Introduction

When we teach Reading and Writing, what is it that we teach? To be sure, we have perfectly acceptable answers provided by specialists, who can enumerate the subskills involved in both abilities and can devise appropriate methods to instill them. I propose here, however, to venture in a different (one could say, the opposite) direction. Rather than treat reading and writing as primary school skills, forming the bulk of the three R's, which can be subsequently refined in an academic context, I would like to view them as the most basic terms of human existence. The main aim of my paper is to present in a credible way such a philosophical perspective. Once this (admittedly dizzy) vantage point is established, I will try to formulate a few scattered remarks on the nature of reading and writing in the usual sense as well as on the mundane activities we perform in the classroom.

The perspective I want to adopt may be called with equal rightness “phenomenological” or “hermeneutical” (a doublebarreled version is in use: one may practice “hermeneutical phenomenology” or “phenomenological hermeneutics”). These converging approaches have different pedigrees. Phenomenology is rooted in philosophical attempts to get rid of (or overcome, or “sublate” in the Hegelian jargon) dualisms like “matter vs. spirit” or “body vs. mind.” Such attempts are motivated by the fact that philosophy (as opposed to science) is loath to adopt arbitrary assumptions (which science calls “hypothetical” and is engaged in an endless project of verifying or falsifying).