The Text as a Model? On Reading and Understanding of the World

The 'readability of the world', according to Blumenberg, means an ideal of understanding. However, the question is whether our knowledge of the world should be described as an act of reading or, more generally, in terms of language. Many theorists argue that the 'model of the text' (Ricoeur) is not an adequate paradigm for describing culture and human understanding. Language has a central function in human life, but there are many non-linguistic ways of expression and of communication. The paper deals with the various motives, which underlie the generalization of the reading metaphor in cultural sciences.