It should be noted that since the second half of the 20th century, the inclination towards negotiation, which emerged as a response to the events of the Second World War, has determined two phenomena: 1) a new surge of interest in hermeneutics as a scientific method; 2) has gained momentum and demonstrated a demand for the application of skills in resolving disputes at both the level of subject-subject relations and at the levels of subject-group and group-group. This involves the procedure of understanding (now more commonly referred to as mediation). The purpose of research is to analyse mediation as an applied form of hermeneutics, a thorough understanding of which as a method allows parties in a dispute to become aware of their positions and subsequently reach an understanding when making a well-considered joint decision.

The conflict parties, entering the mediation process, must, based on their understanding of the conflict’s essence and a clear awareness and justification of their needs and interests, formulate a desired balance of intersubjective relations with opponents and the future. Mediation, as an applied form of hermeneutics, presupposes that its procedure begins with the parties’ knowledge and understanding of their own position and the position of the Other. Knowledge and understanding are conditions for mutual understanding, essentially allowing us to assert that mediation is profoundly hermeneutic, although this is often not consciously acknowledged and not emphasized as a component of a mediator’s professional knowledge.

It is concluded that mediation parties, as subjects without setting a specific cognitive task for themselves, reflect on their own position and the position of the other party during the mediation process, considering their own experience and the experience of opponents, and clarify what precisely led to the conflict/dispute. The awareness gained during the mediation procedure is discursive in nature and includes three components: “understanding – interpretation – application”, essentially indicating that mediation is an applied form of hermeneutics. Within the framework of mediation, hermeneutics becomes a tool for revealing human attitudes towards the Other and the world as a whole.

Key words: hermeneutics, mediation, awareness, interpretation, understanding, individual.

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