Gegenständlichkeit

The phenomenological hermeneutics developed by Günter Figal's in this book has come to occupy a significant position in hermeneutical thinking. By conceiving interpretation and understanding, often regarded as subjective achievements, realistically, the book is and remains strongly provocative. Interpretation is revealed to be an original reference to a subject matter; it is a reference to something that opposes and, as such, poses a challenge that initiates interpretation. Figal accordingly refutes the critique of 'objectification' so common in modern continental thinking. He also shows that hermeneutical experience is merely an intensified mode of human life: life itself is generally dominated by the reference to objects that come to stand in opposition. The hermeneutical dimensions of the world, explained as freedom, language, and time, enable this reference.