Elements of Responsible Politics

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BERNARD P. DAUENHAUER

Elements of Responsible Politics %

C O N T R IB U T IO N S T O P H E N O M E N O L O G Y

ELEMENTS OF RESPONSIBLE POLITICS

CONTRIBUTIONS TO PHENOMENOLOGY IN COOPERATION WITH THE CENTER FOR ADVANCED RESEARCH IN PHENOMENOLOGY Volume 7

Editorial Board: William R. McKenna, Miami University (Editor) David Carr, University of Ottawa Lester Embree, Duquesne University Josi Huertas-Jourda, Wilfred Laurier University Joseph J. Kockelmans, The Pennsylvania State University Algis Mickunas, Ohio University J. N. Mohanty, Temple University Thomas M. Seebohm, Johannes Gutenberg-Universitat, Mainz Richard M. Zaner, Vanderbilt University

Scope The purpose of this series is to foster the development of phenomenological philosophy through creative research. Contemporary issues in philosophy, other disciplines and in culture generally, offer opportunities for the application of phenomenological methods that call for creative responses. Although the work of several generations of thinkers has provided phenomenology with many results with which to approach these challenges, a truly succesful response to them will require building on this work with new analyses and methodological innovations.

ELEMENTS OF RESPONSIBLE POLITICS

by

BERNARD P. DAUENHAUER University o f Georgia, U.S.A.

KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS DORDRECHT / BOSTON / LONDON

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Daue n ha ue r, B e r n a rd P. Eleitents of r e sp on si b le p o litics / by B a rn a rd Dauenhauer. p. c«. — ( C on tr ib u ti on s to phenomenology) I nc lu de s bibliogr ap hi c al references and index. ISBN 0-79 23 -1 3 29 -1 (HB : printed on acid free paper) 1. Pol it ic a l science. 2. Political s c i e n c e — Philosophy. I. Title. II. Series. J A3 8 . D 3 8 1991 3 2 0 ' . 0 1 — dc20 9 1- 22 69 5 C IP

ISBN 0-7923-1329-1

Published by Kluwer Academic Publishers, P.O. Box 17, 3300 AA Dordrecht, The Netherlands. Kluwer Academic Publishers incorporates the publishing programmes of D. Reidel, Martinus Nijhoff, Dr W. Junk and MTP Press. Sold and distributed in the U.S.A. and Canada by Kluwer Academic Publishers, 101 Philip Drive, Norwell, MA 02061, U.S.A. In all other countries, sold and distributed by Kluwer Academic Publishers Group, P.O. Box 322,3300 AH Dordrecht, The Netherlands.

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Printed on acid-free paper

All Rights Reserved © 1991 Kluwer Academic Publishers No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner. Printed in the Netherlands

To the memory of Edward Goodwin Ballard

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements............................................................................... ix Preface .................................................................................................. xi PARTI Renovating the Problem of Politics ...............................................

3

One Central Link Between Merleau-Ponty’s Philosophy of Language and His Political Thought .......................................... 19 Merleau Ponty’s Political Thought: Its Nature and Its Challenge ..................................................................................37 Merleau-Ponty on Politics, History, and V iolence....................... 51 PART II Relational Freedom and Its Political Consequences ...................65 I and M in e .........................................................................................85 The Interpretation of the Human Way of Being and Its Political Implications...................................................................... 97 PART III Hope and Its Ramifications for Politics ........................................117 The Place of Hope in Politics ........................................................ 139

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Table o f Contents

PART IV Politics and Coercion ...................................................................... 161 Ideology, Utopia, and Responsible P o litics................................... 175 Does Anarchy Make Political S e n s e ? .............................................191 On Institutions and Power: Deconstruction and an Alternative . 207 N o te s .......................................................................................................227 In d e x ....................................................................................................... 279

Acknowledgements I acknowledge with gratitude the permissions I have received from pub lishers to use in this volume work which first appeared in their publications. These publishers are: (a) State University of New York Press, for “MerleauPonty’s Political Philosophy: Its Nature and Its Challenge,” from McBride and Schrag’s Phenomenology in a Pluralistic Context and for “I and Mine” from Welton and Silverman’s Critical and Dialectical Phenomenology, (b) The Review o f Metaphysics for “Renovating the Problem of Politics” and “Rela tional Freedom”; (c) Philosophy Today for “Politics and Coercion”; (d) Tulane Studies in Philosophy for “One Central Link Between Merleau-Ponty’s Philosophy and His Political Thought”; and (e) Kluwer Academic Publishers for “Hope and Its Ramifications for Politics” and “Ideology, Utopia, and Responsible Politics,” both of which first appeared in Man and World, and for “Does Anarchy Make Political Sense?” which first appeared in Human Studies. Further, I am especially happy to acknowledge Lester Embree’s role in the coming-to-be of this volume. He made the initial suggestion that I pre pare it and continued his encouragement to its culmination. I am deeply grateful to him.

Preface

This collection of essays draws together work done during a period of more than fifteen years. In the course of these years much has changed, including much about politics. Patterns of political activity have been trans formed. Ways in which we had been accustomed to construe politics have been substantially modified and sometimes replaced. Some apparently in tractable conflicts have been resolved. Other, apparently more manageable, conflicts have shown shocking durability. A number of political doctrines once considered indefinitely serviceable have lost all relevance. And the material and technical resources at our disposal look strikingly different than they did just a few years ago. Practical politics of whatever stripe encounters at every turn ever more grave environmental degradation. But, or so this collection assumes, not everything political has changed. Some political issues, both “theoretical” and “practical,” remain persistently trenchant. Questions like the following demand ever renewed consideration. What is the point and worth of belonging to a political community? What entitlements and responsibilities follow upon such membership? Or even more fundamentally, what conditions are required for there to be politics at all? Taken together, the essays collected in this volume propose a way both to understand and to engage in politics which is properly responsive both to perennial political issues and to the peculiar exigencies of our era. Some of them present criticisms of widely held, warmly cherished ways of addressing political matters. Others propose constructive alternatives. This collection, to be sure, does not contain a comprehensive political doctrine applicable to all issues nor does it propose a definitive solution to any particular one of them. But it does claim to specify elements that are always pertinent to dealing responsibly with any political issue, conceptual or

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Elements o f Responsible Politics

practical. In specifying these elements, this collection in effect presents a case for a distinctive mode or orientation of thought and action as that which is most appropriate for responsible politics. In so doing, it itself thereby enters the political lists. I make no pretense that these essays articulate a “view from nowhere.”1 They all arise within the context of a long, well-developed tradition of West ern thought about the conditions and objectives of the complex ways in which people order their interactions with one another. Unsurprisingly, this tradi tion is not all of a piece, not a seamless whole. In many respects, it keeps available a multiplicity of voices discordant with one another. More often than not, it poses problems rather than giving answers. But in doing so, it nonetheless circumscribes in a helpful, if not precise, manner the field in which reflection on political thought and practice takes place. It also fur nishes valuable concepts and distinctions with which to articulate this reflec tion. Not a few contemporary thinkers either explicitly or implicitly denigrate this Western tradition. They claim to subvert, overcome, or replace it. I grant that this tradition is not perfect. But neither is it a disaster. It can and has undergone changes, some of which are arguably for the better. It can and does provide sustenance for fresh, benign reflection. But even though the Western tradition provides both a reasonably welldeveloped conception of the domain of politics and valuable conceptual re sources with which to articulate political issues, it has also spawned two widespread competing, and dangerous, paradigms for both political discourse and practice. Both paradigms, by what they emphasize as well 'as by what they slight, deform both discourse and practice. One of these paradigms promotes a rationalistic politics, a politics of vision. Utopian thought of various kinds exemplifies this paradigm. But not all political rationalism, as the example of Hegel shows, is utopian. The other paradigm promotes a voluntaristic politics, a politics of will or might. Conventionalist and contractualist thought exemplifies this latter paradigm. Not only are these para digms at odds with each other. Each also contains its own internal fatal flaw. Neither can simultaneously preclude both tyranny and anarchy, the twin antitheses of responsible politics. This collection of essays points toward a “third way,” an alternative to both rationalism and voluntarism. This “third way” does not require a com

Preface

xiii

plete repudiation of either rationalism or voluntarism. Rather, it salvages from each of them what gave them their plausibility. The “third way” I develop in these essays owes a great deal to many contemporary thinkers, each of whom in his own way has rethought and thereby revivified the tradition. Prominent among these thinkers are Heideg ger, Gadamer, Ricoeur, Marcel, and Sartre. But I must single out for special mention Merleau-Ponty. It is his influence which is most pervasive here. Indeed, this collection taken as a whole amounts to a commentary on and extension of Merleau-Ponty’s achievements. Because each of these essays is self-contained and because his influence is so pervasive, a reader who starts at the first page and reads straight through will find some repeti tion. Given the nature of this volume, this repetition is unavoidable. And it has the merit of keeping each essay fully intelligible in itself. Given the recent, startling collapse of Communism as a political force, it is not necessary to dwell on the sharp opposition between the “third way” toward which I point and the rationalist collectivism which orthodox Com munism propounded. But it is probably useful for me to complete the stage setting for these essays by pointing out just what it is about contemporary individualism that sets it so much at odds with this “third way.” For the search for a “third way” is prompted in large measure by the conviction that individualism leads to political irresponsibility. Whether rationalistically or voluntaristically interpreted, individualism promotes a depreciation and even a trivialization of concern for the community’s well being in favor of atten tion to one’s private interests. As a consequence, under neither interpreta tion can individualism cope successfully with such urgent contemporary glo bal problems as pollution, population size and distribution, and speciesthreatening weapons.2 Both rationalist and voluntarist politics, whether championing collectivism or individualism, have regularly been presented as definitively established doctrines. The “third way” I propose denies that it makes sense in politics to seek either a practice or a theory which is definitive. As Merleau-Ponty saw, there is no perfect political practice or thought. The cautions and rec ommendations embodied in these essays all deal with how we are to engage in politics responsibly in the absence of a perfect politics. It follows, then, that these essays, whether taken singly or together, invite response. They are contributions to a conversation whose termination would necessarily be a disaster.

xiv


I have divided this collection into four parts. Part I, fittingly, contains essays devoted to making explicit Merleau-Ponty’s own contributions to con temporary political thought. These essays provide a crucial point of depar ture for the rest of the studies in this collection. Whatever merit or lack thereof the reader finds in the other essays in this volume, I hope that the essays in this part will make clear to him or her just how important MerleauPonty’s contribution is to efforts to develop a responsible politics. The essays in Part II deal with questions concerning what it is to be an agent. They seek to articulate at least the minimal conditions for political agency and responsibility. In effect, they contribute to what one might call, in a Ricoeurian vein, the philosophical anthropology that underpins respon sible political thought. The two essays which make up Part III set forth crucial features of the basic orientation, namely hope, that I claim is required for maximally respon sible political thought and practice. This specific sort of hope is political rather than religious or “familial.” It undercuts both optimism and pes simism. There is, I admit, nontrivial overlap between these two essays. But I include both of them because in “Hope and Responsible Politics” I provide important support for the concept of hope that I propose which I do not re peat in “The Place of Hope in Politics.” On the other hand, the latter, and later, piece presents a stronger and more precise case for the importance of hope in politics. It is true of all political thought that, sooner or later, the “proof of the pudding is in the eating.” Accordingly, Part IV presents some of the ramifi cations of the general position I develop in Parts II and III. On the one hand, I will show how the orientation I propose would affect the way in which some perennial issues in political thought are dealt with. On the oth er, I will spell out some of the implications of my proposal for criticizing some contemporary alternatives. Several of the essays collected here have not been previously published. And I have made nontrivial revisions of some of those that have already appeared. In the remarks introducing each of the four parts I will indicate which are the new essays and which are the revised ones.

Part I

The four essays which make up Part I set forth the principal and most durable features of Merleau-Ponty’s political philosophy. Unquestionably, there are important differences between his political reflections prior to his complete rejection of Soviet-style Marxism in mid-1950 and his later thought. But there is also substantial continuity between them. Some of the same elements in his general philosophical orientation which once made Soviet Marxism attractive to him figured in his subsequent repudiation of it. None theless it remains true that Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy in general changed in crucial ways throughout his career. Unsurprisingly, some of those changes affected his political thinking. The first of these four studies, “Renovating the Problem of Politics,” appeared initially in The Review o f Metaphysics in 1976 and was reprinted in Crosscurrents in Phenomenology, edited by Ronald Bruzina and Bruce Wilshire in 1978. In it, I draw upon Heidegger’s work as well as on MerleauPonty’s. At the time I wrote this essay studies in English of Heidegger’s political thought were in their early stages and discussion of it on the Con tinent was much less intense and informed than it is today. The extent of Heidegger’s reprehensible involvement with Nazism was largely unsuspected. Nonetheless, I take it that it is permissible to try to salvage parts of a think er’s work without thereby endorsing the whole of it. In that spirit, I have made revisions in this essay to acknowledge the deep problems that recent scholarship has shown Heidegger’s work to contain while still proposing that what I extract from that work remains of substantial import for responsible political thinking. The other three pieces of which Part I is composed concentrate ex clusively on Merleau-Ponty. The second essay in the part, “One Central Link Between Merleau-Ponty’s Philosophy of Language and His Political

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Thought,” ties my reflections on silence and the restraint involved therein to these two parts of Merleau-Ponty’s work. It was published in Tulane Studies in Philosophy in 1980. The third, “Merleau-Ponty’s Political Thought: Its Nature and Its Challenge,” was included in Phenomenology in a Pluralistic Context, edited by William L. McBride and Calvin O. Schrag, published in 1983. I have not significantly revised either of these two essays. The final piece in Part I, “Merleau Ponty on Politics, History, and Violence,” was written in 1989 and has not been previously published.

Renovating the Problem of Politics

Robert Sokolowski in Husserlian Meditations, writes: Heidegger situates Husserlian themes within the wider context of the question of being, but he does not sufficiently consider the context of political philosophy. And even the question of being appears dif ferent if the political context is taken into account. Heidegger advan ces beyond Husserl by ... raising the issue of publicness in a more appropriate way than Husserl, with his stress on the discourse of science, was able to do. But Heidegger’s conception of the public is not adequate for political life; in terms of the kinds of human as sociation distinguished by Aristotle in Politics 1.2 - family, village, city - Heidegger’s thoughts are most appropriate for the village, not the city. A village is not based on any kind of constitution or “social contract.”1 Given the discoveries during the decade of the 80s of the depth and extent of Heidegger’s involvement with the Nazis, Sokolowski’s comment can now be seen to be strikingly mild.2 But these discoveries notwithstanding, one has no justification for regarding Heidegger’s thought as wholly discredited. Even his thought about political matters remains of value.3 In this paper, I will argue that Heidegger, along with another student of Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, have contributed substantially to the renovation of the problem of politics. Neither of them, to be sure, has provided a com prehensive theory of politics. But each, despite his own limitations, flaws, and in Heidegger’s case, reprehensible political judgments, has bequeathed to us much of substance for our efforts to make sense of politics.


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Their contributions are of two sorts. First, they have destroyed, in Hei degger’s sense, the metaphysical base that has dominated Western political thought since Plato. And second, they have provided insights into and clues pointing toward elements that any defensible politics must embody. In so doing they open a way for us to retrieve and renovate what is sound in the political thought that developed under the sway of metaphysics.

I Western philosophy, from Plato onward, has been marked by at least a tension and at worst a cleavage between the demands of what is to be thought and the demands of what is to be done or achieved. An especially acute form of this tension appears in the relation between speculative thought and political conduct or statecraft.4 Philosophy since Plato is sup posed to deal with knowledge, certainty, and truth. But politics is concerned with power, which rests on opinion.5 One simply cannot have certitude con cerning what his political action will bring about. This tension between the demands of what is to be thought and the demands of what is to be done mirrors that found already in Greek tragic figures, e.g., Creon and Antigone. At issue, of course, from the outset is the question of the legitimacy of the exercise of political power. What entitles one man to command and requires another to obey? Plato’s resolution of this issue consisted in locat ing the source of legitimate authority beyond the sphere of power, beyond men. Plato has the philosopher turn away from the polis and then return to impose upon human affairs the standards he had seen.6 Whether Hannah Arendt is right or not in holding that Plato announces the philosopher’s claim to rule not so much for the sake of the polis and politics as for the sake of philosophy and the safety of the philosopher,7 it is the case that for Plato the source of the right to command must transcend the realm of hu man history. Aristotle already saw the danger of tyranny lurking in Plato’s exaltation of the expert, the philosopher, and in Plato’s conception of statecraft along the lines of fabrication. Nonetheless, in defending the intrinsic supremacy of the contemplative realm, Aristotle established the right of the thinker to independence, but left unclarified the foundation of the right to command. He rejects Plato’s resolution of the tension between what is to be thought

Renovating the Problem o f Politics

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and what is to be achieved in politics. But he can hardly be said to have provided a new resolution.® In post-classical times repeated attempts have been made to definitively resolve this tension either to the advantage of philosophy, by dissolving the tension, or to the advantage of politics, by transforming the tension into a cleavage. The approach which gives philosophy the decisive word rests on the claim that there is some knowable, anterior, fundamentally ahistorical order which serves as standard, criterion, or guiding principle for political conduct. The problem of politics, then, is basically one of translating an ahistorical order into the worldly affairs of men. The other approach, which gives politics the decisive word, denies such a knowable anterior order. But it claims for men a prior, radically non-political, freedom on the basis of which they construct the polis on their own terms, at their own discretion, and for their own purposes. In reality, at the level of reflection, the politics-favoring approach has tended to collapse back into the philosophy-favoring approach. But at the level of practice the philosophy-favoring approach has tended to collapse back into the politics-favoring one. What I want to call attention to here, however, is that on both of these approaches, the realm of politics is a deriv ative realm. And the legitimacy of conduct in this realm is determined by principles which do not, in the final analysis, belong to it. From another angle, it can be said that most post-classical attempts to resolve the classical tension between what is to be thought and what is to be achieved politically either explicitly or implicitly assume the possibility of radical human autonomy. (Machiavelli is an important exception.) Whether this autonomy is claimed for the divinely elected king who makes God’s will his own, for the Rousseauian man who expresses the general will, for the Lockean man in the state of nature, or for the Marxian man of the future but foredestined classless society, the right to command belongs to the man who transcends, at least in part, the realms of history and politics. Either by reason of his vision of eternal verities or by reason of his radical, natural, pre-political, ahistorical free-will, whatever the autonomous man commands is either what should be commanded or at least what is unquestionably per missible for him to command. Thus the autonomous man in principle ei ther eliminates contingency from the political realm by deducing political conduct from ahistorical rational norms he knows, or grounds political con duct in a will which sets standards at its own discretion.9

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Thus, on one approach, the classical tension between philosophy and politics is dissolved. On the other, it is converted into an absolute cleavage. But the conceptual quandaries besetting the post-classical theories, and even more the tyrannical or anarchical interpretations which have been justified in the name of each of them, call into question the entire project of handling the classical tension on the basis of some version of a claim of radical human autonomy. Both Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty have, I think, provided deva stating criticisms of the notion of radical human autonomy. In so doing, they have in effect undercut all of what Heidegger would call the metaphysical theories concerning the relation between what is to be thought and what is to be done or achieved politically. There is no need here for a detailed rehearsal of their well-known criti cisms. Let me only briefly recall that both of them seek ultimately to pro vide a unified foundation upon which to ground both speculative thought and deliberated practice. Merleau-Ponty provides this foundation through his notions of etre-au-monde and chiasm. Heidegger does so through his Dasein analysis and his notion of meditative thinking. What they both show is that man is radically and exhaustively finite and historical. Thus it makes no sense to claim either that he can achieve an ahistorical spectatorial grasp of the world or that some dimension of man, e.g., his free will, is radically in dependent of the influence of the world. Man is in no sense radically auton omous. Given such foundations, it becomes impossible to maintain, in the realm of politics, that some political form, ideal, norm, or institution is definitively and exclusively correct either for some specific time or locale or in perpetuity and everywhere. But all theories of politics which are, in Heidegger’s sense, metaphysical rest on some such claim. Thus all such theories are in effect undercut. It does not follow that all the elements of these theories likewise collapse. But it does follow that confrontations between political doctrines which are both metaphysical in this sense, e.g., between communism and capitalism, or between communism and liberalism, are confrontations be tween doctrines both of which are devoid of defensible foundations.10 It would, of course, be exorbitant to claim that either Heidegger or Mer leau-Ponty has provided us with a well-developed new politics. But is would also be wrong to think that the only significant contribution their work makes to the problem of politics is a negative critique of modern political theories. Both Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty have provided elements for a possible

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new politics in which the classical tension can be converted from stumbling block to stepping stone.11 II I turn first to the work of Merleau-Ponty, whose concern with the prob lem of politics is more obvious, if not more pervasive than is Heidegger’s.12 Let me recall three related parts of his political thought. In Adventures o f the Dialectic, he writes: If history does not have a direction, like a river, but a meaning, if it teaches us, not a truth, but errors to avoid, if its practice is not de duced from a dogmatic philosophy of history, then it is not superficial to base a politics on the analysis of political man. After all, once the official legends have been put aside, what makes a politics important is ... the human quality that causes the leaders truly to animate the political apparatus and makes their most personal acts everyone’s affair.... In politics, truth is perhaps only this art of inventing what will later appear to have been required by the time.13 Second, in this same work, Merleau-Ponty proceeds to argue for a noncommunist left which rejects the supposedly exhaustive alternatives posed by the rivalry between what can, for convenience, be labeled liberalism and communism. The noncommunist left, working through a parliamentary structure which is “the only known institution that guarantees a minimum of opposition and truth,”14 undertakes the constant task “of evading the antag onists’ hostility, of springing the traps that one prepares for the other, of thwarting the complicity of their pessimisms.”15 This noncommunist left recognizes that its approach is not definitive solution. But this is so because in politics there is no definitive solution. There are only timely ones.16 Finally, in “A Note on Machiavelli,” Merleau-Ponty claims that Machiavelli was right in holding that for a truly humanistic politics, values and prin ciples are necessary but not sufficient. In fact, “it is even dangerous to stop with values, for so long as we have not chosen those whose mission it is to uphold these values in the historical struggle, we have done nothing.”17 What Machiavelli lacked was a guideline to enable him to distinguish between political virtu, that political virtuosity which is excellence in discern

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ing the fortune provided by the moment and in wielding power to make the most of the opportunity, and political opportunism, which is nothing more than a make-shift accommodation to the pressures of the moment made in the name of mere survival. Marx saw something of the same problem. What is needed is the invention of political forms which can keep power in check without annulling it. This need, Merleau-Ponty says, is still unful filled.18 “The remedy we seek does not lie in rebellion, but in unremitting virtu. A disappointment for whoever believed in salvation and in a single means of salvation in all realms.”19 Taking these citations as representative of Merleau-Ponty’s political thought, several positive, overlapping elements for a legitimate politics can be found in his work. First, by reason of a necessity belonging specifically to the political realm, as opposed to some non-political realm, the distinction between the leaders and the led is irreducible. This does not imply that there is some “natural” oligarchy or some Nietzschean aristocracy foredes tined to rule. On the contrary, any political theory which claims that legiti mate exercise of command amounts simply to having the so-called true will or true insight of the body politic express itself to itself is a concoction which rests on a fiction. Whatever political rights may be ascribed to each mem ber, it is simply not the case that all have equal title to rule. All may well have the right to obey by way of critical response rather than by way of mere compliance. But initiative always resides with some rather than with all. Second, those who have the right to command hold this right by reason of their political virtuosity, and not by reason of some putative radical auton omy. Virtuosity consists in grasping the opportunities of the historical mo ment and handling them dexterously to stamp the moment with the distinc tive mark of the virtuoso. Of course, the factual hopes, fears, and resources of the led enter into the constitution of the opportunities provided by a spe cific historical moment. But these are determinative only of a field of play, not of a precise course of action.20 To this extent, any concrete right of command can be said to presuppose a field of play circumscribed by the led. But without the virtuoso’s play, the field is pre-political. And should the virtuoso lose his virtuosity, he thereby loses his right to command. The next three elements are perhaps derivable from the first two. But for present purposes, it is enough to take note of them without working out the logical relationships obtaining among them. The third element is that whatever political correctness is, it comes to be in the actual doing of politi


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cal deeds. And so, neither he who commands nor he who obeys can know ahead of time that what he is embarked upon doing is unquestionably cor rect. Political undertakings are intrinsically risky. There are hopeless, and thus unquestionably wrong, political endeavors., e.g., endeavors which deny some or all of these elements. These can be recognized as wrong ahead of time. But the most assurance that one can have in embarking upon a political act is that there is a prospect that once the political deed is under way, it can be said that “things are going well,” and that later generations in looking back at the deed may be able to say “things worked out well.” But there is always the danger that the political deed be untimely. And untimeliness in politics, no less than hopelessness, thoroughly vitiates the deed. Fourth, legitimate political conduct does not have as its task the redemp tion of men from their historical condition. Rather, the task is so to manage the opportunities afforded by the present moment that a space is opened and preserved in which future opportunities for human achievements of all sorts can arise. Thus the legitimate exercise of command is not directed toward bringing the body politic to a condition of radical completion or stasis. It is, rather, aimed at effecting a displacement away from the repetitious perfor mance of routines toward performances which respond to the ever distinctive proximate and remote possibilities which each historical moment grants. Fifth, one of the possibilities which our times present us is so distinctive that it can well be given the status of a constitutive element for all contem porary and foreseeable politics. Merleau-Ponty says: There is no serious humanism except the one which looks for man’s effective recognition by his fellow man throughout the world. Conse quently, it [serious humanism] could not precede the moment when humanity gives itself its means of communication and communion. Today these means exist ....21 I take it from the general thrust of Merleau-Ponty’s political thought that he would claim that both communism and economico-political liberalism are political phenomena whose day is essentially over. But what they have be queathed to us is the opportunity for a world politics. Political virtuosity can no longer take as its field some isolated or privileged corner of the globe. What counts as legitimate political conduct and legitimate command must


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henceforth be judged in global and not in local terms. Vague though this fifth element is, its effective weight is in no way thereby reduced. These five elements which I have extracted from Merleau-Ponty’s work, elements which renovate the classical tension between philosophy and poli tics, can be corroborated and supplemented by elements extractable from Heidegger. And so, it is to Heidegger that I now turn. Ill It is now unmistakably clear that one can make no easy distinction be tween Heidegger’s thought and its articulation on the one hand and his poli tical commitments on the other. Nonetheless there is much good sense in Habermas’ judgment that questionable political conduct on the part of a thinker certainly throws a shadow on his work. But the Heideggerian oeuvre, espe cially the thought in Being and Time, has attained a position of such eminence among the philosophical ideas of our century that it is simply foolish to think that the substance of the work could be dis credited, more than five decades later, by political assessments of Heidegger’s fascist commitments.22 In what follows I do not claim to present Heidegger’s own views. My claim, rather is that his work, or at least parts of it, prompts one to think afresh about the constituents of responsible politics. Let me briefly recall some of Heidegger’s reflections on thought, technol ogy, and art. First, thought is that action which reaches out to the Unencompassable (das Unumgangliche) that reigns over every science, whether natural or human. Thought, as thought of Being, is superior to and founda tional both for practice and for contemplation or theory in its modern sense. A science as such can bring to light only one sort of presence of whatever its theme is. Meditative thought in no way rests on a faith in the irresistible power of reason and its principles. Rather it always remains historical, as signed or destined by Being to the place of its historical sojourn.23 Second, in the reign of technology and calculative thought, Being is for gotten and the world is simply raw material for exploitation. One key conse quence of this technological era is that it excludes in advance as irrelevant


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the distinctions between nations and peoples. “Just as the distinction be tween war and peace has become vacuous, so has the distinction between the ‘national’ and the ‘international’ been effaced.”24 “Nature and spirit have become two objects for self-consciousness, whose absolute domination forces these objects from the outset into a uniformity from which there is no meta physical way of escape.”25 The technological movement thus denies the Unencompassable and claims for human action autonomy and absolute right of domination. Third, and of capital importance for my purposes, is Heidegger’s “The Origin of the Work of Art.” He says there that one of the essential ways in which truth establishes itself is in the work of art. Another essential way is in the deed which grounds a political state. Permit me to quote at length what “truth establishing itself’ in art amounts to. The establishing of truth in the work is the bringing forth of an entity such as never was before and will afterward never be again .... Truth is present only as the conflict between lighting and concealing in the opposition of world and earth .... In the conflict the unity of world and earth is won .... In the creation of a work, the conflict must be set back, as rift, into the earth, and the earth itself must be set forth and used as the self-closing factor .... As little as a work can be with out being created, so little can the created itself become an entity without preservers .... Preservation of the work means: standing with in the openness of what is that happens in the work. This in-standing of preservation, however, is a knowing. Yet knowing does not consist in mere acquaintance with and representation of something. He who truly knows what is, knows what he wills in the midst of what is .... Volition is the sober resolution of existing self-transcen dence which expresses itself to the openness of what is as posited in the work .... Preservation of the work does not narrowly enclose people within their experiences, but transports them into a condition of belonging to the truth happening in the work and so provides the ground for being for and with one another as Da-sein’s (there-being’s) historical standing-out or exposure in connection with uncon cealment.26

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Heidegger goes on to show that the essence of art is poetry and the essence of poetry, which involves projective speech, is the institution of truth. Projective speech is speech which in preparing the sayable simul taneously brings the unsayable as such into a world. In such saying, the concepts of an historical folk’s essence, i.e., of its belonging to world-history, are preformed for that folk.27 Heidegger understands institution in a three-fold sense: as bestowing (Schenken), as grounding (Grunden), and as beginning (Anfang). But there is no actual institution without preservation. He says: In the work ... truth is thrown toward the coming preservers, i.e., an historical humanity. What is thus cast is, nevertheless, never an ar bitrary demand. Genuinely poetic projection is the opening up or disclosure of that into which Dasein as historical has already been thrown .... Art is history in the essential sense that it grounds history .... The origin of the work of art, i.e., at the same time of the creators and preservers, and this means of the historical existence of a people, is art.28 If one translates what Heidegger says here about art to the domain of politics and then ties it to the remarks about meditative thought and technol ogy that I have cited, then he can extract the following elements for a defen sible politics.29 These elements basically corroborate the elements that I have drawn from Merleau-Ponty’s work. But they are not redundant. They contribute something distinctive in their own right. First, every theory of politics, every political institution, and all political conduct, like every science, are under the reign of the Unencompassable. They are all historical. Thus any pretense to any sort of ahistorical validity or legitimacy is at bottom nonsensical. Second, any politics which claims either the existence or the desirability of fundamentally uniform politics among all men, peoples, and nations is finally either inefficacious or destructive. Attempts at such a politics flow from the modern technocratic exploitation of the world. These attempts are basically the political expression of an exclusively calculative thought, which in turn is a manifestation of an unbridled will-to-will.


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Third, the realm of politics, like that of art, belongs to the domain of projective speech and not to that of fabrication. The truth appropriate to the domain of projective speech is a truth which emerges only in the doing and preserving of the deed. This doing and preserving always has the character of struggle or conflict. Thus the work done is always under the threat of collapse. Fourth, the origin of the political deed and thus of politics, is politics itself. The political is not grounded in something pre-political. Man neither falls into nor elects to move into the political realm. He is always already there. Fifth, politics, though its orientation is always toward the future as the new, never fails to refer to the old. At bottom, politics is the institution of a world on the ground of both the earth and earlier worlds. It is a projection rooted in a preservation. It is the working out of a people’s destiny that is cast before it by its heritage. Any politics which claims either to negate or even definitively to decide the weight of the past whence it arises is blind to its own possibilities and threatens man’s very existence. Defensible politics, to be sure, does involve volition. But this volition is a self-trancendence which exposes itself to what-is as a heritage that bestows upon man both a destiny and a present field of play. As such, volition stands opposed to the will-to will that claims to dominate what-is and thereby to determine autono mously what can come to be. Let me recapitulate the elements that I have thus far extracted from the works of Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger. A defensible politics must embody these six overlapping elements: 1) The distinction between rulers and the ruled is irreducible.30 But this is so by reason of a political rather than a natural necessity. 2) Rulers hold their right to command by reason of their virtuosity in acting, not by reason of some ahistorical human autonomy. 3) The truth of political conduct comes to be in the actual doing of political deeds. 4) Political conduct has as its authentic task not the redemption of man from the exigencies of his historicity, but rather the management of the oppor

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tunities of the moment in such a way that future opportunities for human achievements o f all sorts (not merely political achievements) can continue to arise. 5) Political conduct and the virtuosity involved therein must hence forth be judged in global terms. 6) Far from being autonomous, political conduct is the expression of the present opportunities bestowed by the earth and a people’s heritage in the working out of a people’s destiny. These elements, to be sure, do not yield a complete political theory. So far as I can see they do not even provide a comprehensive basis for the de velopment of a complete political theory. For example, I do not see how they should be supplemented to handle the towering issues of 1) the tenden cy of power to grow and to become centralized,31 and 2) what constitutes the limits of the legitimate use of coercive power or violence.32 In fact, it is hard to see that either Heidegger or Merleau-Ponty provides a full delimitation of the realm of politics from other realms of human expression or speech. Nonetheless, both of them spur us to resituate politics in the general realms of speech and history.33 By so doing, they in effect renovate impor tant elements in both Greek and Roman political traditions. Their emphasis on politics as primarily a mode of speech renews the Greek distinctions between persuasion and despotic command, between doing and making, and between the free play of public deed and discourse and the constraint of physical and biological necessity. Their emphasis on politics as irrecusably embedded in history and heritage provides resources for renewing the Ro man sense of authority as that weight, beyond persuasion and coercive force, which provides the ground and unevadable test for the legitimacy of either persuasion or coercion.34 IV As I noted at the beginning of this paper, the classical political tradition was never brought into harmony with the requirements of speculative thought. Modern thought has claimed to overcome this tension. But its efforts have succeeded only in obscuring the scope of the issue. To retrieve


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the scope of the issue, as Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger prompt us to do, is no trivial matter. Indeed it is the necessary pre-requisite to a more satisfac tory response to, though not dissolution of, the dissonant claims of politics and philosophy. But the elements I have taken from Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty do more than renovate the classical political tradition. They also help one to retrieve crucial contributions from modern attempts to harmonize politics and philosophy. For example, under their tutelage one can regard Rous seau’s distinction between the always valid general will and the often mis guided will of the multitude as an attempt to express the two-fold insight that politics is 1) an affair of volition and excellence in doing rather than of intel lection and excellence in seeing, and 2) that the volition involved in any par ticular political conduct should not be merely the will of some present mo ment uprooted from a larger historical context. Similarly, the Marxian distinction between the communists and the prole tarians and the Lockean notion of executive privilege, coupled with their common requirement that rulers rule by leave of the ruled, can be regarded as a deficient attempt to articulate the realization that political leadership is a form of virtuosity, the existence of which can be guaranteed neither ahead of time nor by the virtuoso himself. Virtuosity exists only in the deed. Only those who witness the display can certify the existence of virtuosity. And there is always something retrospective in such certification. Or again, divine or natural right theories of rulership can be regarded as halting expressions of the irreducibility of the distinction between rulers and ruled. These examples of how modern political insights can be refurbished through the recognition of the elements that I have drawn from Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty can and should be multiplied. But they suffice to show that one can extract from Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty grounds not for mere refutations of previous theories of politics, but rather for re-thinkings of the realm of politics in a context in which the positive accomplishments of previous thinkers are preserved and renovated. But something more can emerge from this re-thinking. Using the six elements I have extracted from Heidegger’s and Merleau-Ponty’s works, one can make more precise just how to mark off the realm of politics from other realms of human expression. One can detect through these elements at least one essential characteristic of defensible, effective political conduct.

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Defensible political conduct is a doing-anew-with-a-difference-in-thedoing-of-what-has-already-been-done. And that which is the field of this doing is the totality of the already organized material and cultural resources of the community. That is, what has already been done both authorizes and elicits the present doing. The present doing is not merely a redoing. It must be a doing-with-a-difference, lest it deny the intrinsic historicality of every such doing. Likewise, the doing must elicit another doing which supercedes it, which it itself authorizes but does not rigorously control. In effect, legitimate political conduct must have the characteristic of authentic speech. Authentic speech must draw upon an already sedimented language and yet rise to a new saying, which is in turn destined to rejoin the sedimented base for future sayings. So, too, must legitimate political conduct draw upon the sedimented political deeds in a community’s heritage and express them anew with a difference determined by present possibilities. And this expression itself is recognized as destined to rejoin the sedimented base for future political deeds. Political conduct, however, can be distinguished from the modes of au thentic speech which are expressed in either art or religious ritual. Like political expression, artistic expression arises from the sediment of previous human doings, artistic or otherwise. But unlike political expression, no par ticular artistic expression as such points toward a future artistic expression it could lay claim to authorizing. Such future artistic endeavors are irrelevant to either the performance or the preservation or the assessment of the pres ent artistic expression. But superseding political endeavors are crucial to the performance, preservation, and assessment of defensible political conduct. Similarly, ritual expression, like political expression, is a doing based on what has already been done. But unlike political expression, it necessarily eschews doing-with-a-difference. Ritual expression does point toward anoth er doing. But this subsequent doing is not to supersede the present doing. Rather, it is to renew it as the same. Undoubtedly, the characteristic of defensible political conduct which I have just formulated provides no complete delimitation of the realm of poli tics. But it is by no means trivial. At the very least it establishes: 1) Revolution, in the sense of a radical rupture with a people’s past, owing nothing of its own resources to possibilities opened up for it as a political enterprise by positive accomplishments of that past, is political nonsense.


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2) A politics which claims ahistorical justification is either blind or menda cious. 3) A definitive politics, a politics whose saying claims to have left nothing sutvtfantial unsaid and nothing substantial yet to be said, is no politics at all. 4) A defensible politics for today and the foreseeable future must take into account the relentless, often ruthless, expansion and intensification of tech nology’s grip on human affairs that apparently renders impotent both major offshoots of classical Enlightenment political thought, namely Marxism and liberal capitalism. In conclusion then, my claim is not that either Merleau-Ponty, or much less Heidegger with his Nazi entanglements, has shown us how to bring the persistent tension between the demands of Western political thought and defensible political conduct to final resolution. Rather, what one can learn from them, and this lesson is of radical importance, is that this issue is not a soluble problem. It is, instead, an “Unencompassable” tension, a tension that is ineradicable because it springs from man’s irremovable finitude. Neither perception, nor speech, nor meditative thinking overcomes the im plications of that finitude. Finitude, then pervades all theory and practice. Insisting upon this irrecusable finitude significantly reshapes the tension between thought and political conduct. Neither the demands of speculative thought nor the demands of political conduct can claim radical dominion over the other. Henceforth both a defensible philosophy and a defensible politics must acknowledge the requirements that each imposes on the other. The renovated task is now set: How and to what extent can these reciprocal requirements be specified?

One Central Link Between Merleau-Ponty’s Philosophy of Language and His Political Thought

Through much of his career, Merleau-Ponty was concerned both with the topic of language and with the topic of politics. But he himself never ex plicitly connected these two strands of thought. Nonetheless, at least one central link binds these strands together and, in so doing, strengthens each of them. This link is provided by his recognition of the importance of the phe nomenon of silence. I will begin this essay by noting something of the range of the contexts in which Merleau-Ponty employs the term ‘silence’ and its cognates. From this survey it will be clear that Merleau-Ponty did not explicitly thematize the phenomenon of silence even though he obviously recognized it. Then I will argue that, when the phenomenon of silence is properly thematized, it pro vides evidence for some of Merleau-Ponty’s principal claims concerning both discursive expression and political action. I The term ‘silence’ appears in many different contexts in Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology o f Perception.1 There are regions of silence in a body which has lost a limb (PP, 364); there is the tacit or silent cogito which lies behind the spoken cogito (PP, 302ff); there is the silent language whereby percep tion communicates with us (PP, 48-49); there is the tacitly understood body

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image which is the background against which gesture, perception, and speech unfold (PP, 100-102); there is the primordial silence which lies beneath the chatter of words and which the action of speaking breaks (PP, 184); there is the silence of primary, ante-predicative consciousness in which appear both what words mean and what things mean (PP, xv). Consider next his The Visible and the Invisible} There is my body which silences the buzzing of appearances (VI,8); there is the silence of the world which must be made to say what it means to say (VI, 39); there is the silence from which language lives (VI, 126); there is the silence and speech which philosophy reconverts into one another (VI, 129). These lists, and similar lists could be compiled from other works of Mer leau-Ponty, show both that throughout his career Merleau-Ponty regularly resorted to the term ‘silence’ to point to key features of many phenomena and that the phenomenon of silence itself, though it played a large role in his thought, was not explicitly thematized by Merleau-Ponty. That is to say, Merleau-Ponty did not distinguish in any precise way between the muteness of that which is other than expressive and the silence which is fundamentally ingredient in all expression. In fact, there are uses of the term ‘silence’ in Merleau-Ponty which point to that which is in principle beyond thematization. In his discussion of spatiality in Phenomenology o f Perception, Merleau-Ponty says: Thus, since every conceivable being is related either directly or in directly to the perceived world, and since the perceived world is grasped only in terms of direction, we cannot dissociate being from oriented being, and there is no occasion to ‘find a basis for’ space or to ask what is the level of all levels. The primordial level is on the horizon of all our perceptions, but it is a horizon which cannot in principle ever be reached and thematized in our express perception (PP, 253, my emphasis). In some cases, Merleau-Ponty uses the term ‘silence’ in just this same way, namely to point to that which in principle cannot be dealt with thematically. In the same vein, he speaks in Phenomenology o f Perception of an “original past, a past which has never been present”(PP, 242), of one’s history which must be the continuation of a prehistory (PP, 254), and of a primary opinion which antedates all opinions (PP, 396).

Philosophy o f Language and Political Thought

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But Jacques Taminiaux has called to attention an evolution of capital importance in Merleau-Ponty’s thought about both perception and expres sion.3 One finds in Phenomenology o f Perception the juxtaposition of two themes between which there is an insoluble tension. On the one hand, Mer leau-Ponty speaks of a natal place of sense which resides in the silence of an originary, pre-predicative consciousness. With respect to this pre-predicative consciousness, expression is secondary and derivative. On the other hand, Merleau-Ponty speaks of a pure expressiveness without support in a primor dial silence, an always new realization of meaning without guarantee in any fundamental locus of meaning. The first theme, which Taminiaux calls the positivist theme, would have it that there is a primordial experience, namely perception, which precedes expression. The perceived precedes language “as an original text precedes its translation, which translation is of second rank in comparison with the original (RE, 103).” The second theme, which Taminiaux calls the theme of art, would have it that, in Merleau-Ponty’s words, “the phenomenological world is not the bringing to explicit expression of a pre-existing being, but the laying down of being. Philosophy is not the reflection of a pre-existing truth, but, like art, is the act of bringing truth into being (PP, xx).” According to Taminiaux, the tension between these two themes is over come in Merleau-Ponty’s later work. In The Visible and the Invisible, neither expression nor the world of silent perception is independent of the other. Rather, they necessarily encroach upon one another. In Taminiaux’ words: The world of silence is the perceptual world, the Lebenswelt, which calls for an expression which in a sense it already contains but which is nonetheless a creation of it. Expression, then, produces meaning, creates meaning, and unveils an already-there meaning. Expression so to speak precedes itself in such a way that there is no place for positing on the one side an originary domain of silent experience and on the other side expression itself as a second stratum .... The ex perience of Being, then, is not on the hither side of expression. It is thanks to expression that experience comes about. Experience is just as much a matter of expression as it is of perception. And likewise expression is just as much a matter of perception as it is of speech (RE, 107).

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In this new conception of the chiasm, the intertwining of perception and expression, each of them is understood as a field of differences in which there can be no fully positive or simply present entity. Perception involves a latent invisibility in the visible. And expression involves a latent silence in the expression itself. Though I have some reservations both about the completeness of Mer leau-Ponty’s eventual overcoming of the tension found in the Phenomenology o f Perception and, to a less significant extent, about some of Taminiaux’ formulations of the problem and its solution, in the main I find in Tamin iaux’ essay some warrant for the basic legitimacy of the approach I wish to take in this essay. I find warrant for attempting to thematize the silence which is latent in expression. This thematizing of silence gives rise to the central theses I wish to defend here. My primary thesis is: The phenomenon of silence, when properly thema tized, both requires and provides evidence for some of Merleau-Ponty’s prin cipal claims concerning two major forms of expression, namely, discursive expression and political action. A preliminary thesis is that, though MerleauPonty himself did not present us with an explicit thematization of silence, his works do show that he did take note of several of the basic features of the silence which pervades and bounds the field of discursive expression. II Let me defend now this preliminary thesis. The intentional analysis of the phenomenon of silence, as I have shown elsewhere,4 reveals that silence has at least the four following characteristics. First, silence is an active in tentional performance which is required for the concrete clarification of the sense of intersubjectivity. Second, in its pure occurrences, silence does not directly intend an already determinate object of any sort. Third, silence, motivated by finitude and awe, is a cut or suspension which interrupts an “et cetera” of some particular stream of intentional performances intending determinate objects of some already specified sort. Fourth, silence is not the correlative opposite of discourse, or expression, but rather establishes and maintains an oscillation or tension among the distinguishable levels of discur sive expression and between the zone of discursive expression and the zones of non-discursive experience.


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Perhaps Merleau-Ponty’s most concise articulation of the scope of the phenomenon of silence is found in The Prose o f the World. He says: Languages are so sensitive to the interventions of general history and to their own using only because they are secretly starved for changes that give them means of making themselves expressive once again. Thus there is indeed an interior of language, a signifying intention which animates linguistic events and, at each moment, makes lan guage a system capable of its own self-recovery and self-confirmation. But this intention exhausts itself to the extent that it is fulfilled. For its aim to be realized, it must not be completely realized, and for something to be said, it must not be said absolutely.5 Merleau-Ponty goes on to say that this essential incompleteness in dis cursive expression is like the essential incompleteness of perception. But further, expression is revivified in and through its renewed contact with per ception. Thus, between concrete perceptual performances and concrete discursive performances there is a gap which is required for the vivacity of both streams of performances. This gap had already been pointed to in Phenomenology o f Perception when Merleau-Ponty wrote: “The real has to be described, not constructed or formed. Which means that I cannot put perception in the same category as the syntheses represented by judgments, acts, or predications (PP, x).” This gap, insofar as it is sustained and main tained in the interest of the vivacity of both perception and discursive expres sion, is silence. The importance of silence within the zone of discursive expression is manifested by the phenomenon of hearing or listening which is an essential ingredient in discourse. In a passage in Phenomenology o f Perception which bristles with the tension singled out by Taminiaux, Merleau-Ponty says: Just as the sense-giving intention which has set in motion the other person’s speech is not an explicit thought, but a certain lack which is asking to be made good, so my taking up this intention is not a pro cess of thinking on my part, but a synchronizing change of my own existence, a transformation of my being (PP, 183-184).

