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LIFE AS UNDERSTANDING

by

GÜNTER FIGAL
Freiburg Universität

ABSTRACT
In this paper I take up the “claim to universality” of hermeneutics, as put forth by
Hans-Georg Gadamer; the aim is to grasp the “life that can understand,” to grasp it
in its essence and in terms of understanding. In this way I deal critically with Gadamer’s
(and Heidegger’s) idea that all understanding is “self-understanding” and work out the
dependence of understanding on the other, on the “hermeneutic object” (Gegenstand ) of
understanding. But a “hermeneutic object” (Gegenstand ) is not a “mere object” (Objekt). On
the basis of this distinction, I develop, in conclusion, a critical reflection on the self-
objectification of the human in those interpretations of human life that are oriented
solely to natural science. Self-objectification is a wrongly directed understanding and
can therefore be corrected on the basis of a developed concept of life as understanding.

I
Whenever we speak of life we think not only of human beings. The
concept of life speaks of the context in which we are associated with
other living beings. In conceiving of ourselves as living beings, and not
as “subjects,” “Dasein,” or “consciousness,” we know that we are not
separated from plant and animal as if by an abyss. Despite this prox-
imity, not all differences between living beings dissolve with the con-
cept of life. Precisely these differences are addressed by a thought that
to this day is still convincing, namely, Aristotle’s proposal that a liv-
ing being be defined in terms of the peculiar expression of life proper
to it (EN 1097b24–1098a18). Because its proper actuality and activity,
its ¶rgon, determine the key in which all its other capacities and modes
of behavior are played out, a living being comes into view as some-
thing unified. It can be registered in the form of its life, revealing what
life is for this very being.
Understanding is the expression of life proper to the human being.
Not simply one activity of consciousness among others, understanding
implicates, more or less expressly, life itself and thereby sets up in

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advance the context for other processes of consciousness. This is shown

by the stance taken in understanding: one does not simply become
aware of something, but often awareness comes with acceptance. And
always what is understood carries meaning and is meaningful for the
one understanding. On this basis alone can something understood
become self-evident; in so doing it recedes into the background of
attention, forming the ground upon which a life capable of under-
standing finds security and orients itself within what is pregiven.
The security that nestles in things that are a matter of course causes
understanding to become oblivious. Thus understanding fades in impor-
tance, though it continues to be determinative whenever we presume
to know the way something simply is. Yet here too what one knows
stands in relation to life and has as this presumed triviality a certain
significance. Therefore there can be no neutral scientific view: every
determination of the world, certainly every investigation into the life
of a being capable of understanding, yields a determination that con-
cerns that selfsame being. Whenever there is knowing, life itself is at
play. To this extent, all knowing is proper to understanding, becom-
ing transparent in what it is as knowledge only when developed as
understanding.
Consequent upon such considerations it appears necessary that under-
standing be principally conceived as self-understanding. This concep-
tion would take into account, one might say, the saliency and mean-
ing of understanding and renders visible why understanding has become
a matter central to philosophy. The universality of philosophical
hermeneutics, as put forth by Hans-Georg Gadamer, rests upon the
conviction that every understanding is “ultimately self-understanding.”1
Philosophical hermeneutics, according to Gadamer, clearly distances
itself “from ‘pure’ knowledge detached from one’s proper being” (GW
1: 319). It aims at demonstrating how the human being and the world
belong “originally together” in understanding (GW 1: 463), and thus
the openness of understanding “has the same universal scope as do
reason and language” (GW 1: 480).
Even though Gadamer’s project of a philosophical hermeneutics
launches out as the self-elucidation of the human sciences, the discus-
sion of understanding with the program just sketched leads “back into
the problems of classical metaphysics” (GW 1: 464). Gadamer experi-
ences his own thought from the legacy of classical antiquity, which as
“logos philosophy,” brought to language the “relation between the
human being and world” (GW 1: 463). In a similar vein, philosophical

