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ISSN 1392–1126. PROBLEMOS. 2008 73

Fenomenologija ir hermeneutika

TOWARDS A NEW ACCOUNT OF HERMENEUTICS:GENEALOGY VERSUS HERMENEUTICS

Andrius Bielskis

ISM Vadybos ir ekonomikos universitetasArkliø g. 18, LT-01129 VilniusEl. paðtas: andrius.bielskis@ism.lt

The essay analyses the difference between Hans-Georg Gadamer’s and Alasdair MacIntyre’s conceptionsof hermeneutic philosophy, on the one hand, and Nietzschean genealogy, on the other. It argues thatRicoeur’s famous distinction between ‘hermeneutics of faith’ and ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’ in thelight of the ontological reading of Nietzsche’s genealogy is misleading. Rather than trying to understandNietzsche’s philosophy as the hermeneutics of suspicion, it is more accurate to see Nietzsche’s andFoucault’s interpretive philosophy in terms of genealogy. The contrast between Gadamerianhermeneutics and Nietzschean genealogy, the one hand, as well as reading Gadamer hermeneutics inthe light of MacIntyre’s conception of tradition-constituted and tradition-constitutive philosophicalinquiry, on the other, allow us to formulate an alternative conception of hermeneutics. The essayargues that hermeneutics is inevitably linked to tradition: hermeneutics depend on and draws itsmoral and intellectual resources from tradition as well as determines and continues tradition further.

Keywords: Hermeneutics, genealogy, tradition, ontology, will to power.

Introduction

The main concern of this essay is to sketch theconceptual difference between Nietzscheangenealogy and hermeneutics. In order to dothis I shall first of all try to clarify what I meanby genealogy. Distinguishing two differentways of reading Nietzsche’s philosophy, I shallargue in favour of the ontological reading ofNietzsche’s genealogy (embodied in Deleuze,Foucault, and partly Heidegger). It will besuggested that genealogy has to be understoodas closely linked to the conception of the will

to power. Such a reading of Nietzsche willenable me to question Paul Ricoeur’s inter-pretation of Nietzsche’s thought as ‘herme-neutics of suspicion’. In response to Ricoeur’sdistinction between ‘hermeneutics of faith’ and‘hermeneutics of suspicion’ I shall presentGadamer’s and MacIntyre’s conceptions oftradition. Reading Gadamer through Mac-Intyre’s philosophy can provide us with theconceptual resources to arrive at a new andmore substantial account of hermeneutics.Thus understood hermeneutics will be seen as

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inevitably linked to tradition: hermeneutics notonly depends on and draws its moral andintellectual resources from tradition, but alsodetermines and continues tradition further. Itis in this sense that hermeneutics, so it will beargued, necessarily presupposes an affirmationof and a belonging to tradition. Thus Nietz-schean genealogy cannot be seen as ‘herme-neutics’ because it breaks with and distancesfrom, rather than affirms its belonging to,tradition.

Genealogy as ontologyof the will to power

There are at least two different schools ofreading Nietzsche’s genealogy within contem-porary Nietzsche scholarship. An anthro-pological reading (e.g. Walter Kaufmann, PeterPoellner or Brian Leiter) understands ge-nealogy as an intellectual interpretativecritique enabling us to deconstruct our pre-judice, dominant value structures and dis-cursive practices in order to achieve deeperself-understanding. An ontological reading ofNietzsche’s genealogy is rather different1. Inthis essay, alongside Foucault and Deleuze, Ishall argue in favour of an ontologicalinterpretation of genealogy. The reason for thisreading is that it is only an ontological inter-pretation, which takes Nietzsche’s conceptionof the will to power seriously, that will allowme to confront Paul Ricoeur’s twofold con-ception of hermeneutics. Therefore it is onlywithin the context of such an ontologicalreading of genealogy that we can seriously posethe question of the relationship between ge-nealogy and hermeneutics. Hence the centralissue of this essay: Can we see Nietzschean and

Foucaultian genealogies as hermeneutics? Aphilosophical attempt to answer this questionwill also enable us, so I hope, to formulate amore substantive account of hermeneutics.