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The same point, in a less perplexing context, is made in the “The Child’s Relation to Others.” There he says: There is a sort of indistinction between the act of speaking and the act of hearing. The word is not understood or even heard unless the subject is ready to pronounce it himself, and inversely, every subject who speaks carries himself toward the one who is listening. In a dialogue, the participants occupy both poles at once, and it is this that explains why the phenomenon of ‘speaking’ can pass into that of ‘hearing.’6 This same phenomenon, from another vantage point, is described in “The Philosopher and His Shadow.” Just as the perceived world endures only through the reflection, sha dows, levels, and horizons between things (which are not things and are not nothing but on the contrary mark out by themselves the fields o f possible variation in the same thing and in the same world), so the works and thought of a philosopher are also made of certain articula tions between things said.7 What holds true of philosophers and their discourse holds true for the discursive expressions of all men. Finally, the phenomenon of silence in question here shows itself at the termination of discursive expression. Each man’s discursive expression must be consigned to others for its own perdurance. As Merleau-Ponty concludes in his late “Introduction” to Signs: Thus things are said and are thought by a Speech and by a Thought which we do not have but which has US...A11 those we have loved, detested, known, or simply glimpsed speak through our voice....Our traces mix and intermingle; they make a single wake of ‘public dura tions’ (S, 19). These references to many parts of Merleau-Ponty’s work are sufficient to establish my preliminary thesis. That is, the phenomenon of silence, with the


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four characteristics I identified above, was recognized by Merleau-Ponty. What he said about silence, even if he did not develop the topic thematically, is consistent with the account of silence I have proposed. I can now turn to the development of my primary thesis, namely that the phenomenon of si lence both requires and provides evidence for some of Merleau-Ponty’s prin cipal claims concerning two major forms of expression, namely, discursive expression and political action. Ill It is well known that from his earliest period Merleau-Ponty denied the sensefulness or possibility of perfect or complete expression.® I will not, therefore, belabor this point. But it is useful to stress that this denial is not based on an experienced or inferred defect in expression. Rather, it is of the very being of expression to preclude completion or settled perfection. All expression must be permeable to interruption and renovation. This funda mental position of Merleau-Ponty’s is both required by and supported by the experience of silence as an essential constituent in all interruption of a prior “et cetera.” And each expression finds its full sense only when held in ten sion both with other expressions and with non-expressive experience. It is silence which both interrupts expressions and joins them to other expressions and to non-expressive experience. The denial of the possibility of perfect and complete expression has sev eral facets which are worth recalling here. First, there can be no pure thought which expression only haltingly and defectively manifests. Already in Phenomenology o f Perception, Merleau-Ponty denied that thought could be some internal thing which existed in independence from both words and the perceptual world. “‘Pure’ thought,” he says “reduces itself to a certain void of consciousness, to a momentary desire (PP, 183).” And in reflecting upon Husserl’s inachievable attempt to develop universal rigorous science, M er leau-Ponty saw that in man’s investigation both of things and of himself, there is no formal a priori which assures him of mastery in advance. The idea of philosophy as a rigorous science must always appear with a question mark.9 Just as there cannot be pure thought, so, secondly, there cannot be an ideal language. An ideal language would not only capture some pure and perfect thought but it would be completely at the disposal of the speaker. In

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fact, however, we always speak a language that transcends us. Even our own sayings defy our complete control. “To give expression ... is to ensure, by the use of words already used, that the new intention carries on the heritage of the past, it is at a stroke to incorporate the past into the present, and weld that present to a future (PP, 392).” Analogously, since nothing is ever defini tively acquired and thereafter permanently possessed, there can be no univer sal painting.10 Merleau-Ponty succinctly summarizes the sort of connection he finds between thought and language in The Prose o f the World: Language is not the servant of meaning and does not govern mean ing. There is no subordination or anything but a secondary distinc tion between them....In speaking or writing, we do not refer to some thing to say which is before us distinct from any speech. What we have to say is only the excess of what we live over what has already been said (PW, 112).11 Not only is there neither a pure thought nor an ideal language, but thirdly, there is likewise no unequivocally privileged type of expression. (There are modes of expression, e.g., dance, speech, political action, etc. And there are multiple types of expression in each mode. Thus there is scientific discourse, familial discourse, moral discourse, philosophical discourse, etc., each of which is a type of expression belonging to the discursive mode.) It is true that there are passages in Merleau-Ponty’s works where a preeminent status is apparently allotted to philosophical discourse. I think, though, that it is inconsistent with the main thrust of Merleau-Ponty’s thought to assign an unequivocal primacy to any particular type of expression. Perhaps the pas sages in which Merleau-Ponty apparently accords such a primacy to philos ophy are to be regarded as remnants of that early strand of Merleau-Ponty’s thought which sought to anchor expression in something fundamental and irrecusable. But perhaps, as I think more likely, the difficulty is rooted in that basic oddity of philosophy, namely that its own task is an issue for itself. However such passages are to be explained, there is substantial textual support for denying that there is any uniquely privileged type of expression. On the one hand, though there are distinct modes of expression, there is no unequivocal primacy that is to be assigned to any one of them. As MerleauPonty puts it in Phenomenology o f Perception:


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There is no fundamental difference between the various modes of expression, and no privileged position can be accorded to any of them on the alleged ground that it expresses a truth in itself. Speech is as dumb as music, music as eloquent as speech (PP, 391). Not only is there no privileged mode, but, on the other hand, there is no unequivocally privileged type of expression within any particular mode. From the standpoint of form or structure, Merleau-Ponty’s claim that there is no means of expression which, once mastered, can resolve the problems of painting or transform painting into a technique12 can be generalized to cover all modes and types of expression. Similarly, from the standpoint of topics and perspectives on topics, there is no uniquely privileged type of discursive expression. The special types of discourse proper to the special sciences and disciplines and that of philoso phy are just so many parts, not pieces, of the complex articulation of that unitary relation obtaining among the world, others, and myself which makes all expression of any sort possible. Further, this fundamental relation is thoroughly historical. Thus the truth we attain and express is achieved not in spite of but rather by virtue of our inherence in history. Our contact with others in history, finite as it is, is the point of origin of all truth, including philosophical and scientific truth.13 “Somehow politics and culture, anthropology and sociology, psychology and philosophy are all related, intertwined with one another, together disclosing the unity and meaning in the lives of men.”14 What holds here for discursive expression in its multiple types can be generalized to cover all modes of expression in all of their several types. The phenomenon of silence, when properly thematized, requires, if not these very claims made by Merleau-Ponty, then at least claims very much like them. Since this is the case, then the phenomenon of silence provides substantial evidence in favor of these claims of his. Specifically, the fact that performances of silence both interrupt non-discursive experience to open the way for expression and interrupt expression to allow for an encounter with some dimension of non-discursive experience reveals that we are never in volved either with pure thought or with ideal language. Whatever stream of performances we are engaged in is always experienced as being in need of supplementation drawn from performances of some other sort. This is the

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experience of finitude and awe which motivates the performance of silence. Further, the oscillation among levels of discursive expression and between the zone of discursive expression and those of non-discursive experience which is maintained by silence undercuts the pretension of any mode or type of expression to unequivocally privileged status. Finally, since silence does not intend already determinate objects of any sort, it is not performed to open the way either for addressing any uniquely privileged topic, e.g., God, or for employing any uniquely privileged style, e.g., the epic poetic style. There is, of course, a positive aspect to Merleau-Ponty’s acknowledgment of human finitude and consequent rejection of pure thought, ideal language, and unequivocally privileged modes and types of discourse. Since, as I have mentioned above, Merleau-Ponty does not regard finitude as a defect to be endured but rather as the very condition for being and performing, silence does not defeat discourse by frustrating some aim for completeness. Rather, silence permits discourse to flourish by being differentiated. This vie\y led Merleau-Ponty to two important, closely related insights. The first is that each lively particular expression, each expression of something genuinely new, whatever its mode, type, topic, or style effects an opening for further expression rather than brings to conclusion a line of endeavor. Second, man’s fundamental way of living and expressing the world is interrogatory. Taken together, these insights claim for irreducible openness and the finitude ingredient therein the accolade of achievement rather than the opprobrium of failure. To appreciate the first insight, one should recall that, for Merleau-Ponty, expression is action. So, for that matter, is perception.15 Diversified expres sion is diversified action. By reason of this diversification, the way is kept open for other expression, for other action, for other perception. Thus ex pression, in its diverse performances, manifests the historical character of all action, including that action which is expression. The fact that each particular expression belongs to one among many types and modes of expression and that even within its own type and mode it is only one of several expressions in no way indicates weakness or deficiency in the particular expression. That it has not ‘said the final word’ about its topic is not a flaw, but rather is its glory. In Merleau-Ponty’s words: As for the history of art works, if they are great, the sense we give to them later on has issued from them. It is the work itself that has


29

opened the field from which it appears in another light. It changes itself and becomes what follows; the interminable reinterpretations to which it is legitimately susceptible change it only in itself (EM, 254). What holds good for art works, holds good for all expressive achieve ments which are lively or fresh. Here again Merleau-Ponty is explicit: ...If no work is ever completed and done with, still each creation changes, alters, enlightens, deepens, confirms, exalts, recreates, or creates in advance all the others. If creations are not a possession, it is not only that, like all things, they pass away; it is also that they have almost all their life still before them (EM, 286; see also 274). The phenomenon of silence with its basic characteristics provides sub stantial corroboration for this insight of Merleau-Ponty’s. By virtue of its interrupting the inertial “et ceteras” of particular streams of performances and its maintaining an oscillation and tension among the various kinds of performances, silence performs three related functions. First, it clears the way for genuinely new works to take their place within a history of works. Second, it is appropriately intercalated with expression to constitute a work as something sufficiently distinct to belong to some specific type and mode of expression. And third, by pervading the work silence preserves it from defin itive fixation and so grants it the openness requisite for a life which is in fluential over an extended period of time. Moreover, by reason of the clarification of the sense of intersubjectivity effected through variegated performances of silence, there is engendered the motivation for acknowledging and responding to the historical possibilities that arise from each genuine work. The work is not a definitive assertion. Rather it is a call for a response which is sufficiently reticent in itself to permit answers. Each answer, like the work itself, is not a private possession of its author but rather is a communal spring for continued endeavor. Appreciation of the sense of intersubjectivity leads to Merleau-Ponty’s capital insight that man’s fundamental way of living and expressing the world is interrogatory. Men exist as so many interrogations addressed to a world which does not speak but which itself exists in the interrogative mode.16 Reflection, Merleau-Ponty says, “must question the world ... must enter into

30


the forest of references that our interrogation arouses in it ... must make it say, finally, what in its silence it means to sayQfl, 39).” It is useful here to make explicit the constituents of the act of interroga tion. First, interrogation presupposes that whatever discourse may have preceded it is somehow unfinished. Second, in its usual, routine occurrences, interrogation takes place through positing some distinct elements or entities. This feature of interrogation is at the root of the truism that the question already contains the answer within itself. Third, interrogation itself responds to something encountered as at least partially opaque to the interrogator. Thus the question itself, and not merely the answer, has the character of a response. Fourth, though interrogation involves initiative on the part of the interrogator, as responsive it also involves his dependence upon or belonging to that which elicits his response. Fifth, interrogation which initiates new or lively expression interrupts the inertial “et cetera” of some previously es tablished stream of expression. Reflection on these characteristics of interrogation reveals that the very sense of interrogation requires that it be constituted by both silence and expression. Given the pervasive intercalation of silence and expression in all of its modes and types, and given that man is the unitary totality whose es sential moments are perception, thought, expression, and action, then there is substantial warrant for Merleau-Ponty’s insistence that the interrogative is not a form of either negation or affirmation. It is in no way derived from the indicative. Rather, it is that basic way of aiming at something which cannot be exhaustively satisfied by any statement or answer. For MerleauPonty, man not only manifests this sort of interrogation in all of his expres sion, man is such an interrogation. Man as interrogator does not engender his interrogation ex nihilo. It springs from and responds to desire, especially, but not exclusively, the desire to share with other people. Once I see another who sees, “movement, touch, vision, applying themselves to the other and to themselves, return toward their source and, in the patient and silent labor of desire, begin the paradox of expression (VI, 144).”17 To make fully explicit the motivated, responsive character of interroga tion, I would like to propose here an amendment to Merleau-Ponty’s ac count. Though his position can readily accommodate this amendment, it is non-trivial. I suggest that in those manifestations of interrogation which inaugurate new discourse, there is an essential constituent which can be

Philosophy o f Language and Political Thougfit

31

called the exclamatory.1® The exclamatory springs from an encounter with the surprising, the intruding. The exclamatory as such neither posits nor achieves anything. Like interrogation, the exclamatory involves both expres sion and silence. In questioning, however, expression is mature. In exclama tion, expression is primitive and fresh. In the exclamatory, man does not yet instigate an inquiry. Rather he hears a call to which it makes sense to re spond. This hearing exclamation is indeed responsive but it has not yet forg ed its own response. My amendment does not assert that the exclamatory is more fundamen tal than the interrogatory. Rather it understands the fundamental interroga tive itself to be exclamatory. Merleau-Ponty comes close to saying precisely this in his essay “The Metaphysical in Man,” in Sense and Non-Sense: From the moment I recognize that my experience, precisely insofar as it is my own, makes me accessible to what is not myself, that I am sensitive to the world and to others, all the beings which objective thought placed at a distance draw singularly nearer to me. Or, con versely, I recognize my affinity with them; I am nothing but an ability to echo them, to understand them, to respond to them (SNS, 94). But even if my amendment is left aside, Merleau-Ponty’s claims concern ing fundamental interrogation find corroboration from the pervasive inter calation between silence and discursive expression. As I noted above, si lence, motivated by finitude and awe, interrupts “et ceteras.” It interrupts the non-expressive desire to open the way for expression. But expression is not all of a piece. The “et ceteras” of each kind of expression must also be interrupted for the exploration, the interrogation, to proceed. As my analysis of silence would imply, these interruptions are not performed in an effort to achieve a final, determinate object of any sort. Rather they serve to establish and maintain an oscillation among the zones of expression and those of nonexpressive experience. Within and through the oscillation which charac terizes the multiple facets of interrogation, the full sense of intersubjectivity, first encountered in desire, is elucidated. What I have said thus far is sufficient to substantiate one part of my principal thesis, namely that the phenomenon of silence provides evidence for some of Merleau-Ponty’s claims concerning discursive expression. I turn

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now to the second part of my thesis which claims that the same thing holds true for his principal claims concerning political action. IV Just as Merleau-Ponty denies the possibility of pure thought and com plete discursive expression, so he explicitly denies the possibility of pure action, perfect moments, and permanent revolutions. These denials, found both in Humanism and Terror and in Adventures o f the Dialectic19 form the basis of his positive insights concerning the structure of genuine political action. Much political conduct, of course, consists of discourse. And there is no political action which is radically divorced from discourse. Violence unmediated by discourse is not political action. But not all of political action is reducible to discourse, even though all political action is expressive. What I am concerned with here is this non-discursive expressivity ingredient in political action. This kind of expressivity, like discursive expressivity, cannot sensibly aspire to purity or perfection. Action indeed involves initiative but is it always an initiative whose out come is not completely determined by the initiator. In this sense there is no pure action. One the one hand, all political action both creates civilization and opportunities for community and at the same time encroaches upon one’s fellow men. There is an important sense in which law, the instrument of peace and order, is intrinsically violent.20 On the other hand, courage and sacrifice are not radically separable from masochism and the death instinct.21 Merleau-Ponty concludes: But what if our actions were neither necessary in the sense of natural necessity nor free in the sense of decision ex nihilol In particular, what if in the social order no one were innocent and no one ab solutely guilty? What if it were the very essence of history to impute to us responsibilities which are never entirely ours? What if all free dom is a decision in a situation which is not chosen but assumed all the same? We would then be in the painful situation of never being able to condemn with good conscience, although it is inevitable that we exercise condemnation (HT, 166-167).


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All actions, even war, have a symbolic component and no action can /■laim as its own all that transpires after it. Pure action is, for the most part, a myth.22 Pure action is either suicide or murder. “Generally, it is an imagi nary (and not, as Sartre believes, an ideal) action (AD, 118).” It follows from the denial of the possibility of pure action that there are neither perfect moments nor permanent revolutions. Though Merleau-Ponty does not expressly draw these conclusions in Humanism and Terror, and though he does claim there that Marxism as a critique of the present world and alternative humanisms, cannot be surpassed, nonetheless, his recognition that history has sundered the Marxist synthesis of humanism and collective production and there is no test moment for the claims of either the later Hegel or the young Marx23 points in the direction of these conclusions. In Adventures o f the Dialectic, however, these conclusions are explicitly ac knowledged. There he points out the impossibility of the idea of permanent revolution. This idea, which Merleau-Ponty finds at work in Trotsky and Sartre among others, is, like pure action, a myth.24 Revolutions which suc ceed must degenerate when they become regimes. They “are true as move ments and false as regimes (AD, 207).” Perfect moments in political conduct would be those in which constraint is unnecessary. It may be that there are privileged moments in which con straint is minimal. But these moments can neither last nor be reproduced at will. And even in these moments the traces of constraint which remain her ald the institutions of coercion which necessarily follow.25 This is not to deny that there are indeed privileged moments. But it is to deny these moments are absolutely privileged. Again, the denial of the possibility of pure action, perfect moments, and permanent revolutions is not the admission of a fatal flaw. Rather it is the acknowledgment of the actual conditions which make human political achievement possible. As Merleau-Ponty concludes in Humanism and Terror. The human world is an open or unfinished system and the same radical contingency which threatens it with discord also rescues it from the inevitability of disorder and prevents us from despairing of it, providing only that one remembers its various machineries are actually men and tries to maintain and expand man’s relations to man (HT, 188).

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The ineluctable intercalation of silence and expression forestalls the possibility of pure action, perfect moments, or permanent revolutions. There can be no pure silence, no pure interruption. Nor can there be pure expres sion. The finitude and awe which motivate the interruptions effected by silence do not merely prevent the achievement of some ideal condition. They rather reveal that the ideals of purity and completeness are idols if they are taken to be immutable and absolute. Again, Merleau-Ponty’s denial of pure action, perfect moments, and permanent revolutions opens the way for substantial positive claims concern ing political conduct. I wish to look at these and note their connection with silence. The first claim concerns political freedom, a liberty which is inherently finite. Liberty, Merleau-Ponty says, has to be made in a world which is not predestined to it.26 Liberty is to be made. But it is not made against the world. Rather the world is its necessary context. No politics simply accepts events. No politics “renounces the right of posing the problem in a different way than it is posed in the moment .... A politics which would lack any re course against the factual situation and its dilemmas would not be a living politics (AD, 104).” But this does not imply detachment from situations. To the contrary, political conduct is effective and true only if the led ratify the deeds of the leader. And there is no one who is either exclusively leader or exclusively led.27 What provides for the tension between the situation and the deed on the one hand and the tension between the leaders and the led on the other is the silence which establishes and maintains the oscillation within levels of discursive expression, between discursive expression and political conduct, and between the zones of expression and non-expressive experience. In and through the intercalation of silence and expression the complex sense of intersubjectivity can unfold. In fact, freedoms interfere with and require one another. No man “by himself is subject nor is he free (AD, 205).” The next claim of Merleau-Ponty’s which I wish to mention here is close ly tied to the ones concerning political liberty. It has to do with political commitment. For genuine commitment, one commits himself to learn con tinually more about that to which he commits himself. The motto of this kind of conduct is Clarum per obscurius. (The clear through the more ob scure.) If I am to go beyond the structured situation into which I have been born, “it is not by deciding to give my life this or that meaning; rather, it is


35

by attempting simply to live what is offered me, without playing tricks with the logic of the enterprise, without enclosing it beforehand inside the limits of a premeditated meaning (AD, 197).” Commitment, then, requires heark ening as well as initiating. It requires silence as well as positive expression. Most fundamentally, for Merleau-Ponty, the standard against which poli tical conduct is to be measured is whether it acknowledges and sustains the interrogative dialectic which alone allows history, if not to achieve truths, at least to slough off errors. Dialectical praxis, like dialectical thought, extracts from each situation and event a truth which goes beyond it. History is, then, a permanent, open interrogation.28 Already in Humanism and Terror, M er leau-Ponty recognizes the danger of the dialectic collapsing into a non-dialectical positivism.29 His justification in Adventures o f the Dialectic for a non communist left is precisely that it would keep open dialectical interrogation, keep open self-criticism.30 It is by virtue of the power of interrupting, the power of not doing, that both the sheer fiat and the representation of some ideal terminus or goal of action disappear.31 The living interrogatory dialec tic is the manifestation of their absence. The characteristics of the phenomenon of silence which I identified above clearly require and provide evidence for something like the interrogato ry dialectical political action called for by Merleau-Ponty. Political action is always conduct with others. As such it requires and is made possible by the silence of yielding to others as well as by the initiating expression. This conduct is neither rootless nor directed to an already determinate goal. In its pursuits it is restrained and awaits confirmation from beyond itself. This conduct, as perpetually interrogatory and self-critical, interrupts any “et ce tera” which would reduce the dialectic to positivism or mechanism. It is silence, motivated as it is by finitude and awe, which requires and makes possible political action of this sort. And the oscillation which silence main tains among kinds of expression and between the expressive and the nonexpressive makes possible the continued revitalization of this dialectical ac tion. Thus, as the second part of my main thesis asserts, the phenomenon of silence, when properly thematized, both requires and provides evidence for some of Merleau-Ponty’s principal insights into political action. My argument in this paper has not tried to establish that the claims of Merleau-Ponty discussed here are precisely the unique claims which atten tion to the phenomenon of silence requires and substantiates. It is of the very sense of silence that it could not establish any such exorbitant claim.

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But my argument has shown that Merleau-Ponty was alert to the phenome non of silence and that, even though he did not treat it thematically, it in fused and sustained some of his fundamental claims concerning both discur sive expression and political action. Thus, the phenomenon of silence pro vides a central link between these two major strands of Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy.

Merleau-Ponty’s Political Thought: Its Nature and Its Challenge

In the preface to Signs, Maurice Merleau-Ponty explicitly directs us to think history according to the model of langage (parlance) or of being. We are, he says, “in the field of history as in the field of parlance or of being.”1 That is, we are born into history as we are born into both parlance and per ceptual being. These fields are neither chaotic nor fully determinate. Rather they all both manifest previously established structures and at the same time provide the resources and opportunities required for us to make our own distinctive contributions. Less explicitly but nonetheless clearly Merleau-Ponty also thinks politics according to this same pattern. This is indicated by the regularity with which his remarks on politics are connected with a discussion of history. In this paper I want to show just how this pattern is at play in his political thought. The politics that emerges from such an approach is properly characterizable as a politics of hope. Such a politics is, to be sure, subject to substantial challenges. But a politics of hope also provides a striking alternative to some prevailing approaches to politics. The last remarks of this paper will try to sketch the major lines of the challenges that a politics of hope both poses and is subject to. I Politics is a special case of both history and parlance.2 Like both, politics is constituted in its actuality by an agency that is always situated. On the one hand, though Merleau-Ponty does not, to my knowledge, say so explicitly, the

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specific character of concrete political situations consists of the particular intertwining of men and things that obtains at some juncture of time and geography. On the other hand, political agency is the endeavor to preserve or modify directly the prevailing shape of the intertwining. That is, whereas productive industry works on the intertwining through working on things and thought works on the intertwining through working on men, politics works on both men and things through working on their intertwining. To be more specific about the consequences of thinking politics as a special case of both history and parlance, let me detail how the central ele ments of Merleau-Ponty’s political thought are structurally comparable to the principal features of parlance that Merleau-Ponty appropriated from Saussurean linguistics. These features are: (1) the distinction between langue (language) and parole (speech), (2) the distinction between the synchronic and the diachronic dimensions of language, and (3) the essentially intersubjective character of all parlance.3 Consider first the political counterpart of the distinction between lan guage and speech. Just as no speech can be articulated apart from the back ground of the language in which it is uttered, so no political accomplishment can be achieved apart from the previously established background of “things” and institutions. The things in question here are not, of course, mere things. They are things recognized as available or unavailable material or cultural resources. That is, they are institutionalized things. Thus, there can be no genuine political enterprises today that ignore the presence or absence of such cultural resources as the prevailing legal, educational, and religious institutions. Nor can the relative availability of material resources such as oil, grain, cobalt, or copper be overlooked. And the same holds good for both the level of technology and industry and the quantity, quality, and dis tribution of military might. All these elements, and more, enter into the constitution of the political language that both makes possible and constrains the political speech. Any putative political initiative that pretends that the specific background whence it arises is irrelevant is mere babble. But just as language neither dictates nor necessitates some specific speech, so neither does the political situation decree or necessitate a specific political undertaking. No living politics simply acquiesces in the factual situa tion as it finds it. Every politics, Merleau-Ponty says, insists upon its right to alter the way in which its tasks and problems are posed.4 Indeed, this altera

39

Merleau-Ponty’s Political Thougfit

tion is not merely a right that a politician may exercise at his discretion. The transformation of the situation is constitutive of politics itself. Precisely what Merleau-Ponty praises in Machiavelli is the latter’s recog nition that we need never be mere victims of fortuna, of some given political situation. Political action consists in a grasp of the concrete possibilities that the situation presents coupled with a bold effort to actualize them.5 Thus, genuine politics requires not merely the acknowledgement of the weight of the determinate political situation, the language in which one finds oneself located, but also the risky endeavor to transform that situation, to revivify it by the exercise of virtu, the uttering of the new speech. Nothing, of course, guarantees ahead of time that the new political en deavor will either succeed or be appropriate. Even if, as the Marxists have it, men make their own history, still they often do not and cannot know the history they are making.6 In Merleau-Ponty’s words, “If everything counts in history we can no longer say as Marxists do that in the last analysis historical logic always finds its ways, that it alone has a decisive role, and that it is the truth of history.”7 For one thing there is no last analysis. For another, con tingency and not merely logic is ineliminable from human affairs. Political situation and political initiative, then, like language and speech, belong together. Each has its sens, its meaning and direction, only by reason of its reference to the other. II The ramifications of thinking politics according to the language-speech model become clearer when one takes note of the counterpart in MerleauPonty’s political thought to the Saussurean distinction between the synchronic and the diachronic dimensions of language. Here I want to call particular attention to one feature of Merleau-Ponty’s political thought that emphasizes the synchronic dimension of the political situation and two features that emphasize the diachronic dimension. First, the synchronic feature. For Merleau-Ponty it makes no sense to attempt to divide the elements of the political situation into unqualified blessings and unmitigated curses. As is the case with language, in political situations there are no elements that have full sense apart from the context in which they are located. Every element of the political situation is simply

40


a component of a whole. None is self-subsisting with an independent posi tive meaning. Any responsible political initiative, like any speech, must ac knowledge the irreducible complexity of the context against which it arises. Responsible initiative must avoid what Merleau-Ponty calls, in a somewhat different setting, the cops and con-men conception of history and politics.8 Thus, for example, capitalism cannot be regarded as unmitigated evil nor does Soviet Communism deserve simplistic, virulent denunciations. Each has its meaning in function of the other.9 The diachronic features of Merleau-Ponty’s political thought, however, introduce subtle but substantial modifications into this conclusion. First, however systematically intertwined the elements of the political situation may be, none of them is so definitively fixed in its meaning and bearing that it preserves some identical sense regardless of all temporal considerations.10 This fact is, of course, a necessary condition for any political initiative. But more to the present point, this fact requires that political initiative not at tempt either to reverse history or to annihilate the effective weight of any thing brought by history to the present situation. Such attempts would be to plan for an imagined world that can no longer exist. For example, Western men and Third World peoples have already come into contact with one another. Even though the terms of this context have been nothing for either side to boast about, that is no sufficient reason for either side to try to withdraw and perhaps start afresh. It makes no sense to consider this contact simply evil. And, as Merleau-Ponty puts it, “In any case, it is something settled; there can be no question of recreating archaism; we are all embarked and it is no small matter to have begun this game.”11 But, of course, as Merleau-Ponty makes clear in his essay on Indochina, this does not mean that a failed specific policy must be clung to simply because it has been the policy.12 But no one can guarantee that an initiative which acknowledges both the synchrony of the elements in the political situation and the uniqueness of the temporal movement that each of the elements inhabits will succeed and be preserved intact as part of a new situation, a new political language. This is a second diachronic feature. All shifts in the situation are indeed brought about by external influence, here specific initiatives. But the outcome of these influences is always not only particular but also in some measure un predictable. What Merleau-Ponty says of history is likewise applicable to politics. Politics “works on a question that is confusedly posed and is not

41

Merleau-Ponty’s Political Thought

sheltered from regressions and setbacks.”13 As a consequence neither a science nor an intuition can prescribe an undertaking whose outcome can be guaranteed. This fact disappoints those who believe in a definitive salvation and a single means to salvation.14 But his fact does not make initiative ab surd. To the contrary, it calls for unending initiative, virtu without resigna tion of any sort. At least two other significant aspects of Merleau-Ponty’s political thought can be seen to be entailed by the necessity of considering the political situa tion both synchronically and diachronically. First, Merleau-Ponty recognizes that all political initiative that is efficacious must be timely. Though there is no ideal or perfect moment for initiating some specific action, there are timely and untimely ones. What once could have been a solution to a prob lem ceases to be one. Or a problem that once had a likely solution no long er does but may in the future again do so. From another standpoint a par ticular agent’s capacities to engender solutions can both wax and wane. And do what one may, neither the appropriateness of the solution nor its timeli ness can be guaranteed in advance.13 Second, and of major importance for Merleau-Ponty, the consideration of both the diachronic and the synchronic dimensions of the political situa tion leads to a distinctive view of the institutions that men inhabit. Institu tions, he insists, are not inert. With Marx, Merleau-Ponty holds that there is a coming-to-be of meaning in institutions.16 Sartre notwithstanding, institu tions, as social apparatuses, are human and cannot be set over against man as something less than human.17 Rather, institutions endow our experiences with durable dimensions and allow them to form a history. At the same time, they invite us to further experience and thus make possible a future.18 Indeed, far from regarding institutions as obstacles to freedom and political creativity, Merleau-Ponty maintains that one of the most crucial political tasks for our era is “to find institutions which implant this practice of freedom in our customs.”19 Ill When one considers parlance in a Saussurean fashion, one realizes that parlance necessarily involves a historical community of speakers. There is no isolated individual speech.20 All parlance is intersubjective. Genuinely to speak is also to hear.21

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This feature of parlance, too, has its structural counterpart in politics. All politics, whether domestic or international, is necessarily intersubjective: political leaders and the people they lead are ordained to one another. They meet and address each other by virtue of the interworld constituted by in stitutions and the cultural and material resources that the institutions pro vide. No one, Merleau-Ponty says, either commands or obeys absolutely.22 When one attends to the fact that political activity is not only intersub jective but also embedded in some unique situation that involves institutions, one realizes that politics is essentially dialectical. This dialectic, of course, neither moves toward some pre-established terminus nor does it subsume everything under itself. Contingency is never banished from it.23 As is true of all history, in politics there is no immunity from error. The rational al ways remains to be imagined and created. Politics never gains the power of simply replacing the false with the true.24 One consequence of the open dialectic that genuine politics is is that it is always appropriate to consider complicating or altering the terms of the prevailing dialectic precisely to further the dialectic. Thus, it made sense for Merleau-Ponty to promote a new left force that would transform the inter changes between the United States and the Soviet Union by becoming a full participant in the expanded dialectic.25 Further, because politics involves an open dialectic, genuine politics re quires forebearance. It necessarily takes people as they are, with their preju dices, notions, and so forth.26 This forebearance is not a matter of strategy. It is required because no agent can be a pure presence either to itself or to some object.27 No one alone can possess the truth either about him- or herself or about the world. Dialectical politics thus demands an opposition that is free. Truth and action can never come together, Merleau-Ponty says, “if there are not, along with those who act, those who observe them, who confront them with the truth of their action, and who can aspire to replace them in power.”28 These and similar considerations lead Merleau-Ponty to his well-known endorse ment of parliaments. Whatever its limitations, and clearly it has limitations, parliament is the significant institution, a proven element in the political situation, against which fresh, free, and living political initiative, political speech, can stand forth. “Parliament,” according to Merleau-Ponty, “is the only known institution that guarantees a minimum of opposition and truth.”29


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It likewise preserves the opposition needed to insure an intersubjectivity worthy of the name. However forebearing and dialectical politics may be, it still involves the amassing and wielding of power. There can be no effective freedom, the freedom necessary for dialectical politics, without power.30 Those who amass this power do so without the benefit of some unimpeachable prior title to it. Their power can only find its legitimation in their exercise of it.31 In wielding power one necessarily impinges upon others. But political abstention is no solution. It simply yields the initiative to others. Merleau-Ponty therefore concludes, “I would rather be a part of a country which does something in history than of a country which submits to it.”32 Unless people risk the revi talizing “speech” of political initiative, the institutions from which they have drawn their sustenance will either ossify or grant their opportunities to oth ers, others who will be left without the benefit of appropriate opposition. What I have said thus far about politics, on the basis of thinking it ac cording to the model of parlances, takes on another dimension when one attends to the fact that there is no universal parlance. There is only a multi plicity of parlances that undergo translation into one another. Similarly there is no universal politics. There are only multiple concrete politics. Different times and lands have different institutions and stocks of cultural and material resources. These differences call for and make possible different initiatives. It is idle to weigh situations against some abstract standard. Situations are to be lived through, not judged from some putatively independent spectator’s vantage point.33 But even if the appropriate political initiative, the concrete political speech, is always geared to a specific, more or less local, situation, MerleauPonty holds that today all responsible politics must be resolutely internation al. “The main concern of our time is going to be to reconcile the old world and the new.”34 This intertwining of the local and the global is not the achieving of a teleologically ordained ideal. It is simply a contingent fact of our era. But today it is a fact of consummate importance. These two considerations, namely that there is no single universal politics but that today responsible politics must be international, are summarized by Merleau-Ponty in this way: There is no universal clock, but local histories take form beneath our eyes, and begin to regulate themselves, and haltingly link themselves

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Elements o f Responsible Politics to one another and demand to live, and confirm the powerful in the wisdom which the immensity of the risks and the consciousness of their own disorder had given them. The world is more present to itself in all its parts than it ever was.35

Politics, like parlance, then, is not a seamless, stable whole. Rather it is a vibrating, moving complex. IV When politics is thought according to the model of parlance, the charac ter of political judgment must be thought in a distinctive way. Merleau-Pon ty has made this explicit. He says: Political and historical judgment will perhaps never be objective; it will always be a bastard judgment. But precisely for this reason it escapes morality as well as pure science. It is of the category of action, which makes for continual oscillation between morality and science.36 Political judgment, that is, is not to be identified with the sort of moral judg ment that would spring from some Kantianesque categorical imperative adopted without regard for material circumstances. Political judgment does not pretend to have the sort of autonomy that moral judgment of this kind must presuppose. On the other hand, political judgment is no mere ac knowledgment of some already established state of affairs and the conse quences derivable therefrom. Unlike scientific judgments, political judg ments are neither mere predictions nor mere retrodictions. They are inven tive. They issue in actions that modify the prevailing state of affairs. This distinctive character of political judgments makes sense, Merleau-Ponty maintains, because the world to which they refer is dense and mobile and not, as Sartre would have it, opaque and rigid 37 But even if politics is not reducible to morality, it is nonetheless not contrary to morality. In fact, there must be a positive relationship between them.38 Granted that values and principles are insufficient for genuine poli tics, they are nonetheless necessary. There must be, Merleau-Ponty recog nizes, a guideline to distinguish between political virtu, the excellence in

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acquiring and wielding power to make the most of the opportunities provi ded by fortuna, and political opportunism, the make-shift accommodation to prevailing pressures aiming merely at survival.39 For Merleau-Ponty, I think, this guideline consists in making the preser vation and extension of the dialectic the overarching objective of all political initiatives. Political judgments, for all their regard for the situation to which they are inextricably linked, must all issue in action that has this as its ul timate objective. This guideline warrants Merleau-Ponty’s conclusion that reform, far from being outmoded, “alone is the order of the day.”40 This conclusion in turn provides the basis for Merleau-Ponty’s support for parliamentarianism as the best candidate for that form or institution that can keep power in reins without annulling it. In brief, then, political judgment inhabits an interworld. It draws upon and oscillates between imperatives of will and acknowledgment of facts. Thus, on the one hand, it itself has structural features like those of parlance. On the other hand, the specific content of genuine political judgments re veals that they refer to a world that is appropriately thought according to the model of parlance. Before I attempt to assess the results of Merleau-Ponty’s thought about politics, it is worth noticing that his approach to both politics and parlance is simply an application of his general philosophical position to these two do mains. Or from another standpoint the ways in which Merleau-Ponty han dles the topics of politics, history, and parlance are the ways in which he handles all philosophical topics. He says: It is true that in the last resort there is no judge, that I do not think according to the true alone, nor according to myself alone, nor ac cording to the other alone, because each of the three has need of the other two and it would be a non-sense to sacrifice any one. A phil osophical life always bases itself on these three cardinal points. The enigma of philosophy (and of expression) is that sometimes life is the same to oneself, to others, and to the true. These are the moments which justify it. The philosopher counts only on them. He will never accept to will himself against men, nor to will men against himself, nor against the true, nor the true against them.41


46 V

Let me now turn to an assessment of the consequences of Merleau-Pon ty’s thinking politics according to the model of parlance. As a first step, I want to show that this way of thinking politics yields what can appropriately be called a politics of hope. Then I want to raise the issue of whether a politics of hope, as an alternative to other kinds of politics, is an acceptable basis for political conduct. In calling Merleau-Ponty’s politics a politics of hope, I am using the term ‘hope’ in a sense much like that developed by Gabriel Marcel in his essay, “Sketch of a Phenomenology and a Metaphysic of Hope.”42 Hope, Marcel points out, has no antecedently determinate object, no ultimate accomplish ment or state of affairs that would terminate it. Hope involves, rather, an abiding union of persons. Its proper formulation is: I hope in you for us.43 Further, Marcel holds, hope always implies a connection between a return and something completely new. Preservation or restoration, on the one hand, and renewal on the other, are two aspects of one and the same unitary movement. What hope aspires to, according to Marcel, is the paradoxical “as before, but differently and better than before.”44 Merleau-Ponty’s poli tics, I suggest, both rests upon this sort of hope and aims at having as many people as possible embrace this hope. It is a politics whose ultimate aim is to free as many people as possible to take part in a dialectic that has no terminus.45 The sense of the hope that inspires Merleau-Ponty’s politics takes clearer shape when it is contrasted with attitudes contrary to hope. First, hope is opposed both to fideism and to sheer voluntarism. These are two vices that have shown up rather often in both Communist and capitalist practice. Both of them, at times, have dogmatically taken their own principles and insights to be exhaustive of political wisdom, disregarding in the process available evidence to the contrary. At other times both of them have pursued policies recognizably inconsistent with their own principles simply for the advantage of those amassing and wielding power. The former vice is tantamount to fanaticism, the latter to cynicism. By contrast, a politics of hope preserves and protects opposition to itself. Without opposition the dialectic that constitutes politics would be truncated, in effect terminating politics. Without such opposition there would be no you in whom I could hope for us. But with opposition both criticism and

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self-criticism can flourish. And criticism is a sine qua non if errors are to be sloughed off. Second, a politics of hope avoids the twin pitfalls of presumption and despair. It avoids presumption by keeping constantly in mind that its own policies and principles need defense. The mere communication of its own position is not sufficient to ensure its acceptance. Its opponents do not sim ply need to be enlightened. They must be coerced into accepting the prac titioners of hope as fellow actors on the political scene. Even a politics of hope cannot afford to eschew all violence. A politics of hope, then, avoids the smug presumptuousness of merely enunciating high-sounding sentiments, a pose which lacks all seriousness. On the other hand, a politics of hope never yields to the temptation to deny freedom. It never despairs. Even if the specific circumstances in which one lives at present do not furnish a basis for initiative, the practitioner of hope waits expectantly for changes in that situation that will allow him room for action. No situation is ever accepted as definitely foreclosing the pos sibility of exercising virtu. Similarly, the practitioner of hope never consigns an opponent to the ranks of the perpetual enemy. Today’s opponent may become tomorrow’s ally. A politics of hope, then, rises above both the trivia lizing of the differences among men and the absolutizing of any specific set of those differences.46 In avoiding both presumption and despair, a politics of hope reveals the essential role that forgiveness occupies in its makeup. What Merleau-Ponty says about Claudel is applicable to his own standards for responsible political conduct. Claudel, Merleau-Ponty says, forgives readily after the deed, even though he lays stringent requirements on both the prospective conduct and the actual prosecution of the deed.47 Because of the contingency and am biguity of all human enterprises, Merleau-Ponty saw, this forgiveness is ex tended not only to others but also to oneself. If one is to pursue a politics of hope, one must not exempt oneself from the ranks of those who need pardon for their deeds. But a central question remains. Is a politics of hope an acceptable basis for political conduct? I will limit my response here to preliminary remarks concerning how politics of this sort would fare when confronted with two tests. Merleau-Ponty himself recognized that a defensible political doctrine must satisfy these tests. First, does Merleau-Ponty’s politics of hope, unlike the politics of Machiavelli for example, possess a sufficiently strong guideline

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for distinguishing between political virtu and mere opportunism? Is it enough to say that a politics is justified if it tends to preserve and extend the dialectic, if it tends to promote reform rather than either revolution or the status quo? At first, it might appear that this is too permissive a standard, that it permits too much. But I think that this appearance is deceptive. Given Merleau-Ponty’s view of the dialectic in question here, this guideline turns out to be stringent. To satisfy this guideline, the policy or deed in question should in principle be recognizable to everyone as something that each person or state could rationally endorse being carried out by someone, even if not by oneself. If I am correct about this matter, then Merleau-Pont / s guideline is hardly too lax. If anything, it could be challenged as being so rigorous that it cannot in practice be observed. On my reading, MerleauPonty’s position does not fall victim to the same fault from which Machiavelli’s politics suffered. It might, however, fall victim to the opposite fault, the fault of legitimating too little instead of too much.48 This possibility leads to a consideration of a second test proposed by Merleau-Ponty. Can a politics of hope successfully compete against other types of politics? Though success is not a sufficient condition for justifying a politics, it is, for Merleau-Ponty, a necessary one.49 The praxis endorsed by Merleau-Ponty must, if it cannot be true, at least not be false.50 Failure can threaten a politics of hope from two directions. From within, political agents who adopt the delicate posture of a politics of hope may lose their footing and collapse into the less demanding positions of complete or attenuated fideism, voluntarism, presumption, or despair. Given the evi dence of history, can it be prudently expected that enough people with enough power will risk adopting a politics of hope so that such a politics has a reasonable prospect of success? To defend Merleau-Ponty’s position, one would have to hold that the evidence of history, mixed as it is, when coupled with the new possibilities of global interaction does have such a prospect. Indeed it may be, and I am inclined to think that it is the case, that in the novel circumstances that constitute our age, to risk a politics of hope may be a far slighter risk than is the risk involved in lapsing into any of the available alternatives. A politics of hope can also be threatened with failure from without. How will the practitioners of such a politics fare when confronted with prac titioners of competing alternatives? To mention only one aspect of this problem, will not the criticism, from both self and others, to which a politics


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of hope is resolutely and unremittingly committed, so weaken it in the execu tion of its politics that it cannot withstand assaults from fideists or volun tarists? No firm rejoinder can be made to this challenge. The available historical evidence that supports the practical wisdom of living a politics of hope is far from conclusive. But it is not trivial. Consider, for example, the widespread and long-standing penchant for federations, leagues, compacts, and so forth. And there is reason to say that both some Marxists and some capitalists, in phases of their political conduct that have won approval from diverse quart ers, have been practicing a politics of hope under another title. At the least, this evidence is strong enough to permit one to claim that a politics of hope is not fatuous, that it has not already been refuted by history. The conclusion, then, to which I am led is that Merleau-Ponty’s politics of hope does not satisfy beyond all plausible questioning his own tests for a legitimate politics, a politics that both preserves and extends the dialectic. But the presently available political alternatives can only pass these tests at the expense of abandoning this dialectic. If these tests and this objective are appropriate, and I take it that they are, the failure of its competitors is rea son enough for adopting a politics of hope. In fact, one would probably be mistaken if one looked for a stronger conclusion, for politics, like history, has only errors to be avoided. The truth of politics, as Merleau-Ponty pointed out, consists in nothing but the “art of inventing what will later appear to have been required by the times.”51

Merleau-Ponty on Politics, Histoiy, and Violence

Merleau-Ponty’s political philosophy readily lends itself to division into two main periods. The first, Marxian, period began in 1944 and ended in mid 1950. The second, post-Marxian or “liberal,” period began in mid 1950 and lasted until his death in 1961. In his recent book, Merleau-Ponty and the Foundation o f an Existential Politics, Kerry Whiteside argues that in his later period Merleau-Ponty pur chased increased philosophical consistency at the cost of some “political percipience.” For Whiteside, Merleau-Ponty’s later political thought no longer conveyed the belief “that there was something vitally important that could yet be achieved in politics.”1 The loss of this belief, Whiteside con tends, was a consequence of Merleau-Ponty’s having adopted a Saussurean philosophy of history according to which history’s meaning can be deter mined only retrospectively. But, as Merleau-Ponty himself had recognized in his earlier period, successful political action requires a mode of thought that, at a mini mum, grasps the unique nature of human freedom and violence. At a higher level political thinking becomes a philosophy o f history, since successful action requires grasping the probable direction o f cultural development.2 In this paper I want to present reasons for rejecting Whiteside’s judg ment on the relative inferiority of the second period of Merleau-Ponty’s political philosophy to the first. His later period, I claim, more faithfully reflects his appreciation of the finitude, historicality, and intersubjectivity of the human condition. In doing so, it articulates a more responsible politics.3


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To make my case, I will concentrate on the topics of history and vio lence, topics to which Whiteside rightly gives extensive attention. To them I will add the topic of history’s “vehicle” or “leading thread,” its vanguard. After showing how Merleau-Ponty handles these matters in each period of his political thought, I will give reasons for holding that the later political position is superior to the former. It will be helpful, before I begin my argument proper, for me to specify just what violence, in the context of Merleau-Ponty’s thought, consists in. The violence in question through both periods is the organized, more or less systematic, effort of one group of people either to prevent members of an other group from actualizing possibilities available to them or to eliminate at least some of those possibilities. This effort is governed by rules and jus tified by some rationale. In short, it is institutionalized somehow. This ef fort may be direct, as it is when physical force or psychological pressure is directed against specific targets. Or it may be mediated, as it is when rules or social arrangements are established or maintained which lead to the re pression of the targeted persons or groups.4 I

During the first period of his political thought, Merleau-Ponty is une quivocal about the ineliminability of violence. Drawing on Hegel’s Phenome nology, he holds that, by reason of the human condition itself, history is es sentially a struggle. History does not just happen. It has to be made, and made through violence.5 When confronted with the issue of revolutionary violence we cannot fall back upon “the principle of absolute nonviolence which ultimately rests on the [untenable] idea of a world that is well and tmly made” (HT, 87). Because we are incarnate beings, we impinge upon one another. We are necessarily involved in struggle with others. Violence is thus our lot. All regimes originate and persist in violence. Thus our choice is not between purity and violence but only between different kinds of vio lence (HT,109). But “he who condemns all violence puts himself outside the domain to which justice and injustice belong. He puts a curse upon the world and h u m a n i t y (H T , 1 1 0 ).” Just because violence is inevitable, it does not follow that the differences among kinds of violence are negligible. Revolutionary Marxism wagers that the violence it perpetrates in its struggles against bour

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geois society is superior to the violence inscribed within the structure of that society because it can lead to a future in which humanism can flourish.6 The Marxist does not, Merleau-Ponty emphasizes, justify his violence by affirming a future that is necessarily better. Rather, the Marxist’s wager is based on “a judgment of the present as contradictory and intolerable (HT, 105).” With the Marxist, then, Merleau-Ponty distinguishes “progressive” vio lence from “regressive” violence. Violence is progressive if it tends toward its own supersession, if it tends to diminish either the intensity or the extent of subsequent violence. It is regressive if it tends toward self-perpetuation or, worse, exacerbation (HT, 1). Thus the essential task for Marxism— and, Merleau-Ponty clearly implies, for any responsible politics- is to find a vio lence which is progressive, a violence which recedes with the approach of man’s future. This is what Marx be lieved he had found in proletarian violence, namely, the power of that class of men who, because they are expropriated in present so ciety from their country, their labor, and their very life, are capable of recognizing one another aside from all differences, and thus of founding humanity. Cunning, deception, bloodshed, and dictatorship are justified if they bring the proletariat into power and to that extent alone (HT, xviii-xix). But Merleau-Ponty explicitly acknowledged that this “approach of man’s future,” a future to be brought about by progressive violence, was by no means guaranteed. There is no sure method, no science, by which to insure either that one’s violence will certainly be progressive or that “man’s future” will ever come into being. In his words: “Even if we assume that there is, strictly speaking, a science of the past, no one has ever held that there was a science of the future, and the Marxists are the last ones to do so (HT, 55).” There can be no science of the future because no theoretical schemas can foretell either the occurrence or the character of human interventions (HT, 89). Thus there is not only uncertainty about the future but also a certain ambiguity about the past and its meaning. As we consider what is to be done in the future on the basis of what we know of the past, we must admit that all we can have is a perspective on the future, a perspective tied to our past (HT, 55). And as we consider what supposedly progressive interventions we are to make into the flow of history,

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we also have to recognize that “there is always the unforeseeable. There is tragedy (HT, xxxiii).” Indeed, Merleau-Ponty says: There is a sort of maleficence in history: it solicits men, tempts them so that they believe they are moving in its direction, and then sud denly it unmasks, and events change and prove that there was anoth er possibility (HT,40).

