The evolution of the hermeneutic theorizing from Schleiermacher down to Gadamer, so far, had been focused on the problem of traversing, or not traversing, the historical and cultural distances that separates the interpreter and the text. A searing implication of such a limited focus would be the superfluity of hermeneutics once the two distances are taken away from the picture. The philosopher and sociologist Jurgen Habermas (born 1929) gave a new direction to both hermeneutic theory and praxis when he insists on the necessity of hermeneutics even without the two Romanticist epistemological precipices. As belonging to the second generation of theorists and critics of the Institut fur Sozialforschung-or the Frankfurt School, a center that has built a reputation for its strategic conjoining of Marxist inspired philosophical reflection with the emerging methodologies of the social sciences-Habermas shares the Intstitute's foundational ideas that knowledge is a product of the society which is often mystified and reified, and that through critical reflection such mystifications and reifications can be overcome. In his 1968 work Erkenntnis und Interesse (Knowledge and Human Interest), he already sketched the pathway of his critical hermeneutics when he delineated the three generic domains of human interest: namely, the technical, the practical and the emancipatory interests.

Technical human interest makes use of empirical-analytic methods of positivism to yield the instrumental knowledge of the natural sciences, while practical human interest makes use of hermeneutic method to yield practical knowledge. Habermas places critical hermeneutics one step deeper than the conventional hermeneutics in the sense that it belongs to the emancipatory domain of human interest that makes use of critical theory in order to achieve emancipatory knowlege. Like the general trend among the Frankfurt style investigations, the critical hermeneutics that Habermas is proposing is a potent concoction of theory, praxis and a program of action designed to counteract the oppressive effects of the social construction of knowledge.

Habermas' Constructive Debate with Gadamer

Habermas' serious and sustained engagement with the theory and praxis of hermeneutics commenced after his shift from a critique of knowledge, that still characterizes the Erkenntnis und Interesse, to a critique of language which was occasioned by his internecine debate with Hans-Georg Gadamer that lasted for a number of decades. First, Habermas criticized Gadamer for being too eager to submit understanding and interpretation to the authority of tradition. With the former's Marxist background that predisposes him to perceive tradition as the receptacle of immense ideological distortions, mystifications and reifications, the latter's action was simply horrifying. Second, Habermas derided Gadamer's refusal to theorize on hermeneutic methodology. Satisfied with his mere presentation of the extremely abstract concepts of horizons and their fusions, Gadamer, Habermas claims, only justified and reinforced the denigration heaped by the positivists upon hermeneutics. Third, in reaction to Gadamer's Heideggerian principle regarding the futility of getting rid of prejudices, Habermas insists that hermeneutics can overcome them through a critical and self-reflective methodology. If Gadamer tried to dissolve the tension between objectivism and subjectivism, Habermas reinstated the reign of objectivism in hermeneutics.

The above-mentioned criticisms represent only some minor skirmishes of the Habermas-Gadamer debate. Habermas' greatest battle against Gadamer pierces through the heart of Gadamerian hermeneutics to become the foundation of Habermasian critical hermeneutics. Habermas claims that the radical problem with Gadamerian hermeneutics is that it assumes that every dialogue between a subject and an object, or between two subjects, is a genuine and authentic dialogue, and that every resultant Horizontverschmelzung is a genuine and authentic Horizontverschmelzung. Gadamer failed to anticipate the possibility of pseudo-dialogue and pseudo-consensus. He was unaware that the free flowing game of understanding and interpretation can be possibly warped by the dominating, violent and distorting forces of ideology that can be rarefied and subtle to be unseen and unfelt by the players themselves. Habermas agrees with Gadamer that a dialogue has to be a free interaction between two agents. But once it gets infected by ideology, its foundational freedom is destroyed and any resultant consensus would by logical implication be a pseudo-consensus. Ideology can permeate the totality of a life-world, or the horizon, but it can also weave itself into the very fabric of language. Thus, language, which is the indispensable tool of the Gadamerian dialogue, becomes the carrier of ideological infection. Gadamer, in effect, emerges as a caricature of dreaded surgeon with a chest of infected medical instruments.

