Practical Reason, Hermeneutics, and Social Life

by James Risser

In some of his most recent writings on philosophical hermeneutics, Hans-

Georg Gadamer has continued to focus on Aristotle's practical philosophy
as a model of the human sciences. But the very nature of Gadamer's project
extends the focus beyond strictly methodological questions in as much as
understanding and interpretation are primarily the form in which human
sociallife is achieved. Gadamer wants to argue that contemporary sociallife
has an intrinsic problematic generated out of a certain understanding of ra-
tionality, and that practical reason needs to be re-thought as a means of
providing a solution to the problem. The scope of this paper is directed at
understanding the connections between a crisis of reason, hermeneutics,
and practical philosophy.
In what sense can we speak about a crisis of reason? In Gadamer's view,
modernity is defined by the emergence of a new notion of science and
method, and reason cannot be understood apart from this notion. Modern
science is fundamentally a securing that seeks to eliminate all uncontrollable
and unobjectifiable factors, and consequently its goal is that of a closed
system. In this sense, science is no longer the highest form of knowledge in
the way that the Greeks understood this, but is simply a way, a way of ad-
vancing into unmastered realms. This new notion of science, which enables
man to extend his control over nature in an entirely new way, emerges
clearly with Galileo's mechanics and finds philosophical expression in
Descartes' concept of methode Science is from now on experimental science
and rationality invades the world of experience as methode But most impor-
tantly, in the transformation of scientific reason within the new ideal of
science there is, at the same time, a transformation of the relationship be-
tween theory and practice. If in the classical tradition science connoted both
specialized knowledgeableness and any genuine knowledge, then Aristotle's
practical philosophy is science in this general sense. As knowledge with re-
spect to action it is knowledge using demonstration, Le., science, but clearly
it is not the kind of science that was the model for theoretical knowledge,
viz., mathematics. The classical distinction between theory and practice was
a contrast within knowledge. Moreover, it could even be argued that prac-
tice does not stand in opposition to theory in so far as theoria is itself a prac-
tice. 1 For modernity, "theory" has lost the sense of theoria as the discerning

84
 Practical Reasoning 85

of the order of the world and society and has become, in Gadamer's view, "a
notion instrumental to the investigation of truth and the garnering of new
pieces of knowledge."2 In similar fashion, "practice" is no longer limited to
the filling in of a certain region where nature left it free to operate, but now
amounts to the application of science to technical tasks.
The one-sidedness of this ideal of science, that transforms practical rea-
soning into technical control is the essential element in the crisis of reason.
Can the reason that guides our social and moral life , which is ever increas-
ingly in the hands of the expert, be reduced to technical control? That is to
say, is not praxis, properly understood, a form of human life that goes
beyond the technical "choice" of the best means for a pre-given end?
Gadamer is asking us to recall that practice traditionally meant the actua-
tion of life in which we knowingly prefer one thing to another (prophaire-
sis); furthermore, the knowledge that gives direction to action is called for
by the concrete situation in which we choose, and no technique can spare us
the task of deliberation and decision. Certainly our society gives no indica-
tion that it recognizes this crucial distinction between practical rationality
and technique. One has only to look at the latest non-fiction best seIler list
for the current means-end technique for human happiness.
We can readily see how broad the scope of this problem really iso It is
quite apparent in our age that modern empirical science has entered the
social sphere and in view of its ideal seeks now to conquer social reality with
the claim of scientific contro!. We look to science for guidance in overcom-
ing the problems of social reality and in the guise of intentional planning
there emerges the expectation of a mastery of society by scientific reason.
But this produces a troublesome discontinuity between the expert as the
master of applicable scientific knowledge and the fact of his own member-
ship in society. The expert, who is supposed to substitute for practical and
political experience, has been invested with an exaggerated authority.
Gadamer claims that genuine practical and political reason requires per-
sonal decision but the conditions for this, viz., personal contact and the
mutual exchange of views among the citizens, are not being met in today's
society. The issue is one of defending practical reason against the anony-
mous validity of science, for such a defence will vindicate "the noblest task
ofthe citizen-decision-making according to one's own responsibility."3 At
one pIace Gadamer writers that for the individual in modern society,
"whose needs and goals have become complex and even contradictory, there
is a need for enlightened choice, just deliberation, and right subordination
under common ends."4 In this context, then, the crisis of reason pertains to
the lacuna that is created when we are left to the expert in our searchings for
an orientation and the normative patterns that shape our lives.
It is in response to this crisis of the impasse of our scientific culture with
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respect to the conditions of sociallife that we turn to Aristotle. SpecificaIly,

