The Nature of Political Theory

300 The Nature of Political Theory

Prejudice therefore constitutes the substance of a tradition. To be outside a tradition
and prejudice is to be outside human understanding. It is simply a myth of Enlight-
enment conceptions of reason to believe that one could stand outside prejudice.
Importantly, though, for Gadamer, despite the fact that we cannot shuffle off our
prejudices, we can recognize them and work with them critically and interpretat-
ively. There is, in other words, an implicit distinction between critical and uncritical
prejudices or traditions. As Gadamer comments, ‘A person who comes of age need
not...take possession of what he has obediently followed. Tradition is no proof and
validation of something, in any case not where validation is demanded by reflec-
tion...The real question is whether one sees the function of reflection as bringing
something to awareness in order to confront what is in fact accepted with other
possibilities—so that one can either throw it out or reject the other possibilities
and accept what the traditionde factois presenting—or whether bringing some-
thing to awarenessalways dissolves what one has previously accepted’ (Gadamer 1977:
34) What this implies for Gadamer is that ‘there is no societal reality, with all its
concrete forces, that does not bring itself to representation in a consciousness that
is linguistically articulated’. Gadamer is insistent, in a resonant phrase, that ‘Real-
ity does not happen “behind the back” of language’, conversely, ‘it happens rather
behind the backs of those who live in the subjective opinion that they have under-
stood “the world”.... Reality happens preciselywithinlanguage’ (Gadamer 1977:
35; see also 38). Thus, critics of prejudice (qua those who conjure with abstract
reason) are not offering an alternative to prejudice, conversely they are offering their
prejudice as crucial. Humans in dialogue simply trade their prejudices (see Gadamer
1977: 32–3).
Prejudice, for Gadamer, draws attention to our limits, our temporality, and finite-
ness (see Gadamer 1977: 37). Our language—in which our very being is rooted—is
temporal, finite, and historically mutable. Language embodies our understanding,
therefore our understanding is mutable. What hermeneutics does is to encourage us
to recognize this finiteness, mutability, and temporality of our understanding, and
through careful interpretation, to bring our prejudices into the full daylight. This
entails, for Gadamer, that we are never necessarily tied to one conception of the
world. The possibilities for interpretation are infinite. As Gadamer notes, ‘I affirm
the hermeneutical fact that the world is the medium of human understanding, but
it does not lead to the conclusion that cultural tradition should be absolutized and
fixed...The principle of hermeneutics simply means that we should try to under-
stand everything that can be understood’ (see Gadamer 1977: 31). Hermeneutics
loosens the inevitable hold of prejudices. It prevents language becoming ossified. In
this context, prejudice, as Gadamer notes, does not function ‘behind my back’, or,
behind the back of language. This reflective consciousness itself is constituted through
prejudice. We have, for example, a prejudiceforreason. As he comments ‘the pre-
judgements that lead my preunderstanding are also constantly at stake, right up to
the moment of their surrender’ (Gadamer 1977: 38). The recognition of this point
facilitates our awareness of the way all interpretation circles back to its own embodied
prejudices, preunderstandings, traditions, and historical finiteness. The surrender of