Habermas Debate

Ricoeur's Account of Tradition and the Gadamer: Habermas Debate
Author(s): Robert Piercey

Source: Human Studies, Vol. 27, No. 3 (2004), pp. 259-280
Published by: Springer
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Human Studies 27: 259-280, 2004.
^* 259
F* ? 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in theNetherlands.
Ricoeur's Account of Tradition and the Gadamer-Habermas

Debate
ROBERT PIERCEY
Department of Philosophy, Campion College, University of Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan,
S4S0A2, Canada (E-mail: robert.piercey@uregina.ca)
Abstract. While it is clear that the Gadamer-Habermas debate has had a major influence on
Paul Ricoeur, his commentators have had little to say about the nature of this influence. I try
to remedy this silence by showing that Ricoeur's account of tradition is a direct response to
the Gadamer-Habermas debate. First, I briefly explain the debate's importance and describe
Ricoeur's reaction to it.Next, I show how his discussion of tradition in Time and Narrative steers
a middle course between Gadamerian hermeneutics and Habermasian Ideologiekritik. Finally,
I raise some critical questions about the adequacy of Ricoeur's middle course. Specifically, I
argue that it rests on an implausible distinction between the form and the content of tradition.
It is widely recognized that the Gadamer-Habermas debate has had a major

influence on the thought of Paul Ricoeur. Over the last thirty years, Ricoeur
has repeatedly emphasized the debate's importance, claiming that it "goes
well beyond the limits of a discussion about the foundations of the social
sciences" to raise the question of "the fundamental gesture of philosophy"
(Ricoeur, 1991, p. 270). Ricoeur also admits that the debate has shaped his
- that he has tried in his work "to take a kind of
philosophical development
equal distance to Gadamer and Habermas" (Reagan, 1996, p. 102). But while
it is clear that Ricoeur's work has been influenced by the Gadamer-Habermas
debate, his commentators
have had little to say about the nature of this in?
fluence. And
they have been remarkably silent about how, exactly, Ricoeur's
philosophical hermeneutics takes an equal distance to these thinkers.l This is
-
surprising, because the main themes of the Gadamer-Habermas debate tra?
-
dition, authority, and critique figure prominently inRicoeur's writings of the
last three decades. Moreover, Ricoeur's most sustained discussion of tradition
- -
in Time and Narrative is explicitly placed in the context of this debate
(Ricoeur, 1988, p. 219). That being the case, itwould be very strange indeed if
Ricoeur's reflections on tradition did not bear the stamp of the debate between
Gadamer and Habermas. But the connection between these topics seems to
have escaped the attention of most of Ricoeur's readers.
The aim of this paper is to explain how Ricoeur's account of tradition
has been shaped by the Gadamer-Habermas debate. I intend to show that
the "hermeneutics of historical consciousness" (Ricoeur, 1988, p. 207) that
260 ROBERTPIERCEY
Ricoeur develops in Time and Narrative should be read as his response to this
debate. The account of tradition that Ricoeur gives in this work is his "third
way" (Dauenhauer, 1998, p. 227) between Gadamer and Habermas, his attempt
to take an equal distance to both of these thinkers. The Gadamer-Habermas
debate, I claim, teaches Ricoeur what a philosophical hermeneutics ought to
do. Time and Narrative is his attempt to do it.Accordingly, the rest of this paper
falls into four parts. The first briefly explains what is at stake in the Gadamer
Habermas debate, while the second describes the lessons that Ricoeur draws
from it. In the third section, I argue that Time and Narrative should be seen
-
as Ricoeur's answer to the debate that is, as his attempt to steer a middle
course between Gadamerian hermeneutics and Habermasian Ideologiekritik.
Finally, the fourth section raises some critical questions about the adequacy
of Ricoeur's third way. Specifically, I argue that Ricoeur's response to the
debate rests on an implausible distinction between the form and the content
of tradition. I do so by drawing on the work of the later Wittgenstein. So
while Ricoeur's recent work is an impressive attempt to navigate between two
opposed thinkers, it is not, ultimately, a satisfactory one.
The Stakes of the Debate2
The debate between Gadamer and Habermas involves a number of different

themes and takes place on a number of different levels.3 At bottom, though,
the debate concerns the philosophical status of tradition. In Truth and Method,
Gadamer argues that tradition plays an indispensable role in all areas of human
inquiry. According to Gadamer, intellectual life is not to be understood as a
- as an to of our time
quest for perfect obj ectivity that is, attempt shed the biases
and culture and arrive at a God's-eye view of the world. Gadamer sees such
a quest as futile. The ideal of total freedom from prejudices [Vorurteilen], he
says, is "not a possibility for historical humanity" (Gadamer, 1992, p. 276).
It is also unnecessary, because in Gadamer's view, the effect of prejudice
is not uniformly negative. The beliefs and biases we inherit from our time
- calls "fore-meanings"
and culture which Gadamer, following Heidegger,
- are an in all branches of
(Gadamer, 1992, p. 269) essential starting-point
we read a text, for example, we must have certain
inquiry. When assumptions
about what itwill be like - that itwill be unified, that itwill resemble other
texts we have read in important respects, and so on. These preconceptions need
-
not be borne out we can be "pulled up short by the text" (Gadamer, 1992, p.
268) and forced tomodify our expectations. If there were no preconceptions to
however, understanding would be impossible. According to Gadamer,

modify,
something similar holds for all branches of inquiry. All understanding begins
with preconceptions and prejudices which we take up, modify, or reject as
inquiry proceeds. Inquiry proceeds in a "hermeneutic circle," a back-and

forth movement between the preconceptions one brings to inquiry and the
TRADITIONAND THEGADAMER-HABERMAS DEBATE 261
theoretical insights one takes away from it. There is no straight line from
one to the other; instead, the two rely on and modify one another. Without
prejudice, this circular movement would never get started. And prejudices do
not come out of thin air. We get them from the traditions in which we find
ourselves. In that respect, being situated in a tradition is not an obstacle to
inquiry, but a condition of its possibility.

Two important consequences follow. First, in Gadamer's view, there is
no area of intellectual life that is not interpretative. All branches involve
taking up fore-meanings from tradition and modifying them. Accordingly,

every area of intellectual life is founded on a set of pre-theoretical beliefs
and biases, and all theoretical inquiry is refracted through one's time and
one's culture. Hermeneutics, or the study of interpretative understanding, is
therefore universal in scope.4 Second, tradition possesses a certain authority.
Tradition is the source of our fore-meanings, the beliefs and biases with which
all inquiry must begin. Accordingly, our initial attitude towards tradition must
be one of acceptance. We must, at least initially, accept its hold over us,
and allow tradition to shape our thinking. If we did not, inquiry would be
impossible. This is not to say that we may not criticize tradition. But criticism
of a tradition must be understood as a reinterpretation of it and thus, in a
sense, another way of belonging to it. Critique does not undermine tradition,
but depends on it.
Gadamer's debate with Habermas begins in the late sixties when, in a num?
ber of different works, Habermas attacks this view of human inquiry. Haber?
mas argues that Gadamer's defense of tradition is both philosophically dubious
and ethically retrograde. He claims that human inquiry must not be identified
with the respectful interpretation of tradition, and that, on the contrary, it often
requires us to be suspicious of tradition. The linchpin of Habermas 's critique
is his so-called theory of interests. According to Habermas, all inquiry is di?
rected by a variety of interests, which he defines as the "basic orientations
rooted in specific fundamental conditions of the possible reproduction and
self-constitution of the species" (Habermas, 1971, p. 176). To say that inquiry
is dominated by interest is to deny that it is ever purely theoretical, a disinter?
ested attempt to understand as it really is. It is to say that allegedly
the world
disinterested standpoints are in fact attempts to realize practical goals. It is
also to say, with Marx, that the role played by these practical considerations
is often concealed or rationalized away and so not seen. In a word, it is to say
that inquiry is ideological. Habermas describes three basic interests, each of
which governs a distinct sphere of human inquiry. The first is the technical
interest which governs the empirical sciences. These sciences are driven by
the desire to exert "technical control over natural forces" (Habermas, 1971, p.
-
53) to subordinate nature to human ends. Next is the practical interest which
governs the humanities. These disciplines pursue understanding -they study
the meanings of symbolic structures in the cultural world, particularly as these
262 ROBERTPIERCEY
meanings are transmitted by tradition. Finally, the disciplines that Habermas

