Med mine andres ord

However, shared language capacity and linguistic competence cannot guarantee that one individual understands what the other is saying. Only through dialogue with the other can they test their understanding, amend and correct it, if necessary. Every understanding is therefore also a non-understanding, Humboldt argued. Thinking, in other words, is by its very nature tied to man’s social existence which means that it requires “a Thou that corresponds to the I”.

Kurt Mueller-Vollmer (2016). Wilhelm von Homboldt