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Every interpretation is a dialogue with the work, and with the saying. However, every dialogue becomes halting and fruitless if it confines itself obdurately to nothing but what is directly said — rather than that the speakers in the dialogue involve each other in that realm and abode about which they are speaking, and lead each other to it. Such involvement is the soul of dialogue. It leads the speakers into the unspoken. The term “conversation” does, of course, express the fact that the speakers are turning to one another. Every conversation is a kind of dialogue. But true dialogue is never a conversation. Conversation consists in slithering along the edges of the subject matter, precisely without getting involved in the unspoken. Most textual interpretations — not only of philosophical texts — remain at the level of conversation, which may often be rich and informative. And that, in many cases is enough.
- Martin Heidegger