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hermeneutics undertakes Kant’s endeavor to bridge the gap between

bare consciousness of the self and determinate knowledge with the cen-
tral concept of purposiveness (GW 1: 463). Likewise he takes up Hegel’s
philosophy of spirit, whose attempt toward a total mediation of thought
and being (GW 1: 464) Gadamer explicitly makes his own.
Despite its ligature to the classical problems of ancient and modern
philosophy, Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics does not aspire to
be an unsevered continuation of the metaphysical tradition. Next to
Hegel, Heidegger is its most important authority, and both the possi-
bilities and limits of the Gadamerian project originate from the ten-
sion announcing itself with the mention of these two figures. Against
the “hubristic assertion” (GW 1: 306) of an absolute knowing “in which
history would become completely transparent to itself and thus be
raised to the level of a concept” (GW 1: 306), Gadamer points to the
finitude of understanding. All “self-knowledge” (Sichwissen) arises from
what is “historically pregiven” and undergirds “all subjective intentions
and actions” (GW 1: 307). Thus his response entails bringing to the
fore this “substantiality” of history in contrast to the possibility of a
complete knowledge of the self. This occurs hermeneutically in illu-
minating the structure of understanding. Gadamer wants to show that
in understanding what is historically pregiven becomes explicit; under-
standing is self-knowledge within the inscrutibility of one’s proper—
yet never fully appropriable—being. Though it deviates significantly
from Heidegger’s own implementation, in the context of his variation
of a “hermeneutics of facticity,” Gadamer too, just like Heidegger
before him, takes Aristotle’s “practical wisdom,” frÒnhsiw, as the par-
adigm of understanding. As self-understanding, it is the luminosity of
a situation in which one must comport oneself even though it may
never be fully illuminated. The orientation on this classical paradigm
of practical wisdom is one that thoroughly imbues modern thought.
Just as it stood at the forefront with Kant and continues to determine
contemporary thinking in the different variations of pragmatic and
social philosophy, the hermeneutic rehabilitation of practical philoso-
phy also acknowledges the precedence of the practical. Moreover, with
the emphasis on self-understanding, hermeneutics continues, for all its
detailed critical revision, the orientation on the self and its essential
self-relatedness. As in Kant and German Idealism, as in Kierkegaard
and Nietzsche, at the center of hermeneutic thinking stands comport-
ment toward oneself.

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Nevertheless such an orientation leaves itself open to question. Even

granting that the one who understands is incorporated in the essence
of understanding, one could still with good reason doubt the general-
ization of self-understanding. One understands something and, for the
most part, is capable of telling clearly what is yet to be understood or
has already been understood. This experience is particularly intensified
when understanding is successful not suddenly or quickly, but rather
after sedulous attention and effort. Then one wants to understand some-
thing—a language or a difficult text—and finally effort is rewarded
with success. That one is oneself now speaking the language, is one-
self grappling with a text, is clear, and this may indeed come to con-
sciousness. Yet the possibility realized does remain a view rooted in
the matter of the thing and cannot therefore be sublated in the reflexivity
of a “self.” The more explicit the challenge and success of under-
standing becomes, the more decisively it concerns not the one under-
standing, but rather the matter to be understood.
For such experience one finds just as little place in Gadamer’s
account as in Heidegger’s. Even when Heidegger focuses on ability in
the sense of skillfulness in his illumination of understanding, ultimately
understanding is always the understanding of one’s own existence. In
Heidegger’s sense it is apprehending: understanding is the intuitive
grasping of one’s proper potentiality, without these possibilities becom-
ing “thematic,” as Heidegger says. Only in the “explication” of the
development of understanding does the corresponding particular as
such come into view. Yet this in turn occurs only because the realm
of “significance” in which the particular is encountered is always already
understood in terms of the latest project of one’s proper being. With
Gadamer it is otherwise. The necessity of an “impetus” (eines Anstoßes)
for understanding is explicitly emphasized (GW 1: 272). Whoever wants
to understand something must “from the beginning be receptive” (GW
1: 273) to the “alterity” of that which is the matter of concern. Yet
this alterity or “foreignness” (GW 1: 300) is soon revealed as a mere
intermediate stage. Only initially is the foreignness of the historicized
maintained at a temporal distance in order to hear how it speaks to
one’s proper present such that its limited expanse of possibilities for
understanding, its horizon, “merges” with that of the tradition. This
only occurs, however, thanks to the transmission of tradition that has
liberated its possibilities for understanding the present, thus constitut-
ing the factical being of the one who understands. Understanding this

