312 The Nature of Political TheoryHabermas wants to make here, one needs to reiterate and underscore the basic
thesis of his early book and inaugural lectureKnowledge and Human Interest. Haber-
mas basically views knowledge in a more comprehensive all-inclusive manner than
Gadamer. There are, in other words, a number of legitimate knowledge spheres.
Although it is clear, first, that no knowledge sphere should be allowed to ‘colonize’
the whole lifeworld of human thought—which is the core to both Gadamer’s and
Habermas’s critique of positivism—nonetheless, each knowledge sphere, for Haber-
mas, still has a crucial role. The ‘historical-hermeneutic’ perspective has a place in
practical knowledge, but it should not, for Habermas, become the ‘positivism of the
human sciences’. In this sense, Habermas suggests that Gadamer has made too rigid
a distinction between ‘truth’ and ‘method’ and has given too much credence to the
hermeneutic sphere over that of the empirical–analytic and method-based sphere. In
consequence, he thinks that Gadamer has given up any aims to achieve more object-
ive knowledge. Gadamer’s appeals to conversation, play, and practical philosophy are
too lightweight and idealized to deal seriously and comprehensively with the seri-
ous pathologies of modern society, legal systems, and constitutional structures. For
Habermas, what Gadamer calls method, is in fact an intimate part of human know-
ledge and understanding. He sees Gadamer, therefore, as altogether too restrictive on
the issue of knowledge. The comprehensive knowledge of human action requires the
empirical–analytic, as well as the hermeneutic sciences.
Second, Habermas sees Gadamer as muddying the whole issue of human eman-
cipation. His focus is seen to be anti-Enlightenment, overly concentrated on passive
readings of tradition, prejudice, and authority, and thus caught in a deeply conser-
vative social and political stance. The fundamental failure here in Gadamer is to deny
the full capacity for human reason. As Habermas comments, ‘Gadamer is motiv-
ated by the conservatism of the first generation, by the impulse of a Burke not yet
directed against the rationalism of the eighteenth century. True authority, according
to Gadamer, distinguishes itself from false authority through being acknowledged’
(see Habermas 1996b: 169). What is needed, for Habermas, is a rigorous critique
of tradition, prejudice, and authority, on the basis of open reasoned reflection. Tra-
dition and authority, for Habermas, are thus in conflict with the comprehensive
‘power of reflection’ (Habermas 1996b: 170).^26 What unfettered reflection will reveal
is what Gadamer cannot see, for example, thepoweranddominationimplicit within
much language use. What needs to be guarded against is manipulated or pseudo-
communication. In his early work, Habermas suggests, therefore, that there is a need
for additional forms of social and psychological analysis—that is actual psychoana-
lysis and a critique of ideology. Once these are fully engaged with there is at least a
possibility of a distortion free dialogue.^27 Whereas Gadamer is accused of seeing lan-
guage as an unfettered pristine system of exchange; Habermas suggests that language
can be, as much, a system of power, deception and domination, and consequently it
needs a deeper ideological critique.
On one reading, Habermas offers an ideal solution to the question of different
spheres of human knowledge. However, it is never clear, what the precise relation is
betweenthe instrumental reason of the positive empirical sciences and Habermas’s