Richard J. Severson

When we wish to understand somebody, we usually start a conversation with them.  It is an opening that enables us to find common ground.  Hans-Georg Gadamer described the process as a “fusion of horizons.” The colloquial equivalent might be “walk a mile in my shoes.”  The concept is especially important today because none of us is capable of comprehending even a fraction of the knowledge that has accumulated in the modern era.  It is estimated that the output of scientific research doubles every nine years, and the pace is actually quickening. Not even the greatest academic libraries are able to collect all of the artifacts of human inquiry.  Most of us live in isolated knowledge ghettos that make it practically impossible to experience a fusion of horizons with somebody from a different field of study, not to mention somebody from a different culture or era of time.  It is a modern fable worthy of Aesop that the more we learn, the less able to understand one another we become.