What is a text?: On the limits of a text as an object of knowledge

A critical reading of a text can reveal much about the many meanings contained within the text. The different lenses of feminism, post-modernism, Marxism, Russian formalism, and many more, reveal the small nuances hidden in every text, which can drastically alter the way the text is received. What however, does this tell us about the text itself? Does the text exist in an objective sense, as Blanchot contends, where every reading is a subjective interpretation of an object which exists independently of the reader? In which case the text-in-itself would exist behind the reading, like the Kantian noumena, able to be apprehended in a reading, but never fully realised as an object. Or does the text exist entirely on a subjective level, as Bayard would have it, only as a result of the impressions and readings that people have of it? This, in turn, would mean the text is fluid in its nature; subject to the readings and opinions formed of it, its nature changing with each reading. This paper will consider these questions, which revolve around the content and meaning of a text, and go further to enquire into the nature of the text as a thing in itself. Looking at Derrida’s ideas on translation, is it possible to see a path to a reconciliation of these philosophies, or are we left asking further question