To address this question it is important tosketch what genealogy, as a mode of doingphilosophy, is about. Commenting on Nietzsche’sGenealogy of Morals Gilles Deleuze, referring toits preface, calls it the ‘most systemic book’ whichshould be read as a key for interpreting thewhole of Nietzsche’s philosophy and itsaphoristic character (Deleuze 1983: 87). ForNietzsche himself genealogy was an intellectualtool to question the original value of morality.He states at the beginning of the Genealogy ofMorals that, despite the fact that the origin ofmorality and its historical development hadbeen analysed and discussed before, the veryvalue of morality was never fundamentallyquestioned. Thus the primary task of genealogyshould not be merely to show the origin ofmorality but to disclose the very valueof morality itself. That is why Deleuze canclaim that genealogy means both the value oforigin (of morality) and the origin of (moral)values (ibid: 2). Thus its fundamental mode ofthinking is the interpretative (re)evaluationof predominant values and what lies behindthese values. Indeed, we find such interpre-tative re-evaluative practice in all of the threeessays of the Genealogy of Morals. The firstessay starts with the genealogy of the moralityof good and evil (Gut & Böse). It claims thatthe predominant moral distinction betweengood and evil is the historical result of the bitterressentiment of the weak. The second essay goeson with the historical analysis of the psycho-logical implications of morality showing thatbad conscience has nothing to do with anytranscendental feeling of duty. Rather it issimply a result of cruelty against oneself when,due to the cultural development of punishment

1 For a more detailed account of these two differenttypes of reading Nietzsche see Bielskis 2005: 189–190.

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and other moral practices, it cannot bedischarged externally. The last essay deals with,what Nietzsche calls, the ascetic ideal and itshistorical embodiments and transformations.Fundamental to it is the traditional ascetic ideal ofthe metaphysical God, which in the handsof ‘manipulative priests’ functions as a drugagainst suffering which can transform into avariety of discursive practices such as art,science, and philosophy.

It is important to stress two fundamentalfeatures of such genealogical interpretativepractice: namely, its negativity and its his-toricity. Nietzsche takes up the word ‘genealo-gy’ and, setting aside its traditional connotationof genealogy as the study of family pedigree,transforms and utilises it for his philosophicalpurposes. Genealogy becomes essentiallynegative within Nietzsche’s conception – itdoes not try to validate and strengthen certainaspects of our past but to deconstruct andoppose them. Behind the Nietzschean genealo-gy there is the fundamental belief that con-temporary values are in decay. Both traditionalmorality and the values it generates are thecause and the symptom of our weakness andthus should be exposed and critically refuted.What has to be exposed in particular is the factthat these traditional values – the ‘slave’morality of ‘good’ and ‘evil’, bad conscience, avariety of ascetic ideals – have nothing to dowith a metaphysical God as their legislator.Rather they are the result of historical process.That is to say, genealogy as the interpretativeevaluative enquiry into our history is neededbecause what we are is due to the long processof history. It is in this sense that Foucault,within his own but also Nietzschean conceptualcontext, claimed that genealogy is ‘a historicalontology of ourselves’ (Foucault 2000: 262).Thus we need to study our genealogy in orderto understand what we are, for it is only due to

different historical practices and discoursesthat we have been shaped into our presentsituation. It is precisely this historicism (nothistoricism in a Popperian sense) that I taketo be the fundamentally anti-metaphysical andanti-essentialist character of genealogy –humanity does not have any essential naturegiven in advance, but has been historicallyshaped through the different discursivepractices and power structures of our culture /civilisation. Humanity, from a genealogicalpoint of view, is a historical project and has noessential nature.

Now what I want to argue is that thenegative character of genealogy rests notmerely on the fact that Nietzsche believes thatcontemporary values are in decay and that theyare the values of the weak, but that it is morefundamentally linked to his ontology of power.That is to say, the negative character of ge-nealogy – we have to advance a historical cri-tique of our values not simply to correct but tooppose them – is fundamentally connectedto his conception of the will to power. It is herethat the affinity of my reading of Nietzsche withDeleuze’s and Foucault’s will become evident.Our predominant values have to be de-constructed not simply because they are indecay, but because behind them lies the re-active will to power. Behind the values of theweak lies not merely a lack of will, but the willto power of the weak. And that is howNietzsche himself understands the revolt of theslaves in the Genealogy of Morals: the weak,through the ‘canny manipulation’ of the priests,start to create the nihilistic values which lateroverturn the aristocratic morality of the‘strong’ and ‘noble’. It is in this sense that wecan claim that the ontological conception ofthe will to power is implicit within theGenealogy of Morals: genealogy is not onlyconcerned with values and morality as such but

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about what will to power lies behind them.Furthermore, it implies that behind any values,morals, discursive practices, and structures ofmeaning there is always a certain, either activeor re-active (to use Deleuze’s terms), will topower. In this sense we can say that the processof creation of values or interpretative re-valuation is the expression and the exercise ofa certain will to power. What still needs to beclarified is how one should understand the willto power.

