H–G. Gadamer’s aesthetic reflection constitutes the previous step to a theoretical proposal, philosophical hermeneutics, which is released from the epistemic and ontological prejudices of modern scientific tradition. The aesthetic concepts of play, festival and symbol, intend to serve as a basis for an alternative description of the phenomenon of understanding. In this paper we aim to show how these notions are not just preparatory but ontological concepts since they give an account of understanding as the fundamental mode of being of each and every individual. We will focus in particular on the concept of symbol: to the extent that our understanding occurs through a language that reflects in a permanently unsuited way the whole of the tradition that constitutes us, the notion of symbol becomes a basic ontological concept since it expresses the tension between the sensible and the intelligible in which our hermeneutic experience occurs.