe what they see and also at the same time, if they would, tell us some of the thoughts they find themselves experiencing in the way of a response to this work of art? In this task we could ask ourselves what is seen; what are we meant to see; what would we expect these two characters depicted in the interpreted picture-space and time-moment of this print to be seeing; how do we construct, relate and evaluate these various interpreted levels of apparent perception, etc?

	For a start the print is titled "The First Hanging Scroll," suggesting in the form of a conceit that the first scroll was conceived as a type of window (an idea not without some resonance in the West with its later preoccupations over perspective, etc.). Thus our reading this scene as `a view through a window that looks like a painting' would be reinforced when we take the title into account. In my interpretation of this apparent intersubjectivity in interpretation, recognizing that at this early stage we should not argue for some form of provisional interpretive `objectivity,' it would appear that the reader of this printed text is provoked into seeing a certain state of affairs, a situation reinforced by the title. Now let me make a number of tentative observations in this regard.
	First, it seems that the artist did intend a certain reading of the text, at least initially, and later a re-reading of the same text in a certain intentional direction, or re-direction, in the form of a definitive retreatment of the former.
	Second, this retreatment seems to be somewhat forced, or, as I would like to term it, provoked.
	Third, the ostensively definitive direction of this provocation, as in this print, is highlighted by certain signs or messages that appear to reinforce the intersubjectivity, and apparent objectivity, of that interpretation. In other words the artist might also be inclined to a repetition of the central provocational motif by various means or other. Our reading of `this view through the window as like a painting on a hanging scroll' is further reinforced by the placement of calligraphy on the upper left-hand corner of the print as if on a scroll and the whole motif, just in case we miss the point of this image, is given further resonance by the picture on the other wall depicting a poem written in ancient seal script (which in its allusion to antiquity in turn reinforces the conceit of the idea of `the first hanging scroll').
	Fourth, that the image uses the careful disposition of certain evocational structures that allow us to make a relatively non-controversial first reading of that text that then provokes us, in this case, to make a relatively quick re-reading of it. By evocational structures (and functions) I mean the use of analogical structures that simulate in the interpreted space-time of the textual-image certain essential phenomenological patterns associated with our experience of the same outside the interpreted space-time configuration of that visual presentation. A phenomenological reading of the surface of that print would note a series of interrelated distinct phenomenal simulations, e.g., two (adult male) characters, window-likeness, mountain-likeness, room-likeness, the gesture of pointing, the use of a gesture that suggests surprise, etc. Now I am not saying that these evocative simulations are not interpreted, in another context they might well be read in some other fashion, only in their interrelationship they suggest a relatively non-controversial and straight forward description of what is to be intended by the artist in the way of a first reading of that text. These patterns evoke patterns of meaning and meaningfulness already pre-established in the minds of a pre-informed audience. A baby at an early stage, e.g., soon recognizes the visual depiction of a round structure with a smiling like `u' shape in the middle of it as a happy and friendly face. Evocation essentially works at, or from, this level of object recognition. Evocation is primarily a subjective process that is intersubjectively refined by virtue of the fact that such structural-functions are shared in an intersubjective phenomenological space-time by virtue of their repetition and social-psychological separation and manipulation through the medium of some form of language. Hence the e-vocative nature of such relatively fundamental articulation, a state of affairs reinforced by the fact that their presentation, or re-presentation, is hierarchically structured. E.g., window-likeness is contained in room-likeness, which is contained in space-likeness. E.g., a bald crown in the Japanese social context signifies an adult Japanese male in the the 19th century milieu of Hokusai and his immediate audience.
	Lastly, we must ask ourselves what exactly constitutes the provocational force that arises from the disposition of evocational structures as might be witnessed, e.g., by this visual text that we are currently studying? At this point I hope you will be patient with me and let me give a rather long winded disquisition on the nature of an aesthetic text, its introduction of dissonance and the aesthetic means adopted in the harmonic resolution of such a necessary element.
	Evocative structures are essentially read, in my opinion, on a thematic level; an attitude that asks what is it that is under the focus of our attention? On the other hand the aesthetic dimension investigates the provocative relationship between evocative structures. On this level of examination our consciousness is naturally directed towards the harmonic structures that are intuitively reproduced in our interpretive experience of the interrelationship of those evocative `descriptions.' On this understanding the mere relationship of evocational structures is not the prime object of our experiential focus, rather, it is the harmonic nature of that interrelationship.
