The process of translating comprises in its essence the whole secret of human understanding of the world and of social communication.
Hans-Georg GadamerRead
We cannot understand without wanting to understand, that is, without wanting to let something be said...Understanding does not occur when we try to intercept what someone wants to say to us by claiming we already know it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Understanding requires a genuine desire to listen and learn rather than assume we already know.
This quote by Hans-Georg Gadamer emphasizes the importance of openness and willingness to understand others. It suggests that true understanding cannot happen if one approaches conversations with preconceived notions or an assumption of knowledge but rather requires an active effort to listen and engage with the speaker's perspective. This implies that understanding is a collaborative process that necessitates humility and receptiveness.
Themes
UnderstandingCommunicationListeningKnowledgeOpenness
In practice
Example use cases
In a workshop on effective communication, this quote could be used to highlight the importance of active listening.
More from Hans-Georg Gadamer
All quotes βThe essence of the question is the opening up, and keeping open, of possibilities.
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It is one of the primary motives of modern art that it wants to abolish the distance which the viewer, the consumer, the audience maintain vis-a-vis a work of art. There is no doubt that the leaders of the creative artists of the last 50 years concentrated their efforts mainly on eliminating that distance.
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For both art and the historical sciences are ways of experiencing in which our own understanding of existence is immediately brought into play.
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It is the tyranny of hidden prejudices that makes us deaf to what speaks to us in tradition.
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A cultured society that has fallen away from its religious traditions expects more from art than the aesthetic consciousness and the 'standpoint of art' can deliver. The Romantic desire for a new mythology... gives the artist and his task in the world the consciousness of a new consecration. He is something like a 'secular saviour' for his creations are expected to achieve on a small scale the propitiation of disaster for which an unsaved world hopes.
Hans-Georg GadamerRead
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