In my interpretation of the Nietzschean willto power I follow Heidegger and Deleuze.Deleuze, for example, interprets the will topower as the main instinct of life to which allother instincts and forces should be subor-dinated2. The active will to power is able toaffirm itself as well as subdue and commandnot only others (whether they are otherindividuals or other forces and instincts) butfirst of all itself. In a similar manner Heideggerstates that the will to power is that which isable to will itself (Heidegger 2000: 175). In thissense the will to power appears as themaximally abstract principle – it is the will topure potentiality with no reference to teleology(Bielskis 2005: 34). The will to power does nothave any concrete identity or aim; in a senseits objects – values, symbols, interpretations,and forces, i.e. everything through which thewill to power exercises itself – are secondary.And that is what Nietzsche himself claims whenhe writes that ‘[a]ll “purposes”, “aims”,“meaning” are only modes of expression (…)

of one will that is inherent in all events: thewill to power’ (Nietzsche 1968: 356). Further-more, Nietzsche’s conception of self-over-coming can be interpreted in this way as well:the law of self-overcoming means not only thatall the greatest values are bound to betransformed ‘bring[ing] their own demise’ butalso that the self-overcoming should be willedas the normative principle of the life of theactive will to power (Nietzsche 1994: 126).Hence the importance of agon in Nietzsche’sphilosophy and its interpretations by some ofhis commentators (Thiele 1990 and Schrift2001). That is why Nietzsche’s statements –‘[r]eality has been deprived of its value, itsmeaning, and veracity’ and ‘now that theshabby origin of these values is becoming clear,the universe seems to have lost values, seems“meaningless”’ – could be interpreted not onlyas signifying nihilism as a temporary situation(i.e. the demise of traditional metaphysicalvalues is realised while new ‘positive’ valueshave not yet been created), but somethingwhich is more fundamental and permanent(Nietzsche 1979: 34 and 1968: 10–11). That is,if the conception of self-overcoming as themode of existence of the active will to power isaccepted, then creative nihilism with regard toalready existing values (whether they are ones’own or someone else’s) becomes essentialrather than a mere temporal situation in ourhistory. It is in this sense that we can claim thatNietzsche’s own philosophy, in particular hisdoctrine of the Übermensch and the eternalrecurrence, is not an attempt to create newvalues or ideals, ideals which, as it were, wouldtake the place of traditional metaphysical values.Nietzsche’s proclamation in Ecce Homo that thelast thing he wanted to accomplish was to improvemankind and to set up new idols supports thisinterpretation (Nietzsche 1979: 34).

2 Deleuze warns us not to read Nietzsche’s will topower as a primitive desire to dominate others, notonly because it would remain trapped within the un-derstanding of power as involving recognition (i. e. onlythe obedience of others would demonstrate my power),but also because it cannot be seen in terms of the cra-ving for power as an object. See Deleuze 1983: 80–81.

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Paul Ricoeur: hermeneutics of faithversus hermeneutics of suspicion

It is at this point that my disagreement withPaul Ricoeur can be articulated. However,before doing so it is important to emphasis thefact that my disagreement with Ricoeur hereis limited to one particular issue, namely hisdistinction between hermeneutics of suspicionand hermeneutics of faith, on the one hand,and his reading of Nietzsche, on the other.What I do not agree with is not Ricoeur’shermeneutic project as such, but only oneaspect of it – his interpretation of Nietzsche asessentially a hermeneutic philosopher. In fact,Ricoeur’s later thought, in particular hisconception of tradition in terms of traditio-nality, traditions, and tradition, developed inthe third volume of Time and Narrative, is verysimilar to the idea of tradition developed inthis essay. Both Ricoeur and MacIntyre, as wewill see, acknowledge that there are differenttraditions which transmit different contentsand different structures of meanings. Further-more, both of them insist that the conflictsbetween rival traditions and their rival claimsto truth should be settled through criticaldebate:

Tradition, as an instance of legitimacy,designates the claim to truth (the taking for true)offered argumentation within the public spaceof discussion. In the face of criticism thatdevours itself, the truth claim of the contents oftraditions merits being taken as a presuppositionof truth, so long as stronger reasons, that is, abetter argument, has not been established(Ricoeur 1988: 127).

Nonetheless I chose to utilise MacIntyre’sconception of tradition rather than Ricoeur’sbecause it is MacIntyre rather than Ricoeurwho developed a detailed hermeneutic accountof what these rival traditions are.

