GADAMER’S PRAISE OF THEORY: ARISTOTLE’S

FRIEND AND THE RECIPROCITY BETWEEN THEORY

AND PRACTICE

by

WALTER A. BROGAN
Villanova University

ABSTRACT
Gadamer’s rethinking of the interconnection of theory and practice can lead to a res-
olution of the debate in contemporary Aristotelian scholarship regarding the priority
of theory or practice in Aristotle’s Ethics. This is especially true in light of Aristotle’s
treatment of friendship which, as I will try to show, provides support for Gadamer’s
claim. In Aristotle’s notion of friendship, theory and practice come together, and the
activity of friendship is for Aristotle the highest expression of human life precisely
because true friendship requires the unity of theory and practice. I argue that Aristotle’s
sense of yevrÛa, contemplation, his sense of ultimate happiness that is constituted by
the life of theory, is conceived by Aristotle in a thoroughly practical and political sense.
SpeciŽ cally I claim that the practice of theory is the politics of friendship.

The enormous upsurge of interest in political and practical philoso-

phy among Continental philosophers in the last two decades can cer-
tainly in part be attributed to the persistent and insistent claim that
permeates of the work of Hans-Georg Gadamer, namely, the claim
that philosophy can never fulŽ ll its unique role unless it remains thor-
oughly committed to the uncovering of a practical dimension. But this
Gadamerian contribution has an additional component that I would
like to emphasize. Gadamer’s recovery of the insight that genuine phi-
losophy is rooted in the facticity of practical life does not simply reverse
the modern conception of philosophy as epistemology that constructs
methodologically systematic theories of reality. For the very bifurca-
tion of philosophy into theoretical and practical endeavors is shown
by Gadamer to be a modern prejudice, and hermeneutics calls for a
return to Aristotle and thereby calls for a rethinking of the intercon-
nection of theory and practice. In Lob der Theorie, he says: “Aristotle
wants to justify both—the ideal of practical and political life as well
as the priority of theoretical life in equal measure.” Gadamer asks:

Research in Phenomenology, 32
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands 2002
142 walter a. brogan

Is theory in the end a prjiw, as is already suggested by Aristotle, or is

precisely prjiw, when one means genuine human prjiw, always at the
same time theory? Is it not, when it is human, a looking away from itself
and an attending and listening to the other? In this sense, life is the
unity of theory and practice, which is the possibility and task of each
human being, seeing beyond oneself [Absehen von sich] to what is [Hinsehen
auf das, was ist]; this is the kind of theory that is practiced by a culti-
vated person, I would almost say, a kind of consciousness [Bewußtsein]. . . .
But then what has become of our praise of theory? A praise of prjiw? . . .
Alle prjiw meint am Ende, was uber sie hinausweist.”1

So, Gadamer acknowledges the priority of yevrÛa as the fundamen-

tally human activity. His own emphasis on frñnhsiw and prjiw is not
at all a reversal of this priority. Without theory, he argues, there is
no possibility of either practical judgment or genuine human action.
yevrÛa is at the heart of prjiw. Thus Gadamer says:

The modern opposition between theory and practice seems rather odd,
for the classical opposition ultimately was a contrast within knowledge,
not an opposition between science and its [normative] application. This
implies at the same time that the original notion of practice (prjiw) has
quite a diVerent structure too. In order to grasp it once again and to
understand the meaning of the tradition of practical philosophy, one has
to remove this notion completely from the context of opposition to sci-
ence. It is not even the opposition to yevrÛa (which is, of course, con-
tained in the Aristotelian division of the sciences) that is really determi-
native here. This is manifest in the splendid statement of Aristotle to the
eVect that we name active in the supreme measure those who are deter-
mined by their performance in the realm of thought alone (Pol. 1325
b21V). In the Politics, Aristotle says explicitly that yevrÛa is kind of
practice.2

