Przeczytać znaczy poznać? Filozofi czne aspekty odkrywania dzieła — nie tylko literackiego

TO READ MEANS TO GET TO KNOW? PHILOSOPHICAL ASPECTS OF DISCOVERING A WORK — NOT ONLY A LITERARY WORK An analysis of the act of reading included in philosophers’ writings makes it possible to look for answers to the question about whether we can get to know a book at all? This is an epistemological question, a question about the sources, boundaries and goal of cognition. A question all the more important given the fact that it is asked in an era of a shift from typographic to digital culture. Does getting to know a book consist in reading it? If so then what is this process of reading — getting to know a book? Delving into the author’s intentions or perhaps adding one’s own meanings? Passive acquisition of the content included in the work by its author or active interpretation, assuming that the reader is equally important? To what extent is the meaning of a text fixed, to what extent is its content objective and readable equally to all in every act of reading? Is a book an open work, a separate being with some autonomy or perhaps a text is in all circumstances dependent on its author? Does the author have a monopoly on the “correct” reading of a work? And does a correct/true interpretation exist at all?