Gegenständlichkeit

In this book, Günter Figal develops a foundation for hermeneutical philosophy. Interpretation and understanding are newly conceived. Interpretation shows itself to be the original reference to a subject matter; it is a reference to something which stands opposite and, as such, poses a challenge. As oppositionality therefore stands at the centre of hermeneutical philosophy, the critique of 'objectification', so commonly found in modern continental thinking, is critized here. Figal shows that hermeneutical experience is but an intensified mode of human life. Life itself is generally dominated by the reference to objects which come to stand in opposition. This objectivity and oppositionality of life is possible in a world with hermeneutical dimensions. These dimensions can be phenomenologically decribed as freedom, language, and time.