Gadamer’s rethinking of the interconnection of theory and practice

can lead to a resolution to the debate in contemporary Aristotelian
scholarship regarding the priority of theory or practice in Aristotle’s
Ethics, especially in light of Aristotle’s treatment of friendship which,
as I will try to show, provides support for Gadamer’s claim. In Aristotle’s
notion of friendship, theory and practice come together, and the activ-
ity of friendship is for Aristotle the highest expression of human life pre-
cisely because true friendship requires the unity of theory and practice.
Given the collapse of the modern Enlightenment project, there has
emerged a great deal of interest in all philosophical circles in the need
to rethink the question of the good life and, along these lines, the rela-
 gadamer ’s praise of theory 143

tionship between theoretical and practical life. Aristotle is particularly

fruitful to study because he coined the deŽ nition of the human being
as a rational animal, thus in a certain way combining reason and ani-
mality as co-names for the human essence. It is Aristotle who gives
us the distinction between moral virtue and intellectual virtue. Never-
theless, we need to question the legitimacy and the status of this dis-
tinction as it has been passed down to us, and how we understand
the bifurcation of the human being that is involved in this distinction.
It is certainly true that a good deal of the Nicomachean Ethics has to do
with human conduct, practical choices, deliberation about what to do,
the development of a Ž rm and stable disposition to bring to our rela-
tionships with other human beings and the situations we confront, etc.
In other words, the greater part of Aristotle’s Ethics has to do with
our everyday practical aVairs and how to live the good life in relation
to the things with which we deal and in relationship to each other.
Yet the governing principle throughout the Nicomachean Ethics is the
search for an understanding of the ultimate good that fulŽ lls the human
being. And there is much debate both in Aristotle and about Aristotle
as to whether this ultimate good, which Aristotle renames eédaimonÛa
(happiness), is the same as, or something other than, the good practi-
cal and political life that he describes in his Ethics and Politics.
One of the things that I would like to argue is that Aristotle’s sense
of yevrÛa, contemplation, his sense of ultimate happiness that is con-
stituted by the life of theory, is conceived by Aristotle in a thoroughly
practical and political sense. SpeciŽ cally I want to claim that the prac-
tice of theory is the politics of friendship. On the other hand, many
would argue that the excellent political life for Aristotle is merely
propaedeutic and preparatory for yet another purely theoretical life
that is the true Ž nal destiny of the happy person. In this case the aim
of practical morality would be the promotion of conditions that serve
yevrÛa, the life of contemplation. Aristotle would be seen as privi-
leging the life of contemplation over that of the practical life of human
action. Human practical concerns would be subservient to and depen-
dent upon the leisurely philosophical exercise of yevrÛa.
A. J. Ackrill expresses this point of view as follows:
On this view the ultimate justiŽ cation for requiring and praising the sorts
of acts and attitudes characteristic of the good person is that general
adherence to the rules and standards he subscribes to would—in the long
run and overall—maximize the amount of yevrÛa possible in the com-
munity . . . a society in which philosophic contemplation has the best
144 walter a. brogan

chance of  ourishing. Such a society will provide the best possible har-
monious setting in which those with the capacity for yevrÛa will be able
to exercise it.3

Similarly, though Alisdair MacIntyre acknowledges an apparent “ten-

sion between Aristotle’s view of man as essentially political and his
view of man as essentially metaphysical,” he concludes:
The good man’s Ž nal achieved self-suYciency in his contemplation of
timeless reason does not entail that he does not need friends, just as it
does not entail that he does not need a certain level of material pros-
perity. Correspondingly, a city founded on justice and friendship can only
be the best kind of city if it enables its citizens to enjoy the life of meta-
physical contemplation.4

