The Existential Definition of Testimony

The article focuses on the analysis of the existential meaning of testimony. A possible starting point for a consideration regarding the phenomenon of testimony in this direction is offered by Heidegger discussion of the attestation of authentic-existential possibility of Dasein in Being and Time. The ontological understanding of the witness and the testimony in particular prevents the reduction of the testimony to one of the forms of expression or communication, which Paul Ricoeur could not completely avoid in his hermeneutic project of attestation. As a special problem, there exists a lack of understanding, which always occurs in the situation of testimony and such also defines the conditions for the possibility of truth or untruth to testify to what the witness bears witness.