Inter-Cultural Interpretation Of Cultural Phenomena

	In the second version of this paper I will re-explore, and re-develop, a phenomenological-hermeneutical approach towards the subject of inter-cultural interpretation and the question of the commensurability of this type of endeavour. I will argue that although barriers between fields of interpretation are experienced with a certain degree of resistance their existence is one of the necessary features for a process of interpretation to take place. 
	In this exposition I will adopt an examination of the phenomenological nature of repetition in order to give a simplified account of the nature of the relationship between textuality and interpretation. This analysis will then be used in an examination of the natures of metaphor and question and the interrelationship between these two important aspects in the interpretation of texts. Lastly various aspects of the interpretive process will be noted as facilitating inter-cultural commensurability.
	The import of my exposition being that although intercultural interpretation is a potentially difficult process to engage in those barriers once traversed actually help to establish the hermeneutic value released in all forms of inter-cultural engagement.

						 Noël Tointon, Sydney, 15.9.93

Inter-Cultural Interpretation Of Cultural Phenomena

(Version II)

	In this paper I would like to explore, and develop, a phenomenological-hermeneutical approach towards the subject of inter-cultural interpretation and the question of the commensurability of this type of endeavour. I will argue that although barriers between fields of interpretation are experienced with a certain degree of resistance their existence is one of the necessary features for a process of interpretation to take place. Therefore, in this light, I will argue that although intercultural interpretation is a potentially difficult process to engage in those barriers once traversed actually help to establish the hermeneutic value released in such inter-cultural interpretive en-counters.
	As already suggested the nature of my exposition will take a middle path between the fields of phenomenology and hermeneutics. Moreover, a middle path will also be taken between a dogmatic cultural absolutism and a nihilistic cultural relativism in how to interpret the results of this investigation. The examination of this non-extreme region of cultural relativity also arguing for a process of appropriation that is neither absolutely open nor absolutely closed. That, in essence, regardless of the type of interpretation involved, the appreciation of that subjected to such re-evaluation is seen as neither completely transparent nor completely opaque in our practical engagement with the subject matter of that particular phenomenon of interpretation.
	To begin with I will recount an anecdote on the subject of interpreting cultural conventions. Then I will briefly analysis what possible implications might be drawn from a cursory examination of this particular interpretive situation. Then, in this second version of this same paper, as an integrating device I am going to examine the phenomenological nature of repetition and with this account develop a theoretical basis for a phenomenological-hermeneutical understanding of the process of interpretation. lastly, I will briefly re-interpret this anecdote in the light of this research.
	The primary motivation behind this paper is the argument that it is the traversing of margins, boundaries, fields, etc., that actually establishes the phenomenon of hermeneutic value. In this light it will be my contention that inter-cultural barriers rather than preventing hermeneutic comprehension in the final analysis actually assist us in the commensurability of such a topic. That it is only in the active overcoming of such cognitive resistance that inter-cultural commensurability is actually realized. That this possibility, as a possibility, is guaranteed by virtue of the fact that the interpretation of phenomena is a process that is equally grounded in the phenomenalization of interpretation implying that the relational link of the life-world metaphorically characterizes all processes of textualization and their re-interpretation in the same relatively fundamental manner! That the adoption of a critically conducted perspective of a transcendental-phenomenological-hermeneutical examination will allow us to begin such an investigation but does not necessarily and automatically imply that a satisfactory conclusion to such research will be reached as that territory is dependent on the adequacy of textual information to hand, the acumen of the investigator,  an ability to ask the right questions and recognize the validity of processes of resolution arrived at in such an enterprise.  Such an endeavour is also intimately related to the current state of play in such a field and that chance element of luck; in essence recognizing that we have found ourselves in the right place at the right time.

