Literary Criticism and the Polygraph

One way to describe modes of proof such as the polygraph, as well as certain literary criticism, is to consider that they differ from other ways of reading the world in their claim to limit interpretation, as if they wished to return to a time and a place in which the concept was not generalized. This article is an attempt to reflect on such impulse to interpret and the need some interpreters feel to restrain it. It argues that both literary criticism and the polygraph are technical forms of interpretation, which require specific skills and well-trained interpreters. However, treating these forms of proof as homologous implies that both require the capacity to make subjective choices and, in the case of the polygraph, to deliberate on the subject's physical behavior.