Notes from a Gadamer-Taubes exchange on secularization

Hermeneutic Colloquium: “Secularization” - Critique of a Historical and Sociological Category Winter Semester 1967/68, Freie Universität Berlin Professor Dr. Jacob Taubes

Professor Dr. Jacob Taubes

Protocol of the Third Session, November 3, 1967

I. Lecture by Professor Gadamer
II. Discussion of the Lecture
III. Resulting Questions, Remarks, and Discussion Points

I. Lecture by Professor Gadamer

It is a fashionable notion, which found a particularly eccentric expression in Hans Blumenberg’s Legitimacy of Modernity (Suhrkamp, 1966), that the concept of secularization either lacks any hermeneutic productivity or, if it has any, it is merely negative. Blumenberg, who fundamentally denies the concept’s efficacy as a historical category, constructs a strawman from theological materials, which he then easily criticizes. Blumenberg detects in the concept of secularization a substantialist theory of history: the Christian substance persists through all forms of secularization. However, this idea of a persistent historical substance is, according to him, an empty assertion. Against this substantialist theory of history, Blumenberg proposes the schema of the re-functionalization and reoccupation of a formal system of positions with new contents. Gadamer suspects that Blumenberg’s argumentation represents a revival of the Neo-Kantian problem concept.

But is the concept of secularization merely a polemical term used to denounce modernity, or does it (understood hermeneutically) contribute to explicating the process of “rationalization”? Blumenberg’s positive thesis—that modernity is overwhelmed by the Christian question-potential it inherits—Gadamer seeks to make fruitful for a hermeneutic interpretation of the concept. Precisely by indicating that the answers of modern science cannot fully address the domain of inherited questions, the concept of secularization can highlight the unresolved remainder (hyponoia).

For example: a) Max Weber genealogically explains the modern work ethic as derived from Calvinist ethics, and b) Karl Löwith denounces the philosophy of history of German Idealism and its successors as secularized theology of history. In this sense, the concept of secularization, as a productive hermeneutic tool, exposes a false self-understanding burdened with uncomprehended theological freight. Max Weber limits rationality to the legitimate domain of scientific inquiry, leaving the irrationality of purposes untouched. Karl Löwith criticizes the category of “progress” by pointing to the indeterminacy of expectations associated with it. However, neither Weber’s restriction of the will-to-know to the merely accessible nor Löwith’s restriction to historical skepticism can be sustained “in this world, with these people.” Thus reframed, the concept of secularization shifts its original thrust—aimed at overcoming dogmatic constraints and enabling new questions—and acquires an eminently critical function.

But is critique always unmasking, is uncovering always dissolution, is becoming conscious always the breaking of the power of prejudice, is “enlightenment” always emancipation? Gadamer referred to Hegel’s concept of becoming conscious. For Hegel, becoming conscious itself effects a transformation of consciousness: the angry person who becomes aware of their anger transcends it. The sociological perspective sharpens and overextends this insight of Hegel’s, aiming at liberation from domination in every sense. (See H.G. Gadamer: “Hermeneutics, Rhetoric, and Ideology Critique”, in Short Writings, Vol. I).

Gadamer denies that Christianity alone produces an excess of questions. This excess is a general hermeneutic problem. Through it, myth remains immune to all attempts to be subsumed by logos. Religious and mythical forms generate an overhang of questions that no form of science can resolve. Poetry, too, serves to present this excess of questions. The function of the category of secularization is to hold this excess as a problem. Thus, the overhang of myth over all subsumption by logos—once a foundational thesis of Greek thought—persists as the driving force of thinking and does not remain a fleeting externality.