In various essays and books Paul Ricoeurprovides a famous distinction between twotypes of hermeneutics, namely hermeneuticsof faith and hermeneutics of suspicion (seeRicoeur 1970 & 1974). To put it very briefly,the hermeneutics of faith is interpretationwhich seeks to recollect the meaning of a text.Its preoccupation always is the care andconcern for the object whose meaning it seeksto interpret. It is an attempt to capture themeaning of an object without any reduction.The best example of the hermeneutics of faithis the phenomenology of religion as it isembodied in the exegesis of canonical texts.The hermeneutics of suspicion is ratherdifferent. Its gesture is opposite to an attemptat the recollection of meaning – it seeks todemystify ‘the illusions and lies of cons-ciousness’ (Ricoeur 1970: 28). According toRicoeur, the school of suspicion is bestrepresented by three thinkers: Marx, Freudand Nietzsche. What is essential to all of themis that despite their negative suspiciouscharacter their thought is interpretative andthus could be seen as exemplifying a form ofhermeneutics: through the negative inter-pretative critique of false consciousness all ofthem seek to arrive at a new set of values andmeanings. Hence for Ricoeur Nietzsche’s phi-losophy is hermeneutics. For him Nietzsche’seternal recurrence, the Übermensch, and thewill to power constitute such new ‘enlightened’meaning. Thus understood hermeneutics,whether it is of suspicion or of faith, is inter-pretation of signs and symbols. The meaningof signs and symbols by its nature is neverstraightforward and thus cannot be exhaustedby its immediate (or first) designation. That iswhy interpretation of signs is essential becauseit is only through interpretation that themeaning of signs can be disclosed. Nietzscheengages in negative interpretation to demystify

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the ‘lies of consciousness’ in order to arrive ata new set of values and better meaning. Thus,according to Ricoeur, Nietzsche’s interpre-tative re-valuation is hermeneutics becausethrough the demystification of traditionalstructures of meaning he aims to arrive at thecreation of new meaning.

It is here that Ricoeur’s interpretation ofNietzsche becomes dubious. First of all it canbe asked why Ricoeur calls Nietzsche’sinterpretative re-evaluative practice herme-neutics if Nietzsche himself chose to call thispractice genealogy. This objection gainssupport in the light of Foucault who, adoptingNietzsche’s genealogy within his own philoso-phical project, extends genealogy and distancesit from hermeneutics. It is not only Foucault’scommentators such as Hubert Dreyfus andPaul Rabinow, who read Foucault’s philosophyas different from hermeneutics (Dreyfus andRabinow 1982). It was also Foucault himselfwho, both in his archaeological and latergenealogical methods, sharply distancedhimself from hermeneutics as an attempt toapproach discursive practices through cap-turing their internal meaning3. However, mydisagreement goes deeper than this objectionfor it touches the very nature of the Niet-zschean genealogy. The question is whether itis true, as Ricoeur thinks, that Nietzsche’sgenealogy, through a negative detour, aims atthe creation of a new and more enlightenedset of values and meanings. If my reading ofNietzsche’s genealogy is correct, then theanswer must be ‘no’. And this is so for severalimportant reasons.

My ontological reading of Nietzsche’sgenealogy suggested that the notion of the willto power should be understood in terms of self-overcoming and agon. It is only in this sensethat values, ideas, interpretations, and sets ofmeanings, i.e. everything through which the willto power exercises itself, can be seen assecondary. That is why Nietzsche’s notion ofthe Übermensch, for example, is not a new idealor telos to combat the nihilism of our culture.Indeed, the preface to Thus Spoke Zarathustrasuggests precisely this: the buffoon who jumpsover the tightrope-walker warns Zarathustrathat he should stop preaching the Übermenschbecause otherwise he will jump over Za-rathustra as well. (Thus the buffoon whoovercomes the last man denies the preachingof the overman.) But if it is not an ideal, thenwhat is it? It is a function, the function of theactive will to power as self-overcoming. In asimilar way genealogy does not aim at theestablishment of new ideals, values or a set ofmeanings but at the void and suspensionof meaning from which the event of self-creation can be advanced. It is here that wecome to the most important issue, namely therelationship between genealogy and the will topower, on the one hand, and genealogy andexisting values and structures of meaning, onthe other. Genealogy then appears as anintellectual tool and a function of the will topower: not only does it deconstruct existingvalues but it also serves and strengthens thewill to power. Genealogy sees itself as anattempt to resist the dominant power relationsas well as actively seeking to strengthen thewill to power in order that the energy of artisticself-cultivation may be constantly released. Itis in this sense that we can say that Nietzsche’s,and especially Foucault’s, genealogies aim notat the establishment or continuation ofmeaning (which, we shall see, is the aim of

3 See for example Foucault 1972: 162, whereFoucault sees hermeneutics as an attempt to redis-cover what is expressed in discourses through under-standing of their internal meaning and thus distin-guishes it from his archaeology.