calls the critical social sciences are governed by an emancipatory interest.
Rather than seeking to control nature or understand a cultural heritage, these
sciences unearth the interests at work in the other branches of inquiry. They
seek to expose "violently distorted communication" (Habermas, 1971, p. 283)
-
that is, to bring to light the ideologies that govern supposedly disinterested
theoretical standpoints. They criticize the ideological bases of other branches
of inquiry with the aim of liberating humanity from them. Habermas therefore
likens them to psychoanalysis, or the attempt to discover dangerous psycho?
logical illusions and thus free oneself of them.
As a result of his theory of interests, Habermas denies that hermeneutics
is universal in scope. He denies that all intellectual undertakings simply take
up and modify the fore-meanings handed down by tradition. In Habermas 's
view, this orientation to tradition belongs only in the second sphere. Only
the humanities pursue an interpretative understanding of the contents of tra?
dition. The other spheres do not. In fact, critical social science is in some
ways hostile to this attitude towards tradition. Critical social science does not
simply take up what the past has handed down to it. Its aim is to expose the
ideological element at work in tradition, to criticize and remedy the violently
distorted communication that the past has transmitted. In short, the task of
this sphere is to carry out a critique of ideology. And the critique of ide?
ology, Habermas argues, is incompatible with Gadamer's insistence on the
universality of hermeneutics. Thus he writes:
Gadamer's prejudice in favor of the legitimacy of prejudices (or prejudge?

ments) validated by tradition is in conflict with the power of reflection,
which proves itself in its ability to reject the claim of traditions. Substan?
tiality disintegrates in reflection, because the latter not only confirms but
also breaks dogmatic forces. Authority and knowledge do not converge
(Habermas, 1988, p. 170).
According to Habermas, Gadamer's insistence on the universality of

hermeneutics is both theoretically dubious and ethically problematic. Far from
making our link to tradition a universal condition of understanding, "reflec?

tion requires that the hermeneutic approach limit itself" (Habermas, 1988, p.
170).
It is at this point that Ricoeur enters the fray. Despite his debts to Gadamer,
Ricoeur does not simply side with Gadamerian hermeneutics and against the
Habermasian critique of ideology. Instead, he argues that Habermas 'sconcerns
can be addressed within a hermeneutical framework, and that philosophical
hermeneutics can incorporate within itself a Habermasian impulse towards
critique. This is not to say that Ricoeur wishes "to fuse the hermeneutics of
tradition and the critique of ideology in a super-system that would encompass
both" (Ricoeur, 1991, p. 294). He explicitly denies that we can do so (Ricoeur,
1991, p. 294). But he does wish to steer a third path between hermeneutics
in its Gadamerian form and the critique of ideology as Habermas describes
- a seems
it albeit path that closer to the former than to the latter. In short,
Ricoeur tries to show that there can be, and indeed must be, "critique within
hermeneutics" (Ricoeur, 1991, p. 295). To see how he does so, we should look
more closely at his interventions in the Gadamer-Habermas debate.
Ricoeur's Interventions in the Debate
In a series of pieces on the debate,5 Ricoeur argues that Habermas 'shostility

towards tradition is both incoherent and, at the end of the day, unwarranted.
It is incoherent because the critique of ideology cannot "be detached from
hermeneutic presuppositions" (Ricoeur, 1991, p. 271). Habermas 's ideal of
- -
"an exhaustive critique of prejudice and hence of ideology is impossible,
because there is no zero-point from which it could proceed" (Ricoeur, 1991,
p. 278). Specifically, Ricoeur argues that there are four respects in which
the Habermasian critique of ideology has hermeneutic presuppositions which
render it inconsistent. First, he claims that "the theory of interests that under?
lies the critique of ideologies" (Ricoeur, 1991, p. 302) rests on hermeneutical
presuppositions. Habermas claims, itwill be recalled, that all human inquiry
is driven by one of three cognitive interests. But which interest, Ricoeur asks,
drives the theory of interests itself? To what sphere of inquiry does it belong,
and on what basis are its theses justified? If the theory of interests belongs
to any one of Habermas 's spheres, then its claims "would become regional
theses as in any theory ... , and [their] justification would become circular"
(Ricoeur, 1991, p. 302). If we claim that the theory of interests is an empir?
ically verifiable theory similar to those of the natural sciences, for example,
we - we
then beg the question presuppose the distinction between empirical
science and the other cognitive spheres, rather than legitimating it. And we
risk restricting its claims to a single cognitive sphere, rather than allowing
them to cut across all three. Thus the theory of interests cannot be collapsed
into any single cognitive sphere. The only solution to this difficulty, according
to Ricoeur, is to say that the theory of interests articulates something more
fundamental than any of Habermas -
's three spheres namely, "a philosophical
anthropology similar to Heidegger's Analytic of Dasein, and more particu?
larly to his hermeneutics of
'care'" (Ricoeur, 1991, p. 302). Habermas tacitly
a philosophical - an
invokes anthropology interpretation of human being that
is, at bottom, hermeneutical. And like Heidegger's Daseinanalytik, the philo?
sophical anthropology on which the critique of ideology is based must have
hermeneutic presuppositions.
- commu?
Second, Ricoeur argues that the goal of the critique of ideology
-
nication free of violence is intelligible only on the basis of embeddedness in
tradition. Critique tries to expose distortions in communication and to liberate
264 ROBERTPIERCEY
humanity from them. It conceives of communication that is free of distortion

as a regulative ideal to be pursued, though this ideal is never
encountered in
experience. But how, Ricoeur asks, is it possible to conceive of this ideal at

all, even if it is only regulative? He argues that this ideal ismade intelligible
by our experiences of successful communication, partial though they may
be. He asks: "If we had no experience of communication, however restricted
and mutilated it was, how could we wish it to prevail for all men and at all
institutional levels of the social nexus?" (Ricoeur, 1991, p. 304). We could
not. We cannot anticipate a regulative idea at all "unless that idea is exempli?
fied" (Ricoeur, 1991, p. 304). In short, that in the name of which Habermas
criticizes tradition "would be quite empty and abstract if itwere not situated
on the same plane as the historical-hermeneutical sciences" (Ricoeur, 1991,
- on an encounter with tradition
p. 303) the "plane," that is, of mediated by
interpretative understanding. The emancipatory interest would be empty were
it not, in some sense, founded upon the practical interest. In this respect as
well, the critique of ideology rests on a hermeneutic presupposition.
Third, Ricoeur argues that Habermas 's specific criticisms of ideology be?
tray a dependence on tradition that is incompatible with his critique. Haber?