The question of meaning and (its Greek definition in Stoic philosophy as) eudaimonia: measure, harmony with nature, non-interference with equilibrium or the harmonious cosmos—these continue to resonate today: Reformation (repetition of the original forma) and Revolution (in its original astronomical sense) both aim to preserve or make visible the proper order. But creating or preserving order presupposes knowledge—knowledge of the proper order, the goal, and the meaning of all human knowledge. Within this horizon, the category of secularization takes on the task of establishing the limits of rationalization. It denies Vico’s equation—ens et factum convertuntur—and insists on a non-producible “remainder.” Examples: a) The sanctity of bread, evidently a religious relic (the bread petition of the Lord’s Prayer), shows that bread cannot be treated entirely without piety. The commodity of bread retains a sacred remainder. b) The CIBA Colloquium on the possibility of breeding humans directly confronted the idea of total self-production, the feasibility of the creator—a horror at the thought of complete denaturalization and availability of humanity is a secularization of the horror of destroying the imago Dei. The idea of human self-production encounters the limit of the power of the non-producible and is thus recognizable as an “intervention” in the non-producible equilibrium. The category of secularization resists the marginalization of all that is non-producible, fosters sobering clarity about the limits of the producible, and thus liberates from the pseudo-scientific illusion of total feasibility. In this function, it illuminates a horizon that modern science tends to obscure. Professor Gadamer’s critique of utopia: Utopia is legitimate within the horizon of equilibrium or eudaimonia, but it becomes illegitimate as a substitute for pleasure or expectation, perverting the true sense of the eudaimonia ideal. The concept of secularization can lead to insight into the limits of what we can achieve with rational planning, thus enabling genuine forms of rationalization. As a substitute for pleasure, utopia betrays and obscures the eudaimonia ideal, while recognizing the limits of the rationally achievable frees rationality within its proper domain—the possible. The misrecognition of proper limits can be concretely demonstrated in industrial society: A) Reason is declared industrially producible; increasing division of labor, seen as an enhancement of production, does not spare human “judgment” and produces the omnipotent “expert,” whose deification diminishes judgment as part of the sensus communis. B) The manipulation of “public opinion,” once constituted by the interplay of individuals’ inherent capacity for judgment, is now managed by mass media, which claim a monopoly and thus effectively abolish judgment. Only judgment could weaken the effectiveness of today’s most powerful force: the opinion factory. The category of secularization has hermeneutic productivity by enabling us to rationally delineate the limits of this hybrid, infinite rationalization.

II. Discussion of the Lecture

Professor Taubes opened the discussion with a brief analysis of Gadamer’s lecture, situating his position: While Karl Löwith and Leo Strauss criticize Christianity and modernity as a decline or deviation from the norm of Greek philosophy (Plato and Aristotle) through a “naive” (yet highly sophisticated) recourse, Gadamer maintains an ambivalent relationship to the rationalization of the West, reminiscent of Max Weber.

Max Weber’s analysis of the rationalization process remains ambivalent. On the one hand, he affirms the process from magical and archaic origins to modernity; on the other, his analysis is permeated by a lament over the “iron cage” of industrial society, which no spiritual will can break. Weber both affirms and negates rationalization in one breath. Gadamer seeks a criterion to distinguish legitimate and illegitimate configurations within modernity. But can the concept of secularization fulfill this role? Does Gadamer’s expansive “hermeneutic” concept of secularization rob it of the historical-polemical edge that alone justifies its use as a category for interpreting historical processes? The discussion of one of Gadamer’s concrete examples sparked controversy in the seminar: Is not the bread petition, through whose secularization piety persists, itself rooted in concrete need? Is not the piety before the irreplaceable—once a necessary restraint in the face of the limited producibility of a concrete object to alleviate need—now restored as a metaphysically grounded restriction after losing its real necessity? Is not the residue of the non-producible (the sacred) itself the result of a concrete, historically defined, and mediated situation? Is positive secularization not itself metaphysical? Why not slaughter the sacred cows whose necessity is religiously produced? Professor Gadamer, however, insisted on the critical excess of the fading metaphysical question, which points to the respective limits of producibility and the inhumanity of reckless, violent intervention. Thus, Gadamer posits rationalization as always limited, yet he does not indicate limits to the invariant, natural essence of humanity. An objection was raised against Professor Gadamer: A self-understanding post festum cannot be achieved; for if becoming conscious equals emancipation, this emancipation still operates in an uncomprehended space that must itself be explained post festum. Enlightenment without praxis remains impotent, for only praxis can reveal that the critical function of Gadamer’s concept of secularization, by keeping consciousness in a state of immaturity, may rest on a process of self-production of the critical claim as world-explanation and boundary-setting. Moreover, if a concept like secularization is used as Gadamer does—to aim at preserving equilibrium—it is only applicable to limited aspects today, given the situation of large social groups (e.g., the Third World). While a fragile equilibrium persists in established industrial states, it feeds on the disequilibrium outside them, e.g., through the exploitation of the Third World, and its preservation perpetuates the imbalance beyond its borders. The analysis guided by the concept of “equilibrium” can only ever be the analysis of those whose interests are preserved in this concept, such that the connection of equilibrium and secularization restricts reflection to the illegitimate claims of the ruling class, excluding self-reflection. Gadamer countered: While planning in developing countries cannot be limited as it is in highly industrialized states, what is revolution if not the restoration of an original equilibrium? The reference to respective limits is not yet proof of the truth of those limits, but behind taboo lies the experience that every rationalization = secularization is only particular. Since all constants are relative, “judgment” is needed as a necessary sensus communis—knowledge of proper action, hence action-oriented knowledge. Mere “application” of theory to praxis presupposes a theory alienated from praxis, thus an uncomprehended praxis, negating the reality of judgment through the real abolition of general rationality. The equilibrium model, whose understanding requires prior critique of its efficacy, is not a rigid shell but continually rearticulates itself, rebalancing at a new level, comparable to cybernetic systems stabilized by feedback—life itself is nothing but a constantly restored equilibrium. Critique of Gadamer is unthinkable without adequately determining the scope of the concept of “historically effected consciousness.” This includes recognizing the normative moments in a seemingly academic hermeneutics. Thus, acknowledging the category of secularization must consider whether the understanding of developments it entails is primarily a recourse to the past or a projection toward the future. This also determines the role ascribed to knowledge of secularization processes. They are either a means to understand historical movements in themselves or a means to intervene transformatively in historical processes through such understanding. Gadamer’s demand that rationality only apply “where it belongs” presupposes an anthropology whose direction shapes the use of the secularization category. This explains the controversial positions in the discussion, which are not reconcilable but antinomic. For Gadamer’s “being toward the text,” the self is primarily determined by understanding past history; for the opposing position, disclosure serves intervention in a producible future history. Both converge in recognizing humanity and history as a dynamic structure and, insofar as the secularization concept applies to historical understanding and historical praxis, in acknowledging their interplay. They diverge in the significance they attribute to the legitimacy of practical interventions. Thus, Gadamer—prioritizing cognitive interest—can only advocate a praxis of “small steps” (like Popper), while the opposing position—prioritizing practical interest—may defend the risk of a more or less objectively justified fundamental intervention. If one interprets the will-to-produce as distorted will-to-know, while concluding with the humanities that eudaimonia cannot be achieved through pure knowledge—and if one opposes Max Weber’s mere acknowledgment of the irrationality of purposes as a form of not-knowing—then the structure of how such not-knowing arises must be reflected upon as a result of history’s dynamic structure. This is captured, without concrete analysis, in the concept of judgment, which, for Gadamer, targets the action-oriented nature of thinking within the realm of sensus communis. As a category, it merely reiterates this problem without attempting to question it. By keeping action-orientedness within the framework of sensus communis, the fatedness of history’s emergence is repeatedly confirmed, against which the practical claim of praxis-oriented thinking is directed, thus refuting that claim from the outset.