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24  

transmission affords insight into what and how one authentically is.
Nevertheless this clearly Hegelian approach of Gadamer’s suffers a
problematic consequence: the “impetus” that sets understanding upon
its course and maintains it on course becomes little more than an irri-
tation, an irritation actually inappropriate to the essence of what one
must understand. Proper to this essence, rather, is to settle down in
all haste, becoming a matter of course in the historical occurrence of
meaning (geschichtlichen Sinnsgeschehens). “The self-awareness (die Selbstbesinnung)
of the individual,” as it is called by Gadamer, is “only a flicker in the
closed circuit of a historical life” (GW 1: 281). In fusing the horizon of
the present with the tradition, understanding dissolves in factical being.
In so doing, the concept of understanding also loses the philosophical
significance intended for it by a hermeneutics that came on the scene
with the claim to universality. Hermeneutics too is self-awareness and
as such gives way to facticity.
To avoid such a conclusion, one would have to keep in mind
Aristotle’s thought sketched at the beginning: a life capable of under-
standing has the actuality proper to it in understanding, that is to say,
in how understanding explicitly occurs. Here life in truth comes to the
fore. Thus one would have to develop the peculiarity proper to under-
standing in the sense of a hermeneutics of life that departs from the
paradigm of practical wisdom. Instead of thinking understanding in
terms of comportment toward oneself, we must take into account its
involvement with things (seiner Sachlichkeit).

II
We can connect this to Gadamer’s idea of an “impetus” inherent in
understanding. Something becomes conspicuous, resists and opposes
integration in the quotidian world. As Gadamer explains, with it one
“cannot be bound in the manner of an unquestionably self-evident
unanimity” (GW 1:300). This also implies that whatever must be under-
stood is not given of itself. It is experienced as a promise, one the self
is entrusted to keep; what is to be understood must be explored so
that the possibilities it conceals and promises can emerge.
To be sure, these possibilities of understanding change as they emerge
in exploration. Having been the possibilities of something yet to be
understood, they become possibilities belonging to the one under-
standing in and through their actualization occurring at a particular
time. With their actualization, possibilities change place; they emerge

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as what they are through something other and in this very other. This
is to say that something there for understanding is given only through
mediation, which is a kind of translation or transference (eine Übertra-
gung): a metaf°rein that transports and refigures. Something is specifically
articulated, yet remains there, like a translated text, recognizable as
something other.
Yet such translation occurs not just from one language to another.
Every explication is a translation, thus also an interpretation. However, in
an explicative interpretation, which is at issue here, no comparison is
made between what is articulated and the other that opposes it—a
comparison one may make when holding a translation next to the
original. This other, that which must be understood, discloses itself as
this other in its recalcitrance to absorption within the occurrent inter-
pretation; it always stands open for another realization. Only in expe-
riencing this openness can one encounter something as what must be
understood. Thus it opens in a double present, one differentiated in
two aspects: what must be understood is present in the mediation of
interpretation and present in itself, as both something that makes pos-
sible and as something possible. Even when interpreted it continues to
exist as both the making-possible and the possible. For it is proper to
the essence of whatever must be understood that it never exhausts itself
in an any interpretation, but remains an ever new occasion for others.
In light of these considerations, what must be understood can now
be determined in the peculiar manner of being proper to it: it is a
hermeneutic object, ein Gegenstand, in the strict sense—something that
stands opposed and is given from this stance of opposition as obsta-
cle. Hermeneutic objectivity (Gegenständlichkeit) is an irreducible deter-
mination of being. Thus the hermeneutic object is not a substrate
forming the basis of its actualizations at a given time. Interpretations
are not attributes and modalities that can be distinguished from the
essence of the matter for interpretation, but rather, they are the actu-
alization of the object’s essence itself. What must be interpreted, there-
fore, is also not a thing in itself whose interpretations would then be
its appearances. To be sure, it is accessible; what is to be interpreted
does not withdraw. Rather it appears as the possible, as the “impe-
tus” for interpretation, which also manifests itself exactly in this way
within the mediated present of the occurrent interpretation. It does
not become conspicuous to thought as something purely other, but is
rather graspable on the basis of this alterity. Despite this, the hermeneu-
tic object is not a mere object or Objekt, that is to say, a thing intended

