Understanding as the revelation of the self

Abstract

The paper approaches the problem of identity from the perspective of a hermeneutical model of understanding. In hermeneutical theory, understanding is neither an epistemological nor a methodological problem but rather on ontological one. Understanding is not an explanation of something, it is not simply an action aimed at some object but an event of one’s life. Understanding the other means comprehending it in the framework of the self, it is one way to understand the self, because the process of understanding changes the self as it unfolds. At the same time what one understands is not simply an outer object, but a sense that has become one’s self, a relation in which the traditional subject-object relation is dissolved. From a hermeneutical perspective, identity is not a given, closed construct but is always in flux through its communicative and playful contact with others.