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hermeneutics) but towards the will to power(whether it is self-overcoming in Nietzsche ormicro-resistance in Foucault). The primary aimof interpretation as re-valuation in genealogyis not meaning itself. Here Nietzsche’s owncharacterisation of interpretation in theGenealogy of Morals is instructive: genealogyis not an attentive interpretation to a text’smeaning, but rather freedom to exercise one’screativity through allowing oneself to use‘forcing, adjusting, shortening, omitting, filling-out, inventing, falsifying, and everything elseessential to interpretation’ (Nietzsche 1994:119). Thus the way genealogy proceeds withits interpretative re-evaluation is through abreak from and suspension of existing valuesand structures of meaning. That is why the factthat Nietzsche demystifies the values of theslaves becomes secondary and thus Foucault,adopting the Nietzschean ontology of power,goes further than Nietzsche and rejects his, andalso the Deleuzean, dualism of the masters vs.slaves and the active vs. reactive will to power.Everything becomes power relations, evendiscourses and their meanings have to be seenthrough the logic of power. All that is availableto those who seek even relative autonomy is aconstant resistance. Genealogy becomesa fundamental part of such resistance; it is onlythrough the opposition to, breaking andsuspension of already existing structures ofmeaning that the aim of genealogy – ‘to beotherwise’ – can be achieved.

Gadamer and MacIntyre on tradition

If genealogy thus understood cannot behermeneutics, then how can one conceptualisewhat hermeneutics is? To answer this it isinstructive to turn briefly to Gadamer’sand MacIntyre’s conceptions of tradition.I shall suggest that the most illuminating

way of distinguishing hermeneutics fromgenealogy is through linking it to the philo-sophical notion of tradition. It is in relation tothe conception of tradition that a moresubstantive account of hermeneutics than thatoffered by Ricoeur will become possible.

The philosophical concept of tradition inTruth and Method was developed in responseto 19th century hermeneutics. Gadamer movesaway from Schleiermacher, Dilthey, andothers. He neither seeks to formulate univer-sally applied rules of hermeneutic under-standing, nor sees the task of hermeneutics asgrasping the original meaning of a historicaltext. The concept of tradition allows Gadamerto distance himself both from the Enlighten-ment and from Romanticism. Gadamer showsthat tradition is invoked in any attempt tounderstand a historical text. The nature ofhermeneutic understanding has a circular, oras Gadamer calls it, centrifugal structure. Weunderstand a historical text through being ableto project our fore-meanings and in doing soanticipate the meaning of a text or a con-versation. Thus any understanding alwaysmoves from the primordial anticipation ofmeaning as a whole to its re-articulation andre-confirmation through the more detailedcomprehension of the parts. What Gadameris interested in is the nature and provenanceof such fore-structures. Where does our abilityto foresee the meaning of a historical text,e. g. Aristotle’s Politics, come from? Gadamer’sanswer is that it comes from tradition. Fore-understanding is related to our linguistic world-view that we already have and which we haveinherited from the past. Thus the nature offore-meaning is that of prejudice: any actof understanding requires that we project thejudgements that we already have ontothe meaning of a text that we want tounderstand. Hence prejudice as pre-judge-

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ment, which is rooted in our historical situated-ness and our cultural-linguistic context, isconstitutive of our ability to understand assuch. Now what is important is precisely ouropenness in being able to acknowledge suchhistorical bias. What this implies is not onlythat everyone unavoidably has pre-conceptionsand prejudices which in part constitute ourunderstanding, but also that it is a task ofhermeneutics to be critically aware of them.In other words, a mature hermeneuticalthinking has to be critically aware of its ownhistorical prejudices which grounds ourunderstanding because it is only through beingcritically aware that certain prejudices canbecome legitimate.

To say that tradition is the bearer of thestructure of fore-meaning and that it conditionsour understanding is to tell only one part ofthe story. The question that we have to pose iswhat happens to/with tradition when weunderstand a historical text. The answerGadamer provides is that we further continuetradition. It is in this sense that Gadamer canclaim that the issue of hermeneutic under-standing is not only epistemological but alsoontological. To repeat what an author of ahistorical text meant is to fail to understand it.Instead, to understand a text is to apply itwithin our contemporary situation. It is anability to recapture and rearticulate the sig-nificance of a historical text within the present.Thus understanding a historical text is acreative act of its actualisation. What is sig-nificant is that it is precisely through this abilityto creatively understand a text that tradition iscontinued: tradition is continued in our abilityto apply a text within the present. Through theontological act of understanding the horizonsof the past and present are fused. Thus, riskinga gross oversimplification, it is possible todefine Gadamer’s conception of tradition as

‘continuity of meaning in history through itsre-articulation and re-actualisation’ (Bielskis2005: 106). Tradition premises our under-standing but nonetheless comes to being onlythrough the interpretation of its discourses andtheir meanings. Tradition then is both thecondition and the process of our understanding.That is, tradition is not only something whichconditions our understanding but also is itselfconditioned and partly constituted by herme-neutic understanding. It is this aspect – weconstitute and continue tradition throughbeing able to creatively understand a historicaltext – that allows us to see tradition as havingan open-ended and futuristic character. Thiswill become clearer when we have presentedMacIntyre’s conception of tradition.