	A friend of mine is married with a Japanese wife. Recently, he visited his Japanese in-laws in Japan. He related to me the following story when I asked him if he had experienced any form of inter-cultural difficulties during this visit. Of particular concern for my friend was the daily custom of bathing. The bath was a tub that could fit one person, the water being continually boiled by a heater to the side underneath. The same water was used each day by the same people that used this bath. Now a series of problems presented themselves to someone not conversant with the conventions used in the use of this device. For a start you entered the bath to get wet all over and then quickly left to soap up outside it nearby. You then rinsed yourself and returned to the tub for an extended stay. But for how long? Apparently the bath was not just an excuse to get clean. It was also used for relaxation which entailed an extended period of private soaking of about an hour's duration by each person in the household. No doubt after a few questions, a few hints and instructions and some carefully interpreted observations one would soon work out how to perform the expectations of this daily ritual. Besides the issues of what to do, personal reactions to bathing in the same unchanged water, etc., the most perplexing question for my friend was the matter of how long should one stay in this bath that caused him initially the most anxiety.

	What can we learn from this anecdote that might help us broach this topic of intercultural interpretation?
	For a start the genre of `bathing in heated water' was something held in common by both cultures. The problematic region in this pursuit of inter-cultural comprehension was the manner in which this apparently similar custom actually differed  between these two cultures. As recounted questions, instructions, and above all, observations helped us interpret how to perform the actual process of bathing as it was normally conducted in this Japanese household.
	In a similar manner inter-cultural comprehension is always going to be conducted from the perspective of perceived parallels in one's own cultural background first. Then the differences will be looked for and hopefully, and eventually, mis-interpretations will rectify themselves and produce an effectively valid understanding of that specific cultural situation.
	Translated into a textual sphere we might say an author chooses a particular genre, or an amalgamation of genre, and then adapts that adoption to the task to hand in such a way that the whole process of textual production is in some form of an adequate conformity to its adoption of certain cultural conventions, and, the perceived adaptation of those conventions. It stands to reason, therefore, that all clearly formulated intentional thought and behaviour is formulated and expressed through the adoption of already pre-determined genre and the adaptation of such adopted conventions.
	How does one question the text in order to understand the nature of those conventions being exercised through that text? To a certain extent a text is always introduced in a certain context that may or may not allow us to interpret this conventional, meta-textual dimension of that text. Moreover, this dimension of the meta-textual will also introduce itself to us through that text, or, through other texts that appear to comment for us on that particular text under examination. 
	(In an examination of the discovered context of that text and its apparently intended context, if that is possible, we set out to entertain how that text is recovered both as a materialized textual fact in the world, and, how it functions when its intended context of function is also thought to be present. We first observe the nature of its textual presence in the world. We note what spatial, temporal, causal, social and personal characteristics appear to accompany the presentation (and possible performance) of that text. Next, we note, if we can, the nature of its apparently intended function, i.e., the manner in which certain aspects of genre are selected and distinctively stressed in the apparent function of that text (in accordance with our appreciation of the structural-functional description/prescription most likely associated with its apparently intended genre). In determining the nature of this apparently intended functional dimension we are also helped by meta-textual elements surfacing through the material textuality of that text, e.g., if the (ex-textual) title of a text announces that it is a selection of poems, or what so ever, or, when comments made inside a text (in-textually) help to re-define the meaning of terms found therein, etc. In this regard there is an emphasis on re-defining (our understanding of) those conventions, etc. Ultimately, we seek a provisional degree of adequate harmonization between these artificially distinguished facets of a text that satisfactorily answers our questions about the nature of that particular text, or set of texts, as a textual phenomenon).