Gadamer sees our indebtedness to Aristotle in the fact that he anticipated
the impasse in the distinction, which we have already made in quite general
terms, between phronesis on the one hand, and episteme and techne on the
other. It is in Aristotle's practical philosophy that we find an orientation for
a critical effort "which shares the modern ideal of method and yet does not
lose the condition of solidarity with and justification of our practical
living."s FinaIly, by way of opening up the issue, it should not be forgotten
in all this that what Aristotle is able to say about human life is precisely the
contribution that hermeneutics can make in these discussions as weIl. 6

The Character 0/ Practical Philosophy

The fact that Aristotle sought to make a distinction between theoretical
and non-theoretical sciences - based on the methodological principle that
method must always be directed toward its object - is a decisive step beyond
the Platonic identification of virtue and knowledge. Aristotle recognized
that human civilization differs from nature insofar as human behavior
derives its character from what one has become. In different words we can
say that ethos differs from physis because it is sphere of "human institutions
and human attitudes that can be changed and have the quality of rules only
to a limited degree."7 A unique kind of legitimation is called for, then, in the
realization that the good in human life lacks a certain specificity. But, even
though, as Aristotle teIls us, we can attribute as much precision in any
science that the subject matter allows, it is not just a question of a lesser
degree of certainty on the part of non-theoretical sciences. Since we en-
counter the good in the concrete situations which we find ourselves in, the
task of moral knowledge is to see in that concrete situation what is asked
fore Clearly, such a knowing differs from episteme, which aims not only at
verifying what is always the case but also demands a sense of detachment in
which one is over against an observed situation. 8
But the matter is not so simple in the distinction between phronesis and
techne. They both fall under the rubric of knowledge that guides activity
and consequently involves the application of knowledge to the particular
task. The question is: Is the learning of moral knowledge the same kind of
learning that the craftsman undergoes when he learns how to make some
specific thing? Clearly this is not the case and Gadamer pinpoints for us the
fundamental difference in three ways. First of all, a technique can be
learned and forgotten as weIl, but such is not the case for ethical reason.
Furthermore, within this same context, moral knowledge is not something
we can choose to utilize or not; rather, phronesis must deal with the fact of
finding ourselves (always ready) in an acting situation and of having to ap-
 Practical Reasoning 87

ply ethical knowledge to the exegencies of the concrete situation. This first
distinction, though, serves to heighten the problem in as much as the issue
of application is itself problematic. Since it seems we can only apply some-
thing we already possess, application is not to be understood in the way in
which the craftsman applies his acquired knowledge to the physical thing
before hirn, but is a matter of perceiving what is at stake in the situation. In
Gadamer's view, the full scope of the problem can be seen in Aristotle's
analysis of naturallaw.
In Book V of the Ethics Aristotle distinguishes naturallaw from conven-
tion in order to oppose strict legal positivism. The distinction, though, is
not simply one between an unchangeable naturallawand a changeable posi-
tive law, for, by Aristotle's account, unchangeable naturallaw would seem
to be limited to the gods. Among men "all rules of justice are variable"
(1134b29). The issue then is to see how change is compatible with natural
law. Gadamer interprets Aristotle to be saying the following: "there are laws
that are entirely a matter of mere agreement (e.g., traffic regulations) but
there are also things that do not admit of regulation simply by human con-
vention, because the 'nature of the thing' constantly asserts itself. Thus it is
quite legitimate to call such things 'natural law'."9 But in so far as natural
law has a certain free-play within it, it can admit of change. Aristotle gives
us several examples of what is meant here: 1) the right hand is naturally
stronger than the left, although it is possible to become ambidextrous
(1134b34); 2) wine measures are not equal in all places and thus there seems
to be a free-play within set limits (1135al); 3) the best state is everywhere the
same but not in the same way that fire burns everywhere the same, whether
in Greece or in Persia. According to Gadamer, naturallaw has only a criti-
cal function; in deciding what is equitable we appeal to natural law when
there is a conflict between one law and another or when we need to correct
the one-sidedness of any law.
But what does this say about the problem of application? Gadamer is ar-
guing here that what Aristotle says about naturallaw is true of all the ideas
that man has of what he ought to be. These ideas are not merely conven-
tional, but, despite the variety of moral ideas, "there is still in this sphere
something like the nature of the thing." But the nature of the thing is not
some kind of fixed yardstick that we recognize and then apply it. If it is true
that we are always already involved in a moral and political commitment-
and for Aristotle the ethical man does begin with his citizenship and educa-
tion and from this he is asked to make claims about the good - then we can
only acquire the nature of the thing from this standpoint. Can it be other-
wise than to say that our guiding principles have the validity of schemata
which is to say that "they always have to be made concrete in the situation
of the person acting. "10
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Secondly, moral knowledge differs from technical knowledge in the con-

