"I only understand a person if I understand how she understands herself. This I cannot understand unless she communicates it to me. But what she communicates... is different from her own self-understanding, and what she communicates I can only understand in my own terms and not in others. Just as I cannot experience her experiences, I cannot understand her self-understanding in her own terms...
But there is a more basic opaqueness - not only of someone to someone else but also of a person to herself. For why should we assume that she understands herself at all, or better than I do? I have no direct access to myself as a person. Even if we distinguish, as Augustine does, between se cogitare (reflecting on oneself) and se nosse (knowing oneself), I not only need not be aware of what I know of myself... but will never fully become aware of it... if there is always more to be known about myself than I can become aware of, there is no definite limit to what I can become aware of about myself...
In short, since I am not fully accessible to myself, I am transcendent not only to others, but also to myself, and precisely this opens up possibilities for interpretation and understanding."
- Ingolf Dalferth
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