Nevertheless, we cannot do nothing. In history there can be no absolute neutrality (HT,39). Nor can one legitimately conclude that we can do what ever we please. Even if our view of the future and its possibilities yields no certitudes, it does provide us with likelihoods or probabilities. There are degrees of probability about the future and these are not negligible. None theless, whatever we do will necessarily involve risk (HT, 65). Helice M er leau-Ponty concludes: Since, in respect of the future, we have no other criterion than prob ability, the difference between a greater or lesser probability suffices as the basis of a political decision, but not to leave all the honor on one side and the dishonor on the other (HT, 31). Given that there can be no science of the future, that history is am biguous, that at most we can act only on the basis of probabilities or likeli hoods grasped only perspectivally, and therefore that we cannot avoid risks, what Marxism provides is an analysis of events which allows us to orient ourselves. It does so by recognizing “a leading thread (HT, 98),” namely the proletariat, which has a historical mission to bring about the advent of a universal class in which all people acknowledge one another’s humanity. “Perhaps,” Merleau-Ponty says, “a universal class will never emerge, but it is clear that no other class can replace the proletariat in this task (HT, 156).” The proletariat’s mission is historical and not providential. This means that Marxism does not claim either for the party or for the proletariat a “true vision” or a “mystical predestination” on the basis of which to justify beyond challenge the violence it perpetrates in the course of its struggle to bring about the universal class. But Marxism does privilege the proletariat because of the “internal logic of its condition .... The proletarians ‘who are

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not gods’ are the only ones in a position to realize humanity (HT, 111).” Only they can be history’s vehicle (HT, 118). It is their violence alone which has the possibility, or perhaps even the likelihood, of being progressive. In sum, Merleau-Ponty’s early position claims: (a) that there must be both violence and history; (b) that though there can be no science of either the future or history, nonetheless we must act, for there can be no neutrality, since violence is already in progress; (c) that the only reasonable bet to make violence progressive is the proletariat; (d) that since there is no alternative on the horizon, one should accept the proletariat and its struggles as a “guid ing thread” to appropriate future conduct; but (e) that nonetheless one must never forget either the counterfmality that besets human activity or history’s sometime maleficence. Or to use his own words, responsible philosophizing cannot tell us that humanity will be realized as though it possessed some knowledge apart and were not itself embarked upon ex perience, being only a more acute consciousness of it. But it awak ens us to the importance of daily events and action. For it is a phil osophy which arouses in us a love for our times which are not the simple repetition of human eternity nor merely the conclusion to premises already postulated. It is a view which like the most fragile object of perception- a soap bubble, or a w ave- or like the most simple dialogue, embraces indivisibly all the order and all the disor der of the world (HT, 188-189). II In the second period of his political philosophy, Merleau-Ponty continues to stress both the historicality and the ineradicable violence of politics. So neutrality is still not an option. And there is still a chance for violence to be progressive. But unlike his earlier position, his later position does not posit any specially privileged group of people who are history’s “leading thread” or vehicle. To admit such a privileged group would be inconsistent with the Saussurean view of history at work in this latter period. Whether, as Whiteside apparently holds, Merleau-Ponty had to abandon the notion of a vanguard group because he had adopted the Saussurean view of history (MPF, 264-265), or whether the Saussurean view became attractive

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to him once he had rejected the notion of a “leading thread” with a unique historical mission is not of great consequence. But the cumulative result of rejecting the latter and accepting the former is of considerable importance. Unlike Whiteside, for reasons I will give in Part III, I hold that this second period of Merleau-Ponty’s political philosophy makes a marked advance over his earlier period.7 But now let me recall relevant features of that second period, the period of “a ‘new liberalism’ which drew on Max Weber as much as on Marx.”8 In this second period, Merleau-Ponty finds no reason to change his ear lier view about the ineradicability of violence from politics and hence from history. Commenting on Weber, he says: “All politics is violence- even, in its own fashion, democratic politics.”9 People, in their freedom, not only need one another. They also inevitably interfere with one another. “History is the history of their dispute, which is inscribed in institutions, in civiliza tions, and in the wake of important historical actions (AD ,205).” This is true of individuals and, in politically more important ways, it is also true of clas ses. So long as there are classes there must be class struggle. But at the same time, Merleau-Ponty now challenges the notion that history has either an overarching direction or unity. This challenge bears directly upon the possibility of progressive violence. First, he rejects the Marxist notion that there is a logic to history that is in the last analysis deci sive and that discloses history’s fundamental truth. Such a notion, MerleauPonty argues, both unjustifiably disregards some persons and events and pretends that there can be some “last analysis.” But we know nothing of history’s end. Hence there can be no last analysis. And whatever logic his tory may have, it cannot eliminate radical contingency.10 Second, it is a mis take to claim that there is a single history. Rather, “there is no universal clock, but local histories take form beneath our eyes, and begin to regulate themselves, and haltingly link themselves to one another and demand to live (5, 35).” This later, more modest view of what can be gleaned from history re quires Merleau-Ponty to modify his assessment of what progressive violence might be. Violence can be progressive only in the same way that the history in which it takes place is progressive. Though he continues to admit the possibility of progressive violence, even of progressive revolutionary violence, Merleau-Ponty now insists that progress is never absolute, only relative. On the one hand, any historical


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progress is always accompanied by loss, indeed by destruction. On the other, each progressive movement, however much it succeeds, always preserves itself through institutions which never fail to endanger subsequent progress (AD, 220-221). But just because no violence can be absolutely progressive, one should not conclude “that everything is in vain and that nothing can be done: each time the struggle is different, the minimum of demandable justice rises (AD, 220).” And so, what is called for is a new liberalism. This new liberalism in no way diminishes our obligation to play active roles in politics, to seek to make the unavoidable violence in history progres sive, even if only relatively so. Already in Humanism and Terror MerleauPonty had remarked: “Only children imagine that their lives are separable from the lives of others, that their responsibility is limited to what they them selves have done (HT, 59).” Even if history, and therefore politics, “works on a question that is confusedly posed and is not sheltered from regressions and setbacks (AD, 23),” there is no basis for pretending that we are simply at the mercy of fortuna. Rather, the fact that there is no definitively salvific politics calls for unceasing initiative, virtu without resignation (S, 35). What Merleau-Ponty says in 1958 in favor of continued French activism in Madagascar is generally applicable. It is impossible to wipe the slate clean of colonialism. “There can be no question of recreating archaism; we are all embarked and it is no small matter to have begun this game.” And he adds: “I would rather be a part of a country which does something in history than of a country which submits to it (S, 336).” Because there is no overarching single direction to or unity of history, not only can violence never be more than only relatively progressive. Neither can there be any particular group of people who hold a uniquely privileged position as the vehicle of history, who have the unique historical mission to make history’s violence progressive. As a consequence, Merleau-Ponty with draws his Pascalian wager on the existence of a vanguard party or group. No person or group will fully embody historical rationality. And no one will be wholly and irrevocably divorced from it. “The relationship of one historical formation to another, like that of one type of man to another, will never be simply the relationship of true to false (S, 131).”11 The noncommunist left, to which Merleau-Ponty now looks for the pro motion of the new liberalism, has “given up the philosophical guarantees of the dictatorship of the proletariat (AD, 227).” It looks for political and his

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torical progress only through judgments and actions that prevail in a society after they have been tested by a free, articulate opposition. The only institu tion which guarantees at least a minimum of opposition and free truth tell ing, Merleau-Ponty concludes, is Parliament (AD, 226). Through the system of parliamentary liberalism which allows all to participate, including both Communists and capitalists, one has the best hope for a politics whose ineliminable violence will be as progressive as history permits. Ill

This brief account of Merleau-Ponty’s later political philosophy is, I trust, sufficient to show that at least part of Whiteside’s assessment of it is mis guided. There is no good reason to say, as he does, that when MerleauPonty talks of democracy’s “own way” of violence, he can be interpreted as suggesting that it is not worth trying to eliminate violence wherever it occurs because some is inherent in the system. By regarding violence as a universal aspect of politics, he diminishes the incentive to push at the social system in order to find the inessential forms of violence it harbors (MPF, 267). Were there some way, in the absence of a unifying overarching direction to history, unequivocally to distinguish “essential violence” from “inessential violence” Merleau-Ponty would surely call for the elimination of the inessen tial. But even without being able to make such a distinction, Merleau-Pon ty’s later political thought gives no license for acquiescence in the presence of violence. A second part of Whiteside’s criticism, though also mistaken in my view, deserves more careful consideration. That consideration, I argue, shows that Merleau-Ponty’s later politics is not only philosophically more consistent than is his earlier politics but also gains in “political percipience.” Whiteside claims that since Merleau-Ponty “no longer supposes any group to prefigure an ethically superior form of social existence, there is no obvious reason why leaders must observe a dialogical check on their truthful ness (MPF, 267-268).” Further, even though Merleau-Ponty’s later position still recognizes the political importance of considering the consequences of


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an action in assessing its worth, Whiteside finds it hard to understand “just how one can act as a consequentialist without being able to foresee the de velopment of events (MPF, 268).” And worse yet, Merleau-Ponty’s call for political leaders to invent “what will later appear to have been required by the time” (AD,29) seems to allow for every kind of political adventurism (MPF, 268). Both early and late, Merleau-Ponty emphasized the essentially finite, historical, intersubjective character of human existence.12 His later politics, as Whiteside admits (MPF,278), is more consistent with his view of the hu man condition than is his earlier position. Singling out the proletarian class as history’s vehicle and as endowed with a uniquely valuable historical mis sion which allows one reasonably and responsibly to wager that its violence is unquestionably progressive fits poorly with the doctrine that all human exis tence is essentially finite, historical and intersubjective. What makes human action finite is, in part, the inescapable counterfi nality that affects it. The proletariat, like everyone else, is not exempt from this limitation. Part and parcel of what it means to say that persons or events are historical is to say both that they always realize some possibilities at the expense of leaving others unfulfilled and that their meaning and sig nificance changes by reason of what transpires after them. Thus, the proleta riat can have no settled, single mission, direction, or sense. Similarly, intersubjectivity is not thoroughgoing unless the perspectival character of all hu man existence is such that every perspective, whether the proletariat’s or anyone else’s, stands in need of modification and supplementation by all other perspectives. In short, if human existence itself, like history, is a per manent, open interrogation (AD, 56-57 and 204ff), there can be no absolutely privileged individual or group. For the proletariat as well as for everyone else a word or judgment of theirs to which there can be no reply is nonsense and their freedom “is interwoven with that of others by way of the world (SNS, 147).” But further, and arguably more importantly, Merleau-Ponty’s later politi cal philosophy shows, Whiteside notwithstanding, a gain in “political percipience” in at least one crucial respect. It shows a major advance in dealing with the issue of political violence. To say as Merleau-Ponty does, both early and late, that violence is ineliminable from history and politics, is not to utter a conceptual truth. It is rather to make a claim about what has always, so far as we know, charac

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terized human existence. Further, no matter how ingredient violence is in human existence, we are still not entitled simply to acquiesce in it. We must struggle against it. Amelioration cannot be assured. But it must be sought. Unless we admit that violence can be mitigated, we can make no sense of Merleau-Ponty’s support in his later period for one regime, namely parliamentarianism, over against others. His support presumes that either the extent of the violence, the sheer number of its victims, or the intensity of the violence, or both can be reduced even if not abolished. Responsible politics always aims to reduce it. But what policies and practices give hope of mitigating violence and what sort of basis do we have for adopting or maintaining them? Merleau-Ponty’s later position permits no more than a relatively tenuous justification of the specific provisions, either substantive or procedural, of any particular policy or practice. Substantively, there can be no privileged group, e.g. the prole tariat, which, by virtue of its mission, is in a uniquely favorable position to determine what is to be done. There is neither a uniquely privileged vantage point which one can occupy nor a unique set of personal endowments and traits that one can possess which makes him or her uniquely qualified to ascertain which policies and practices most effectively minimize violence. As a consequence, the justification that one can give for the substance of any concrete political undertaking is never conclusive. There is no absolute standard to which one could appeal to justify it. One can reasonably claim no more than that the undertaking in question is better than any presently available alternative for reducing violence to its minimum. This means that one can reasonably adopt a policy or practice only hypothetically, only for so long as nothing more promising is available. Thus the proffered justification for any particular policy or practice always calls for further open interroga tion. Interestingly, the very limited force of the justification for the substance of any particular policy or practice contributes great strength to the justifica tion which can be advanced for the root requirement Merleau-Ponty propo ses in his later period for determining all specific substantive and procedural matters.13 His root requirement is that political matters should be deter mined through the workings of an institution that at least “guarantees a minimum of opposition and truth (AD, 226).” As a matter of contingent, historical fact, Merleau-Ponty judges that parliamentary democracy is the only known institution that satisfies this re


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quirement. But at bottom what matters is that the institution in and through which concrete political undertakings are determined is to be one which maintains and fosters a constant critique of all of its specific determinations. Precisely because none of us can either foresee all the consequences of our political activity or determine unmistakably whether a policy or practice does in fact reduce violence, we need an institution which constantly tests all poli cies and practices by confronting them with an opposition. We need an institution which is perpetually permeable to procedural as well as substan tive change. Even parliament as a form is open to constant critique to deter mine whether it still satisfies the root requirement. Though to my knowledge Merleau-Ponty does not explicitly say so, the logical thrust of his later position apparently requires an institution whose root requirement guarantees not merely a minimum of opposition to any political undertaking but rather one which provides for as extensive participa tion, whether of support or of opposition, as is feasible. Nothing less, or so it would seem, can satisfy the root requirement that our political discourse and action always respect the essential finitude, historicality, and intersubjec tivity of human existence. For who could be excluded without loss if their inclusion excluded no one else? Merleau-Ponty’s root requirement has at least two, related, significant consequences. First, it alleviates whatever weaknesses follow from the fact that the only way it makes sense to embrace a policy or practice is to do so hypothetically and not categorically, to embrace it only unless or until a more promising one becomes available.14 It does so by providing both proponents and opponents recurring opportunities to reassess it. Even if no particular policy or practice can fail to cause some harm, the root requirement, by including as many people as possible and giving unqualified privilege to none, serves to keep the harmed in constructive cooperation with those who have profited from their harm. Second, Merleau-Ponty’s root requirement provides a criterion for moni toring the efficacy of any policy or practice which purports to reduce vio lence. By reason of this requirement, one policy or practice is better than its alternatives to the extent that it promotes the preservation and extension of maximal participation in the formulation and implementation of all substan tive and procedural policies and practices. Thus this requirement, Whiteside notwithstanding, exonerates Merleau-Ponty from any complicity with un bridled political adventurism. At the same time, it clears him from the

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charge of acquiescing in political passivity. Rather, it provides the basis for his strong conclusion that a major task for our era is “to find institutions which implant [the] practice of freedom in our customs (5, 349).” These two consequences, when coupled with his abandonment of any proposal giving unique political privilege to one group of people over against all others is enough to justify the conclusion that Merleau-Ponty’s later poli tical philosophy gains rather than loses in “political percipience” vis-ik-vis his earlier thought.

Part II Taken together, Nietzsche and Heidegger constitute a watershed for criticisms of the Cartesian concept of the ego, subject, or self. These two major thinkers and more recent thinkers influenced by them have, I believe, shown this Cartesian concept to be untenable. But some of the criticisms have unjustifiably, in my view, gone so far as to deny that there is anything at all like a free self or agent. They have reduced the self to nothing more than the product of some set of nonpersonal material or cultural forces. But so reduced an agent cannot be the bearer of political or moral responsibility, cannot be the addressee of calls for political or moral initiative. This reduc tion of the agent, is, I believe, an exaggeration. The three essays which constitute Part II present efforts of mine to ar ticulate a conception of what it is to be human which both acknowledges the untenability of the Cartesian concept of the self and yet allows for respon sible, initiating agency. The first two essays of this Part have already been published, “Relational Freedom” appeared in The Review o f Metaphysics, Vol. XXVI, no. 1, 1982, 77-101 and “I and Mine” is included in Critical and Dialectical Phenomenol ogy, ed. by Donn Welton and Hugh J. Silverman (Albany: SUNY Press, 1987), 216-229. I have not substantially revised either of them. The third essay, “The Interpretation of the Human Way of Being and Its Political Implications,” is a new essay written expressly for this volume. Two other essays, not included here, which address this same general issue are my “Structuralism and the New Subjectivity,” Man and World, Vol. 15, 1982, 299-310 and “The Ego Revisited,” Journal o f the British Society for Phenome nology, Vol. 21, 1990, 48-52.

Relational Freedom and Its Political Consequences

Probably the most pervasive doctrine of freedom today has roots extend ing back at least to Descartes and Hobbes. But it reached its full develop ment during the French Enlightenment and now still dominates both popular and scholarly thought. According to this dominant doctrine, the basic char acteristic and measure of freedom is autonomy. Each person is said to be free precisely insofar as he is independent of every Other.1 There are, however, good reasons for rejecting this position. It, and its consequences, cannot be squared with a proper appreciation of the intersub jectivity, discursivity, and historicality which are constitutive of human life. These phenomena suggest rather that freedom should be described in rela tional terms. My purpose in this essay is three-fold. First, I want to show just how the view of freedom as autonomy runs afoul of pertinent evidence. Then I want to argue for an alternative conception, one which fits the same evidence that undercuts the doctrine of freedom as autonomy. Finally, I will point to some of the political consequences of adopting the conception I propose. I

So prevalent is the doctrine of autonomous freedom that it is regularly presented as obvious and noncontroversial. Consider, for example P. H. Partridge’s entry entitled “Freedom” in the Encyclopedia o f Philosophy. Using the widely adopted distinction between negative and positive freedom, perhaps best articulated by Sir Isaiah Berlin, he presents this doctrine with

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out a hint that there are sufficient problems with it that might well prompt one to seek an alternative account.2 Partridge describes negative freedom as a condition characterized by the absence of constraint or coercion. One is free just insofar as he can select his own goals and course of conduct from the set of available alternatives and is neither compelled to act nor prevented from acting as he chooses by the decision of any person, state, or other authority. Positive freedom, on the other hand, is the capacity to make one’s own choices and act on the basis of one’s own initiative.3 Man is free, on this view, only if he is under no coercion. And coercion, for Partridge, includes not only commands and prohibitions backed by effica cious power or sanctions. It also encompasses the indirect forms of control whereby some persons mold or manipulate the conditions which determine or restrict the alternatives available to others.4 This overall view of freedom, taken both negatively and positively, ob viously assumes that it is both possible and desirable for people either to achieve or to approximate radical independence from one another. This independence is what one means by autonomy. Further the doctrine of autonomous freedom usually also regards man as a fundamentally discrete, self-contained individual, one who is complete in himself.5 An important set of contemporary ethical and political claims rests on the doctrine of autonomous freedom. Negative freedom, on the one hand, serves to support claims that participation in the projects and workings of social institutions is, at bottom, optional. Only those who through their own choice personally benefit from a social institution are obligated to contribute to its functioning. Once one no longer benefits and has somehow paid for what he received, he has no further obligation to it. Positive freedom, on the other hand, can and has been used to argue that men, or at least some of them, are entitled to be lords and possessors of nature.6 One’s first respon sibility, then, would be to preserve as unfettered as possible his ability to act just as he chooses. The political implications of the doctrine of autonomous freedom are momentous. For example, there is good reason to think that a basic feature of much modern democratic theory, namely that supreme political power belongs to the people and that governmental power gets its legitimacy from their consent, makes sense only if they are autonomously free in both the negative and the positive senses.7 Linking this democratic theory with the

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doctrine of autonomous freedom opens the way for contract theories of the state. On such theories, as espoused, for example by Hobbes, Rousseau, and in our own day, Rawls, men, of their own initiative and at their own discre tion, establish and circumscribe all political power.® They do so on the basis of personal resources they possess prior to their political engagements. As Charles Taylor notes, one substantial part of the Hobbesian legacy is the conviction that political obligation [is] grounded in a decision, to submit to a sover eign, dictated by prudence (calculating reason). For a self-defining subject obligation could only be created by his own will. Hence the great importance of the myth of the original contract.9 But perhaps the spirit animating the interpretation of freedom as auton omy appears best in Descartes’ remark that among extremes to be avoided are “all promises by which one restricts something of his own liberty.”10 Even though social contract theorists have gone to great pains to discourage or even to rule out the dissolution of the contract establishing the state once it has been instituted, they have not met with grand success. The modern spirit regards the social contract as at least in principle always revocable at will. That is, it refuses to admit that the contractors have ceded or even attenuated their sovereign autonomy. In a somewhat different way one finds this spirit expressed in terms of positive freedom. Sartre, for example, expresses this spirit in the preemi nence he gives to the fused group over the pledged group and other forms of communal life.11 A striking consequence of insistence upon unmitigated autonomy is that the only defensible use of coercion is retaliatory or rectificatory. One could not, on this view, legitimately employ coercion to stimulate someone to act. That is, coercion could only be legitimate if it is a response to a prior exer cise of positive freedom. It would never be permissible to coerce a person to act instead of refraining from acting, for the non-acting person does not infringe upon anyone else’s autonomy. And if one defines coercion, with Partridge, so broadly that it encompas ses any shaping of the conditions which affect the alternatives available to others, then any institutional pressure to enlist people’s participation in its work would be unwarranted. Institutions could have no abiding authority.

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Their legitimation would need constant renewal by the unfettered choice of those who elect to establish and maintain them. Either choosing to continue institutions or to let them lapse would be, from the standpoint of autonomy, a matter of indifference. The fundamental ethical implication of the doctrine of autonomous free dom is that one has an inalienable right and quite probably a basic duty to maintain his own autonomy itself. Thus each person is bound to keep him self free from anything which would attenuate his lordship not only over nature but also over himself. One can take this ethical requirement to imply that, though it is possible for one to act in such a way that he restricts his own freedom, it is never permissible to do so. Or one can take it, as in the early Sartre’s doctrine of bad faith, to imply that since it is not possible really to restrict one’s own freedom, all claims to such restrictions are necessarily fraudulent.12 On either of these interpretations an essential ingredient in any warranted conduct is that it either preserves or promotes the agent’s auton omy. If autonomy is the principal characteristic and measure of freedom then, at bottom, a person either is or should become radically independent of others. And if this is so, then one is a social being only either derivatively or per accidens. Sociality, on this view, could make no fundamental positive contribution to freedom.13 Widespread though the doctrine of autonomous freedom has been, at tempts to formulate it so that it can withstand tests have not had notable success.14 One person’s autonomous freedom would always and necessarily clash with others’ freedom. Whoever acts freely in the world would always either actually impinge upon others’ autonomy or surely threaten to impinge upon them. The failure of efforts to formulate a conceptually satisfactory account of autonomous freedom is no surprise when one takes note of the experiential evidence that testifies to man’s essential sociality. The closely related phen omena of intersubjectivity, discourse, and history give good grounds for hold ing that human existence is equiprimordially and essentially both social and individual. Even though all three of these phenomena display the activity of in dividual agents, each of these agents always appears as one who can exercise initiative only in circumstances which are never wholly of his own devising. However much truth there is to the claim that “the greater one’s ability the

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less one needs in the way of opportunity,”15 the need for opportunity never vanishes. Indeed the evidence of these phenomena supports the claim that at least some increases in ability themselves depend upon both material circumstances and other persons. They depend upon opportunities which the agent is incapable of providing for himself. Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, and the later Sartre, among others, have recog nized that no one, alone, can be free. A necessary condition for freedom is involvement with other and different persons on the one hand, and with materiality on the other. On this general view, a view having non-trivial similarities to classical Greek thought concerning what constitutes human excellence, freedom requires an appropriate context which only others can provide. And in many, if not in all cases, freedom also presupposes as Sartre has strikingly noted, need or lack.16 Husserl, for example, shows that a wakeful person is necessarily involved in a surrounding world populated with both things and other human beings. Even if he thematically deals with some of these other human beings only as objects, he recognizes that at least some of them are persons like himself. They are co-subjects. With these co-subjects, he constitutes a community of actors, thinkers, makers, and perceivers. Though a person can and often does retain his own distinctive activity in the world, he nonetheless always also shares in common activity with others, thereby constituting his surround ing world as a common world. In turn, this common world makes possible the development of distinct cultures and civilizations as well as global enter prises such as natural science.17 Husserl’s analysis shows that many, if not all, human achievements gene rally accounted as positive accomplishments require a person’s involvement in the lives of others. This involvement is at the root of the arts, of science and technology, of customs and laws. Each person does, to be sure, engage in praxis which is distinctively his own. But this individual praxis is not something extracted or preserved from communal praxis. Nor is it the preestablished basis for communal praxis. Communal and individual praxis mutually implicate one another. Neither sort of activity can be identified for what it is except by reason of its differences from the other.18 On this view, radical human autonomy, if achieved, would be a defeat rather than a tri umph. In addition to Husserl, Merleau-Ponty also makes important contribu tions to the theme of essential human intersubjectivity. One of these con

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tributions springs from his analysis of language in terms of his adaptation of Saussure’s distinction between language (langue) and speech (parole). Every person, Merleau-Ponty notes, is bom into a pre-established language, a lan guage he receives from others. No one is bom alingual. Merleau-Ponty develops this insight in his discussion of dialogue. Participants in a dialogue seek for and find one another’s meanings. A dialogue is not, at bottom, a display of rivalry. If there is struggle, it is not a struggle for independence. Nor is it necessarily a struggle for control. To the contrary, the participants are active both in speaking and in hearing. Thus dialogue is a joint venture aimed at bringing to light something that makes sense. In fact, Merleau-Ponty implies, dialogue brings forth a sense which no participant, acting alone, could have achieved. Moreover, the participants experience their dialogue as something which they have not, strictly speaking created ab initio. They speak an already established language and refer to a world that is not wholly their construct. Thus they admit, at least ipiplicitly, that their dialogue continues a discursive movement whose beginning long antedates their own utterances.19 Something of the same sort holds true for writing and reading. Writers and readers, at least in principle, do not struggle for supremacy over one another. Their enterprise is one they share in common. Without an audi ence capable of responding and not merely absorbing, neither writing nor speaking makes full sense. Without writers and speakers doing more than articulating what the audience already knows, listening and reading cannot make full sense.20 For Merleau-Ponty, the intersubjectivity which makes dialogue possible is not a characteristic pertinent only to discourse. The same kind of intertwin ing among participants underpins the performances of perception, thought, and action.21 But performances of these sorts, along with discursive perfor mances, are precisely the performances which display the distinguishing char acteristics of existence that is human. A human being is that open-textured unity whose fundamental moments are perception, thought, action, and sig nification. If, then, all of these distinguishing characteristics presupposes intersubjectivity, and if, as appears clear, every discernible exercise of free dom - and trying to discuss indiscernibles is pointless - manifests itself in one or more of these moments, then there is no experiential evidence for claiming that radical autonomy is the primary characteristic and measure of freedom.

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Merleau-Ponty himself goes on to claim that every distinctively human performance is, at bottom, interrogative. Interrogation, in turn, is a response to that which elicits questioning. Thus man, in his very being as human, is fundamentally a respondent. He responds both to other men and to the world they inhabit together.22 It follows from Merleau-Ponty’s insights, and Husserl’s too, that since to respond is not merely to react but is rather to amplify and extend by introducing something distinctively one’s own, then all human performances are at one and the same time both free and ineluctably linked not only to other persons but also to the world. A still further reason for rejecting the doctrine of autonomous freedom is that it ignores the essentially historical character of human existence. Freedom is esteemed and cherished because of what it allows one to accom plish. It is honored because of its efficacy. The efficacy intrinsic to freedom is of two sorts. It is on the one hand what enables a person to transcend the press of immediate circumstances upon him. On the other, it is what makes him able to stamp the prevailing circumstances with his own distinctive abid ing mark. These two parts of efficacy are not both necessary for each and every free performance. But if one considers a span of human activity esteemed for the freedom manifest in it, then he does find both sorts of efficacy. For example, dancing or concocting fanciful fictions may show no more than a transcending of preoccupation with life’s necessities. But if the only free activities a person performed were of this sort, the sort which have no conse quences perduring beyond the duration of the performance itself, then he would be considered to have led an impoverished life, a life either trivial or insignificant. The doctrine of autonomous freedom captures only the first sort of ef ficacy, the capacity to transcend prevailing circumstances. Its failure to cap ture the second sort of efficacy not only leads to a gap in its account but also leads the doctrine to distort the sort of efficacy it does recognize. It leads to the view that freedom consists in an exemption from full-fledged interaction with the world with others. It fails to acknowledge the thoroughly historical character of human existence. A satisfactory doctrine of freedom must allow one to see it at play in the multiple ways in which man mediates his encounters both with others and with the world. This mediation occurs in one’s performances of saying, do ing, or making. Everyone is born and reared into a world in which media

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tions of these sorts have long been exercised. Each sort of mediation has its own history which instructs newcomers in its performance. Newcomers do not, of course, simply repeat mediations. But neither do they invent them from whole cloth. They learn both from others and from their own previous mediations. For a person to be able to impress his own abiding mark on the cir cumstances in which he lives, he must take up some mediational pattern as he finds it, contribute something of his own to it, and leave it available to others. That is, fully efficacious mediations require that the mediator both engage in a mediational pattern already somewhat familiar to others and yield to others some control over the consequences of his intervention. This is just to say that all efficacious human mediations are temporal. They both constitute and are constituted by history. In summary, then, involvement in intersubjectivity, discourse, or history is not essentially a symptom or source of weakness. All positive human ac complishments display involvement in at least one of them. Though they all undercut any pretense to radical autonomy, and though they all show that men are thoroughly finite, they are also ingredient in the expression of free dom. They show that man’s essential finitude is not a restriction on his freedom, but is rather a condition of its possibility.23 These foregoing considerations seriously undermine the doctrine of free dom which makes autonomy its primary characteristic and measure. At the same time they furnish guidance for formulating a concept of freedom more faithful to experience. What follows is my attempt to articulate such a con cept. Then, since every concept of freedom has considerable ethical and political ramifications, I will point to a few of these which would follow from my proposal. II To begin articulating an alternative concept of freedom, I want to turn again to Merleau-Ponty’s work, this time specifically to his account of free dom in his Phenomenology o f Perception™ Let me cite two passages. First: “Our freedom does not destroy our situation, but gears itself into it: as long as we are alive, our situation is open, which implies both that it calls up specially favored modes of resolution, and also that it is powerless to bring one into being by itself.”25 And second:

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What then is freedom? To be born is both to be born of the world and to be born into the world. The world is already constituted, but also never completely constituted; in the first case we are acted upon, in the second we are open to an infinite number of possibilities. But this analysis is still abstract, for we exist both ways at once. There is, therefore, never determinism and never absolute choice.26 These insights and the evidence adduced above concerning the phenome na of intersubjectivity, discourse, and history supply the grounds for the con cept of relational freedom I propose. Baldly put, my proposal is that free dom in its full sense consists in both the possession and the exercise o f the capacity simultaneously both to participate in and to maintain oneself as a pole o f multiple distinct kinds o f relationships in order to perform mediations which are reflectively and, in principle, mutually acceptableF Freedom, on this pro posal, is an activity or process, rather than a settled property or a relation. It is an activity marked by both continuity and constant change, a process in which the agent’s prior condition is both preserved and altered. My proposal is, of course, not without precedent. In several respects it resembles important parts of classical Greek thought. And it has obvious affinities with some themes stemming from Hegelianism.28 But the fun damental justification for the concept of relational freedom which I propose is that it respects the fact that history, discourse, and intersubjectivity are essential, irreducible constituents of all human efficacy. Let me explain my proposal. Freedom can be exercised well or badly. Just as one can use his power of sight either well or badly, so can one exer cise his capacity for relationships either well or badly. Similarly, as the pow er to see can wax and wane, so can freedom wax and wane. How one exer cises his capacity for relationships rebounds to affect the quality and strength of the capacity. Though freedom can neither wax to the point of its apothe osis, its radical independence from situations, nor wane to the point of its annihilation, its absolute impotence in the face of situations, the capacity for freedom, for involvement in relations with others, is not immutable. If this is indeed the case and freedom is truly of positive worth, then it does make sense to admit responsibilities and duties to freedom itself. They are to be discharged in the very course of exercising freedom.29 A person,

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then, can be duty bound to preserve or develop his freedom. In short, free dom is both a fact and a task. On my view, freedom is a kind of oscillation. It has a centrifugal mo ment by virtue of which we can reach beyond ourselves to participate in relationships which can achieve richer results than any of us could bring about by acting alone. But it also has a centripetal moment by virtue of which each of us can reinforce and maintain himself as a distinct pole having resources of his own with which to enrich what is to be effected. By virtue of our freedom, then, we are “eccentric.”30 The term ‘oscillation’ here of course does not imply a mechanical alter nation. Rather it refers to a two-fold emphasis in the unitary movement which is freedom, an emphasis on both participation and self-maintenance. Neither emphasis can be consistently neglected without the favored one also suffering. In a far from transparent way, each emphasis strengthens the other, but only if there are sufficient shifts of emphasis. The sort of oscilla tion I refer to here is similar to something St. Thomas Aquinas pointed to in a different context. In discussing three sorts of religious life, he distinguished the active life of helping other people (here the centrifugal moment), the contemplative life of solitude and prayer (here the centripetal moment), and the mixed life which blends periods of the other two (here the life with shift ing emphases). The mixed life, he said, is the most perfect. Similarly, on my proposal the maximally free life is one with appropriate shifts of emphasis. My understanding of freedom does not imply that we absolutely originate our participation in relationships. Nor does it not imply that we begin our career of freedom as already well-defined poles which we then either seek or should seek to maintain. From the outset, freedom is in every respect both individual and communal. There neither is nor can be a freedom which is not simultaneously both individual and communal. We are individuals only within a social context. And we are social only as distinct individuals among other individuals. Thus, if we are indeed free, we are so just to the extent that we can shift between emphasizing our participation in something richer or more efficacious than any of us alone can accomplish and emphasizing our own self-maintenance as a distinct person who has a unique contribution to make to relationships. We have, of course, no set of rules to determine precisely what sorts of shifts of emphasis are sufficient and appropriate for maximal freedom. But this lack is not fatal. Even though there are no formulas for appropriate

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both exemplary people and traditional practical wisdom do serve as guides. Paraphrasing Aristotle, one can say that appropriate shifting of em phasis is the sort of shifting that the eminently free person does. Neither exemplars nor traditional practical wisdom supply precise norms. But they do furnish just the sort of testimony that we can accept and still maintain ourselves as distinct poles in relationships with others. If precise, com prehensive norms for shifting emphasis could be specified, then the maximal ly free person would merely be one who followed a script. Correlatively, the point or object of freedom is not the acquisition or maintenance of some attribute or trait. Rather, the object of freedom is activity or exercise of one’s capacity for freedom which is, at least in prin ciple, acceptable to all. A necessary condition for rationally endorsing some particular activity is that it does not constrict the field of endorsable activity.31 The proper object of freedom, then, is concrete free activity in a maximally extensive field open to free activity. The object of freedom, on my account, is inseparable from its perfor mance. In Husserlian terms, it is the noematic moment whose noetic coun terpart is the agent’s act of reflectively involving himself in relationships with others. Freedom, in sum, constitutes itself as its object in its own perfor mance. There are three distinct kinds of relationships involving freedom, namely “hegemonic,” egalitarian, and subsumptive relationships. In each of these kinds of relationship there are two or more well defined roles. In any rela tionship involving freedom, participants can periodically swap at least some of these roles. The type of connection holding among the roles within a relationship determines its kind. Thus, in hegemonic relationships the roles are organized hierarchically. In egalitarian relationships the roles all have a basically equal status. They are linked horizontally rather than vertically. In subsumptive relationships, all roles are subordinated to some norm or prin ciple freely recognized by the participants as already established and not subject to the discretion of the participants. Because this norm or principle is not itself a role, no participant can aspire to hold its place. The norm or principle assigns weight to the subsumed roles. It may also, but need not, assign participants to their specific roles.32 Some relationships among people, of course, do not manifest freedom. Neither genetic, nor chronological, nor geographical relationships, for ex ample, require that any of their participants be free. The only relationships s h iftin g ,

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which embody freedom are those which one or more persons establish or maintain in order to engage in mediational activity which is reflectively and, in principle, mutually acceptable.33 If freedom is of positive worth, then its absence in a participant in medi ational activity is either a deplorable deficiency calling for rectification or, if irremediable, regrettable. There can be relationships involving freedom when only one or some of the participants can or do engage in reflective activity. But the relationship is deficient until or unless all of its participants engage in such activity. For example, the physician-patient relationship is a free one even if the patient is unconscious. But the aim of the physician’s activity should always be to bring the patient back into conscious participa tion.34 Just because the free relationship exists for the sake of some reflective and mutually acceptable activity does not mean that the relationship is a means to some extrinsic end. To the contrary, one has reason highly to esteem as manifestations of freedom precisely those relationships whose activity consists primarily in enjoying the relationship. Further, to be mutual ly acceptable, the activity aimed at obviously does not have to be mutually accepted. But a person’s claim to membership in a relationship aimed at an activity he reflectively accepts has two consequences. First, it entails that those with whom he is so related ought to accept the activity. And second, it entails, that if they do not, they fail to do so because their freedom is either culpably or nonculpably impaired. It does not, of course, follow that what is acceptable in one set of circumstances is always acceptable. But it does follow that whatever is acceptable is so because it fits the relevant cir cumstances. My interpretation of freedom as relational fits all the evidence I adduced above to show the insufficiency of the doctrine of autonomous freedom. It also finds support in reflection on concrete practice which embraces not merely one or a few performances but a significant stretch of a person’s life. This reflection reveals the existence and necessity for the sorts of oscillations and shiftings which I claim belong to the very constitution of freedom. If a relationship which lasts long enough for its relevant surrounding circumstan ces to change markedly does indeed display freedom, then it must be perme able to moments or stretches of time when some other kind of relationship holds sway.

11

Relational Freedom

Consider, for example, the hegemonic relationship between the political ruler and the ruled. If this relationship is genuinely to embody freedom, there must be occasions when all, both ruler and ruled, relate to one another in egalitarian or subsumptive ways. This requirement could be satisfied if, for example, there are occasions when all the participants have equal voting rights. Or when they unite to respond to some natural disaster in a way that approximates Sartre’s fused group. Thus Aristotle appears correct in saying that since no discernible class of people is so markedly superior to other classes that its members have an indisputable title to rule permanently, “it is obviously necessary on many grounds that all the citizens alike should take their turn of governing and being governed.”35 For, as he asks, how could those who have no share in governing be loyal citizens?36 This requirement of permeability holds for egalitarian and subsumptive sorts of relationships as well as for hegemonic ones. Without it, every sort of relationship could embody only an impoverished freedom. But this per meability is incompatible with autonomy. By contrast, my proposal of freedom as relational makes clear that it is the capacity both to establish and maintain permeable relationships. So understood, freedom is at the root of both initiative and receptivity in the face of both other people and the material and cultural world we jointly inhabit.37 It is the capacity to exist as one who is never wholly lost in or lost from his surrounding world. One has reason to adopt the doctrine of relational freedom rather than that of autonomous freedom not only because it squares with the historical, intersubjective, discursive character of human existence, but also because it can so fruitfully be applied to the domain of politics. Let me in conclusion show its fruitful implications for the constitution of the political domain it self. Ill

It would be an easy task to show that the doctrine of relational freedom rules out the legitimacy of the worst of politics, namely tyranny, anarchy, and totalitarianism. Both tyranny and totalitarianism impoverish even the free dom of the ruler because they both give unqualified preeminence on the one hand to the centripetal moment of the ruler’s activity, and, on the other, to

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the centrifugal moment of the ruled’s activity. Anarchy gives unqualified preeminence to the centripetal moment of everyone’s activity and thus like wise impoverishes freedom. But here I want to concentrate on a more complex and perhaps more important application of the doctrine of relational freedom. Not uncommon ly one hears the claim that moral requirements stand apart from, and some times in opposition to, political requirements. Thus one hears of a sup posedly acceptable Realpolitik which is amoral, if not immoral. Supposedly one cannot, in principle, make a specific political application of moral re quirements because the latter are necessarily universal whereas politics deals with the particular and the expedient. This purported gap between the moral and the political domains has severe conceptual as well as practical consequences. But my concept of relational freedom provides the wherewithal with which to eliminate this gap. Freedom, as I said above, is a process which one can either improve or allow to degenerate. The sort of involvement in which freedom flourishes is always one which is characterized by respect. For respect is an essential condition for all manifestations of efficacious freedom, whether moral or political.38 Respect is not a mere attitude. Nor is it essentially linked to some emo tion. It is a relation marked and observed by established social practices.* It is connected with deference and dignity. Since the practices associated with respect are not competitive, it does not bring about exclusions. If A respects B, either or both can still respect C. It is thus a relation in which in principle all people can share.40 Unlike esteem, respect is a normative notion. It depends upon a specific interpretation of persons and their social places.41 When one acknowledges the intersubjective, discursive, historical character of human existence and the relational freedom by virtue of which men engage in mediations, then one sees that everyone is a member of a community, which, in principle, cannot definitively exclude anyone. The proper way to acknowledge these features of the human condition is to respect all persons. This respect does not depend upon any particular social status. It springs from the fact that to be human is to belong to and have standing in a community. One accords respect to someone “not as a person simply but as a person effective in such and such a setting, a full and equal member, an active participant.”42 The conditions for respect for others are not different than those for self-respect.

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“Self-respect can not be an idiosyncracy; it is not a matter of will. In any substantive sense, it is a function of membership, though always a complex function, and depends upon equal respect among the members.”43 In re spect, people recognize themselves in mutually recognizing one another. And in this recognition one finds intimations of cooperation rather than competition. Mutual respect, thus, implies mutual agency and responsibility. Contempt is the opposite of respect. If I hold someone in contempt, he either accepts my verdict as his sentence and grovels or rejects it with resent ment and sometimes retaliation.44 In neither case can he who is subjected to contempt genuinely endorse the efficacy of his disparager’s mediational ac tivity in other matters. Contempt, then, always serves to thwart efficacious freedom. But just because respect is essentially ingredient in all political exercises of efficacious freedom does not mean that all political relationships should be of the same sort. As I noted above, mediation can take place in any one of three basic kinds of relationship, hegemonic, egalitarian, and subsumptive. Each of these types of relationship is compatible with and indeed calls for respect. The requirement of respect neither challenges the legitimacy of any of these types nor does it give any of them unqualified priority over the oth ers. Further, respect is crucial for the preservation of all relationships involv ing freedom. It is at the root of invitations to new or lapsed members to enter these relationships. Through respect one can recognize new members as those who can embrace the relationship. Unless new members could do so, there would be no point to permitting their participation. Were it not for respect for what newcomers can contribute, what w ould'be the political point, for example, of accepting immigrants as full fledged citizens? Similarly, respect makes it senseful to hold open to lapsed members the opportunity to participate once again. Whether they are present enemies or simply uninterested former members, respect lets them be seen as people who can still, if they will, contribute positively to the relationship and the ac complishments of its present active participants. Thus, there is nothing es sentially condescending about forgiveness. Forgiveness presupposes that the one to be pardoned is of positive worth. It is not, therefore, only a moral act. It is also a thoroughly sensible political act.45 Respect’s central role in efficacious relationships shows up even in such perverted forms as extorted confessions. Consider, for example, the Moscow

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Trials of the 1930s. The prosecutors sought the confessions as crucial, ir replaceable testaments to the mutual acceptability of the activity they were engaged in. Though it may mask respect, disdain nonetheless regularly has to pay it. Respect need not be confined only to contemporaries. Because it is in the service of freedom, it is concerned with efficacy. If there is to be maxi mal efficacy, we must solicit our successors to endorse and to continue the activity we either initiate or sustain. That is, we can only be maximally ef ficacious if we so behave that others, including successors, can join in our activity without loss of respect for either themselves or others. Similarly, maximal efficacy requires that we respect our predecessors as well. We have all been reared in a world largely furnished by our predecessors’ efficacious performances. Insofar as they have bequeathed that furniture with respect, insofar as they have not attempted to thwart our initiative, they have provi ded us with opportunities to link our performances with earlier performances of demonstrated efficacy.46 Attending to and respecting our predecessors’ and successors’ activities or capacities for activity does not necessarily restrict us. The contributions they can make to relational freedom are important to all. To respect others’ contributions to freedom elicits a reciprocal respect from others for what we do. Even what we call we-relationships have respect at their foundations. We-relationships, under one description or another, are often thought to stand at the pinnacle of all possible human relationships. They are regularly regarded as those against which all positive relationships are measured. In their supposed excellence, they are sometimes thought, mistakenly, to em body a love which makes respect superfluous. But as I showed above, there is no basis for attributing unequivocal pri macy to any particular type of relationship. Thus, it makes no sense to hold up we-relationships as either panacea or last desperate therapy for political ills. For one thing, it is simply a fact that we-relationships always have only a few members. Their very exclusiveness necessarily circumscribes their efficacy. The exclusiveness ingredient in we-relationships does not, of course, vitiate them. They are undoubtedly good. But they are good precisely in sofar as they instantiate respect. In we-relationships, perhaps more clearly than in other relationships, the participational moment of freedom is most

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visible. But at the same time they give minimal display to freedom’s polemaintaining moment. For freedom to be fully displayed and fully efficacious, both of these moments must be in play. Respect on the one hand insists upon the irreducibility and necessity of both of these moments for freedom. And on the other hand it forbids us to assign unequivocal primacy to any relationship whether that assignment be made, in pride, to a relationship in which we participate, or in envy or despair, to a relationship in which we have no part. Respect, then, is a crucially important virtue in both the moral and the political domains. It informs whatever is well done in either of these do mains, for it acknowledges the full scope and complexity of freedom. On the one hand, respect reflects recognition of the capacity each of us has to par ticipate as a distinct pole in different sorts of free relationships. But on the other hand, it also reflects recognition that each of us contributes nontrivially to the conditions for others to flourish. Respect, in short, shows that we can and should promote both our own freedom and that of others. Thus, for example, in the domain of morality respect shapes the way we should apply norms and deal with excuses. It is true both that we should observe norms and that we can proffer or accept excuses. In brief, mercy and justice, whether distributive or rectificatory, do not necessarily conflict if respect guides their exercise. Respect prevents the unequivocal subordina tion of the concrete person to some general idea or program of activity. But it likewise prevents the unqualified subjection of all common requirements to the idiosyncracies of the individual person’s condition or preference at the moment. Similarly, respect can and should range over the entire length and breadth of the domain of politics. In domestic politics, for example, respect should inform and govern the dialectic between law and custom. Though laws can and should be devised and obeyed, not everything is to be subjected to the law. Custom is often an acceptable, even better, guide. Respect calls for a cherishing of law while still acknowledging law’s limitations. It blocks the radical dissociation of the present lawmaker’s performances from the benign efficacy of at least some performances of predecessors which custom embodies. In international politics, respect informs and governs the dialectic be tween insistence upon a state’s right to self determination and its involve ment with other states. Consider for example, the matter of establishing or

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maintaining alliances. Alliances in their practical application cannot justifiab ly disregard the concerns of states which are not parties to the alliance. But neither can a policy or program of self-determination justifiably lead to isola tionism. In all of these matters, political as well as moral, respect requires that we take both ourselves and others seriously. That is, respect requires both in dividuals and political bodies to admit both their riches and their poverty, their strength and their impotence, their knowledge and their ignorance. It also requires that all others be acknowledged to be blessed and burdened in similar ways. As Walzer suggests, the ultimate objective of distributive jus tice is to promote mutual respect, or, in his terms, self-respect for all. “When all social goods, from membership to political power, are distributed for the right reasons, then the conditions of self-respect will have been es tablished as best they can be.”47 But, he continues, even after such a dis tribution there will still be men and women who do not get the respect they deserve, for no distribution is perfect. The respectful man will confess that whatever blessings human doings bring about, these same doings never fail to bring burdens as well. And he will also admit, with Herbert Spiegelberg, that there is another distribution of benefits and burdens which is beyond human control. This latter distribution is sheerly an accident of birth.48 Thus respect, like freedom, can either flourish or wither. It needs cul tivation. The capacity for respect is intrinsic to normal human existence but it prospers through discipline. This discipline, whether administered by one self or by others, aims to educe a vigorous respect and ultimately to enhance freedom. Respect, then, can sometimes call for coercion which is not retalia tory.49 Some coercion obviously impairs freedom. But other coercion facili tates it. Coercion, therefore, is not an unqualified moral or political evil either for one who administers it or one who suffers it. Like acquiescence, coercion is simply one of the many types of human performance which re spect should inform and govern. Through respect, then, one finds a way to harmonize basic moral and political requirements. Respect can effect this harmonization because it involves an acknowledgement of the finitude of freedom. The doctrine of autonomous freedom does not sufficiently thematize freedom’s finitude. As a consequence, whatever sense respect could have in that doctrine would be incapable of insuring that all basic requirements for responsible politics be met. For example, the doctrine of autonomous free

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dom cannot require that we work to preserve the political community into which we have been inducted. Hence there is no way to insure the harmoni zation of the fundamental requirements of both the moral and the political domains. The concept of relational freedom, however, does lay a foundation for an account of respect which is sufficiently strong to produce this harmonization. In this crucial way, then, the concept of relational freedom is more fruitful than that of autonomous freedom.50 The harmonization of the moral and political domains closes the ap parent gap between freedom and authority. Unlike the concept of autono mous freedom, the concept of relational freedom does not tend to delegiti mate authority. To the contrary, it clearly allows for the establishment and maintenance of authority. It does so by letting one see that participations in subsumptive and hegemonic relationships can be just as genuine exercises of freedom as is participation in egalitarian relationships. Subsumptive relationships are of particular importance for responsible politics. In them, one recalls, each participant freely acknowledges his subor dination to some principle, norm or cause which is already in place and which is not, in the final analysis, subject to the discretion of any or all par ticipants. In these relationships, if Doe obeys Roe it is not because Roe is the individual person he is, but because both of them are so subsumed under this principle or cause that Doe’s obedience is part of the way he stays part of the relationship. Since the subsumptive relationship, by hypothesis, en hances the efficacy of each of them, it likewise enhances their freedom. Thus when institutions embodying principles of subsumption impose require ments and aims on their members, they do not handicap their participants but rather provide opportunities for accomplishments which would not other wise be feasible. Therefore, when one understands that freedom is relation al, he can see that the claims and requirements of institutions and their lead ers upon their members can be fully compatible with the undiminished free dom of each participant. In summary, then, the concept of relational freedom which I propose here finds support in precisely the evidence of the phenomena of intersubjec tivity, discourse, and history which weighs against the concept of autonomous freedom. This alone is enough to justify adopting the concept of relational freedom. But further, this latter concept is exceptionally fruitful. It permits one to harmonize two apparently irreconcilable sets of basic demands, name

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ly moral demands and political demands. This sort of fruitfulness makes the case for replacing the concept of autonomous freedom with that of relational freedom particularly strong.

I and Mine*

For centuries, one of the staples of Western thought has been a rather specific conception of what a human person is. On this conception, the person is understood, as Clifford Geertz has put it, as “a bounded, unique, more or less integrated motivational and cognitive universe, a dynamic center of awareness, emotion, judgment and action organized into a distinctive whole and set contrastively both against other such wholes and against a social and natural background.”1 Though Descartes was by no means the father of this conception of the human person, the self, the Cartesian cogjito provided it with a powerful and influential articulation. In the wake of Des cartes, Enlightenment thought in its various dresses has often exalted the self to quasi-divine status, or at least ascribed to it an angelic independence from the physical and cultural context in which it acts. Recent years, however, have witnessed a considerable reassessment of what is to be claimed for and about selves. A number of influential argu ments have been advanced which deny that the individual human person is the source of any significant originality. Rather, according to these analyses, the human person, the self, is fundamentally a product or a result of some other set of forces or factors. The self is, to use Cartesian terminology, nothing more than a particular intersection of basically extensional proper ties. Thus, one finds today analyses of man in terms of his genetic make-up, or in terms of his social functions or roles, or in terms of power relations of some sort. For sociobiologists, all of a person’s performances are ultimately explicable in terms of survival of gene pools. The individual person is no

* James Bemauer's comments on an earlier version of this essay were most helpful.