We can already see how different Nietzsche-an genealogy is from Gadamer’s hermeneutics.In Truth and Method Gadamer, for example,claims that recognizing the fact that oursituatedness within a tradition “does not limitthe freedom of knowledge but makes itpossible” constitutes openness to tradition asthe highest type of hermeneutical experience(Gadamer 1989: 361). Furthermore, he cri-ticises the Enlightenment’s unrealised pre-judice against prejudice claiming that we haveto be critically aware of our prejudice as wellas affirming some of them as legitimate.Nietzsche, on the other hand, aims to decons-truct and oppose all our traditional prejudicesand values. Nietzsche’s genealogy does notsimply criticise them but seeks to overturnthem. So, on the one hand, we have an attemptto continue the structures of meaning (her-meneutics), while on the other hand, to resist /oppose them (genealogy). We encounter herecontrasting ontological dispositions: on the onehand, there is an affirmation of meaning andtradition which is seen as enabling us to givepurpose and structure to our life (Gadamer),but on the other hand, there is a constant

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attempt to oppose meaning and tradition inorder to affirm life (as self-overcoming) itself(Nietzsche). But why does Gadamer insists thathermeneutics necessarily presupposes ouropenness to tradition, and even the affirmationof our belonging to tradition? Now what I wantto suggest is that this question can best beanswered in a more substantive way withinMacIntyre’s conception of tradition.

In Whose Justice? Which Rationality?Alasdair MacIntyre provides this definition oftradition:

A tradition is an argument extended throughtime in which certain fundamental agreementsare defined and redefined in terms of two kindsof conflicts: those with critics and enemiesexternal to the tradition who reject all or at leastkey parts of those fundamental agreements, andthose internal, interpretative debates throughwhich the meaning and rationale of the fun-damental agreements come to be expressed andby whose progress a tradition is constituted(MacIntyre 1988: 12).

What we find here is a far more substantivedefinition of tradition than that found in Ga-damer. First of all, the difference between thisdefinition and Gadamer’s is that Gadamerwrites about tradition in singular terms. Forhim tradition is our linguistic and culturalhorizon which both pre-conditions our under-standing and is constituted through the con-tinuity of meaning, i.e. our ability to share themeaning of the past within the present. Anabstract definition such as Gadamer’s, howe-ver, does not specify the content of tradition.Thus it is not entirely clear why the highesthermeneutic experience is openness andaffirmation of tradition. Was not this the reasonfor Habermas’ critique of Gadamer?4 For the

question is, Why do we have to affirm tradition,through which the past meanings are trans-mitted to the present, if we do not specify whatexactly is transmitted? And this question wasfundamentally posed by Nietzsche and those(such as Camus, Sartre, Chestov and finallyFoucault) whom he influenced. The answerthey provide is negative – we do not need toaffirm tradition even if we know that it struc-tures our understanding. (Foucault’s positionindeed is that we have to resist traditionprecisely because it historically structures ourunderstanding). MacIntyre here goes furtherthan Gadamer because he does indeed providea historico-philosophical account of what istransmitted via traditions. Hence inMacIntyre’s account tradition is not simply ourlinguistico-cultural horizon but an intellectualand moral argument extended in time. But ifthis is so, then there can be and, indeed, is notjust one tradition but several. And that is whatMacIntyre in his post-After Virtue writings hasbeen exploring. Namely, what these rivalintellectual and moral traditions are, and howtheir relationship is possible if one accepts thatthere is no rationality as such but only a ratio-nality of and structured by a certain tradition.

This returns us to the question as to whythe affirmation of tradition is a necessary partof hermeneutic thinking. The only way tolegitimise our intellectual and moral prejudicesis through being explicit about what they are.

4 Jürgen Habermas in On the Logic of the SocialScience has criticised Gadamer for his conservativeaccount of tradition. Habermas accepts Gadamer’s

claim that all human knowledge is rooted in historicaltradition, but he also insists that social sciences throughreflective reason should break from the authority of tra-dition (Habermas 1988: 170). Otherwise Gadamer’saccount of human knowledge as rooted in traditionmakes tradition infallible. That is, if tradition is concep-tualised in singular terms and if knowledge is seen asinternal to tradition, then, according to Habermas, thereis no way to question the rational validity of that tradi-tion since criticism of tradition can come only from non-knowledge (How 1995: 139–153 & Bielskis 2005: 199).