	For a phenomenon to be entertained by the mind, to be entertained consciously, it must be reasonably distinctive in such a manner that allows us to maintain our intentional directedness towards that particular phenomenon. The immediate implication that can be drawn from an acceptance of this psychological and epistemological fact is that a phenomenal state of affairs demands the persistence, i.e., the retention, of that intentional presentation both respect to its intentional content and the general nature of its presentational process. In other words only that which can be subjected to repetition can exist-for-us, or, conversely, that which cannot be repeated can have no intentional-existence!
	Rather than read the original version of this paper, that argued from a number of different, but interrelated, perspectives, let me instead cut a swade through this complexity and center my investigations in this second version more simply on the role played by repetition in the process of interpretation, and more specifically, the implications that this has for our topic of inter-cultural commensurability.
	The intentional construction of a text and its re-construction, i.e., its interpretation, must be first fixed in such a manner that allows it to remain before our intentional appreciation - hence the necessary textualization of the phenomenon. These expressions text and textualization being treated by myself in as wide a fashion as possible so as to include literary texts, e.g., newspapers, musical scores, novels, poems, etc., and other forms of textuality, e.g., paintings, photographs, records, and all other traces of intentional-like activity (e.g., footprints, memories, signs of cultivation, buildings, etc.). The reasoning behind this broad definition is that the phenomenological examination of an apparently distinctive phenomenon demands its prior textualization hence the implication of an hermeneutical dimension in this type of investigation. Indeed, from my understanding of a transcendental perspective, i.e., a trans-intentional and trans-phenomenal perspective(s), the phenomenon of interpretation is equivalent to, and coincident with, the interpretation of phenomena. However, from a cognitive point of view, i.e., an intentional perspective, a distinction can be provisionally drawn between these two dimensions of the phenomenological and the hermeneutical.
	Let me pre-empt my exposition at this point to inform you that I intend to examine the role played by repetition and how in general all forms of information imparted by a text utilize this type of process in all its variety and complexity. Indeed, it is this phenomenon of repetition that is an essential aspect for both the origination and appreciation of all phenomenal experience. Therefore, let me describe the phenomenological nature of repetition, and, then how a text is approached, generated, and, again, in a process of interpretation, re-constructed and intentionally re-simulated through the auspices of such a fundamental function.

