Tradition and dialogue in hermeneutical political philosophy: Three accounts of modernity and human existence in Gadamer, Heidegger and Habermas (Hans-Georg Gadamer, Martin Heidegger, Juergen Habermas).

摘要

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the meaning of tradition in hermeneutical political philosophy---in particular, in the works of Gadamer, Heidegger and Habermas. The premise of my analysis is this: Gadamer's dialogical vision of tradition challenges two very influential modes of thinking within twentieth-century European philosophy, which are exemplified in Heidegger's early thought (an ethics of polemos) and Habermas's project of communicative action (an ethics of unlimited communication). By drawing on Gadamer's work, with particular emphasis on his notion of fusion of horizons, I hope to show that Gadamer's hermeneutics entails a modern articulation of tradition which suggests that living traditions are sites of ongoing debates, internal revisions and critical turns. In this respect, Gadamer's interpretation of tradition goes beyond the caricaturised account of tradition that is bandied about in liberal/modernist thought and in the conservative outlook---both of which either tend to overemphasise the boundedness, distinctness and internal homogeneity of traditions or fetishise them in ways that put them beyond the reach of critical discussion. Moreover, it points to the relevance of tradition to political theory and practice in a manner that is critical of the "excesses of the Enlightenment," which oftentimes become manifest as Jacobin fanaticism and social engineering. Gadamer's perspective can equally be seen as a corrective to radical culturalism and blood-and-soil tribalism. Unlike Heidegger, Gadamer does not present the self-assertion of cultural identities and struggles of different traditions, peoples and nations as the most authentic way of living or doing politics in the age of globalisation, technology and cosmopolitanism. Nor does Gadamer, in contrast to Habermas, regard traditions as irrelevant to moral and political philosophy. Gadamer acknowledges that the hermeneutical approach towards traditions is a rational, historically oriented one, with the understanding that in the modern world one cannot simply swallow traditions but has to enter a reasonable dialogue with them. This is ultimately what Gadamer means by one of the vital concepts of his hermeneutics, namely, "interpretation." My thesis tries to capture this dialogical thrust of Gadamer's post-traditional, modern understanding of tradition with the concept of "weak tradition."