Habermas, agrees with Gadamer that playing the game of interpretation meant playing the game of language. But playing the game of language for the former meant playing the game of domination, violence and distortion. If hermeneutics is geared towards truth, Habermas insists that it has to stand outside the play of the game as an objective spectator. The interpreter has to make a non-participative stand of an external observer to be able to diagnose accurately the sinister processes of ideology and language. But since both ideology and language pervades the life-world even that of the most critical intellectual, Habermas has to find an Archimedian point from which he could pry open the veiled secrets of ideology and language. He proved to be a luckier person than Archimedes himself for the fact that he was able to discover not only one but two such points, specifically in Freudian psychoanalysis and Marxist style critique of ideology.

Freudian and Marxist Foundations

The psychoanalytic theory of the Austrian physician Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), provided Habermas with a model for treating the pathologies emanating from the ideology and language's systematic warping of the life-world. Like a psychoanalyst who encourages his clients to discursively counteract the maladies brought about by the unconscious memories and drives, critical hermeneutics has to encourage humanity to discursively counteract the oppressive mystifications and reifications of knowledge. The Marxist tradition of critique of ideology, the dominant form of investigation at the Frankfurt School, provided him with another model for peering into the foundational structures of a society and making a hypothetical view on the process of the social construction of knowledge. "Consciousness does not determine life, life determines consciousness," the German philosopher and economist Karl Marx (1818-1883) wrote in his work The German Ideology. But among the competing modes of consciousness and expressions in any given society, there are the dominant and the dominated ones. The dominant modes of consciousness and expressions, the consciousness of the ruling class, constitute the ideology of a given society, and it functions to legitimize the power and serve the interests of the dominant class. The Marxist style critique of ideology is geared towards the unmasking of the ideological deceptions of the dominant consciousness and expressions, and is premised on the emancipatory interest of liberating the dominated classes.

With the Freudian and Marxist traditions behind him, Habermas constructed his hermeneutic theory that starts with the assumption that every meaning brought about by consensus is a suspect of being a product of pseudo-consensus, and therefore of being a pseudo-meaning. The task of critical hermeneutics, therefore, is to search for authentic consensus and meaning. Since the process of reaching a consensus is ideally a rational venture, Habermas borrowed the idea of rationality developed by the German economist and social historian Max Weber (1864-1920), in particular the concepts of action and rational action.

The Theory of Communicative Action

Rational action, in its barest sense, is a planned and calculated action that is designed to achieve a given goal. It is usually the easiest and the surest procedure of attaining the maximum possible goal. Though clearly not all human actions are rational, most of the actions upon which the modern world is founded are rational actions, like business, scientific research, jurisprudence and bureaucratic management. Rational action can either be oriented towards success, or it can be oriented towards authentic understanding. Rational action can also have a social scope, or a non-social scope. Consequently, based on such distinctions there are three types of rational action, as shown by the chart below.

First is instrumental action which is a rational action with a non-social scope and is oriented towards success. Technological rationality is the modern day paragon of this type of rational action. Second is strategic action which is a rational action with a social scope and is oriented towards success. Strategic action has a social scope in the sense that it is a rational action that is contextualized in a field where other rational agents are also situated. Strategic action is necessarily a competitive and planned action aimed to quash, to surpass, or to circumvent the actions of the other agents. Third is communicative action which is the only type of rational action that is oriented towards real understanding. Because this action is also contextualized in a field where other rational agents are also situated, it has a social scope, and properly speaking it is intersubjective. Its specific difference with strategic action is that communicative action is never competitive. Though communicative action is rational, it is based on humility and is motivated not with selfishness and egoism, but with intersubjectively cooperative understanding. Habermas narrowed down his attention on rational actions with social scope: namely, on strategic action and communicative action. Strategic action, as graphically represented by the chart below, can be further classified into overtly strategic action, and covertly strategic action which in return can be classified into unconscious deception and conscious deception.