	I have argued on numerous occasions that the phenomenological nature of harmonic experience consists of three dialectical moments, namely; to adopt a musical terminology, consonance, dissonance and resolution (through an accommodation between background consonance and foreground dissonance). The repetition of certain motifs and/or the overall tenor or flavour of the artwork creating a sense of psychic background experienced as a sense of consonance. Against this aspect of relative textual conformity, or apparent uniformity, the introduction of relatively different material creates a sense of dissonance; a sense of competition, conflict, temporary incongruence, cognitive discomfort, difference, etc. Such an aspect alerts our focal consciousness to attend to its sensory introduction. In the phenomenal midst of the total field of our perception, and interpretive reception, of that artwork this focus brings to the psychic foreground our greater conscious attention to the noticed dissonant aspect or aspects of that artwork. An appreciation of dissonance necessitates our integration of that phenomenal aspect back into its background field of consonance. This is achieved through some form of accommodation and the successfulness of that accommodation establishes the satisfactoriness of that resolutional process. As stated before this experience of satisfaction was identified as a process of transcendental pleasure as opposed to pleasure evoked from some other form of non-transcendental relief (transcendental by virtue of the fact that this aspect of consciousness is experienced at the trans-conceptual/trans-perceptual level of relationally oriented engagement).
	Provocation, I perceive, as taking on its forcefulness through two processes: by the presentation of its relative dissonance, and, the measures intuitively suggested, or dictated, by the artwork; constructed through the artistry of its artist or artists, for a successful accommodational resolution of that aspect of dissonance. Dissonance provokes us to take notice and the pathway, or pathways, suggested by the artwork for the resolution of that dissonance most likely provoking us to follow such a route in our aesthetic appreciation of that aesthetic phenomenon. Indeed, this successful experience of satisfaction, if present, verifying its pre-supposed aesthetic status.
	This complex argument as unraveled so far accepted we must now ask ourselves if it is possible to summarize the general nature of those preconditions thought necessary for this experience of transcendental satisfaction. I have given this question some reflection and in my opinion relative foreground structures must some way be able to connect with relative background structures through a process of accommodation by virtue of some structural-function entertained in common in our experience of both parties. By these means the distance between foreground and background can be collapsed or contracted in this regard and this explosive, or dissipating, psychic pressure can be neutralized, reversed and brought back into the fold of a relationship that encompasses a balance of this tension; a tension that is experienced as most harmonious when continually kept in an ongoing state of dynamic equilibrium. 
	The sheer presence of consonance is experienced as static and boring. On the other hand, the excessive introduction of dissonance psychically disrupting the aesthetic presence of that artwork. The relative excess of dissonance, if present, left after a process of resolution establishing the relative unsuccessfulness of that particular artwork as an aesthetic phenomenon.
	All forms of judgment involve some form of harmonization or resolution. That being the case we might well ask what is it then that establishes the phenomenal distinctiveness of the aesthetic process, or, at least, its conventional differentiation from the non-aesthetic?
	In coming to an answer of this question it recently struck me that in considering the psychic foreground of a representational painting, e.g., we must not confuse the representation of a foreground with those aspect of the image that act as a psychic foreground. In a sense we could say that the introduction of dissonance foregrounds that part of the artwork. This `foregrounding' being in a state of tension with that part of the visual text that relatively `backgrounds' itself. Hence in our deciphering of a visual representation we must take this distinction into account. In this regard let us return to this print we were examining. 
	Obviously the foreground is the room presented in this image. Conversely the background would be the `view' presented through the window. However, in asking what psychically foregrounds and backgrounds for us in this image it is not necessary for us to assume that they are directly and/or thoroughly connected to the former distinction treated in a representational mode. In this picture the overall room takes on the aspect of the psychic background. On the other hand our two characters, and to a slightly lesser extent, the view of the mountain through the window could be both nominated as that material relatively distinct from the psychic background of that room. By foregrounding the vista through that window it is indeed retreated as on a similar plane, in proximity, to that of the wall reinforcing this ambivalency in our interpretation of this feature. Do these two characters in this print see a landscape or a painting? Well the answer is more dialectical, namely, it is suggested that they see both. The difference in perspectives need not necessary cause a real conflict in this regard only an apparent dissonance between interpretations. In an analogous manner the representation of a landscape works in the same, or similar, fashion. There is the experience of an illusion of (a simulated three dimensional) reality whilst at the same time there is experienced the  (two dimensional) reality of (the perceptual basis) of that simulated illusion (and our recognition of that illusion as an illusion).
	The concern of a representational artist in the visual sphere is to simulate the presence of a three dimensional space on the surface of a two dimensional medium. It would appear that Hokusai is stretching this concern to that extent that `this desire to re-present the representation itself' becomes the object of his and our attention? Interestingly, Henry Smith in commenting upon this particular print draws our attention to the poem hanging on the opposite wall. The short poem reads something along the lines "Flowers bloom and fall before our very eyes, clouds come and go about the mountain peak." This same commentator states "I have not found the source of the poem but suspect that Hokusai intended to suggest another classical problem of pictures: how to capture change and movement on an unchanging surface. He himself has certainly managed to do it here by showing the dramatic reaction of a man confronted with the enduring question what is a picture?"