In other words, he argues for the necessity of both practical and the-
oretical while prioritizing the theoretical and failing ultimately to ques-
tion in any eVective way the division itself. MacIntyre’s position rests
upon the assumption that friendship is based on need, just as is mate-
rial prosperity; taking care of one’s needs is a necessary precondition
for the divine-like life of theory.
In contrast to these interpretations of the Ethics, which to one degree
or another prioritize contemplation over moral virtue and action,
Martha Nussbaum argues the opposite thesis in her book The Fragility
of Goodness. She quotes a passage that appears to privilege contempla-
tion from Book X and concludes: “It will be obvious to the reader of
this book that this passage has strong aYnities with the Platonism of
the middle dialogues, and that it is oddly out of step with the view
of value that we have been Ž nding in the ethical works.” Nussbaum
sees the view of contemplative happiness expressed in this Book X pas-
sage as incompatible with the view of happiness in Book I and sug-
gests that the passage does not originally belong to the Nicomachean
Ethics.
The oVensive passage Nussbaum is referring to and the one that is
at the heart of the debate is found in chapter 7 of Book X and reads
as follows:
Contemplation is thought to be a greater value than political action (and
other noble actions). It aims at no end beyond itself—has the qualities
of self-suYciency, leisure, as much freedom from fatigue as a human
being can have, and whatever else falls to the lot of a supremely happy
man; it follows that the activity of intelligence (noèw) constitutes the com-
plete happiness of man, provided that it encompasses a complete span
 gadamer ’s praise of theory 145

of life; for nothing connected with happiness must be incomplete. . . . A

life guided by practical virtue is happy in a secondary sense. . . . con-
templative happiness, however, is quite separate from that kind of hap-
piness. (NE, 1177b8) 5
Despite Book I where Aristotle clearly states that the end is the good,
the ultimate good is happiness and the Ž nal good is political, here
Aristotle says happiness is coextensive with yevrÛa and divided from
prjiw. The happy person pursues the moral life only as a secondary
sort of activity, perhaps as a necessary and unfortunate supplement to
contemplation in a begrudging recognition that we are, after all, not
divine but embodied humans. Nussbaum is not alone in surmising that
Aristotle could not have consistently both argued for the ethical life
that he did argue for throughout his treatise and also have penned
the arguments in favor of contemplation in the Ž nal chapters. Anthony
Kenny, for example, takes this and other evidence as indications that
the Nicomachen Ethics is really an anthology of only loosely connected
essays written at diVerent time periods. Kathleen Wilkes agrees, argu-
ing that “Aristotle gives two distinct and seemingly irreconcilable ver-
sions of man’s eédaimonÛa. We should not, she advises, “juggle with
the texts so that the con ict . . . is resolved.”6 Despite this admonition,
I want to probe the possibility that these two versions of happiness
are not contradictory, or perhaps more interestingly put, that this
con ict is at the heart of happiness as a human possibility.
To review for a moment just one other prominent author who has
entered this debate, John Cooper, in Reason and Human Good in Aristotle,
argued against both those who make action subordinate to contem-
plation and those who see the two notions of happiness as irreconcil-
able. He argues instead that Aristotle has a complex view of the ulti-
mate end and mentions the exercise of theoretical wisdom (yevrÛa) as
one (but only one) of the activities in which eédaimonÛa consists. He
states: “The moral end of nobility or goodness of actions is not an
end subordinate to the realization of intellectual values: it is itself a
co-ordinate part of the ultimate end pursued in the morally virtuous
man’s activity.” 7 While I share a view similar to Cooper’s, as does
Gadamer, and while I also want to argue for the compatibility of the-
oretical and practical life in Aristotle’s ethical treatise, and even for a
thesis that suggests that Aristotle’s own thinking initiates the division
between theory and practice but does not depend upon it, I believe
Gadamer is suggesting an even stronger thesis in his reading of Aristotle,
namely, that theory and practice are not only both legitimate forms
146 walter a. brogan

