What understand others? 1 In L'Attentat by Y.Khadra, the main character discoverd that his wife is responsible about a terrorist attack. How can he react? Can he understand the wife that he loved ? What does it mean to understand others? Understand is to have some knowledges to reflect, understand someone is to have enought feelings toward the person you want to understand, to understand how he feel why he did that... Others is another person, different from me, person with awareness. So how can we understand others? Is it need to be close to him or loving him a bit?To give as clear an explanation as possible, do you first have to put yourself in the place of the person? But does it really mean to understand someone else? According to Aristote " La connaissance de soi n'est pas possible sans la présence de quelqu'un d'autre qui soit notre ami." ( I will literaly translate it by "Self-knowledge is not possible without the presence of someone else who is your friend"). So Understand others involve to identify oneself. With an intellectual approach, you have to understand why he/she did that, what were his/her intentions by using reason. With an affective, approach seems able to take into accountwhat is really happening. Because you can share feelings (pain, pleasures) by using natural empathy. Thus, instead of using an intellectual approach, you use an affective approach and you probably can create a mutual respect, or even forgive him/her. Comprehension is based on share, and not what is different. But considering that the other is other does is not foster to not understand him because he/she is "other"? .