	To begin let me conduct a guided examination of this concept of repetition. In accordance with my understanding of this particular concept, along with the nature of all other concepts in general, an exhibition of its pure logical demands cannot be entertained experientially, i.e., phenomenologically. Only through some form of a provisional approximation to this concept can this concept appear to present itself and therein allow itself to function. Repetition demands that something be repeated. But with each repetition that repeated cannot be exactly identical with that which was initially the reputed subject of that process of repetition. On one hand simultaneous repetition demands some form of differential space. Conversely, repetition at the same point in space demands some form of a differential in our appreciation of its temporal dimension. The phenomenalization of the process of repetition implies that repetition can never be pure (except perhaps in an ideal non-phenomenalized form of treatment which being non-phenomenalized cannot directly be experientially entertained). Hence our brief examination of the phenomenalization of the concept of repetition informs us that there can never be a process of mere repetition - a process of re-iteration with no absolute difference in identity between the productive/reproductive content and/or the process of production/reproduction (on the grounds that there can be no meaningful absolute distinction between either of these two necessarily contrasting correlative modalities of structure and function). Equally there can never be an absolute process of sheer repetition - repetitional variation to such an extent that effectively nothing has been subjected to a state of repetition by virtue of an absolute discontinuity between production and reproduction. Hence we must conclude, experientially, that in a phenomenal process of repetition both the content and its process of presentation must be subjected to some form of re-duplication somewhere between these two polarities of mere repetition and sheer repetition. 
	Although never pure both of these polarities of mere repetition and sheer repetition have distinctive forms of presentational and de-presentational inputs in our experience of phenomena. Let me now elaborate on this experiential distinction between these two ideal forms of repetition.
	Obviously with acts of repetition that observe a more conservative process of re-production little difference, if at any, will be observed. Quickly, over a short period of time, the mind is going to find that our intentional awareness of this process, through a lack of interest and consequent lack of focus, is going to metaphorically slip back towards the gestalt background that allowed this presentation to take place in the first place. Hence through a lack of variation it is natural for the mind to de-present an interest in the continual `mere' re-production of this phenomenal situation. On the other hand in a state that is undergoing a certain noticeable degree of change each relatively new presentation is going to de-present a preservation of the individual configuration of former variations in this evolving process of varied re-production (leading to new forms of production).
	It is natural for the mind to attend to the relatively novel with a greater degree of focal interest. Consequently variations, processes of `sheer' repetition, will produce a sense of change, difference, naturally set up a sense of competition, in effect realize a certain degree of dissonance. On the other hand it must be recognized that this sense of dissonance cannot be treated as absolute dissonance by virtue of the fact that this sense of difference cannot be experienced in some meaningful sense as absolute dissonance, hence the relativity of dissonance. Although the relatively dissonant is experienced as dissonant, experienced as different, such difference is also experienced simultaneously as similar by virtue of the fact that it is generated in a non-absolute process of sheer repetition, i.e., a process of partially varied repetition. This double nature of dissonance is recognized in my treatment of dissonance in earlier papers as a provocative process-structure. Let me metaphorically illustrate this double nature of provocative processes using the image of the bull-fighter. This person waves their red cape in front of the bull. This provocative action annoys the bull. It charges forwards. This same cape is then manipulated by the bull-fighter to indicate in which direction the bull must discharge the direction of his attack. The ability of the bull-fighter to bring this charging beast as close as possible past their person without causing self-injury being recognized by the crowd as the bravery and skillfulness of this performer. Hence this provocative action both provokes and re-directs such a response. In the analogy set up provocation both creates a sense of dissonance and the intentional direction in which this experience of the relatively dissonant will find its intended sense of discharge and resolution.
	Often in informative texts, texts of an aesthetic nature, etc., we find a repetition of provocative structures utilized by the author or authors of that text in order to induce and reinforce our correct appreciation of the apparent intentionality being expressed by that author or by those authors. Such devices both distinctly disrupt and re-integrate a text, re-create our experience of that text and psychically re-inforce our experience of that text as an already pre-textualized phenomenon. Intentionality itself being the resolution of competing forces is itself a provocative process and its reflection in its textualization is traced out in the relatively definitive definition of that text as an instantiated process of an apparently intentionally directed textualization, and, in the reversed direction, as a process of an apparently intentionally received re-textualization. What I am trying to say here is that the differentially distinctive nature of that text is already involved in a process involving the resolution and accommodation of those provocative forces that engineered its relatively distinctive formation as a textual phenomenon. 
	The consequence of this relationship between mere repetition and the provocative nature of sheer repetition is the production and relative re-production of that same text. Textual production must reflect the intentionality of its author, intentionality itself being the resolution and resulting directedness of those provocative relationships that constitute that text. A well-formed text being a text that successfully resolves its provocative structures and allows the potential reader to relatively, and adequately, reconstruct these instantiated sequences of provocative processes. The relatively successful re-construction of a text is accomplished by the fact that a text never presents itself as just a text! A text is always embedded in a meta-text, its textual field, that also finds its reflection in the material deposition of that text. The formation and re-formation of a text is always conducted in the adoption and re-adoption of a textual genre, or a set of genre, and its adaptation and re-adaptation of the same in the light of the intentionality, or sense of purpose, involved in the manufacture of that text and our perception of the same. The merely repetitive texture of a text, as a textual background, reflecting this meta-textual dimension, i.e., its distinctive adoption and adaptation of genre. In a similar fashion, I would like to stress, intentionality can only be conducted through the adoption and adaptation of intentional genre and this facet of textuality is primarily intersubjective in orientation, further finding itself reflected in the intersubjectivity of language.
	Our discovery of a text is always accompanied by some degree of a recognition of its meta-textual dimension. E.g., a piece of paper is found by a musician on which appears a series of notes outlining the tune of a song with words underneath. Only an arrogant and imperceptive person is going to automatically assume that this text will re-invoke exactly identical conventions to those already conversant with by that musician. An appreciation of the genre of that song, itself already a form of musical meta-genre, is going to alert the perceptive and able reader of that text to know how it should more correctly be re-constituted, e.g., perhaps in accordance with Baroque sensitivities or those of a Romantic disposition, etc. Even though in both periods, and in the current era, similar conventions appear to be used their correct reconstitution is absolutely dependent on a correct and knowledgeable recognition of this meta-textual dimension. 
	A recognition of this dimension in the reconstitution of a text has important implications for the phenomenologist (and hermeneuticist). In our going back to the text itself we must also involve an adequate recognition of its meta-textual dimension! In this light a text is never received as a mere text or as a pure text! 
	This intersubjective dimension of the meta-text, reflecting the relatively mere-repetitious nature of genre, also gives the potential reader of that text some grounds for the appropriation of that text. All meta-textual genre themselves are meta-meta-textually defined in a whole hierarchy of meta-genre. E.g., a song was a piece of music of a certain kind, a genre that is not only inter-subjective in complexion but also already inter-cultural in disposition. That to some extent, adequate or inadequate in compass, a text is always to a certain degree an object that can be hermeneutically appropriated. In the opposite direction a text is also a product of a process of textual thematization and re-thematization that can never be absolutely appropriated! However, the intersubjectivity of genre, etc., often does allow us to assume that a text has been adequately de-encoded, only that philosophically, we must never adopt such a position except provisionally. Already I have shown that absolute duplication is absolutely impossible and that this same fact should alert us to the possibility that a text may not be adequately interpreted even though on provisional grounds we may feel we have adequately achieved such a state of affairs and that further interpretive effort is going to release little additional hermeneutic value.
	Earlier, I hinted at the possibility that all textual devices straddled, and reflected, this relationship between mere repetition and sheer repetition. At this point let me look at three such features, namely, the function and use of metaphor, the use of rhyme in some forms of poetry, and, the textual presentation of information, or facts, in a text concerned with the presentation of evidence that also has an interest in helping us to make a correct interpretation of that same text.

