Reading and Experience: A Philosophical Investigation

Dr. Alexander Samely is professor of Jewish Thought at the University of Manchester (since 2006). He has taught 20th-century philosophy for many years and has been the convenor of the Manchester Phenomenology Reading Group since 2002 (http://manchesterphenomenology.blogspot.com/).

• Introduction: A New Way to Look at Reading.- Paradigms for Explaining the Experience of Reading.- Perceiving the Text.- The Text as Temporally Dispersed.- Reflecting on Connections Across Time.- Characters: The Text’s Representation of Experience.- Perceiving and Naming as Situated Acts.- The Mutuality of Text Meanings Through Synthesis.- Experiencing Meanings-Designate.- The Synthesis of Sequence.- The Text World: Dense and One.- Reader Habits of Synthesizing a World.- Associating New World Components.- Associating Textual Features.- The Synthesis of Texts as a Synthesis of Life.- The Temporal Plot of Understanding the Text.