of happiness that are parallel to each other but also that they mutu-
ally determine and require each other.
So I want to turn now to what I see as a possible resolution to this
question of the relationship of yevrÛa (contemplation) and prjiw (action).
I think it can be shown that what ties the remarks on contemplation
at the end of the Ethics to his general concern with virtue and com-
munity in the rest of the treatise is his treatment of friendship. One
indication that his thesis is plausible is that Aristotle says friendship is
both a characteristic, §jiw, like virtue, and an activity, an ¤n¡rgeia, like
happiness. Genuine filÛa fulŽ lls all the criteria that Aristotle attrib-
utes to yevrÛa, while most fulŽ lling also the kind of practical life led
by the virtuous person.
Remember that the Ethics tries to answer the question, What is hap-
piness? Happiness is, Aristotle says, the activity of the ruling and guid-
ing part of ourselves, what most truly makes us what we are, namely,
reason and speech—noèw and lñgow. But thinking is most truly present
when we are engaged in the activity of yevrÛa, or contemplation.
Recalling from Book I that happiness is a self-suYcient and complete
activity, one done for its own sake and not for the gain of something
outside the activity, Aristotle says that yevrÛa most truly fulŽ lls these
criteria. Contemplation is the activity wherein the human being is most
self-suYcient in the sense that we are then most truly the source of
our being; that is, we are self-governing, aét‹rkeia. Since in this activ-
ity we are most truly in relations to ourselves, we are not dependent
on others. It is the activity most independent in the sense that it is
not based on receiving from others. Contemplating is more able to be
continuous and steadfast than any other kind of action. It is yevrÛa
that allows us, despite being Ž nite, to dwell in our end, to be gath-
ered as a whole in our end, to be who we are. This activity is most
truly engaged for its own sake; we produce nothing and gain nothing
from this activity; it is a self-contained activity. To be fully happy is
to be supremely fulŽ lled. Aristotle agrees with Solon that as human
we always are needy, but we can satisfy these needs with moderation
and turn beyond them. Contemplating therefore makes us more akin
to the divine in this sense.
But what is this activity? In the Ethics, really very little is oVered in
response to this question. Clearly the activity is thought. But it is
thought in the sense of a kind of yevrÛa, observing, witnessing what
is. So, ironically, yevrÛa itself is relational. As Gadamer points out,
yevrÛa was originally the term for the role of the one who oYcially
 gadamer ’s praise of theory 147

represented the pñliw at the performances of the tragedies, and whose

presence bore witness to the transformation of this individual event
into an enactment of the universal human bond of community. Thus
Gadamer says:
The viewing of the divine proceedings is no participationless establishing
of some neutral state of aVairs or observation of some splendid demon-
stration or show. Rather it is a genuine sharing in an event, a real being-
present.8

Gadamer calls yevrÛa in this sense “the complete self-donation to

what is outside in which the seeker nevertheless Ž nds himself.”9 This
gift, which does not approach the other on the basis of need or in
order to set up an exchange economy but is pursued for its own
sake, is the kind of philosophical attitude that Aristotle calls complete
friendship.
Granted that yevrÛa is held apart from ordinary involvement with
things and has, in this sense, the distance of an observer who is
detached, “the word does not mean, as it does from the vantage of a
theoretic construct based on self-consciousness, the distance from beings
that allows what is to be known in an unbiased fashion and thereby
subjects it to anonymous domination. Instead the distance proper to
yevrÛa is that of proximity and aYnity.” 10 In yevrÛa, something is
being observed, either we are observing ourselves in our being as such,
or we are in general observing the being of what is. Theory pays atten-
tion not to things as they appear, but to things as they are. Contemplation
is what Parmenides alluded to when he spoke of the unity of think-
ing and being.
Now with this background, let us look at Aristotle’s account of gen-
uine, perfect friendship to see if the activity of being friends together
fulŽ lls these criteria for contemplative activity, as I have claimed. In
Book VIII, Aristotle says: “Good people are friends on the basis of
what they are, because they are good” (NE, 1157b). The good is what
the virtuous person seeks in order to be happy and fulŽ lled. So, in
the friend we Ž nd the Ž nal aim for which we have been striving as
virtuous, excellent human beings, namely, the good and the good being.
With a true friend we  ourish as a human being.
In Book VIII, Aristotle says that the friend is steadfast in himself
or herself and has a kind of self-constancy. Aristotle puts this trait at
the basis of his discussion as to why it is better to give than receive
and why the essence of friendship consists in giving (he refers speciŽ cally
148 walter a. brogan