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thing but the bearer of a particular configuration of genes. For L6vi-Strauss, the self is not an historically located actor, but rather is simply a set of struc tural transformations.2 For Althusser, human actors do no more than occupy positions within effectively self-contained structures.3 For Benveniste, at least on one reading, the I is not the author but is the effect of the act of speak ing.4 Or, turning to the Anglo-American philosophical scene, for Anthony Kenny, the pronoun “I” does not refer. Citing Wittgenstein, Kenny argues that mind is simply a second order ability which consists totally in the ability to acquire first order abilities.5 The ultimate sense of any analysis of these sorts is that, in principle, either alone or with other analyses also dealing exclusively with extensional properties, it can deal exhaustively and comprehensively with its subject matter, namely human beings and their performances. On all such analyses, what Geertz calls the Western conception of the person, the. self, appears nowhere. The self, if it is mentioned at all, explains nothing. Rather, it is itself simply an explanandum, something to be explained by factors other than itself. In this paper, I have no intention of trying to reinstate some Cartesianesque Western conception of the self. But the recent reaction against that conception appears excessive. Some version of the traditional Western con ception of the person, the self, seems to me to be indispensable for a thor ough account of human phenomena. Following clues to be found in Heidegger, Ricoeur, and others, I want to argue that though structures and causal sequences of various sorts are admit tedly necessary conditions for the occurrence of any human phenomenon, they are not sufficient conditions for the occurrence of qualitively new human phenomena. Even if all human performances, once they have occurred, are fully analyzable in extensional terms, there is genuine novelty in human mat ters and this novelty is not fully explicable without resort to something like the Western conception of the self. After having defended this thesis, I will briefly suggest a way of characterizing this self. The sort of self for which I intend to argue is in all respects historical. History is not without structures. But these structures do not constitute a closed field, a field which precludes genuine initiative. As Anthony Giddens has said,

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every process of action is a production of something new, a fresh act; but at the same time all action exists in continuity with the past, which supplies the means of its initiation. Structure thus is not to be conceptualized as a barrier to action, but as essentially involved in its production.6 The possibility of novelty does not require a self which stands outside of history and episodically intrudes itself into the historical field. It does not require a Cartesian subject. It does, however, require an agent who can constitute events by causally intervening in the ongoing processes which make up the world. Intervention of this sort entails that the agent could have acted otherwise.7 Before proceeding to present evidence in support of my thesis, let me say something about the logic of my argument. First, I do not claim that I can definitively prove that selves exist as sources of novelty. So strong a claim risks falling into the fallacy of ignorance. I must admit that even if presently proposed sets of necessary conditions for the occurrence of all human phe nomena do not amount to sufficient conditions, it is not logically impossible that some as yet unformulated proposals might articulate both necessary and sufficient conditions for all human phenomena. Rather, my argument claims that, given the set of phenomena that I will point out, it makes sense to acknowledge the existence of selves to account for them. My argument, therefore, deals with “contingent necessities.” It has both factual and conceptual elements. None of the phenomena which I will point out exists or occurs of necessity. But since they do occur, then there is good reason to acknowledge the existence of selves. Second, the evidence supporting my thesis, because it is drawn from relatively independent lines of inquiry, can be said to be “robust.” In scien tific investigations, a result is called robust to the extent that it is invariant under a multiplicity of at least partially independent processes across which invariance is shown.8 There is more reason to have confidence in robust results than in those issuing from just one line of investigation. Considera tions of robustness are applicable to the determination of both entities and properties.9 I take it that they are applicable to the question of the existence and character of things like traditionally conceived selves. One last caution. My claim that we should admit the existence of some thing like a self does not entail either that every member of the biological

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species homo sapiens is a self nor that a self is of intrinsic moral or aesthetic value. Though I happen to believe both of these things, they are fundamen tally unrelated to the argument that I wish to make here. Let me begin my case by turning to Being and Time. Heidegger provides there the ontological characterization of the sort of self for which I wish to argue. Consider first his discussion of mineness. Mineness, along with exis tence, is a distinguishing characteristic of Dasein’s way of being. Dasein is always mine to be in one way or another. It is always a decided upon way of comporting itself toward its ownmost unique possibility. That Dasein can be either authentic or inauthentic is rooted in its essential mineness.10 Because of its essential mineness and existence, Dasein cannot be treated as merely a special case of entities in the world. “Because Dasein has in each case mine ness” Heidegger says, “one must always use a personal pronoun when one addresses it: ‘I am,’ ‘you are’.”11 On this basis Heidegger can go on to dis cuss Dasein’s way of Being-in-the-world in such a way that though it is never worldless, neither is Dasein just another constituent item in the world. In the final analysis, if the things of the world are to make sense, they can do so only by reason of Dasein’s distinctive way of being, by reason therefore of its mineness. The mineness characteristic of Dasein is made fully explicit when it is considered in terms of death. “Death, as the end of Dasein, is Dasein’s ownmost possibility - non-relational, certain and as such indefinite, not to be outstripped. Death is, as Dasein’s end, in the Being of this entity towards its end.”12 And Heidegger continues: Death does not just “belong” to one’s own Dasein in an undifferen tiated way; death lays claim to it as an individual Dasein. The non relational character of death [as opposed to the context of relations making up significance or meaning], as understood in anticipation, individualizes Dasein down to itself. This individualizing...makes manifest that all Being-alongside the things with which we concern ourselves, and all the Being-with-Others, will fail us when our ownmost potentiality-for-Being is the issue.13 Later, in “Was Heisst Denken?” Heidegger gives further specificity to man’s distinctive way of being when he distinguishes between capability and possibility. Only men are capable. To be capable of something means: to

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allow something to be close to us in accordance with its own being and con stantly to look after what has been allowed close. That of which we are capable (vermogen) is always what we desire (mogen), that to which we are devoted in that we let it come.14 Man’s way of being, then, is not merely to be the outcome of some set of antecedent conditions upon which he de pends. These ontological considerations of Heidegger’s, inimical though they clearly are to any doctrine positing Cartesian subjects, by no means require that the Western conception of the person be completely jettisoned. Rather, they point to a distinctive entity, a self, which can act into the world and take responsibility for what it does. Further, these same considerations can be filled out and made robust by paying attention to a cluster of phenomena all having to do somehow with language and its deployment. Let me con centrate here on four of these sorts of phenomena. Consider, first, Alasdair MacIntyre’s arguments, in After Virtue, for the systematic unpredictability of human affairs. These arguments, as he points out, do not preclude the logical possibility of the universal predictability of human affairs. But no available material evidence buttresses this mere logi cal possibility. Indeed, just what could count as material evidence for univer sal predictability is conceptually opaque.15 Of the four arguments which MacIntyre marshals to defend this thesis, let me focus on the one he presents against the possibility of predicting spe cific conceptual innovations. He asks us to imagine a discussion in the Old Stone Age concerning the possibility of predicting the invention of the wheel. Someone asks: “Wheel? What’s that?” The forecaster then describes the wheel. His interlocutor can then reply: “No one is going to invent the wheel. You have just done it.” As MacIntyre explains: In other words, the invention of the wheel cannot be predicted. For a necessary part of predicting an invention is to say what a wheel is; and to say what a wheel is just is to invent it .... [Thus] the notion of the prediction of radical conceptual innovation is itself conceptually incoherent.16 The point I wish to stress for purposes of the present argument is that since there have in fact been conceptual innovations, there have been un predictable events in human history. But if analyses of human activity in

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terms of antecedent structures or causal sequences could be exhaustive, then one would expect at least the prospect of total predictability. In the absence of such a prospect, however, there is no basis for insisting that all human phenomena can be accounted for without admitting human initiative. There is, then, room for an efficacious self. MacIntyre goes on, however, to set forth a refinement of considerable importance. Unpredictability, he notes, does not, by itself, entail inexplicabil ity. Unpredictability, he says, is logically compatible with a strong version of determinism. Nonetheless, it is logically impossible that anyone be able to predict his own decisions, innovations, etc. Therefore MacIntyre concludes: Insofar as the observer cannot predict the impact of his future ac tions on my future decision-making, he cannot predict my future actions any more than he can his own; and this clearly holds for all agents and all observers.17 Determinism, then, is not logically refuted by the unpredictability of innovations. Yet one could give a coherent deterministic account of his own innovations or decision, and its impact on others, only if he abandoned firstperson descriptions of what he had done in favor of third-person accounts. But this shift itself begs for explanation. To give a complete, comprehensive deterministic account of his total conduct, one would have to explain his shifting from one sort of description to the other sort in a third, “neutral” language. There is, however, no material evidence to support the claim that such a neutral language could be discovered. MacIntyre’s reflections on conceptual innovations, and the evidence they provide for an initiating self, bear striking similarities to central features of Paul Ricoeur’s theory of metaphor. And Ricoeur’s metaphor theory also points to a self capable of efficacious agency. In The Rule o f Metaphor, Ricoeur shows that genuine, fresh metaphors are not merely decorative or ornamental. They are cognitively significant. They both introduce new meaning and necessarily claim to articulate some thing true.18 Such metaphors, according to Ricoeur, hold in abeyance direct or ordinary linguistic reference. They promote, and are themselves part of, a redescription of reality, a redescription which alters the way in which men inhabit the world. The truth articulated in fresh metaphor is not that of straightforward correspondence with an already established, routinized con

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cept of reality. Rather, the truth of metaphor is that aletheia, that unconcealing of the previously hidden, of which Heidegger speaks. In Ricoeur’s terms, the truth of metaphor is a tensive truth, a truth that says of p both that it is and that it is not q. The tensive truth of metaphor does not pretend to simply mirror the world. Rather, it effects a fresh relation between man and world. These metaphors involve a semantic impertinence. They thus overstep the bounds of established linguistic usage. Once fresh metaphors have been produced, they may, Ricoeur acknowledges, be analyzed in terms of antece dent structures or causes. But these analyses cannot account for the event of the actual production of new meaning. And, I would add, the fresh meta phors, rather than being simply the consequences of antecedent patterns and structures, themselves modify the antecedent conditions whence they spring. Unless one reifies these conditions, there is no reason to think that the fresh metaphor for which they supply necessary conditions will not, when actual ized, affect their own efficacy. To the contrary, such a modification is pre cisely what one would expect.19 The existence of fresh metaphors points to the existence of an author. This author is not, of course, Descartes’s imperial ego. Nor is he the roman ticist’s genius. He always inhabits a language and a social matrix containing numerous elements whose functions are predictable. But this author is not merely an intra-systematic functionary. While living within the system, he both keeps the system from total closure and modifies the system by bringing something distinctive, namely his semantic initiative, to the structural resour ces of the system. Once the author has effected an innovation, that innovation can be stud ied and analyzed without reference to him. But without his initiative there would be nothing new to be analyzed. All of this is simply another way of saying that a) if language can be said to have a history, and b) if history is something other than mere process, if history involves novelty as well as routine,20 and c) if history is intelligible qua history, then authorial initiative must be acknowledged.21 But to acknowledge the authorial initiative is in fact to acknowledge the existence of selves. Let me shift now from discussion of initiatives and novelties within lan guage to a consideration of certain features of language and discourse them selves, which also point to the existence of a self as a sort of entity fun damentally distinct from other kinds of things. Attention to these features is

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particularly appropriate inasmuch as arguments relying on certain results of linguistic investigations have furnished a large part of the impetus for the movement to dismantle the traditional Western conception of the self. For some years now, analyses of language employing the techniques of modal logic have concluded that the first person singular pronoun enjoys a special status among linguistic elements. Hector-Neri Castaneda’s conclusion is representative of the results of these studies. He says: The first-person pronoun has...an ontological priority over all names, contingent descriptions of objects, and all other indicators; a correct use of “I” cannot fail to refer to the entity to which it purports to refer; moreover a correct use of “I” cannot fail to pick up the cate gory of the entity to which it refers. The first-person pronoun, with out predicating selfhood, purports to pick out a self qua. self, and when it is correctly tendered, it invariably succeeds.22 What can and cannot be said consistently about the I to which the first person pronoun refers shows that the I never has properties, e.g., weight, in the same way that other entities have them. And so, Castaneda concludes: “The I is not an entity that either exists contingently or necessarily. It is not, in that sense, an entity in the world but an entity outside the world that must be identified in terms of entities in the world.”23 One need not subscribe to Castaneda’s talk of the I as an entity “outside the world” to find evidence in his analysis for the existence of selves. But it is useful for present purposes to notice his conclusion that the I must be identifiable in terms of entities in the world. Further, to find evidence for the existence of selves, one need not claim, as Castaneda does, that the first person pronoun has an ontological priority over all other indicators. It is sufficient to notice the linguistic irreducibility of what Colin McGinn calls “the subjective view.” McGinn argues that the indexicals “now” and “here” are just as secure against reference failure as is the I.24 One of McGinn’s central theses is that perceptual experience and direct cognitive awareness cannot be articulated in a language devoid of indexical concepts and concepts of secondary qualities. He argues that we must distin guish between two sorts of thought. Non-indexical thought is the sort of thought employed in mathematics and the sciences. In such thought, “the

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world is conceptualized without selecting any particular point of view as privileged.”25 Indexical thought is the sort of thought connected with engage ment in practical affairs in the world. In McGinn’s words;: “What phenomenologists would call ‘being-in-the-world’ presupposes indexical thought.”26 And he adds: “Similarly, to have perceptual experience of an object the object must be perceived to have qualities whose instantiation conditions make essential reference to properties of the perceived, i.e., to the kinds of experience he enjoys.”27 Thus if secondary qualities are to be ascribed in any way to the world, then this ascription must proceed through reference to a subject of awareness from which they spring.28 And this reference to a sub ject cannot fail. In McGinn’s general argument there is a somewhat latent dimension which is particularly pertinent to the case I am presenting here.29 If indeed there are these two distinct sorts of thought with their respective appropriate vocabularies and grammars, and if one and the same entity deploys each of them in turn, then there is reason to claim that this entity, if it can switch from the one to the other, must be relatively independent of each of them, must, in effect, be a self. One might of course say that because an entity is independent of each sort of thought does not entail that it is independent of their conjunction. True enough from the purely logical standpoint. But just what the conjunc tion of these two distinct sorts of thought would amount to is fundamentally opaque. Until this opacity is removed, there is no reason to discredit this sort of evidence for the existence of selves.30 One finds the kind of switching indicative of selves in other guises. Con sider the following feature of discursive practice. All discourse has the fol lowing form: A says p about x to B.31 In any deployment of discourse, the emphasis can be placed primarily either on saying what is most appropriate about the topic x or what is most accessible to the audience B. So far as I can tell, no actual instance of discourse avoids emphasizing one rather than the other, though neither emphasis necessarily obliterates concern for the unstressed constituent. The apparent necessity for selecting one emphasis rather than the other constitutes one of the principal problems for all peda gogy. When and how are these emphases to be distributed?32 The relevant point here is that discursive practice shows the possibility of selecting and shifting emphases. Though there are customary guides to ap propriate selections and shifts, these guides are both questionable and regu

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larly questioned. Specific selections and shifts are made possible by but are not fully determined by either discourse, the topic, or the audience. In their concrete specificity they point to an agent, a self exercising initiative, a self who is responsible for the shifts and selections actually made.33 This consideration provides a basis for challenging Kenny’s claim that a pronoun “I” does not refer to anything. Kenny would analyze the human being into a set of first-order abilities and their exercise, together with a second-order ability to acquire first-order abilities. The exercise of every first-order ability involves some bodily vehicle, e.g., eyes for seeing. His analysis, however, does not account for the person’s ability to switch from exercising one ability, of either order, to exercising another ability. This ability to switch is not of the same sort as either the first-order or the second-order abilities recognized by Kenny. The ability to switch from one sort of ability to another, an ability which is applicable to all the abilities Kenny acknowledges, points to a responsible agent, a self who deploys its several specific abilities on its own initiative. This ability to switch among abilities, each of which has a determinate field of exercise, is closely connected with the ability to perform silence. Silence is a complex, positive phenomenon.34 It does not, however, have a well defined object belonging to a determinate field of activity. As such, performances of silence show that their performers possess a relative in dependence from each determinate field of human endeavor. They show their performers to be selves.35 This congeries of evidence, drawn from several relatively independent lines of investigation, yields the robust result that there are indeed selves. The powers of these selves resemble in important respects those connected with what Geertz has called the “Western conception of the person.” None of the evidence I have adduced, however, implies that the self can be the topic of direct inspection or study. On the contrary, the thinkers upon whose results I have drawn hold, either explicitly or implicitly, that however this self is to be described, its description is achieved indirectly, by examining the contexts into which it is born, in which it lives, and from which it expires. Many of the contexts are “extensional” contexts. All of these results are consistent with Heidegger’s description of how a self comes to grasp itself. He says:

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Because as existents we already understand world beforehand, we are able to understand and encounter ourselves constantly in a specific way by way of the beings which we encounter as intraworldly .... In understanding itself by way of things, the Dasein understands itself as being-in-the-world by way of its world.36 Unlike Cartesianesque selves, then, the historical self can be understood only in the worldly inscriptions of its doings and sufferings. The evidence I have assembled here by no means warrants any claim that the positive es sence of the self has been disclosed. Nonetheless, it does furnish non-trivial grounds for proposing something like the following sketch of the self. The self appears in its linguistic, fabricational, and actional performances. None of these performances is uniquely privileged or radically decontextualized. There is, therefore, no “key” to the self. Nonetheless, the self is experienced and encountered in and through its multiple performances as an abiding complex agent. The self is a sort of story. It has a theme, but the theme is, as long as it lives, never irrevocably settled. This self neither shows nor knows itself as a whole. But neither is it a mere product of a fabrication or the outcome of a process to which it con tributes nothing. What has it, it also has. It cannot be without being had by antecedent contexts. But it, in turn, stamps these contexts as at least partial ly its own.37 The self somehow both works on its context, which presents itself as either problematic or malleable, and authenticates the results of its work. The self, in Giddens’s terms, reflexively monitors both its own perfor mances, the performances of other actors, and the setting of their interac tion.38 To quote Giddens: The communication of meaning in the processes of interaction does not just “occur” over time. Actors sustain the meaning of what they say and do through routinely incorporating “what went before” and anticipations of “what will come next” into the present encounter.39 The selfs power to monitor both its own performances and its setting makes it possible for the self to seek absent or new meanings. It can move beyond the traditional certainties and confident beliefs into which it was born. In living out its own undoing of its established sense of itself, the self

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discovers that its unity is, in Edward Ballard’s terms, a dramatic unity.40 Its unity is one of “non-identity.” Such a self, of course, has no private knowledge. What it knows of itself is, in principle, knowable for others. But it always knows itself as something other than an empty frame upon which the structural and causal contexts it inhabits can inscribe just whatever they will. This self can both address and be the addressee of spatio-temporally specific moral, political, religious, and artistic claims. For example: “Will you help me now?” It is capable of both freedom and responsibility. And of alienation. It is autarchic, but never angelic. In sum, then, the evidence I have adduced gives robust support for the conclusion that selves, in the traditional Western sense, exist. These selves and their doings cannot be exhaustively analyzed in purely extensional terms. This same evidence provides no succor to those who would defend a Cartesianesque, substantial self. The self described in this evidence is a curious tale, a tale which tells itself. It finds itself already begun, and though it sen ses its ending, it must leave the sense of its ending as well as of its beginning to its equally curious fellow tales.41

The Interpretation of the Human Way of Being and Its Political Implications*

One would be hard-pressed to maintain that one’s view of politics, with its possibilities and requirements, is conceptually independent of one’s inter pretation of what it is to be human. At the very least, “ought” implies “can.” Most Western political thought since the seventeenth century has rested on some version of an interpretation of human beings, the political agents and patients, as more or less well defined, self-possessed entities which are in crucial respects independent both of one another and of their material and cultural contexts. Accordingly, human beings either possessed or could at tain stability and totalized self-integration. Indeed, this stability and self integration were marks of the fully developed, accomplished person. They were characteristics which did or should provide the basis for one’s political activity. And that activity either did or should preserve or enhance this sta bility and totality. The Cartesian doctrine of the ego is a prime example of this view of human beings. But many of the principal competing views, e.g., those of Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, and Mill, also emphasize stability and self integration of this sort.1 Even Hume emphasizes at least stability, if not totality. The stable, totalized person is, for the tradition, the responsible agent of politics, the one who acts in his own name for his own purposes in pursuit of his own objectives. Because he is stable and whole, he can be identified and held responsible for what he does or fails to do. He is likewise the one to

Calvin Schrag’s comments on an earlier version of this essay were most helpful.

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whom political appeals can be addressed and who can respond at his own discretion. Heidegger, however, with his critique of the Cartesian doctrine of the ego initiated a line of criticism that can be and has been extended to show that all versions of a stable, self-sufficient, self-contained human person are untenable.2 Among the most prominent thinkers to have taken up and am plified the Heideggerian critique are those who are today called post-struc turalists. Post-structuralism is at most a movement. It is surely not a doctrine. Each of its leading figures - e.g., Roland Barthes, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Julia Kristeva, Jean-Fran^ois Lyotard, Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe - has articulated a distinctive position differing in important respects from the others. Nonetheless, they are linked by a common foe. They are all unremittingly hostile to the claims of stability and totality.3 And their critiques of traditional interpretations of human exis tence, as they explicitly recognize, likewise vigorously challenge traditional Western political thought. Given the force of the post-structuralist attacks, is there nonetheless a defensible interpretation of what it is to be human that provides grounds for attributing political responsibility? What must a human being be if he is to bear responsibility of this sort? In this paper, I will first briefly explore a few post-structuralist proposals for understanding human beings and their transactions, linguistic and other wise. Proposals of this sort, I will argue, are insufficient to support an ap propriately strong attribution of political responsibility. I will therefore pro pose and defend an alternative. This alternative does not seek to restore the now discredited emphasis on stability and totality. But it does provide grounds for an appropriate sense of political responsibility. I do not claim that I can definitively establish the proposal I advance. But the evidence in its favor is strong and, for want of a sufficiently comprehensive and articu lated competitor, compelling.4 I

In general, post-structuralist accounts of the ego, the subject, or the self have treated it as a construct or an effect, as something derivative, something constituted by more elementary processes or forces. In place of the modern

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view, according to which the ego, subject, or self is a fundamental, indepen dent given which grounds or constitutes cultural processes and artifacts, the post-structuralist or post-modernist treatment stresses its dependence upon factors logically or conceptually, if not temporally, prior to and independent of it. Nietzsche’s critique of the notions of the ego or the subject foreshadows that of the post-structuralists. In The Will to Power he says: The “subject” is not something given, it is something added and invented, and projected behind what there is .... Is it necessary to posit an interpreter behind the interpretation? Even this is invention, hypothesis .... Our belief in the concept of substance ... is simply a formulation of our grammatical custom that adds a doer to every deed .... The concept of substance is a consequence of the concept of the subject: not the reverse! If we relinquish the soul, the “subject,” the precondition for “substance” in general disappears .... “The sub ject” is the fiction that many similar states in us are the effect of one substratum .... Everything that enters consciousness as “unity” is already tremendously complex: we always have only a semblance of unity .... The assumption of one single subject is perhaps unneces sary; perhaps it is just as permissible to assume a multiplicity of subjects whose interaction and struggle is the basis of our thought and our consciousness in general? A kind of aristocracy of “cells” in which dominion resides? To be sure, an aristocracy of equals, used to ruling jointly and understanding how to command? My hypothesis: The subject as multiplicity.5 Echoes of Nietzsche’s critique have reverberated and continue to rever berate in many recent theoretical discussions in literary criticism, historiog raphy, and philosophy. For a sample, let me draw upon remarks of Barthes, Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari, and Stanley Fish.6 In “The Death of the Author,” Barthes speaks of the author as a product of modern society with its emphasis on the individual “human person.” For modern society, the author is one who gives expression to a thought, point of view, etc., which has its source within the depths of his consciousness. But in truth, Barthes claims, “to write is ... to reach that point where only language acts, ‘performs,’ and not ‘me’.”7 The same holds for the I which in speaking

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says I. This subject, this /, is not a ‘person.’ Apart from the enunciation which defines it, it is empty. Thus “the modern scriptor is born simul taneously with the text, is in no way equipped with a being preceding or exceeding the writing, is not the subject with the book as predicate.”8 Instead of an author, a text, which is made of multiple elements drawn from multiple sources, has a reader. But this reader is not an independent, self-sufficient ego or subjectivity either. Rather, Barthes says: The reader is the space on which all the quotations that make up a writing are inscribed without any of them being lost; a text’s unity lies not in its origin but in its destination. Yet this destination cannot any longer be personal: the reader is without history, biography, psychology; he is simply that someone who holds together in a single field all the traces by which the written text is constituted.9 The ego, subjectivity, or self, then, is simply a function or product of lan guage and its deployment. Deleuze and Guattari, in their turn, consider the subject to be at most an ephemeral, ultimately insignificant, thing. The subject has no fixed identity and is always peripheral to the organic body, the desiring-machine. It is never more than a function, a transient function, of the transient sensuous states of the body.10 The subject is produced as a residuum alongside the machine, as an appendix, or as a spare part adjacent to the machine .... This subject itself is not at the cen ter, which is occupied by the machine, but on the periphery, with no fixed identity, forever decentered, defined by the states through which it passes.11 At the beginning of A Thousand Plateaus, they playfully reiterate this view of the subject, the I. They say: The two of us wrote Anti-Oedipus together. Since each of us was several, there was already quite a crowd .... We have assigned clever pseudonyms to prevent recognition. Why have we kept our own names? Out of habit, purely out of habit. To make ourselves un recognizable in turn .... To reach, not the point where one no longer


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says I, but the point where it is no longer of any importance whether one says I. We are no longer ourselves. Each will know his own. We have been aided, inspired, multiplied.12 For Stanley Fish, all objects with which we deal, linguistic or otherwise, are made and not found. But they are not made by individual subjects draw ing upon their own inner resources. Rather, they are the products of social or communal conventions. In fact, Fish says, we ourselves as individuals are products of social and cultural patterns of thought. The notion of an in dependent, unconstrained self is incomprehensible, for the self is a social construct whose performances and activities are delimited by the systems of intelligibility informing it. Hence “the self does not exist apart from the communal or conventional categories of thought that enable its operations ....”13 It is a function of one or more interpretative communities. Foucault, at least during his middle period (1966-1975), similarly rejected any notion of a subject or self which in any sense constituted the discourse or practices in which it was implicated.14 In The Order o f Things Foucault entertains the possibility that man is no more than the contingent product of a particular historical configuration of language. Man, he says, is a recent invention, an invention perhaps nearing its end. If the conditions which brought man into being disappear, as it is easy to imagine, “then one can certainly wager that man would be erased, like a face drawn in sand at the edge of the sea.”15 More clearly, in The Archeology o f Knowledge, Foucault holds that dis cursive formations and practices are historical, determinate bodies of rules which define for some spatio-temporal period and some social, geographical, linguistic, or economic zone the conditions for enunciation.16 This domain of enunciation refers neither to an individual subject, nor to some kind of collective consciousness, nor to a transcendental subjectivity; but ... it is de scribed as an anonymous field whose configuration defines the pos sible position of speaking subjects. Statements should no longer be situated in relation to a sovereign subjectivity, but recognize in the different forms of speaking subjectivity effects proper to the enunciative field.17

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Discourse, then “is not a language {longue), plus a subject to speak it. It is a practice that has its own forms of sequence and succession.”18 Inasmuch as what we do is a function of what we know and inasmuch as what we know is indistinguishable from what we can say, our practice, like our enunciation, and hence our very selves are effects of the discourse or discourses which define us. These examples illustrate the roots of the widespread contemporary critique of any interpretation of what it is to be human that is couched in terms of a stable, totalizable, independent subject or self. They stress the importance of either langauge or desire, both of which desplay discontinuity and inconstancy. There is good reason to agree that this critique has served to call attention to features of human existence which have all too often been overlooked. And in doing so, it has shown the indefensibility of any view of the self like that of the Cartesian ego. Whatever it is to be human, it is surely not to be sovereignly in control of either language or desire. But not infrequently those who espouse this critique make the further claim that the human subject or self is wholly constituted, wholly an effect or product of intersecting forces and circumstances all of which are in some respect prior to it, either logically or temporally. It is this further claim which I believe to be ultimately indefensible. And the error it embodies is not innocuous. For it undercuts the sensefulness of either making or trying to accede to calls for rationally warranted political conduct. That is, if the human self or subject is wholly constituted, is wholly a product or effect, how could it be held responsible for engaging in or acting on the basis of a cri tique of the conditions in which it itself lives? Even if Lyotard is right in claiming that there is no politics of reason but only a politics of opinion, the self must, as Lyotard himself sees, have the ability to decide among opinions, to adopt some and to reject others.19 An “opinion” which one cannot help but hold or reject is an obsession, not a genuine opinion. Writing specifically of Foucault, Charles Taylor asks whether not only can there be, but even must there be something between maintaining on the one hand so total a constituting subjectivity that every pattern discernible in history is necessarily attributed to conscious designers and holding, on the other hand, that no patterns or structures owe what they are to purposeful human action. Taylor grants the importance of emphasizing that every hu man act “requires a background language of practices and institutions to make sense; and that while there will be a particular goal sought in the act,


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those features of it which pertain to the structural background will not be objects of individual purpose.”20 But still one must explain diachronic chan ges in these structures. One cannot do so by giving unqualified priority to structure or language over action or speech. Rather: Structures of action or languages are only maintained by being re newed constantly in action/speech. And it is in action/speech that they also fail to be maintained, that they are altered .... To give an absolute priority to the structure makes exactly as little sense as the equal and opposite error of subjectivism, which gave absolute priority to the action as a kind of total beginning.21 Taylor’s critique of Foucault fits well with the critique Ian Saunders has made of the widespread tendency shared by post-structuralists and others totally to reduce the subject, self, or ego to a function or effect wholly deter mined by some impersonal system. And Saunders explicitly ties his critique to the matter of politics. This widespread tendency, Saunders claims, rests upon some version of two, or sometimes three, assumptions which, taken together, are inconsistent. He gives two versions for the first two assumptions. The first version is: 1. Our thoughts and perceptions are fundamentally determined by the semeiotic system in which we operate. 2. It is possible to specify the mechanics of that system.22 The second version is: 1. The subject, and the sense it makes of the world, is fundamentally determined by the universe of discourse in which it is embedded. 2. It is possible to specify the mechanics of that discourse and the pro cedures by which sense is produced, and the way in which the subject is imbedded in it.23 If one takes the term ‘determined’ in a strong sense and not merely as the equivalent of the weaker ‘influenced,’ then, Saunders persuasively argues, assumptions 1 and 2, in either version, are inconsistent. If the former is true, then the latter is false and vice versa. If the subject is wholly determined by

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its linguistic context, then it cannot explicate the mechanics of the way the context works. Any so-called explication could only be something just as fully in need of explication as the initial explicandum. Conversely, if the subject can give an explication which is genuinely distinct from the initial explicandum, then it is not wholly determined in its performances by its linguistic context, the initial explicandum. More pertinent to my present concerns is Saunders’ further claim that the widespread third assumption, namely that “political change is possible only where that mechanism is itself identified and changed,”24 is possible only if either assumption 1 or assumption 2 is false. If both assumptions 1 and 2 were true, there could be no intentional change, political or otherwise. That is, if assumption 2 were true, assumption 3 could also be true only if the outcomes of the mechanics of discourse and its procedures were not wholly determined by the universe of discourse whose mechanics are in question. If they were wholly determined, then the system would be absolutely closed and hence impervious to intentional change. For intentional change, if it is any thing at all, is at least partially extrasystematic. Saunders, however, is mistaken when he says that if we substituted ‘in fluenced’ for ‘determined’ in both of the first two assumptions we would reduce them to triviality. Much contemporary study of both individual and social human existence, whether by post-structuralists or others, has helpfully specified these influences and constraints. Just to know that human beings are not Cartesian egos is, of course, important. But it is no small matter to be able to go further, as these recent studies have made possible, to see the multiple ways in which we are subjected to constraints we cannot remove. Saunders’ mistake notwithstanding, his work and Taylor’s each in its own way prods one to look for an interpretation of what it is to be human which is compatible with the possibility of deliberately initiated or fostered political change. The requisite interpretation, however, must not surreptitiously rein troduce a Cartesianesque self. I turn now to propose a candidate for this interpretation. II Though it is necessary to interpret the human condition as one which is not wholly determined by “extrinsic” forces if deliberately sought political change is to be possible, an interpretation that did no more than allow for


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change would be insufficient to provide the basis for distinguishing respon sible from irresponsible political thought and action. A sufficiently com prehensive interpretation is one which also accounts for the persistent, ap parently intractable tension between the individual and the social and/or communal dimensions of human existence. This tension subtends the more specific tensions among such matters as freedom, authority, and justice, how ever they are defined. Thus an acceptable interpretation of what it is to be human must construe this fundamental tension in such a way that it can make sense both of oppositions and conflicts on the one hand, and of con vergences and cooperation on the other. And it must account for the irreducibility of this tension’s polyvalency. The interpretation that I propose of what it is to be human has its roots in the works of Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty. I concede that not everything that either of them says supports my account. This is particularly true of Heidegger, expecially the post 1930 Heidegger.25 Nonetheless, if there is merit in my account, it is owed largely to them. To be human is always to be implicated in a world of things and other people. But it is to be implicated in this world in a specific way. To be human is to be in the world interrogatively. To interrogate is to struggle, though not necessarily with hostility. This interrogatory struggle constitutes the human being as one who is always and essentially en route.26 In Being and Time, Heidegger repeatedly insists upon Dasein’s implica tion in a world with others. Dasein’s way of being is such that it can both be and understand itself as being assigned to a world of things with which it is unavoidably concerned.27 Among the worldly entities with which Dasein finds itself involved are other Daseins. This involvement with others is not something that Dasein, once already constituted, achieves or recognizes. For Being-with is an existential characteristic of Dasein even when no Other is present-at-hand or perceived. Even Dasein’s Being-alone is Being-with in the world. The Other can be missing only in and for a Being-with. Being-alone is a deficient mode of Being-with.28 Thus, Being-with Others, in solicitude, is constitutive of Dasein’s very way of being. These involvements, which constitute Dasein, induce anxiety in it. This anxiety is anxiety precisely about Being-in-the-world itself. In anxiety Dasein

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finds itself as free, free for authenticity. Anxiety thus individualizes Dasein. But, in so doing, it does not isolate it. Rather, “what it does is precisely to bring Dasein face to face with its world as world, and thus bring it face to face with itself as Being-in-the-world.”29 Heidegger’s treatment of these themes in The Basic Problems o f Phen omenology is, if anything, even more clear. Though there can be Nature even if there is no Dasein, world as that wherein things and people can ap pear and be understood can only be so long as Dasein exists. But because Being-in-the-world is constitutive of Dasein’s way of being, Dasein can dis cover and understand itself only by way of its encounters with the world and its entities. Thus: Because as existents we already understand world beforehand we are able to understand and encounter ourselves constantly in a specific way by way of the beings which we encounter as intraworldly .... In understanding itself by way of things, the Dasein understands itself as being-in-the-world by way of its world.30 As being-in-the-world Dasein is likewise being-with other Daseins. Da sein does not just discover among the things of its world some other Daseins. Instead, as the being which is occupied with itself, the Dasein is with equal originality being-with others and being-among intraworldly beings. The world, within which these latter beings are encountered, is ... always already world which the one shares with the others.31 Thus, equiprimordially existent Dasein is always and essentially being-with others as being-among intraworldly entities.32 Hence human freedom can in no wise consist in either establishing or maintaining independence either from things or from other people. What deserves emphasis for present purposes is the irreducibility of the human way of being to that of intrawordly entities. They do not come to be what they are in the same way as things do. In whatever way they are effects or products, they are not such in the same way as intraworldly beings might be.


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The political pertinence of Heidegger’s Dasein analysis is enhanced by his “The Origin of the Work of Art.” Politics, like art, requires both crea tors and preservers who are in turn made possible and constituted, as crea tors and preservers, by politics as they are by art.33 The creation and preser vation of the political community, like that of the work of art, takes place in an enduring struggle in which the work, here the body politic, is continually wrestled from the earth upon which it must nonetheless always rest and back into which it always is in danger of collapsing.34 The political domain, like that of art, is always possible but also always historical and precarious. It is possible only because there are people and equiprimordially people are what and as they are because politics, like art, is possible. Heidegger’s Dasein analyses can be fruitfully linked to Merleau-Ponty’s interpretation of the human way of being as fundamentally interrogative. This interrogation is not directed toward a world to which the interrogator is irrelevant. Rather interrogating, and hence the human way of being itself, responds to a world which does not merely confront us but which elicits our questioning. Interrogation, Merleau-Ponty says, presupposes nothing more than an indubitable encounter between “us” and “what is.” Without this encounter we could not ask questions. This inaugural encounter requires interpretation both of the “us” and of the “what is.” At the start we must interpret this encounter neither as an inclusion of what is in us nor as an inclusion of us in what is. From the outset we address ourselves to our experience because every question is addressed to someone or something and we can choose no interlocutor less compromising than the whole o f what is for us. But the choice of this instance does not close the field of possible responses; we are not implicating in “our experience” any reference to an ego or to a certain type of intellectual relations with being, such as the Spinozist “experiri.” We are interrogating our experience precisely in order to know how it opens us to what is not ourselves. This does not even exclude the possibility that we find in our experience a movement toward what could not in any event be present to us in the original and whose irremediable absence would thus count among our originating experiences .... We situate ourselves in ourselves and in the things, in ourselves and in the other, at the

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Elements o f Responsible Politics point where, by a sort of chiasm, we become the others and we be come world.35

This inaugural encounter between “us” and “what is” is not the en counter between “probers” and “the inert.” What we encounter is no naked thing, but rather the thing ready to be encountered. We interrogate it, Mer leau-Ponty says, “according to its own wishes.”36 The chiasm, the intertwining, of which Merleau-Ponty speaks, does not merge either me with the rest of humanity or humanity with things. But it holds us together in such a way that neither we nor things can either be nor be thought except as intertwined. It is as intertwined that both people and things both have their distinctiveness and affect one another. If the human way of being is fundamentally interrogative, and if human interrogation is essentially responsive to a world which in effeqt asks to be interrogated in certain ways (perceptually, imaginatively, memorially, cogni tively, in productive enterprises, etc.), then both we and the world interplay in a domain of openness. But this openness is not without bounds, even if the bounds cannot be named. If my interrogation is indeed a response, it cannot be wholly determined in advance by that to which it answers. But neither can it ignore what calls it forth. What calls forth my response today includes not merely things ready for interrogation but also previous responses both of my own and of other people. Thus when I think or act I am responding to a world already bearing the mark of prior human questioning. There is neither a distinguishable first call issued by something showing no trace of the human nor a first response wholly innocent of antecedents. Pressing these leads provided by Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, I pro pose that we interpret the human way of being as that of being en route. This interpretation gives perhaps more emphasis to the distinctiveness of each person as initiating doer than either Heidegger or the later MerleauPonty explicitly does. But given the difference between their rhetorical situa tion, namely a situation in which Cartesianism is not yet overthrown, and ours, instructed as it is both by them and by post-structuralist work, I believe that my proposal is consonant with their positions.


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In The Human Condition, Hannah Arendt makes two points concerning human action which, taken together, epitomize the interpretation that I offer. She says, first: Because the actor always moves among and in relation to other acting beings, he is never merely ‘doer’ but always and at the same time a sufferer. To do and to suffer are like opposite sides of the same coin, and the story that an act starts is composed of its conse quent deeds and sufferings .... Since action acts upon beings who are capable of their own actions, reaction, apart from being a response, is always a new action that strikes out on its own and affects others.37 Second, she links action and the unpredictability of its outcome with the doer’s self-disclosure. She says: This unpredictability of outcome is closely related to the revelatory character of action and speech, in which one discloses one’s self without ever either knowing himself or being able to calculate be forehand whom he reveals .... This unchangeable identity of the per son, though disclosing itself intangibly in act and speech, becomes tangible only in the story of the actor’s and speaker’s life.38 But whereas Arendt distinguishes both thought or contemplation and labor from this account of action, my proposal takes what she says about action to hold good for all aspects of the human way of being.39 All the performances of those who are en route - perceptual, imaginative, cognitive, volitional, etc. - are nondefinitive. They are essentially finite. But to say that they are finite is not to say that they are either immature or flaw ed. Nor is it to say that they are finally futile. Rather, it is simply to ac knowledge that each of us is always involved with other people in a material world not of our own devising. The context we inhabit always presents itself as already articulated into other people and entities which are not human. All of these, and each of us in our own ways, have their own specific weights or differentiated “gravitational pulls.” Each of these weights is reciprocally, but not uniformly, correlated with the others. To be en route, is not, however, to have a clear cut destination which is fundamentally distinct either from oneself or from one’s context. There is

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no fixed anterior goal which one either misses or hits or approximates. There is no terminus ad quern whose achievement would eliminate one’s routedness. On my interpretation, the specific telos of the human way of being is to persevere willingly, in both thought and deed, in one’s essential routedness. Thus, to be en route is to find oneself always already linked to a route which is there to be trod and tended. Without route, there is no human way of being. Without people, there is no route. A person fails to achieve his telos if he insists upon trying to bring his routedness to an end. Even should there be some ultimate terminus ad quem, some heaven that comes after this life, one who would insist that only such a well defined culmination can give point to our path treading, would effectively deprecate human existence. Deprecation of this sort is tantamount to nihilism. It denies that human life as presently constituted is of intrinsic worth.40 To be en route is to walk a path, to be a path dweller.41 To walk a path is, of course, to follow it. But it is also to break it. Path walking both brings about something new and preserves something old. It is also to be sustained by the path. To be en route then is to struggle with and for the path. This struggle with and for the path is, of course, a struggle in which each person is inextricably involved with other people. It manifests itself in the three-fold sorts of mediational performances people engage in, namely dis cursive, actional, and productive-destructive performances. And among these three types of performances, the discursive holds a certain pride of place because without discursive performances, actional and productive-destructive performances, if they would be possible at all, would be fundamentally opaque. And when actional or productive-destructive performances are discursively articulated, they acquire a durability they could not otherwise achieve. To be a path dweller is not to be a Sisyphus, condemned to futile exer tions. The world elicits our interventions. Thus, both they and time matter. It is through our interventions that both what the path is and what each of us is can come to be and to appear. Our interventions, however, whether they are innovative or preservative, are not necessarily “progressive.” The meta phor of linear progression is inappropriate to the interpretation of the hu man way of being as being en route. What Paul Ricoeur says of political experience is a special case of our fundamental experience of being en route. Political experience, he says,


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is never an acquired experience; both progression and regression are possible. The same pretensions, the same illusions, the same faults can be repeated at different moments of history .... History - as his tory of power - is uncertain. It is the collection of chances and per ils, the possibility of gaining everything or losing everything.42 But at the same time, each of us is the beneficiary of a specific heritage which, though we can corrupt it, we can also enhance to bequeath to our successors. In plying our path(s) each of us is constantly confronted by the con fluence of the settled and the open, the old and the new. This confluence constitutes the unique present which in effect interrogates us. In turn, it elicits from us an interrogating response. This double interrogation thus constitutes our basic encounter with the world and others. That encounter gives rise to our path treading, our play-struggle, in a world which both in vites our interrogation and yet remains finally ungoverned by any of our particular interrogations and the control they tend to aim for. We path dwellers are thus not coequal to the world. We reply to a path that the world itself plies. Willy-nilly, all human replying both springs from and interrogatively responds to the world and its path. This replying is in the service of the world plying its path. Whether we recognize it or not, tending the world on its path is the intelligible point of human performances of any sort. To be human, then, is to be for the world. This does not mean that the world so dominates people that what they do is really its doing and not theirs. We can be for the world and serve it only if we remain its other. The world allows, at least for a time, its other to be genuinely other. In maintaining our otherness, we remain for the world. Our otherness from the world is finally for the world.43 This interpretation of the human way of being as being en route fully respects the achievements of recent critiques of the Cartesian subject. It acknowledges the ineluctable finitude, historicality, and intersubjectivity of human existence.44 But it does so in such a way that it shows how it is that we can be and are responsible both to the world and to others. We are in some measure always responsible both for the way they are and the way we are. Our interrogatory response to our ongoing encounter with the world

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and others is never so tightly constrained that it is effectively their response which we merely enact. It is our response, one in which we pose a new question to them. But at the same time our question is responsive to a world which allows us to be and which furnishes both the stimulus and the resources with which we respond. The interpretation of the human way of being as being en route has wide spread consequences for thinking and practicing politics responsibly. Let me simply mention, in conclusion and without argumentation, just a few topics, central for politics, for which this interpretation has important implications. I do not, of course, mean that this interpretation solves specific political problems or mandates specific policies. Rather, it provides a crucial orienta tion for addressing political issues of all sorts, both conceptual and practical. My proposal to interpret the human way of being as being en route pro vides a sound basis for considering ecological issues, for if we are to serve the world, we must preserve it. And we must preserve it as habitable for other preservers. My interpretation also shows how and why considerations of economics are always relevant to politics. Economics always depends in part upon available material resources. These resources are constitutive of the path available for treading. But inasmuch as economics is not merely a matter of available material resources but also always involves human en deavors, it is always in some important respects at the disposal of politics.45 Further, my proposal accounts for why whatever we do has consequences which never perfectly match our intentions. All of our sayings and doings are interventions in a game which is already under way before we arrive on the scene and which will continue after we die. The path we have for trea ding both goes its own way and is fashioned in part by other treaders. And the effects of our own treading are never fully isolable from those of other treadings. And finally, understanding the human way of being as being en route shows why it is impermissible and ultimately impossible either to seek at all times and in all respects to be independent and autonomous or, on the other hand, to surrender ourselves wholly and without reserve to that which is other than us. To be en route is to maintain oneself, in struggle, both as a unique individual and as one who belongs with and to the world and other people. Responsibly lived, this struggle respects the historicality and finitude characteristic of everything human. As a path treader, when I struggle re


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sponsibly I struggle for myself against the stasis of self-satisfaction. I strug gle against myself for the sake of being available to and for my fellows.46 I struggle for others against their oppressors, always however struggling for allencompassing reconciliation. I struggle against those who would coopt me lest I fail either to maintain my own distinctive treading or to do what I can to support others in their struggles. The struggle constitutive of the human way of being, then, is the struggle to abide as path dweller with other dwell ers. This interpretation provides underpinnings, and in some aspects, correc tives for studies showing the ineliminability of certain tensions and struggles in social life. The struggle for autonomy or radical democracy against he gemony, for example, which Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe speak of unifying is not the struggle of the good, the diversifying, against the bad, the unifying. It is the always ambivalent and ambiguous struggle to preserve and elaborate a tension whose reduction, in either direction, would be destruc tive. To be sure, I have not proven, in any strong sense, that we should inter pret the human way of being as being en route. But the argumentation I have presented on its behalf and the light it sheds upon the perplexities of political thought and practice give one good reasons for adopting it. No competitor, so far as I can see, has comparably strong credentials.

Part III Taken together, the essays in Part II propose a distinctive interpretation of what it is to be a human agent. This interpretation stands as a “third way” between interpretations that treat humans as atomic individuals and those that regard them as products of some more basic set of forces or caus es. On the interpretation I propose, the human agent enjoys a freedom that is always and necessarily intertwined both with other free people and with material reality. The situatedness of all human freedom is not primarily a limit imposed upon it from elsewhere. It is rather, constitutive of that free dom. ^ If situatedness is indeed part and parcel of human freedom, then how does one best live out his or her freedom in the face of the freedom of other persons? How best does one bear oneself toward others? Assuming that Husserl is right when he says that each person always has some habitual style or way of willing that is itself freely adopted, I argue that at least in the domain of politics, the most reasonable and hence the most responsible attitude to adopt is one of hope. The sort of hope I have in mind is irreducible to either wish or desire. It is not essentially tied to the emotions. Rather, it is a deliberately adopted orientation which in turn modifies or modalizes particular decisions to per form or abstain from the sorts of deeds usually taken to be political. The two essays belonging to Part III clarify both just what characterizes a hope that is specifically political and just how this hope affects political thought as well as practice. Properly thematized, hope appears as the most appropriate orientation for engaging in political life. The first and earlier essay, “Hope and Responsible Politics,” provides evidence that the concept of hope for which I argue is neither idiosyncratic nor ad hoc. It is quite well attested to in the West and either it or some thing very much like it shows up with regularity in the East. This essay ap

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peared first in the special issue of Man and World, Vol. 17, no. 3, 1984, 453476 and was reprinted in Phenomenology and Human Sciences, ed. by J. N. Mohanty (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1985), 213-236. The second essay in Part III is “The Place of Hope in Politics.” In it, I spell out in some detail the rele vance to contemporary politics of the political hope for which I argue. In so doing I defend a stronger thesis about hope than I do in the first essay. It appears here for the first time. I have omitted from this collection a con siderably earlier piece of mine on this same general theme, namely “Fini tude, Hope and the Human Community,” Humanitas, Vol. 16, 1975,133-138.