-
mas is particularly critical of the distortions of one contemporary ideology
namely, the "ideology of science and technology" prevalent in "modern indus?
trial society" (Ricoeur, 1991, p. 304). InHabermas 'sview, the goals and values
of this ideology have overrun all other spheres of culture. Specifically, they
have overrun the sphere of communicative action, distorting important polit?
ical concerns with the language of bureaucratic efficiency. Habermas insists
that this movement must be reversed, and that the sphere of communicative ac?
tion must be restored to an earlier state of health. But Ricoeur asks Habermas:
"upon what will you concretely support the reawakening of communicative

action if not upon the creative renewal of cultural heritage?" (Ricoeur, 1991, p.
306). Habermas 's criticisms of the present in the name of ideals from the past
shows once more that the critique of ideology speaks from a highly specific
-
place. Habermas 's criticisms which he presents as a repudiation of tradition
- are his rootedness in a tradition. To that
in fact made possible by specific
extent, they are self-undermining.
Finally, Ricoeur that "fcjritique
argues is also a tradition" (Ricoeur, 1991,
p. 306). Criticizing authority to emancipate humanity is not something one
can do from nowhere. It is an activity with a long and highly specific history,
and we can make no sense of it unless we are connected to this history.
"This tradition," Ricoeur says, "is not perhaps the same as Gadamer's; it is
perhaps that of the Aufkl?rung, whereas Gadamer's would be Romanticism.

-
But it is a tradition nonetheless" perhaps "the most impressive tradition"
1991, p. 306). Indeed, Ricoeur goes so far as to suggest that "there
(Ricoeur,
would be no interest in emancipation, no more anticipation of freedom, if the
Exodus and the Resurrection were effaced from

the memory of mankind"
(Ricoeur, 1991, p. 306). We cannot

engage in critique from nowhere. We
cannot even make sense of critique from nowhere. Critique in the interest of
liberation is a tradition, and when we enlist it to fight ideology, we continue
this tradition. The idea of using critique to escape tradition altogether is deeply
incoherent.
So Ricoeur claims that Habermas 'shostility towards tradition is incoherent,
because the critique of ideology itself rests upon a hermeneutics of tradition.
But there is more. Not only is this hostility incoherent; it is also unwarranted.
It is unwarranted because Habermas is wrong to equate tradition with a sim?
ple, unreflective endorsement of the past. Hermeneutics and critique are not
opposed. On the contrary, the hermeneutics of tradition can (and indeed must)
contain a critical moment. To participate in a tradition is not to accept the past
passively, but to appropriate it critically. Just as the critique of ideology needs

hermeneutics, hermeneutics needs critique.
Ricoeur thinks that the critical resources of hermeneutics are often over?
looked because of the dominance of Gadamer's work. There is a ten?
dency, Ricoeur argues, to identify philosophical hermeneutics with Truth and
Method, and to assume that there is nothing in the former that is not in the lat?
ter. This is unfortunate, because Gadamer often expresses himself inways that
downplay the critical resources of hermeneutics. In particular, Ricoeur claims,
the very title of Gadamer's magnum opus ismisleading, since it suggests that
-
hermeneutics is founded on an antithesis truth or method, the humanities or
the sciences, belonging to tradition or breaking with it. Dichotomies such as
these are unhelpful and false.6 Gadamer's reliance on them prevents him from
"recognizing the critical instance and hence rendering justice to the critique
of ideology" (Ricoeur, 1991, p. 297). According to Ricoeur, we must rethink
the assumption that being embedded in a tradition is opposed to distancing
oneself from it and criticizing it. Belonging and distanciation must rather be
seen as dialectically related. In short, we need to reinterpret embeddedness
in tradition as an essentially critical stance. And we can do this, Ricoeur
thinks, ifwe shift the emphasis of philosophical hermeneutics away from the
opposition between "truth" and "method," and back towards its origin: the
interpretation of literary texts. Viewing tradition as a text to be interpreted
will, Ricoeur argues, allow us to see the criticism of traditions as a necessary
and productive phenomenon.
Ricoeur outlines four respects inwhich viewing tradition as a text will help
rehabilitate the critique of ideology. Each concerns the notion of distanciation
[Verfremdung]. When we criticize a tradition, we distance ourselves from it.
We suspend our ties to it;we objectify the tradition and regard it as something
foreign. In Ricoeur's view, Gadamerian hermeneutics sees distanciation as "a
sort of ontological fall from grace" (Ricoeur, 1991, p. 294). It claims that
266 ROBERTPIERCEY
to distance oneself from tradition is to disrupt the relation of belonging that

makes all understanding possible.7 But Ricoeur points out that distance
is not
necessarily an obstacle to understanding. In the case of a literary text, certain
kinds of distance make understanding possible. First of all, distanciation is a
condition of there being literary texts at all. Texts come into being only when
-
discourse is fixed inwriting and so rendered autonomous autonomous "with
respect to the intention of the author; with respect to the cultural situation and
all the sociological conditions of the production of the text; and finally, with
respect to the original addressee" (Ricoeur, 1991, p. 298). To fix a discourse

inwriting and distance it from the conditions of its production is by no means
to destroy it. Rather, it is to make it a text. Objedification helps realize the
"profoundest aim" (Ricoeur, 1991, p. 299) of discourse.
The second way inwhich interpreting something requires critical distance
from it has to do with Dilthey's distinction between explanation and under?
standing. Gadamer, it seems, would have us oppose these terms. Explanation

iswhat results from the "method" of the sciences and the objectifying attitude
- - are
they adopt towards their subject matter. Understanding and "truth"
accessible only when one puts aside this objectifying attitude. To "explain" a
text in Dilthey's sense is to distance oneself from it and therefore hinder one's
understanding of it. Ricoeur argues, however, that it is simplistic and false to

view explanation and understanding as dichotomous terms. Explaining a text
by objectifying it and turning it into an object for something like scientific

study can help us to understand it. Consider the literary critic who subjects
a text to a structural analysis, disclosing the "formal arrangement" (Ricoeur,
1991, p. 299) of its various elements. We need not be structuralists about
literatureto see that analysis of this sort can shed unexpected light on a text,
and thereby help us to understand it. Ricoeur writes:
It is necessary to have gone as far as possible along the route of objectifica

tion, to the point where structural analysis discloses the depth semantics of
a text, before one can claim to 'understand' the text in terms of the 'matter'
that speaks therefrom. The matter of the text is not what a naive reading
of the text reveals, but what the formal arrangement of the text mediates
(Ricoeur, 1991, p. 299).
If this is so, then treating a text as an object to be explained does not hinder
understanding. It helps make understanding possible. So it cannot be the

case that critical distance always disrupts understanding. Their relation must
instead be "dialectical"(Ricoeur, 1991, p. 299).8
The third way in which understanding a text requires us to adopt a critical
-
stance towards it concerns the notion of reference. Texts refer they point
to something beyond themselves. As is well known, Ricoeur identifies the
reference of a text with "the world opened up by it" (Ricoeur, 1991, p. 301),
and more specifically with "the type of being-in-the-world unfolded infront
of the text" (Ricoeur, 1991, p. 86). By this, he means that when I read a text,
I open up "aproposed world that I could inhabit and wherein I could project
one of my ownmost possibilities" (Ricoeur, 1991, p. 86). This proposed world
is different in important ways from everyday reality. So in opening it up, I
- new
depart from my everyday world I effect "a sort of distanciation that
could be called a distanciation of the real from itself" (Ricoeur, 1991, p. 86).
Because texts refer, understanding them necessarily involves a peculiar kind
-
of distancing the distancing that comes about when a text opens up a new
world and new possibilities for being-in-the-world. This phenomenon shows
that distanciation is not always an obstacle to understanding.
Distanciation
can complete understanding.
The fourth and final way in which distanciation makes possible the under?
standing of texts concerns the capacities of the reader. Good readers, Ricoeur
claims, are self-aware. They reflect on their own skills and limitations, and
they recognize their tendencies to misinterpret texts in various ways. Just as
good psychoanalysts recognize their tendencies to distort their analyses
of oth?
ers, and compensate for them, good readers compensate for their tendencies
to distort texts. Reading well therefore requires a willingness to subject one's
capacities to impartial scrutiny. Reading, in other words, demands an ability
to distance oneself from oneself. More specifically, it demands "a critique
of the illusions of the subject," a critique Ricoeur likens to the Habermasian
critique of ideology (Ricoeur, 1991, p. 301). In this respect as well, critical
distance is not an obstacle to understanding. An objectifying attitude is "not a
fault to be combatted but rather the condition of possibility of understanding
oneself in front of the text" (Ricoeur, 1991, p. 301).
The point of all this is that according to Ricoeur, hermeneutics and the
critique of ideology are not simply opposed. We need not choose between a
hermeneutical and a critical stance towards tradition - an
between affirmation
of our dependence on tradition, and a critical gesture that breaks with the
past. The hermeneutical and critical enterprises cannot be neatly separated.
The critique of ideology is possible only on the basis of hermeneutic presuppo?
-
sitions that is, on the basis of its embeddedness in a highly specific historical
tradition. But at the same time, the hermeneutics of tradition must contain a
critical moment. It must view its heritage as a text to be reinterpreted, and
itmust recognize that its ability to distance itself from this heritage is what
makes reinterpretation possible.
Ricoeur concedes that there is a tension between the critique of ideol?
ogy as Habermas describes it and philosophical hermeneutics as Gadamer
describes it. He insists that hermeneutics must be re-formulated in a less
Gadamerian way if its critical resources are to be made
manifest. The point,
however, is that such a reformulation is possible. It is possible to articulate
a philosophical standpoint that is at once hermeneutical and critical. It is
possible to acknowledge both our dependence on the past and our interest in
268 ROBERTPIERCEY
emancipation. In short, it is possible to steer a third way between Gadamer and