to maternal love as a model). Even unequals can be friends because

of the equality that aVection creates. Because they are steadfast, friends
love the other for its own sake rather than for a desire to gain from
it. The point is that the truly self-suYcient, happy person acts for the
sake of the other since he or she has no need to gain from the action.
Friendship is the sheer enjoyment of life over owing into the love for
other; or the love of others is this over owing, life-aYrming quality of
the excellent human being. If we recall the Greek, Homeric tradition
of hospitality, we know that the Greeks associated the guest with the
presence of the divine. Friendship in this sense is the mortal enjoy-
ment of a divine activity. Happiness is friendship. This is a stronger
statement than merely saying that friends are necessary to be happy.
Speaking and acting with others is the arena (the pñliw) for living the
happy life.
But there is one aspect of contemplation that seems unable to be
reconciled with the claim that the activity of friends is theory and hap-
piness. That is, theory or contemplation is said to be a leisurely activ-
ity that is kayƒaêtñ, not dependent on others but self-suYcient; it is
the activity that is in and of itself most our own, not belonging to oth-
ers. So how could such an activity be the love of friends towards one
another? But Aristotle says that true friendship does not take over the
being of the other and make it its own. Nor does the friend need the
other or become dependent for its being on the other. True friend-
ship, Aristotle claims, is self-love. He insists that self-love is not ego-
ism or the pursuit of self-interest in the base sense. The true egoist is
morally strong, that is, self-ruled, already in a community with him-
self or herself, already in control and not prone to self-aggrandize-
ment. Because the true friend is attuned to the sovereign part of her-
self (lñgow), she is open to a free relationship with the other.
YevrÛa is deŽ ned in Book VI as a kinship between thinking and
being. It is the kinship that allows the truth of beings to be uncov-
ered. At NE, 1139a, Aristotle distinguishes two kinds of yevreÝn, one
that Ž xes its gaze upon beings whose ŽrxaÛ do not admit of being
other [¤pist®mh], and the other that observes beings that are able to
be other [logistikñw]. It is attention to the Žrx®, to the being inas-
much as it is what it is that constitutes the activity of yevreÝn. Thus
Aristotle declares again in this passage that all knowledge (gnÇsiw)
requires a certain likeness and kinship of thinking and of the one who
thinks with the being that is observed in its being. This capacity to
disclose the being by being attentive to the being in its very being,
 gadamer ’s praise of theory 149

this going over to the other in its otherness and seeing it as it is in

itself, is, I believe, the nature of the kinship that opens up in yevreÝn.
Such disclosure eradicates, in a sense, the diVerence between subject
and object, not in the manner of establishing a oneness on the basis
of appropriation or use, nor even on the basis of an enjoyment of the
other that comes through shared activities and a common life or a
mutual set of interests; rather the likeness and connectedness involved
in all theoretical knowledge of the other is based on the fact that
human knowing is lñgow, and what characterizes human being is this
belonging to language and to what Gadamer calls the conversation
that we are. YevrÛa is the way of lñgow that stands in relation to the
other and discloses its being while remaining, as related in this way,
nevertheless apart from the being, precisely dwelling in the space of
diVerence that is opened up in this pure recognition, without inter-
ference, of the other as such. In his essay “Praise of Theory,” Gadamer
says of the human being as Aristotle deŽ nes him: “He is the being
who has lñgow: he has language; thus he has a distance from the imme-
diate exigencies of life; he is free in the choice of the good, and free
for the knowledge of the true—and he can laugh. In the deepest sense,
he is a theoretical being.”11 Gadamer’s insight here is particularly note-
worthy because he argues at length in this essay that theory is essen-
tial to the very possibility of free choice. This is precisely what Aristotle
also says at NE, 1139a25V.: “if one’s proaÛresiw, one’s choice, is to be
good, the lñgow must be true (Žlhy®w) and the desire correct (ôryñw),
that is lñgow and desire (örejiw) must be conjoined.” The attainment
of truth, the disclosure of the being in its being, is the function of all
intellectual activity, according to Aristotle, but in intellectual activity
concerned with prjiw, truth must be aligned with desire. Choice is
noèw, Aristotle says; that is, choice involves the pure holding oneself
in touch with the being of the other; but it is more than this yevrÛa;
it is also desire; and this unity of thought and desire is the Žrx® of
action.
Aristotle, in describing friendship in its highest and most genuine
expression, is very clear in delineating the way the conjunction of
thought and desire leads to the possibility of genuine friendship. Aristotle
says: “Those who wish for their friends’ good for their friends’ sake
are friends in the truest sense since their attitude is determined by
what their friends are and not by incidental considerations” (NE
1156b10V.). Theoretical thinking allows the human being to be one
with the being of another, and the friend is one who wishes for the
150 walter a. brogan

