The Limits of Interpretation: From Postmodern Relativism to Distinctive Features

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Introduction: Between Flexibility and Limit

The postmodern claim that “all interpretations are equally valid” has had a decisive influence on contemporary philosophy and the social sciences. Its appeal lies in the fact that, at first sight, it reflects common experiences: what feels cold to one person may feel warm to another; what for some counts as freedom may for others be restriction. Yet behind this interpretive flexibility hides a fundamental confusion: the difficulty of making certain categories explicit is taken as proof that limits do not exist. This mistake leads to a radical relativism that ignores the role of reality as a structuring framework. Although concepts such as heat, love, or truth cannot always be defined with precise conceptual clarity, this does not mean that any interpretation is valid. There are objective boundaries which, beyond our disagreements, impose the category.

The Postmodern Confusion

The genealogy of this confusion is often traced back to Nietzsche, who wrote that “there are no facts, only interpretations.” Postmodernism and poststructuralism took this phrase to an extreme, denying any hierarchy of validity. Thus, any statement would carry the same weight as its opposite, and every interpretation, no matter how absurd, would be legitimized as “true.”

The problem is not the nonexistence of categories, but rather the difficulty of translating into words what subjects handle naturally at an implicit level. From here arises the confusion: if we cannot define precisely what love, heat, or freedom is, it is concluded that no limits exist and that every interpretation is equally acceptable.

The Example of Temperature

The case of temperature illustrates this phenomenon with clarity. For one person, 20 °C may feel like a warm day; for another, like a cool one. Both perceptions are legitimate within a range of variation. But if both arrive in Seville in August, under a scorching 45 °C sun, neither could plausibly claim that it is cold. Here flexibility vanishes: reality imposes the categorical boundary.

This example shows that there is a space of subjectivity within categories, but also objective frontiers that cannot be ignored. The difficulty of defining with precision does not erase those frontiers; it simply shows that our explicit knowledge is less refined than our implicit perception.

A Phonological Background: Jakobson and Trubetzkoy

Structural phonology offers a useful framework for understanding this balance. According to Jakobson and Trubetzkoy, phonemes are not indivisible units, but combinations of minimal distinctive features. The phoneme /p/, for example, is characterized as plosive, bilabial, and voiceless. Within that category, various allophonic realizations are possible: aspirated /p/, stronger or weaker, but always recognizable as /p/. However, if one of its distinctive features changes—if it ceases to be [–voice] and becomes [+voice]—it is no longer /p/, but /b/.

The analogy with concepts is immediate. “Cold” and “hot” function like phonemes: abstract categories. There can be allophonic variants within the same frame, but if the temperature reaches 50 °C in the Sahara, no one could classify it as “cold” without destroying the intelligibility of the category.

Implicit and Explicit Knowledge

Here it is useful to recall Saussure’s observation in the Course in General Linguistics:

“Without doubt speakers are unaware of this difficulty; everything that is meaningful to any degree is concrete for them, and they distinguish it unfailingly in speech. But it is one thing to perceive this rapid and delicate play of units, and another to realize it by means of a methodical analysis.”

Speakers know implicitly how to distinguish /p/ from /b/, even if they cannot describe it in technical terms. Likewise, people know how to identify unbearable heat or extreme cold without the need for a scientific definition. The difficulty of making this knowledge explicit does not eliminate its practical validity.

Philosophical Implications

Postmodern relativism confuses the impossibility of an exact definition with the nonexistence of objective limits. Yet reality imposes distinctive features that structure our categories. To ignore them is to deny the very intelligibility of the world, as if /p/ and /b/ could be freely confused without consequences for communication.

Recognizing interpretive flexibility is compatible with accepting the existence of categories, provided we are able to distinguish between internal variations and categorical shifts. The mistake lies not in admitting the diversity of interpretations, but in assuming that all of them hold the same value.

Conclusion

The postmodern thesis that all interpretations are equal does not withstand the test of facts. Everyday experience shows that, while subjectivity has room within a flexible framework, that framework has unbreakable limits. Jakobson and Trubetzkoy’s phonology offers a useful model for understanding this phenomenon: concepts work like phonemes, with allophones that allow variation, but defined by distinctive features that cannot be altered without changing identity.

Confusing the difficulty of conceptualization with the nonexistence of limits is the central error of postmodernism. The philosophical task, on the contrary, consists in recognizing this implicit knowledge and finding ways to make it explicit without falling into absolute relativism.

References

• Jakobson, R., & Halle, M. (1956). Fundamentals of Language. The Hague: Mouton.
• Trubetzkoy, N. S. (1969). Principles of Phonology. (C. A. M. Baltaxe, Trans.). Berkeley: University of California Press. (Original work published 1939).
• Nietzsche, F. (1974). The Gay Science. (W. Kaufmann, Trans.). New York: Vintage. (Original work published 1882).
• Foucault, M. (2006). History of Madness. (J. Murphy & J. Khalfa, Trans.). London: Routledge. (Original work published 1961).
• Derrida, J. (1976). Of Grammatology. (G. C. Spivak, Trans.). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. (Original work published 1967).
• Harris, R. (1987). Reading Saussure: A Critical Commentary on the Course in General Linguistics. London: Duckworth.