Habermas. We can address Habermas 'sdemand for critique within philosoph?
ical hermeneutics. Indeed, philosophy of this sort "is required by its internal
logic to reintroduce a critical moment... as a necessary dialectical factor in

the hermeneutical process" (Ricoeur, 1973, p. 157). We can, in short, engage
in critical hermeneutics.
For Ricoeur, then, the Gadamer-Habermas debate teaches us what philo?
sophical hermeneutics should do. It should be a critical hermeneutics that
acknowledges our dependence on tradition, while at the same time viewing

tradition as a text to be reinterpreted in the interest of emancipation. But it is
one thing to explain what hermeneutics ought to do. It is another to do it.How
exactly can we view tradition in a way that does justice to both Gadamer and
Habermas? What exactly does a critical hermeneutics look like, and what ver?
dict does it ultimately pass on tradition? Ricoeur's answers to these questions
come in Time and Narrative, and it is to that work that we should now turn.
Ricoeur's Hermeneutics of Historical Consciousness
One of the central theses of Time and Narrative is that debates about tradition
must become more subtle. Ricoeur thinks that contemporary philosophy has
incorrectly viewed tradition as a monolithic concept, rather than the multi

faceted one that it is. And he thinks that as a result, contemporary thinking
about tradition has become mired in unnecessary confusions. The Gadamer
Habermas debate is an example. We must recognize, Ricoeur argues, that the
term "tradition" denotes not a single phenomenon, but a cluster of interrelated
ones. "Instead of speaking indiscriminately of tradition," he claims, "we need
to distinguish several different problems that Iwill set under three headings"
(Ricoeur, 1988, p. 219). These headings have to do with how we are connected
to the past; what we are connected to when we stand in relation to the past;
and the legitimacy of the past's hold on us.
To say that inquiry is bound to tradition could mean three different things.
On the first reading, a
it is to make
fairly thin epistemic claim. It is to say that
we are trapped within the hermeneutic circle, and that we must begin inquiry
by taking up problems and preoccupations from the past. It is a necessary
condition of understanding that we take our beginnings from tradition. On
this first reading, however, there is no particular tradition from which we
must take our beginnings. All that is necessary is that we stand in relation
to some tradition or other, and any number might fit the bill. In short, this
first reading appears to be a purely formal one. It sees the importance of
tradition as a result of how we understand, of the manner in which we think.
Tradition's importance is not a function of what is handed down to us in
contexts. This first view sees our dependence on tradition as wholly
particular
separate from what particular traditions happen to pass down.
The second reading also sees the claim that we are dependent on tradition
as an epistemic claim, but amore robust one. On this second reading, tradition
-
makes inquiry possible in a much stronger sense namely, in the sense that
there is some particular tradition, or some particular group of traditions, to
which we must belong ifwe are to engage in, say, philosophy. It is not enough
to stand in relation to some tradition or other, to receive some fore-meanings
from somewhere. Rather, it is necessary that we receive some particular set of
fore-meanings as opposed to others. Thus we might call this second reading

a material one, in that it sees inquiry as made possible not by our manner of
belonging to some tradition or other, but by some transmitted contents and
not others.
The third reading is even more ambitious. On this interpretation, tradition
is not just a set of transmitted contents that governs our thought, but one that
legitimately does so. On this reading, to say that we take our beginnings from
tradition is not merely to say that we must do so, because of "the unavoidable
finitude of all understanding" (Ricoeur, 1988, p. 225). It is to say that we are
-
right to do so that one particular tradition can claim not just a hold on us,
but a legitimacy that others cannot. A tradition in this sense is not merely a set
of fore-meanings that governs our thought. It is one that governs our thought
-
by right something that binds us legitimately.
In order to keep these three notions separate - how we understand, what we
understand, and the legitimacy of what we understand - Ricoeur distinguishes
the concepts of traditionally, traditions, and tradition. Each term picks out
a different aspect of our link to the past. "Traditionality" is Ricoeur's term
for the way in which we are connected to the past. It concerns how we are
how our ismade the To
shaped by history, thought possible by past. speak of
traditionality is to speak of "a style of interconnecting historical succession"
(Ricoeur, 1988, p. 219). It is to speak of our embeddedness in "the chain of
interpretations and reinterpretations" (Ricoeur, 1988, p. 220) transmitted to
us from the past. Our thought is governed by in that we
traditionality always
take our beginnings from the past. Regardless of what tradition we inhabit,
regardless of what is transmitted to us from the past, we always think in
the mode of tradition. Thus Ricoeur calls traditionality "a transcendental for
thinking about history" (Ricoeur, 1988, p. 219). Traditionality, as the how
of understanding, can be defined independently of what we understand. It is
"formal" (Ricoeur, 1988, p. 220), a "formal concept" (Ricoeur, 1988, p. 221),
and it refers only to a style or a manner of thinking. It can be, so to speak,
"filled in" with an indefinite number of contents. What we receive from the
past varies with our cultural and historical situation. That we
receive it, and
how we receive it, do not vary. Traditionality is a purely formal feature of our
understanding. This is why Ricoeur calls it "transcendental."
Traditionality is to be sharply distinguished from traditions. Traditions are
the "transmitted contents" (Ricoeur, 1988, p. 223) that we receive from the
270 ROBERTPIERCEY
past. They are "the things said in the past" (Ricoeur, 1988, p. 222) or "every
received heritage within the order of the symbolic" (Ricoeur, 1988, p. 227).
Traditions, in other words, are what we understand when we open ourselves
to the efficacy of the past. They are the particular fore-meanings inherited at
particular times in particular places. To speak of traditions is not merely to
speak of a need to take our beginnings from some cultural heritage or other.
Rather, it is to speak of particular cultural heritages that can play this role.
Whereas traditionality is formal, traditions are "material" (Ricoeur, 1988,
p. 221). Since our need for fore-meanings is purely formal, and since any
number of different fore-meanings can "fill in" this form, there are inevitably
"rival traditions" (Ricoeur, 1988, p. 224). There ismore than one set of fore
meanings one can receive from the past. The ones that Ricoeur receives from
his cultural heritage are no doubt very different from the ones an analytic
epistemologist receives from his or hers, and both are very different again
from the ones with which an eighteenth century philosopher might begin. It
is not immediately clear how one might adjudicate among these rival fore
meanings. While we must take our beginnings from the past, there is no
particular set of fore-meanings with which anyone and everyone must begin.
There are competing traditions, and any one of them might satisfy our need
to begin somewhere or other. The most salient fact about traditions, then, is
their multiplicity. Ricoeur therefore says that "by 'tradition,' we shall mean
'traditions'" (Ricoeur, 1988, p. 221).
But there is also a third side to our experience of traditions. Though tradi?
tions are essentially plural, and though there is no obvious way of adjudicat?
ing among them, we nevertheless accept traditions. We identify with them,
endorsing certain ones and not others. When I speak of my tradition, for ex?
ample, I assign a legitimacy to it. I suggest not merely that a certain heritage
governs my thinking, but that it does so rightly. I acknowledge its claim on
me. According to Ricoeur, the question of the legitimacy of traditions is un?
avoidable. Traditions are "proposals of meaning" (Ricoeur, 1988, p. 227), and
"the question of meaning cannot be separated from that of truth except in
abstraction. Every proposal of meaning is at the same time a claim to truth"
(Ricoeur, 1988, p. 222). Each tradition presents itself not just as one tradition
among others, but as the tradition. For this reason, Ricoeur finds it necessary
to distinguish the concept of tradition from traditionality and traditions.
By
"tradition," he means an endorsed
set of fore-meanings, a transmitted
content
accepted as legitimate. To pass from "traditions" to "tradition" is "to intro?

