Speculative propositions exist only by being rewritten, never by initial reading

Evidence

The reader escapes confusion, we recall, when ‘coming back to the proposition (auf den Satz zurück zu kommen)’, that proposition can now ‘be understood differently’. Because this understanding was not derived from itself (a first reading has never happened), the reader must have produced it, which means that the reader must also be a philosopher, and not just a subject, an ‘I’, who tries to become familiar with a philosophical text. Similarly, a statement, even if already written, is only speculative in the true sense when it cannot be read without being rewritten. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 1220

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that a text whose first reading never happened must be produced by the reader — that understanding not ‘derived from itself’ condemns every first reading to non-occurrence — is a genuinely strange and fertile idea about authorship, reading, and the temporality of comprehension.
• XREF: connects to: Reading a speculative proposition requires transforming meaning through interpretation — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 1225; Speculative statements can only be read by being rewritten — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 1220