Hope and its Ramifications for Politics

Since the seventeenth century, at least, Western political philosophy has for the most part been articulated in terms of one or the other of two incom patible positions. One position would claim that there is some knowable, anterior, fundamentally ahistorical order which serves as standard, criterion, or guiding principle for political conduct. One this view, politics can reason ably aspire to being a science, in the classical sense of that term. Orthodox or scientific Marxism is an example of this position. The opposite position denies that there is any such knowable anterior order. But it claims for men a natural, radically non-political, freedom on the basis of which they construct the body politic on their own terms, at their own discretion, and for their own purposes. On this view, politics is simply the expression of a radical human autonomy bound to consider nothing but its own preferences. Hobbesianism, if its “geometry” is disregarded, ex emplifies this position.1 Both of these positions, however, suffer from substantial defects. Each of them disregards or misconstrues critically important data concerning the nature of both intersubjectivity and history. A crucial consequence of these defects is that neither of these versions of political philosophy provides a secure bulwark against tyranny. As a matter of historical fact, each of these versions of political philosophy has been used to buttress tyranny. Each is, if not prone to such use, at least amenable to it. On the one hand, if the ruler can achieve science and thus be in possession of the truth, why should he give ear to those who oppose him? Or indeed why need he bother even to find out whether others agree with him? On the other hand, if the ruler is already in possession of might, why should he heed the weak, unless it be to insure his strength and their weakness? Tyranny, however, is the worst of


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politics. It is that which is least deserving of the name, regardless of whether it is benevolent or malevolent.2 Several recent thinkers have, with greater or lesser systematic effort, sought for some alternative to these two positions, some third way which does effectively exclude tyranny. Merleau-Ponty is one of the most helpful of these thinkers.3 He argues for a dialectical politics. Such a politics gives full weight to the density and complexity of three fundamental phenomena, namely history, intersubjectivity, and language. Elsewhere, I have suggested that Merleau-Ponty’s position can be charac terized as a politics of hope.4 As such, it stands in contrast, on the one hand, to a “politics of vision” which would claim “scientific knowledge” about what specific forms of political activity can or will accomplish. On the other hand, it stands opposed to a “politics of might” which can claim no justification for specific political conduct other than that of superior or sufficient force. But Merleau-Ponty’s helpful suggestions notwithstanding, the sense of a “politics of hope” has still to be developed. The objective of this paper is to contribute to that development. The term ‘hope’ itself is vague. The first part of this essay will attempt to give it some precision. With that precision in hand, I will then show some of the ways in which hope fits into and makes possible a non-tyrannical politics. Hope, I will show, is incompatible with tyranny. As such, it is a sufficient condition for a non-tyrannical politics. Whether it is also a necessary condition for non-tyrannical politics is a ques tion not fully addressed here, though there is evidence to suggest that it is. I A first purchase on the concept of hope can be obtained by taking note of the meanings associated with the term ‘hope’ in traditional Western Chris tian usage. These meanings have antecedents in both Greek and Hebraic thought and are not radically foreign to at least some traditions of Eastern thought. The exploration of the several uses of the term ‘hope’ and of the terms which belong to the semantic field in which it has in fact functioned will provide a basis for fashioning not merely an empirical generalization about the use of the term but a well formed concept of a specific kind of possible human performance. Let me note in passing that my approach to a concept supposedly of substantial import for political thought through the use of a term most ob

Hope and Its Ramifications fo r Politics

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viously associated with religion is not so odd as might initially appear. The putative radical divorce of politics from religion is a comparatively recent, and Western, arrangement. Most human thought has taken place in a con text where such a radical divorce was not conceived of.5 Thus there was not, and in fact there is not now, any appropriate way to segregate religious vo cabulary from political vocabulary and vice versa. I will occasionally return to this point in what follows. In summarizing his discussion of the understanding of hope found in the writings of the Church Fathers, S. Harent concludes; “In sum, the act called ‘hope’ encompasses, in its complete development, love, desire, courage, and c o n f i d e n c e As St. Thomas had made explicit, hope always has the four following conditions. First, hope differs from fear inasmuch as hope’s object is some good, not an evil. Second, hope differs from joy inasmuch as joy arises from a present, possessed good whereas hope always bears upon the future. Third, hope always implies that the good it seeks is difficult to ob tain. In this respect, hope is different from ordinary desire. Fourth, hope differs from despair inasmuch as it believes that its object is attainable.7 But the belief in the attainability of its object, which is ingredient in hope, always and necessarily lacks certitude. In fact, hope is incompatible with either an exorbitant demand for or claim of certitude. Hope, then, is opposed not merely to a despair which does not believe in the attainability of the object. Hope is also opposed to presumption, to the excessive certitude that one will obtain the object of one’s aspirations. Thus, though hope is supported by intelligence, its proper locus, as St. Bonaventure taught, is in the will. Since hope is essentially lacking in certitude and since it bears at least in part upon a future at some non-trivial remove from the present, hope also requires patience. Thus Harent can say: Just as patience helps hope to continue and to endure, so, in return, hope helps one to be patient, to resist, to struggle. There is a recip rocal influence. Courageous in its desire, serene in its courage, hope is a principle o f action .* This traditional Christian understanding of hope, together with its related notions, is continuous with, though not identical to, the notion of hope found in the Bible. Though the term ‘hope,’ with the senses just discussed, is pro

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minent in the Epistles attributed to Peter and in some of those attributed to Paul, namely Romans and I Corinthians, the term ‘hope’ does not occur in the Gospels. Its partial equivalents, “do not fear” and “seek” however, occur regularly. According to Rudolf Bultmann, the Greek elipzein is used in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament for the Hebrew verbs meaning to trust, rely, or depend upon. The noun form elpis is used for security and quiet ness. Either elpis or pepoithesis is used to translate “confidence” or “bold ness.” Elpizein is also occasionally substituted for hypomenein which regular ly renders the Hebraic “to abide patiently,” “to stand firm,” “to wait for.” It is also used for “to seek refuge,” “to cause to hope,” and “to tarry.”9 Bultmann’s summary of the notion of hope in the Old Testament calls attention to the emphasis there on yearning, patient waiting, or fleeing for refuge. Hope is not a consoling dream designed to distract people from their present miseries. Rather, it springs from the awareness both that there is a future which can be different from the present and that things are well with those who hope. But “hope is not directed to anything specific, nor does it project its own view of the future, but it consists rather in general confidence in God’s protection and help.”10 On the Old Testament view, then, hope is primarily a way of bearing oneself toward another person, here God, rather than primarily as a way of bearing oneself toward a specific desired state of affairs. The Greek word elpis used in the Septuagint has, of course, connections with non-biblical Greek thought and literature. In the Philebus, Plato main tains that human existence is determined not merely by the aisthesis which receives the present but also both the mneme of the past and the elpis (ex pectation) of the future. Aristotle, too, notes a link between elpis and mneme. Bultmann describes the significance of this connection as follows: Like recollection of the past, expectation of the future is not an ob jective assessment but a subjective expectation in fear and hope, whose content arises from what man considers to be his own pos sibilities. ‘Man’s own being thus determines what he hopes and how he hopes ....’ Expectations and hopes are man’s own projections of his future.11


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Elsewhere in Greek literature, hope is presented as a comfort for a man in a difficult present (Odyssey, 16 and 19). Hope is golden (Sophocles, Oedi pus Tyrranus, 158). Without hope, man’s thymos or spirit is defeated (Aes chylus, Agamemnon, 994). And, at least on H. Frankel’s reading of Heracli tus 18, elpis is the suprarational power of eckeurein (discovery or invention). “H e who does not expect what cannot be expected (i.e., what transcends all expectation) will not make the unattainable attainable.”12 Not all Greek thinkers, though, regarded elpis as necessarily benign or sensible. Pindar speaks of it as reckless and dangerous, as opposed to fore sight (Nemean Odes 11, 44ff.). For Democritus (Fragment 176), elpis should not rely on chance, which by definition precludes foresight. It should rather be restricted to that which can be expected on the basis of a scientific inves tigation of phusis. This lack of enthusiasm for hope is also characteristic of both Greek and Roman Stoics. They took it to be self-evident that hope is simply man’s projection of the future.13 Seneca’s summary remarks about hope draw toge ther several themes of considerable relevance to this study: Though they are so dissimilar, these affections march together: after hope comes fear. Why should this occasion surprise? Both suppose that the soul is in suspense; both are solicitous for the future. But what especially gives birth to both of them is that without confining ourselves to the present we carry over thoughts to the distant. Thus foresight, one of man’s greatest goods, is turned into an evil. The animal flees the danger which he sees; the danger passes and then he is tranquil. But as for us, the future tortures us at the same time as does the past. The miseries of the present do not suffice for us.14 This Western constant have the

review of the way the notion of hope has been incorporated into and Hebraic thought provides the basis for discerning some of its features. Whether hope is blessed or damned, it is understood to following features:

(1) Hope as an act is connected with the conviction that the future need not be like the present. It is in this respect that hope is linked with memory. If memory shows that the past and the present are different, for better or worse, then the future can also be different, again, for better or worse.

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(2) Hope is connected with the conviction that the character of the fu ture can somehow be influenced by the activity of free agents. The influen tial agent may or may not be the one who hopes. But he who hopes thereby allies himself to the influential agent and thus can benefit from that agency. At least, then, in the minimal sense of allying oneself with the efficacious agent, hope, too, claims to be efficacious. At the very least, it gives the “pri mary” agent an appropriate audience. (3) The object of the act of hope both is never fully determinate and is always complex. It is never fully determinate inasmuch as hope is distinct from both certitude about its own outcome and foresight into some welldefined future state of affairs. Hope is always complex insofar as it is always directed both toward some other person, either human or divine, and toward some state of affairs, ill-defined though the state of affairs necessarily is. In this sense, hope is a double-rayed act. Reflection on these constant features of hope allows one to discern some additional facets of hope. First, hope is indeed an act in its own right, hav ing its own object and temporality. It is not a mere “adverbial” modification of some other act. That is, hope is not merely a modalization of acts, which acts could be modalized otherwise. For example, a person does not marry hopefully or cynically. He hopes and marries. Or he is cynical and marries. The temporal duration of one act of hope can embrace that of several acts oi other sorts. And conversely, more than one act of hope may be performed during the temporal duration of some other single act. For example, during the duration of a single belief that the future will be transformed for the better, one might perform several acts of hope whose object is to ally onesell with the agent of that transformation. Thus, within Rabbinic Judaism there was apparently great confidence that the Messiah would come to inaugurate his reign, but no comparable confidence about one’s own participation in the glories thereof. It is easy to imagine the possibility of multiple acts of hope concerning one’s own participation in those glories performed in the course of the duration of one steady conviction about the Messiah’s coming. A peculiarity of the act of hope, though, Is that it can endure for long stretches of a person’s life.ls It can be reaffirmed when threatened or noted when its absence in another person becomes evident. Thus, for the most


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part, the act of hope provides the latent background against which more patent acts are performed. In times of crisis, however, the act of hope can either be brought to focal presence or renewed by being performed again. A second facet of hope revealed by reflection on its constant features is bound up with its double-rayed character. Hope always introduces a polyva lent tension into the flow of experience. On the one hand, in its orientation toward one or more other persons, hope implies some expectation concern ing the outcome of the agency of others. The fundamental expectation is that if the other person acts as a genuine agent, then his so doing is what is of chief value both to him and to me. That is, hope involves both the convic tion that it is necessarily better for a man to be associated with other agents rather than with puppets, even if he were the puppeteer, and a yearning for them to exercise that agency. Hope involves the courageous confidence that one’s own agency will not be compromised by the agency of others.16 On the other hand, in its orientation toward states of affairs, hope ack nowledges the finite, situated character of all agency. States of affairs do matter. They weigh upon agency, particularly in providing either favorable or unfavorable conditions for its efficacy. Hope must take into account and bear upon something other than the agency of persons. It must bear upon those circumstances which either advance or retard the efficacy of agents, circumstances whose precise bearing on agency the one who hopes cannot know. For if he knew their bearing, he would have that kind of certain fore sight which would make hope otiose. If a human performance lacks either of these rays, it cannot be hope. If it lacks orientation toward other efficacious agents, then it is mere desire. If it lacks orientation toward states of affairs, present and to come, then it is either presumption or fanaticism, both of which regard the concrete circum stances in which human activity occurs as fundamentally inconsequential. These rays, however, are not of equal weight. The primary ray is that directed toward other agents. Whatever the importance of circumstances, no present or future circumstance, so long as there is hope, can be taken to render the agency both of the one who hopes and of him in whom one hopes fully impotent. At least one agency, capable in principle of restoring the other agency no matter what the circumstances are, must be admitted. Otherwise hope has lapsed into despair. The agency in question of course is an agency which is efficacious within and upon circumstances.

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The survey of meanings associated with the term ‘hope’ and reflections thereupon provide the warrant for proposing the following characterization of the phenomenon of hope: Hope is a double-rayed act (1) whose object is both complex and never fully determinate, but whose complexity is ordered with priority given to the person or persons in whose efficacy one hopes over the states of affairs for which one hopes, and (2) which is inseparable from the conviction that the future is open to efficacious activity in which he who hopes, by the very fact of hoping, either does or can participate. For those who have the conviction that the future is open to efficacious human agency, hope makes sense. For those who do not have this conviction, hope makes no sense.17 Hope, then, is essentially an act of a self-acknowledged finite agent acknowledging his intersubjective, historical involvement with some other agent or agents in a world and comporting himself with courage and confidence toward the future taken as open. The account of hope which I have presented here is in the main consis tent with Gabriel Marcel’s description of it.18 He, too, notes that hope tran scends all particular objects and is expressive of a fundamental appreciation of man’s intersubjective condition. To hope is to be ready both to give to others and to receive from them. Further, hope is not a mere modification of other performances. Rather, to hope is to involve oneself in a unique process. In so doing, one weaves his experience in a specific way. Hope involves both a relaxed patience and liberty. Both hope and liberty, he says, take for granted the power of one’s judgment to override the claims made upon him not only by the perception of present circumstances but also by the limited scope of imagination. But however oriented it is toward an open future, hope does not involve disdain for either the past or the future. Hope says, “as before, but differently and better than before.”19 On one crucial point, however, Marcel’s account is not clear. He says that he who hopes effectively says: “I hope in thee for us.”20 Is this “thee” necessarily the Absolute Thou who is, whether explicitly recognized or not, God? Though Marcel’s description can readily lead one to this conclusion, my account suggests no such claim. Rather, as will be seen below, my claim is that hope can be directed toward either divine or human others or toward both. And the kind of hope with which I am here concerned is explicitly that which is directed toward other human beings. Thus far, my discussion of hope has been confined to a consideration of its sense in Western and Judaic sources. For a fully satisfactory account of


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hope, one would also have to inquire into its sense and place in the several traditions of Eastern thought. My own limitations prevent me from complet ing this inquiry. But at least on the surface, my results do not appear to conflict with at least some important strands of Eastern thought. If Mahatma Gandhi can be taken as a faithful articulator of Hindu thought, then hope in the sense I have specified, though perhaps not explicit ly named, is not foreign to Hinduism. Gandhi takes the fundamental mes sage of Hinduism to be: Renounce everything and the reward of renuncia tion is the enjoyment of all you need. But renunciation is connected to ser vice of others, is connected to a ceaseless striving to benefit others. “Re nunciation made for the sake of such service is an ineffable joy of which none can deprive one ....”21 Renunciation, however, is not passivity. It is of a piece with the ideal of Satyagraha, whose meaning includes patience, serenity, freedom, and justice. Further, renunciation goes hand in hand with dutiful action. In the words of Bhagavad-Gita: “Thy right is to work only; but never to the fruits thereof. Be thou not the producer of the fruits of (thy) actions; neither let thy attach ments be toward inaction.”22 For Gandhi, there is no incompatibility between dutiful political action and religion. In fact, there is no genuine, life giving politics apart from reli gion. And religion, in turn, primarily consists in service to the helpless. For me the road to salvation lies through incessant toil in the service of my country and therethrough of humanity. I want to identify myself with everything that lives .... So my patriotism is for me a stage in my journey to the land of eternal freedom and peace. Thus it will be seen that for me there are no politics devoid of religion. They subserve religion. Politics devoid of religion are a death-trap because they kill the soul.23 This view led Gandhi constantly to oppose the social forces which sought to maintain a class of people as untouchables.24 This opposition had as its positive goal the establishment of a living equality among all men. The ben efits of this equality were expected to ramify throughout the entire earth. “The moment we have restored real living equality between man and man, we shall be able to establish equality between man and the whole creation. When that day comes we shall have peace on earth and goodwill to men.25

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It is reasonable to think that Gandhi is not insisting that the object of his striving-renunciation is some well defined state of affairs whose presence would vindicate his life and whose absence would render it sterile. Rather, with patience, confidence, and courage, he addresses a future open to human influences. Further, he seeks to expand the number of agents who do like wise. Evidence of the phenomenon of hope, even if not explicitly named, is found also within Buddhism. According to Buddhism, there is a two-fold sacred mission. In addition to the primary mission which stems from the veneration of the career of the Buddha, there is also the important example of the career of the great king Asoka.26 Asoka’s career exemplifies an essen tial dimension of Buddhism. Among the major interpretations of the sig nificance of this dimension is that presented in the Mahavamsa or The Great Chronicle o f Ceylon. The Chronicle presents the sacred history of a people destined with a sacred mission, name ly, to maintain the purity of the Dhamma in a world of imper manence and self-seeking .... The primary intent is twofold: to pro vide paradigmatic models for the present and the future and to en gage in anamnesis or cultic reawakening of a people to the high points in its past and present destiny.27 On this view, the state is not an ultimate end. It is the servant of a high er end. “This higher end is always partially obscure and is never permanent ly reached.”28 Even so, the life of Asoka himself exemplifies the possibility of efficacious human agency. The total image of Asoka manifests the Bud dhist doctrine about man. Asoka ... is not the only Great Man (the Mahapurisa); he is also Everyman. Asoka, the wicked and cruel becomes Asoka, the just and righteous. In one human life we have the crystallization of two contrasting images, that of classic brutality and that of classic toler ance .... Here is not the renunciation of power but its transformation. It is this metanoia which makes him a compelling model throughout the Theravada world.29

Hope and Its Ramifications for Politics

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For Asoka, the true Dhamma could be brought into being in the midst of the daily personal and social lives of his people.30 Asoka’s unique contribu tion consisted in his recognition that Nibbana cannot be pursued when the basic needs of people are ignored. His approach issues in a Nibbana in this world which consists in “the compatibility, even interdependence, between social concern on the one hand the quest for tranquility on the other.”31 This approach yields two general convictions. First, there is a framework of relationships by virtue of which all the actions, words, and desires of each person affect everyone. Second, royal power, when properly purged, can bring about much good. This “is essentially a view of human nature which is realistic yet supremely sensitive to man’s potential.”32 For my purpose, which is to show that the sense of hope is not unknown in Eastern thought, this sketch of Theravada Buddhism is sufficient. One can discern there a conviction that what men do does matter for a future and that beneficial doing is always the sort of doing which seeks to provide room for others to be efficacious as well. These are the central constituents of the concept of hope I have specified above. At first glance the concept of hope appears to be alien to Confucian thought. It seems that Confucianism supports a political absolutism or des potism which would preclude a basic feature of hope, namely the expectation that the Other’s initiative is of importance for both the Other and for the one who hopes in him. Closer inspection, however, shows that hope does plan an important role in Confucianism, even if the concept itself remains implicit rather than explicit. Two strands of evidence support this claim. Consider first two passages from the Analects. First, in speaking of a man’s duty to his prince, Confucius says: “Never deceive him and then you may stand boldly up to him.”33 Second, Confucius cites Tzu Chang with apparent approval: Tzu Chang said: “A servant of the State, who in the presence of danger offers his life, whose first thought in the presence of personal gain is whether it be right, whose first thought in sacrifice is rever ence, and whose first thought in mourning is grief, - he commands respect.34 These two passages, and they are not discordant with a number of other passages, indicate that there is room for important initiative from the ruler’s

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Other. Since the ruler rules by virtue of the Mandate of Heaven which he will possess only so long as he retains his moral power (te), he can and should expect to benefit from the Other’s initiative.35 The second strand of evidence is found in the history of Confucian thought. At one level, it is true, Confucianism accepts a version of predes tination and fate (ming) which would appear to provide a basis for a despo tism which could expect nothing from the ruler’s Other. But in practice, this tendency toward despotism was mitigated in several ways. Rulers accepted codes of law developed by their predecessors. And at least institutionally, the promulgation of a code implied an act of agreement between ruler and ruled. In the establishment of these codes Confucianist scholars played a decisive role.36 Though the ruler had and exercised wide-ranging control, Chinese absolutism “was tempered by an all-pervading concern with human relations and social stability. In spite of the theories and devices of autocra cy, the Chinese tradition distinctly did not put the state above mankind.”37 Confucianist opposition to absolutism can be seen in the criticism direc ted by Huang Tsung-hsi (1610-1695) against the despotism that arose in the Ch’in and Han dynasties. Huang argued for a system of government which both served the interests of the people and conformed to the moral law, a system which would not require regular resort to force, extensive legislation or constant litigation.38 To implement such a system of government, Huang recommended institutions which would perform some of the functions per formed by organs of representative government. Among these, he em phasized the schools. The schools, Huang maintained, could and did serve as the forum where political ideas could clash. It was also through schooling that individuals could gain the resources with which to exercise efficacious initiatives.39 This brief discussion of Confucianism suggests that here too there is room in practice for a performance much like that of hope on the part of both the ruler and the ruled. Within Confucianism, education, with the clash of ideas involved therein, is always esteemed. And everyone, even the ruler, both has expectations of others and is subject to others’ expectations. Both schooling and these expectations, however, have no fully determinate state of affairs as their unique objective. The purpose of this sketch of some important traditions of Eastern thought has been to show that the phenomenon of hope is not necessarily confined to the Judeo-Western world. Even if the concept of hope is not


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explicitly elaborated in Eastern thought, it is not dissonant with at least some major Eastern traditions. Indeed, there is reason to claim that the notion of hope is implicit in these traditions. This modest result is sufficient to sup port the claim that hope is not a merely intra-systematic function of JudeoWestern modes of thought and action. If hope is not universal, nothing in principle prevents its universalization. Nonetheless, for present purposes let it remain questionable whether hope as a senseful performance is compatible with Eastern thought as it has actually been constituted in history. Further, let it be granted that even without hope the principal traditions of Eastern thought have the resources with which to establish the unacceptability of tyranny. Even so, hope in the sense specified here can be shown to be incompatible with tyranny. As such, it is a sufficient condition for a non-tyrannical politics. Hope, as I have shown above, is an act of a self-admitted finite agent acknowledging his intersubjective, historical involvement with some Other in a world and comporting himself with courage and confidence toward a future which is regarded as open. The task to which I now turn is that of describ ing some of the political implications of performances of hope. II A distinction of capital importance must be made at the outset. Hope, I have said, is a double-rayed act, one ray of which is directed toward the person or persons in whose efficacy one hopes. This ray holds priority, in hope, over that which is directed toward some state of affairs which is de sired and sought for. One must, however, distinguish whether the person or persons in whom one hopes are human or superhuman. If the person or persons are human, then the hope can be political. If superhuman, then the hope is religious.40 For the hope to be political, those in whom one hopes must be seen as co-participants in the activity of establishing or maintaining a structured context, or world, in which multiple sorts of human activity can find space in which to appear. Politics is a “totalizing” totality. That is, it lays claim to the responsibi lity for providing the framework within which other sorts of activities, e.g., educational, economic, artistic, religious activities, can occur. It takes its task to be that of allotting to each of these its “space.” Thus politics on the one hand gives place to other sorts of activities, while on the other it regulates

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them to prevent the unwarranted encroachment of one of these sorts of activity upon another. It likewise works to preserve itself as the appropriate source of such allocations. This view of politics is consonant with Aristotle’s discussion of communi ties. He writes: All communities are like parts of the political community .... We think of the political community as having initially come together and as enduring to secure the advantage of its members .... Now, all other forms of community aim at some partial advantage .... But all these communities seem to be encompassed by the community that is the state; for the political community does not aim at the advantage of the moment but at what is advantageous for the whole of life. Thus all associations seem to be parts of the political community.41 Similarly, the view I have presented in consonant with Michael Oakeshott’s claim that every mode of utterance, including poetic utterance, is properly construed in the context of a society of conversationalists rather than in a society devoted to scientific inquiry or one engaged in practical enterprise. For Oakeshott, politics is a conversation and political education involves learning how to be a participant in a conversation.42 As a matter of historical record, politics has not been the sole claimant to being the preeminent community, the totalizing community, of which all other associations are part. Religion, too, has claimed this grounding func tion. In fact, throughout much of recorded history, both East and West, religion and politics have been closely intertwined, often to the point of being regarded as two facets of one and the same fundamental reality. Theocra cies and civic religions are not counterexamples to this generalization. They are simply two among the many shapes which the connection between reli gion and politics has taken on.43 The thesis I wish to defend is that when politics is properly construed, then if it is intercalated with hope, tyranny is effectively eliminated. More specifically, The place o f hope in politics is both to develop and maintain the political community as a totalizing community while at the same time to fore stall all attempts to convert the activity o f any human community, political or otherwise, into the activity o f a totalized community. In performing this func tion, hope shows itself to be a sufficient condition for insuring against tyran


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ny.44 Precisely how this is so can be shown first by making clear the relation ship between hope and freedom. Then, with this clarification in hand, the bearing of hope upon the way in which such central phenomena as social institutions and patriotism are to be interpreted is clarified. These clarifica tions, in turn, cast further light on the status of hope itself and its incom patibility with tyranny. Hope, as mentioned above, is primarily directed toward persons rather than toward states of affairs. And what it looks forward to in persons is the exercise of efficacious agency. This agency is not simply that of the one in whom hope is reposed. It is a looking forward to the agency of both the one who hopes and those in whom he hopes. Insofar as it is an activity which involves both courage and confidence on the one hand, and an acknowledgement of the finitude of all human persons on the other, hope tends of its nature to be extended to all actual and poten tial efficacious agents. As such, it essentially tends to totalize. But by reason of its orientation toward an open future which can be made better than eith er the past or the present, hope is antithetical to totalized totalities. All politics is totalizing. Rightly or wrongly, some politics have been presented as either already totalized or en route to totalization.45 But no politics prac ticed in hope can pretend to accomplish or even approach totalization. Nei ther can it legitimately exclude definitely any efficacious agent nor can it seek to prevent the emergence of all new efficacious agents. Likewise, it cannot treat as definitive any particular arrangement of other sorts of activities, artistic, educational, etc., which find place within the framework it provides. Thus, for example, in a politics of hope no particular shape of the relation ship between education and religion can be taken as canonical. To engage in hope is at least implicitly to understand freedom in essen tially relational rather than individualistic terms. Hope makes either no sense or only uncertain sense if he who hopes would take his own efficacious freedom to be essentially independent from that of others. Given such in dependence, hope could be no more than one plausible strategy among others. But if efficacy is admitted to be ingredient in freedom, then individu alistic notions of freedom run afoul of substantial problems. Such notions are undercut by the phenomena of history, intersubjectivity, and discourse, all of which phenomena support instead both the sensefulness of hope and a relational notion of freedom. Relational freedom can be described thus: Freedom is the capacity simultaneously both to participate in and to maintain

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oneself as a pole o f multiple distinct kinds o f relationships involving either hegemony, equality, or subsumption in order to engage in reflectively and, in principle, mutually acceptable activity.46 All human performances, whether perceptual, discursive, or actional, are, as Merleau-Ponty has shown, fundamentally interrogative.47 The description of freedom as essentially relational respects the interrogatory character of experience. Man as free is a respondent. And part of his responsiveness springs from his desire to share with other people.48 Freedom is precisely the capacity both to participate in and to maintain oneself as a pole of rela tionships. So understood, freedom does not require the capacity to be the unqualified source of the relationships in which it participates. Rather, free dom is the capacity to establish and maintain relationships permeable to initiatives both of its own and of others. It is the capacity to overcome both enslaving dependence and isolating, enervating independence. Relational freedom, then, unlike Cartesian freedom, is essentially finite. When lived out in the context of performances of hope, relational freedom generates respect. And respect, in turn, is a necessary condition for all man ifestations of freedom which are genuinely efficacious, manifestations whose efficacy endures beyond the time of the performing of the act in question. The respect involved here is both self-respect and mutual respect. It extends both to the efficacious activity of which each participant is capable and to the specific shape of the finitude which is constitutive of each participant. Re spect acknowledges the truth of Aristotle’s observations: “Friends enhance our ability to think and to act,”49 and “friendship is noble as well as neces sary.”50 Relational freedom, then, lived out in hope and respect, finds fini tude no mere fault or defect. It is rather the condition for efficacious human community. Understanding freedom as relational permits one to have a judicious appreciation of the interplay between an individual and the social setting in which he lives. Not only does one work out his life in the context of other contemporary individuals. He also does so in the context of institutions. Institutions embody the sedimentation of previously performed activity. This sedimentation can perdure precisely because it is localized somehow in mat ter. Literature is both preserved and presented in books and libraries. Laws are both preserved and presented in archives and courtrooms. These institu tions and their expressions or presentations are regulated by norms. It is the


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task and objective of institutions to initiate new individuals into their prac tices and discourse.51 Unquestionably, institutions can obstruct human freedom. This pos sibility has led Louis Althusser, among others, to consider institutions as naturally malign. For him, institutions naturally propagate illusion and ob struct freedom.52 This view, however, rests upon a notion of freedom as a characteristic lodged within a fundamentally atomistic individual. When freedom is construed relationally, the thrust of institutions is seen to be am bivalent. Not only can they thwart freedom. They can also enhance free dom. This is so because, as Merleau-Ponty has emphasized, institutions do not rise over against men. They themselves are man-made. “Man is every where, inscribed on all the walls and in all social apparatuses made by him. Men can see nothing about them that is not in their image .... Everything speaks to them of themselves.”53 If this is so, then institutions, like all human achievements, are permeable to new initiatives. When these initiatives are seen to spring from a relational freedom lived out in hope, then both the individual and the custodians of the institutions can look forward to initiatives - and acquiescences - with cour age and confidence. The institution will be seen as that which can be rein vigorated and given new substance by initiatives. The initiatives can be un dertaken with both the desire and expectation that somehow their efficacy will gain a durability, through the institutions, which the individual agent alone cannot give to them. Institutions, whose existence is inevitable, can then appropriately be understood as structures which can endow a series of experiences with the intelligibility requisite for there to be a history. They are structures which likewise can invite subsequent individual initiatives and thus make concrete the openness of the future. Institutions, then, do not necessarily alienate men either from their own freedom nor from other men. Rather they are “the consequence and the guarantee of our belonging to a common world.”54 Indeed, institutions can be a source of a criticism and even of a self-criticism which it is not possible for individuals to make. Jo hannes Metz has said: T h e socio-critical task of the church becomes the task of criticizing religion and church as well.”55 Whether what Metz says about the church is accurate or not, it is the case that the state and its in stitutions have the task of criticizing both politics in general and themselves. Institutions do not, of course, abolish human finitude. But specific in stitutions, as lived through by specific people, do shape what people can and

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do accomplish. What hope contributes to the encounter between individuals and institutions is a distinct way of understanding this ineluctable shaping. Hope ensures against two mis-takings of this encounter. First, it ensures against taking any moment of that encounter as final. There is, with hope, no definitive outcome of this encounter. Second, hope ensures against any moment of this encounter being taken as absolutely devoid of redeemable value either to institutions or individuals. In the light of hope, then, one recognizes that the histories of both the institution and the individual are not histories of one seeking to render the other irrelevant to its own well-being. Rather, they are histories whose sense calls for unremitting transactions of both initiatives and acquiescences be tween them. These transactions in their unremittingness are understood as the life blood of each. Similarly, the aims and objectives of each are under stood, in hope, to be always open to and in need of modification by those unremitting transactions. In the light of hope, it makes sense to adopt a specific aim only if one recognizes that it is revisable and that, if its sensefulness is to be maintained, it stands in need of periodic revision. The contributions made by hope to the judicious understanding of the relationship between individuals and institutions have their analogue in an appropriate understanding of patriotism. In recent years patriotism has often been regarded as atavistic. But this view presupposes that freedom is atom istic. When the relational character of freedom is appreciated, patriotism can be seen to be part of the necessary background against which acts of individual initiative can be performed. The structure of this required back ground likewise gives sense to the moment of acquiescence to which the individual yields. Hope interprets this background as a heritage bequeathed by predeces sors. A person’s heritage is a fundamental, irreplaceable source and re source for his efficacy. To accept this heritage in hope is to bear it into the future with confidence and courage.56 Hope makes one understand that his specific heritage (national, ethnic, etc.), as lived through by him, has some thing of value to contribute to the human community. This contribution does not furnish the human family merely with an optional ornament. It provides something which is somehow needed. Though he who hopes in his heritage cannot fully specify either what this contribution can be or what the community’s need is, he takes it as unimpeachable that by living out his heri tage he will make this contribution.57


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Relational freedom, of course, entails that if I and my heritage have this importance, then so does the other person and his heritage. There is no unequivocally privileged heritage. To appreciate one’s heritage is to appreci ate it as one among many appreciable heritages. Patriotism, when seen in the light of hope and relational freedom, is incompatible with jingoism. Far from confining one to a narrowly conceived nationalism or provincialism, patriotism is resolutely international in its orientation. This internationalism is not imperialistic. Rather it is rooted in the recognition of the contribu tions one hopes to receive from, as well as to make to, others through mu tual patriotism. When understood in the relational sense, freedom by no means rules out legitimate recourse to coercion. Even when conjoined with hope to yield respect, freedom does not preclude the imposition of restraints. A politics animated by hope is not necessarily an anarchist politics. Respect, hope, and freedom all need cultivation. They can either flourish or be stun ted. They flourish through discipline. The required discipline may be ad ministered either by oneself or by others. What is distinctive about this discipline is that it is aimed toward the eduction of respect, the acknowledge ment of the sensefulness of hope, and, ultimately, toward the development of freedom and hope themselves. Hope, then, does not deprive politics of teeth. It sets itself resolutely against those who attempt in practice to render hope and respect otiose by advancing exorbitant claims for their own capacities or accomplishments. A politics embodying hope is required to oppose, perhaps by force, all attempts to deny, whether explicitly or implicitly, the finitude of every political agent. It is likewise required to oppose, again perhaps by force, attempts from whatever quarter to usurp the political task of allotting to each sort of hu man activity space within which to appear. In short, a politics which has hope as one of its basic constituents is committed to reject any initiative whose direct and primary objective is to eliminate the opportunity for some people to exercise efficacious initiatives of their own. The coercion which a politics of hope can countenance, however, is not without bounds. It cannot be merely retaliatory. It must always be measur ed against the objective of leading or restoring the coerced persons back into full participation in the cooperative enterprises of the community.58 Though some coercion obviously aims to suppress freedom and deny respect and thus is incompatible with hope, other coercion fosters freedom and respect and is elicited precisely by hope. Coercion, then, is not an unqualified moral

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or political evil either for him who administers it or for him who suffers it. Rather, it is simply one of many types of human performance which are to be measured by hope and respect. For coercive activity to fall within the legitimating bounds set by hope and respect, it must acknowledge the place of forgiveness in responsible politics.59 That is, on the one hand, legitimate coercion must aim at its own cessation.60 Coercive activity must be animated by the will to forgive and must extend no further than necessary to make it senseful to restore mutual respect in hope. In a politics embodying hope, then, forgiveness anticipates repentance. But out of respect, it does not eschew repentance. By virtue of hope, the offender is regarded as one who can return to full community. He is regarded as someone whose exercise of initiative and acquiescence can once again be beneficial to all and actually is needed by all. Merely to ex cuse the offender without his repentance, though, is to cease to hope in him. It is to treat his initiative and acquiescence as fundamentally inconsequential. A review of those features with which hope is bound up when it occurs in a political context, when those in whom one hopes are human, shows that hope plays what might be called a critical rather than a dogmatic role in politics. That is, when hope is seen to be entwined with relational freedom, respect, bounded coercion, finitude, and forgiveness, then it becomes clear that what is accomplished by performances of hope is not the establishment of some specific set of states of affairs or institutionalized goals as opposed to other possible sets. Rather it forestalls the establishment of any particular state of affairs or institutionalized goals as either definitive or fully com prehensive.61 Performances of hope, then, keep the objects of the other performances constitutive of politics from being regarded as either the neces sary or the sufficient objects for all acceptable politics. Each object, e.g., a specific piece of legislation, is always open to reassessment. These considerations straightforwardly lead to the conclusion that in politics tyranny, whether “benign” or “malign,” is incompatible with hope. If tyranny is understood to consist in the definitive exclusion of some segment of the populace from the exercise of political initiative, then it fundamentally lacks the desire for and the expectation of a needed beneficial contribution from others. Tyrants, in principle, cannot acquiesce in the initiatives of others and remain tyrants. But precisely what hope requires is the desire for and expectation of initiatives of others in which to acquiesce.


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It may well be that hope is not prerequisite for ruling out tyranny. Per haps relational freedom and respect would be sufficient to rule out tyranny. But without hope there is reason to suspect that the exorbitant claims of the tyrant for the worth of his initiatives would be replaced with an enervating skepticism about the worth of all initiative. That is, there is reason to sus pect that without hope, some repudiations of tyranny would repose ultimately upon a view that all initiative is of small consequence. In effect, finitude could be interpreted as weakness. Relational freedom and respect, then, could simply insist that no one overestimate his powers. On this view, poli tics itself could be taken as basically a stratagem by which the weak cope with their weakness. Hope, however, emphasizes the strength of initiatives. Finitude, as inter preted in hope, is the condition for even further opportunity as well as the condition which circumscribes every accomplishment. Both acquiescence and initiative aim at invigoration. On this interpretation of finitude, politics can be taken as a positive achievement which holds open the way for positive accomplishments. Thus, though there may be other ways of precluding tyranny, hope is sufficient for doing so. What is distinctive about the way in which hope rules out tyranny is the positive estimation of human initiative which hope entails. Politics practiced in hope is an achievement of strength by those who grow in strength in the process of the practice. Even if politics is seen as a stratagem born of weakness for weakness, it must be acknowledged as having some strength. A politics of hope, better than one apart from hope, can account for this strength.62

The Place of Hope in Politics*

Political philosophy is seldom an obviously efficacious mode of political action. Nonetheless, because it is always articulated in the context of a strug gle for justice and power which shapes human lives, its efforts to make sense of the conditions for beneficial collective human accomplishments are far from irrelevant to responsible political practice.1 Its analyses are never fully independent of the historical context in which they arise. And they always contain at least implied recommendations for future conduct. As a conse quence of its time-bound character the arguments proper to political philoso phy are for the most part enthymematic rather than demonstrative. They claim persuasiveness rather than conclusiveness.2 In this paper, I want to argue that properly conceived hope is a neces sary, though unquestionably not a sufficient, condition for maximally reasona ble, and hence maximally responsible politics. Hope does not bring to a politics its specific substantive provisions. But it does crucially modify how political practitioners understand and live out substantive provisions. My central claim, then, is that hope is the deliberately adopted and sustained habitual orientation or attitude which so modifies other political habits and activities that they are exercised most reasonably. To establish this claim, I must first set forth the complex context which motivates it. The constituents of this context delimit the field in which reasonable, responsible politics can be sought. Then the appropriate conception of hope must be specified. Finally, I will point briefly to hope’s political fruitfulness.

Martin Jay's comments on an earlier version of this essay were most helpful.

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Elements o f Responsible Politics I

Without trying either to give an exhaustive list of the constituents of the present context for political thought and practice or to order the ones I do single out, I take it that there is substantial agreement that the following factors are of great importance for responsible politics. These factors can be grouped into three classes, namely (a) relatively long-standing and widely accepted Western political understandings and convictions, (b) recent devel opments, and (c) recent recognitions of insufficiencies and excesses.3 Among the relatively settled views concerning politics, the most pertinent for my purposes is that which describes the set of features which together constitute specifically political activity as distinct from other forms of activity. As Sheldon Wolin has pointed out, even if there is no neat definition of the field of politics, there is a long, well developed tradition concerning what count as the central political issues.4 These issues make up, in general, the domain of politics. Politics can be described in the following way. (1) It is a form of activity centering around the quest for competitive advantage or cooperative enhancement between individuals, groups, or communities. (2) It is a form of activity which occurs within an ever changing situation of relative scarcity of both cultural and material resources. (3) It is a form of activity which produces consequences sufficiently large that they significantly affect at least a substantial portion of an entire society. Two more generally recognized features of politics also deserve mention here. (4) The domain of politics resists subordination to the domain or domains of any other sort of human activity. On Aristotle’s account, the political domain is the domain within which all other domains, e.g., the do mains of art or commerce or religion, find their proper place and fulfill their specific functions. Accordingly, all other domains must acknowledge the preeminence of the political.5 Or, on the account recently articulated by Paul Ricoeur, the domain of politics is at least one autonomous domain among others.6 In either case, politics is always involved with the other domains. It is involved, at least permissively, in the allotment of resources for the other sorts of activity. It also regulates them to prevent one from unwarrantably encroaching upon another. And always, politics works to preserve itself as the appropriate domain for exercising these functions. It resists efforts to subordinate its activities and decisions to those arising from primarily reli gious, economic, or technological considerations.7

The Place o f Hope in Politics

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Even though politics always ultimately aims to harmonize, it itself cannot avoid being a source of potential conflict. It cannot aspire to eliminate all possibility of conflicts without thereby aiming to destroy itself. Nonetheless, while leaving room for conflict, politics aims always at both the survival and the flourishing of the community as a whole. Finally, (5) politics is a thoroughly historical enterprise. Even the most revolutionary politics gets its orientation and motivation from conditions which precede it. And all political agents in some fashion appeal to those who come after them both to endorse what they have done and to build upon their accomplishments. As Merleau-Ponty pointed out, politics is a permanently open interrogation requiring criticism of one’s self as well as of others. Its achievements and institutions endow human experience with durability. They also invite people to further experience and thus make possible a relatively open future.® In addition to the widely agreed upon view that the political domain is constituted by activity having these characteristics, the context for contem porary political thought and practice includes some pervasive new considera tions that any responsible politics now or for the foreseeable future must acknowledge. Here I want to draw attention to two of these considerations which are in fact closely tied to one another. First, all except the most local ized and small scale political activity today has an international and often global dimension.9 Second, today and for the foreseeable future there is, on the one hand, the constant danger of global, species-eliminating nuclear, biological, or chemical warfare, and on the other hand, the widespread ecolo gical problems which threaten the very habitability of the earth.10 Whatever may have been the case in the past, no contemporary political thought or practice can be genuinely reasonable if it fails to respond effectively to these two new conditions. The third class of factors constituting the distinctive context for contem porary political thought and practice consists of the now recognized insuf ficiency or excessiveness of several more or less recent views of political practice or aspiration. These views have all been found wanting in some fashion because they fail in one way or other to acknowledge fundamental human finitude. A few examples of these failures will suffice for present purposes. On the one hand, Robert Dahl has shown the insufficiency for respon sible politics of exclusive concern with structural considerations. Structural

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arrangements, e.g., legal systems, economic, political, and educational institu tions, etc., are obviously of considerable importance to the quality of a com munity’s political practice. But, as Dahl makes clear, the set of practical dilemmas which confront any sizeable nontyrannical or nontotalitarian mod ern state cannot be responsibly resolved simply through structural modifica tions. A proper attitude on the part of political agents is required. Their attitude or attitudes provide normative determinations for how political agents pursue their aims and aspirations.11 A particularly striking form of the failure to recognize the insufficiency of structural considerations shows up in the sort of bureaucratic managerialism promoted by Herbert Simon, among others. On this approach, most people can achieve worth or significance only by submitting themselves to incorpora tion within political and economic enterprises over which they have little if any control. Freedom, for them, is in large measure irrelevant. And nature is degraded to the status of mere raw material, having no worth other than that ascribed to it by “scientific managers.”12 On the other hand, there is now a substantial, and growing, recognition that large parts of political thought, and considerable practice, since the 17th century has rested on excessive claims about the powers or prerogatives of some or all political participants. These excessive claims have been made on behalf of politics of the Right as well as of politics of the Left. A useful way to think about the plethora of excessive political claims that have been advanced during the past two centuries is in terms of what has been called “the politics of redemption.” On the one hand, the politics of redemption, whether of the Left or of the Right, wholly rejects the En lightenment commitment to some version of democracy, liberal or radical.13 On the other hand, one of the basic characteristics of the politics of redemp tion is that it persistently searches for or claims to have identified some persons or features of human existence which are uncontaminated by the complex, competitive, often antagonistic elements of civil society.14 Examples of earlier politics of redemption are, on the Right, German National Social ism and Italian Fascism and, on the Left, Trotskyism, Maoism, and perhaps the Stalinist Bolshevicks. More recent Leftist attempts to identify the re demptive element have pointed to women, homosexuals, third world peoples, the sexual instincts, etc. Recent Rightist attempts have appeared among religious or quasi-religious fundamentalists of various sorts. Harder to place on a Left-Right spectrum, but nonetheless redemptive at least in part are


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some separatist movements. What all these versions of politics of redemp tion have in common is that they all reject political pluralism in favor of a utopia-like homogenization.13 In recent years, many Leftist thinkers, at least, have abandoned their longing for any sort of utopian political homogenization. They “have argued instead for a more sober politics of MiXndigkeit or maturity, in which the utopian hope of perfect reconciliation and normative totality are quietly laid to rest.”16 These thinkers, to be sure, worry lest their post-redemptiveness lead to loss of critical distance from the status quo and consequent loss of political direction. Nonetheless, they insist upon avoiding what some characterize as the “totalitarian myth of the Ideal City” as well as the “positivist pragmatism of reformists without a project.”17 Jurgen Habermas, as Martin Jay says, is perhaps the guiding spirit of anti-redemptive, anti-utopian Leftist thought, the principal theoretician of a politics of Miindigkeit. For Habermas, the only utopian perspectives in social theory which we can straight forwardly maintain are of a procedural nature. For the utopian line aments of any future emancipated society can be no more than ne cessary general conditions of it. They cannot be in the nature of a design for a form of life.18 The politics of Miindigkeit thus claims no universal principles other than procedural ones. In continuity with Enlightenment political thought, it on the one hand insists upon two related commitments, one to humankind as a whole and the other to the uniqueness of each person. But on the other, it also admits that any substantive doctrine concerning true and false needs or the good life, no matter how initially appealing, is always particularistic and not universal. It follows from this, Joel Whitebook says, that civil society, conceived of as a realm in which the right freely to determine one’s needs is institutionally guaranteed, must be pre served and the attempt to dictate needs from above must be ruled out in any transformation of society .... Once the democratic para digm has been accepted, one must be prepared to accept a plurality of life forms, some of which may not be to one’s political or cultural


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tastes....To be sure, certain forms of life can be excluded at the out set on formal grounds, but, because of the disjunction between for mal conditions and substantive content, none can be derived per se.19 Thus Whitebook is led to conclude: What maturity has to offer in recompense for the abandoned desires of grandiosity is the satisfaction of dignity, autonomy, and mutual recognition. It cannot be denied however, that the grandiose dis avowal of finitude - death, suffering and lack - cannot be compen sated. In this respect, maturity is relatively austere and completely disconsolate.” To be sure, to admit that the politics of Mundigkeit claims only procedur al universals is by no means to trivialize it. I see no reason why it cannot embrace a major part of the Enlightenment tradition. According to that tradition, any political thought or practice which aspires to being responsible must satisfy a set of desideranda of considerable moment.21 Prominent among these desideranda are: (1) the exercise of political rule should be intelligible and not arbitrary; (2) the exercise of political rule should be responsive to the needs and wants of the ruled; (3) political in stitutions and policies should be adapted to prevailing material and cultural circumstances; (4) political benefits and burdens should be distributed equi tably and widely; and (5) the consent of the governed, though not sufficient to legitimate any particular political authority, is a necessary condition for its legitimation.22 These desideranda can be construed as principles or norms for responsible political practice. Thus one can speak of (a) the intelligibility or reasonableness principle, (b) the relevance principle, (c) the effectiveness principle, (d) the justice principle, and (e) the freedom principle. If I am correct that a politics of Mundigkeit can and does insist upon these desideran da, then it is clearly not toothless. II But even if it does encompass these desideranda, one can still ask about the sufficiency of the shift from a politics of redemption to one of Mundig keit. Is the politics of Mundigkeit in its austerity, disconsolateness, and com


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plete absorption in procedural considerations the most reasonable and hence the most responsible political response to our inescapable finitude and his toricity? Unsupplemented, I will argue, the politics of Miindigkeit is too under determined to be fully responsible. In fact, it can be dangerously enervating. But supplemented, and thereby transformed, by a properly understood hope, it is improved in crucial ways. Parenthetically, let me note that, mutatis mutandis, something of what is lacking in a politics of Miindigkeit is also missing both in Rawls’ liberal dem ocratic politics and in Nozick’s libertarianism. I will not, however, detail my criticisms of them here.23 The politics of Miindigkeit is underdetermined in at least three closely related ways. (1) It insufficiently stresses the thoroughly historical character of all politics and political agents. (2) It underspecifies the most reasonable relationship among people. And (3) its assumption that it can totally isolate procedural considerations from substantive ones is unwarranted. First, no facet of human existence, and hence no facet of politics, shows people to be radically independent individuals devoid of constitutive attach ments both to other people and to specific material and cultural circumstan ces. These constitutive attachments determine a person’s character. And, to have character is to know that I move in a history I neither sum mon nor command, which carries consequences none the less for my choices and conduct. It draws me closer to some and more distant from others; it makes some aims more appropriate, others less so.24 This historicality infects both substantive and procedural norms and goals. It does not, to be sure, simply relativize norms and goals. But it does show that whatever absolutes obtain are to be understood, in Gadamer’s terms, critically and not dogmatically. This means that no linguistic formulation of any norm or goal is definitive.25 Recognition of the full scope of human historicality allows one to see both the riskiness and the possible grandeur of politics. When politics goes badly, people are not only disappointed. They can suffer deep, abiding dis locations of character. But when politics goes well, they can experience a common good which none of them could know alone.26

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Second, a crucial consequence of a politics of Miindigkeit is that the most appropriate relationship among people is one of mutual respect. But, as Julius Moravscik has recently argued, though respect is necessary for human flourishing, it is insufficient. It does not require personal commitment to specific persons. It does not require that one be willing to do things which contribute to another’s flourishing. To supplement the relationship of respect, Moravscik proposes a rela tionship of caring. Two considerations support his insistence upon care. First, care endows the community with a desirable combination of flexibility and stability. It helps to create stability through changes in values and performance by providing for loyalty and involvement even when the qualitative structure of the participants does not remain constant. Secondly, care will affect the way we view each other in contexts in which changes need to be considered....In addition to helping to cre ate the desirable attitudinal context for communal discussions, care will affect the content of such discussions as well.27 I agree that respect must be supplemented by care if flourishing is to be promoted. But I will argue below that both respect and care are most se- ■ cure if they are rooted in hope. A third way in which the politics of Miindigkeit is inadequate is in its assumption that procedural considerations can be totally divorced from substantive ones. The historical character of the care upon which Moravscik insists, bound as it is to particular persons in specific circumstances, unavoid ably involves substantive considerations, e.g., descriptions of the persons an d 1 circumstances in question, as well as procedural ones. Further, there arp strong reasons for holding that the social imagination essential to the con-1 stitution of all social reality, including politics, cannot eschew contingent; representations of concrete deeds, outcomes, and circumstances which are Is intelligible only in terms of some concrete contingent reality to which they ! are alternatives or supplements.28


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The insufficiency of a politics of Mundigkeit can be partially remedied and respect and care can best be secured in political matters, I propose, if political agents live and act out of the fundamental attitude or habit of prop erly understood hope. Hope is the politico-moral virtue which best promotes the kind of interaction which makes a community flourish.29 Husserl’s account of human experience is correct when he points out that each human life is characteristically marked by some fundamental orienta tion, attitude, or habit. This attitude amounts to a habitually fixed style of willing life comprising directions of the will or interests that are prescribed by this style, comprising the ultimate ends, the cultural accomplishments whose total style is thereby deter mined. The individual life determined by it runs its course with this persisting style as its norm....Humanity (or a closed community such as a nation, tribe, etc.), in its historical situation, always lives under some attitude or other. Its life always has its norm-style and, in reference to this, a constant historicity or development.30 This fundamental attitude, or norm-style, modifies or modalizes one’s prac tices or habits without, however, cancelling them. Thus justice or courage can be practiced in different modes without ceasing to be what they are. Nonetheless, as Husserl indicates, one’s fundamental attitude is of capital importance. Similarly, John Locke recognized the need for some fundamental virtue which undergirds their acceptance of multiple duties required for a well functioning society. According to John Dunn, he concluded that “trustwor thiness, the capacity to commit oneself to fulfilling the legitimate expecta tions of others, is both the constitutive virtue of, and the key causal precondi tion for, the existence of any society.”31 For Locke, no human society can exist without the exercise of the virtue of trustworthiness by its members. I do not deny the crucial importance for society of something like trust worthiness. But for reasons I will give below, I claim that even more basic to maximally responsible politics is the habitual, deliberately adopted fun damental attitude of political hope. But, of course, hope can have this role only if it is properly construed.

