Interpretive Concepts

The New York Review of Books, April 4 – 24 issue, contains an extract from Ronald Dworkin‘s final book, Religion Without God.

In this he provides a very neat definition of Interpretive Concepts:

What is the difference between a religious attitude toward the world and a nonreligious attitude? That is hard to answer because “religion” is an interpretive concept. That is, people who use the concept do not agree about precisely what it means: when they use it they are taking a stand about what it should mean.

Dworkin was both a philosopher and a constituional scholar, concerned with theories of law. The idea behind this brief quotation is derived from his lifelong concern with interpretism as a theory of law-making.

That’s all folks.