Overtly strategic actions refer to strategic actions that are known as such to both competing agents, like in games and court proceedings where all participating players and lawyers are aware that they are engaged in a competitive proceeding. Covertly strategic actions refer to strategic actions that are either totally unknown as such by both competing agents, or known as such only to the subjects of such actions. The first type of covertly strategic actions are the unconscious deceptions brought about by ideological distortions wherein practically all participating subjects are unaware of the covert strategic agenda. The second type of covertly strategic actions are the conscious deceptions, like manipulation and seduction, wherein only the subject of the action is ideally aware of the covert strategic agenda that is being pursued. Whereas, communicative action needs critical hermeneutics to attain the mutually desired goal of understanding, strategic action--in particular the unconscious and the conscious deceptions--needs critical hermeneutics in order to unmask any of its underlying sinister agenda. Since both the communicative and the strategic actions are embodied in language, critical hermeneutics has to focus its attention to the latter. This realization marks Habermas' famous linguistic turn, when he shifted his concern from critique of knowledge to critique of language, which subsequently brought the Marxist style critique of ideology into the field of linguistics.

Habermas' Hermeneutic Method of Universal Pragmatics

The discipline of linguistics has six basic branches: namely, 1) phonetics, the study of the physical sounds of a language; 2) phonology, the study of the sound system of a language; 3) morphology, the study of the structure of words; 4) syntax, the study of the structure of sentences; 5) semantics, the study of the meaning of words and sentences; and 6) pragmatics, the study of the strategies that people use in carrying out communicative business in specific context. Habermas connects his critical hermeneutics with pragmatics, which, as having been accepted as a legitimate part of linguistics only during the second half of the 20th century, is linguistics' youngest branch. Pragmatics' late emergence and acceptance is probably caused by its radical deviation from the normal object of linguistics established by the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure's (1857-1913) historic distinction between langue (language) and parole (speech). Langue is supposed to be the structure, or the template, of language that ideally exists outside a particular language's everyday usage, which is the parole. For Saussure, parole is the chaotic and unwieldy mass of everyday utterances that is unfit to be the object of a science such as linguistic. Langue, on the other hand, is orderly and ideally object of scientific investigation. Among the six branches of linguistics, it is only pragmatics that mustered enough courage to tame and study parole, the rest preferred the stable langue. However, Habermas did not just adapt pragmatics, he made finer tunings that suited the discipline into his critical needs. He was not really interested with pragmatics' too mundane concern for the Saussurian parole. On the contrary he is interested with the underlying principles that govern the pragmatic deployment of language. By looking for the order, structure and templates in the everyday utterances, he overturned pragmatics. By treating the parole like langue, he created what he calls universal pragmatics. If pragmatics starts with the empirical data gathering methods, Habermas' universal pragmatics is premised on a rational reconstruction of the strategies that people use in carrying out communicative businesses within specific contexts.

