The lingual mediation of Being and the infinite process of understanding: Gadamer’s radicalization of Heidegger’s question of Being

The extent of Heidegger’s crucial influence on Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics became fully visible only relatively recently with the discovery of the young Heidegger. Early Heidegger’s hermeneutics of facticity as an attempt to understand human existence had a profound impact on Gadamer. Gadamer’s hermeneutics opens up the horizon of mediation between the manifestation of Being and human understanding. Language, as the mediation between human beings and the world, discloses their original belonging together: In itself, the word is mediation; the word mediates itself. Gadamer’s radicalization of Heidegger’s question of Being leads him to the fundamental question of human understanding.