The Nature of Political Theory

306 The Nature of Political Theory

Something slightly different, but parallel, happens with reading of texts. We also
engage, for Gadamer, in the play of dialogue when reading a text. It obviously does
not answer back, however, as we read we bring our prejudices and interpretations
to bear. Each reading, as a fusion of horizons, can potentially bring new answers
from the text—as filtered through our prejudices. For Gadamer, the results are again
unpredictable. Consequently, he is insistent that there is no text with one meaning.^19
In an analogous way, Gadamer uses the serious play point to speak of works of art. As
he puts it, ‘the work of art has its true being in the fact that it becomes an experience
changing the person experiencing it. The ‘subject’ of the experience of art, that which
remains and endures, is not the subjectivity of the person who experiences it, but the
work itself. This is the point at which the mode of being of play becomes significant.
For play has its own essence, independent of the consciousness of those who play’. It
is important to note here that play (or the game) is Gadamer’s particular reading of
the motif of intersubjectivity. Play does not require a subject. Like intersubjectivity, it
is itself a ‘going on’, which absorbs the individuals into itself (Gadamer 1977: 92–3).

Ethics and Politics

Gadamer is often taken to be a conservative writer with little direct interest in politics.
There is some truth to the claim that he appears to take little overt interest in political
events in his main writings. There is also a sense that his own historical approach
and focus on dialogue inhibits him. The critic could quite justifiably say that if a
substantive political or ethical theory were forthcoming from Gadamer, then it could
be interpreted either as offering another ‘method’ as ‘truth’, or, alternatively, rendering
his own prejudices with universal import. Gadamer would, no doubt, find both these
conclusions unpalatable.
However, what is interesting about Gadamer’s hermeneutic theory is still the pos-
sibility of another way of viewing ethical, and political theory. However it is, like
Habermas, a way which does not directly involve recommending substantive founda-
tional claims. What is distinctive about both his (and Habermas’s) vision is that he
sees language and dialogue as crucial. Language has replaced thought and the philo-
sophy of the self-conscious subject. Communication and discourse are the universal
medium through which we deal with social, ethical, and political life. This leads
both thinkers to emphasize the intersubjective character of human existence. Like
Habermas, again, Gadamer stresses the historical and mutable character of language.
Furthermore, the manner in which we deal with conflict or difference is through
practical dialogue and communication, which can be misleading, or might indeed
have little effect. However, in the final analysis, there is no other way to address such
problems.^20 What both Habermas and Gadamer do, in focusing on language and
dialogue, is, on the one hand, to stress the contextual or conventional character of
our moral and political values. This emphasizes the potential differences between,
for example, cultures. However, they also focus, on the other hand, on the universal