	In going about an answering of this previous question (what distinguishes an aesthetic dimension?) I would like to say, as a rule of thumb, that the psychic foreground is harmoniously integrated into the psychic background by virtue of some representational or analogical structure or structures seen to be held in common and there by allowing us to link, connect and contract these two aspects within the auspices of an ongoing self-integrating phenomenon. Now what constitutes the aesthetic nature of that resolution is the type of deconstruction engaged in. Let me elaborate this new and final twist in my current argument.
	In an archetypal phenomenology discussed elsewhere I asked myself what basic ingredients were necessary for an act of phenomenal presentation and for a phenomenological scrutiny, or appreciation, of the same. In this regard I came to the conclusion three polarities were necessary namely, a transcendental subject (to be referred to as an Ego), the transcendental nature of an intentional object (to be referred to as an Object) and the transcendental nature of an intentional horizon (to be referred to as the World as the transcendental collection of all possible horizons). Of course this reduction is artificial, never the less, with it a natural differentiation between the aesthetic and the non-aesthetic can be introduced through its use. We can perceive an aesthetic project as involving the relationship between an art-Object and Ego involved in aesthetic reflection. However, our minimum reduction involved three necessary elements hence the necessary involvement of the World must also be present but engaged therein in a suppressed fashion. I.e., in the relative promotion of the Ego-Object interaction there is a relative suppression of the World; i.e., a relative suppression of those associated horizons involved in the presentation of that Ego-Object interaction.  This suppression of the aspect of the World could be treated as a relative deconstruction of this aspect of horizon in the complex interaction between Ego, Object and World involved in an aesthetically oriented act of reflection. Let me discuss what is meant by this deconstruction of the phenomenal world or horizon.
	For a start let me say that dissonance first acts as deconstructive force on that part of the psychic background that is intuitively observed to be different from the overall complexion of the artwork. Provocation also tries to force through, through some form of accommodation, a natural process of hermeneutic integration in order to re-unify the psychic experience of that intentional state of affairs presupposed to be `an' artwork. An `artwork' with little, if any, dissonance would be merely attended to as a background and hardly noticed (like our response to the ubiquitous presence of musack in our commercial environment). Hence in this promotion of an Ego-Object relationship there is a relative suppression of an horizon or background. Moreover, as the instantiation of a hermeneutical interest is constituted through a contextualization of the text it follows that the essential-phenomenological orientation of evocational structures is to a certain extent collectively dissolved or deconstructed in order to realize this particular hermeneutical orientation. Essentially, hermeneutical investigation is a movement from text to con-text and that necessitates a relative deconstruction of the text, certainly at the level of our experience of the evocational structures analogued by that artwork under the (transcendentally imposed) `brackets' of the act of interpretation. However, the implication to be drawn from the trans-thematical nature of hermeneutic examination is that this process is not an aesthetic process per se! It may contribute to an enriched understanding of the text, context, artist, audience, etc., it contributes nothing directly to an appreciation of the aesthetic impact of such a phenomenon. E.g., one could listen to a  Catholic mass from the 16th century and enjoy its aesthetic potential without comprehending the Latin text. On the other hand a poem demands that its text be read and possibly interpreted. The evocational-provocational polarity through resolution (via the moment of transcendental suspension) returning context back to the being of text and allowing us to appreciate the aesthetic enrichment of that text through its provoked interpretation as a vital aspect of the aesthetic potential recognized to be more involved with, and centered in, the cognitive content of that type of artwork. Under the resolution of those provoked circumstances interpretation could then be treated as an essential part of that particular artwork and not merely a contextual ornament. In other words in a literary work of art dissonance is directly introduced, and resolved, in a cognitive-conceptual mode and not in a cognitive-perceptual modality (although, a poem, e.g., will evoke through language a succession of imaginative evocations of a phenomenal nature).
	I chose this particular print to first demonstrate that in our engagement with an artwork, and its engagement of us, a multi-dimensional world is re-created from the ostensively flat, (two dimensional) surface of that type of artwork  as re-viewed from the uni-modal perspective of the viewer or, rather, re-viewer. In the discussion of this print we noted the level of evocational structural-functions, their integration to some degree or other in a provocational synthesis, other dimensions of interpretation, e.g., an aesthetic dimension, an iconographic-invocational dimension, a speculative-invocational dimension in a provisional reconstruction of the artist's intentionality, a poetic dimension, even a dimension of humour. 
	Although we identify with the two people in the print and realize the view through the window is a landscape and not a painting in truth what is seen is actually a painting, or rather, a picture within a picture, a framed space within a framed space! In this sense the joke is made at our expense, and although the print is interpreted as simulating a certain temporal-spatial configuration, the true reality of the illusion is that we are staring at a two dimensional surface artistically contrived to suggest the relatively distinctive configuration of such an illusion (the illusory `reality' of that illusion in its simulation, or re-simulation, being reinforced through the aesthetic power of the provocational means used in its dissembling).