	Meaning is simulated, and re-simulated, analogically either directly or indirectly. Directly with reference to a metaphor or a set of metaphorical-like structures, e.g., in the use of simile. Indirectly with reference to a process that manipulates metaphorical processes without being directly metaphorical in complexion., e.g., in the use of names as referring to certain states of affairs in the world. The manner in which names can be referred among themselves in order to analogically locate and describe their referents being fundamentally metaphorical in complexion but not ostensively metaphorical in the immediate presentation of their more superficial disposition.
	Metaphors are functions that suggest a certain state of affairs is like another state of affairs. The function like intimating similarity but not identity. If someone were to say the world is like a dream or an illusion we must assume that they are also saying that the world is not just a dream or an illusion unless that actual identification is also spelt out outside the textual compass of that metaphorical comparison.
	This metaphorical function of `like' is a bit like both having one's cake and eating it. `Like' suggests both similarity and difference. In this regard the use of a metaphor must be considered as functioning in a text as a provocative structure. The sense of difference acting as an aspect of relative dissonance and the invocation of simultaneous similarity acting as the accommodational grounds for the resolution and re-integration of that provocative feature.
	A metaphor, as a textual device, is also co-presented with its own associated metaphorical field(s), i.e., meta-textually. An appreciation of this relationship allows us to correctly read the apparently intended use of that metaphorical image. Richard the Lionheart in being compared to a lion does not mean that he ran around on all four paws, eat freshly killed meat, had bad breath and was exceptionally hirsute. Instead a certain phenomenological feature, or set of features, of the general phenomenon invoked is meta-textually stressed, namely, in this instance, that of being brave and strong, and, by extention, being courageous in battle, etc.
	This ability of the metaphor to simultaneously reflect both similarity and dis-similarity indicates the provocative nature of this device as previously defined. The nature of a provocative structure must reflect some form of balance between processes of mere repetition that establish some degree of similarity and processes of sheer repetition that establish some degree of dis-similarity. 
	Although the function of a metaphor may be analyzed using this relationship between mere repetition and sheer repetition, between the covert meta-textual field generated through processes of mere repetition and its overt textual focus generated through the apparently intended exercise of pre-selected processes of sheer repetition, the more basic nature of the metaphor cannot be fundamentally explained through the hierarchical interaction of sets of overlapping metaphorical processes of selectivity. Analytical processes of modified reduction, or qualified reduction, must ultimately rely on some other form of explanation in order to discuss the function of metaphor without direct recourse to processes of a metaphorical-like nature. I believe this can be done, on a provisional level, through the invocation of already pre-constituted `forms' of experiences that constitute the natural palette of human experience in its ground state so to speak and its intentional manipulation of the analogues of such essentially distinct processes in order to form more complex, less naturally preconstituted, forms of experience. By these means the mind recognizes different types of experience, e.g., different types of emotions, sensory stimuli, etc., and through their manipulation and interaction create higher order entities of a more metaphorical nature. 
	It is my belief that an understanding of the metaphor used in a text is essential for a provisionally valid appreciation of that text. Indeed all judgment and value perceived in a text is generated through our often intuitive understanding of the metaphor in a text and that phenomenologically and hermeneutically we must come to some understanding of this relatively fundamental aspect of a text (in order to more critically evaluate the textual merits of that text). That it is through an analogical synthesis of this preconstitution of relatively fundamental forms of essential experience and the inter-subjective and inter-cultural overlapping of metaphorical fields, and genres, that allows us to establish an initial, provisional understanding of the import of a text which then through processes of resolution, accommodation and rectification allows us to effectively interpret between textual boundaries, associated fields and different cultures (and therein allow us to virtually re-simulate texts found therein).

