The Habermas-gadamer Debate
نویسنده
چکیده
ly negated on the basis of a.false c.laim t.. o superiority. ~~ciallife-; the-symmetrkaJ..rc1atioll-betweenpartners in a game is a more apnnooer1 than that ofdoctor~patient.Everyone IS on relatively equal terms in the gallle..in that there are no privileged knowers. There is, however~anlmder lying consensus which expresses the ontological primacy of tradition and which is the condition of all misunderstanding. For Gadamer we can never confront this consensus with the demand for a thorough legitimation since we are always immersed in it. Here again, Habermas was able to argue that Gadamer tends to absolutize tradition. To be sure, there is such an underlying consensus. But it is necessary to distinguish between the objectivity of language in generalwhich critique makes no claim to surmount and the false consensus which comes about through coercion and systematically distorted communication. Since consensus is a normative concept for critical theory, it is able to '-_ distinguish between a true consensus and a pseudo-consensus. Not every r factual agreement is a real supporting consensus.7 J As for Gadamer's attack on the psychoanalysis-social theory analogy and his fears of the terroristic implications of an overly rationalistic revolutionary politics, this serves as a proper warning to an authoritarian version of critique which enthrones its own ideals as absolute. But Habermas has always stressed that c!:!ti~l!t!~e.~ry.provesits v~idi~ on!,--~~ addressing itself to.vichms.-of.domination .. and elicTting-aself~refiectionin which the victim recognizes himself in the theory. Oadamer's criticism may 69. Gadamer, "On the Scope and Function of Hermeneutical Reflection," pp. 41-2; and uReplik," op. cit., p.304ff. 70. Joel Whitebook helped me see this continuity. 71. Habermas, "Oer Universalitatanspruch der Hermeneutik," p. 152ff.
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