How do people come to understand you?
Updated: 1 day ago
Understanding occurs through historical awareness, presuppositions, openness to the meaning of others, and a fusion of horizons:
Historical awareness is learning to understand ourselves better and recognise that, in all understanding, whether we are expressly aware of it or not, the efficacy of history is at work.
Presuppositions include preunderstandings, prejudices, and beliefs.
Openness to the meaning of others does not mean that when we listen to someone or read a book, we must forget all our presuppositions concerning the content and all our own ideas.
Fusion of horizons is to learn to look beyond what is close at hand, not to look away from it but to see it better, within a larger whole and in truer proportion.
Harris, D.A. (2020) Interpreting the Meaning of Existence for the Person with Motor Neurone Disease, and their Family Carer(s). Doctoral thesis (PhD), Manchester Metropolitan University.