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One of the tasks of hermeneutic thinkingwould be precisely the acceptance (or modifi-cation) of the premises of our thinking throughbeing able philosophically to scrutinise them.Such a process could then involve an attemptto engage with those past philosophicalaccounts which, in one way or another, haveshaped and prejudiced our own moral andphilosophical positions. But if we accept thatit is not sufficient to talk about tradition onlyin terms of a linguistico-cultural horizon andthat, following MacIntyre, there is not just asingle but are several different and rivaltraditions (assuming that hermeneutics isprecisely such historico-philosophical enga-gement with one’s predecessors in order notonly to clarify, articulate, and in this wayphilosophically justify our premises, but alsocorrect, or to use Gadamer’s terms, apply theirphilosophical arguments within the present),then we can conclude that there can be as manydifferent hermeneutics as there are differenttraditions. Thus understood hermeneuticsbecomes fundamentally interlinked to tradi-tion: it is both constituted by and constitutestradition. Tradition then is a moral andphilosophical argument extended in time whichrequires the formulation of certain funda-mental agreements, while hermeneutics is thephilosophical as well as historical ability toexplore and envisage a continuity between thewider argument (the already existing traditionwhich premises my thinking) and my ownphilosophical engagement. What is commonto both Gadamer and MacIntyre is thattradition thus understood is an open-endedand creative activity and thus hermeneutics issomething which, through my own indivi-dualised philosophical narrative, enablestradition’s further development, continuity,and directedness. Thus understood herme-neutics (hermeneutic philosophy) becomes a

co-operative activity. And this is not only inthe sense that one starts to develop one’sphilosophy as a continuation of wider philo-sophical argument. It is also because once one’sbelonging to a certain tradition is realisedthrough being able rationally to accept certainof its fundamental agreements, then a furtherco-operation with others who see themselvesas part of that tradition becomes possible.

Conclusion

In this essay I have attempted to sketch analternative, ontological, reading of Nietzscheangenealogy and Gadamer’s hermeneutics. Sucha reading, which emphasises the ontologicalaspect of our understanding, is illuminatingbecause it allows us conceptually to distinguishhermeneutics from genealogy, enabling us todevelop a more substantive account of herme-neutics. Hermeneutics thus understood beco-mes necessarily linked to tradition. Throughthe modification of our prejudices and fore-meanings hermeneutics enables creative con-tinuity between the past and the present. Thisis not the case with genealogy. The purpose ofgenealogical enquiry is to provide us withunderstanding through which resistance toexisting discursive regimes and their structuresof meaning becomes possible. Our subjectivity,according to Foucault, has been historicallyshaped through a variety of truth regimeswhich always support and are supported bypower structures. Thus subjectivity (i. e. cul-turally constructed identities) becomes a formof subjugation. Foucault’s dictum “to beotherwise” should be understood within thiscontext: genealogy, as a historical enquiry, isan intellectual tool designed to resist the sub-jugation of historically imposed identities.Genealogy then presupposes a fundamentallynegative relationship to our past and even to

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ourselves: we are the products of dominationand thus the only way to escape subjugation isthrough a constant resistance. Hermeneuticsrejects genealogy’s ontology of power. From aGadamerian point of view the distinctionbetween authority and domination/power isfundamental and thus not every authority is aform of domination. It sees the purpose ofhistorico-philosophical enquiry not in resis-tance to the past and its structures of meaningbut in their application within the present.However, the affirmation of one’s belongingto tradition does not presuppose blindobedience. Here MacIntyre’s conception oftradition is important because it provides uswith a means of moving beyond Gadamer’salleged conservatism. The continuity of thestructures of meaning, moral values andfundamental agreements, articulated throughongoing philosophical argument, is justifiableonly if what is transmitted through traditionenables human flourishing. Hence we continuethe structures of meaning of the past not fortheir own sake, but in as much as they furnishus with the conceptual tools to solve moral andphilosophical problems. Furthermore, theaffirmation of one’s belonging to an intellec-tual and moral tradition requires philosophicalscrutiny and thus intellectual maturity. It is onlya philosophically mature mind that is able torearticulate and modify our prejudices and pre-philosophical beliefs, which we uncritically