good of the other, that is, that the other achieve excellence in being.
Incidental considerations are not ignored by Aristotle. Indeed, no
philosopher has been more clear about addressing the need to avoid
confusing the fullness of friendship with use relationships and rela-
tionships based on amusement. It is the good in an unqualiŽ ed sense,
the good in itself, that the friend seeks in relationship with the other;
and by the unqualiŽ ed good, Aristotle means not incidental ways in
which we can see the other as being good at something, but rather
excellence at being. Thus Aristotle says, “in the friendship of good
men, feelings of aVection and friendship exist in their highest and best
form” (NE, 1156b24).
In Aristotle’s view, the gods’ way of being precludes a concern with
action. The gods do not have to deliberate and decide what to do.
They do not have to worry about expressing their being and giving
thereby concrete reality to themselves. Such cares are unworthy of the
gods. They are pure noèw—thought thinking itself. This is why Aristotle
says contemplation is the activity that encompasses all other activities
and is the only activity in which the gods engage. This is also why
Aristotle says that when human beings engage in thinking they resem-
ble the gods. But human contemplation is diVerent from divine. The
way we think is reective. We do not just think; we think about our-
selves and about being. Our way of being is not just thinking; rather,
through thinking we return to our being and exist thoughtfully. Since
they are immediately what they are without re ection, it is also true
that Aristotle’s gods do not have to strive for their being or to become
who they are. The gods do not reach out for what is. They do not
have desire for being. For this reason, we must conclude—sadly per-
haps—that the gods do not have friends. In contrast, the desire for
being is precisely what Aristotle means by happiness for human beings.
According to Aristotle, human beings must choose to be, and he deŽ nes
choice as the unity of thinking and desire. So, true human thinking
is never immediate, but always re ective, always reaching out towards
what is, always desire-full. For, friends not only can see and think of
their friends. They also desire the other and the good of the other.
The word we often use to mean the most profound and meaningful
kind of thinking that humans engage in—the word that is often syn-
onymous with being a thoughtful person—is philosophy. But philoso-
phy is really two words. The second half of the word is sofÛa, which
means wisdom. But the Ž rst half is filÛa, friendship. When we speak
 gadamer ’s praise of theory 151

of the love of wisdom, we often forget that the philosopher—the truly

thoughtful person—is the friend of the other.
But for both Aristotle and Gadamer the philosopher as friend is
also one who practices contemplation and thus is able to dwell in the
solitude of this activity. In an essay “Alienation as a Symptom of Self-
estrangement,” Gadamer distinguishes alienation from loneliness. Whereas
alienation is the experience of being severed from one’s community so
powerfully that one feels a sense of unalterable breach, loneliness is
often the experience of being away from one’s community, a denial
of community that longs for a recovery of communion. This sepa-
rateness and being apart from community that characterizes solitude
is, according to Gadamer, the very site from which friendship and
community arises. It is the aloneness and self-suYciency that is required
of one who would, according to Aristotle, achieve happiness. One
example of this philosophical capacity of drawing back into oneself
that holds itself apart from the other [which is the condition for gen-
uine recognition of the being of the other], an example of the loneli-
ness that Gadamer postulates as the condition for being together with
the other, is the experience of walking on the Philosophenenweg in
Heidelberg and the equivalent paths in many other German cities.
Gadamer claims that one who has a feel for the originary political
sense of these paths knows that they are not created to honor the local
professors who might walk along them. Rather what these paths honor
is the human possibility to reach a level of being and human perfec-
tion that would make it possible for someone to walk alone through
the area. The philosopher’s path is hardly alien to community. It is
rather the singular traversing of the pathway that opens up the pos-
sibility for communication. It is the ability to stay with the silence at
the heart of all conversation; it is, Gadamer says, “the remaining there
with something, undisturbed by anyone or anything.” 12 For Gadamer
this capacity to be fully there, unmitigatedly present, is at the heart
of friendship; friendship requires that one stays fully with oneself. Thus
Gadamer says, in commending Aristotle’s philosophy: “The highest
happiness of the human being consists in ‘pure theory’ . . . even the
divine beings can be and be fulŽ lled in no other way than in the
enjoyment of this ‘Da,’ this being-there, which is for its own sake.”13
But, unlike in the contrasting experience of alienation, solitude does
not preclude desire and longing for what is not oneself, and what is
thus in that sense absent. The philosopher’s sense of presence, of being
152 walter a. brogan

