This chapter distinguishes three types of text‐related understanding: (1) understanding that consists in seeing how the parts of a text hang together; (2) understanding that consists in grasping what a writer wanted to communicate; (3) understanding that consists in grasping the value of what the text, or its author, says. It is argued that through reading we can come to understand not only texts and authors but also subject matters. Finally, it is argued that reading‐based understanding normally builds on reading‐based knowledge.

This chapter argues that reading doesn't reduce to attending to testimony (given the accounts of testimony offered by C. A. J. Coady, Robert Audi, Elizabeth Fricker, and Jennifer Lackey) nor to visual perception (not to Fred Dretske’s simple seeing, nor to Thomas Reid’s acquired perception, nor to Dretske’s primary and secondary epistemic seeing). This paves the way for considering reading as a source of knowledge in its own right.

This chapter discusses the commonalities and differences between reading and listening by focusing on the commonalities and differences between writing and speaking. Common to writing and speaking is that they are both activities that normally have a fourfold intentionality: (1) they are performed intentionally; (2) they are targeted at other people; (3) they are about things; and (4) they are the means by which the author intends to reach certain aims. Next, I discuss Paul Ricoeur's views on the distinction between writing and speaking, in which the notion of autonomy plays an important role. It is argued that Ricoeur is not successful in bringing out the distinction that he is groping for and that a more adequate view on the distinction should make use of the idea that at least some writing is creative‐investigative – that is, some writing is such that an author would not and even could not have formed the thoughts and ideas expressed in their text if they had not engaged in writing.

This chapter discusses four more accounts of interpretation. First, the notion of a holistic textual act is introduced, which is an act performed by an author through the production of an entire text. It is argued that there is a kind of interpretation that aims to grasp an author's holistic textual act (which is, or is part of, the author's meaning), and the epistemological aspects of it are discussed. Next, externalist interpretations are discussed, the hallmark of which is that they don't aim to specify author's meanings but rather indicative or expressive meanings. Such interpretations, it is argued, may perhaps never reach the exalted status of knowledge. I then criticize Stanley Fish’s reader-response theory of interpretation because it flies in the face of a number of commonsense assumptions about texts, authors, and meanings. Finally, it is argued that reading and interpretation (on any of the accounts discussed) are distinct and different acts, and that there can be reading without interpretation, even if in actual fact the two usually go together.

Like meaning, interpretation is a slippery notion. This chapter discusses three different accounts of interpretation. First, I discuss the allegoresis account, according to which some texts have a deeper meaning hidden below the text's surface meaning. I then explore what is required if an allegorical interpretation is to be justified, and I argue that two kinds of interpretative knowledge must be distinguished: (1) knowing through interpretation that what a text (or its author) says is p, and (2) knowing through interpretation that what the text (or its author) says, viz. p, is true. Second, the traditional account of interpretation is discussed, according to which interpretation consists in clearing up textual obscurities – this is called the difficulty account of interpretation. A number of possible obscurities are identified, and I show what is required to clear them up in a justified way. Finally, the modernist view of interpretation is discussed, according to which reading inevitably involves interpretation. The most natural development of this view is that all reading involves disambiguation, and that to disambiguate is to interpret. Here, too, I discuss what is required for justified disambiguations.

Why is reading never thought of as a source of knowledge? This chapter analyzes, first, what it is for something to be a source of knowledge and, second, by what kind of principles acknowledged sources of knowledge have been individuated. It is shown that epistemologists have used five kinds of principles, and it is argued that reading can be individuated by means of some of those principles.

The introduction explains the aims of the book, its timeliness, and its relevance, and it specifies a number of commitments that I work with: a true-belief view of knowledge, a realist conception of truth, justification as truth aiming, and the notion that writing is acting. It is explained that the book’s scope is wide in that it treats the epistemology of reading texts across literary genres, while it is at the same time exclusively focused on the interpretation of texts.

This chapter argues that through reading, readers can acquire knowledge of three varieties: propositional knowledge, knowledge by acquaintance, and know‐how. Objections against these arguments are discussed.

The objects of reading (words, sentences, texts) are objects that have meaning. Meaning is a slippery notion, but we cannot do without it. This chapter distinguishes a number of different notions of meaning: word meaning, sentence meaning, author's meaning, indicative meaning, effect meaning, and value meaning. First, I suggest that knowledge of (these kinds of) meaning cannot be obtained through the natural sciences. Next, a general account of interpretation is offered according to which a statement is an interpretation of a text (or a part thereof) provided it is an attempt to specify the meaning(s) of the text (or its parts). It is furthermore argued that interpretative statements can be true and justified and, hence, that there are interpretative facts of the matter.

This chapter offers a comprehensive characterization of reading as a source of knowledge. It is argued that a distinction should be made between factive and nonfactive reading. Factive reading is reading that p. Nonfactive reading is an activity. An analysis of nonfactive reading is offered. Next, it is argued that two kinds of factive reading must be distinguished: (1) knowing through reading that what a text (or its author) says is p, and (2) knowing through reading that what a text (or its author) says, viz. p, is true. In addition, it is argued that a third kind of reading knowledge must be distinguished: knowing through reading a text that p, where p is not something that the text (or its author) says. Finally, it is argued that the source that reading is, is both a transmission and a generation source; that it is a nonbasic source; that it is in certain respects an essential source; and that sometimes, it is a unique source.

This chapter argues for the following claims. (1) There is no content that groups the propositions of common sense together. (2) The common-sense grouping has a real purpose: it delineates propositions that we are at a very minimum justified in believing. (3) Common-sense propositions are to be found at the intersection of not-science-based yet widely held beliefs, beliefs not based on testimony or inference, and beliefs whose denials are pragmatically incoherent. (4) Commonsensicality is a graded concept: there are degrees in which propositions are propositions of common sense. (5) Propositions of common sense are objects of at least one of the following attitudes: belief, disposition to believe, or taking for granted in the sense of presupposing them, either as a justification-conferring presupposition or as a pragmatic presupposition. (6) Although we can give up common-sense propositions, we should only do so in the face of very weighty evidence.

This introduction shows why and how common sense matters to philosophy, thus lighting up the terrain that subsequent chapters explore in much greater detail. First, it explains briefly what common sense is, and next, what common-sense philosophy is. Then it considers whether, and if so, how, common sense should matter to philosophy; can we not do without common sense? Subsequently, it turns to criticisms of the idea that common sense matters to philosophy, and of the very idea of common-sense philosophy. It concludes with a short note on the organization of the book.