duce a question of legitimacy" (Ricoeur, 1988, p. 224); it is to transform "the
Gadamerian prejudice in favor of prejudice into a position based on being
1988, p. 225). This move from m?ssen to sollen cannot be
right" (Ricoeur,
avoided. "Taking a distance regarding transmitted contents," Ricoeur argues,
"cannot be our initial attitude. Through tradition, we find ourselves already
situated in an order of meaning and therefore also of possible truth" (Ricoeur,

1988, p. 223). In other words, because of our need to begin somewhere, we
have always already accepted some tradition as legitimate. This is not to say
that the tradition in question is immune from all later criticism. But it is to
say that the criticisms I eventually make of this tradition are, in some sense,
made possible by it.
It is not difficultto see why Ricoeur wants to distinguish traditionality,
traditions, and tradition. Keeping these concepts separate seems to be the only
way of avoiding a slippery slope to which philosophical hermeneutics is all
too susceptible. When we speak of "tradition" in the abstract, it is easy to slip
from relatively weak claims about the way inwhich human inquiry takes place
tomuch stronger claims about particular institutions and their legitimacy. It is
one thing to point out that we always find ourselves in the hermeneutic circle,
and that we must take our beginnings from somewhere. It is something else
to say that we must take our beginnings from some particular tradition, and
not from one of its competitors. And it is something else again to say that our
tradition is legitimate in a way that others are not, that it is right to govern
our thought as it does. Neither of the two latter claims follows comfortably
from the first. To assume that they do is to risk falling victim to a romantic
traditionalism of the sort Gadamer describes in Truth and Method.9 Moreover,
it is to leave oneself vulnerable to the criticisms Habermas advances in the
name of the critique of ideology. If our need to be connected to some tradition
or other forced us to accept some particular tradition over others, and to see
that tradition as legitimate or even immune from criticism, then Habermas
would be right. Philosophical hermeneutics would be ethically dangerous.
Ricoeur's hope is that in formulating the issue as he does, Habermas's
worry need not arise. On Ricoeur's view, our need for fore-meanings has to
do with the formal concept of traditionality. This formal concept can be kept
separate both from the contents that "fill it in," and from the question of the
legitimacy of those contents. Ricoeur can argue that on his view, there is
no slippery slope from a recognition of the role of traditionality in human
understanding to the uncritical traditionalism feared by Habermas. "Only
the third" of Ricoeur's - -
concepts tradition "lends itself to the polemic
that Habermas undertook against Gadamer in the name of the critique of
ideology" (Ricoeur, 1988, p. 224). The Gadamer-Habermas debate rests on
an insufficiently subtle understanding of what tradition is.
Ricoeur's hermeneutics of historical consciousness, then, is based on a
sharp distinction between the form and the content of human understanding.
The form of human understanding is what Ricoeur - a
calls traditionality
"style" (Ricoeur, 1988, p. 219) or amanner of thinking. We think in the mode
of tradition, in that we inevitably take up certain projects and preoccupations
from the past, and then continue them, modify them, or break with them. In
272 ROBERTPIERCEY
short, human understanding has the form of traditionality because it takes
place within the hermeneutic circle. And for Ricoeur, our need to confront
the past is a function of this form alone. The importance of tradition has to
-
do with how we think with the way in which understanding takes place. It
-
is decidedly not a function of what we understand that is, of the particular
"past contents" (Ricoeur, 1988, p. 221) handed down to us through the "chain
of interpretations and reinterpretations" (Ricoeur, 1988, p. 220). It is not the
contents of our cultural heritage that force us to confront the past; rather, it
is the universal form of human understanding that does so. Traditionality and
traditionsare separate. How we think is to be sharply distinguished from what
we think; our need for some fore-meanings or other does not force us to take
up any particular set of fore-meanings. Ricoeur does claim that the particular
past contents that we receive must be given a "presumption of truth" (Ricoeur,
1988, p. 227). But this presumption of truth is not only tentative and r?visable;
it is itself required by understanding's form, not by its contents. That our initial
attitude towards our heritage must be acceptance is a function of how we relate
to fore-meanings, not of any intrinsic merit those fore-meanings may have.
Like Gadamer, thinks that human inquiry requires us to be situated
Ricoeur
within an "interconnecting historical succession" (Ricoeur, 1988, p. 219). Un?
like Gadamer, however, Ricoeur takes care to emphasize that our dependence
on tradition is a formal dependence. It is a result of how we think, of our need
to take our beginnings from some heritage or other. And it can be described in
purely formal terms, without making any reference to the particular contents
transmitted to us through this interconnecting historical succession. Our link
to the past is a purely formal schema. Itmust be "filled in"with some tradition
or other, but there is no one tradition that is uniquely qualified to do so. Per?
haps an indefinite number of traditions could fit into this schema. At any rate,
Ricoeur does not rule out this possibility. For Ricoeur, then, thinking in the
mode of tradition is similar to performing a mathematical function. A func?
- x
tion has variables 's and j's that must be assigned values. But the function
does not specify which values are to be plugged into it. Similarly, we depend
on tradition inmuch the same way that a function depends on the values that
can be assigned to its variables. Both are purely formal mechanisms that need
content to be fed to them from outside. And these contents are essentially
plural.
So Ricoeur's strategy for steering a middle course between Gadamer and
Habermas is to distinguish several different senses of the term "tradition."
In so far as traditionality is the form of human understanding, he argues,
Gadamer is right. We cannot escape the hermeneutic circle, and our cultural
as we some
heritage can claim a hold on us. But in so far need only tradition
or other, Habermas is right. No one tradition is uniquely qualified to make
and the particular heritage we inherit might well be an op?
inquiry possible,
one in need of criticism. Finally, in so far as traditionality is an empty
pressive
schema independent of all particular traditions, we can have it both ways.