there, is accompanied by an equally intense experience of absence,

and thus of the possibility of community. True friendship as well as
true community lives in the realm opened up by this always recurring
possibility. Thus Gadamer says: “Whereas alienation is the loss of the
solidarity that expresses community, solidarity presupposes what the
Greeks call friendship with oneself, which produces the trace of lone-
liness and makes possible the capacity to be alone.”14 It is this capac-
ity that founds community. Thus the philosopher’s way, the path of
self-contained yevrÛa, the friendship with oneself that Gadamer does
not call self-consciousness but self-understanding, is genuine philoso-
phy; and hermeneutics, though remaining aligned philosophically with
its commitment to practical philosophy, is equally committed for pre-
cisely this reason to the necessity of theory. Hermeneutics, Gadamer
says, is theory and is a theoretical attitude. To quote Gadamer here
at some length, he says:
In hermeneutics, we have the same mutual implication between theo-
retical interest and practical action. Aristotle thought this issue through
with complete lucidity in his ethics. For one to dedicate one’s life to the-
oretic interests presupposes the virtue of frñnhsiw. This in no way restricts
the primacy of theory or of an interest in the pure desire to know. The
idea of theory is and remains the exclusion of every interest in mere util-
ity, whether on the part of the individual, the group, or the society as
a whole. On the other hand, the primacy of ‘practice’ is undeniable.
Aristotle was insightful enough to acknowledge the reciprocity between
theory and practice.15
Neither hermeneutics nor Aristotle’s ethics promise a manual for prac-
tical living. Aristotle explicitly acknowledges the limitation of his trea-
tise in this regard. The impossibility for a philosophical work to
speciŽ cally contribute to those sort of concrete questions of application
lies in the philosophers commitment to address and disclose the site
in which such concrete deliberations and decisions occur.
But of course both Aristotle and Gadamer equally acknowledge the
inseparability of the practice of understanding and theoretic awareness.
This hermeneutic circle that mutually deŽ nes theory and practice trans-
forms our understanding of both theory and practice. Hermeneutics
challenges not the isolation, but the insulation, of the claim to objec-
tive self-consciousness.16 Hermeneutics denies the myth of self-trans-
parency and maintains that the self-suYciency of yevrÛa does not deny
the fragility and Ž niteness of human knowing. The modern transfor-
mation of the notion of yevrÛa into the self-certainty achieved through
 gadamer ’s praise of theory 153

