The Nature of Political Theory

314 The Nature of Political Theory

it is absolutely absurd to regard the concrete factors of work and politics as outside
the scope of hermeneutics’ (Gadamer 1977: 31).
Whereas Habermas views authority and prejudice as opposed to Enlightenment
reason, Gadamer contends that this abstract distinction ‘is a mistake fraught with
ominous consequences. In it, reflection is granted a false power, and the true depend-
encies involved are misjudged on the basis of a fallacious idealism’ (Gadamer 1977:
33). He admits that there are tensions and ambivalences in the relation between
emancipatory reason and authoritative traditions, but he is also clear, in his own
mind, that the distinction should not be casually accepted.^28 Gadamer’s basic point,
mentioned earlier about tradition and authority, is that one should minimally make a
distinction between critical recognized authority, as against uncritical unrecognized
forms. Authority functions seriously, for Gadamer, when it is actually fully and freely
recognized. Authority is not the same as dogmatic force. Further, does reason, when
it engages and reflects upon the world of traditions and authorities, undermine or
destroy prejudice. Gadamer suggests that reason might well be present within the
traditions and authorities.^29 The important issue, which gives more substance to
Gadamer’s point here, is his insistence on the ontology of language. Reality—even
empirical–analytic, work-based, dominatory or ideological forms—does not happen
‘behind the back’ of language. Nothing happens outside of language. There is no
conceptual clarity, empirical reference or logical self-consistency, which magically
exceeds language. This isnotsaying that language determines reality; that would be
a different argument from Gadamer’s. However, everything is, nonetheless, internal
to language and interpretation. Nothing exceeds it. One may merge with a different
horizon, which will radically change the description or explanation of the world, one
may even have the impression that one has stepped outside language. The Freudian,
Marxist, and Frankfurt school ‘ideology critique’ give this impression. However it
is an illusion. To be open to present or past traditions is not to cave in to mindless
dogma, it is to freely recognize other horizons.
Once one has grasped the logic and presence of the hermeneutic circle, it is difficult
not to see Habermas himself as struggling, but failing, to jump out of it. Even the
Habermasian ‘ideal speech situation’ and ‘discourse ethic’ can be seen as yet another
surreptitious classical metaphysical attempt to stop time, history, and human mutab-
ility and attain a ‘still point of unchanging foundational calm’. Habermas does, in fact,
have a small range of justificatory strategies here. There is, first, a much more overtly
Kantian transcendental claim for the ideal speech situation, which appeals to tran-
scendental conditions for any speech situation. However, in the Kantian mode, this
appears to invoke a strongly subject-orientated reason, which, of course, Habermas
himself has repudiated,vis-à-vishis emphasis on intersubjectivity. He is also particu-
larly critical of Kant’s philosophy, for example, when it posed ‘as the highest court of
appealvis-à-visthe sciences and cultures as a whole’ (Habermas in Baynes et al. 1993:
298). For Habermas, it is clear ‘that philosophy has no business playing the part of the
highest arbiter’ (Habermas in Baynes et al. 1993: 308–9). Thus, astrongtranscend-
ental argument does not seem to work for Habermas. In consequence, there is another
transcendental strategy, which is commoner amongst Habermasians, to appeal to the