We can accept both Gadamer's and Habermas 's accounts of tradition, up to
a point. Thus the account of tradition in Time and Narrative allows Ricoeur
to endorse both Gadamerian hermeneutics and Habermasian Ideologiekritik.
Consequently, it should be seen as the "third way" of which Ricoeur speaks.
What should we make of it?
A Dubious Distinction
Ricoeur's rests on his distinction

third way between the form and the content
-
of human understanding between traditionality and traditions. It is impor?
tant to recognize that there ismore at stake here than a conceptual distinction.
Ricoeur is not simply claiming that it is possible to distinguish the concepts
of traditionality and traditions. His claim is actually much stronger, in several
ways. First, Ricoeur ismaking a descriptive claim about how human inquiry
proceeds. He is saying that it has the form of traditionality, and that to think
is to stand in a certain relation to one's cultural heritage. Next, Ricoeur insists
-
that traditionality is something universal that there is a single form of human
understanding to be found at all times and all places. There is one and only
one manner of conducting human inquiry, common to all particular projects.
As we have seen, it consists in taking up the "things already said" (Ricoeur,
1988, p. 221) in the past in a certain way. This is why Ricoeur calls tradition?
ality "a transcendental for thinking about history" (Ricoeur, 1988, p. 219).
What we receive from the past varies according to our historical and cultural
context; that we receive things from the past, and how we receive them, do
not vary.
Finally, and most importantly, Ricoeur claims that what makes traditional?
ity universal is that it can be defined independently of the contents transmitted
by it. As a transcendental, traditionality is in no way dependent on the partic?
ular traditions that instantiate it. The form of human understanding is what it
is independently of the contents that happen to "fill it in" at particular times in
particular places. This is why I likened traditionality to a mathematical func?
tion. Functions have variables, and while these variables must be assigned
some values or other, there is no particular value that must be assigned in any
given case. By definition, different values can be assigned, and the function
itself does not force us to choose one value over another. Thus we can define
the function without making reference to the particular values that will even?
tually be assigned to its variables. It is an empty schema that can be "filled
in" with any number of different contents. Ricoeur's concept of traditionality
is no different in this respect. We always encounter it as filled in by some
particular contents, but those contents do not make it what it is. The form
of understanding can be defined without making reference to those contents.
They are, finally, attached to it accidentally.
274 ROBERTPIERCEY
So Ricoeur's claims about traditionality are more ambitious than they first
appear. Far from simply distinguishing concepts, Ricoeur is advancing more
-
ambitious claims about human understanding namely, that it takes the form
of an encounter with tradition, that this form is universal, and that itsmeaning
is independent of cultural context. Ricoeur does not seem to argue for these
more ambitious claims. He does not explicitly argue for the thesis that the
form of human understanding is separate from its contents, and that as a
result it is universal. The closest he seems to come
is to suggest that if we
do not understand traditionality in this way, we will be unable to respond
to Habermas 's criticisms of hermeneutics.10 But while the desire to answer
Habermas may a conceptual
justify distinction, it surely does not justify the
more theory of traditionality
ambitious that Ricoeur is advancing. So at the
very least, Ricoeur's claims about the independence of form from content
seem inadequately argued for. They are not really defended, but asserted. This
fact should make us a little uneasy.
But the problems are more It is not just that Ricoeur's
serious. attempt
to separate form and content is inadequately supported by argument. In fact,
it is an implausible distinction. There is good reason to think that form and
content will not separate as neatly as Ricoeur wants. There is good reason to
think that traditionality is not a transcendental form capable of being defined
- even
independently of any concrete traditions not "in abstraction" (Ricoeur,
1988, p. 222). On the contrary, there is good reason to think that traditionality
cannot be defined without making reference to particular traditions, and that
the form of human understanding is intelligible only if reference ismade to its
contents. The very concept of traditionality, Iwill argue, would be meaningless
if we did not tacitly understand it as embodied in and
inseparable from our
experience of actual traditions. As a result, traditionality is not universal,

singular, or transcultural. Just as there are multiple traditions, there must, I
will argue, be multiple traditionalities. Let me explain why.n
One of Ricoeur's central claims about tradition is that it is something that
happens. It a
is process, an activity of transmission, an ?berlieferung. "Before
being an inert deposit," Ricoeur maintains, "tradition is an operation that can
only make sense dialectically through the exchange between the interpreted
past and the interpreting present" (Ricoeur, 1988, p. 221, my emphasis). As an
operation between present and past, tradition is in the first instance something
we do. Moreover, this process of transmission is not just any activity. It is
- a
a special kind of activity normatively structured activity. Taking part in
tradition is an activity governed by norms. It is subject to standards of cor?
rectness and incorrectness. There are better and worse ways, more and less
"right" ways, of taking part in a dialectical exchange with the past. This must
be so because we
criticize the ways inwhich others take part in this exchange.
We level criticisms at those who, in our view, are not performing this activity
as well as they should. If the process of receiving a heritage from the past
were not norm-governed, then these criticisms would be unintelligible. There

would be no sense in calling someone's appropriation of the past "wrong"
if there were no standards distinguishing wrong from right, better from
worse.
It is clear that Ricoeur understands tradition as a normatively structured

activity. He clearly thinks there are better and worse ways of carrying on a
dialogue with the past. This is made evident by his own tendency to criticize
the ways in which others take part in tradition. His work is full of examples
of this tendency. In a recent piece on the future of Europe, for example,
Ricoeur condemns in rather sweeping terms all those who identify belonging
to tradition with simply preserving what is past. The right way to belong to
a tradition, Ricoeur argues, involves answering the past by interpreting it in
novel ways. He writes:
Tradition means transmission, transmission of things said, of beliefs pro?

fessed, of norms accepted, etc. Now such a transmission is a living one
only if tradition continues to form a partnership with innovation. Tradition
represents the aspect of debt which concerns the past and reminds us that
nothing comes from nothing. A tradition remains living, however, only if
it continues to be held in an unbroken process of reinterpretation (Ricoeur,
1995, p. 8).
How could Ricoeur make this criticism if he did not see the "transmission
of things said" as governed by standards of correctness? If his charge is
to make sense, participating in tradition must be a normatively structured
activity. For another example, consider Ricoeur's criticisms of Habermas.
What troubles Ricoeur about the critique of ideology is its tendency to view
history as nothing more than a repository for ideology. Ricoeur argues in
no uncertain terms that this
is the wrong way of relating to the past. The
freedom from history that Habermas seeks "is condemned to remain either
an empty concept or a fanatical demand" (Ricoeur, 1973, p. 165). Clearly,
Ricoeur could not criticize Habermas for relating to the past badly if itwere
not possible to relate to the past well. We can criticize the role someone plays
in an ?berlieferung only if we recognize standards of correctness governing
this process of handing down. Here again, Ricoeur's willingness to criticize
some ways of appropriating tradition show that he sees this appropriation as
an activity governed by norms.
Now, asWittgenstein has taught us, there are two different ways to under?
stand normatively structured activities. There are two ways to make sense of
what we are doing when we engage in activities that can be performed well
or performed badly. One is to see behavior of this sort as capable of being
-
understood apart from actual cases that is, independently of a familiarity
with how a norm is instantiated in particular situations. On this first view,
performing a norm-governed activity is tantamount to following a rule, to
276 ROBERTPIERCEY
enacting a linguistically statable principle. And one can follow this principle
without any prior acquaintance with other examples of following it. For ex?
ample, consider someone who counts "2,4, 6." On this first view, the correct
description of this behavior is that the person in question is following the rule
"add two." One does not need to see others follow this rule before following it
oneself; grasping the rule is enough. We might say, then, that on the view be?
ing entertained, norms stand in an external relation to behavior in accordance
with them. To obey the norm, it is not necessary to be familiar with actual
cases of following it.
But as Wittgenstein points out, there is a problem with this way of un?
derstanding normatively structured behavior. The problem is that a linguistic
expression of a rule is not sufficient to distinguish behavior that falls under the
rule from behavior indefinite number of actual cases might
that does not. An
be thought to accord with a given rule. The only way to distinguish those that
do accord from those that do not is to examine the cases. Suppose I announce
that I am going to follow the rule "add two." I proceed to count "2, 4, 6." So
far, my behavior is in accordance with the norm. But at this point, there is no
way to know how Iwill Imay continue by counting "8, 10, 12," but
continue.
may also continue "9, 18, 27," or with "10, 15, 20," or with any number
with
of other series. Clearly, the first way of continuing is right, while the others
are wrong. But how do we know this? The phrase "add two" does not itself
force me to continue in the first way rather than another. What makes the first
way correct? How do we know how to proceed?
As iswell known, Wittgenstein's answer is that following a rule of this sort
- -
and indeed, engaging in any norm-governed activity is "exhibited inwhat
"
we call 'obeying a rule' and 'going against it' in actual cases (Wittgenstein,
- toWittgenstein,
1953, p. 81). Hence the second and, according the correct
-
way of understanding normatively structured behavior. On this view, norms
are not capable of being understood apart from a grasp of their embodiment
in actual cases. The norm I am following as I count "2, 4, 6" does not reduce
to something as simple as the phrase "add two." Rather, it is something I grasp
through an acquaintance with actual cases, and something I can grasp in no