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There is a rather trivial sense in which one can say that since every hu man action is telic, all of them involve hope of some sort. We all want the projects we endorse, whether our own or others’, to succeed. And in not a few cases, for the action to take place at all some fear must be overcome by some feeling of hope or hopefulness. The hope I argue for here is distinct, if not separable, from feelings or emotions. It is also distinct, though inseparable, from, particular actions with their specific objectives. It is, as Husserl notes, “a habitually fixed style of willing,” a style which crucially modalizes the way particular deeds are per formed. Elsewhere in this volume I have detailed the historical bases for the sense of the hope which I claim to be of crucial importance for politics.32 Here I will limit myself to discussing the main distinctive features which give it its political importance. First, both as a habitual attitude and in all of its particular acts, hope has a distinctive temporal orientation. It rests on the conviction that the future need not be like the present. In this respect, hope is indissolubly linked with both memory and imagination. If memory shows that the past and the pres ent are different, for better or worse, then imagination can anticipate a dif ferent future, again for better or worse.33 Hope is genuine only if it refuses either to resign itself to presently existing constrictions and limitations or to ignore or eradicate these limits in the name of the future. “Despair surrend ers the future; optimism sacrifices the present.”34 And both, contrary to hope, demean the past. Second, to hope one must be convinced that the shape and content of the future is at least partly to be determined by the activity of free agents. The influential agent may or may not be the one who hopes. But one who hopes, even a political prisoner hoping for liberation, thereby allies himself or herself to the influential agent. By hoping, one holds oneself ready to benefit from that agency. Thus, at least in the minimal sense of linking one to an efficacious agent, hope itself is efficacious. At the very least, it fur nishes an appropriate audience for the obvious, “primary,” agent. Third, though each exercise of hope always aims at some particular, relatively determinate outcome, always has some “content,” that outcome is never so valorized that failure to achieve it would necessarily defeat hope itself as a persisting habitual way of willing. The content of at least some particular hopes, including any that I would admit as appropriate to the


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domain of politics, is always embraced with sufficient tentativeness that no outcome, however different from what was hoped for, is sufficient to destroy the basic hope itself. Thus the hopes in question here always have a complex orientation. They are always aimed toward some “agent,” human or superhuman, as well as toward some longed for state of affairs.35 They are thus double-rayed. The essentially qualified or tentative embrace of their content by the practitioners of the hopes in question here springs from the fact that to be this sort of hope they must eschew claims to certitude that any state of af fairs they can envision would be unqualifiedly good. Therefore they can aim at specific outcomes only hypothetically. That is, they can seek a particular state of affairs only under the proviso that its coming about would be genu inely to the good. In rationally defensible political hope, one can hardly avoid having a relatively determinate objective in mind. But one must seek it, e.g., the im plementation of a particular program or the election of a specific candidate, only if its achievement would indeed contribute to the community’s well being. But no one can be sure in advance either just what would make such a contribution or indeed just what, in detail, constitutes a particular com munity’s well being. One who lives out a politics infused with hope never forgets that politics is “a domain in which understanding is necessarily agoni zingly limited, in which self-righteousness is almost always misplaced, and yet in which the most vital human interests are constantly and inescapably at stake.”36 Hence the state of affairs one hopes for can only reasonably be hoped for under this crucial proviso. The complex objective of any double-rayed hope which is a candidate for reasonable, responsible political hope gives point to the clarifying distinction Joseph Godfrey draws between ultimate hope, whose opposite is fear, and fundamental hope, whose opposite is despair.37 The content of one’s ultimate hope, the content which is superordinate to all other longed for objectives, can be either something to utilize, some con dition to enjoy, or a shared life with other persons. For an ultimate hope to be appropriate for responsible politics, I propose, it must subordinate all desires for pleasures or useful things to a search for shared life. Fundamental hope has to do with the how of hoping. It consists in the refusal, regardless of the provocation, to make the judgment that all is lost, that there is no point to further endeavor to achieve a shared life. In the

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final analysis, I believe, without fundamental hope no ultimate hope can be fully responsible political hope. By reason of its double-rayed character, hope introduces a polyvalent tension into the flow of experience. On the one hand, in its orientation to some other agent hope anticipates that this other’s capacity for efficacious action is good for both that other and for one’s own self. That is, hope en tails that it is intrinsically better to be associated with other agents than with puppets even if one were oneself the puppeteer. Thus hope of this sort displays a courageous confidence that the agency of others need not diminish one’s own agency. Without this background belief that it is good, and good for me, to be tied to others, I cannot hope in a way which contributes to responsible politics.38 On the other hand, by reason of its orientation toward states of affairs, hope of any sort acknowledges at least implicitly that all human agency is finite and contextualized. As a consequence, whether one state of affairs rather than another prevails does matter, for a state of affairs always pro vides conditions which bear upon the efficacy of human actions. Hope, therefore, must deal with more than bare agency. It must also concern itself with the context which either hinders or facilitates the exercise of that agen cy. But one who hopes cannot know definitively the weight or thrust of any particular state. Otherwise he or she would have a vision which would make hope pointless. Therefore, unless a human performance is oriented both toward others and toward a state of affairs, it cannot be an act of hope relevant to respon sible politics. If it has no orientation toward other efficacious agents, then it is mere desire.39 If it disregards either present or future states of affairs, then it is an act of either presumption or fanaticism, both of which radically discount the concrete circumstances in which human activity occurs. Though hope is double-rayed, its rays are rarely of equal weight. Only if a hope’s primary ray is that which is directed toward other agents can it possibly contribute to responsible politics. It must in effect deny that any set of circumstances, present or future, can annihilate the capacity for efficacious agency both of the one who hopes or of the one who inspires hope. At least one source of efficacious agency capable of making possible other agency must be acknowledged. In sum, the sort of hope in question here is a double-rayed habit, orien tation, or attitude, whose rays are so ordered that priority is always given to

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the agent or agents in whom one hopes over whatever state of affairs is hoped for.40 Further, hope rests on a conviction that the future is open to efficacious activity in whose benefits the one who hopes, by the very fact of hoping, can share. For one who is convinced that the future is open, hope makes sense. If one denies this openness, then hope is absurd.41 The sort of hope in question here, then, can be precisely described as an attitude or habit of acting adopted by a self-admittedly finite agent who posi tively esteems his or her involvement with other agents in a partially pliable world. One who hopes is ready both to give to others and to receive from them. Hope refuses to be confined either by the constraints of present cir cumstances or by the limited scope of imagined projections. One who hopes conducts himself dr herself with steadfast prudent confidence toward an open future. Nonetheless, however future-oriented it is, hope of this sort thor oughly respects both the past and the present. As Marcel has put it, hope says “as before, but differently and better than before.”42 The sort of hope I have described can be either political or religious or neither. Part of what distinguishes political hope from other hopes is the nature of the agent or agents in whom one hopes. Only if this agent is hu man can the hope be political.43 But it need not be. For the hope to be genuinely political one must hope in a multiplicity of human agents some of whom are not one’s present partners.44 Further, if this hope is to be rational and responsible as well as political, then the agents in whom one hopes must be regarded as actual or possible fellow participants in the work of establish ing or maintaining an abiding, structured context in which political activity can transpire.45 The background belief for such a hope is that this sort of structured context is in principle compatible with a full sharing of life among all who inhabit it.46 IV Let me now show how the foregoing considerations warrant my central claim that hope, if understood in the way I have specified, is necessary for maximally reasonable, and hence maximally responsible politics. Better than any alternative, hope overcomes both the insufficiency and the excesses of recent failures properly to assess the political significance of fundamental human finitude. And at the same time, hope fits squarely with the generally agreed upon requirements for fully responsible contemporary politics.

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The point of departure for my argument is the set of conclusions reached in Part I with the help of Husserl, the theoreticians of the politics of Miindigkeit, and Moravscik. First, I take it that Husserl is right in holding that not only each person but also communities always live out their existence in some fundamental attitude, habit, or orientation which affects what they do. Second, I take it that the politics of Miindigkeit is right in rejecting any poli tics of redemption. And I would extend this rejection to what I have else where called the politics of vision or truth, i.e., any politics which claims that there is some knowable, fundamentally ahistorical order which functions as the definitive criterion or guiding principle for political conduct.47 Finally, I take it that Moravscik is right in maintaining that mutual care as well as mutual respect are necessary for a human community to flourish. Hope, I claim, (a) is better for politics than any other fundamental attitude, (b) es chews all politics of vision, including those of redemption, and (c) provides a secure basis for requiring care as well as respect. My claim concerning the centrality of hope for reasonable and respon sible politics is supported on the one hand by noting its superiority over its competitors and on the other hand by showing the valuable demands it makes on political practice. Competitors to hope can be found by consider ing the semantic relatives of the concept of hope. These are presumption and despair. Though neither of them necessarily denies the historical, com munal, finite character of human life, they cannot take account of the politi cal relevance of this character as well as hope does.48 Hope responds better to the temporal, finite character of all human existence than does any of its competitors. Presumption fails to take time and the historical character of politics seriously. The presumptuous person regards whatever he or she does or leaves undone either to be harmless if not beneficial or to be readily rectifi able by some subsequent doing. A habitual orientation of this sort trivializes doings, sayings, and makings. Missed opportunities warrant no regret. They, or their equivalents, always return. Seized opportunities warrant neither relief nor joy. Opportunities are always there for the seizing. This trivialization of the present obviously extends to the past and to the future. Such a politics ignores the historicality constitutive of all human activity, including politics. In the history of political thought, it is true, presumption is not a serious competitor for a position of significance. No political thinker advocates


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presumption as a political virtue. But political practitioners often act and speak presumptuously. For example, they often deny or ignore practices doing major damage to the environment, pretending that such damage is always curable. That hope is incompatible with presumption is much to its credit. Much the same argument holds good against obvious forms of despair, forms that deny that anything at all of positive worth can be accomplished in politics. But two more subtle, more restricted versions of despair retain a certain plausibility. These can be called resignation and defiance or, as I prefer, containment.49 Neither of these orientations so thoroughly and ob viously trivializes time or at least some moments of time as does presump tion. But each does involve some debasement of it. Resignation consists in the denial of one’s own ability to make a positive contribution to an enduring responsible politics. Whatever efficacy others may have, the resigned person denies that he himself or she herself can still contribute something of value to political life. He or she also denies that involvement with others can foster efficacy for himself or herself. Rather, such involvement either simply thwarts whatever possibility for efficacy he or she might have had or leaves it null. Thus one who is resigned takes it that, regardless of past efficacy, now and forevermore he or she is reduced to political impotence. Or, and this seems to me more frequently the form in which resignation has been expressed in actual life, one holds that his or her efficacy is irreversibly dwindling. This dwindling is taken to be the effect either of uncontrollable forces or of irresistible degenerate political practice. The future, on this view, can only be a time of decline for one’s political efficacy. Containment, on the other hand, denies neither the openness of the future nor one’s own capacity for efficacious political activity. It is thus a conceptually stronger competitor against hope than resignation. It also ap pears to be the basis of a great deal of political practice, both past and pres ent.50 But containment at least implicitly claims that at least some of one’s fellows have nothing of worth to contribute to either the community’s sur vival or its well being either now or in the future. At least some are simply to be fought off. The orientation of containment thus entails that at least some people can never be valuable collaborators, collaborators with whom one’s own endeavors can gain greater efficacy or meaning. If, then, these

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others could be reduced to impotence, the community, so containment im plies, would be made better. In containment, time and its riskiness are taken seriously. But it is al ways time to insist upon the curtailment or nullification of initiatives of some others. Those others are permanently cast in the role of alien or enemy. There is no future to which they could contribute something positive. In short, the orientation of containment brings about a fortress mentality. It is always fundamentally adversarial. Its importance for political life notwithstanding, the trustworthiness Locke emphasizes itself either promotes or at least is compatible with a politics of containment. First, Lockean trustworthiness rests upon the as sumption that one acknowledges that there are divine sanctions. One who does not believe in divine sanctions is not to be accorded trust.51 Some peo ple, then, are to be excluded from full political participation. Further, and more subtly, trustworthiness leaves open the way for con tainment by its at least implicit emphasis upon the importance of a certain consistency between what one has done and what he or she is expected to do now and in the future. In an important sense, one earns trustworthiness by displaying this consistency. Those who have not yet earned trust, for what ever reason, bear the burden of proving their trustworthiness. Practically, if not in principle, this requirement militates against innovation by newcomers, whether these newcomers be the young or foreigners. Perhaps in the past this burden on newcomers was of minor importance. Today and for the foreseeable future, the globalization of political life makes the burden unwar rantably heavy. If trust is to be dissociated from containment, it must be advanced on credit and not withheld until earned. To advance it on credit is part of what it is to hope. In sum, neither habitual resignation nor habitual containment can serve as that orientation which best promotes maximally rational and responsible politics. Each of them in its own way embodies a distrust of the freedom of at least some people. Each treats their freedom as fundamentally and hostilely competitive with its own. In so doing, neither of these attitudes fully acknowledges the opportunities the open future provides. As a consequence, each of these orientations restricts the capacity, of those who adopt them to extend political harmony as far as possible. In today’s world of global poli tics, to whatever extent a politics favors hostile competition, that is competi tion that is not ultimately in the service of cooperation, it is irresponsible.


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Given the failure of these competitors, hope remains as the habitual orientation proper to thoroughly responsible politics.52 But hope does not win this role merely by the default of its competitors. Its own credentials positively warrant granting this claim. Hope not only gives full recognition to the finite, historical character of human existence, but positively esteems rather than regrets these features. It appreciates that these features are not impediments to human efficacy. Rather, they are constitutive of that ef ficacy. They of course preclude efficacy that would be definitive or divine. But they make possible indefinitely many agents capable of differentiated achievements. Since this is the case, a politics animated by hope can satisfy all the desideranda bequeathed to us by the tradition of Western thought as well as the distinctive exigencies proper to our time and the foreseeable future. Hope requires of politics a receptivity to and aspiration for contribu tions both to political life and to other sorts of human endeavor not only from one’s fellow citizens but also, in principle, from all other people. It requires politics both to admit its indebtedness to predecessors and to leave room for the contributions of future generations. It forbids any politics from claiming to be either first word or last word, from claiming to be definitively self-sufficient. Ingredient in the modesty hope requires is the admission that no particular structural or institutional arrangement and no particular course of action can guarantee either the community’s survival or its flourishing. It never allows the canonization of any particular order, even of one it itself elicits. Hope therefore never becomes self-satisfied. It perpetuates itself as hope. Hope thus requires respect both for oneself and for other people. On the one hand, this respect entails esteem for the fact that there are people. Though it is not anthropocentric, it is necessarily anthropic. It cannot coun tenance any activity, under whatever guise, that endangers the continued existence of the human species. As such, hope demands that care be taken that there be people.53 But further, hope requires that politics seek ever more extensive full fledged participation in the community’s life. This extensiveness is of two sorts. First, in principle, participation by everyone is longed for. And sec ond, as great a variety of types of activity (scientific, religious, artistic, etc.) as is feasible is to be provided for. That is, hope requires politics to provide for the optimal exploration of human capacities to exercise initiative, to ex press freedom. It requires politics to restrict as little as is compatible with

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the flourishing of the community as a whole either the number of agents or the variety of things they can do, make, or say. Hope thus surpasses mere tolerance of diversity. It seeks diversity. Hope thus calls for and supplies a basis for the sort of care which Moravscik has shown must supplement respect if a community is to flourish. Dealings with others cannot properly be based simply on concern, for con cern could be manipulative or paternalistic. Expressions of care always aim to make those cared for into peers and partners of those who care.54 Demanding as hope is, it stops short of the utopian goal of universal mutual love. Whether such a goal is appropriate for religious activity, it is excessive for politics. Unlike religion, politics has to concern itself with the community’s earthly survival. To satisfy this requirement might demand actions which could be called loving only by extravagant equivocation.55 A politics of hope, construed as I have here, satisfies the received politi cal desideranda pointed to above. Such a politics (a) cannot be arbitrary, (b) constantly attends to the wants and needs of those whom it affects, (c) takes account of the material and cultural circumstances in which it is situated, (d) allots these resources so as to achieve optimally broad participation in both senses mentioned above, and (e) acknowledges that the consent or approval of those affected by it is necessary to its legitimation. Such a politics acknowledges and reveres the specificity and diversity of particular communities. But it insists upon the global bearing of all contem porary politics. It neither ignores nor neglects the political, economic, and ecological consequences of what it does or abstains from doing. By its rec ognition of its own essentially historical, and hence non-perfect, character, a politics springing from the attitude of hope not only denies that any reason could justify threatening to extinguish human existence, but also refuses to absolutize any of its achievements. A politics of hope, therefore, not only satisfies the received desideranda but it also responds effectively to pressing contemporary exigencies. And it does so while at the same time insisting upon the interminable preservation of politics itself as that which brings about a differentiated but harmonized community. Though a politics of hope does not prescribe any one particular set of substantive policies or practices, it both sets limits to what is acceptable and sheds light upon what warrants a particular policy or practice. Consider, for example, the question of education in general and political education in par


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ticular. In a politics of hope, educational policy both must avoid parochial ism and must include as many people and be as diverse as is compatible with the community’s overall well being. Whatever restrictions obtain are in per petual need of justification. The presumption is always against them. And what warrants this policy of inclusiveness and diversity is neither mere altru ism nor mere self-interest nor mere supererogation. It is the recognition of our basic communal but finite condition. Similar consequences follow from a politics of hope for military policy, economic development programs, foreign aid practices, and legislation. In deed, it is hard to imagine any aspect of politics which would be untouched both by the requirement to seek both inclusiveness and diversity and by the requirement that all policies and programs reflect an admission of our finite, historical, communal character. Because it imposes these requirements, a politics of hope is both more reasonable and more responsible than is a politics animated by any alternative basic habit or orientation. It would be a mistake to regard the requirements of hope as so stringent that no actual politics could satisfy them. Hope does not preclude either all coercion or a differentiated distribution of goods and burdens. Nor does it preclude all forms of competition. But it does require that whenever one engages in or endorses coercion, differentiated distributions, and competition that he or she do so because there is no presently available better way to promote maximally extensive harmony. Because hope does not preclude conduct of these sorts, it can happen that the practices it adopts on some particular occasion are observationally indiscernible from those a politics of containment would endorse. This is why containment is hope’s closest competitor for the role of the fundamental orientation animating maximally responsible politics. Further, it is always possible that self-deception lead one to mistake a practice animated by con tainment for one animated by hope. But this does not count against hope’s superiority, for no fundamental attitude, whether hope or any other, can fully inoculate us against the danger of self-deception. Adopting hope, then, as our “habitually fixed style of willing” is no magic elixir for producing perfect politics. But, for the reasons I have given, it, better than any available alternative style of willing, promotes political prac tice that satisfies both the abiding desideranda articulated in Western politi cal thought and the distinctive exigencies of the contemporary world which any responsible politics must respond to and respect. Therefore only a poli

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tics animated by hope rather than by any of its competitors can claim to be both fully reasonable and fully responsible.

Part IV Because its subject matter is the ordered interaction of people dealing with a material and cultural environment, it is insufficient to assess a political philosophy exclusively in terms of its logical coherence. One also has to ask both (a) what would be the likely outcome of the implementation of its rec ommendations and cautions, and (b) in what respects is it better than alter native proposals. Indeed, because all political philosophy is somehow direc ted toward practice, one comes to a proper understanding of a particular proposal only through interrogating it in terms of these questions. There is, of course, no logical closure to this sort of interrogation. New alternatives can always be proposed and new circumstances for implementa tion can always arise. Nonetheless, if a proposal can both satisfactorily re spond to a number of important perennial issues and show how some non trivial alternatives are less satisfactory, it gains substantial persuasiveness. Each of the four essays in Part IV shows in some way major implications of the positions for which I argue in Parts II and III. Taken together, they give a good indication of the fruitfulness both of my interpretation of what it is to be human and of the basic orientation that I claim should animate any politics which claims to be fully responsible. Two of these essays have been previously published in practically the same form in which they appear here. “Politics and Coercion” appeared in Philosophy Today, Vol. 21, 1977, 102-114. “Ideology, Utopia, and Respon sible Politics” appeared in Man and World, Vol. 22, 1989, 25-41. A third essay, “Does Anarchy Make Political Sense,” is a thoroughly revised and much expanded version of a piece with the same title that appeared in Hu man Studies, Vol. 1, 1978, 369-375. The fourth essay, “Institutions, Power, and Freedom” has not been published before.

Politics and Coercion

It is beyond question that throughout recorded history there has been a connection between politics and coercion. But the source and nature of this connection has been a troublesome issue for political theorists. In this paper I will try both to explicate the source of this connection and to outline the limits within which a defensible politics can involve coercion. My argument here presupposes both that there is a distinguishable realm of politics and that there is a set of elements which any defensible politics must embody. This set of elements can be detected on the basis of clues provided by Hei degger and Merleau-Ponty. More specifically, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty provide the basis for the negative conclusion that any theory of politics which rests on the assumption of radical human autonomy is indefensible. Inasmuch as the prevailing Western theories of politics do rest on such an assumption, they are fun damentally defective. Positively, their works yield clues on the basis of which one can claim that any defensible politics must embody at least the following elements: 1) The distinction between rulers and ruled, by reason of a neces sity which belongs specifically to the political realm, is irreducible. 2) Rulers hold their right to command by reason of their skill in political acting, not by reason of any apolitical principle. 3) Political truth comes to be in the actual doing of political deeds. 4) The task of politics is not to redeem man from his historicity. Rather it is to manage the opportunities of the moment in such a way that future opportunities for human achievements o f all sorts (not merely political achievements) can continue to arise.

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Elements o f Responsible Politics 5) Henceforth, political conduct must be judged in global, not in local, terms. 6) Political conduct is the expression of the present opportunities bestowed by the earth and a people’s heritage in the working out of a people’s destiny.

Thus, a defensible theory of politics must recognize, as much Greek and Roman political thought did realize, that legitimate political conduct must have the characteristic of authentic speech or action rather than that of pro duction or fabrication. Authentic speech, unlike merely repetitious or habi tual utterances, draws upon an already sedimented language and set of say ings and rises to a new saying. So, too, legitimate political conduct draws upon the sedimented political deeds of a community’s heritage and rises to a new expression of that heritage. A distinguishing characteristic of the authentic speech belonging specifi cally to the political realm, as opposed for example to the religious or the artistic realm, is that the new political expression expresses anew what has already been expressed. But the new expression expresses the old with a difference. That is, legitimate political expression and conduct is both tied to the community’s heritage and at the same time deals with the unique pos sibilities proffered by present circumstances.1 But if one takes seriously Merleau-Ponty’s efforts “to base a politics on the analysis of political man,”2 then one must cope with the fact that political man throughout history has engaged in coercion. This fact poses a problem. Authentic speech of any sort is a manifestation and acknowledgement of the freedom of both speaker and hearer. Coercion, by contrast, involves com pulsion or restriction. Can coercion, then, properly belong to the political realm? Or is it necessarily a lapse from authentic politics? If it can belong to the political realm, then are there specifiable limits to the legitimate poli tical use of coercion? It is to these issues that this paper is addressed. I will not, however, discuss specific coercive techniques, e.g., war, punishment of criminals, etc. I will argue that, given the condition of the actual and potential par ticipants in political life, coercion belongs by existential necessity to the poli tical realm. Coercion is not logically entailed by politics. It is not the case that insofar as conduct is political it is likewise coercive. Indeed pure politi cal conduct would preclude coercion. But pure political conduct is a limit

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concept. Concrete political conduct, the deed of temporal and historical men, is always impure. In its ineluctable impurity, all concrete political con duct necessarily either permits or requires an element of at least potential coercion. This necessity, arising as it does from the condition of the par ticipants in political life, is an existential necessity rather than a conceptual necessity. But coercion, if it is to have political legitimacy, must be intrinsically ordained to the maintenance or extension of the political realm itself. Its political legitimacy is determined solely by its effectiveness in supporting the political realm. Paradoxically, its support is effective precisely to the extent that it tends to make continued use of coercion pointless. Thus, one could say that the best exercise of coercion is that which maximally reduces the legitimacy of a subsequent exercise of coercion. But, lamentably for political theory, there is no definitive, antecedently determinable, best concrete exer cise of coercion. I

Political conduct is a form of human expression. But obviously it is not the only form of human expression. To clarify the existential necessity in virtue of which all concrete political conduct either permits or requires an element of at least potential coercion, one needs to describe the multiple forms of human expression and the connections between these several forms. Following Merleau-Ponty’s injunction to base politics on an analysis of politi cal man, one has to see how, in concrete men, political conduct is connected with non-political conduct. That is, one has to identify the several ways in which a man can and regularly does deal with himself, other men, things, and states of affairs. I find that there are four basic ways in which men deal with and express their being in the world. First, an individual can give expression to his own distinctive individuality and the uniqueness of his relation to his surround ings. He does this by expressing his own estimations, evaluations, and pro jects. Obvious examples of this form of expression, though by no means the only or most frequent ones, are the activities of individual artists and artisans in producing their works. I will call expression of this type I-expressions. The distinguishing characteristic of I-expression is that what is of paramount

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importance in such expression is precisely the self-expression of the expres sor. A second type of expression, which I will call it-expression, is that in which the expressor serves simply as a mouthpiece, articulating that which has been given to him to articulate. In expressions of this type the expres sor’s uniqueness is either unnoticed by him or suppressed. Examples of such expression range from simply repeating prevailing conventional expressions to giving voice to scientific findings. Obviously, there are important differen ces between mouthing commonplaces and reporting scientific findings. But for present purposes these differences are irrelevant. The hallmark of ex pressions of this second type is that the expressor’s uniqueness is fundamen tally irrelevant to the significance of what is said or done.3 Third, an individual man can address himself to other men so that they can both recognize his uniqueness and respond to him by expressing the uniqueness proper to each of them. Expressions of this type presuppose a recognition of mutuality among the participants. Each participant is both agent and recipient, both speaker and hearer. Each expression of this type anticipates a response which will elicit further expressions of the same type. This requirement of mutuality can be satisfied only if both the uniqueness and the commonness of the participants is acknowledged and expressed. Ex amples of expressions of this type are all attempts at persuasion and all deli berate undertakings which require a plurality of agents for their achievement. I will call expressions of this type you-expressions. They are, of course, all plural. The distinguishing characteristic expressions of this type is that, un like I-, and it-expressions, what is most significant about the expression is not fully established prior to the actual expression but comes to be in the activity of mutual expression. Fourth, a man can ally himself with others in such a way that the distinc tion between the participants’ acting and receiving, between their speaking and hearing, effectively collapses into a unitary expression. The participants, though plural in number, act as one. Both the uniqueness and the common ness of the participants, though it is presupposed for this type of expression, is superceded by their communion. Examples of expressions of this type are making music together, engaging in ritual worship, living together in dedica tion to something which is taken as more worthwhile than either the unique ness of each participant or the natural commonness by virtue of which each man is like other men. I will call these expressions we-expressions.


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The distinctive characteristic of we-expressions is that what is now ex pressed is taken by the conjoined expressors not only to enhance the expres sors but also to enable them to continue to express hereafter, and perhaps better, precisely that which is now expressed. From another angle, whereas you-expressions are founded upon respect, we-expressions are founded upon love. Respect, as Hannah Arendt has pointed out, promotes the political. But love is basically anti-political.4 Obviously, in actual life, expressions regularly contain elements of more than one type. For present purposes, though I think it is debatable, I will even grant that there are no concrete expressions which belong exclusively to only one type. But I do hold, and this is simply a factual claim, that there are many expressions whose struc ture is such that they can be identified as belonging basically to one of these four types of expression.5 The human condition is such that, in principle, any man can engage in any of these types of expression. But there is no natural necessity for him to engage in all of them. Nonetheless it appears that in the course of his life it is (1) impossible for him not to engage in some form of it-expression, (2) pathological for him not to engage in some form of I-expression, (3) abnor mal for him not to engage in some form of you-expression, and (4) at least regrettable for him not to engage in some form of we-expression. Further, there is reason to believe that there is a genetic dependence of we-expression upon you-expression, of you-expression upon I-expression, and of I-expression upon it-expression.6 But if one concentrates on concrete, historical men, as one should if he discusses politics, he finds that healthy adults engage, at different times and with varying frequency and intensity, in all types of expression, with the pos sible exception of we-expression. This means, however, that men can and do refrain from one or the other of these types. On any given occasion, the type of expression which the adult engages in is at least to some degree at his discretion. For present purposes it is important to emphasize the fact that the ex pression which concrete men engage in is not all of a piece. Nor is there any fixed pattern which would insure ahead of time that a man will employ each type of expression. He can neglect some types indefinitely. Within the context of this discrimination of types of expression, it is now possible to identify political expression and to determine the relation be tween it and coercion.


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II

The type of expression appropriate to politics is you-expression. Of course, not all you-expression is political. For example, business transac tions, academic discussions, some exchanges of promises, and some presenta tions of works of art to an audience are basically non-political you-expressions, even though these may, on occasion, have political overtones. Indeed, it is characteristic of our era that economic expression and political expres sion have tended to become so intertwined that one must recognize the pos sibility, and danger, that politics could be wholly subjugated to economics. But for present purposes, it is enough to emphasize that all genuine political expression is you-expression. Political you-expression is distinguished from non-political you-expression by its intrinsic, essential acknowledgement of its continuity with the past and future you-expressions, while nonetheless being addressed to the novel ex igencies and possibilities of the present moment. Further, political expres sion is directed toward establishing and preserving a public space within which men can engage in expression of any type. This is not to say that political expression is a means to some end. Any particular political expres sion exists for the sake of the continued possibility of political expressions. But that possibility, intrinsically involving both expressors and hearers, neces sarily opens the way for whatever these expressors and hearers can proffer or receive. Thus it is not the case that political expression is directed, as to ward its telos or end, either toward the achievement of something other than expression or toward some predelineated determinate expression or set of expressions. Rather, genuine political expression, simply by being what it is, cannot help but make it possible for the space it establishes to be occupied by expressions of any type. Political expression, then, is the immediate manifestation of power. Power arises from the consent of a plurality of people to join together for speech and action. Unlike force or strength, power does not consist in physi cal might. Nor can power be the property of one man in isolation from others. Whereas force or strength can be possessed by either a single man or a group and deployed against other men or .upon things, power consists exclusively in establishing and maintaining intercourse among men. Thus in


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the absence of consent, there is no power, though there may be force or strength.7 Power demands political expression to maintain the consent whence it arises. Speech or expression and action o f whatever sort are historical phe nomena. They make sense only if they are durable, only if they do not van ish in the very moment of their appearance. It is precisely the point of poli tical expression to make it possible for them to endure by providing the durability of the space opened by the power emerging from the consent of a plurality of people living together. Parenthetically, let me acknowledge the ambiguity of the mutual relation between consent and political expression. Merleau-Ponty, among others, is correct in insisting that, in existence, one cannot defend a hard cleavage between an inner realm (here the realm of consent) and an outer realm (here the realm of political expression). They are mutually intertwined. In existence, without power there is no political expression. But without politi cal expression there is no power. Nonetheless they are not the same and so it is appropriate to distinguish them from one another. Mutatis mutandis, the same point holds good for the distinctions drawn above between types of expression. Political expression with its concomitant consent is rooted in hope. Hope, as Gabriel Marcel puts it, is an aspiration for the “as before, but differently and better than before.”8 Political expression implies both that all types of expression are worthwhile and that, over and above what has already been expressed, there is still reason to look forward to new expressions of all types. Likewise, since it provides the foundation for the possibility of an expression enduring beyond the moment of its utterance, political expression provides the basis for establishing continuity between what has already been expressed and what is still to be expressed. Hope, at its profoundest levels, is not an aspiration for any determinate state of affairs, or, in this context, expression. He who truly hopes may in deed say something like “I hope for X.” But at bottom he recognizes that the occurrence or non-occurrence of this determinate X does not of itself either fulfill or leave unfulfilled his hope. Hope is an openness to receive from another. To the degree that he genuinely hopes, to that degree he does not attach conditions to his openness.9 In its manifestation in political expression, hope does not even permit a prior specification of those others for whom a space is opened in which they

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can engage in expression. Political expression requires power. Since power arises from the consent of a plurality to join together for speech and action, and since, by reason of new births, comings to adulthood, and deaths, this consent is perpetually in need of refashioning, it is impossible to determine ahead of time whose consent is acceptable or is to be solicited. Thus it is impossible to determine in advance whose expressions are to be awaited in hope. Similar considerations lead to the recognition that in principle genuine political expression necessarily tends to bring more and more people into the circle of consent. The larger and deeper the circle of consent, the more secure and durable is the circle and the greater is the scope of what is ex pressible within it. This means that all political expression,by its essence as political, tends to solicit the support and consent of every man. But this tendency to universality is not intrinsically bound up with a thrust toward a world government or with any of the usual versions of one-worldism. This tendency can allow for multiple circles of consent, for multiple political com munities, so long as each of these so acts that it allows for the continued existence of any other political community which lives in peace as one legiti mate community among others. Indeed, if one keeps his political analysis focused on political man, he will see that the actual multiplicity of political communities is rooted in history and that each of these communities has its own heritage and destiny which it is able to express. Thus one may legiti mately speak of a world-wide circle of consent only if he recognizes that this circle is sustained and expressed by each of a multiplicity of smaller circles of consent.10 The tendency to universality, then, is compatible with and, I would suspect, requires the recognition and maintenance of regional differences. Nonetheless, genuine political expression is always and of necessity directed toward as large an audience as the historical moment permits it to reach. The recognition of hope as that which characterizes genuine political expression confirms several of the conclusions I reached elsewhere on the basis of the delimitation of the political realm as that realm of public activity which does anew, but with a difference, what has already been done. Specifi cally, this necessity of hope shows that there is no such thing as a definitive politics, that is, a politics in which nothing substantial is left unsaid and noth ing substantial is left to be said. From this it follows: 1) that political con duct which claims an ahistorical justification is either blind or deceitful; and

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2) that revolution, understood as a radical rupture with a people’s past owing nothing to that past, is political nonsense." If my account of legitimate political expression, with its ingredient of hope and its tendency to universality, is correct, then the use of coercion in politics appears to be incongruous to say the least. Coercion is the use of techniques and physical implements to impose one’s will on another. Coer cion properly so called never involves authentic speech, for authentic speech requires a hearer who can respond freely to it. He who is coerced, insofar as he is coerced, cannot be a participant in the development and main tenance of a public realm. He is an outsider. Yet political man has regularly, throughout history, employed coercion and considered it to belong to political praxis. How is this apparent anomaly to be understood? Ill If the consent requisite for political activity were stable or could be stabi lized so that the integrity of the political realm could be assured, then coer cion either would be pointless or, if it ever had a point, could become ob solete. But given the historical character of the political realm, its integrity cannot be definitively assured. There are always new people, the next gener ation, to be incorporated into the circle of consent. And those within the circle of consent either die or can withdraw their consent. My thesis is that coercion can make political sense by virtue of the fact that every concrete historical political realm is not all-encompassing. In other words, coercion can be a legitimate political activity only insofar as some men in at least some respects are outside the public space within which the coercive conduct originates. But coercion of itself is not a full-fledged political deed. Unlike expressions of power, it is never politically self-justify ing. Political uses of coercion are always manifestations of the weakness or imperfection of the body politic which uses it.12 Before defending my thesis, let me briefly note that coercion may be either destructive or constructive. It is destructive to the extent that it main tains or promotes the lack of consent between the coercer and the coerced. It is constructive to the extent that it attempts to remove obstacles in the coerced to his consent. If coercion is constructive, it can be propaedeutic to full-fledged political activity inasmuch as it is aimed toward making it pos

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sible for the coerced to consent to join the body politic. Likewise, a political group may engage in coercion, whether destructive or constructive, to pre serve its own public space. In cases such as these, the use of coercion is political. But it is so not by virtue of what is done but by virtue of who does it - a political body qua such - and by virtue of what its doing preserves, namely the possibility of further expressions of power rather than of coer cion. Now let me present evidence for my thesis that coercion can make politi cal sense by virtue of the fact that no concrete historical political realm is allencompassing. Though the human condition is such that multiple types of expression are permanent possibilities for every man, there is no guarantee that, simply because men live in contact with other men, any particular man or group of men will engage in political you-expression. Indeed, the intrinsic character of each type of expression sets it apart from, and to some extent over against, other types of expression. From one standpoint, all other types of expression call for the type of expression which establishes and maintains the political realm. This is so to the extent that an expression claims to be of lasting significance, to be mem orable. But from another standpoint, the intrinsic sense of both I-expressions and it-expressions involves a claim that the legitimacy of such expres sions does not depend upon the consent of others. And the intrinsic sense of we-expressions is that they, at least to some extent, manifest a community held together by something deeper than hope. This deeper bond may be love, a shared vision, blood ties, etc. But whatever this bond may be, it tran scends the need for hope. From this latter standpoint, I-, it-, and we-expres sions necessarily tend to weaken the circle of political consent because they reduce the scope of that concerning which consent is sought or hoped for. But since political expression itself, as I pointed out above, hopes for expressions of all types and provides the space within which they can appear and endure, it cannot legitimately seek the elimination of any other type of expression. The very reason for the existence of political expression is to insure the permanent possibility of all types of expression. It is this irreduci ble tension which gives rise both to the ineliminable possibility of coercion and the intrinsic limits within which any legitimate exercise of coercion is confined.13


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Coercion may, of course, be engaged in by anyone on behalf of an ex pression of any type. But there is a crucial difference between coercion on behalf of political expressions and that on behalf of any I-, it- or we-expres sion. Coercion on behalf of any of the latter types of expression necessarily tend to exclude in advance the legitimacy of at least one other type of ex pression. Thus, I-expressions tend to exclude the legitimacy of we-expressions and vice versa. And all these three types of expression tend to depreci ate the worth of political expressions. Any you-expression, if it occurs in the context of certain historical, geographical, or cultural factors, can be political. But to the extent that you-expressions occur outside of contexts which incor porate them into a concrete political realm, they too tend to depreciate the worth of political expressions. This depreciation can take one of two forms. On the one hand, a man can be so absorbed in non-political expressions that he simply ignores engag ing in that circle of consent which is maintained through political expression. This is an apolitical depreciation of the political. On the other hand, there can be an attempt made to make political expression, and thus the political realm, subordinate to some other type of expression. Such an attempt tries to use the political realm as a means to enhance non-political realms. This is an antipolitical depreciation of the political.14 But both forms of depreciation of political expression are finally either self-defeating or tend to negate further expressions of their own type. Apoli tical depreciation of politics on behalf of what is expressed fails to recognize the necessity of the political realm for the durability of what is expressed. Anti-political depreciation of politics on behalf of what is expressed tends to destroy the space needed for the appearance of new expressions of any type whatsoever, including new expressions of its own type. The intrinsic con stricting or atrophying consequence of using coercion on behalf of I-, it-, or we-expressions thus reveals the illegitimacy of the use of coercion on behalf of any expression of these types. Similarly the use of coercion on behalf of those non-political you-expressions which do as a matter of fact occur out side of contexts which would incorporate them into the political realm is also illegitimate. But this is not at all the case with the use of coercion on behalf of political expression. Political expression, since it provides space for all types of expression, can have coercion exercised on its behalf without necessarily leading to a constriction of any other type of expression. Any particular exercise of coer


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cion, of course, will lead to at least the temporary obstruction of some ex pressions. But this obstruction, paradoxically, is simply the necessary price to be paid for keeping open the public space required for expressions of all types to appear and endure. This paradox, arising as it does from the con crete condition of the men who engage in expression, is irreducible. It is an existential necessity. More specifically, the irreducible paradox here is that coercion, which shows the limitedness of the power which arises from a circle of consent, makes sense only by virtue of that consent. Those whose consent establishes this circle must consent to those obstructions of their own expression which are needed to preserve this circle. And yet, the point of the consent is pre cisely to provide space for expressions of all types. The use of coercion thus tends both to preserve and to weaken the consent on whose behalf it is exer cised. The upshot of this paradoxical condition in lived experience is that the exercise of coercion for the sake of political expression is intrinsically risky. Its legitimacy can never be assured ahead of time. This riskiness, however, is no different from that which attached to the entire political realm. All politi cal deeds and expressions, together with the consent which provides the space within which they appear and endure, are themselves risky. They are all characterized by hope rather than by vision or settled love. Thus coer cion, if it is to be exercised on behalf of politics, must itself be characterized by hope and riskiness. With the foregoing clarifications in hand, I can now say something about the limits of the legitimate political use of coercion. But as I mentioned above, I will not deal with specific techniques of coercion, e.g., war, ways of dealing with criminals, etc. My concern, rather, is with the limits which must be observed in any legitimate exercise of coercion regardless of which tech niques are used. IV The circle of consent which establishes the political realm is essentially finite. Two aspects of its finitude are of prime importance in the present context. First, no one necessarily enters any particular circle of consent and whoever does enter some such circle can always' withdraw from it. Para phrasing Locke, one can say that whereas men are born to a political circle of consent, they are not born in it.15 Second, no circle of consent can ex


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haustively embrace all that can be expressed by any person who is in the circle. The existence of any particular circle, then, is never secure. This lack of security gives rise to a need to defend the circle. This defense, qua defense, is coercive. It imposes the existence of the circle on those who are in some measure outside the circle. This imposition testifies not to the power but to the fragility and finitude of the circle. Given this irrecusable fragility and finitude, coercion is existentially a permanently possible mode of activity for any particular political body. In sofar as the political body is itself legitimate, that is, insofar as it provides space for expressions of all types, then coercion as a permanently possible mode of activity is legitimate. The circle of consent simply cannot exist with out involving coercion as a possible mode of activity. Coercion, then, by an existential necessity arising from the condition of the participants in the poli tical realm, belongs to the political realm as one of the permanently possible modes of activity available to a political community. The exercise of coer cion does not necessarily involve a lapse from the realm of politics.16 Nonetheless, concrete exercises of coercion, if they are to be legitimate political activities, are limited by virtue of their orientation to the main tenance of the political circle of consent. The fragility and finitude of the circle, which manifest its temporality, require that the circle be continually reconstituted. Participants in the community must so act that their fellow participants will persevere in their consent and that their conduct elicit the consent of new participants (the next generation, immigrants, etc.). But the consent which is to be sought is precisely a consent to hold open a space in which all types of expression can continue to appear. Thus, con crete expressions of coercion, to be politically legitimate, must be such that in the very suppression of some expressions, it can in principle be seen, even by those whose expressions are suppressed, that space for other expressions of the same type as those suppressed is maintained. That is, every concrete exercise of coercion must be such that it can serve and be seen as serving the political community on whose behalf it is exercised. This means that every concrete exercise of coercion must be visible as that which leaves room for the conversion of men from being those who are coerced to those who con sent. This consent, of course, is not consent to coercion as such. Rather it is consent to the establishment of the space for all types of expression, the maintenance of which space may require coercion.

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It is, of course, possible that legitimate coercion is inefficacious for the preservation of some particular political body. But should this be the case, that body is simply doomed. Recourse to illegitimate coercion of itself cor rodes the power of the political body and replaces the circle of consent with either of the twins, tyranny or anarchy. Thus, on the basis of the foregoing considerations, it can be seen that, given the human condition, coercion belongs to the political realm. Further, it can be seen that there are intrinsic limits to any legitimate political use of coercion. More specifically, these considerations allow one to reach the following conclusions about coercion and its relation to politics. These con clusions are congruent with the elements of legitimate politics pointed out at the beginning of this paper. 1) The possibility of legitimate coercion cannot be removed from the political realm. This fact meshes with the fact that the distinction between rulers and ruled, by reason of political rather than natural necessity, is ir reducible. Some person or group must be responsible for restricting some expressions for the sake of the maintenance of the political community as a whole. 2) Since coercion is a permanently possible political activity and since all political activity is historical, no definitive codification of legitimate coercive activity can be formulated. This fact meshes with the fact that the truth of political conduct comes to be in the actual doing of political deeds. 3) Any exercise of coercion which aims to definitively overcome the es sential fragility and finitude of the political realm is politically indefensible. This fact meshes with the fact that no political activity can have as its au thentic task the redemption of man from the exigencies of his historicity. 4) No exercise of coercion can be politically legitimate which excludes in advance the possibility of associating other and new men in the circle of consent. This fact meshes with the fact that political conduct must hence forth be judged in global terms. These conclusions, and the investigations leading up to them, do not of course resolve the paradoxical relationship between power and coercion. That paradox, I take it, is a special case of the irresolvable paradoxical rela tionship between the demands of what is to be thought and the demands of what is to be done. But these conclusions do elucidate the implications of the human condition for those who would engage in serious political thought and activity.