III. Resulting Questions, Remarks, and Discussion Points

Professor Taubes criticized Gadamer’s foundational model: eudaimonia. Is it possible to subsume the history of Christianity and its secularized forms (socialism, Marxism, etc.) under ancient models: eudaimonia or “equilibrium”? Antiquity—both in its myth and philosophy—remains confined within the limits of “nature” and the “natural human.” Christianity, however, begins with the negation of nature (the Fall) and the postulate of a new human: homo novus. From the perspective of antiquity, the first Christians appear as “atheists.” Christianity can also be interpreted as a secularization of ancient or archaic powers (myth). By positing a “general” (but in truth determined by ancient philosophy) model of eudaimonia or equilibrium, Gadamer blocks access to a provocative question embedded in the category of secularization: Is the modern theory of revolution a legitimate or illegitimate heir to the Christian promise of a “new heaven” and a “new earth”? By invoking the model of eudaimonia and equilibrium, Gadamer liquidates two thousand years of Christian history or subsumes it into ancient categories against which it originally rebelled. Gadamer countered: Even the hope expressed in early Christianity does not exceed a broadly conceived notion of eudaimonia and equilibrium. Intervention in equilibrium can only be a knowing intervention; the intervener must know the disruptive factors and understand what they are doing. Objection: Only one who stands on the side of equilibrium can restrict legitimate intervention to “knowing intervention,” measuring knowledge accordingly and knowing that any non-affirmative intervention can be disqualified as “irresponsible,” “ignorant,” or “blind.” Thus, the one intent on change must relinquish legitimacy. The equilibrium sought by ancient philosophy was sustained at the cost of perpetuating disequilibrium outside itself: humanitas in a slave-owning society, where even Seneca’s fraternization confirmed the declared brother-slave in his status, disarming him of the moral tools for change, while the domesticated house-slave helped forget the human material expended in mines and on ships. Equilibrium is a dialectical concept that represses and externalizes its opposing condition, thus remaining inherently imbalanced. Each side can describe the other and the whole. The side of equilibrium must preserve itself and the inequality; the disadvantaged side seeks to abolish inequality, thereby destroying the equilibrium of the other side. Thus, the decision to conserve or revolutionize cannot be made immanently. If equilibrium is merely one side of a contradiction resolvable only through praxis, this contradiction must be subsumed under the category of decision in another way. This brings into view a dimension that declares mere abstract selection a mask. Action maxims and all theory diverge, thereby freeing thought from its inhumane one-dimensionality. What inwardly divides and paralyzes the liberal manifests in the opposition of revolutionary and conservative, which, as a dialectical unity, brings the fullness of life into view and preserves the human in their contradiction.