inherit through our moral and culturaltradition, making them a part of a largerphilosophically justified argument. The criticalaspect of tradition rests not only in ourintellectual transition from the naïve state ofconsciousness of historically inherited fore-meanings and value structures to the post-naïve state of critically articulated and thusrationally justified philosophical assertions. Italso lies in the fact that the commitment to anintellectual and moral tradition is possiblethrough our ability to engage with othertraditions, since today there is more than onetradition and thus the critical assessment ofthese rival traditions becomes essential. Thatis why Habermas’s critique of Gadamer’sconception of tradition, tradition understoodin singular terms as our cultural-linguistichorizon which nonetheless functions throughthe authority of knowledge, becomes barren ifwe supplement Gadamerian hermeneuticswith MacIntyre’s philosophical account of rivaltraditions. Thus understood hermeneuticsbecomes essentially critical because itssuccessful development within a particulartradition is possible through successful philo-sophical engagement with the rival herme-neutics of rival traditions. An example of sucha live conflict today can be found in theengagement between the competing her-meneutics of two rival intellectual and moraltraditions – liberalism and Thomism.

REFERENCES

Ansell-Pearson, K. (1991). “Nietzsche and theproblem of the will in modernity”, in Nietzsche andModern German Thought (ed. K. Ansell-Pearson).London: Routledge.

Bielskis, A. (2005). Towards a Postmodern Under-standing of the Political. Basingstoke & New York:Palgrave.

Deleuze, G. (1983). Nietzsche and Philosophy. Lon-don: The Athlone Press.

Dreyfus, H. & Rabinow, P. (1982). Michel Foucault:Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics. New York;London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.

Foucault, M. (1972). Archaeology of Knowledge.London: Tavistock Publications.

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Foucault, M. (2000). Ethics: Essential Works ofFoucault 1954–84 (Vol. I). London: Penguin Books.

Gadamer, H. G. (1989). Truth and Method (2nd

ed). London: Sheed and Ward.Habermas, J. (1988). On the Logic of the Social

Science. Cambridge: Polity Press.Heidegger, M. (2000). Off the Beaten Track. Cam-

bridge: Cambridge University Press.How, A. (1995). The Habermas-Gadamer Debate

and the Nature of the Social. Aldershot: Avebury.MacIntyre, A. (1989). Whose Justice? Which Ratio-

nality? London: Duckworth.Nietzsche, F. (1968). The Will to Power. London:

Weidenfeld and Nicolson.Nietzsche, F. (1979). Ecce Homo. Harmondsworth:

Penguin.

Nietzsche, F. (1994). On the Genealogy of Morality.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Nietzsche, F. (1995). Thus Spoke Zarathustra. NewYork: Modern Library.

Ricoeur, P. (1970). Freud and Philosophy: An Essayon Interpretation. New Haven & London: Yale Univer-sity Press.

Ricoeur, P. (1974). Conflict of Interpretations: Essaysin Hermeneutics. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.

Ricoeur, P. (1988). Time and Narrative. Vol. 3.Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Schrift, A. (2001). “Nietzschean Agonism and theSubject of Radical Democracy”, in Philosophy Today(Supplement), p. 153–163.

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NAUJOS HERMENEUTIKOS SAMPRATOS LINK: GENEALOGIJA VERSUS HERMENEUTIKA

Andrius Bielskis

S a n t r a u k a

Áteikta 2007 10 12

Straipsnyje analizuojami Hanso Georgo Gadamerioir Alasdairo MacIntyre’o hermeneutinës filosofijoskoncepcijos bei Nietzsche’s genealogijos skirtumai.Teigiama, kad Ricoeuro pagarsëjusi skirtis tarp tikë-jimo ir átarumo hermeneutikø klaidina, jei Nietzsche’sgenealogija suprantama ir interpretuojama ontolo-giðkai. Uþuot Nietzsche’s filosofijà supratus kaip átaru-mo hermeneutikà, kur kas tikslingiau Nietzsche’s irFoucault interpretacinæ filosofijà suprasti taip, kaipjà supranta patys autoriai, t. y. kaip genealogijà.Atskiriant gadameriðkà hermeneutikà ir nyèiðkà ge-

nealogijà ir perinterpretuojant Gadamerio herme-neutikà MacIntyre’o tradicijos-nulemtos ir tradi-cijà-formuojanèios filosofijos koncepcijos plotmëje,galima suformuluoti alternatyvià hermeneutikossampratà. Straipsnyje teigiama, kad hermeneutikaturi bûti suprantama kaip tiesiogiai susijusi su tra-dicija, t. y. hermeneutika ne tik moraline ir inte-lektualine prasme priklauso nuo tradicijos, bet irleidþia jà tæsti.

Pagrindiniai þodþiai: hermeneutika, genealogija,tradicija, ontologija, valia galiai.