When reading, there is a tendency to want to disclose the total meaning that the author may have intended. This has a lot to say for it. In many ways, it is best to work toward clear and distinct understanding of a text.

But there is also a way of reading where what the author intended is not as important as the insight that pops up in the reader who brings a whole other set of experiences to the table. I do not mean that such an engagement can draw whatever it wants to draw out of the text. that is always a possibility when someone does not “get” the work and is just using it as an authority to cement their own viewpoint. (E.g. most people who reference the Bible or even some scientific doctrines simply are using the authority of the doctrines to support their worldview.)

I am speaking, however, about being open to one-way communication wherein the author who is not present becomes dialog partner to the reader. In this way, the original intent of the piece can either transform in an unexpected way from its “traditional” interpretation or it can reveal something that was always there but had never been noticed.

When we are reading philosophers who remain only in their texts—like Nietzsche and Plato, Hume and Laozi—this second way of engaging them should be practiced and developed. It may be that none will accept your interpretation as correct, but the more important notion is how much such new disclosures keep open the Way to Liberation.

Basically, while conserving the meaning is something good scholars should be doing, inspiration for new creative notions from such engagements is something good philosophers should be doing.