Pre-understanding and Openness - a Relationship Without Hope?

Pre-understanding and openness - a relationship without hope? In all research, quantitative as well as qualitative, we have to deal with our presuppositions in order to remain open throughout the whole process of inquiry. If we fail to do so the findings might be little more than a reflected image of something already existing in our understanding. The question dealt with in this paper is: how can we gain increased openness by being more aware of our presuppositions. The aim was to investigate the intentional structure of pre-understanding and its effects upon data-collection as well as data-analysis and conclusions in research. The question of pre-understanding is central in Gadamer's philosophy, even if he is not the first one to discuss this concept. Gadamer further developed the philosophy of understanding. According to him pre- understanding is an intentional structure of feelings and thoughts, which is activated when we regard something as something. By studying the structure of pre-understanding we became more aware of its effect upon understanding. In this paper, theoretical frameworks within cognitive and social psychology as well as psychoanalytic object-relation-theory were compared with Gadamer's philosophy concerning the conditions of human understanding. Finally the possibility of increased openness in the process of research was discussed. (Such openness is related to knowledge about the structure of pre-understanding.)