2.	No. 3: En No Gyoja Opens Mt. Fuji

	In this second print I would like to show that the multi-aspected and multi-dimensional nature of a potential interpretation is a process and as such takes time and a careful attention to detail.
	The vocational title and appearance of this print addresses an historical-mythical religious character, namely, the first person to dare to climb this sacred mountain. This person dressed in the religious garb of a hermit is sitting on the edge of the crater. There is the strong suggestion of powerful forces at work, a swirling wind, etc. A disconcerting note is the stability of the two shoes just sitting in the lower left hand corner. Perhaps, this energy is more spiritual, or metaphysical, than phenomenal? Perhaps we should look more closely at this text? A process of aesthetic interpretation is something that necessitates the exercise of aesthetic reflection, careful attention to details and a comparative examination of other works from this genre or similar?
	For a start this is the third print in the series and to a certain extent overrides the previous two. The first print revealed a beautiful portrait of the Shinto goddess of this mountain. The second print depicted a collective act of reverence in a group of people bowing towards this sacred mountain. In this third print this mountain is not now worshiped but more worshiped upon; this print depicting the `first' human to defy, and overcome, the taboos previously placed upon its sacred space, and thereby, in the process, `opening' the mountain to those pilgrims who wish to climb it as an act of worship or pilgrimage. In effect those first two images are overwritten, superimposed upon by this third image. In a sense we have a process of convocational meaning; a meaning and meaningfulness produced from outside the framed text of this particular print.
 	Although I might be wrong I also suspect Hokusai is overwritting the Buddhistic iconographical nature of this image by coupling the Buddhist hand gestures with the staff reminiscent of a typical Christian saint whose ideal engraved images created in the West would not have been unknown in Japan, certainly not unknown among artists where there was quite an interest in Western artistic fashions. I am reminded of miscellaneous Catholic icons in this regard, however, such a speculative invocation on my part may have little grounds to successfully reclassify this subjective-evocational aspect along more provocational lines. This is an interesting speculation, a prospect that might well be decided through a better knowledge of Japanese Buddhist iconography? Otherwise this feature would have to be assigned an iconographic invocation in the form that would most likely be read by certain informed sections of its intended audience .
	Lastly, let us look more closely into the swirling, mysterious, misty, emptiness of the crater. Clouds now take on demonic shapes, there is even one form with a staff echoing that held by this Buddhist hermit. How substantial is either world? Which one is echoing the other? Now we find a religious figure overcoming the powerful look of at least thirteen demonic images. Surely, from an examination of this print, we find ourselves coming to the conclusion that aesthetic reflection and hermeneutical interpretation of the various dimensions potentially maintained, or upheld, by an artwork necessitate a careful, patient, analytical attention and depth to detail besides the installment of an overall, systematically interpretive competence?

3.	No. 7: The Appearance Of Hoeizan 1707.

	I have included this print to merely introduce the next in which attention is uniquely paid to the small subsidiary cone that developed upon the side of Mt. Fuji after this last period of volcanic activity on this mountain, an incident imaginatively represented by this print. Interestingly, this image of violence and chaos is convocationally contrasted two pages beforehand by a very tranquil image of the mountain. We shall now look with some depth into the humour of the next print.

