CHAPTER IV

GADAMER, TRADITION AND DIALOGUE

ANTONETTE PALMA-ANGELES

INTRODUCTION

            The word "civil" is an adjective which can be defined loosely as that which pertains to a community of citizens. Civil society refers to the life of citizens and their interrelations. Hans-Georg Gadamer, whose name is synonymous with the redevelopment of hermeneutics did not elaborate a philosophy of civil society or of the state. He has not even worked out a social philosophy, but has refined his position about social reason largely in the context of his long dialogue with Jürgen Habermas in the 70s, which dominated the German philosophical scene. Social reason was not discussed thematically in his magnum opus, Truth and Method.

GADAMER AND TRADITION

            Nevertheless, Gadamer is still important to this discussion on philosophy and civil society. His self-proclaimed task was to uncover a truth in the human sciences (Geisteswissenschaften), which cannot be derived from the methodology of the physical sciences. This involves the rehabilitation of such old humanistic concepts as culture (Bildung), taste and judgment, which he used in order to ground the human sciences. As these concepts evolve communally and at the same time contribute to the progressive development of community, Bildung acquires the meaning of constant formation. By way of these concepts Gadamer shows that truth is defined communally, rather than being derived solely methodologically as in the exact sciences.

            Thus, though Gadamer’s concern was truth in the human sciences, along the way he fashioned an understanding of community and culture (Bildung) which can be helpful in understanding civil society. Gadamer believes that solidarity is the condition of possibility of every individual event of understanding. This condition is a continuity of the solidarity or tradition of the one attempting to understand and of what is being understood. A community’s history is continuous, that is, it is effective in present understanding. Yet it is not duplicated in every event of understanding, but is applied or creatively appropriated for present concerns which necessarily define the context in which anything from the past unfolds. What results is a fusion of horizons past and present. Hence, understanding is also application.

            This creative appropriation, which always is implemented by individual freedom, is examined by Gadamer in terms of an ontology. That is, he focuses not so much on the individual’s participation in his or her community as a willed and deliberate act, but as a reality spawned by one’s being community-bound, or to put it in Heideggerian terms as a result of one’s being-in-the-world. Freedom and under-standing, as Gadamer understands these, are defined and restricted by a prior belongingness (Zugehorigkeit). As a result, Gadamer does not develop a normative discussion regarding the nature of civil so-ciety, but limits himself to an ontological description of how a com-munity grows and changes.

Neither natural necessities nor causal compulsions determine our thinking and our intending--whether we will and act, fear or hope or despair, we are moved in the space of freedom. This space is not the free space of an abstract joy in construction, but a space filled with reality by prior familiarity.1

For Gadamer the core of the discussion is this prior familiarity he calls effective history and which invites him to review the meaning of prejudice.

GADAMER AND DIALOGUE

            Prejudice is the foundation of Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics; it is perhaps the most controversial concept in his philosophy. He speaks of the hermeneutic experience as an insertion into a world of relations and meanings (tradition), which is concretized and embodied in the language of a community. This insertion is not our doing, but is the mode of our existence. The result of this is a peculiar way of knowing and looking at the world. Even before we actually think we know, we already know in a certain way. Gadamer calls this phe-nomenon pre-understanding. He boldly states that understanding is always prejudiced, inasmuch as it is defined by culture and the com-munity which define our language and our lives.

            This biased hermeneutical situation has been looked upon constantly as an obstacle by disciplines predisposed to the objec-tifying mode of science and whose conception of knowledge is trans-cendent. Positing our relation to the world as one of separation from an object and the field of knowledge to be clearly delimited, it sees pre-judice as compromising its neutrality and constituting an obstacle which method should overcome.

            Gadamer considers this to be naive and focuses instead on our prior belongingness (Zugehorigkeit) to the world. In other words, the world cannot function primarily as an object to us as subject. The implication of this for our knowledge is that everything experienced is always a linguistic interpretation. Language, say Gadamer, is the "fundamental mode of operation of our being-in-the-world" but it is also the "all-embracing form of the constitution of the world."2

            On the one hand, language displays the limits of our finitude and is therefore particular for it exhibits the way of life of a particular community. On the other hand, its reality is not circumscribed by any one language: it is the whole which embraces all beings-in-the-world, all linguistic communities. Language for Gadamer has a speculative nature exhibiting the complex relation between the totality that is the world and its finite manifestation in our human experience of that world. In other words, Gadamer sees tradition as a totality embodied in the reality of language, which manifests itself in the diverse presentations we call linguistic communities.