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and grasped in consciousness and then simply transplanted into an

external existence. While the mere object has its externality solely
through and for consciousness, the hermeneutic object is truly exter-
nal. Of itself, the hermeneutic object opposes and objects; solely for
this reason it is experienced as an impetus (Anstoß) that impacts inter-
pretation. In the unfolding of this interpretive experience, the hermeneu-
tic object is transposed, must be transported into explicit interpreting.
The hermeneutic object stands to a certain extent in the middle between
mere object and thing in itself: like the mere object, it is a determi-
nate appearance for a consciousness; like the thing in itself, it shares
its externality. Yet through the translation its distinctiveness truly stands
in relation to the external. Moreover, its being “in itself ” does not
imply a withdrawal from knowing. Rather, the hermeneutic object jux-
taposes itself to its occurrent actualizations as self-contained possibility
and always holds itself back in this juxtaposition. Nevertheless, in itself,
in its potentiality, the hermeneutic object is accessible; it is also given
as something actual, albeit always only mediately.
Mediation, and thus interpretation, discovers its hermeneutic object
in facilitating its appearance within interpretation itself. It is discov-
ered as something; in applying the “hermeneutic as”—and this in stark
contrast to Heidegger’s understanding—one comes across the possible
“as” a distinct realization. This movement of discovery, which is the
movement of translating, can only be carried out, if in the play between
its two moments, these moments are mutually implicated: the possible
that stands opposed is always such from the viewpoint of its realiza-
tion; realization is that which it is, namely, interpretation, only when
the possible abides present alongside it. Said otherwise, the movement
of interpretation is enacted, expanded, as it were, across the double
present of what must be interpreted or has been interpreted.
Hence this movement can only be carried out if these two moments
are pulled apart and at the same time held together. There would be
no movement without free play within cohesion; without cohesion there
would be no determinate movement. Rather, one could speak only of
a deferral, a movement precipitating itself uncontrollably from some-
thing experienced into the indeterminate. This movement must be reg-
istrable as such, capable of being experienced as that explicit change.
As the discovery of something as something, interpretation implies this
very experience. In order that this change be distinct, the sameness
between possibility and realization must be maintained within this
change, without it appearing as the substrate of the movement or as

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its immutable actuality. Always at play in translating is the possible—

