Gadamer's Repercussions "ss2.44"

“SI QUID NOVISTI RECTIUS ISTIS”

With her promotion of “mediation,” “dialogue,” and “moderation,” Catherine H. Zuckert is to be saluted for her triumphant response to the essays of Orozco and Waite, a response that could be used as a textbook case for careful study, not necessarily for its specific object of analysis (needless to say), but for its overall and well-nigh seamless hermeneutic approach and rhetorical technique. Any momentary appearance to the contrary, this concession is ultimately not meant ironically. Certainly Zuckert's response has the virtue of exemplifying the temper of our times. This is to say that it not only could be read with profit by anyone interested in grasping the hegemonic theory (theoria) of the “discursive practice”^[1] of the “postmodern,” “postindus-trial,” “postcommunist” present, and likely some years ahead (as de Gaulle used to say, “the future lasts a long time”), but it also could be emulated in practical wisdom and (nota bene) prudence (phronesis) by anyone in the reserve labor army seeking gainful employment or institutional mobility in today's academy, whether in the social or human sciences—even, or especially, in its currently depressed job market. (As a parenthetical aside, we might note that the attempt to produce “discursive practices” that are an alternative to business as usual could be expected to have a rather different significance for, say, a tenured professor at a financially solvent academic

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institution than for, say, a younger scholar who had been effectively blackballed from the same profession for trying to challenge aspects of its business as usual. In other words—for let us not be reduced to vulgar Marxist rhetoric or even to simple political economy—in each case the Haitian proverb takes on rather different meaning: “Do not insult the mother alligator until after you have crossed the river.”)

Before proceeding any further in this salute, however, Waite also emphatically stresses that there would be something quite unseemly in any entretien preliminaire (Lacan) between Zuckert and Waite (Orozco will respond in her own way) in a festschrift saluting Hans-Georg Gadamer and his century. Any interest in this entretien must be minimal compared to Gadamer's influence as one of “his century's” leading philosophers—the leading philosopher, in the opinion of many serious people. And this influence is a remarkable achievement, one might add, for someone who entered into extended or profound dialogue with neither Freud nor Marx nor their legacies, and hence with neither the unconscious nor with the political economy and capitalism, nor with anything more than one limited aspect of Spinozism—arguably a related lacuna.^[2] Nor did Gadamer really heed the advice given to all professional philosophers by Bachelard: “Se mettre a I'ecok des sciences” (to go to school with the sciences).^[3] And Gadamer did not engage so-called mass or popular culture (where the ancient philosophical problems are often more vital and effectual than in academic institutions) or problematize the Eurocentric and phallogocentric structures and ideology of classical and modern philosophy. One can't do everything and many continue to expand what they think of as philosophical hermeneutics into areas unoccupied by Gadamer, if not always with his approval. Be all this as it may, “Gadamer” will outlive Gadamer, and certainly “us.” So readers may be reminded, when reading the Zuckert-Waite logomachy, of Samuel Johnson's retort when asked to compare the talents of two of his own contemporaries: “Sir, there is no settling the point of precedency between a louse and a flea.”^[4] Or, as the unseemly folk wisdom put it around where Waite was growing up, “It takes a big flea to run with a big dog.”

As for an appropriate solution to this problem of unseemliness—that is, the inappropriateness on this occasion of any entretien preliminaire between Zuckert and Waite—the latter is of the following mind. With regard perhaps to any celebration, critique, or criticism of Gadamer, but in any case with regard to the internecine exchange between Zuckert and Waite, the latter two are especially well advised to heed the Horatian dictum and say, each to the other, “Si quid novisti rectius istis, / Candidus imperti; si non, his utere necum” (Epist. i:6, 67); which for our purposes might be loosely rendered “If you know something that is more correct than the matter here under dispute, then tell me frankly; if not, then stick with me to this matter only.” No matter how this matter be defined, the current entretien

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preliminaire can be interesting only insofar as it extends to larger issues, including, most notably here, those addressed by Gadamer himself, but also including ones that even he does not open up—and this imperative, too, is in full accord with what Waite imagines part of Gadamer's own recommendation might be in such situations, at least in theory. Adapting Plato, Aristotle, Cervantes, Luther, Althusser, and Gadamer himself we might then say: Amicus Gadamer, sed magis arnica Veritas.^[5] The question here, however, appears to be whether we should say instead (or in addition): Adversarius Gadamer, sed magis arnica Veritas.

Before proceeding along these lines, however, we could note that a reader (assuming the existence of someone at all interested in the Zuckert-Waite entretien preliminaire) might remark that there is an unfair quantitative imbalance built into the structure of this festschrift: Waite (like Orozco) has been given two chances to speak, Zuckert only one. (As for Gadamer himself, the general template of how he enters into dialogue with critics may be found in his responses to the essays on his work in The Library of Living Philosophers volume, and it is not overly difficult to extrapolate from his responses there to what he might have said and not said about this festschrift.)^[6] So we will not discover, at least not here, what Zuckert's response is to the response of Waite (or Orozco)—nor for that matter, and more mercifully, Waite's (or Orozco's) response to that hypothetical second Zuck-ertian response, and so on ad infinitum et absurdum. But this would not really be a fair objection to the structure of this anthology insofar as Waite (for one) accepts Zuckert's response as triumphant, and to be saluted as such. This is not to mention the impression Zuckert gives, at the conclusion of her (first and here only) response, “On the Politics of Gadamerian Herme-neutics,” that, in this one case at least, there is no point in further discussion or dialogue, that these have been effectively terminated—notwithstanding her prior commitment to “dialogue” and to “moderation.” (Zuckert's ethical ideology in nuce is that of many a conquering civilization or system throughout history, which is only currently parliamentary-democratic, free-market capitalism. “I respect differences, but only, of course, in so far as that which differs also respects, just as I do, the said differences…. Become like me and I will respect your difference.”)^[7] This paradox to one side for now, however, Waite much prefers to salute Zuckert's victory and to analyze how it is hermeneutically and rhetorically achieved, in the aforementioned attempt to address issues less restricted than the merely intestine. Compare the Platonic Socrates: ‘“that is what we said, was it not?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘But that is only half the story. Let us look at it more fully’” (Republic 6oib-c). Only in that spirit (and any appearance to the contrary again aside) let us continue—and continue to engage as dispassionately (and, yes, as objectively) as possible, “the politics of Gadamerian hermeneutics.”