            Tradition is a totality which exists to be differentiated in all its self-showings. Thus, the diversity of human communities and cultures is the self-manifestation of a whole. In this thesis Gadamer commits himself to two things: primarily, that different linguistic communities are not really isolated from each other; and secondarily, that a critique of a community’s reason can be only within the context of a history which is effective. These two related points have important reper-cussions for the possibility of dialogue among communities and for the kind of changes individual communities realistically can initiate.

The Relation of Linguistic Communities

            There is a seeming contradiction in Gadamer’s conception of language in that he sees it as a totality or a whole which presents itself in a plurality and diversity of communities, yet it exists only in its concretization. The whole which Gadamer imagines language to be is not one accessible to anyone. He speaks of this as a "bad infinity" in that it remains to be anticipated. But it is precisely this presupposition of a whole that allows Gadamer to be optimistic about the possibility of dialogue and prevents his philosophy from being relativistic.

            Gadamer underplays the conception of dialogue as the balan-cing of two opinions. Instead he focuses on its to-and-fro nature which arises from its open-endedness. In other words, the primary element of dialogue for him is not the presence of two people filled with different ideas, but their willingness to let the subject matter develop or come into its own. What leads is the subject matter, not the people caught in the dialogue. "To conduct a conversation means to allow oneself to be conducted by the subject matter to which the partners in the dialogue are oriented."3

            Thus, to converse is to recognize the "otherness" of another person or community. "Knowledge always means, precisely, consi-dering opposites."4 We open ourselves to opposites because the subject matter which unfolds in dialogue is beyond each of the con-versants.

            Dialogue among communities is imperative because our societies are not enclosures with walls that keep us in. The totality of which Gadamer speaks is not commensurate and circumscribable by the limits any one group. That our communities are not traps is con-cretely manifested first in our ability to learn other languages and second in the ability of languages to change.

            Languages are world orientations, to learn another language is to gain access to another orientation. We never abandon the world-view acquired through the mother tongue, but we do learn second and third languages. In language learning the world shows itself to be beyond the confines of what one previously thought to be its limits. Social reason thus shows itself to be beyond any one language and through dialogue is always in a process of formation.

            Individual languages change as a community meets new challenges, redefines its needs, etc. That language has this virtuality can be explained again by the fact that language opens itself to a whole beyond its concretizations: language is porous. This expansion, however, is not a teleological movement. Our world picture is con-stantly expanding, but this infinity is manifested only through our finite experiences, in our feeble attempts at dialogue, both within our communities and with others.

Critique and Effective History

            Change within any community is prompted by what is familiar and stable. Gadamer speaks of solidarity as the basic human situation which allows us to come to terms with change. The utopia of which every society dreams is not some far away future, but is the corrective of the present. The ideal we wish to pursue casts a critical light upon what has gone before. In this sense, it remains inextricably tied to the past.5 The solidarity which grounds a community is thus neither a starting point which is disruptive, nor a future goal which is not yet realized; for Gadamer, it is a process fostered only by a tireless on-going conversation.

            Radical changes are then ruled out by Gadamer. Revolutions never cut off the present society from a past it abhors. The famous 1986 Philippine EDSA revolution for instance ushered in new leaders, even a renewed faith in democracy. But the changes which unfolded in the subsequent years were far from radical. Much of the changes that the present and past leaders of government have successfully instituted have been possible only given a profound understanding of the Filipino culture, which specifies what is acceptable and feasible at any point in time. For instance, Philippine NGOs have come to realize that change in electoral attitudes and behaviors among Filipinos will not be achieved in five years. Their work of conscientization in the last two decades has not allowed enough alternative politicians to be elected, while even the alternative politicians which rose from NGOs have to reckon with traditional politics to make inroads in governance. Phronesis has been a most important tool in social action:

What man needs is not just the persistent asking of ultimate questions, but the sense of what is feasible. . . . The philosopher, of all people, must, I think, be aware of the tension between what he claims to achieve and the reality in which he claims to find him-self.6

            What is that reality? For Gadamer it is that we are always already in a certain linguistic tradition. Even its critique cannot provide a transcendence which gives the luxury of a radically new beginning. What we have is an expansion of our world view, fostered by dialogue.

CONCLUSION

            Gadamer never tires of admonishing us that a hermeneutical consciousness, despite effective of history in our understanding, never achieves transcendence. In fact, it functions more like a Greek oracle constantly telling us, "Know that you are a man and no god."7 The role of a Cassandra does not fit a philosopher, who can never write the final chapter to the continuing unfolding of human tradition, not even if his name be Hegel or Heidegger.

