Towards a Quantum Criticism; From Equivalence to Determinacy in the Interpretation of the Literary Text: A Theoretical-Epistemological Approach

Abstract

This study seeks to construct a theoretical-epistemological framework that reconsiders the nature of literary meaning and the conditions of its determinacy, through the proposed concept of “quantum criticism.” Proceeding from a critique of approaches that have confined meaning within the binary of structural closure versus interpretive indeterminacy, the study proposes a conception of the literary text as a relational, probabilistic field, whose signification emerges from the configuration of relations within it and is actualized through interpretive observation under specific conditions. The study adopts a synthetic epistemological approach combining conceptual analysis, theoretical comparison, and the mobilization of certain classical frameworks from rhetoric, legal theory (Uṣūl al-Fiqh), and Sufism, alongside comparison with structuralism, deconstruction, and reception theory. The study concludes that meaning is to be understood neither as a fixed essence nor as an endlessly deferred trace, but rather as a provisional determinacy within a spectrum of semantic possibilities, and that reading constitutes an act of interpretive observation that actualizes one of the text's possibilities without thereby annulling the others. The study further concludes that quantum criticism does not represent an exclusionary alternative to contemporary critical methodologies, but rather a epistemological horizon that expands the possibilities of analysis, particularly for texts characterized by semantic density and structural complexity.