  It should be noted that Gadamer’s talk of integrating the alien into what is understood as meaningful is not to be grasped as subsumption within the same. Assimilation is not the equivalent of translating the alien into a stable set of meanings which do not change as a consequence of that subsumption. Integration implies a reciprocity: the integrated changes its character as well as the character of the whole within which integration occurs. Furthermore, whatever is given in subjective consciousness as contemporaneous has dimensions of meaning that transcend what that consciousness initially grasps. Gadamer is concerned to probe the ontic dimensions of aesthetic experience. The thesis that experience of the contemporaneousness of art involves us in more than what we are presently aware of (i.e., the “substance” of underlying and on-going trans-individual linguistic and cultural practices) is supported by the three arguments from analogy concerning the character of play, the festival and the symbol.