ABSTRACT
Almost everything Paul de Man wrote is related to the question of reading. The primary interest of literary theory and the purpose of critical thinking is that it will make us better readers. However, de Man’s understanding of the term ‘reading’ radically expands the meaning of that term, displacing it from its conventional use. Hillis Miller says of de Man’s use of the term, that reading is ‘the ground and foundation of the whole of human life’ (Miller 1987, 48) because ‘reading’ for de Man includes not just reading as such, certainly not just the act of reading works of literature, but ‘sensation, perception, and therefore every human act whatsoever’ (Miller 1987, 58).