	A literary text utilizes a number of devices of a provocative nature in keeping with its appropriation and adaptation of genre. In a poetic text one traditional device has been the use of patterns of rhyme. Let me show how such a device invokes a provocative process-structure as previously defined. To demonstrate this all one has to do, essentially, is to show structural-processes of repetitive similarity and dis-similarity at work in the same section of the text, and, the harmonization and integration of that section of text through the use of such a device.
	The exercise of rhyme traditionally calls for the use of similar sounds not the use of identical sounds. E.g., ball, tall, small, recall, etc., versus different words with the same sound like pear, pare, pair, peer, appear. Words of a similar sound help integrate the aural flavour of that text by giving it a sense of repetitive sameness. Moreover, the dissonant stress of such a provocative feature is usually carefully placed, e.g., at the end of certain lines to reinforce the overall form of that poetic text. Indeed, once the form has been articulated by these means the poet must carefully adhere to the relationship set up between such a device and its associated form unless the poet wishes to introduce a change of voice or some form of re-direction in the form and content of that text. In this light we might regard the poetic use of mere-repetition in sound values as contributing to the form of that text by virtue of their identical functions within that text and not as a poetic device per se. Merely repetitive functions contributing to the background of that text and therein its superficial sense of form, the sense of form that would be discovered on a first reading. The successful use of provocative poetic devices refining and enriching that sense of form. In a similar fashion provocative literary devices enliven and give a sense of textual depth to a non-poetic text.