4.	No. 8: Part II Of The Same (Post-Explosion Of 1707)

	In this unique view of Mt. Fuji a small imperfection on the side of this mountain, a cone produced in the last phase of volcanic activity, is depicted. Why?! Is the intentional purpose behind this unique depiction merely descriptive?
	Let us look closely at the lower left hand panel at the group of three people arranged in that section of this view.
	The middle person of this trio appears to have a gourd-like extension on his ear. Some commentators treat this rounded structure as a tumour of some description. This structure is pointed to by the person on the extreme left and who appears to be looking at both the tumour and the mountain. The person on the other side of this person with the tumour points towards the mountain and looks at the tumour. There is an evocative sense of playful, inoffensive humour made at the expense of the man with the tumour. It would appear the group has collectively likened this tumour on this person's face as like the small cone on the flanks of Mt. Fuji. In a reinforcement of this interpreted observation we can note that the hat of the person with the tumour is lying (fallen) on the ground and that this difference also seems to emphasize the fact that this bare head is meant to be viewed with a greater degree of attention?
	Interestingly, we see depicted here, if this interpretation is correct, an analogical structure provocatively held in common by both the visual foreground and the visual background thereby allowing a process of resolution to occur in the integration of background and foreground through this element of accommodation. 
	Provocative structures, or motifs, are often repeated in an artwork and thereby found reinforcing the provocational pathway or pathways intended by the artist to be intuitively adopted by an audience in their resimulation and aesthetic re-integration of the structural-functional components of that artwork. 
	The panel on the right appears to reinforce the same type of analogy. This time a woman is humorously pointed to and looked at in conjunction with a collective looking at and a pointing towards the mountain. How are we to interpret this apparent resonance with the left-hand panel? At first I thought the woman may be pregnant and that this fact was more or less kept hidden from us by the attitude of her body to the viewer of this print compounded by its concealment in her vestments? We needn't rule this interpretation out? The woman does have a contented smile, may be that is her secret? However, her bottom is highlighted by the large hat held just behind her. Moreover, it seems her bosom is also accentuated and that the most likely intended object of comparison is certain prominent aspects of her overweight condition. 
	Hokusai, I have surmised, couldn't resist using the same analogical structure one more time? Note the man smoking a pipe looking at the mountain. The pipe seems to happily analogue the small volcanic cone on the flanks of this mountain seen just above the head of this smoker?
	So what might we learn from this particular print? First, foreground structures it would appear must be linked with background features in order to accommodate dissonant foregrounding; discharging the difference of dissonance into the integrity of the overall design that structures that work of art. Second, that the same, or similar, motifs can often be found repeated reinforcing in the process the provocational pathway(s) for resolutional accommodation indicated and stressed by that work or art. Lastly, relatively non-controversial evocational structures are manipulated to achieve this intention of provocation and its forcing or confering upon the text of a certain `correct' or `more appropriate' manner to its `being read.' Note that this `correct' reading, or readings, cannot be accepted as either absolutely definitive in a uni-modal sense or be purely accepted as speculative in a multi-modal display of relativism. However, interpretive competence is a relative estimation, and measure, of how successfully certain interpretive proposals deal with all, or most, of the structural-functions, and their interpreted hierarchical interrelationship, discerned within the confines of that text; that text itself being placed within certain closely associated predetermined contextual parameters, e.g., those influences attendant upon other texts in that genre, textual auras, the general presence of culture and cultural allusions, etc.

5.	No. 34: Fuji In A Bamboo Grove

	Not all prints need have an interpretive depth centered in some cognitive aspect, e.g., in a religious or political frame of reference, in a humorous setting, or as a text with a hidden message to decipher, etc. The following print is one of the most aesthetic views in this series but does not initially appear to have a provocatively structured cognitive hermeneutic reading although a series of speculative-invocational readings could always be generated with varying degrees of interpretive competence. 
	First, let us look at some of the aesthetic forces in play in this view, and, second, let me offer a tentative invocational interpretation.
	In this scene the overall psychic background is the foreground, namely, the bamboo grove. In contrast to this the mountain is foregrounding itself and in a sense coming through this grove. Note the bamboo take two forms, young shoots and graceful older stems. Note how the stems of the older bamboo echo the left-hand slope of Mt. Fuji. On the other hand note how the slope of the ground beneath the grove echoes the right-hand slope of this mountain. Thus we can establish an analogous relationship between `backgrounding' foreground and the `foregrounding' background further accommodating dissonant and consonant features. The side shoots of the young bamboo and the grasses beneath in a sense also echo, or reflect, the downward drooping leaves of the mature bamboo. 
	If I had to read into this vista the semblance of at least a subliminal message I would hazard a guess to the effect that the older bamboo obtain their maturity through echoing, in sympathy, the grace of Mt. Fuji. On the other hand tough brittle plants are creatures of death in not knowing how to bend before the winds of adversity (to paraphrase verses from the Taoist classic the Tao Te Ching). Such a reading is speculative; an invocative reading brought to the text that may bring an evocative richness that may or may not be overtly/covertly intended by the artist.

6.	No. 40: Fuji At Sea

	Here we have another famous view from this series in many ways, for us today, evocative of the visual puzzles at work in the art of Escher).
	The first thing to note is that evocative wave-forms occupy three quarters of these two pages and thus the foreground essentially `backgrounds,' the differential `spray' cum `birds' ensuring that this dominant dissonant foreground `foregrounds' accentuating the height of the major wave. The Japanese reading this work more from right to left seeing the spray first and then finding it metamorphose into a flock of plovers. In the background the sides of Mt. Fuji echo as if another wave-form, the row of trees echoing the dark passage of water beneath the crest in the curving body of the wave. 
	In this print we have an example of what I call revocational meaning; a section of the artwork canceling out a first reading, e.g., an evocational level of meaning, and rewritting it in a provocative manner. In the same fashion the plovers in turn being re-re-written as spray in a circular like fashion at the center of this print. All in all a charming picture that also convocationally alludes to a number of other prints by Hokusai on the same dynamic theme of a giant wave.

