What’s Hermeneutical About Heidegger’s Understanding‑of‑Being?

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyze the hermeneutical nature of the concept of the understanding-of-being that grounds Heidegger’s fundamental ontology. I first consider the merging between ontology and hermeneutics that takes place in Being and Time and then interpret the hermeneutical sections of Being and Time (§§ 31–32) in order to clarify the ontological scope of under­standing, interpretation, and meaning. This allows me to examine the three dimensions of the “understanding-of-being principle” (according to which our encounter with entities is made possible by an understanding-of-being): the semantic, the ontological, and the transcendental. Finally, I try to make sense of the problematic use Heidegger makes of the concept of understanding for both the ontic encounter with entities and the ontological access to being.