The Hermeneutic Phenomenon and the Authenticity of Discourse

Abstract

Since the publication of Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time, hermaneutical theory has played an important role in investigations if language use. A major issue in these investigations is the question of "authentic discourse." This term points to the ability of a writer or a speaker to perform communicative acts whereby language is used to reveal Being in a truthful manner. The purpose of this essay is to suggest what such an act of revelation entails and how the meaningfulness of this act is a function of a person’s poetic and rhetorical abilities.