being “the architects of systematic constructs”17 is, according to Gadamer,

antithetical to the Greek sense of this word.
If friendship, as Aristotle says, is a yevrÛa, then presumably it is a
kind of apprehension that mutually reveals the beings involved. In other
words, friendship is a unique kind of theory in that knowing is reci-
procal and not one-sided. In a sense, friendship is the experience of
the doubling of being, where the good in both its primary and sec-
ondary sense is achieved. But this doubling of being is precisely our
way of being as humans. In a special kind of way, the mirroring and
re ection that occurs in friendship is the foundation that makes pos-
sible our knowing awareness of our own being. And perhaps for this
reason our knowledge of all being and of being in general is at stake
in friendship.
Aristotle explicitly addresses the apparent con ict between the claim
that the happy person needs friends and the claim that happiness
requires contemplative self-suYciency in Book IX, section 9, of the
Ethics. Here he says that these two claims are not inconsistent, and
the appearance to the contrary is due to a misunderstanding of the
nature of the relationship between genuine friends, which is not based
on utility or pleasure (NE, 1169a26). The happy person already is pros-
perous and leading an intrinsically pleasant life, and the need for friends
is not based on an exchange of goods or a need to pass the time with
amusing company. Rather, we “need” friends, he says, in order to
more easily and fully engage in the activity of yevrÛa (NE, 1169b33).
It is because yevrÛa is an ¤n¡rgeia that demands to be actualized that
we need friends. For the happy person contemplates most of all what
is excellent, virtuous, and good. But where is this available to be
observed and enjoyed other than in friendship? For the expression of
the good can be seen in the friend’s prjiw, that is, in the actions that
the good person does. “He [the happy person] chooses to contemplate
worthy actions and actions that are his own, and the actions of a good
person who is a friend have both of these qualities” (NE, 1170a1).
Further, the happy person is a living being. The life of the one who
is happy is deŽ ned by the capacity (dænamiw) to perceive and to think
(NE, 1170a). Human beings perceive and think, but they are also
aware of perceiving and thinking, that is, they perceive themselves per-
ceiving. Thus they perceive that they are; they perceive their being
(NE, 1170a34). Life is intrinsically good, and the activities of percep-
tion and thinking are accompanied by pleasure. Thus life is experi-
enced as intrinsically good and pleasant. The re ective character of
154 walter a. brogan

life, however, makes it peculiarly diYcult to contemplate (yevrÛa) our

own being, inasmuch as we are involved in living. But the being of
the friend is like our own. As we are in relation to ourselves, so we
are in relation to our friend. Thus, his or her being is intrinsically
pleasant and desire-full. The good person chooses to observe (yevreÝn—
witness) good actions, both his or her own and wherever they occur.
We are better able to contemplate the actions of the friend than our
own, since we are not ourselves doing the acting we wish to observe.
The activity of another good person is intrinsically pleasant, enjoyable,
and attractive to the noble soul who is drawn to excellence. Thus
Aristotle recommends that friends live together and share words and
thoughts (lñgow and dianoÛa).
Our awareness of our own being involves the awareness of being
and thus the being of others. It is not simply that we can perceive
others, but that we can be aware of the perceiving and thinking (and
thus the being) of others. To be aware of the being of others is leisurely,
since it is an awareness of their intrinsic goodness, their being. YevrÛa
is the activity of knowing the being of that which is other than one-
self. We have said that it is a kind of thinking that transcends mere
thinking and establishes a kinship between thinking and being. To the
extent that thinking and being are identical, we are divine. To the extent
that this bond is fragile and contingent, we are human. The other is
the mirror of the self, but the self is also the mirror of the other. YevrÛa
is the capacity to transcend to the other so as to fulŽ ll oneself.

NOTES
1. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Lob der Theorie: Reden und Aufsätze (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp,
1991), 49–50.
2. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Reason in the Age of Science (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1989),
89–90.
3. J. L. Ackrill, Aristotle the Philosopher (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1891), 141.
4. Alisdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press,
1984), 158.
5. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. by Martin Ostwald (New York: MacMillan,
1987); cited hereafter as NE.
6. Kathleen Wilkes, “The Good Man and the Good for Man in Aristotle’s Ethics,”
Mind (October 1978): 553.
7. John M. Cooper, Reason and Human Good in Aristotle (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing
Company, 1986), 112.
8. Gadamer, Reason in the Age of Science, 17–18.
9. Gadamer, Reason and the Age of Science, 18.
10. Gadamer, Reason in the Age of Science, 17.
 gadamer ’s praise of theory 155

11. Gadamer, Lob der Theorie, 31.

12. Gadamer, Lob der Theorie, 30–31.
13. Gadamer, Lob der Theorie, 30–31.
14. Gadamer, Lob der Theorie, 134.
15. Gadamer, Reason in the Age of Science, 111.
16. Gadamer, Reason in the Age of Science, 105.
17. Gadamer, Reason in the Age of Science, 17.