other way. To grasp it just is to know how to continue the series "2, 4, 6"
correctly. More generally, to understand a norm just is to know how itworks

in practice, how it is instantiated in actual cases. As Gadamer might say, to
understand a norm is to know how it is completed in application. Given the
difficulties by the first way of understanding
raised normatively structured
behavior, it seems we have little choice but to accept this second one. Norms
must be exemplified, and they are incapable of being understood apart from
their exemplifications.
There is no reason to think that participating in tradition is different from
counting in this respect. Like counting, participating in tradition is an ac?
tivity governed by norms. Like counting, it is an activity we assess with
standards of correctness, and an activity we criticize when it is performed

badly. Accordingly, there is no way to understand what we are doing when
we participate in tradition without making some reference to how this ac?
tivity is performed in actual cases. The reference we make to these actual

cases may be veiled, tacit, and intuitive, but itmust be there. Knowing what it
means to participate in tradition just is knowing how this activity is exempli?
fied in actual cases, knowing how some particular member of some particular
tradition inherits and transforms some particular contents under some par?
ticular circumstances. A purely general account of how one participates in
tradition, in the abstract, is a pipe dream. Any account of how we receive a
heritage must make reference to what we receive. But if this is the case, then
Ricoeur's claim that traditionality is entirely independent of traditions must be
wrong. Traditionality cannot be a transcendental, a pure form whose meaning
is independent of any of the contents that might fill it in. It is impossible to
understand how we take up and modify fore-meanings without making ref?
erence to some particular set of fore-meanings and some particular process
of transmission. We cannot understand the transmission of a heritage unless
we have some grasp of how this activity proceeds in actual cases. Tradition?
ality must derive its meaning from an acquaintance with the transmission of
particular traditions.
Indeed, Ricoeur seems to admit as much. At certain points in his work -
-
though not, as far as I can tell, in Time and Narrative Ricoeur argues that
our understanding of what it is to participate in a tradition ismade possible by,
and is inseparable from, our experiences with particular historical traditions.
Recall what he says about the tradition of criticism, for example. There, he
- as we have seen,
argues that the process of criticizing tradition which,
Ricoeur considers an essential moment of belonging to tradition - is made
possible by our ties to a highly specific history. He suggests that there would
be "no more interest in emancipation, no more anticipation of freedom, if
the Exodus and the Resurrection were effaced from the memory of mankind"
(Ricoeur, 1991, p. 306). He rejects Habermas's claim that this freedom is
merely a regulative idea, insisting that we can make no sense of a regulative
idea "unless that idea is exemplified" (Ricoeur, 1991, p. 304). He claims that
itwould never occur to us to overcome distorted communication if "we had
no experience of communication, however restricted and mutilated it was"
(Ricoeur, 1991, p. 304). At all of these points, Ricoeur suggests that our
of how tradition works cannot be separated from -
understanding and ismade
- our
possible by experiences with particular traditions. He grants that the
way in which we receive a cultural heritage cannot be divorced from what we
receive. Yet he does not seem to recognize that this claim causes problems for
his view of traditionality.
The point of all this is that Ricoeur's discussion of tradition rests on
an untenable distinction. As I have argued, Ricoeur argues that it is the
278 ROBERTPIERCEY
form of human understanding that makes us dependent on tradition. And he

argues that this form is independent of any of the contents that might "fill
-
it in" that traditionality is a transcendental that can be separated from the
particular traditions that embody it. But as we have seen, there is good reason
to be skeptical of this claim. Traditionality cannot be neatly separated from
traditions. The form of human understanding cannot be specified in abstrac?
tion from the particular contents that instantiate
it. On the contrary, the only
way to understand what to participate itmeans
in tradition is to be acquainted
with some particular tradition or traditions. There is no single, universal form
of traditionality in the abstract; there is only traditionality as it ismanifested
in the transmission of particular traditions. But if this is so, then Ricoeur's
attempt to separate the two cannot work. As attractive as his strategy may be,
it rests on an implausible separation of form and content.
What does all of this show about Ricoeur's "third way" between Gadamer
and Habermas? Certainly not that the very project of a critical hermeneutics
is doomed to failure. But it does suggest that the concept of tradition ismuch
more complicated than even Ricoeur recognizes. If a critical hermeneutics
is to succeed, then it must recognize that the term "tradition" denotes not
just one thing, and not just three things, but a potentially indefinite number
of things. Perhaps the first task of a critical hermeneutics is to acknowledge
that there is not just one third way, but many ways between Gadamer and
Habermas.12
Notes
1. Though many of Ricoeur's readers recognize that the Gadamer-Habermas debate has had
an influence on his work, they tend to focus on its influence on his moral and political
S.H. Clark, for example, argues that Ricoeur sees the debate as an ethical one, one
thought.
that concerns "the responsibility of the contemporary intellectual." Bernard Dauenhauer,
on the other hand, emphasizes how the debate has shaped Ricoeur's political philosophy,
specifically his "account of the fragility of all political discourse about political values
and goals." See Clark (1990, p. Ill) and Dauenhauer (1998, p. 223). Neither Clark nor
Dauenhauer seems to think that the debate has shaped the development of Ricoeur's thought
in areas other than ethics and politics. I argue that it has.
2. For an overview of the debate, see Apel (1971). For a variety of critical perspectives
on the debate, see, for example, the following: Depew (1981), Gallagher (1992), How
(1985), andMisgeld (1977). Note thatRicoeur's discussion of the debate focuses solely
-
on its early stages that is, on the exchanges between Gadamer and Habermas in the
late sixties and early seventies. Both Gadamer and Habermas, however, have made more
recent statements about the debate, some of which seem to decrease the distance between
their positions. Those wishing to see how Gadamer's thought about the debate has evolved
may consult Gadamer (1976). Habermas has also discussed the debate in a number of
more recent pieces, such as Habermas (1980), Habermas (1993) and Habermas (1996a).
Note as well that, in addition to Habermas 's explicit discussions of the debate, there is
independent evidence that Habermas 's view of tradition has moved much closer to
ample
Gadamer's in recent years. A good example is the discussion of law in his recent book
Between Facts and Norms. Whereas the Habermas of the late sixties and early seventies
had insisted that knowledge and rationality need have nothing to do with tradition, Between
Facts and Norms acknowledges that there is an unavoidable tension between validity and
facticity, or between and tradition. See Habermas Section

knowledge (1996b), especially
1.2.5.
3. Shaun Gallagher has also made this point. See Gallagher (1992, p. 69).
4. Gadamer (1976, p. 3).
5. The relevant pieces are Ricoeur (1973) and Ricoeur (1991).
6. Ricoeur claims that there is an "alternative the very title of Gadamer's work Truth
underlying
and Method: either we adopt the methodological attitude and lose the ontological of
density
the reality we study, or we adopt the attitude of truth and must then renounce the objectivity
of the human sciences."
This opposition between and Zugeh?rigkeit, Ricoeur
Verfremdung
argues, runs through all of Gadamer's work. Habermas 's critique of Gadamer
Interestingly,
seems to a large extent to grow out of his uneasiness with this dichotomy. see
(For example,
Habermas, 1996a, pp. 21^12.) By contrast, Ricoeur says, "my own reflection stems from
a rejection
of this alternative and an attempt to overcome it" (Ricoeur, 1991, pp. 75-76).
7. As Heidegger might say, it is an experience of the unheimlich. It is worth noting that com?
parisons of Heidegger and Gadamer often explore this notion of unheimlichkeit. Gadamer,
according to this line of interpretation, sees tradition as in which
something humanity
is thoroughly at home, whereas Heidegger is more to see it as alien,
distant,
willing
and "uncanny." See, for example, Risser (1997). Gadamer's reluctance to un?
Perhaps
derstand tradition in terms of the unheimlich leads him to downplay the critical resources
of hermeneutics.
8. Ricoeur's claim that explanation and understanding are dialectically related echoes a point
already made by Adorno. See Adorno (1997, pp. 345-348).