The universal pragmatics' project of reconstructing the ideal communicative transaction is founded on three key theories, two belonging to the Anglo-Saxon philosophical-linguistic tradition, and one to German psycho-linguistics. The first of this three foundational theories is the three-world schema proposed by the British philosopher Sir Karl Raimund Popper (1902-1994). Popper theorized that man simultaneously exists in three distinct worlds: namely, 1) the physical world of nature, 2) the internal world of ideas, thoughts, and emotions, and 3) the social world of inter-subjectivity. From this Popperian schema, Habermas draws out the insight that if there are substantial distinctions between its three worlds, then there are substantial distinctions between the languages deployed with reference to, or within the context of, each of these worlds. To pursue this initial insight, Habermas makes us of his second foundational theory, that of the speech acts as initiated by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) and developed by his British student John Langshaw Austin (1911-1960). The speech act theory, specifically the one proposed by Austin, explored the complex cluster of things that we perform with speech, which can be classified into: 1) locutionary act that refers to the simple speech act of generating meaningful and grammatical sounds; 2) illocutionary act that refers to the speech act of employing language for some purpose, like offering an advice, taking an oath, insulting, ordering, promising, begging, forbidding, challenging, apologizing, instructing, and others; and 3) perlocutionary act that refers to the speech act's actual effect on those to whom the speech act is intended. Habermas believes that the speech act theory offers a pathway for his universal pragmatics in the sense that it deals with some general rules of communicative competence that are geared towards "the conditions for a happy employment of sentences in utterances."ⁱ For the reasons that universal pragmatics is concerned with the analysis of language deployed as social action--specifically, strategic and communicative actions--and such deployment necessarily is illocutionary, among the three types of speech acts proposed by Austin, it is the illocutionary act that interests Habermas most.

Habermas, however, noticed that Austin's speech act theory has a fundamental shortcoming, in the sense that it failed to realize that speech acts can be linked to a validity analysis that is far more complex than the sheer analysis of propositional truth. Habermas thinks that there are other dimensions of validity that are distinct from, but nonetheless equally important and legitimate as, the dimension of validity offered by propositional truth. Though the analysis of propositional truth is perfectly suited for language that is deployed in reference to and within the context of the Popperian physical world, it may not be well adapted as the criterion for analyzing validity claims of languages deployed with reference to and within the context of the other two Popperian worlds. Going back to the initial insight that if there are substantial distinctions between the Popperian scheme's three worlds, then there are substantial distinctions between the languages deployed in reference to and within the context of each of these worlds, but how come that philosophy of language up to the time of Austin and linguistics seem to be moored on a single and monological criterion for analyzing validity that is not sensitive to language's substantial differentiation. To move through the pathway carved by the speech act theory, Habermas makes use of his third foundational theory that belongs to the German psychologist and linguist Karl Buhler. In his 1934 work Sprachtheorie, Buhler brought attention to the fact that language can be communicatively deployed in three ways: namely, 1) to represent facts about the real world; 2) to express the intentions and experiences of the speaker; and 3) to establish a relationship with the hearer. Buhler's linguistic functions cast a striking parallelism with Popper's multiple world schema. Directly following Buhler, and indirectly Popper, Habermas reconceptualized language deployed as social action, as an Austinian illocutionary speech act, into something that is structured by three components: the propositional, the expressive, and the illocutionary components.

For Habermas, though these structural components are present in every illocutionary speech act, their presence vary in predominance. Based on which structural component is the most predominant, there are therefore three types of illocutionary speech acts which Habermas calls constative, regulative, and avowals or representatives.

Constative speech act is structurally predominated by its propositional component, refers to the Popperian physical world, does the Buhlerian function of representing facts, and has a primarily cognitive mode of communication. Avowal, or representative, speech act is structurally predominated by its expressive component, refers to the Popperian inner world, does the Buhlerian function of disclosing the speaker's subjectivity, and has a primarily expressive mode of communication. Regulative speech act is structurally predominated by its illocutionary component, refers to the Popperian social world, does the Buhlerian function of establishing legitimate social relations, and has a primarily interactive mode of communication. These different types of illocutionary speech acts demonstrate the substantial differences of language deployed with reference to and within the context of each of the Popperian worlds, by highlighting their structural, functional, and modal differences. It is but a consequence of this obvious substantial differences that the analysis for validity must thread three separate pathways preserving and respecting the illocutionary speech acts differences. Accordingly, constatives are analyzed in terms of their acts of reference and predication; avowals, or representatives, are analyzed in terms of their intention; and regulatives are analyzed in terms of their way of establishing interpersonal relations. Whereas Austin's speech act theory analyzes the validity of speech acts by covering their circumscribing institutional set-up and power relations, Habermas insisted that analyzing the speech acts' validity can be done independently of their contextual circumstances. Such an insistence can only be done by identifying the specific validity criterion for each of the three types of illocutionary speech acts. We have already alluded that for constative speech acts, truth (Wahrheit) is its specific validity criterion, Habermas assigned truthfulness (Wahrhaftig), or sincerity, as the specific validity criterion for avowal, or representative, speech acts, and rightness (Richtigkeit) or appropriateness for regulative speech acts.