7.	No. 60: Fuji In A Window

	Here we have a second view of Mt. Fuji being seen through a window. Through the same window we also see a flock of geese; iconographically linked with the end of day. The writer, most likely a poet, has just finished writing his text. In a moment of yawning (look at this image upside down to confirm this reading) his body enters a pose that simulates the structure of Mt. Fuji as seen through the window. The arms form the slopes, his open mouth analoguing the crater on the peak of this volcano. The same analogical structure being further reinforced, through repetition, by the round rim on the incense burner. The moment of the yawn is also echoed in the round moon shaped window. Perhaps the mop on the wall, also present in our other window print, is invocationally symbolic of a cleaning and clearing of the cobwebs and dust of the mind? In some measure the viewer is invited to read into this scene a short poem perhaps a haiku, the following is my poetic interpretation of this scene...

			As I yawn and stretch
			hear a flock of passing geese
			speak for the mountain.

8.	No. 68: Fuji And The Foreign Embassy

	This print appears to provoke political overtones, a political reading of this text. A Korean embassy, or a festival simulation of foreigners, is on its apparent way to the capital. Hokusai treats them as politically not equal to the Japanese with a subservient message written on the two banners seen in the print, reading, coming to the (Japanese) Court. The Koreans are all looking at the mountain looming over them and it is silently accepting their unwitting diplomatic submission. Is this interpretation a provocative one or merely an iconographically or speculatively inspired invocational reading on the part of the person who makes this association? I believe this reading is strengthened by the fact that all Koreans are looking up at the mountain whereas the Japanese bystanders are merely observing this "posture of respect."
	A problem presents itself, in a systematic interpretation, as to why sand cone simulations of Mt. Fuji occur in the bottom right hand corner beneath the signpost (echoing the two Korean banners). Perhaps these simulations of Mt. Fuji merely indicate the presence of a park or garden, or perhaps some religious or semi-religious festival?).

9.	No. 72: Fuji Through A Web

	The near absence in this print of Mt. Fuji is in itself provocative. Convocational evidence from this series forces us to look for its presence or some trace of its presence. The vocational title of this print also reinforcing this search. The pennant shaped grey patch in the upper left corner being eventually seized upon to fulfill this task. 
	The aesthetic economy in this print between the three obvious elements in its composition, namely, the spider, its web and the decaying maple leaf immediately suggesting to the Japanese mind a pictorial haiku. The commentary by Henry Smith supplying one from the famous haiku poet Basho...

			Hey spider! How do you sing,
			in what key?
			Wind of autumn.

	In this print the spider is upside down. Are we to assume that we see Mt. Fuji from its point of view? Can we also read into this picture then a metaphorical understanding of life, complete with Buddhist allusions, that desire is a snare, all is change, all worldly ambitions are unsatisfactory (like when the spider discovers it has caught only a leaf)..?

8.	No. 51: At the Foot Of Mt. Fuji

	This print has puzzled a number of commentators. It seems to demand an interpretation but what is the correct reading? Would the audience of Hokusai's time be able to read it, or, can this task be accomplished if we were to better analyze it?
	The vocational title tells us that we are at the foot of the mountain. Four women with identical baskets are starting to move off again along a path? Two male figures carry two similar baskets each. One still seems to be resting? Behind these male figures is an authoritarian figure with a square jaw, a staff, arms crossed, a conical hat and his sight removed from view under its brim.
	How are we to interpret this scene? Any suggestions? What is the intentional purpose in this picture of the conical hat belonging to this standing figure without a basket, perhaps overseeing these porters? Might we not assume, knowing something about Hokusai's style, that this hat analogues the mountain soaring above these foothills? In which case we might assume that the mountain is also an overseer of the people beneath `its not seeing nor being seen' psychic presence, but, for all that, determined in its stance to exercise its own form of supervision in the manner its sees fit. In essence the mountain stands but never sleeps? Extending this pictorial metaphor might we also read this line of porters as a lava flow starting and stopping at the foot of this mountain; the right-hand man coming up off/out off the earth, the far left woman having come to a stop.

Part III - The Consequences of A `Conclusion'