9. See, for example, Gadamer (1992, pp. 273-277).
10. Time and Narrative certainly suggests that the distinction among traditionality, traditions,
and tradition is justified simply because it allows us to answer Habermas. See, for example,
this passage: "Only the third of these lends itself to the polemic that Habermas undertook
against Gadamer in the name of the critique of ideology" 1988, p. 219).
(Ricoeur,
11. The claims I advance about traditionality in this section are very similar to claims I have
advanced elsewhere about moral norms. See Piercey (2001).
12. I am grateful to Fred Dallmayr, Foster, Matt Halteman, Anna Mudde, and Steve
Gary
Watson for their comments on earlier versions of this article. I am also to the
grateful
editor of Human Studies and an anonymous referee for their many A
helpful suggestions.
shorter version of the article was presented to the Canadian Association at
Philosophical
the University of Toronto inMay 2002.
References
Adorno, T. (1997). Aesthetic trans. Robert Hullot-Kentor. of

Theory, Minneapolis: University
Minnesota Press.
Apel, K.O. (1971). Hermeneutik und Ideologiekritik. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.

Clark, S.H. (1990). Paul Ricoeur. London: Routledge.
Dauenhauer, B. (1998). Paul Ricoeur: The Promise and Risk of Politics. Oxford: Rowman and
Littlefield.
Depew, D. (1981). The Habermas-Gadamer Debate in Hegelian and
Perspective. Philosophy
Social Criticism 8: 424-446.
Gadamer, H.G. (1976). Philosophical Hermeneutics, trans. David E. Linge. Berkeley:

University of California Press.
280 ROBERTPIERCEY
Gadamer, H.G. (1992). Truth and Method, trans. Donald Marshall and Joel Weinsheimer, 2nd
edition. New York: Crossroad.
S. (1992). Language and Imperfect Consensus: Merleau-Ponty 's Contribution to
Gallagher,
the Gadamer-Habermas Debate. In T. Busch and S. Gallagher (Eds.), Merleau-Ponty:
Hermeneutics and Postmodernism. Albany: SUNY Press.
Habermas, J. (1971). Knowledge and Human Interests, trans. Jeremy Shapiro. Boston: Beacon
Press.
Habermas, J. (1980). The Hermeneutic Claim to Universality. In Joseph Bleicher (Ed.), Con?
temporary Hermeneutics. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Habermas, J. (1988). On the Logic of the Social Sciences, trans. Shierry Weber Nicholson and
J. Stark.
Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Habermas, J. (1993). Justification and Application, trans. Ciaran Cronin. Cambridge, MA: The
MIT Press.
Habermas, J. (1996a). Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, trans. Christian

Lenhardt and ShierryWeber Nicholson. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Habermas, J. (1996b). Between Facts and Norms, trans. William Rehg. Cambridge, MA: The
MIT Press.
How, A. (1985). A Case ofCreative Misreading: Habermas 's Evaluation of Gadamer's

Hermeneutics. Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 16: 32^44.
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Misgeld,
of the Debate Between Habermas and Gadamer. Cultural Hermeneutics 4: 321-344.
Light
Piercey, R. (2001). Not Choosing Between Morality and Ethics. Philosophical Forum 32:
53-72.
Reagan, C. (1996). Paul Ricoeur: His Life andHis Work Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press.
Ricoeur, P. (1973). Ethics and Culture: Habermas and Gadamer in Dialogue. Philosophy Today
17: 153-165.
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Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Ricoeur, P. (1991). From Text to Action, trans. Kathleen Blarney and John Thompson. Evanston:
Northwestern University Press.
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21:3-13.
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Ricoeur's Account of Tradition and the Gadamer: Habermas Debate

Author(s): Robert Piercey

Ricoeur's Account of Tradition and the Gadamer-Habermas

It is widely recognized that the Gadamer-Habermas debate has had a major

opposed thinkers, it is not, ultimately, a satisfactory one.

The Stakes of the Debate2

The debate between Gadamer and Habermas involves a number of different

however, understanding would be impossible. According to Gadamer,

inquiry proceeds. Inquiry proceeds in a "hermeneutic circle," a back-and

inquiry, but a condition of its possibility.

taking up fore-meanings from tradition and modifying them. Accordingly,

meanings are transmitted by tradition. Finally, the disciplines that Habermas

universality of hermeneutics. Thus he writes:

Gadamer's prejudice in favor of the legitimacy of prejudices (or prejudge?

According to Habermas, Gadamer's insistence on the universality of

making our link to tradition a universal condition of understanding, "reflec?

Ricoeur's Interventions in the Debate

In a series of pieces on the debate,5 Ricoeur argues that Habermas 'shostility

humanity from them. It conceives of communication that is free of distortion

experience. But how, Ricoeur asks, is it possible to conceive of this ideal at

tray a dependence on tradition that is incompatible with his critique. Haber?

"upon what will you concretely support the reawakening of communicative

perhaps that of the Aufkl?rung, whereas Gadamer's would be Romanticism.

Exodus and the Resurrection were effaced from

(Ricoeur, 1991, p. 306). We cannot

passively, but to appropriate it critically. Just as the critique of ideology needs

to distance oneself from tradition is to disrupt the relation of belonging that

respect to the original addressee" (Ricoeur, 1991, p. 298). To fix a discourse

standing. Gadamer, it seems, would have us oppose these terms. Explanation

understanding of it. Ricoeur argues, however, that it is simplistic and false to

by objectifying it and turning it into an object for something like scientific

It is necessary to have gone as far as possible along the route of objectifica

understanding. It helps make understanding possible. So it cannot be the

emancipation. In short, it is possible to steer a third way between Gadamer and

logic to reintroduce a critical moment... as a necessary dialectical factor in

acknowledges our dependence on tradition, while at the same time viewing

Ricoeur's Hermeneutics of Historical Consciousness

incorrectly viewed tradition as a monolithic concept, rather than the multi

fore-meanings as opposed to others. Thus we might call this second reading

particular times in particular places. To speak of traditions is not merely to

accepted as legitimate. To pass from "traditions" to "tradition" is "to intro?

situated in an order of meaning and therefore also of possible truth" (Ricoeur,

short, human understanding has the form of traditionality because it takes

schema independent of all particular traditions, we can have it both ways.

Ricoeur's rests on his distinction

experience of actual traditions. As a result, traditionality is not universal,

being an inert deposit," Ricoeur maintains, "tradition is an operation that can

were not norm-governed, then these criticisms would be unintelligible. There

It is clear that Ricoeur understands tradition as a normatively structured

Tradition means transmission, transmission of things said, of beliefs pro?

through an acquaintance with actual cases, and something I can grasp in no

correctly. More generally, to understand a norm just is to know how itworks

standards of correctness, and an activity we criticize when it is performed

tivity is performed in actual cases. The reference we make to these actual

form of human understanding that makes us dependent on tradition. And he

facticity, or between and tradition. See Habermas Section

already made by Adorno. See Adorno (1997, pp. 345-348).