I previously described how I originally considered calling this blog, ‘Deconstructing Humpty’ and often think in terms of ‘Reconstructing Humpty’. This naturally raises the question of what these phrases imply. I have discussed deconstruction. What does the phrase ‘Reconstructing Humpty’ mean?
I am sure that it can mean different things to different people. Not all of these have been explored fully by me. There may also be meanings of which I am unaware. However, one meaning important to me is that of a ‘re-imagining’. It means developing a new mental image or impression of what we are dealing with - the human body as seen from a primarily scientific perspective.
Furthermore, I suggest that Reconstructing Humpty implies a ‘re-construing’. When learning Latin at school, children were often given a passage of text and told to ‘construe’. Put simply this means ‘translate’. However, merely swapping Latin words for English is not enough. One must also ‘interpret’. That is, one must convey the meaning that was intended by the writer of the passage in question. This means using the most appropriate words in the best possible way.
Thus the idea of ‘construction’ is not out of place here. An interpretation is a reconstruction - in a different language - of something previously constructed in another. To construe things about the human body is to interpret what we find. As part of this, we must ask whether we currently have the best or most accurate interpretation of what the body is like.