	This paper in some aspects might well seem to resemble more of a political manifesto for a philosophical understanding of the hermeneutic project than a carefully argued exposition of the same? A number of subtexts also indirectly present themselves in these few pages and in being alluded to may seem to complicate our appreciation of the essential terrain on this hermeneutic landscape? However, in arriving at a conclusion, let me redress this apparent confusion by reinstating the relationships between these bits and pieces that I believe inhabit this intentional territory and its appreciation. To begin, let me look at the various ways an artwork can speak to us and in our being spoken to our being able to speak to it. To achieve this task let me summarize the following hermeneutic format.
	In our addressing an artwork our hermeneutic interest has already read the aesthetic aura that surrounds works of intentional creativity. A picture is always framed by the spatio-temporal nature of its medium. This vocational aspect must be broken into in order to comprehend the aesthetic nature of that phenomenological-hermeneutical investigation.
	In breaking through the aesthetic aura evocational structures are first met. These structures essentially analogue distinctive phenomena and generally are non-controversial. However they can be re-written (overwritten or underwritten) by revocational treatment or influenced by convocational allusions to other texts relatively close to that subject matter by reference of style, author, genre, apparent intent, etc.
	Superimposed upon evocational structural-functions might next be found invocational interpretations either supplied by speculative supplements or offered to us through iconographic forms of pre-identified representation. 
	Provocational designs being experienced along objectively intersubjective or intersubjectively objective avenues of approach. Provocative by virtue of their dissonant announcement and the effectively forced manner of their resolution. Resolution being achieved through accommodational structures that function as a transformational passage between psychic foreground and background. The same mechanism being reinforced through a repetition of the same provocational motifs. Such processes directing an intentional response whose evaluated competence depends on the degree of associated provocational force, repetition of such motifs, overall coherence of interpretation and the degree an adopted interpretation systematically encompasses all, or most, evocational structures.
	Although an interpretation is anticipated through the historicity of our being and its accumulation of prejudices, as prejudgments, an apparent objectivity is returned through the auspices of an informed transcendental suspension, itself developed through a balance between transcendental processes of analysis or reduction and transcendental processes of synthesis or reconstitution; transcendental by virtue of the nature of that access gained through the transcendental suspension itself.
	To some extent one might like to claim that as objectivity is simulated in transcendental consciousness that only  objectivity objectifies but once an objectivity is objectified it looses its objectivity and can only be considered as that intended objectivity on provisional grounds. On the nature of intentionality my motto would be no absolute uni-modality - no relative multi-modality. Intentions can only take the middle path between a phenomenological absolutism and a phenomenological relativism. Moreover, there can be neither pure hermeneutical interpretations nor pure phenomenological descriptions. In this regard text is as dependent upon context as a reading of context is dependent upon text. Overt or covert closure of one from the other, or, encapsulation in a definitive interpretation or the absolute disembodiment of intentionality, only opening up that text and its con-text to processes of covert or overt deconstruction either on a logical, dialectical or transcendental level of exposition.
	Through the dependence of text upon context, and vice versa, an experience of textuality must be entered and left through the pre-textual; i.e., the existential spontaneity of the ongoing present as it presents the simulation of itself in and through the informed presence of the transcendental suspension. Moreover, it follows that an appreciation of the performance of textuality; whether pre-textual, textual or contextual; whether creative or re-creative, must be trans-textual, i.e., transcendental in orientation. But as the transcendental is the constituting perspective of all perspectives it thus must be no-perspective. Hence, although an apparent objectivity can be `realized' through the activity of transcendental constitution such a directedness can never be absolutely realized; can never be displayed or performed, in a phenomenal or phenomenological arena without being constituted. However, being-constituted it can be neither purely one nor the other, opening itself up to deconstruction if it were to try this impossible manoeuvre; this attempt to become either `constituted' or `constituting,' as impossible to contemplate as a one-sided coin! 
	As I have argued that all meaning and meaningfulness is co-defined in the hermeneutic(al) circle it follows that all reality, whether described or interpreted, can only be simulated; a presence presenting without presence, or, an absence absenting without absence. The vision of this hermeneutic project transcending both a philosophy of presence and a philosophy of absence, and doing so by taking a middle path between the authoritarian rigidity of an intentional absolutism and the destructive, aimless performance of an intentional relativism. 
	In this regard I would like to make the following comments, in the way of a metaphorical observation and conclusion, that Hokusai never shows a panoramic view from the top of this mountain nor a view of the very center of this volcano; showing its crater as an ominous dark void (no. 3) or as a black lake (no. 76). That for Hokusai the edge of this crater is dialectical, dark, damp, demonic, numinous, endlessly self-duplicating, the edge of difference, a place of dread, deep, explosive, dangerously empty, threatening immanent deconstruction (of `transcendent' structuralization)..?
	That even though every one of those prints revolves around the mysterious sacred presence of that mountain the mountain itself is centered in this mysterious absence, or, more corectly in this transcendental philosophy the mountain is the mountain by virtue of the fact that it transcends the transcendence of presence `and' the immanence of absence!
	That in the light of this existential philosophy these delightful prints can only be an interpreted experience when absolutist presence and relativist absence are both equally transcended, or deconstructed, re-experienced through forms of life grounded in the life-world. That ground that `grounds' without being a ground! That objective ground of intentionality that `objectifies' without being `object-ified,' whose objectification can only be provisional despite the re-confirmational richness of provisions it outfits our directed existential passage as a pilgrim through this multi-dimensional world of meaning and meaninfulness!

				Noël Tointon, Sydney and Leura, 6/10/91.

