Inferences and meanings in the reconstruction and comparison of graphic handwriting. Reflections on the construction of data in documentological interventions

Abstract

This essay presents a theoretical reflection on the ways in which data are constructed in handwriting studies in the field of documentology. It takes as references the main proposals of authors in Spanish-speaking areas, especially one from Argentina. The approach to these texts is from a historicist perspective that emphasizes the inferential processes involved in handwriting analysis and a dialogue with consolidated patterns. The reconstruction of the graphic features of handwriting –its individualizing aspect– implies a dialectic instance among diverse processes of inference. Abduction plays a fundamental role in this context by making it possible to decode the unique features of graphism and, in this way, construct a datum inserted into a data matrix system. The study of a document traverses various levels of integration in the construction of categories of analysis, a process through which guidelines are discovered, validated, innovated, and applied during movement from a hermeneutic to an objective datum that makes it possible to explore, describe, and explain.