ceptual relation between means and ends. Here the distinction is more
straightforward. At the level of technique the end is a particular thing or
product; but at the level of ethical knowledge the end is "right living in
general." More importantly, though, Gadamer tells us that with respect to
the means "technical activity does not demand that the means which allow it
to arrive at an end be weighed anew on each occasion and personally by the
subject who is the practitioner."l1 Unique to moral knowledge then is self-
deliberation and this entails the claim that moral knowledge is never some-
thing known in advance in the manner of a technique. The consequences of
this is that there can be no anterior certainty concerning what the good life
is directed towards as a whole; the ends themselves are at stake in deliberat-
ing about the means appropriate to this situation. 12
Thirdly, the self-knowledge of moral reflection, unlike techne, has a
unique relation to itself. This can be, seen more clearly in the notion of
understanding (sunesis) in practical matters. This "modification" of the vir-
tue of moral knowledge is directed, not at oneself, but toward the other per-
son. Gadamer thinks that this notion of placing oneself in the concrete situ-
ation in which the other person has to act points, once again, to the fact that
ethical knowledge is not a generalized knowledge but always a specification
at a particular moment. Although it would seem that Aristotle is making a
distinction between understanding and practical wisdom in order to say that
we ourselves do not have to be morally excellent in order to recognize moral
excellence in others, Gadamer's interpretation is to say that the person with
understanding does not judge as one who stands apart and unaffected.

The Hermeneutic Dimensions 0/ Phronesis

It remains for us to say something about the specific hermeneutic struc-
ture at work in Aristotle's practical philosophy. To do so not only gives us a
better grasp of Gadamer's model for understanding, but it will also point to
the appropriate retrieve of a broader conception of reason that is being
called for. Let us begin with that unique dimension of practical philosophy
that emerged from the preceding analysis, viz., that the preconditions for
theorizing about the good are not neutral objectifications, but "articula-
tions of pre-given and lived social patterns." That is to say, to possess the
virtue of practical rationality is to be aware of the normative viewpoints one
follows and to know "how to make them effective in the concrete decisions
demanded by the practical situation."13 The fundamental notion of a her-
meneutic theory, viz., the hermeneutic circle, is precisely this structure of
developing moral excellence, through choice, from within the perspective of
one who is always already underway. In its most general formulation, the
 Practical Reasoning 89