	Let me now examine the provocative treatment of evidence in a text that ostensively purports to validly document a certain state of affairs.
	Obviously the mere statement of a certain state of affairs is not enough to establish the factual merit of that text. In religious texts, e.g., this type of statement often uses, or invokes, some form of extra-textual authority, recognizing that the mere repetition, and dissemination, of such a statement, or set of statements, is not going to establish the truth or factual merit expressed by such a text. Therefore, in the presentation of evidence other means must be presented in order to establish through repetition that the original text is essentially valid or should be recognized in such a light. Such a process, by what ever means adopted, is essentially provocative. By different means the same text is going to be reproduced. In effect the original text must be interrogated and through the interpretively harmonized treatment of a process-chain of question-and-answer, etc., essentially re-produce that same text albeit in this additional and mutually supporting extra-textual context, or, at least transformationally re-produce a relatively new text that will now successfully usurp the tentative factual role of the first text. In either case the original text is re-produced in either a relative mere conformity with that initial text or in some form of a relative sheer transformational variation upon that initial text. The re-presentation of and/or transformational connection with the initial text being necessary in order to re-appreciate the extra-textual standing of that initial text (and any subsequent re-writing of that same text).
	To achieve this factual and/or verified status and have it successfully re-confirmed a number of modalities must be entered into and built upon. For a start the text must have some degree of sense - the textual resolution of a certain set of intentions whose relevance must to a certain extent be already pre-established in genre. The sense of that genre in turn must also have its place established in a world of cultural meta-genre which in turn must reflect that culture's awareness of the world and its perceived place therein, i.e., collectively recognize its own vision of an intersubjective life-world. Lastly, various provocative mechanisms must be put in place for replicating the required presentational import of that text subjected to such re-transformational treatment. Such a process is put in place through a questioning of the text and then demonstrating, in a response to such interrogation, that the original interpretation of that text was found validated in the light of such a transformational process (that replicates the import of that initial text, or, instead, gives some form of relative finality or openness to the latest transformation of that same text within the same type of extra-textual context under `external' investigation and/or `internal' examination). This replication of an accord with the extra-textual terms of reference under review involves the invocation of a number of functions that through processes of resolution harmoniously support, or re-evaluate, the apparent meta-textual self-evaluation of that initial text. Other textual processes are indicated and explicated, e.g., reference to other historical documents, various interpretations of still extant traces of those textually depicted events, examinations of evidential lineages, processes of internal evidence that support current interpretations, and, an overall process of harmonization through a dialectical-like resolution of the relevant evidential strands presented in defending, or re-evaluating, the status of that initial text. In essence more or less doing what a judge, or a jury, must do in a court of law, i.e., taking various accounts and scrutinizing then for their internal consistency, external harmonization with other relevant accounts and developing stratagems for the resolution of noted inconsistencies that either discount, accept or, more likely, modify the import of such relatively dissonant statements. All in all a procedure that must examine the provocative processes entailed in their re-simulated progression. As already stated this is done through the auspices of a chain of questions-and-answers.
	A question is, phenomenologically; in my opinion, very similar to the provocative constitution of a metaphor. Whereas the essential constitution of a metaphor is centered, or i.e., suspended, between the conjunction of the functions of mere-repetitious similarity and sheer repetitious dis-similarity a question, on the other hand, is centered between the suspended dis-junction of the same. For a question to be meaningfully asked we must have some idea of both what would be the case and what would not be the case if that question was to be answered in the affirmative or in the negative respectively. Is is or is it not the case that a certain logical subject `x' possesses a certain property `p' or a certain relation `r,' assuming the appropriateness of `x' with respect to `p' or `r?' Formulated in this light we can see that a question is a disjunctive suspension of the possibility of it possessing either "`p' or `-p,'" or, "`r' or `-r'." On the other hand a metaphor is a conjunctive suspension of  "`p' and `-p'," or, "`r' and `-r'." Indeed, I would argue that the answer of a question is delivered by metaphorical-like processes through a special meta-textually prepared dis-junction of that suspended dis-(con)junction embedded in the meta-textual heart of that question (and therein formulated through its implicit and explicit terms of reference that constitute the specific nature of that question). On the other hand a disjunction of the conjunction at the meta-textual heart of a metaphor, i.e., a suspension of its conjunction, effectively transforms an already pre-prepared answer into the form of a question, namely, is `x' like, or more like, "`p' or `-p'," or "`r' or  `-r'?" 
	This ongoing chain of question-and-answer does not engender a vicious circular process by virtue of the fact that to experientially enter and leave this sequence of transformations necessitates a suspension of both this state of dis-junction and con-junction oscillating between the thesis and antithesis on the levels of predicates and/or relations, and, such a higher order suspension effectively gives us direct access to both the already pre-constituted and/or the now already re-constituted being re-simulated at the heart of this phenomenological-hermeneutical process. 
	Obviously, this exposition accepted, a process of interrogation is very much a provocative process that when successfully entered into productively thematizes an answered response with a constitution with a definitive meta-phorical  complexion; a process of provocative-resolution generated between highly structured processes of mere-repetition and sheer repetition. Moreover, this type of process must be repeated in different, but interrelated, extra-textual fields in order to essentially reduplicate the initial text or at least arrive at a transformation of this same text that can then be replicated within the same overall extra-textual (meta-textually defined) terms of reference.
	One important implication of this close inter-relationship between question-and-answer is the need for the recognition of a parallel rhetorical dimension to accompany any examination of the metaphorical! Indeed, the release of hermeneutic value may well arise through the realization of the appropriate forms of rhetorical treatment that promote the re-integration and re-production of a re-lived re-simulation of that text.