Thus, instead of being moored on a single and monological criterion, universal pragmatics presents different criteria for the evaluation illocutionary speech acts that are well adapted to each of these speech acts' distinct referential, structural, functional and modal constitution. Constatives are primarily evaluated by discerning whether their proposition is true or not; avowals or representatives are primarily evaluated by discerning whether their intention has truthfulness or not, or has sincerity or not; and regulatives are primarily evaluated by discerning whether their way of establishing interpersonal relationships is appropriate or not. Illocutionary speech acts for Habermas are primarily evaluated in terms of their most predominant structural component--that is either, propositional, expressive or illocutionary. But since for every predominant structural component, there are other two non-predominant structural components, universal pragmatics asserts that these two other remaining structural components must also be analyzed and evaluated. In this sense, every illocutionary speech act directly raises a single claim to validity, and indirectly raises two other claims to validity. It follows that every illocutionary speech act has to be analyzed primarily by a single validity criterion--corresponding to the speech act's predominant structural component--and has to be analyzed secondarily by two other validity criteria--corresponding to the act's non-predominant structural component. In other words, universal pragmatics stipulates that every illocutionary speech act can be evaluated, and must be evaluated, from three different perspectives, casting in the process a fine mesh that is theoretically designed to detect and rectify the sinister agenda of strategic action.

Universal Pragmatics and Habermas' Critical Agenda

After going through the abstruse pathway of universal pragmatics we might wonder how this theory is related to the Habermas' primordial concern for the critique of ideology? Universal pragmatics is in fact related to Habermas' concern in two ways. First and foremost, universal pragmatics present itself as a standard, or a norm, against which all strategic actions have to be critiqued in order to unveil their conscious or unconscious agenda and will to power. By subjecting every strategic action to a triple analysis for truth, sincerity, and appropriateness, the critical interpreter can easily reveal the action as strategic, and can pin-point in what way does action systematically distort the communication process. Any illocutionary speech act that fails in just one of these triple tests, is immediately suspect of being a conduit of strategic elements, and ideological distortions. Universal pragmatics, as envisioned by Habermas, is allegedly capable of tracing even the deep-seated ideological elements that are already woven into the fabric of language. This is the critical hermeneutics of Habermas in its strictest sense of the word. A method that technically, logically and linguistically refined the hermeneutics of suspicion that dates back to the great masters Marx, Nietzsche and Freud.

The second way in which universal pragmatics is related to Habermas' primordial concern for the critique of ideology moves away from the pessimistic world of the three masters of suspicion and towards the brighter world where rationality can possible reign. Universal pragmatics offers an ideal unto which, and a set of tools with which, communicative action may proceed. If Habermas' critical hermeneutics is suspicious and pessimistic, his theory of communicative action is almost utopian and highly optimistic, that makes his non-defeatist idea of rationality rather conspicuous in the postmodern world within which he theorizes. Habermas revives the Gadamerian dialogue, which he radically disabled previously, by injecting universal pragmatics to sterilized the Gadamarian horizons as well as the Gadamerian language from ideological infections and unconscious will to power. Habermas is Gadamerian in the sense that he has faith in dialogue as the ultimate road to rationality. He contextualized the Gadamerian dialogue in the parameters of an ideal speech situation, wherein all the communicative agents have an equal opportunity to participate in a fair dialogue, assert, defend or question all and any of the speech acts claim to validity, where interaction is not contrained by social hierarchies and unilaterally binding norms, and where the communicative agents are free from strategic agenda.