Appendix I - An Outline Of The Structure Of This Paper

On An Interpretation Of Interpretation:

Phenomenological Hermeneutics?
Interpreting One Hundred Views Of Mount Fuji By Hokusai

An Introductory Theoretical Exposition

1.	Phenomenological Grounds For Hermeneutic Comprehension 

Mediation from the already pre-constituted.
Phenomenal evocation - hermeneutical provocation.
Prejudices/pre-judgments; balance by transcendental suspension. 
Breaking through aesthetic/hermeneutic aura, virtual conversation, interogation of text/text's interogation of us.

2.	Hermeneutic And Hermeneutical Circles

Hermeneutic versus hermeneutical circles.
Co-thematiztional definition, intentional fluidity.

3.	The Role Of Deconstruction In Interpretation

Deconstruction through co-thematizational re-constextualization.
Logical Deconstruction.
Dialectical Deconstruction.
Phenomenal/Phenomenological Deconstruction.
The deconstructive response to overt/covert closure.

4.	Hermeneutical Versus Phenomenological Investigation

Ego, Object, World.
Promotion/suppression.
Phenomenlogical description/hermeneutical interpretation.

5.	The Phenomenon Of Hermeneutic Appreciation

Accommodation through transformational invariance.
Interpretational competence.
6.	The Philosophical Consequences Of This Exposition

Middle path between uni-modal intentional absolutism and multi-modal intentional relativism

Part II - An Interpretation Of Interpretation In Practice

An Interpretation Of A Series Of Woodblock Prints 

1.	No. 44: The First Hanging Scroll

The problem of a multi-dimensional treatment of a text.
Concept of provocational re-treatment.
Evocation-provocation., repetition of same.
Harmonic treatment of provocation: consonance - dissonance - resolution. Contraction, accommodation.
Foreground/background; psychic foregrounding/backgrounding.
Hermeneutic reading not primarily aesthetic but trans-thematic. Archetypal phenomenology. Concept of deconstruction. Text/con-text.
Aesthetic/hermeneutic contrast/measure of success.

2.	No. 3: En No Gyoja Opens Mt. Fuji

Demonstration that hermeneutic interpretation is a process.
Aesthetic/hermeneutic reflection need for concentration, attention to detail. 
Vocation (of aesthetic/hermeneutic aura).
Convocational overwritting.
Invocation - speculative and/or iconographic.

3.	No. 7: The Appearance Of Hoeizan 1707

4.	No. 8: Part II (After The Explosion Of 1707)

Accommodational analoging, transformational passage between foreground and background in the experiential process of provocative resolution.
Probable repetition of provocative structures.
Interpretive competence.

5.	No. 34: Fuji In A Bamboo Grove

An aesthetic interpretation.
A speculative invocational attempt at interpretation.

6.	No. 40: Fuji At Sea

Evocation/revocation - provocation. Convocational imput.

7.	No. 60: Fuji In A Window

An application of this hermeneutic format.

8.	No. 68: Fuji And The Foreign Embassy

A political interpretation. Provocative reinforcment.

9.	No. 72: Fuji Through A Web

Aesthetic economy of evocational structural-functions.

10.	No. 51: At The Foot Mt. Fuji

An interpretation of this puzzling presentation through the application of this hermeneutic format?

Part III - The Consequences of A `Conclusion'

Philosophical manifesto for the phenomenological understand-ing of the hermeneutic process? Hermeneutic conversation.
Summary of the hermeneutic format as proposed by myself.
	1.	Vocative [Value Promotion/Suppression].
	2.	Evocative. (Plus Revocation/Convocation).
	3.	Invocative: Speculative/Iconographic.
	4.	Provocative [Cognitively Coupled/Uncoupled].
Balance through transcendental suspension of `prejudice.'
The simulation/resimulation of objectivity.
Motto - No absolute uni-modality, no relative multi-modality.
Pre-text, text and con-text. 
Trans-texual appreciation of textual performance.
Transcending an absolutist philosophy of presence and relativist philosophy of absence.
Life-world. Ground that `grounds' without being a ground.
Provisionality - provisions. Existential treatment through the balance of/from the phenomenological/hermeneutical.

Appendix II - Schematization Of The Hermeneutical Circle

Transcendental Moments of World (Horizon), Object and Ego
respectively mirrored by...

Synthesis			Analysis			Preconstitution
Reconstitution		Reduction			Suspension
Context			Text				Pretext
Textual totality	Textual parts		Intertextuality
Other texts		Textual focus		Extratextuality
Consonance			Dissonance			Resolution
Background			Foreground			Midground
Future			Past				Present
Hermeneutical		Phenomenological	Existential
Provocation		Evocation			Vocation
Immanence			Transcendence		Phenomenal
Absence			Presence			Presentation...