Abstract: There are three reading theories in Louis Althusser’s early works: intuitive reading, expressive reading, and symptomatic reading. Intuitive reading puts emphasis on the intuitiveness of the mind towards given content, which tends to make the text transparent and shallow. The second is the theory of expressive reading, which stresses the revelation of a single meaning on the surface of the text through rational thinking, insisting on an exclusive and closed distinction between surface and depth. Symptomatic reading promotes a dialectical thinking that analyzes the dual content hidden beneath the textual surface in pursuit of an open adjoining distinction between surface and depth. Among these three reading theories, symptomatic reading is a result of critique on intuitive reading and expressive reading, which embodies the progressiveness and reflectiveness in Althusser’s early reading theories. The recent scholarly criticism of surface reading on symptomatic reading based on the surface/depth distinction, however, is an oversimplifying misjudgment that fails to capture its core significance. Such misjudgment is grounded in Fredric Jameson’s neglect of the difference between expression and symptom. An analysis of the relationship among intuitive reading, expressive reading, and symptomatic reading contributes to a thorough understanding of Althusser’s early reading theories, their variations and misreading of these theories in the process of reception.

Key words: Althusser’s early reading theories, intuitive reading, expressive reading, symptomatic reading, surface reading