hermeneutic circle pertains to the relation between part and whole; the
whole is understood by virtue of its parts and the parts are understood in
light of the whole. Traditionally, the hermeneutic circle has filled the role of
a methodological principle for the understanding of written texts. In
classical philological hermeneutics, for example, the circle was expressed in
terms of grammatical structure. The word (part) is understood in the con-
text of the sentence (whoIe) and the meaning of the sentence was understood
in light of the function of the individual words. Gadamer's conception of
the hermeneutic circle is much broader. The circle is not simply a method-
ological principle for textual interpretation but is conceived ontologically as
the relation between a living tradition and its interpretation. All ~nderstand­
ing, as entering into what Gadamer calls a "happening of tradition," in-
volves my prejudgments without which understanding could not occur.
The prejudgments, these fundamental anticipations of meaning, are defined
in terms of my historical consciousness; consequently, the interpreters pre-
sent participation in history is to be taken into account when we say we un-
derstand. The point here is that the circle is not something I begin and thus
there cannot be a question of a starting point; it is, rather, something I find
myself in, just as I am already in the language that I learn to speak.
There is a clear parallel here with Aristotle's practical philosophy. J ust as
I am in some anticipation of meaning with respect to the past, so too I am
guided in my choice about the good by my education and citizenship which
has shaped me in advance. Through practice and education one has already
formed a habitudo which he or she takes into the concrete situations of his
or her life. Thus in contrast to episteme, phronesis has a circular character:
to act virtuously one must already be virtuous (to some extent). In light of
the general structure of the hermeneutic circle, this means that I must con-
cretize the general principle in the particular situations in which I must
make a choice. But just as the hermeneutic circle for Gadamer is not simply
a logical structure which raises the specter of a vicious circle, so too in
Aristotle there is the dynamic of the circle which emerged in the problem of
application.
Consequently, although it is quite evident that a hermeneutic circle is
present in Aristotle's practical philosophy for the reason that phronesis "re-
quires not only knowledge of universals but also of particulars for it is prac-
tical knowledge and practice is concerned with particular matters"
(1141 bI4), it is really the precise character of the circle that intrigues us
here. We have seen already that there can be nothing technical about how
the general rule applies in particular cases in as much as practical rationality
involves an intertwining of means and ends. With the end in view, I must
choose the means to the end, which is to interpret what the end requires in
each particular case, and consequently I am concretizing the end at the same
90 1984 Proceedings 0/ the ACPA
time. In this context, all interpretation is an application, and most impor-
tantly, the application of rules can never be done by rules!
That precise character of the hermeneutic circle, the problem of applica-
tion, brings me to the second fundamental hermeneutic notion, viz., repe-
tition. Although Gadamer does not speak specifically about repetition, the
task of appropriating the self-same message of the transmitted text to the
situation of the present, the very activity of understanding, is nonetheless
the activity of repetition. 14
The concept of repetition is one that first attained philosophical signifi-
cance in Kierkegaard's existential ethics. In the work Repetition, Kierkegaard
distinguishes between repetition and recollection: "Repetition and recollec-
tion are the same movement, only in opposite directions; for what is
recollected has been, is repeated backwards, whereas repetition properly so
called is recollected forwards."15 The context for this statement is a
metaphysical one; both repetition and recollection are concerned with the
transition from time to eternity. The Greek experience of recollection re-
trieves the present from what has been, whereas the Christian experience is
one that frees the individual for the future. In recollecting forward, in this
temporal movement of the self towards its future possibilities, one recom-
mits oneself to the possibilities that are recognized as one's own. Through
repetition, then, past possibilities of action become future possibilities and
are repeated in the moment of decision. In this context, repetition is at the
heart of freedom itself and thus to become a self requires repetition as that
renewal of a commitment one has made before. This basic category of exis-
tence becomes the cornerstone for any hermeneutic phenomenology. 16
What is decisive here for our analysis is to see that the notion of repetition
is not to be understood as a literal recurrance and would thus be linked to
the sense of repeatability that is characteristic of scientific truth. In the
Kierkegaardian context, repetition pertains to the emergence of the new
from the possible such that repetition is not the indicator of something be-
ing true but rather what must be gone through in order to arrive at the true.
We can begin to see the significance of this notion in the fact that, by virtue
of human finitude, I subject everything to review and revision, and conse-
quently repetition would seem to be universal for the kind of knowledge at
issue here. But more importantly, repetition is not at all a contemplative act
from without but more like "remembering as discovery."17 Clearly, in
Aristotle, this fundamental hermeneutic notion is at work in so far as it is
practice that brings to fruition the natural potential for virtue: "we did not
acquire the faculty of sight or hearing by repeatedly seeing or repeatedly
listening, but the other way about- because we had the senses we began to
use them.... The virtues on the other hand we acquire by first having ac-
tually practiced them...." (110a29-34). For Aristotle the virtues are not
acquired by nature but by nature there is the capacity for virtue which is
 Practical Reasoning 91