Ideology, Utopia, and Responsible Politics

The concepts of ideology and utopia, at least since Marx, have regularly been understood in pejorative terms. Ideology is understood in terms of distortion or dissimulation. It is taken to be a fundamentally, and more or less dangerously, defective way of responding to the world. Utopia, on the other hand, is understood in terms of fantasy, or dreaming. It is taken to be a way of refusing to respond to the world as it is, a way of withdrawal from the world. To be either an ideologue or a utopian is regularly thought to be infected with a social or political ill. Generally, though, these two concepts and the phenomena to which they refer are treated separately. They are not taken to be intrinsically related to one another. Paul Ricoeur, however, in his Lectures on Ideology and Utopia1 proposes to understand them as complements of one another and, according ly, to see them as belonging to the same conceptual framework. In these Lectures Ricoeur, on the one hand, analyses how one or both of these con cepts have been treated by major 19th and 20th century thinkers. On the other hand, he goes beyond considering the place of these concepts in politi cal thought and asks what they entail for a proper understanding of the hu man condition. As George Taylor says in his “Introduction” to the Lectures: “In these lectures, Ricoeur uses social and political categories to discuss what it means to be human, an issues that concerns both our present and our persisting possibilities” (xi). In this paper, I will not consider the adequacy of Ricoeur’s analysis of other thinkers. Nor will I emphasize matters of philosophical anthropology. I wall rather concentrate upon the contribution these Lectures make to con temporary political thought. Ricoeur, I will argue, is right to treat ideology and utopia as complements of one another. But his understanding and as


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sessment of them must be modified if they are to function properly in re sponsible political thought and practice. I

Ricoeur maintains that the phenomena of ideology and utopia share two important traits. First, each is thoroughly ambivalent. Each has both a positive, constructive side and a negative, destructive side. Thus each has both a constitutive and a pathological dimension. The second common trait is that the negative dimension of each is more apparent than the positive dimension. Ricoeur accounts for these shared features by treating ideology and utopia as complementary functions of what he calls the social or cultural imagination (1-2). If this is the case, then one can argue that neither the ideological nor the utopian is eliminable from this imagination and that, indeed, this imagination is essential for the constitution of social reality.2 To make his case, Ricoeur has to find more fundamental, non-pathological meanings of both ideology and utopia beneath their more obvious, pathologi cal ones. (a) Ideology Ricoeur begins his analysis of the concept of ideology by drawing atten tion to its history. That history has been one of an ever expanding range of applicability. For the young Marx, for example, the ideological was whatever stood in opposition to the concrete praxis of individual persons afflicted in various ways by alienation. The ideological thus stands opposed to the real. For the later Marx, though, as well as for Engels and subsequent Marxists of various stripes, any humanistic concern for individuals is itself ideological. The ideological is now opposed to Marxian science, which deals with the infrastructure of society, with relations of production and classes in conflict (69-74). In the course of this historical development, Ricoeur notes: the concept of ideology progressively covers German idealism, prescientific sociology, objectivist psychology and sociology in their positivistic forms, and then all the humanistic claims and complaints of “emotional” Marxism. The implication seems to be that everything is ideological....(7)

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Though official Marxism, as Ricoeur acknowledges, does not explicitly draw this extreme implication that almost everyone is thoroughly muddled throughout their lives, its understanding of ideology as exclusively distortive has no resources for blocking such a conclusion. Apparently, everyone is bemused but Johnny and, perhaps, his very small band. The implausibility of this view of ideology is compounded by what has come to be known as Mannheim’s paradox.3 Simply put, the paradox is: If all discourse is ideological, then how can Marxist discourse escape ideology? If everything said is a biased manifestation of unrecognized interests, from what nondistorted perch could Marx or anyone discover that there was dis tortion? Ricoeur’s response to Mannheim’s paradox and the extreme position which generated it is first to treat the concept of ideology as that which is opposed to science as secondary to that of ideology as opposed to praxis and then to recast the purported opposition between ideology and praxis. His objective is to show that ideology does not consist exclusively or even primar ily in a distortion or dissimulation of praxis. He proposes to do so by in tegrating the concept of ideology as distortion into a broader framework, one which recognizes the symbolic structure of human life. Borrowing the concept of symbolic action from Kenneth Burke and Clif ford Geertz, Ricoeur argues that there is no genuinely human action which does not involve some way both of ascribing meaning to the particular action and of fitting it into the pattern we call a life. This double performance constitutes the symbolic function. “Unless social life has a symbolic func tion,” Ricoeur argues, “there is no way to understand how we live, do things, and project these activities in ideas, no way to understand how reality can become an idea or how real life can produce illusions” (8). Obviously, as Marx and others have emphasized, this symbolic structure can yield perversions. But the perversions are always only partial. “The distorting function covers only a small surface of the social imagination, in just the same way that hallucinations or illusions constitute only a part of imaginative activity in general” (8). To claim otherwise is to run afoul of Mannheim’s paradox. If all human action is symbolically structured or organized by cultural patterns, then one can understand not only how the several actions of a sin gle person fit together as a coherent life, but also how multiple lives can be

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organized and integrated into a community. Without some hypothesis of this sort, how the integration and identity of either a person or a community is achieved remains opaque. Following Geertz, Ricoeur calls the set of sym bolic structures constitutive of an identifiable community an ideology. Be cause there can be many such sets, there can be many ideologies. But with out some set of these structures, human community would be impossible. On this view, ideology plays a necessary, constructive role in the establish ment and maintenance of any human community. It is not, therefore, fun damentally destructive. Lest he beg the question, Ricoeur has to show how his view of ideology is related to the early Marxian sense of ideology as distortion of thought and praxis by unrecognized interests. Ricoeur locates this connection at the point at which any social order gives rise to the issue of governance. It is at this point that differentiation and hierarchization enter into the community. Following Max Weber, Ricoeur notes that when the distinction between the rulers and the ruled is introduced into a group, the rulers have both authority and domination. Not only do they have the ability to establish and maintain order by force, they also are entitled to lead. Not even the most brutal system of ruling lives by force alone. Every system of ruling solicits the consent and cooperation of the ruled. That is, it seeks to have its au thority and domination acknowledged as legitimate. “It is ideology’s role,” Ricoeur says, “to legitimate this authority....While ideology serves...as the code of interpretation that secures integration, it does so by justifying the present system of authority” (13). But, as Weber has also shown, no absolutely rational legitimation of any particular system of authority and rule can be found. There is no set of rational norms which can definitively determine either that it is X who should rule and Y who should obey or that any specific system of ruling must be implemented. Nonetheless, there is no reason to think that there can be any enduring, relatively complex human community without ruling and obey ing. Thus, on the one hand, there must be some justification proffered to legitimate both X’s ruling and the system which establishes that rule. But, on the other hand, the claim always exceeds available evidence. Alternatives are always not only possible but plausible. Ideology serves to bridge the gap between the rational necessity for legi timated authority and power and the impossibility of any conclusive justifica tion for any particular ruler or system of rule. As Ricoeur puts it, “ideology


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must bridge the tension that characterizes the legitimation process, a tension between the claim to legitimacy made by authority and the belief in the legi timacy offered by the citizenry” (13). Without the bridging function per formed by ideology, it is hard to see that there could be any but the most trivial stable community.4 But because ideology claims more than it can legitimate, it is perpetually prone to distort and dissimulate reality. In its effort to constitute the identity of the community and to secure acceptance by the ruled of the ruler’s legiti macy, ideology inevitable tends to justify the status quo, to canonize the exist ing system of authority regardless of the limits of its rationality. Necessary, then, to a community’s identity and preservation, ideology is nonetheless always prone to distort reality. To be prone to distort is not, however, necessarily to distort. This is especially so when there is a counterweight. The counterweight to the ideo logical tendency of the cultural imagination is its utopian tendency. (b) Utopia and its connection with ideology. Because all systems for legitimating authority and power suffer from a “credibility gap,” Ricoeur argues, there is always room for utopia. In fact, utopia’s distinctive function is to expose this credibility gap.3 Not only does the cultural imagination promote the integration of com munities, it also instigates their critique. Through its utopian function, the cultural imagination leads us to rethink in a critical way the nature and char acter of our social life. If Ricoeur is right, there is no possibility of ideology with its integrative role without the correlative possibility of a utopian chal lenge to this integration. Both ideology and utopia are unsuppressible func tions of one and the same imagination. In Ricoeur’s words, “there is no social integration without social subversion” (16-17). Utopian thought introduces what might be compared to Husserlian im aginative variations on such realities as government, family, religion, and especially, power. It subjects the socio-political status quo to a critique lo cated in a “nowhere.” That is, its critique of what presently obtains some where is not rooted in what presently obtains elsewhere. It is rooted in what does not presently exist and has never existed at all. Utopia’s “nowherehood” is, to be sure, a limitation. But it is also at the root of utopia’s corrective potentiality. How utopia functions in any par

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ticular instance is largely determined by how it relates itself to present social reality. If utopian thought ignores or trivializes actual circumstances, if it fails to connect the “here and now” of social reality to the “elsewhere” or “nowhere” of utopia, then it is pathological. It degenerates into escapism. But even if degeneration is an irremovable possibility, it is not an in evitability. If utopian thought recognizes that both its sense and its legitima cy depend at least in part upon the present reality it criticizes, if it ack nowledges that what it criticizes is both potent and not devoid of at least minimal redeeming features, then it is nonpathological and, potentially, ther apeutic. If ideology and utopia do indeed fit within the same conceptual frame work, Ricoeur suggests, then nonpathological utopia can be the antidote to degenerate ideology. He asks, rhetorically: “Is not the decenteredness, the ‘eccentricity,’ of the imagination’s utopian function the cure of the pathology of ideological thinking, which has its blindness and narrowness precisely in its inability to conceive of a nowhere” (17)? In these Lectures Ricoeur tests and refines this proposal through analyses of the ways either ideology or utopia or both have been treated by thinkers as diverse as Marx, Weber, Mannheim, Habermas, Saint-Simon, and Geertz. The conclusions he ultimately reaches are of substantial importance for re sponsible political thought. Ricoeur’s analyses show that what is at stake in both ideology and utopia is the matter of power. Power is the point at which they intersect. Every ideology buttresses some institutionalized power and tends to claim for it more legitimacy than the evidence can warrant. Utopias, on the other hand, all deinstitutionalize principal human relationships, including that of power. Every utopia deinstitutionalizes power in one of two ways. It may claim that power should remain deinstitutionalized and that there should be no rulers. This way is the way of anarchy. Or it may claim that power should be reinstitutionalized in a more rational way. The rulers will be the best or the wisest. This way is the way of tyranny, benevolent perhaps, but tyranny nonetheless. “All utopias,” Ricoeur says, “oscillate between these two poles” (299). Though neither of these alternatives is satisfactory, Ricoeur still finds much merit in utopia’s destabilizing effect. Utopia challenges the present order of things. It introduces an element of doubt into the taken for granted status quo. Utopia, in Ricoeur’s words, “makes the actual world seem


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strange....There is an experience of the contingency of order” (299-300). Whereas ideology justifies social life as it presently is, utopia redescribes it, showing that it might be otherwise. As they actually occur in social life, Ricoeur finds, both ideology and utopia function in some fashion at three levels, the levels of (a) distortion, (b) legitimation, and (c) identification. At all three levels, both the ideologi cal function and the utopian function do something other than simply repre sent or express present reality. At a first level, ideology presents a distortion of reality. Utopia presents a fanciful replacement instead of reality. At a deeper level, ideology purports to bridge the gap between present power and evidence for its legitimacy. Utopia contests present power and proposes an alternative to it. Third, at its deepest and best level, ideology’s function is to establish and maintain the identity of a group. Utopia’s best function is to explore possible alternatives to what is admittedly actually the case. Thus, at the first, rather superficial level, the level of distortion, the ex pressions of the ideological and the utopian functions of the imagination are incompatible with one another. Deeper probing, however, shows that these functions are complementary. Our identity, not only as individuals but also as groups, expresses itself in symbols derived from our expectations for the future as well as from our present and past experience. It is part of our identity to be open to what is not yet, to what is new. For groups as well as for individuals, identity is prospective. It is partially in suspense. We are now not merely what we have been. “What we call ourselves is also what we expect and yet what we are not” (311). If indeed both the ideological and the utopian functions are constitutive of the social imagination, and if the social imagination in turn is constitutive of social reality, then we cannot rid ourselves of these functions. Further, if Mannheim’s paradox holds good for Ricoeur’s own analyses, then there is no possibility of an escape into a discourse definitively secure from distortion and fantasy. Ricoeur acknowledges that he can find no response to Mann heim’s paradox “except to say that we must try to cure the illness of utopia by what is wholesome in ideology...and try to cure the rigidity, the petrifica tion, of ideologies by the utopian element” (312).6 This response, he admits, would be clearly insufficient unless one tries to transform this circle into a spiral by committing himself or herself to some specific set of values and living accordingly. Ricoeur confesses that there is

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something “fideistic” about such a commitment but nonetheless defends it because I do not see how we can say that our values are better than all others except that by risking our whole life on them we expect to achieve a better life, to see and understand things better than others (312). Ricoeur’s “fideism” is attenuated by the fact that Mannheim’s paradox does not tell the whole story. Even if we cannot escape from the ideological circle, we are not entirely imprisoned by it. Turning Mannheim’s paradox back on itself, Ricoeur observes: “We know that Mannhaim’s paradox exists only because we have the capacity for reflecting on our situation; this is the capacity Habermas called Selbstreflexxon” (313). The ideological element and the utopian element constantly both collaborate with and contest each other. And we know it. Ricoeur’s ultimate conclusion is that, faced with the impossibility of an all-encompassing view of social life and its history which would definitively overcome both ideology and utopia, we should adopt Mannheim’s criterion of appropriateness. According to this criterion, the worth of any particular expression of either the ideological or the utopian function, neither of which can be definitively suppressed, is to be measured by its appropriateness for constituting a group identity congruent both to the exigencies of the actual conditions in which social life must be lived and to the possibilities resident in those conditions. Difficult as it is to apply, this criterion is apparently our only alternative. The upshot of Ricoeur’s analyses, then, is: Instead of a pseudo-Hegelian claim to have a total view, the question is one of practical wisdom; we have the security of judgment because we appreciate what can be done in a situation. We cannot get out of the circle of ideology and utopia, but the judgment of appropriate ness may help us to understand how the circle can become a spiral (314).


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II

There is much to applaud about Ricoeur’s sophisticated analysis of ideol ogy and utopia. He argues convincingly for his principal thesis, namely that without the function of the social imagination there can be no stable political community. Unless the perceivable present conditions of human life (speci fic material conditions plus the available ways of thinking, speaking, acting, and making) are supplemented by achievements of the social imagination, no group of people could either attain the unity necessary to establish its iden tity as a particular community or develop the common projects necessary to preserve it as an integrated community. Unless “the here and now” can be complemented by an “elsewhere and other time,” social fragmentation is inevitable. It follows, therefore, that no political community is definable exclusively in terms of its present determinations. In the course of establishing this general thesis, Ricoeur handles the always troublesome but fascinating issue of power with both forthrightness and circumspection. He says: “For me the problem of power is the most intriguing structure of existence” (311). In discussing this problem he never loses sight of power’s polyvalency. Refreshingly, given the depreciation of power in so much contemporary thought, Ricoeur never reduces power to the status of a product of the devil’s work. There is no good reason to believe that power is necessarily a zero-sum game.7 Nor is the absence of power, in itself, a blessing. To be sure, every actual political regime of which there is a historical record shows that there were people whom it harmed either by what it did or by what it failed to do. Some of the harmed have been members of its own community. Others have been foreigners. Because every regime brings harm to some, every regime is indictable. That is, a utopian alternative is always conceivable. In practice, however, to hold that, since every known regime is indictable, no regime has enjoyed rational legitimacy is nonsense. To assert that no regime’s legitimacy has been without taint is true but largely pointless. There is no good reason to think either that some concrete regime could have complete legitimacy or that anarchy, the absence of relations of power, is livable. The task for the responsible thinker, then, is first to avoid unwarranted claims about the possibility of fully legitimate regimes and, second, to search

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for criteria with which to assess the legitimacy both of actual regimes and of genuinely plausible alternatives to them. In formulating and applying these criteria, the responsible thinker will recognize the historicality of all regimes of power. Both regimes and their legitimacy can wear out. A regime may outlast its legitimacy. Or its col lapse may coincide with its loss of legitimacy. But in neither of these cases does a regime’s loss of legitimacy entail that it never had legitimacy. Indeed, to argue that no actual regime ever had legitimacy is tantamount to claiming that, at least thus far, all power has been perverse power. Perhaps such a claim can be given some conceptual plausibility. But any attempt to make it applicable to actual power relations is doomed to futility. One who holds that all known power has been perverse power has no motiv ation to attempt thoughtful change in power relations. He or she has no conceptual resources with which either to oppose the social chaos which pointless change threatens to bring or to rise above the passivity of acquies cence in the status quo. Ricoeur, to his great credit, never denies power a positive role in stable communities. He never treats power irresponsibly. But even though Ricoeur’s analyses of ideology and utopia deserve con siderable praise, they need refinement if they are to contribute to maximally responsible political thought and practice. These refinements affect both how these two phenomena are understood and the way they are deployed in responsible symbolic action. Central to Ricoeur’s treatment of power is his recognition that no one can ever become definitively immune to either ideological or utopian “dis tortions.” That is, no one can attain, much less sustain over time, anything that could be considered a transparent vision either of what is or of what ought to be. Neither the ideologist or utopian nor his or her critic can gain this essentially ahistorical transparency (252-253). The constitutive role of the social imagination in the structuring of social reality, Ricoeur maintains, insures that this the case. But may one not properly ask: What then is the status of Ricoeur’s own thought? Or of those with whom he finds greatest sympathy, namely Geertz and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Habermas? Does Ricoeur not effectively free himself from ideological and utopian distortions? Perhaps the tendency to ideology and utopia is irremovable from actual living people, Ricoeur included. But does his analysis not point to a way of thinking which effec


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tively eliminates ideology and utopia from responsible social and political thought? Any particular ideological doctrine or utopian scheme, though it exceeds and somehow denies the constraints of the real, nonetheless takes its sense in large measure from the reality from which it distances itself. Without that reality and the constraints it imposes, the ideology or utopia in question would make very little sense. But every set of concrete real conditions is essentially limited by contin gency. Whatever ideology or utopia is the correlate of these conditions, the supplement or alternative to them is infected by the same limitations. Any particular ideology is limited and contingent inasmuch as its task is to bridge the gap between some actual claim to power or authority and the contingent reality which provides evidence, albeit insufficient evidence, for it. If the current conditions provided no evidence in its favor, the ideology would lack all plausibility and thus be trivial. But the evidence provided, like the current conditions themselves, is never more than contingent. Similarly, each par ticular utopia proposes remedies for the ills of some essentially contingent situation. The ills, like the conditions which generate them, are contingent. So too, then, are their utopian remedy. The history of ideologly and utopia, however, shows that their genuine proponents take them to be definitive.8 They are not presented as mere temporary cures. They are meant to escape contingency. Genuine propo nents of either an ideology or a utopia deny that what they espouse is shot through with contingency. For them, the present reality is no more than a point of departure which can be left behind without a trace. Accordingly, they can be said to espouse their ideology or utopia categorically and not merely hypothetically. The ideology or utopia in question is, they hold, what ought to be the case regardless either of what is actually the case or of any other alternative. The benign contribution which Ricoeur claims to discover that both the ideological function and the utopian function of the social imagination can make to the constitution of social reality can only be made if their products are recognized precisely for what they are, namely (a) representations of what is not real, and (b) contingent representations whose sense is undetachable from that of the contingent reality to which they are supplements or alternatives. If a particular ideology or utopia is so recognized, then it is embraced or entertained only hypothetically. It cannot present itself as a

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permanent and definitive solution to the problem of power. Nor can it, because of the radical historicality of every social reality, present itself as the sole legitimate replacement for the current reality. No contingent product of the social imagination, if recognized as contingent, can pretend so to exhaust the possibilities of the social imagination that other plausible representations are impossible. But does not the difference between asserting an ideology or utopia, holding it categorically, and entertaining it, holding it only hypothetically, make all the difference between social pathology and social health? Does not the criticism to which ideologists and Utopians have been traditionally subjected have its roots in the categoriality of the claims advanced for what they present as the non-contingent solution to the intractable problem of legitimizing power? If I am correct, then Ricoeur has not so much rehabil itated ideology and utopia as he has shown how the social imagination’s tendency to them is to be harnessed and put into the service of responsible political thought. It is harnessed by refusing to embrace categorically the content of the representation. It is precisely this refusal which distinguishes the responsible political or social thinker from the ideologue or utopian.9 The practical importance of distinguishing the hypothetical embrace of an ideological or utopian representation from the categorical embrace of it shows up clearly in the important symbolic action of political education, the process by which newcomers are incorporated into a community. If political education is to be responsible, then both the teacher and the student must (a) pose alternatives to the actual distributions of power, since these distribu tions cannot be definitively legitimated, without at the same time (b) destroy ing the possibility of rationally accepting some distribution, that is, without precipitating anarchy. To embrace an ideology categorically is to deny the necessity or even the utility of considering alternatives to the present reality. It is to treat the always contingent present as the necessary. To embrace a utopia categorically is to deny the connection which utopia must retain to reality if it is to be senseful. It is to treat the real as though it were devoid of merit and thus to destroy the rational basis for accepting any contingent actual distribution of power. Unquestionably, no regime finds it easy to acknowledge the limits of its legitimacy. Similarly no critique of a regime finds it easy to acknowledge that the regime’s limited legitimacy is nonethe less genuine legitimacy. Short of these acknowledgements, though, there can be no political education. There can only be either indoctrination or subver


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sion. But with these acknowledgements, responsible political education be comes not only possible but also imperative. Further, if the distinction between the hypothetical entertaining of ideol ogies or utopias is distinguished from the categorical assertion of them, then egress from Mannheim’s paradox can be demonstrated more convincingly. Ricoeur’s solution to Mannheim’s paradox, as I mentioned above, is to cure the excesses of utopia by those of ideology and vice versa. This cure is to be practically consummated, according to Ricoeur, by risking everything for our chosen set of values. In his words, cited above, “I do not see how we can say that our values are better than all others except that by risking our whole life we expect to achieve a better life, to see and understand things better than others” (312). But a consummation of this sort, as Ricoeur himself admits, can be achieved only voluntaristically, or fideistically. Egress on the basis of rational considerations alone is apparently insufficient. Force of will is required. If, however, it is proper to distinguish hypothetical entertainings of ideol ogies or utopias from categorical assertions of them, then what are enter tained are not full-fledged ideologies or utopias. What is entertained is not isolated from the admittedly contingent reality upon which it depends for its own intelligibility. What is thus entertained is modally different from an ideology or utopia which is categorically adopted. The former is no more than a supplement or alternative to a reality recognized both as resistant to reduction and as having its own positive worth. The latter would either re duce reality to a moment of itself or seek to cancel it altogether. That which is simply entertained, then, has a different logical status than do adopted ideologies and utopias and therefore eludes Mannheim’s paradox. My insistence upon distinguishing the hypothetical from the categorical holding of ideologies or utopias does not denature them. Nor does it under cut the importance of admitting, with Ricoeur, that political thought which makes no demands upon how we live is sterile. How could thought be both responsible and political and still make no challenge to how we live with one another? But if, on the one hand, Ricoeur is correct both that tendencies to ideology and utopia are unsuppressible and that the productions of these tendencies make claims upon our conduct, and if, on the other hand, I am correct that these products are held responsibly only if they are held hypo thetically and not categorically, then Ricoeur’s prescription for curing the

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excesses of ideology and utopia can and should be refined in two correlative ways. First, we cannot under any circumstances claim with Ricoeur that the values according to which we order our lives are better than all others. The values in question here must include political values. But given the radical contingency of all power and legitimations of power, we can never claim more than that our present political values are no less than equal to all pres ent alternatives. Our claim can at most be (a) that our set of values is a set supported by the best presently available evidence, and (b) that living by our set of values provides as well as any other set opportunities to recognize fresh evidence which would show either that some other set is indeed super ior or that our set, though appropriate to its times, is now outmoded. So cir cumscribed, a claim of this sort admits the possibility that other sets of politi cal values might be just as appropriate to prevailing conditions as our is. So to live a political life, I have argued elsewhere, is to live a politics of hope.10 Properly understood, hope best characterizes the appropriate way to live out the play between our recognition of present reality and the two sorts of variations worked on it by the social imagination, namely ideological supple ments and utopian alternatives. It also best characterizes the way to inter pret living in a world whose inhabitants differ in the sets of values by which they live. Though no demonstrative arguments are available to justify a politics of hope, enthymematic arguments, the sort of arguments appropriate to the subject matter of politics, do support it. There is no necessity, then, to lapse into fideism. Strong reasons exist for the general position Ricoeur has devel oped in these lectures. Accordingly, it is a mistake to suggest that these reasons fall short of providing firm rational guidance to responsible political conduct and that therefore the sort of politics which Ricoeur espouses rests ultimately on something other than reason. The second refinement I want to make in Ricoeur’s conclusions is corre lated to the first. Just as we must be prepared to alter our social or political values if new evidence demands it, so we must be prepared to alter the ob jective or goal of our political desires and aspirations. The evidence on the basis of which we formulate political objectives and goals is always both limited and contingent. Accordingly, we can only seek to bring about social condition C if no superior condition C ' becomes warranted by evidence. Our dedication to C must be only hypothetical and not categorical. For


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example, being committed to bringing about a specific kind of resolution R to the troubles of Northern Ireland is reasonable only so long as one is pre pared to abandon R for R ' should evidence demand it. We must therefore live out our set of values, even risking death for them, only in such a way that we remain prepared to abandon the specific objective of our aspirations or expectations should a better objective appear. The importance of this second refinement is that it undercuts any ten dency toward fanaticism. Willingness to risk death for our objectives neither removes their hypothetical character nor warrants suppressing voices propos ing alternative objectives. Because we must remain open to new evidence and thus to new expectations and aspirations we can never rationally defend so strong a claim for our set of goals and objectives that it warrants our suppressing all competitors. This consideration does not entail pacifism.11 But it does indicate that it is far from easy to find rational grounds for calls for war or civil strife. If the position enunciated in Lectures on Ideology and Utopia is amended by using the distinction between the hypothetical and the categorical holding of values in such a way that (a) there is no need to resort to fideism and (b) tendencies to fanaticism are effectively blocked, then Ricoeur has made a major contribution to responsible contemporary political thought. The phe nomena to which the concepts of ideology and utopia refer show no signs of fading from contemporary political life. To show, as Ricoeur has done, both that they are products of ineliminable tendencies of the social imagination and that, when brought together in the same conceptual framework, they can be seen to be not mere distortions but rather products of the very conditions which make social life and its amelioration possible is an accomplishment with far ranging implications for contemporary political philosophy.

Does Anarchy Make Political Sense?

Tyranny, Aristotle says, either is the worst of politics or is no politics at all.1 And though he does not specifically discuss anarchy, he says that that form of democracy which always appeals from laws to the people is the worst form of democracy. For “such a democracy is fairly open to the objection that it is not a constitution at all; for where laws have no authority, there is no constitution.”2 It is easy then to infer that Aristotle would find anarchy little better than tyranny. Recently, however, Reiner Schum ann has argued, on the basis of his reading of Heidegger, for a subtle, different version of anarchy.3 His work prompts a rethinking of the political sensefulness of anarchy. In this essay I will undertake such a rethinking. My central concern will not be to assess the defensibility of Schum ann’s reading of Heidegger. Rather, it will be to re-examine anarchy. Though I will argue that in the final analysis anarchy is politically untenable, Schum ann’s work prompts a critique that brings to light crucial features of responsible political thought and action. I

Schum ann follows Heidegger in his analysis of the history of metaphy sics, a history running from Plato through Nietzsche. Each metaphysical system, on this analysis, hangs on some primordial principle or entity. This fundament rules over everything, determining both how things are to appear and how they are to be assessed. Political practice, too, falls under the dominance of the reigning meta physical principle. That principle determines how the political practice in question is to be judged. In the era of metaphysics, the question “What is

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to be done?” gets answered in terms of some primary discourse engendered by some such principle. Examples of these primary discourses are the dis courses about being, nature, God, or the supreme judgment of reason. The history of metaphysics is the history of the successive times in which each of these principles first prevailed and then effectively disappeared. Hence Schiirmann calls them ‘epochal principles.’ Serving to legitimate practical disciplines and their exercise, these principles “have been political,” he argues, “because more evidently at each stage, they have forced the net work of things, words and actions of an age into the logic of domination.”4 That is, these principles establish and maintain an order or regime regulating this network. But our epoch, the epoch of the dominance of technology, manifests the exhaustion of the age of metaphysics. We have arrived at a post-metaphysi cal time in which all ultimate principles or standards are dissolved. Ours is a time devoid of archi or standard of measurement. It is a time of an-arch6, of anarchy.5 Now that the metaphysical era as a whole has come to an end we find ourselves in a transitional era, on the way to a different way of thinking and acting. This amounts to a different way of being human. This new era is a way without principle, an an-archic way. Unlike eras of domination, this new era of thinking and acting is one in which there is a mutual letting-be among people and between them and the world with its things. This way of thinking and acting does not yield, as traditional political thinking does, “a theory of organization of man into collectivities.”6 Rather, in a non-telic manner it “anticipates a possible post-technological economy not stamped primarily [as politics based on metaphysical principles always are] by institutionalized violence.”7 We cannot force this new way to prevail. But it is a concrete possibility for which we can prepare.8 The political implications of this transitional thinking and acting show up, according to Schiirmann, when we treat the three basic constituents of poli tics, namely words, things, and actions, as no longer subject to domination by some metaphysical principle.9 First, consider words as constituent of politics. Politics has always, and necessarily, involved speech and language. There is no fully human intercourse, political or otherwise, without words or their equivalents. Throughout the metaphysical era, epoch after epoch, speech and language have been ordered and dominated by a syntax and grammar which themselves spring from metaphysics. Hence so long as we string our


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words together in a way which requires the subordination of some of them to others, what we say still remains dominated by metaphysical thinking of some sort. If we are to escape from metaphysics and the domination ingredient in it, we must hold ourselves ready for a language which will have “rid itself of the grammar of metaphysics. The tongue to be learned would then have to extricate itself from ... the subject-predicate attributions.”10 Thus speaking in the transitional era is to prepare the way for a future speech which is “freed from the grammar that has made the West.”11 But politics of course involves more than just speech and language. It also must deal with things. The epoch of technology, in which metaphysical politics has reached its close, is an epoch in which all things are dominated by the principle of subjectivity. In this epoch, the only way things can appear is as raw material to be disposed of according to human purposes and de signs. Indeed the epoch of technology is the epoch which most fully expres ses the reign of subjectivity. To resist domination by the principle of subjectivity, we must turn to deal, resolutely and consistently, with things in an a-principial or an-archic manner. Only if we do so can there be a chance that the end of the era of metaphysics can open the way for a transition to a ‘salvific’ time. Further, in addition to words and things, politics has to do with action. Indeed, without anti-principial, and eventually a-principial action, a-principial thinking or saying remains impossible. A-principial action is action which neither has nor seeks justification by some fundamental principle. It is ac tion “without why.” Action “without why,” as an ontic condition, precedes and makes possible an ontologically an-archic thinking and saying.12 Thus anarchic action or praxis is not merely the practical application of anarchic thinking. Nor is it merely heuristic. Rather,, it is “a practical a priori with out which thinking ... lapses into impossibility.”13 When action is no longer governed by some metaphysical principle, then key notions through which philosophers have tried to understand action are radically transformed. First, action can no longer be thought to move per sons or things to some goal established in advance. Rather than forcing its constituents to appear in the light of such ends, an-archic action lets the persons and things which it involves show themselves as they are, namely as themselves free from subordination to some primary principle. They too now show themselves as “without why.”14

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Second, the metaphysical concept of responsibility is undercut. This concept implies that there is some ultimate authoritative ground against which action can be measured. But since there is no such ground, then this concept of responsibility collapses. Responsible acting in the transitional time eschews any appeal to a foundational principle. It prepares for an era in which responsibility will consist in devotedly letting-be “the ever new modes in which things unite in a world and differ from it.”15 That is, post metaphysical responsibility consists in being attentive and responsive to the temporal, fluid play of things as they come together and stand apart.16 Third, when transitional thinking is joined to transitional acting, they open up the possibility for nonattachment. Nonattachment is the correlate of nonmetaphysical responsibility. It amounts to a “protest against busyness.” More specifically, in our epoch, it is the protest against the domination by subjectivity which manifests itself in the global technological enterprise aimed at reducing everything to raw material. As protest, nonattachment lets per sons and things be free from domination by principle.17 Fourth, taken together, transitional thinking and transitional acting trans form all metaphysical notions about human destiny. This transformation radically changes both how one understands time and how one understands human activity. For this new understanding and action no temporal moment is either preparatory for or deviant from some other moment which is ‘bet ter’ or ‘worse’ or is in any sense its goal. Similarly, what transpires in time cannot rightfully be regarded as doing so for human beings. Nor can one sensefully assess human doings in terms of their consequences for mankind’s future. To do so would be to grant, either overtly or covertly, unwarranted special privilege to the human way of being over other ways of being. Rath er, the thinking and acting appropriate to this age of transition must contest this “humanistic” vestige of metaphysical thinking along with all other such vestiges. It must treat these vestiges as remnants of an era which has now come fully to a close.18 Finally, acting and thinking which are genuinely transitional prepare the way for a shift from violence to anarchy. The epoch of technology thorough ly demonstrates how radical an act of violence it is to subject everything to a metaphysical principle. Transitional acting and thinking subvert this sys tematic violence. They do so, Schiirmann says, by letting things come to presence unobstructedly. In his words: “The practical condition for raising the question concerning technology and the violence inherent in it can only


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consist in letting things enter their world in constellations essentially rebel lious to ordering.”19 Schum ann makes plain just where transitional thinking and acting lead. First, he endorses Meister Eckhart’s comments: “The just man seeks noth ing in his works. Those are serfs and hirelings who seek anything in their works and who act for the sake of some ‘why’;” and “if you were to ask a genuine man who acted from his own ground, ‘Why do you do what you are doing?’ if he were to answer rightly, he would say no more than, ‘I do it because I do it’.”20 Then Schiirmann adds: To the question, What is to be done? when raised together with the question, What is being? a radical phenomenologist can only re spond: dislodge all vestiges of a telocratic economy from their hide outs - in common sense as much as in ideology - and thereby liber ate things from the ‘ordinary concept’ which ‘captures’ them under ultimate representations. In the ambiguous situation of a possible transition, that, then, is how Heidegger’s thought of the temporal difference enables one not to remain passive under the technological ‘assault.’21 The call that Schiirmann issues for anarchic action cannot, he says, be answered by individuals or small groups in isolation from others. If anarchic action or nonprincipled praxis is to come to pass, it will “either claim every one that lives in the economy of transition or it will be nothing at all.”22 Schum ann's claim that his position develops the implications of Heideg ger’s thought for politics is, of course, not uncontroversial.23 But, as I men tioned at the outset, my primary concern is not with how Heidegger is to be read. It is rather to examine the reasonableness of anarchy as a political undertaking. The claim I will defend is that the sort of anarchic thinking Schum ann proposes can at most serve as a propadeutic to responsible poli tics. Unsupplemented, it is insufficient for responsible politics. And anar chic action is wholly inadequate either as politics or as its propadeutic. II Schum ann's proposal is benign insofar as it rejects the notion that a politics can rightly claim to be legitimated because it is derived from some

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fundamental, ahistorical metaphysical principle. His proposal thereby resists as indefensible the claims of at least two historically significant varieties of politics. Elsewhere I have called these two varieties of politics the politics of vision and the politics of will or might.24 Both of these sorts of politics dis play a certain Prometheanism. Both of them fail to give due weight to the finitude and historicality ingredient in the human condition. A politics of vision rests on the conviction that nothing essential to its animating vision need be sought outside of the privileged visionaries. And what is to be done can be determined, sooner or later, precisely through the vision. What the visionary claims to have caught sight of is some ultimate metaphysical prin ciple in terms of which everything either is or should be ordered and regu lated. Orthodox Marxism has frequently been regarded, by practitioners and foes alike, as a politics of this sort, a politics engendered by a vision held to be unqualifiedly true. A politics of will or might is constituted by its participants’ conviction that they are at bottom masters of their own condition. They claim to be at liberty to dispose matters as they see fit for purposes they themselves decide upon. At bottom, they recognize neither material nor cultural debt to either past or future persons. Some contract theories, e.g., Hobbes’, exemplify this conviction. Like politics of vision, politics of will or might is radically at odds with Schum ann’s position. But even if both of these sorts of politics, based as they are on some metaphysical principle, lose their legitimacy through the Heideggerian cri tique of metaphysics which Schum ann appropriates, are we necessarily left with anarchy as the only alternative? Can history, if read nonmetaphysically, not open the way for a more defensible, and hence more responsible poli tics? Before addressing this question, let me offer some critical reflections on the anarchy Schum ann proposes. What evidence we have from the history of Western political thought worthy of the name, i.e., political thought not in the sendee of tyranny, shows us that both political thought and political practice always display a tension between concern for mere living or longevity and concern for living well. To ignore either pole of this tension, there is much reason to believe, is to open the way for tyranny, either directly or as the culmination of some unlivable experiment with anarchy.


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Thus Hobbes, however much he strains this tension in favor of living, or survival, does not fail to show some concern for pleasure, for living well. And Plato, on the other hand, who so vigorously emphasizes living well, is never unmindful of the importance of the durability of the good state. Schum ann's proposal is notable, among other reasons, for its striking silence about the importance of durability either for political communities or for the human species as a whole. It is probably wrong to say that he wholly ignores this matter. He does, for example, construe our present epoch as a transitional time awaiting a new era, a new grant of being. So presumably it would be regrettable if our species were to become extinct while this awaited grant remains possible but not yet actual. Nonetheless, durability, whether of particular peoples or of the whole species, figures barely at all in his poli tical considerations. It gets no thematic treatment in his position. Schum ann’s silence about human durability is particularly troublesome in our present circumstances. Now and for the foreseeable future we live at a time when the durability of the human species cannot be taken for granted. Biological or cosmological factors will of course eventually bring our species to an end. But much nearer at hand is the threat of extinction brought about by numerous products and practices which people themselves, with greater or lesser deliberation, bring about and continue. Environmental degradation, overpopulation, and global warfare - chemical, biological, or nuclear - presently threaten every species, including the human species. Therefore today, as Hans Jonas has seen, there is a practical necessity and moral imperative for us to preserve life in its variety, including human life, on earth.25 This is a necessity and imperative which we can fail to obey. At least one task of any politics claiming to be responsible is to promote the acceptance and observance of this imperative. But the politics Schiirmann proposes gives one scant reason to believe that it can satisfy this elementary requirement. Attention to the matter of durability and its political implications leads one to discover numerous problems, either conceptual or practical or both, with Schum ann's position. Roughly speaking, some of these problems arise from Schum ann’s view of the field of politics itself. And others arise from his call for action “without why.” These two groups of problems are of course intertwined with one another. But for clarity’s sake I will separate them.

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Consider first some prominent characteristics of the sort of political domain to which Schurmann addresses his proposal. There is reason to think that the sort of domain he has in mind either is a practical impos sibility or is woefully underdetermined. One crucial, and highly problematic, feature of the political domain Schurmann envisages is the unanimity of its members. Schurmann says that if the anarchic or aprincipial praxis he advocates is to come to pass it will either claim everyone living in the time of transition or it will be nothing at all. I take it that Schurmann means that unless everyone comes to act anarchically, no one can fully do so. But given this requirement of full unanimity, then, if Schiirmann’s propo sal is not wholly inapplicable to any concrete politics, it is certainly not a comprehensive proposal for the whole of politics. That is, if it is ever ap plicable, it is only sometimes applicable. Hence the proposal can be no more than partially adequate. But history provides good reasons for doubting whether Schiirmann’s proposal has any applicability at all to anything hitherto recognized as poli tics. The politics about which history speaks always has divisions among people with which to deal. All the actually enacted politics we know any thing about has always had to manage divisions within its populace as well as some external threat. None of them presupposes the absence of divisions. Indeed the task for nontyrannical politics is not to eliminate diversity. Rath er it is to achieve a unity which preserves diversity, a togetherness which respects some apartness. As such, nontyrannical politics, as part of the price it pays for being nontyrannical, always risks opposition and hence overthrow. In fact, it is hard to see how anything properly called politics would make any sense in an era of unmitigated unanimity. But suppose it could come to pass that everyone did live, think, and act in the anarchical way Schurmann recommends. Could such a group be dura ble? Even if it is neither logically nor physically impossible for it to be dura ble, we have scant reason to think that it could abide long in this condition. The closest approximation I can imagine to a Schiirmannian anarchic community is Sartre’s fused group, e.g., a group needing no leader, no prin cipal or principle, to make common cause in some undertaking. Sartre’s example of such a group undertaking is the storming of the Bastille. But, as Sartre rightly saw, groups in fusion are inherently ephemeral. To achieve durability they rather quickly devolve into pledged groups or even into or


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ganizations.26 They do so both by reason of the bodily exigencies of its mem bers and by reason of changes in the external circumstances they inhabit. As in the case of fused groups, there is no historical evidence to suggest that Schiirmann’s global community of anarchic praxis could sustain itself precise ly as such. At least some people would have to work at providing the condi tions in which others could live anarchically. This, for example, is the history of even the most “otherworldly” monastic communities. Thus to enter Schurmann’s global anarchy, just as to enter a Sartrean fused group, is not to enter an abiding paradise. So far as we have any evi dence, every group, whether globally anarchic or not, is always subject to stresses threatening to fragment it. If it is to endure for any appreciable time, at least some of the group’s members must work at its survival. This work, of course, is telic. It aims to preserve the group. Thus, so far as we have any reason to believe, a durable global anarchy is a chimera. There are at least two further reasons to question whether Schurmann’s proposal is really germane to what has hitherto been understood to be the field of politics. One of these reasons is that Schiirmann emphasizes that his proposal is not a theory concerning the organization of people into collec tivities. His proposal, he says, has nothing to do with the age-old debates about the best forms of government (monarchy or aristocracy or democracy) or their perversions (tyranny, oligarchy, anarchy). Rather the action for which he calls consists “in doing explicitly what we always do and cannot help doing: conforming to presence as it comes about, to the event of presencing - but henceforth without the fiction of some ultimate stabilizing ground.”27 Any stabilizing ground, Schiirmann argues, is a metaphysical ordering principle which is the source of initiatives and commands that cul minate in institutional violence.28 But can there be any actual politics which does not establish or maintain institutions which organize people and socialize new members into the body politic? Is this not a principal part of what, in Schurmann’s words, “we al ways do and cannot help doing?” Further, a critical issue for any politics about which we know anything is to determine which institutional arrange ments to support and which to oppose. How a politics handles this dis crimination in large measure determines whether it is responsible or ir responsible politics. But Schiirmann not only fails to offer any guidance in this matter. He in effect dismisses it as an irrelevant consideration in this transitional time.

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This dismissal, as Schiirmann makes explicit, means that his proposal does not find it important to address directly the threat of tyranny. Again, no politics about which we have any information has ever been wholly free from the danger of lapsing into tyranny. Could politics in the transitional age, any more than politics in any other age, be wholly immune to this dan ger? Part of the task for any responsible politics is to be perpetually on guard against tyranny. By leaving this threat unaddressed, Schiirmann shows his position to be either fundamentally flawed or substantially incomplete. And the criticisms I will offer below of Schiirmann’s call for action “without why” make it dubitable that he or anyone could satisfactorily fill in this in completeness or remedy this flaw without a radical transformation of his proposal as a whole. There is a third reason for calling into question Schiirmann’s conception of politics, one which is of some importance in its own right and which also provides a bridge to discussing Schiirmann’s call for action “without why.” Politics always involves contingencies. Contingencies are the very stuff of politics. We deal with contingencies, as Aristotle saw, through deliberation, judgment and choice. The exercise of any of these is always oriented by and toward some goal. What could wholly anarchic deliberation, judgment, or choice be? Would it not be at best a refusal to deliberate, judge, or choose in any proper sense? And would not this refusal amount to a refusal of politics itself? Schiirmann is apparently right when he says that his politics does not have anything to do with traditional politics. But it is his loss that it does not. Let me turn now to consider Schiirmann’s call for action“without why.” There are several reasons for being suspicious of it. First, leaving aside for the moment the questions about its durability, how would an anarchic praxis come to be embraced by everyone? Unless conversion to anarchic praxis is supposed to simply befall people, in which case it would not be a human, much less a political, achievement, presumably some people could help oth ers embrace it.29 If we anarchists can help others, even by example, to con vert to anarchism, then do we not have an obligation to help. But is not the satisfying of an obligation always an acting with a reason to meet a standard of some sort, an acting “with why”? But second, suppose that somehow global anarchic praxis were to come about and endure for a while. How should we think this duration. That is, what should be said about the connection among the several successive mo


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ments of the time of anarchy. Anarchic practice, Schiirmann says, espouses discontinuity and fluidity.30 It holds to a destiny or grant of Being which is “the ever moving order of presencing-absencing, the aletheiological constella tion as it situates and re-situates everything in time.”31 Thus the practical a priori of an anarchic praxis capable of subverting the systematic violence of institutions necessarily consists, as I mentioned above, “in letting things enter their world in constellations essentially rebellious to ordering”32 How can the action performed at any one moment be wholly “without why” if it has no concern with the preservation of anarchy? And if it indeed has no such concern, then sustained anarchy is in no wise a human achievement. It is not the result of praxis, anarchic or otherwise. Schiirmann claims that his approach does not eliminate from politics the task of preserving a tradition. “But the tradition to be preserved is that of the response, in thinking as well as in political conduct, to the ever new con stellations of ‘the truth of Being’.”33 But this is no solution ot the question of how enduring praxis could be possible if that praxis were truly anarchic, truly “without why.” Schiirmann’s position amounts to saying that the only tradition deserving preservation is the tradition of repudiating all traditions. This may not be nonsense if it is construed formally. It may well be logically possible to repudiate the content of everything which has gone before and to do so at every new moment. But materially it amounts to saying that any content of what was once new loses all of its importance simply by become old. But if the new loses all of its importance merely by become old, then, Schiirmann’s wish to the contrary notwithstanding, celebrating newness is at bottom indistinguishable from celebrating pure interiority, in the Hegelian sense.34 One could celebrate only that something is new, not what it is. That such a position can avoid collapsing into nihilism is dubious at best. The fear that Schiirmann’s position is in the final analysis tantamount to nihilism gains further strength from his remarks about concern for the future of humankind. If “life without why” functions as the sole practical a priori for praxis as well as thought in this time of transition, then all coercion is always indefensible. But any politics of which we have records involves regu lated and more or less limited coercion. This coercion is generally con sidered not only ineliminable from communal life but a practical necessity for the community’s well-being as well as its survival.35 The soundness of this widespread experience is not effectively challenged by the mystical tradi

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tion to which Schurmann appeals. The mystical tradition may yield a distinc tive evaluation to the entire domain of politics, perhaps relegating it to near insignificance. But it is no evident guide for political practice as such. Even granting that the mystical tradition has no room for coercion, if it allows room for any genuinely political activity, then by that very fact it must allow for political coercion. Further, even if acting “without why” were a practical possibility for a sustained period, how could it be politically legitimate. Schurmann says that a “certain disinterest in mankind’s future is evident not only in [the] concep tion of place, but also in the conception of time required for understanding today’s context as potentially anarchic.”36 Faced as we are today with geno cide in Cambodia, reckless militarism in Iraq, and politically exacerbated hunger in Ethiopia as well as elsewhere, how could a politics “without why,” a politics evidencing “a certain disinterest” in mankind’s future be respon sible? To the contrary, our times call for resistance to these outrages pre cisely for the sake of humanity as well as for the innocent individuals who most immediately suffer from them. Perhaps Schurmann would reply that were his anarchic politics actually global political practice, then these outrages could no longer take place. But should that be his rejoinder, then must one not conclude that, whether this is the transitional time or not, his anarchic politics has no relevance to today’s conditions or to any future conditions of which we can catch even a glim mer? If Schurmann does claim that the anarchy he proposes is the appropriate response to contemporary political exigencies, then he is in effect promoting a version of what I have elsewhere called the politics of presumption.37 One form of the politics of presumption is that which disregards the ineliminable threat of absolutism embodied in all amassing and wielding of political pow er. The tendency of power to grow itself tends to promote some people at the expense of others. Practitioners of this version of the politics of pre sumption take it for granted that increases in power for some will automati cally lead to betterment for all. And if something should go awry in this spreading of well-being, then it is readily rectifiable. Schiirmann’s call for action “without why” apparently eschews wrestling in any traditional sense with questions about political power and its distribu tion and intensity. This eschewal is supposed ultimately to cancel the politics which have pervaded the metaphysical era. Rather than taking too lightly


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the riskiness inherent in deploying political power, which deployment un avoidably involves acting “with whys,” Schurmann’s version of political pre sumptuousness invites us to accept the extraordinarily dubious assumption that, if eschewed, political power as we have known it would evaporate. Even if, in some projected “golden era” one of these forms of disregard for the riskiness of political power should be appropriate, neither of them responds to the exigencies of our age. One has only to look at the increasing disparity in economic wealth, with its attendant political power, between the northern and the southern hemispheres to have scant confidence that in creases for the privileged automatically redound to the betterment of the nonprivileged. Nor is there any reason to think that this presently well en trenched gap will be shrunk, much less closed, by an anarchic disregard of political power. Schurmann’s politics “without why,” with its “certain disinterest” in the future of humankind, ultimately amounts to an antipolitics no less than does the technocratic, bureaucratic rationality propounded by people like Herbert Simon which would make its highest goal an organizational efficiency that, ideally, so shapes people that all of their decisions and actions are geared to satisfy the goals and requirements of the organization.38 Neither of these approaches properly appreciates the essential ambivalence in all political activity. Emphasizing only the dangers and limitations resident in all political activity, they in effect disregard the positive contributions both to survival and to flourishing that politics, and only politics, can make. Consequently, they propose to eliminate politics in any sense with which we have familiarity in favor of something other than politics. But nothing in the available his torical record suggests that, if either of their alternatives were to succeed, it would be either durable or desirable. My analysis thus leads to the conclusion that the anarchy Schiirmann endorses shows no real promise of being possible much less being either durable or desirable. But it does not follow that one’s only recourse is to retreat to a search for still another absolute metaphysical principle from which to derive both political thought and political practice. Schiirmann, among others, has made a strong case that no such principle can be found. It is to his credit that he has done so. No politics of vision or of will or might is defensible. Thus Schurmann’s work serves as a valuable, sobering propadeutic for responsible political thinking in our time and for the foresee

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able future. But his call for anarchic praxis, action “without why,” is unwar ranted. Given the propadeutic merit of Schiirmann’s work for political thought, but given also the unacceptability of the alternative he proposes, what third way remains available? The alternative I suggest is that we can find support for responsible political acting as well as thinking by attending carefully and attentively to what we know of the past. As Lawrence Biskowski has pointed out, even if there is no transcenden tal or metaphysical principle by which we can orient our thinking and con duct, we can still find some measure of orientation in “our continued con frontation with each other and the resulting need to order our relationships and to care for our common world.”39 And we do not have to confront each other as newborns. We can do so with conscious attention both to our own personal history and also to the vast domain of recorded human activity. Nothing of human history, and perhaps even nothing of natural history, is wholly irrelevant to our quest for orientation. One cannot, of course, expect history to supply a first principle or axiom of its own whence we can derive reliable political conclusions. Nor is history either transparent or monovalent. Nonetheless it is an invaluable, apparently indispensable, resource from which responsible cautions and recommenda tions for political thought and practice can be fashioned. Perhaps one could detect present wrongs in a political order without much regard to history. For example, it is unlikely that one needs a grand historical basis for decrying cruelty. And further, one may well be able to construct an imagined alternative political order from which particular ills would be absent. But without drawing upon history, how could one discern genuinely possible and practicable structural arrangements or functions which merit inclusion in one’s political aspirations? That is, without history, per haps one can see what should be abolished. But without history, how could one determine what deserves to brought into being or preserved? History can serve and has served as guide for responsible politics in several ways. It provides examples of what is to be avoided, e.g., slavery, or another Holocaust. Those institutions or deeds should be extirpated. They can have no place in responsible politics. But history can and does also testify to worthy initiatives and aspirations. Some of these initiatives and aspirations actually received embodiment in actions bringing nations into being, e.g., the United States, through its revo


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lution, and Italy, through its struggle for unification. The deeds and words constitutive of these in a u g u r a l moments are, to be sure, neither axioms nor metaphysical principles, regardless of the language in which they are articu lated. They are thoroughly historical, and hence polyvalent. Nonetheless, they still serve effectively as touchstones for present political undertakings claiming legitimacy. These inaugural moments are not, of course, moments of absolute begin nings. All of them have precedents. And none of them provide unam biguous criteria. For example, at present there is an intense struggle among Chinese public figures about the meaning of the May 4, 1919 Movement. That movement itself no doubt embodied competing tendencies. Nonethe less, if we are to make any sense of and reasonably assess contemporary China and its political strife, we cannot ignore that Movement.40 These “positive” inaugural moments do not furnish either master keys for how some situation is to be thought about or precise prescriptions for what is to be done. But they do provide at least rough definition of a field of appropriate reflection and permissible action. Through education con cerning these moments and the fields they define citizens can discover their own political identities and the range of their reasonable, responsible choi ces.41 Perhaps even more importantly, history displays not only particular in augural moments and their aftermaths but it also guides our efforts to distin guish the domain of politics from other domains such as religion or econom ics. One need only reflect cursorily on Western history to realize that the way the domain of politics is defined and how that domain is related to other domains, e.g., the domain of religion, is of consummate political importance. Consider, for example, a definition I would propose for politics. Politics, I should like to propose, is that domain of thought and deliberate activity aimed at establishing or maintaining a durable group - a group outlasting the lives of any of its members - designed to amass, protect, and distribute ma terial and cultural boons and to fix and distribute the burdens indissociable from the pursuit of these objectives. Only history can provide the evidence with which either to defend or attack my proposal. Without regard to his tory, either to accept or reject it would be unwarranted. History, then, serves to provide standards or benchmarks, both negative and positive, for determining both the defensibility of one’s conception of the domain of politics and the reasonableness of any particular political judg

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ment or practice. Contingent as it is, the evidence provided by history yields nothing incorrigible or definitive, nothing endowed with Cartesian certitude. Nonetheless, this evidence is by no means inconsequential. In telling us about the deeds of others and their outcomes, it tells as much as can be told, apart from Revelation if there be such, about what we can reasonably expect or hope for from our own undertakings. Schiirmann, then, is, as I have said, surely right to deny that any politics deduced from a metaphysical principle can any longer be reasonable or re sponsible. But his claim that we now inhabit a transitional time which calls for anarchic praxis in need of no guidance from history is unsustainable. The history which transpired during the era of metaphysics is not a history whose entire significance depends upon metaphysics. The guidance history can give is not exhaustively metaphysical in character. Failing to make this distinction, Schiirmann is blocked from seeing a far more defensible alterna tive both to a politics derived from metaphysics and to the anarchy he es pouses.