            The world as we know it today is constantly expanding, and not merely to the regions of our own country or continent. Technology has given us a sense of community which is truly global so that whether we like it or not we are forced to reckon with differences. But because of the achieved level of progress and world solidarity we have everything to lose if we focus on differences rather than upon similarities. For this, dialogue has become even more imperative as the usher to the next century. Solidarity or harmony already exists, but this must be redefined as our conception of civil society changes, as do all the other forces of human life.

Philosophy Department

Ateneo de Manila University, Manila, Philippines

NOTES

            1. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Reason in Age of Science, trans. by Frederick G. Lawrence (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1981), p. 51.

            2. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Philosophical Hermeneutics, trans., ed. and Introduction by David E. Linge (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), p. 3.

            3. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2nd rev. ed., tran. by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald Marchall (New York: Continuum Publishing Co., 1994), p. 367.

            4. Ibid., p 363.

            5. Reason in Age of Science, pp. 79-80.

            6. Truth and Method, p. xxxviii.

            7. Reason in Age of Science, p. 150.

DISCUSSION

            It is important to note the phenomenological character of the thought of H.-G. Gadamer. This contrasts with the abstract rationalism which characterizes modern thought, for which what is real is the abstract and universal. In that light the philosophical search is to find universal ethical norms. These must be detached from life so that, as clear and distinct ideas, they can be treated with analytic tools.

            The difficulty is that where these are impressed upon the process of life they prove quite insensitive to the concrete free human interchanges from which they were abstracted. They can provide guidance and some minimal ethical norms, but where they attempt to rule the whole they oppress rather than promote human freedom. This is the essence of an ideology as a pattern of clear ideas insensitive to the concrete exercise of human freedom which is a unique process because it consists in creative self-determination, rather than being determinated from without or by universal and common patterns from within.

            In the modern context in which it is the universal that is clear to the human intellects and hence considered to be real, what is unique in the exercise of human freedom in time is discounted as relative; to work with this is to fall into a disaggregation of actions which are discounted under the term "relativism".

            In the footsteps traced by his predecessors E. Husserl and M. Heidegger, Gadamer looks squarely at these unique acts of human freedom. Rather than leaving these as disaggregated moments with little significance, he sees these as the most proper exercise of properly human life.

            Beyond this he sees these as being exercised in continuity not only with other acts of one’s freedom, but especially in continuity with the whole process of lived freedom through the ages. It is this broader unfolding of human meaning which has shaped itself into various patterns or cultures. These provide the store of human meaning which then enables one’s concrete expressions to have meaning.

            In this way the phenomenological turn replaces the abstract universal ideas of modern rationalism with the lived actuality of tradition as the basis and guide for the exercise of human freedom. This allows for the uniqueness of the concrete exercises of human freedom, but locates them always in relation to the whole of a cultural tradition which they apply in ever new and unique ways and thereby renew and keep alive.

            In this light, pattern of life, rather than being dismissed as merely relative, attain special meaning. These consist in an absolute good toward which all particular goods are directed and are interrelated among themselves in a linguistic whole which allows for mutual understanding between different expressions. They constitute the whole that is one’s cultural tradition. In particular, this makes possible a new insight into civil society and its various unities. These appear not merely as aggregates of individuals, but rather as distinct areas or sets of meaning within which and in terms of which persons can unfold their own insights and exercise their own freedom and creativity.

            Thus civil society, with its multiple groupings in relation to the various facets of life and the various persons who wish to engage in each, becomes the condition of active freedom. It provides the heri-tage of concern and insight on the basis of which new and creative steps can be taken. It is then civil life rather than ideology that is the basis of social action and expression.

            Some would suggest that this shows that what is important is not philosophy but life. But that supposes a divorce between philosophy and life after the manner, again, of a rationalism focused upon reason and ideas rather then, as with Gadamer’s phenomenology, upon the free exercise of human life. Rightly understood the philosophy is the reflective personal dimension of life. Hence, it may be misleading to speak of an "applied" ethics as if ethics existed abstractly as a universal mental construct to be applied diversely to different fields such as business or medicine.

            In Gadamer’s view it would be the contrary. Ethics would emerge from the human experience of acting in these areas; it would consist not of abstract principles, but of cumulative learning from living in the light of what has been learned through the life of this cultural tradition. Indeed, philosophy is just this process of learning and dis-cerning in the application of the tradition in new circumstances.