Interpretation (redirected from radiographic interpretation)

interpretation

Logic an allocation of significance to the terms of a purely formal system, by specifying ranges for the variables, denotations for the individual constants, etc.; a function from the formal language to such elements of a possible world

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Interpretation 

a definition, explanation, or elucidation.

In its literal meaning the term “interpretation” is used in jurisprudence: interpretation of a law by a lawyer or judge represents a “translation” of “special” expressions—the formulations of an article of the legal code—into layman’s language, as well as recommendations for applications of such articles. It is also applied in the arts: the interpretation of a role by an actor or of a musical work by a pianist is the performer’s individual treatment of a work, which, generally speaking, is not unambiguously defined by the author’s intention.

Interpretation in mathematics, logic, scientific methodology, and theory of knowledge represents the totality of values (meanings) given by various means to elements (expressions, formulas, symbols) of a particular scientific or abstract-deductive theory (when the elements themselves of this theory are given a meaning, reference is also made to the interpretation of symbols and formulas).

The concept of interpretation has considerable epistemological significance. It plays an important role in the comparison of scientific theories with their described fields, the description of various methods of theory construction, and the characterization of the changes in interrelationships between such theories during the course of cognitive development. Insofar as each scientific theory has been conceived and structured to describe a specific area of actual reality, this reality serves as the natural interpretation of the theory, but such “presupposed” interpretations are not the only possible ones, even for theories of classical physics and mathematics, which are based on an implicit content. Thus, from the fact of isomorphism of mechanical and electrical oscillatory systems described by the same differential equations, it follows immediately that at least two different interpretations are possible for such equations. To an even greater degree this possibility is found in abstract-deductive, logical-mathematical theories that assume not only different but even nonisomorphic interpretations. In general, it is difficult to speak of their “natural” interpretations.

Abstract-deductive theories are also able to manage without “translation” of their concepts into “physical language.” For example, irrespective of any physical interpretation, the concepts of Lobachevskii’s geometry may be interpreted in terms of Euclidean geometry. The discovery of the possibility of mutual interpretability of various deductive theories has played an enormous role both in the development of the deductive sciences themselves (particularly as an instrument of proof of their relative consistency) and in the formation of contemporary theoretical and epistemological views associated with the deductive sciences.

REFERENCES

Hilbert, D. Osnovaniia geometrii. Moscow-Leningrad, 1948. Chapter 2, section 9. (Translated from German.)
Kleene, S. K. Vvedenie v metamatematiku. Moscow, 1957. Chapter 3, section 15. (Translated from English.)
Church, A. Vvedenie v matematicheskuiu logiku, vol. 1. Moscow, 1960. Introduction, section 7. (Translated from English.)
Fraenkel, A., and Y. Bar-Hillel. Osnovaniia teorii mnozhestv. Moscow, 1966. Chapter 5, section 3. (Translated from English.)

IU. A. GASTEV