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Reading can become the grave of meaning or the place of its
resurrection. It becomes a tomb when meanings follow one another
uninterruptedly, but in an automatic, mechanical, predictable and
tautological way. It becomes a tomb when reading becomes calculation,
when the result excludes and erases surprise and mystery. Instead, it's
the place of resurrection when meanings are not automatic, but
intermittent, unpredictable, fragile and fragmentary; when reading
becomes like childbirth, an experience marked by fatigue and suffering,
but in the expectation of something new and unique. Our reflection is an
essay of ontological hermeneutics: it is critical of "textual
positivism"-which makes the univocity and clarity of a text the main
goal of its task-and also of "cultural positivism"-a cultural matrix
that elevates univocity and clarity as the ultimate goal of contemporary
systems. This essay indirectly sketches a cultural critique and not
only a theological one. Means, medium and guarantor of this ontological
indelible reserve are ambivalence and paradox. We will try to follow the
trace of these throughout the hermeneutic arc-and not only at its
beginning.
