Althusser's “Symptomatic Reading” Study

“Symptomatic Reading”is a kind of text interpretation method which was put forward by Louis Althusser,who is the French philosopher and famous marxist,in 1965.In this method,all reading is sinful and innocent reading is nonexistent.At the same time,texts are treated as pathological texts.It means that there are many“blank”,“silence”and“none”in the texts which are manifested as symptoms.This method is designed to use an analysis tool“dislocation”to read the unfinished words in the author's deep unconscious structure from the surface structure of the words.In this way,we can achieve the purpose of returning to the author's original intention.What's more,this method?symptomatic reading?played an active role in relieving the crisis of belief caused by the 20^th National Congress of the Communist Party of Soviet Union and the theoretical crisis that attempted to humanize Marxism.And a series of controversial academic views Louis Althusser got through using symptomatic reading led to the academic circles at that time on how to correctly understand Marxism continued and heated discussion.Such as“Epistemological rupture”,“Marxism is theoretically anti-humanitarianism”.At the same time,the influence of‘Symptomatic Reading'has also extended to many fields related to hermeneutics,such as literary criticism,translatology and drama comment.Previous studies have focused on Althusser's specific academic views derived from symptomatic reading and the application of research in different disciplines.The purpose of this study is to make a philosophical history of‘Symptomatic Reading'and treat it as a theory to study.This study aims to clarify the development of symptomatic reading in different periods and study the development course of Althusser's thought from the side.Firstly,this thesis discusses the historical generative context of symptomatic reading from three aspects:realistic context,theoretical context and spiritual context.The realistic context mainly discusses the complicated international environment after the 20^th National Congress of the Communist Party of Soviet Union and the chaotic political situation inside the French communist party.In the theoretical context,in addition to the generally accepted theories of psychoanalysis and structuralism,the natural connection between Marxism and symptomatic reading will also be included in the discussion.Finally,the spiritual context mainly discusses the deep psychological motivation of the symptomatic reading proposed by Althusser.The second is to discuss the content and nature of symptomatic reading.Through comparative study and literature study,this study makes a detailed analysis of the texts that focus on symptomatic reading.This study distinguishes between innocent reading and guilty reading,reading through a fence and symptomatic reading.The text is deconstructed according to the principle of method-problematic-epistemological foundation.This study attempts to restore the process of symptomatic reading.Thirdly,it discusses the development and influence of symptomatic reading,and sorts out the development of symptomatic reading from“symptomatic”to“dislocation”and then to“transference and countertransference”in chronological order and in combination with specific texts,and points out that the theory of unconsciousness runs through this thought process.The covered subject behind Althusser's so-called structuralism emerges slowly in this process.The influence of symptomatic reading is mainly reflected in the innovation of Marx's textual interpretation and the reference of other disciplines to symptomatic reading.This thesis will take Macherey's literary criticism as an example.Finally,it is the enlightenment of symptomatic reading.This study believes that before studying any theory,we should first correctly understand the construction process of the theory and deepen this understanding in the research.At the same time,we should think and read critically with problems and should not dismember the text at will.