then brought to maturity by practice, and practice towards the good is some-
thing engendered out of a lifetime. Of course this orginal potentiality for ex-
cellence may or may not be realized in one's life just as in Kierkegaardian
fashion one can faH to become a self.
The real significance of repetition, though, is seen in what it accom-
plishes. If repetition can be said to characterize the peculiar character of
application, then repetition accomplishes the concretion of meaning. Con-
cretization, which Gadamer would argue is what takes place in all
understanding, is not to be understood as concrete knowledge in the Hegel-
ian fashion of the mediation of universal and particular. Gadamer's favorite
example here is the jurist who must apply the law to the particular case.
There is an act of repetition in so far as there is a dynamic in the process of
interpreting the law. Here again we see it is not a matter of a technique, and
yet the application is not freefloating but is guided by the situation to be in-
terpreted. But the point is, that the interpretation of the law is the con-
cretization of meaning. The same is true for practical philosophy. Human
life under the guidance of practical reasoning contains the good only in so
far as it concretizes the good in its actual practice as the choice of one thing
in preference to another.
Let me conclude by linking up the foregoing analysis with the problem of
social reason mentioned at the outset. In a work which was devoted to the
debate between hermeneutics and critical theory, Gadamer touches directly
on this issue. There he writes: "only a science lured to myopic self-
infatuation could faH to see that the debate concerning the true goals of
human society, that our sense of our historical past and our future, depends
on a kind of knowing which is not that of science but rather a knowing
which guides practice in all human affairs."18 The issue here is one of a cer-
tain forgetfulness. In view of the crisis, then, Gadamer wants to remind us
of a conception of reason that is much broader in scope than the reason that
is tied exclusively to scientific calculation. It is areminder of a conception
of reason tied to existence itself as with Kierkegaardian repetition. But at
the same time it must be realized that this broader conception of reason is in
service to what is really going on in the humanities. It is not just a matter of
an alternative methodology. The stronger claim is that practical rationality
is unique to our moral and sociallife, but then so too is hermeneutics, not as
a methodology for a distinctive group of sciences but as a natural "human
capacity."19 For the concerns of humanity we can no longer be permitted to
leave out of consideration the realm of human activity as human activity.
What is demanded of us is a new reflection on the problems of sociallife, a
reflection that "brings everything knowable by the sciences into the context
of mutual agreement in which we ourselves exist."20
Seattle University
Seattle, Washington
92 1984 Proceedings 01 the ACPA
NOTES

1. See H.-G. Gadamer, Reason in the Age 01 Science, trans. Frederick Lawrence (Cam-
bridge: The MIT Press, 1981), p. 90.
2. Ibid., p. 69.
3. H.-G. Gadamer, "Hermeneutics and Social Science," Cultural Hermeneutics 11 (1975),
p.316.
4. Gadamer, Age 01 Science, p. 76.
5. Gadamer, "Hermeneutics and Social Science," p. 311.
6. See Gadamer, Age 01 Science, p. 109. On this affinity between hermeneutics and prac-
tical philosophy, Gadamer writes: "First of all, understanding, like action, always renlains a
risk and never leaves room for simple application of a general knowledge of rules to the
statements of the texts to be understood. Furthermore, where it is successful, understanding
means a growth in inner awareness, which as a new experience enters into the texture of our
own mental experience."
7. H.-G. Gadamer, Truth and Method, trans. and ed. Garrett Barden and John Cumming
(New York: Seabury, 1976), p. 279.
8. See Aristotle's description of episteme in the Nicomachean Ethics, VI, iii.
9. Gadamer, Truth and Method, p. 285.
10. Ibid., p. 286.
11. H.-G. Gadamer, "The Problem of Historical Consciousness," Graduate Faculty
Philosophy Journal V, No. 1 (1975), p. 36.
12. See Gadamer, Truth and Method, p. 287. Gadamer reads Aristotle to be saying that
Phronesis involves knowledge of both ends and means.
13. Gadamer, Age 01 Science, p. 48.
14. See T. Kisiel, "Repetition in Gadamer's Hermeneutics," Analeeta Husserliana, Ty-
mieniecka, 3rd ed., 11 (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1972), pp. 196-203.
15. Soren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling/Repetition, trans. and ed., Howard V. Hong
and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), p. 131.
16. See John D. Caputo, "Hermeneutics as the Recovery of Man," Man and World 4 (1982),
pp. 344-367.
17. See William Spanos, "Heidegger, Kierkegaard, and the Hermeneutic Circle: Towards a
Postmodern Theory of Interpretation as Dis-closure" Martin Heidegger and the Question 01
Literature (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976), pp. 115-148.
18. H.-G. Gadamer, "Replik," Hermeneutik and Ideologiekritik (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp,
1971), p. 283.
19. Gadamer, Age 01 Science, p. 114.
20. Ibid., p. 137.