possibility that no actuality can absorb.
Whenever the free play of translation coheres in this way, it con-
fers a meaning: the possibility of the hermeneutic object shows itself in
light of the actuality of its interpretation, and the actuality of inter-
pretation shows itself in light of the possibility of the hermeneutic
object. Meaning is the accord of these two moments at a particular
time. Whenever there is meaning, there is understanding, for only in
understanding does meaning show itself. Understanding is coherence
in the movement of translation in which the interpretation and its
hermeneutic object conjoin.
When the hermeneutic object and interpretation are understood on
the basis of their relation of mutual implication, each is revealed as
what it is. Moreover, this renders visible the movement of interpret-
ing as such; it is shown to be a true transferal and not simply a defer-
ral precipitated into diffuseness, which, as capable of infinite modifications,
could always be carried on further. Here the successfulness of a fitting
interpretation finally comes to the fore. Because interpretation and
hermeneutic object are conjoined only in the coherence of understanding,
their belonging is never guaranteed. Their conjunction could fail; suc-
cess is never assured; and thus the moment of success is set in bold
relief from everything that is a matter of course. Successful interpretation
shows that the transference has truly been accomplished; when the
hermeneutic object and the present realization come into accord, the
translation reveals itself as meaningful and therefore comprehensible.
Understanding is the truth of interpretation, and the conjunction of
hermeneutic object and realization constitutes it as a specific truth.
That its truth must be specific is easily clarified: an interpretation is
not a propositional statement, and thus its truth cannot lie in the actual
existence of a state of affairs simply asserted. It is the realization of a
possibility, something that in itself is not a determinate state of affairs;
the interpretation itself first establishes its present determinacy. This
establishment is illuminating when it facilitates in translation the appear-
ance of accord between possibility and actuality. Such accord, however,
is dependent upon making present possibility and actuality as such.
This in turn is only possible when it is clear that their connection
resides in the transfer and is only possible as translation. Only in the
timely presence (Gegenwärtigkeit) of its structure does the distinct inter-
pretation of a particular time become illuminating. Thus proper to the
understanding of an interpretation is the knowledge of its temporary

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nature. It is precisely these illuminating interpretations that must prove

themselves in the context of others. From those that fail such proof is
never demanded.
Understanding as the truth of interpretation illuminates the con-
clusions of a particular moment, which coincides with the transparence
of the structure. This is significant, and not only with respect to the
given conclusion. When interpreting as such is transparent in the truth
of interpretation, it needs no further outside elucidation regarding what
it actually is. In each instance of understanding, interpreting is man-
ifest as such. It is only a question of explicitness whether it will be
discursively articulated or not. In each case interpreting has a clarity
proper to it. Such clarity distinguishes it from things that become mat-
ters of course or matters of fact, things that prevent thought from ever
getting back behind them.

III
This leads us back to our opening question: what is the significance
that understanding holds for life? As the truth of interpretation, it is
the transparency of life insofar as understanding is carried out as inter-
preting. Yet this does not imply that ultimately understanding means
understanding oneself. In understanding not only is the interpretive
movement present but also its hermeneutic object and result. To be
sure, one has to experience for oneself the impact of the hermeneu-
tic object as an impetus and involve oneself in its interpretability. In
so doing, however, the possibilities disclosed are not those of one’s
own being, but rather are proper to the hermeneutic object itself. To
be sure, it is essentially through the interpreter that the result of the
interpretation is brought into being. Yet this result remains transparent
in understanding as the actuality of the hermeneutic object in coher-
ing with it within the hermeneutic object’s double present. In interpreting
and understanding, the human being himself is always an other. This
first allows the freedom, as well as the necessity, to reflect upon how
this other, this presently disclosed possibility and actuality, relate to a
direction of quotidian life that has become matter of course.
In understanding, therefore, one is transported beyond oneself, with-
out, however, being lost in a kind of exteriority that could be appro-
priated yet again. Hence the experience of exteriority cannot be con-
strued as an eruption within a pregiven immanence; a life capable of
understanding is never solely “in itself,” but rather is always already

