Hermeneutical Ethic of Vladimir Bibikhin (Reading as Event)

Abstract

In the article I wish to investigate the particular ethic of reading, considering this kind of ethic as life praxis, which responds in an appropriate manner to the event of reading. Relying on articles of V.V. Bibikhin from his volume Word and Event I examine the characters of event unfolded in reading event. In the reading I realize, that I am not the origin of language, it existed before me. I cannot pretend to be sovereign subject of sense-giving or even understanding, my understanding is finite and non-absolute. I do not rule the event, but have a part in it. The temporality of event is also complicate: it is not absolutely new — it is new, but at the same time it is recognized as familiar. This conception of reading demands a specific manner of action, which I consider in the second part of the article. The hermeneutical ethic does not mean the concrete act or series of acts, but the particular alertness to respond to the request message from the world and to communicate with the world. By living so, I hesitate to have any definite understanding, I do not insist on any meaning, I am ready to recognize the new sense as familiar and accept it as new. Such an alertness opens my readiness to be involved in the world, transmitted by reading, to take a place within it and to perform the transformed world by becoming an actor.