Author, reader, text. About reading as a game and its pragmatic referentials

Abstract

A proposal to solve the conflict of intentions (intentio auctoris, intentio lectoris and intentio operis) as expressed in Umberto Eco’s Interpretation and superinterpretation. The methodological path consists of the following steps: a) based on Johan Huizinga, apply the notion of game the practice of reading, establishing the fact that the rules of interpretation constitute a specific function of each reading game (play-element); b) discern the types of reading games based on the three types of pragmatics: aesthetics, politics and heuristics; c) based on Peirce, assume each of the three instances of meaning as the semiotic reference of a specific type of reading game; d) conclude that the plurality of possible interpretations of a text is a function of the application of the internal rules of each reading game. It is concluded, on the one hand, that aesthetic and political reading games potentially produce infinite interpretations and that only heuristic reading games can effectively impose limits on interpretation, and, on the other hand, that the result of each of these reading games it can only be assessed on the basis of its own rules.