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“outside.” It is the life that it is in this exteriority, thus already of itself

directed toward the mediation that is interpreting. Its unity is not set
up in advance; the life capable of understanding is in itself multiple,
different. To reckon with this difference, therefore, is the charge of
this life, which is to say that one must accept and at the same time
bridge this difference in the cohesiveness of understanding. Only in
such coherence is the unity of a life capable of understanding ever
given. It is given only as meaning.
Such a life, therefore, essentially concerns itself with what is given
as hermeneutically objective (mit dem Gegenständlichen)—though not always
necessarily explicitly given. What is hermeneutically objective can emerge
more or less clearly; it is experienced at a variety of possible levels
and to diverse degrees. Such concern for the hermeneutic object can
be exercised and ultimately released, simply carried out for the sake
of itself. In so doing, a sense for the hermeneutic object (Gegenstandssinn)
is cultivated, that is to say, an interest in hermeneutic objects and per-
haps too an interest in producing such objects in order to manifest the
possibilities of understanding. Works of art, the classical texts of phi-
losophy, as well as the sacred texts of religions are hermeneutic objects
par excellence. They are an ever driving impetus for interpreting, the
promise of meaning.
To be sure, the cultural hermeneutic objectivity of art, philosophy,
and religion would never be possible if life itself were not always already
hermeneutically objective. In the production of image and writing, of
appearance, structured sound, word and concept, what is proper to life
in its exteriority comes to the fore. In this way, a life capable of under-
standing is always already situated at a distance to the natural, at a
distance to the naturalness proper to it. As soon as there is a view
discordant with the natural rhythms of life, these rhythms become an
impetus for interpretation. To an even greater degree this applies also
to the finitude of natural life. The world in its infinite diversity and
vicissitude wants to be grasped according to possibilities, which they
themselves set up in advance, within unified structures. Never of them-
selves understood, the circumstances and forms of life dynamically
thrust toward interpretation in variegated degrees of intensity, and
finally worldly life as a whole becomes hermeneutic object. It is this
objectivity that is interpreted in hermeneutic objects, works, and texts
and thereby opens the possibility of further interpretation and under-
standing. Therefore one can never assume command over the hermeneu-
tic object. It remains other in its accessibility; in interpreting one must

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necessarily find ever new and other approaches to the hermeneutic

object. The perspectival character of interpreting is not only compat-
ible with hermeneutic objectivity, it confirms it.
Thus with the waning of perspectivity, the experience of hermeneu-
tic objectivity too dwindles. As soon as something no longer appears
in need of interpretation, and despite this becomes explicit instead of
settling down as a matter of course, it turns from hermeneutic object
to mere object. Mere objects are no longer true externals, but rather
only the external of the internal; they are interiors, the intended fur-
nishings of consciousness fixed in a determination that is transplanted
into exteriority—as if what is grasped in the concept were actually
given. Mere objects are immanent to consciousness, and this includes
the exteriority attributed to them. Yet this exteriority cannot be explained
solely on the basis of the immanence of consciousness; that there are
externals can be traced back to another experience, namely, the expe-
rience of hermeneutic objectivity. The knowing of mere objects pre-
supposes the understanding of hermeneutic objects. Thus the mere
object wears a borrowed exteriority.
This is of particular importance when dealing with the self-
objectification of a life capable of understanding. That the human
being can be researched and described as a being of nature is unan-
imously clear. That an understanding of human life can be reached in
this way, however, no one would claim after having clarified the pecu-
liar meaning of understanding proper to it. Understanding human life
is fundamentally different from grasping mere objects and, moreover,
entirely inconceivable if one were to restrict oneself solely to what is
merely objectified. The orientation upon what is simply objectified is
a kind of oblivion; it is a submersion within a presumed immanence.
It is a falsification of life whose truth is recalled by the mere object’s
mantle of exteriority. Remaining vigilant to the memory of this truth,
not relegating it to practical wisdom or subordinating it to the domain
of the sciences, is the peculiar task proper to philosophy.

Translated by Elizabeth Sikes

DePaul University

NOTE
1. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode: Grudzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik,
vol. 1 of Gesammelte Werke (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [ Paul Siebeck], 1990), 265.
Hereafter cited as GW 1, followed by page number.

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