	Subjecting a textualized phenomenon to the freeplay of sheer repetition, a form of eidetic variation,  establishes the limits of that particular phenomenon. In a sense the deformation, or the de-formation, of a particular phenomenal form allows us to psychically locate that phenomenon both generally by type and specifically as to its presented characterization through an appreciation of its de-formational center. An appreciation of the limits of the limits imposed on a certain phenomenon, whether it be a text as classically understood or a non-text, allows us to understand what that phenomenon is not and therein to understand its place in our sense of world. An appreciation of place equally reveals the meta-textual genre within which that phenomenon is being presented, and, by extension, the place that particular genre has in relationship to the hierarchical overlapping of genre in general. As a phenomenon is thematized and given a sense of definition in relationship to its limits, its edges or margins in this field of its particular genre it follows that a transgression of those limits is called for in order to correctly appreciate the nature of that phenomenon under current investigation. Such limits around phenomena and their associated genre to a certain extent demand their transgression in order to appreciate the relatively essential configuration of that particular phenomenon, etc. This ability to cross over such boundaries implies that no phenomenal field can be absolutely self-contained and completely imcommensurable in this relatively inter-subjective world of genre. Moreover, the way is potentially open therefore for the phenomenological-hermeneuticist to cross over (and cross out) such boundaries and establish processes of inter-phenomenal interrelationship and forms of trans-genre interrelationship, although, I might add, the value released in such an enterprise does not necessarily bear a fruitful relationship to the energy actually invested in this type of endeavour. 
	Ultimately, even inter-cultural forms of accommodation can be developed. To conclude let me note what possible grounds have been indicated in this paper that might allow some form of inter-cultural commensurability to be entered into and therein to some degree or other be exercised productively. This I have done under the following headings: 
	
1.	Intersubjective/inter-cultural naturally pre-constituted pre-metaphorical material.
2.	Inter-cultural and intersubjective partial re-appropriation of genre at some point within a particular hierarchy of genre.
3.	Ongoing meta-textual rectification, refinement and appreciation of our recognition of genre and textuality.
4.	Repetition of provocative mechanisms to reinforce an apparent appreciation of textualized intent.
5.	The use and critical appreciation of special textual devices to hermeneutically reinforce this process of provocatively promoted re-appropriation.
6.	Use of extra-textual forms of comparison, e.g., signaled invocation, convocation, evocation, etc., to re-inforce and/or supplement provocatively stressed apparent intent.
7.	Development of appropriate hermeneutic techniques to investigate the intentional limits of that textual construction and its interpretive re-construction.

Conclusion

	To conclude let me briefly illustrate this classification through an interpretation, or commentary, on this anecdote of `bathing in a Japanese household' with which I began this paper.
	I would argue that certain experiences of the human condition are essentially, and relatively, more fundamental. One such experience is the utilization and enjoyment of bathing in suitably heated water. This type of experience is not only intersubjective but also often inter-culturally observed as a shared genre or mode of activity. In a mapped hierarchy of distinctive human forms of experience this type of pursuit would, I believe, occupy a relatively meta-meta-textual position, i.e., as a relatively inter-cultural form of activity. An appreciation of how this particular repetition of an instance of an inter-cultural form culturally differs from the spectrum of possibilities thematized in one's own culture one must refine our understanding of our appropriation of this performed event by noting the differential contrast it forms with similar events in our own culture. Then, noting that through a suspension of this contrast, or set of differences, we are allowed to psychically locate and appreciate the nature of this phenomenon from our own point of view in such a manner that our understanding of this phenomenon effectively coincides directly with this phenomenon and that further processes of thematization, or re-simulation, merely refine this coinciding coincidence. Lastly, other hermeneutic processes can be further utilized to refine this process of dialogue, re-creating a transformational chain of questions and answers that in their accumulative effect effectively re-simulate the broad constitutional disposition of the form of that cultural phenomenon. The use of other analogical comparisons re-creating this text with a poly-dimensional richness in keeping with the poly-textual richness of interpreted phenomena. In our example noting particular possibilities promoted by this particular cultural form such as, e.g., a way of overcoming our experience of the coldness of winter, a form of social distancing, a collective form of reciprocity within the family and closely related relatives, the framing of a period for relaxation and contemplation besides merely invoking the sanitary properties of such a ritualized process, etc.
	In practice processes of inter-cultural thematization create an appreciation of that culture's forms through the significance generated through our ongoing transversing across, crossing over, re-crossing and crossing out of those boundaries found on the inter-cultural landscape and therein establishing the progressive commensurability of those phenomena despite the cultural form of their textualization. Indeed, that such boundaries rather than creating imcommensurability actually release hermeneutic value in their being traversed; experienced as dissonant, resolved, appropriated and therein re-appropriated - a process that is operative both within cultures and between cultures; the same type of process that is as much in operation both for the individual them self and between individuals who share the same language and the same culture!