On Institutions and Power: Deconstruction and an Alternative

Social and political institutions, it is generally agreed, are “practical ne cessities” for human existence. If this is indeed the case, as I will assume, then philosophical positions which misconstrue them and the power exercised in and by them or misjudge how we should deal with them are seriously flawed. In this paper I argue that at least two self-described deconstructive ap proaches to these matters fail. Then I will propose an alternative approach, one which owes much to Merleau-Ponty. I Not a few critics have argued that perhaps the principal shortcoming of deconstruction as a theoretical enterprise lies in its inability to articulate a solid basis for responsible political engagement. On their assessment, the general thrust of the deconstructivist project undercuts the very possibility of a well justified political claim or action. As a consequence, in fact if not in intention, deconstruction robs politics of all urgency. No particular politics is at bottom better justified than any other. Implicit in this criticism is the charge that deconstruction has nothing of real consequence to say about institutions and the power they involve. Frank Lentriccia has forcefully articulated criticism of this sort. In his words: Deconstruction confuses the act of unmasking with the act of defus ing, the act of exposing epistemological fraud with the neutralization


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of political force. Deconstruction, then, is a “critical” philosophy, but only in the slimmest sense of the word - it may tell us how we de ceive ourselves, but it has no positive content.... It has nothing to say.... Politically, deconstruction translates into that passive kind of conservatism called quietism; it thereby plays into the hands of es tablished power.1 Recently some deconstructionists have presented political positions which amount to rebuttals of Lentriccia’s charge. Among them, Wlad Godzich and John Caputo have explicitly addressed the issues of institutions and power.2 And the conclusions they reach are anything but conservative and quietist. But even if these two deconstructionists cannot be charged with political quietism, one can still ask whether they point the way toward responsible politics, politics which is consonant with the flourishing of the human com munity. The answer, I claim, is no. Specifically, I will argue that neither Caputo nor Godzich properly under stands institutions in their practical necessity. Consequently, they can pro vide no helpful guidance to political practice concerning them. Because Caputo’s position is rather fully fleshed out, I will give it the more detailed attention. (a) Caputo on Institutions and Power. Caputo’s views on institutions and power are straightforwardly derived from his political ethics, which in turn has its roots in the view of the history of metaphysics he has learned from Heidegger and Derrida. Fully to com prehend what Caputo says about institutions and power one must take note of this view. Based on his reading of Heidegger and Derrida, Caputo regards this history as the sequence of numerous, necessarily futile attempts to control and regulate the flux of the constantly mobile play of Being. Metaphysical schemes are “so much scaffolding stretched across the flux and are only as good as the results they produce, the degree to which they let life flourish ...only as good as the measure of play they mete out” (RH, 257). In one sense, we cannot avoid the pretensions of metaphysics. We can not avoid planning, acting, teaching, and directing. Consequently we in evitably generate schemes and programs whose aim is to stabilize the flux, to

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domesticate and channel it. But now we know from Heidegger’s and Der rida’s deconstructive work that the game is over. None of these schemes and programs can do the job for which it was made. In its turn, deconstruction is not itself some new scheme. Rather, its objective is “to throw us out into the cold, to divest us of the comforts of philosophy, to let the whole tremble, to restore the difficulty o f things” (RH, 187. My emphasis). As a consequence, deconstruction, or in Caputo’s revised version of it, radical hermeneutics, teaches us to be humble and cautious. It elicits from us an authenticity which deflates pretension and divests us of too great a confidence in our schemes, from pressing them to the last detail, from being willing to draw blood on their behalf [sic]. Such authenticity, which means owning up to our shortcomings, inspires moreover a certain compas sion (RH, 259). This compassion is the outcome of our admission that our common fate is to suffer a common comfortlessness. With humble caution, compassion de mands “a ‘community of mortals’ bound together by their common fears and lack of metaphysical grounds, sharing a common fate at the hands of the flux” (RH, 259). These considerations provide the frame within which Caputo spells out his ethics, an ethics with substantial political implications. This ethics has two parts. One, especially indebted to Derrida, is an ethics of dissemination. The other, springing more from Heidegger, is an ethics of letting-be (Gelassenheit). The ethics of dissemination consists primarily of three overlapping provi sions and one “meta-norm.” The first of these provisions is based upon the view that metaphysically based ethics and politics always somehow call for and justify power which is repressive. Accordingly, this provision calls for us both to be alert to those who are victimized by such ethics and politics and to be wary of power. Even more, Caputo says, an ethics of dissemination is “bent on dispersing power clusters, constellations of power which grind us all under” (RH, 260). It does so by bringing into the open the systematic vio lence resident in all organized structures such as universities and hospitals as well as governments and churches. This expos6 shows both the contingency of every scheme and the limitations of any expertise. “And it does all this

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not by any show of strength of its own but by letting the system itself un ravel, letting the play in the system loose” (RH, 260). Radical hermeneutics is thus a transgressive or revolutionary activity. Explicitly employing the term “paradigm” in a Kuhnian sense, Caputo says that this activity shows that “every paradigm is a fiction, a contingency, a way of laying things out which cannot claim absolute status or immunity from reform” (RH, 220). The dispersal of power clusters is revolutionary activity in social life comparable to paradigm shifting in science. Caputo derives the second provision of his ethics of dissemination from a “salutary mistrust” of all binary schemes such as ruler and ruled, male and female, and privileged and deprived. An ethics of dissemination is thus “an ethics of otherness, an ethics aimed at giving what is other as big a break as possible” (RH, 260).3 Confronted by the vast organized power both of tech nology and of large scale economico-political systems, whether, capitalist or socialist, such an ethics insists upon the right to dissent and upon granting the idiosyncratic its rights (RH, 161). The third provision of Caputo’s ethics of dissemination requires that in the ethico-political sphere we “keep the debate fair and free from manipula tive interests” (RH, 262). This ethics admits that the existence of institutions is a practical requirement for many, if not all, social accomplishments. Therefore it is not categorically opposed to their existence. But they do tend, Caputo holds, to suppress differences and to normalize conduct accord ing to some norm or principle. And so an ethics of dissemination em phasizes that institutions are not pure expressions of prudence. They owe their existence to power politics as well. Therefore, without seeking either to destroy existing institutions or to forestall the formation of new ones, the practitioner of Caputo’s ethics of dissemination works “to intervene in ongo ing processes, to keep institutions in process, to keep the forms of life from eliminating the ///e-form they are supposed to house” (RH, 263). Something of a meta-norm specifies the scope of these three provisions. Neither taken disjointly nor conjointly do they yield a universally sound mas ter scheme or program of action. Rather, in Foucaultian fashion, the ethics of dissemination speaks only of a series of contingent, ad hoc, local plans devised here and now to offset the exclusionary character of the prevailing system.


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Its role is to break up clusters of power, constellations of ruling in terests, to put them on the run (RH, p. 264). This ethics of dissemination, Caputo concludes, shows that one who insists on the radical nonstabilizability of the flux is not left ethically bank rupt. On the contrary, he has sharpened suspicion “of anyone bent on ac cumulating capital” (RH, p. 264). But the ethics of dissemination, according to Caputo, does not stand alone. It belongs together with Heidegger’s discovery of Gelassenheit and the ethics following therefrom. This complementary ethics has two main features. First, an ethics of Gelassenheit demands an irrevocable respect for every person. The basis for this respect is not some Cartesianesque transparent excellence enjoyed by each ego. Rather, it is the appropriate acknowledg ment of the perpetual mystery each of us is to ourselves as well as to others. It springs from that unfathomable depth which each of us is, a depth that necessarily frustrates any attempt to capture who a person is in terms of some conceptual scheme. The raw fact of human suffering gives rise to the second feature of the ethics of Gelassenheit. Because no one has a vantage point from which to survey the whole of humankind, no one can pronounce a “Last Judgment” on the meaning of suffering. Nonetheless, however limited our perspectives may be, we can see that letting-be entails three consequences for action. First, we should promote liberation from the bondage of suffering. Second, we should tolerate others in their otherness. And third, we should maintain solidarity with others in our common task of coping with the flux of exis tence.4 For Caputo, there is no irresolvable tension between the ethics of dis semination and an ethics of Gelassenheit. “Both,” he says, “are united in the Augustinian formula ‘dilige, et quod vis fac’ (“love, and do what you will”)” (RH, 267). The implications of Caputo’s twofold ethics for dealing with institutions and power are not hard to discern. All institutions in their exercise of power perpetrate systematic violence. They tend to discriminate against and mar ginalize some people. And they tend to consolidate and perpetuate their specific forms of violence and discrimination. Nonetheless, they are ineliminable.

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Caputo’s ethics calls upon us to defy these tendencies inasmuch as these tendencies are tendencies which make people suffer. Thus, this ethics en joins us (a) to insist that any particular institution is merely contingent, (b) to challenge all orderings, marginalizations, and discriminations, and (c) to disperse institutional power. More generally, his ethics sanction the adoption of a religious attitude which is a protest against suffering. It is essentially defiant, protesting, protestant - against a violation of life which must not go unanswered - and catholic, because it speaks on behalf of all who suffer.... Religion, accordingly, is fundamentally a defiant gesture. It speaks in the name of life and against the powers that demean and degrade life (RH, 280. My emphasis). For Caputo, then, the authentic or, as he prefers, the “arche-kinetic” response to the institutions and power we can never evade or do without is one of subversion (RH, 200-206). Though subversion can never fully suc ceed, it is always appropriate. It is the pristine gesture of the ceaseless, absolutely thoroughgoing movement of “radical hermeneutics” (RH, 206). (b) Godzich on Institutions and Power. The general thrust of Caputo’s ethico-political thought fits comfortably with Godzich’s views. This fit is particularly apparent concerning the issues of institutions and power.5 Godzich develops Samuel Weber’s distinction, which owes much to Paul De Man, between institutionalized functioning on the one hand and institut ing acts on the other (II, 155-156). An institution, for Godzich, consists of a group of people united under a guiding idea which they seek to implement through prescribed procedures. Institutionalized functioning is activity per formed according to the dominant idea and its associated procedures. “An institution, then, is a social crucible.... Institutions are fundamentally instru ments of reproduction.Jn that they ensure that regulative processes take place so as to contain what otherwise could threaten to turn into archaic proliferation” (II, 156-157). Acts of instituting, by contrast, are trailblazing acts. Each of these acts, with a unique interplay of blindness and insight, strikes out from, and a


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gainst, some institutionalized routine or routines. Every institution, of course, owes its existence to one or more of these “anti-institutional” trailblazing acts. As a consequence, the instituting moment, which endows the entire institution with signification and meaning, is held within the institution as both pro per to it and yet alien: it is its other, valued to be sure yet curiously irrelevant to immediate concerns.... Instituting and institution are not, then, two facets of the same entity (II, 156-157). Instituting acts are acts of originating power. They change arrangements in a fundamental way and they bestow meaning upon the arrangements they bring about. But, by definition they are inaccessible to institutionalized func tioning (II, 159-160). That is, the power of the instituting acts, together with the meaning they bestow, is inaccessible to the institution’s subjects. In state-organized societies, Godzich claims, some privileged class ar rogates to itself the role of rightful mediator. It claims the right to mediate between the powerful instituting acts and the only activity the subjects of the state can perform, namely acts of institutionalized functioning. This right to mediate amounts to the right to interpret authoritatively. Thus the ruling class effectively behaves as though it were under no obligation to the institut ing acts. Since, or so it claims, it alone has access to these acts, only it can determine their meaning. Hence it is entitled to rule. The initial target of deconstructive practice, Godzich says, is this privi leged class which claims a position of justified dominance. Deconstructive practice “aims at nothing less than, in its first stage, the restoration of a uni versal indebtedness since this appears to b e'th e only ground on which equality, as a social fact, can be thought o f ’ (II, 162. My emphasis). This equality is epistemological rather than ethical. It consists in the fact that all human beings are equally dispossessed from the domain of meaning. The dependence of all thought upon language with its tropes leads inevitably to insoluble aporias, to crucial but undecidable issues. The plethora of these unmanageable matters testifies to the depth and breadth of human power lessness (II, 162). By its insistence upon the universal epistemological equality in weakness, deconstruction delegitimizes any claim to privilege by any class of people. It delegitimizes any claim of theirs to be entitled to subject others to their

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commands. Thus, Godzich concludes, contrary to Lentriccia and other critics of deconstruction’s alleged quietism, “the persistent concern with epistemology and the literary in deconstruction derives from a social concern rather than represents a turning away from it as the accusers pretend” (II, 164). (c) Critique It seems clear that both Caputo and Godzich articulate positions that escape the charge of political passivity or quietism. And to be sure there is much to admire in their positions. This is particularly so in Caputo’s case. Nonetheless, do their positions deal satisfactorily with the issues of institu tions and power? Or, as I will argue, do they leave crucial parts of the story untold and thereby leave themselves open to destructive readings? Here again the primary focus of my critique will be Caputo’s position, though I will not ignore Godzich’s view. Caputo explicitly (e.g., RH, 252-257) and Godzich at least implicitly rec ognize the historical character of all human performances. And Caputo sometimes acknowledges the irreducible ambiguity of all action. For ex ample, he says that those who properly understand the human condition act without the security of metaphysical foundations but rather with a heightened awareness of the insecurity to which they are exposed (RH, 239). He even criticizes what he takes to be the reductionistic, though opposed, ways in which Gadamer and Foucault view institutions. Nonetheless, Caputo’s twofold ethics, and the assessment of institutions implied thereby, suggests at least a partial reductionism or disambiguation in its own right. So too does Godzich’s view. Neither of them claim that we can live without performing actions which are ambiguous, or better, am bivalent. But their views on institutions and how we should deal with them imply that at least some unequivocal, monovalent actions are available to us. Caputo’s call for unremitting deconstruction in effect claims that deconstructive performances both (a) are always timely and (b) have a purity and rec titude which no other performances can match, much less surpass. And Godzich points in the same general direction when he grants unconditional privilege to acts of instituting over institutionalized functionings. But to allow for such unqualifiedly privileged actions is to misunderstand just how thoroughgoing the historicality of human existence actually is. As Merleau-Ponty saw, all action, including speech, is both ambiguous in its


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sense (sens) and ambivalent in its consequences.6 The ramifications of such a misunderstanding are by no means trivial for either political thought or political practice. Consider again both the way Caputo proposes that we understand and respond to institutions and their power and the reasons behind his proposals. For Caputo, the uniquely appropriate response to institutions and power is subversion. Even if we cannot avoid some collaboration with or acquies cence in the routines by which institutions maintain themselves, we should always be alert for opportunities to subvert. And the basic reason for this stance is that institutions inevitably oppress some and exclude others. Hence it is always right to protest against the suffering of the Other, to be defiant toward institutions. This defiance is not directed against one institution on behalf of another institution. It is directed against all institutions, both actual and possible. Such defiance, however, amounts to an effort to have one’s action owe as little that is positive to predecessors as possible. The sedimented results of what they have done serve as no more than a point of departure from which I aim to divorce myself and whose efficacy I seek to cancel. What my prede cessors have left behind is to be overcome, not preserved. Institutions, however, are unavoidable. My defiance therefore can have nothing more than Sisyphean efficacy. However subversive I may be, there will always be institutions. Not even Sisyphus, though, provides me with a positive heritage, for heritages always depend on institutions both for their giving and for their receiving. And for the same reason my defiance estab lishes no legacy for other defiers. Like Kierkegaard’s knights of faith, Capu to’s defiers cannot help one another by their defiance. They leave nothing positive behind for their successors.7 In short, Caputo’s politics of defiance amounts to a politics seeking in nocence. In doing so, it risks making itself impotent. Further, and of critical importance, why should one believe that defiance is particularly privileged? If it, too, is really historical and social, then it gets at least part of its sense and efficacy from its context. At least part of its context is made up of actual institutions and possible institutional alternatives to them. Only in conjunction with its context can particular acts of defiance be properly assessed. They do not all, therefore, have the same meaning. To exempt them from connections with their context is to treat them ahistorically.

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Caputo is apparently attracted to this curiously ahistorical politics be cause, as he says more than once, no institution is innocent (RH, 235, 244, and perhaps elsewhere). He rightly sees that oppression and exclusion are part and parcel of any institution of which there is a trace. All of them are indictable. Even if we cannot extricate ourselves from complicity with and participation in institutions, at least, or so he apparently reasons, we can be defiant. In these moments of defiance we can repudiate all suffering and declare it unjustifiable. Thus, for Caputo, even if we cannot make our hands truly clean, defiance is the way to remove whatever dirt one can. But here again there is reason to challenge Caputo’s disambiguated as sessment of suffering and the Other. It is surely insufficient to say (a) that suffering is not innocent “when there is systematic exclusion and oppression all around” (RH, 286), and (b) that there is no privileged position from which one could pronounce incorrigible judgments on the meaning of suffer ing. But beyond these truisms, Caputo furnishes no guidance. Nothing Caputo says gives one reason to abandon the standard distinc tion between hurt and harm. Both bring about suffering. But not all suffer ing is indefensible. Some hurting, like some coercing, as good parents know, helps the one hurt or coerced. Why should we believe that each and every act of institutions which either pains or coerces deserves repudiation and defiance? To make such a claim is to ignore history. Similarly, why should one accept Caputo’s romanticizing of the Other? Can not some of these others bring about their exclusion and punishment by their own actions? At least some functions of some institutions have been directed toward blocking some people from preying on others. The preda tors, one might reasonably hold, deserve exclusion. In sum, one can readily agree with Foucault and others, including Capu to, that much suffering which people have inflicted on others on the basis of some supposed principle cannot be defended. The reasons some people have made others suffer turn out to be either no reasons or disreputable reasons. Some of those marginalized as fools or scoundrels turn out not to have deserved exclusion. But one would be rash to infer that there are nei ther fools nor scoundrels. And the distinction between harming and helpful hurting is still applicable, even to institutional performances and require ments. Finally, one has reason to be leery of the way Caputo first ties the defi ance he commends to religion and then projects them as the proper political


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response to institutions. Bringing religious judgment to bear upon politics and its institutions has had a long and anything but unambiguous history, both for politics and religion. One can readily agree that some religiously inspired defiance of institu tions has been prophetic and salvific rather than merely Sisyphean. But there is no reason, either historical or conceptual, to grant pride of place to defiance as the pure political act. Some defiance by self-announced pro phetic religious voices has been both divisive and destructive. And even the defiance that later wins applause is applauded for the way its initiative has gained perduring institutional embodiment. Nonetheless, in both cases, whe ther of praise or censure for defiance, the historical judgment never achieves total disambiguation. In the final analysis, one must conclude that Caputo’s treatment of in stitutions and power fails. He himself admits that they are practical neces sities. And there is good reason for holding that all institutions with their power orient and direct people.® One doubts that Caputo would endorse aimlessness. But nothing in his politics of defiance requires either that we establish or preserve some institutions rather than others or that we support one set of directions and orientations rather than others. We may well argue about which institutions and power clusters are bet ter than others without expecting a definitive answer. But this does not entail that from the outset the argument was idle. This is simply the way much, if not all, political discourse proceeds. It reflects our radically social, historical condition.9 But apparently because nothing institutional can achieve definitive purity and singleness of consequences, Caputo has nothing more to recommend than the single simple solution of defiance, the “pure” act of the pure at heart, the act which concerns itself with neither context nor efficacy. He leaves us with no recommendations or cautions for deciding among alternative social and political possibilities. In so doing, he fails to touch one of the most persistent and perplexing problems of human life, a problem always of crucial concern for responsible politics. Godzich’s discussion of institutions and power, as I mentioned above, also amounts to an attempt to disambiguate action. It does so by drawing a strong hierarchical distinction between acts of instituting on the one hand and institutional functionings on the other. And, though he does not make the point explicit, the logic of his position also requires the admission of a

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third kind of action, namely deconstructive practice, hierarchically situated between the two he explicitly distinguishes. Hierarchizing presupposes disambiguation. If, as I have argued above, schemes proposing to disambiguate action necessarily distort its sense, then counterparts to the arguments I presented against Caputo’s disambiguation apply to Godzich’s. But Godzich’s position is sufficiently distinct from Capu to’s that it deserves at least a brief critique addressed specifically to it. On Godzich’s telling, one will recall, the routinized acts of institutional functioning depend both for their possibility and their validity upon trailblazing acts of instituting which strike out blindly and yet somehow arrive at insight. These trailblazing acts are independent of institutional functionings. They are neither generated nor validated by these functionings. At least in politics, all acts of instituting stand apart from any issue concerning valida tion. They neither have validation nor aspire to it nor need it. - The “vali dation game” belongs to institutions and their functioning. In some crucial sense the validation game, by necessarily appealing to that which has no regard for questions of validity, itself has no validity. Thus institutions in their functioning play a validation game, always a game of power, which is ultimately indefensible (II, 161-162). Godzich’s response to this pervasive play of validation is to endorse, in the first stage, a deconstructive practice which aims for a universal admission that all human beings are equally dispossessed from the domain of meaning precisely by reason of their powerlessness in the face of language and its uncontrollable play. Such an admission amounts to a full scale delegitimiza tion of institutions and their power. And at the same time, deconstructive practice serves as ground breaker, or precursor, for awaited new acts of instituting. Godzich’s proposal for deconstructive practice reminds one of Plato’s would be philosopher king who wants to wipe clean the slate of social and political structures prior to reconstructing the state.10 We shudder at the tyranny, however “benign,” Plato’s king proposes to write on this cleansed slate. Why should we shudder any the less when we have no idea what “insight through blindness” will get inscribed on the slate Godzich would have us prepare? Indeed, one wonders just how to interpret Godzich’s pro posal. Is his first stage an exercise of “straight up” Sisypheanism doomed to be perpetually repeated because institutions never fail to reappear? Or is it preparatory to a Promethean stage which will produce either a society with


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out institutions or a society whose institutions claim no validity, i.e., will produce a society whose features are now known only to the gods? In either case, one has good reason to deny that Godzich’s proposals make sense as politics. If his proposal is Sisyphean, then politics itself is futile. If his proposal is Promethean or precursive to the Promethean, then it is foolishly presumptuous, for it amounts to gambling that anything is bet ter than what we are familiar with. Surely that gamble disregards the historicality of everything human, both actual and possible. At least as damaging to Godzich’s proposal is the incoherence of his notion of acts of instituting. If acts of instituting culminate in insight, would this insight be private and wholly without precedent? What sort of insight could not be social and hence indebted to others or not be historical and hence have determinate precedents? And if any insight is intrinsically social and historical, then must not institutions with their power be implicated in making social and historical resources available as constituents for new in sights? Godzich notwithstanding, there is no good reason to think that any act, whether of instituting or otherwise, can be wholly independent of all previous institutional functionings. In summary, Caputo’s and Godzich’s reductive, disambiguating readings of action and its history lead them in effect to depreciate institutions and their power. Even if they both admit that institutions are practical neces sities and not wholly worthless, they and their preservation are always at best lesser goods. Such a depreciation, if it were consistently lived out, would be politically irresponsible. Rather than promoting better politics, it would tend to replace politics with a counterfeit. In doing so, it would open the way for the twin political disasters of anarchy and tyranny. These twins, Aristotle rightly says, are either the worst of politics or no politics at all.11 Fortunately, action and its history need not be read reductively or simplistically. If read with subtlety, one finds support for a very different, poly chromatic view of institutions and power. It shows that historical com munities as they have actually lived out their times display knowledge as well as ignorance and strength as well as weakness. Our predecessors both have known at least something about what makes a community habitable and even flourish and have achieved some successes in bringing it about. These achievements are manifest in and through some institutions. Here I will not foolishly try to prove the veracity of this alternative view by appealing to some string of historical events and situations. It is for the reader to assess

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the historical record. But I will claim that the alternative I propose enjoys both conceptual plausibility and significant support from the historical rec ord. II An adequate conception of institutions and power, I assume, must be one which faithfully reflects the finitude and historicality of human existence. It likewise must acknowledge our ineluctably social character. With Charles Taylor, I take it that “living in society is a necessary condition of the devel opment of rationality...or of becoming a moral agent in the full sense of the term, or of becoming a fully responsible autonomous being.”12 Thus a fully developed freedom requires both that we understand ourselves in such a way that aspirations to autonomy make sense and that we recognize that we cannot sustain this self-understanding except in society. We must recognize “that our identity is always partly defined in conversation with others or through the common understanding which underlies the practice of our soci ety.”13 A society without structures or institutions and without power is a utopia. So far as the historical record shows, whatever freedom and cultural ac complishments people achieve are always achieved in a setting of social and political institutions and power. But that same record shows, as Caputo and Godzich stress, that institutions can and do also oppress. How then should we properly characterize and assess human institutions and their power? The alternative conception of institutions and power that I will propose here draws heavily on leads furnished by Merleau-Ponty and is supported by the reflections of thinkers such as Bernhard Waldenfels, Anthony Giddens, and Mikel Dufrenne. This alternative conception rests on Merleau-Ponty’s general view that all human experience, whether of doings or undergoings, is essentially and thor oughly ambiguous. This ambiguity is rooted in the radical finitude and his toricity of our existence. As a consequence, on this view, whatever artifacts we produce, including institutions, will share this ambiguity. Caputo’s aim in articulating his radical hermeneutics is, as I mentioned above, to restore “the difficulty of things” (RH; 187). In fact, however, it makes much too easy a response to the existence of institutions and power. It always aims to undo them. But it is the alternative I recommend, insisting


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as it does on the irreducibility of the ambiguity of institutions and power, that in fact keeps faith with life’s difficulty. Any particular response to in stitutions and power, whether of support or of opposition, is always risky. Merleau-Ponty, in criticizing what he regards as Sartre’s “Manichean” view of institutions, argues that they cannot properly be set over against people as their implacable, hostile Other. Though they never fail to threaten to degrade and subjugate people, that is not all they can, and usually do, do. They are in all respects human artifacts. “Man,” Merleau-Ponty says, “is everywhere, inscribed on all the walls and in all the social apparatuses made by him.... Everything speaks to them of themselves.”14 This insight leads him to set forth an alternative conception of institu tions. He writes: What we understand by the concept of institution are those events in experience which endow it [experience] with durable dimensions, in relation to which a whole series of other experiences will acquire meaning, will form an intelligible series or history - or again those events which sediment in me a meaning, not just as survivals or resi dues, but as the invitation to a sequel, the necessity of a future.15 Hence, for better or worse, and not infrequently for both, institutions are “the consequence and guarantee of our belonging to a common world” (TL, 40). In elaborating his alternative conception of institutions, Merleau-Ponty does not disambiguate the human condition. Action is never pure. Neither are the institutions which both arise from it and shape it. One consequence of this ambiguity shows up in the exercise of freedom. When people exercise their freedom, they inevitably interfere with one another, they infringe on other freedoms. Thus all politics, including demo cratic politics, involves violence (AD, 26). Human history is the history of disputes as they are “inscribed in institutions, in civilizations, and in the wake of important actions” (AD, 205). But violence is not “monotonic,” not all of the same sort. It may be either progressive or regressive. Violence is progressive if it tends to dimin ish either the intensity or the extent of subsequent violence. It is regressive if it tends either to self-perpetuation, or, worse, exacerbation.16

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In keeping with his insistence upon the ambiguity of everything human, Merleau-Ponty admits that any historical progress is always accomplished at the price of some loss, some destruction. And further, however much a movement of progressive violence may succeed, it always preserves itself through institutions which never fail to endanger subsequent progress (AD, 220-221). Progress, then, can only be relative, never absolute. But the fact that no violence can be absolutely progressive does not jus tify the conclusion that “everything is in vain and that nothing can be done: each time the struggle is different, the minimum of demandable justice rises” (AD, 220). Thus, far from justifying political quietism, the fact that there is no definitive salvific politics calls for unceasing initiative, virtu without resig nation.17 The initiative Merleau-Ponty calls for cannot consist exclusively in resis tance to institutions. It cannot be simply that deconstructive initiative aimed at undercutting institutions which Caputo advocates and Godzich apparently privileges. To the contrary, for Merleau-Ponty one of the most important tasks for our era is “to find institutions which implant [the] practice of free dom in our customs” (S, 349).18 Merleau-Ponty’s reflections on institutions and their ineliminable am biguity provides a context into which the insights of a number of other an alyses of institutions fit nicely. Let me note briefly how the contributions of just three of them mesh with Merleau-Ponty’s position. Bernhard Waldenfels, for example, recognizes that rules and institutions can never fully regulate human life, for they are insufficient to generate par ticular concrete enterprises. But neither does anarchism make sense. No creation can be totally independent of the burden and heritage of the tradi tion from which it springs. He concludes, therefore, that one should accept the openness and limits of institutional rules as two sides of the same coin. To be sure, every institution has its limits. Neverthe less, there is no pre- or suprainstitutional realm which could be a refuge against institutional constraints. No, the limits are inherent in the rule system itself. Something unruled is to be found within what is ruled, just as the invisible or the unsayable is not beyond what is seen or said, but within.19


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Waldenfels’ conclusion fits nicely with Merleau-Ponty’s recognition that institutions are not set over against the human. Rather, they are human through and through. As a consequence, they share in the finitude and historicality of the human condition. They can never be brought to definitive completion. As historical, they are essentially permeable to change. Anthony Giddens and Mikel Dufrenne help one to flesh out the implica tions of the finitude and historicality of institutions. Giddens shows that not only is there always something unruled within systems of rules but every rule is itself intrinsically ambiguous. It is simultaneously both a restriction on action and a resource for action.20 Dufrenne, for his part, clarifies the institution’s self-reproducing activity, activity which Godzich also notices. Institutions do not merely shape their members. They also support them in their distinctiveness. Through institu tional activities, individuals gain both their social identity and their differen tiation from their consociates. Precisely because both institutions and in dividuals are finite, they need one another. On this alternative view, institutions do not, without qualification, exclude individual initiative. Rather, for institutions to maintain or enhance their efficacy they must not only be open to but must also encourage initiative, even initiative which will modify them. An institution which sets out to elim inate all initiative could succeed only at the price of its own ossification, or unraveling. Conversely, initiative is not unambiguously opposed to all institutions. Only institutions can give durability and efficacy to the outcomes of initia tives. Even initiatives aimed at eliminating some institution must, if they are to be senseful, itself aim for incorporation into a new institution. In short, no institution is free from the paradox that it needs some acts which ignore or violate its rules and routines if those very rules and routines are to remain potent. And no initiative can free itself either from all institutional resources or from a need for incorporation into some institution. Unmistakably, even if not by name, Merleau-Ponty, Waldenfels, and Dufrenne all see that institutions necessarily involve power. And Giddens makes this connection explicit. Power, for Giddens, is “the capability of achieving outcomes” (PCST, 38). As such it is ingredient in all action. Ac tion, in turn, is always interaction. And it draws upon rules as resources for its efficacy. In any social system, then, power involves” reproduced relations of autonomy and dependence in social interaction” (PCST, 39).

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Giddens concludes that all agents participate in what he calls the dialec tic of control. This dialectic of control is “the capability of the weak, in the regularized relations of autonomy and dependence that constitute social systems, to turn their weakness back against the powerful” (PCS! , 39). Therefore: just as action is intrinsically related to power, so the dialectic of con trol is built into the very nature of social systems. An agent who does not participate in the dialectic of control, in a minimal fashion, ceases to be an agent. All relations of autonomy and dependence are reciprocal: however wide the asymmetrical distribution of re sources involved, all power relations express autonomy and depen dence “in both directions.” Only a person who is kept totally con fined and controlled does not participate in the dialectic of control. But such a person is then no longer an agent (PCST, 39). As Merleau-Ponty had already seen, no one either commands or obeys ab solutely (SNS, 143 and A D 120 and 150-151). To say that there is no power apart from a dialectic of control is likewise to say that power is never the possession of some person or group set over against others lacking that property. Rather, power can subsist only in rela tions among people. Or, as Hannah Arendt puts it, “the only indispensable material factor in the generation of power is the living together of people.”21 But just because power belongs to a dialectic of control it does not fol low that power is in all respects a zero-sum game. That is, the wielding of power is not necessarily at the expense of those subjected to its exercise. At least some exercises of power can empower those who are subjected to it. Examples of this kind of empowering are some programs to improve nutri tion and some programs to provide either education or technical information. Political institutions, too, can in at least some cases promote cooperation for its own sake and not just as a competitive strategy. Some cooperation, then, and perhaps also some strategic competition geared toward improved coop eration, can result in power wielders seeking to empower their subjects.22 Even some violence, as I mentioned above, can be progressive, can free the oppressed from complicity in their own subjugation. It would, of course, be utopian to claim that power can be exhaustively an exercise in cooperation. It cannot be totally stripped of zero-sum facets.


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Universal cooperation would in effect cancel the dialectic of control. But nothing requires that universal competition reign. Were it to do so, it too would cancel the dialectic of control. Power, then, like institutions, cannot be disambiguated. Rooted as it is in action, it shares action’s essential finitude and historicality. The conse quences of action cannot be confined only to those which are intended. Even intended consequences must be elected at the expense of other pos sibilities. And what any of us can do gets at least part of its significance and efficacy from how others receive it. If this alternative conception of institutions and power is not only plausi ble but is even, as I believe, persuasive, then some important political conse quences follow. The most obvious consequence, given the context of this present discussion, is that neither Sisyphean nor Promethean responses to institutions are defensible. Caputo’s defiance and Godzich’s at least tacit disparagement of them are misguided. There is no sound reason for con struing institutions as an implacable Other which it is always appropriate to undercut. The urgent political question is never whether we should be for or against institutions. Rather it is which institutions will we support and which will we oppose. As the alternative I have presented shows, in our inextricable involve ment with ambiguous, ambivalent institutions, responsible politics will be a politics of melioration, or perhaps a politics of hope for melioration.23 Only this sort of politics, and not a politics of defiance or disdain, can satisfy Ca puto’s praiseworthy goal of “restoring life to its original difficulty” (RH, 1). A politics of melioration does not presume to have located the unques tionable “best of politics” by which it can unequivocally measure progress in amelioration. It takes none of the risks out of politics. Nonetheless, we are not bereft of all guidance, fallible though it surely is. On the one hand, as Merleau-Ponty pointed out, we can and do find within the span of our own experience political conditions which are intolerable and must be fought (H T, 105). Such was Nazism and such is South African apartheid. On the other, we benefit from the guidance of history. Even if history gives us no fool proof directions, again as Merleau-Ponty saw, it does show some solutions to be impossible and others to be senseless (AD, 22-23). Still others show themselves as promising. With history’s recommendations and cautions, a politics of melioration which respects the thoroughgoing ambiguity of every thing human becomes a responsible politics. For it, institutions and power

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are neither divine nor diabolic, just human, thoroughly and inescapably hu man.

Notes

Preface (pp. xi-xii) 1. I take this phrase from Thomas Nagle’s The View from Nowhere (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986). I use it here without intending to comment on Nagle’s work. 2. For two other critiques of individualism and calls for some “third way” see Michael Harrington, The Politics at God’s Funeral (New York: Holt, Rine hart and Winston, 1983), and Robert Bellah et al., Habits o f the Heart: In dividualism and Commitment in American Life (Berkeley: University of Cali fornia Press, 1985). Renovating the Problem of Politics (pp. 3-17) 1. Robert Sokolowski, Husserlian Meditations (Evanston: Northwestern Uni versity Press, 1974), 212-213, fn. 7. Hereafter cited as HM. 2. For a detailed examination of Heidegger’s relationship to Nazism see Michael E. Zimmerman, Heidegger’s Confrontation with Modernity (Bloom ington: Indiana University Press, 1990). Zimmerman’s bibliography contains references to most of the important studies on this question. Hereafter cited as HCM. 3. See in this connection Jurgen Habermas, “Work and Weltanschauung: The Heidegger Controversy from a German Perspective,” Critical Inquiry, 15, no. 2, 1989, 431-456. Hereafter cited as WW. This same issue also has impor

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tant pieces on the Heidegger question by Blanchot, Derrida, Gadamer, Lacoue-Labarthe, and Levinas. 4. Another obvious form of this tension has to do with the relation between philosophy and the arts. 5. See Hannah Arendt, “Reflections on Violence,” New York Review o f Books, Feb. 27, 1969, 24ff. Hereafter cited as RV. 6. See Hannah Arendt, Between Past and Future (New York: The Viking Press, 1968), 17-18. Hereafter cited as BPF. 7. BPF, 107. 8. BPF, 116-120. As will be seen from what follows, there is reason to ap plaud rather than to chastise Aristotle for not offering a definitive resolution. 9. I am, of course, working here with typifications of tendencies. The actual doctrine of any major political theorist is not adequately caught by these typifications. But I do claim that I can make my analysis applicable to each of the major modern political theories. 10. Gabriel Marcel has made something of the same point. See his The Mystery o f Being, tr. by G. S. Fraser (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1964) Vol. 1, 34, 39-40, 45-46. 11. There are, of course, important differences between Heidegger’s and Merleau-Ponty’s contributions to political thought. Roughly put, MerleauPonty seems to call for a greater degree of “activism” in political endeavors than does Heidegger with his notion of releasement. Nonetheless, for the present purposes of trying to discover elements extricable from their works for a new politics, it is, I think, permissible to leave aside whatever differen ces may separate them. 12. See, however, in this connection Jean-Michel Palmier, Les ecrits politiques de Heidegger (Paris: Editions de l’Herne, 1968), hereafter cited as EPH; and Otto Poggeler, Philosophic und Politik bei Heidegger (Freiburg-Miinchen: K. Alber, 1972), and HCM, 17-33.

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13. Merleau-Ponty, Adventures o f the Dialectic, tr. by Joseph Bien (Evanstonrxxxxx, 1973), 28-29. Hereafter cited as AD . 14. AD , 225. It is important to note that Merleau-Ponty saw that com munists, too, could work in and not be excluded from a parliament. 15. A D , 226. 16. AD , 227. See in this connection Merleau-Ponty’s “On Madagascar,” in Signs, tr. by Richard C. McCleary (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1964), 328-336. Hereafter cited as S. 17. S., 221. 18. S., 222-223. 19. S., 35. My modification of McCleary’s translation. 20. See in this connection BPF, 153-154. 21. S., 222. My insertion. 22. WW, 435. See also 445 and 455. 23. See M. Heidegger, “Wissenschaft und Besinnung,” in Vortrage und Aufsatze (Pfullingen: Neske, 1967) Teil I, esp. 53-62, hereafter cited as VA\ and Letter on Humanism, tr. by Edgar Lohner in Philosophy in the Twentieth Century, ed. by William Barrett and Henry Aiken (New York: Random House, 1962) Vol. Ill, 270-302. 24. M. Heidegger, “Uberwindung der Metaphysik,” in VA, 88. 25. VA, 90. Zimmerman’s critique in HCM of Heidegger’s reflections on technology is thorough and judicious. 26. M. Heidegger, “The Origin of the Work of Art,” tr. by Albert Hofstadter in Philosophies o f Art and Beauty, ed. by Albert Hofstadter and Richard Kuhns (New York: Random House, 1954), 685-690. Hereafter cited as PAB. The themes of destiny, fate, and heritage are already at play in Being and

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Time. After the end of World War II, as Habermas points out, Heidegger no longer gives political leaders the same eminence he gives to poets and thinkers. See WW, 448-449. 27. PAB, 695. 28. PAB, 696-698. 29. Again I will not try to determine here the logical relationships holding among these elements. 30. As Habermas indicates, Heidegger’s formulation of this distinction is on more than one occasion far from happy. See, for example WW, 443. 31. See in this connection Bertrand de Jouvenel, On Power tr. by J. F. Hunt ington (Boston: The Viking Press, 1962). 32. For useful distinctions between power, coercion, force, and violence see RV, 19-31. In several of the other essays in this volume I do discuss the problems of coercion and violence. 33. HM, 282, also calls attention to the connection between speech and poli tics. 34. On Greek and Roman political traditions see BPF, “What is Authority?” and “What is Freedom?” Philosophy of Language and Political Thought (pp. 19-36) 1. Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology o f Perception, tr. by Colin Smith (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1962). Hereafter cited as PP. 2. Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible, ed. by Claude Lefort, tr. by Alphonso Lingis (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1968). Hereafter cited as VI. 3. See Jacques Taminiaux, Le regard et Vexcedent (La Haye: Martinus Nijhoff, 1977), 90-115. Hereafter cited as RE.

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4. See my Silence: The Phenomenon and Its Ontological Significance (Bloom ington: Indiana University Press, 1980), Chapter 3. 5. Merleau-Ponty, The Prose o f the World, ed. by Claude Lefort, tr. by John O’Neill (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 19734), p. 36. Hereafter cited as PW. 6. Merleau-Ponty, The Primacy o f Perception, ed. by James M. Edie (Evan ston: Northwestern University Press, 1964), 134. Hereafter cited as POP. 7. Merleau-Ponty, Signs, tr. by Richard C. McCleary (Evanston: Northwest ern University Press, 1964). Hereafter cited as S. 8. “Now if we rid our minds of the ideal that our language is the translation or cipher of an original text, we shall see that the idea of complete expression is nonsensical, and that all language is indirect or allusive - that is, if you wish, silence (5, 43).” 9. S, 138. 10. Merleau-Ponty, “Eye and Mind” in POP. Hereafter cited as EM. 11. See also Merleau-Ponty, “The War Has Taken Place,” in Sense and NonSense, tr. by Hubert L. Dreyfus and Patricia Allen Dreyfus (Evanston: North western University Press, 1964), 147. Hereafter cited as SNS. 12. EM, 269. 13. S., 109-110. 14. Albert Rabil, Jr., Merleau-Ponty: Existentialist o f the Social World (New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1967) 135. 15. PP, 106-132 and 182-190; PW, 78. 16. VI, 101-104.

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17. Speaking of the painter, Merleau-Ponty says: “This unhearing historicity...does not imply that the painter does not know what he wants. It does imply that what he wants is beyond the means and goals at hand and com mands from afar all our useful activity {EM, 285). 18.1 owe this insight to Gabriel Marcel. See his The Mystery o f Being, tr. by G. S. Fraser (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1960) Vol. I, 137. Merleau-Ponty himself speaks of a wild world ( m/i monde sauvage) and a wild spirit (un esprit sauvage). See S., 180-181. 19. Merleau-Ponty, Humanism and Terror, tr. by John O’Neill (Boston: Bea con Press, 1967). Hereafter cited as HT\ and Merleau-Ponty, Adventures o f the Dialectic, tr. by Joseph Bien (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973). Hereafter cited as AD. 20. HT, xxxvi-xxxvix: “There is no line between good people and the rest, and ... in war, the most honorable causes prove themselves by means that are not honorable.” HT, xxxix, fn. 17. 21. HT, 164. 22. HT, 164. 23. HT, 150. 24. AD , 88-91, and 206-207. 25. AD , 90-91. 26. HT, xlii. 27. AD , 150-153. “But if there is neither an objective proof of the revolution nor a sufficient speculative criterion, there is a test of the revolution and a very clear practical criterion: the proletariat must have access to political life and to management (AD, 153).” 28. A D , 56-57, 204ff. 29. HT, 150.

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Notes 30. A D , 203-233. 31. AD , 196-197. Merleau-Ponty’s Political Thought (pp. 37-49)

1. Merleau-Ponty, Signs, tr. by Richard C. McCleary (Evanston: Northwest ern University Press, 1964), 20. My modification of McCleary’s translation. Hereafter 5. 2. Other special cases are specific religions, specific arts, and specific educa tional enterprises. 3. See in this connection Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguis tics, tr. by Wade Baskin (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), 7-10, 71-78, and 90-100. Hereafter cited as CGL. 4. Merleau-Ponty, Adventures o f the Dialectic, tr. by Joseph Bien (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973), 103. Hereafter cited as AD . 5. S, 218-219. For another version of this relation with a notably different emphasis, see Bertrand de Jouvenel, Sovereignty, tr. by J. F. Huntington (Chi cago: The University of Chicago Press, 1957), 137-138. Hereafter cited as Sov. 6. S, 274-275. See also Merleau-Ponty, Humanism and Terror, tr. by John O’Neill (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969), xxxii-xxxiii. Hereafter cited as HT. It is no surprise that Themistocles, Aristides, Pericles, and Thucydides could not teach their sons to be statesmen. See Plato, Meno, tr. by G. M. A. Grube (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1976), 26-27. 7. S, 276. 8. Merleau-Ponty, Sense and Non-Sense, tr. by Hubert L. Dreyfus and Patri cia Allen Dreyfus (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1964), 143. Hereafter cited as SNS.

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9. S, 302-303. As de Saussure says, “In language there are only differences.” CGL, 120. 10. According to de Saussure, the synchronic laws of language report states of affairs but are not imperative. Thus, the state of affairs is precarious. CGL, 92. 11. S, 336. See also S, 35, where Merleau-Ponty says, “History never confes ses, not even her lost illusions, but neither does she dream of them again.” 12. S, 323-324. 13. AD , 23. See the useful, related remarked by de Jouvenel, Sov., 105-107. 14. 5, 35. 15. S, 328, 335. See also Merleau-Ponty, “Pour La V6rit6,” Les Temps Modemes, 1945, 600. 16. AD , 124. See also James Miller, History and Human Existence (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), 209-212. 17. A D , 143. 18. Merleau-Ponty, Themes from the Lectures at College de France, 1952-1960, tr. by John O’Neill (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970), 40-41. 19. S., 349. See also SNS, 152 for an earlier version of this insight of Merleau-Ponty’s. In another related context, Merleau-Ponty has said: “The presence of the individual in the institution and of the institution in the in dividual is evident in the case of linguistic change. It is often the wearing down of a form which suggests to us a new way of using the means of dis crimination which are present in the language at a given time .... The contin gent fact, taken over by the will to expression, becomes a new means of expression which takes its place, and has a lasting sense in the history of this language” (Merleau-Ponty, In Praise o f Philosophy, tr. by John Wild and James Edie [Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1963], 55.) Hereafter cited as IPP.

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20. CGL, 77-78. 21. See Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology o f Perception, tr. by Colin Smith (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1962), 183-184 and Merleau-Ponty, The Primacy o f Perception, tr. by James Edie (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1964), 134. 22. SNS, 143, and AD , 120, 150-151. 23. AD , 53, 206. 24. AD , 22. 25. AD , 225ff. 26. HT, xxiv-xxv. 27. A D , 198. 28. AD , 207. 29. AD , 226. 30. SNS, 148, and S, 348-349. 31. HT, xxxiv-xxxv. See also Sov, 18-25, 31-33. 32. S, 336. 33. Willy Brandt, et al., North-South: A Programme for Sum val (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1980): “It is now widely recognized that development in volves a profound transformation of the entire economic and social structure. This embraces changes in production and demand as well as improvements in income distribution and employment. It means creating a more diversified economy, whose main sectors become more interdependent for supplying inputs and for expanding markets for outputs. “The actual patterns of structural transformation will tend to vary from one country to another depending on a number of factors - including resour ces, geography, and the skills of the population. There are therefore no

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golden rules capable of universal application for economic development. Each country has to exploit the opportunities open to it for strengthening its economy. Structural transformation need not imply autarky. Some countries might find it feasible to pursue inward-looking strategies that rely, at least in the early stages, on using their domestic markets. Others may diversify and expand their exports. Exports can become more fully integrated with the rest of the economy, as the domestic market comes to provide a larger base, or as export industries secure more of their inputs from local sources. Yet others will concentrate initially on distributing income more evenly in order to widen the domestic market for locally produced goods and to lay the foundations for a better balance between the rural and urban sectors. But all countries need an international environment that will be responsive to their development efforts. Herein lies part of the rationale for a new inter national economic order (48-49; see also 127-128).” 34. S, 4. 35. S, 35. My modification of McCleary’s translation. 36. A D , 155. 31. AD , 144, 194. 38. S, 324, 328. 39. Machiavelli’s weakness was that he did not have such a guideline. See S, 221-223. 40. S, 307. 41. IPP, 32. 42. Gabriel Marcel, Homo Viator, tr. by D. S. Fraser (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1962), 29-67. Hereafter cited as HV. My conception of Mer leau-Ponty’s politics of hope is at variance with that of Barry Cooper. See his Merleau-Ponty and Marxism: From Terror to Reform (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979), 53-55.

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Notes 43. HV, 60. 44. HV, 67.

45. I do not, of course, want to suggest that Merleau-Ponty’s politics rests upon anything like the absolute Thou which Marcel says is the “very cement which binds the whole into one [HV, 60-61).” On the nonterminal character of political conduct see Sov, 129-130. 46. HT, xxxv. 47. S, 314-318. 48. Perhaps the stringency of this guideline could be attenuated without loss of fidelity to Merleau-Ponty’s intentions, in the following way: A policy or deed is justified if it is recognizable to everyone, at least mediately, as some thing that each man or state could rationally endorse being carried out by someone, even if not by oneself. Thus A , who cannot immediately approve of B ’s policy or deed, can approve of C s policies and deeds even when these latter involve an endorsement of the performance of B that A cannot directly accept. Through and only through the acceptability to A of Cs policies and deeds is fi’s policy or deed made acceptable to A . Such an attenuation would forestall the fault of legitimating too little. For example, if nations A and B are at odds, then the rulers of both of them might be able to endorse a refusal by nation C to take sides, even though each of them would be strengthened by C s support. 49. HT, xxxiv-xxxv and SNS, 152. 50. A D , 196. 51. A D , 29. Politics, History and Violence (pp. 51-62) 1. Kerry H. Whiteside, Merleau-Ponty and the Foundation o f an Existential Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 279. Hereafter cited as MPF. My criticisms notwithstanding, Whiteside’s work is an exceptionally

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valuable contribution to Merleau-Pontyan scholarship. His criticism of Merleau-Ponty’s later political philosophy is briefly foreshadowed by that of Martin Jay, though there is no evidence that Whiteside depends on Jay. See Jay, Marxism and Totality (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of Califor nia Press, 1984), 382-383. Hereafter cited as MT. 2. MPF, 7.

My emphasis.

3. It can be shown, I believe, that the later period of Merleau-Ponty’s politi cal thought is less discontinuous with the earlier period that Whiteside ad mits. For present purposes, I will not explicitly develop that argument. But the argument I will make will in fact contain elements which could well be educed to make such a case. 4. This description of violence is my own. In devising it I have tried to cap ture what Merleau-Ponty means by it. I have also been instructed by Sergio Cotta, Why Violence? tr. by Giovanni Gullace (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1985) though I have not adopted his conclusion. 5. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Humanism and Terror, tr. by John O ’Neill (Bos ton: Beacon Press, 1969) 88-89 and 102. Hereafter cited as HT. H T is the principal work in which Merleau-Ponty’s early political thought is developed. Other important early essays of his bearing on politics, especially “Con cerning Marxism” and “Marxism and Philosophy” are collected in his Sense and Non-Sense, tr. by Hubert L. Dreyfus and Patricia A. Dreyfus (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1964). Hereafter cited in the body of the text as SNS. 6. See MT, 370. 7. Merleau-Ponty’s use of Saussure’s structuralism is sufficiently peculiar that his later view of history can be called “Saussurean” only in a heterodox sense. For instructive remarks on how Merleau-Ponty appropriated Saussure, see James M. Edie, “Foreword,” in Merleau-Ponty, Consciousness and the Acquisition o f Language, tr. by Hugh J. Silyerman (Evanston: Northwest ern University Press), 1973, xi-xxxii; and Edie, “The Meaning and Develop ment of Merleau-Ponty’s Concept of Structure” in Merleau-Ponty: Perception,

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Notes

Structure, Language, ed. by John Sallis (Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press, 1981), 39-57. 8. MT, 366. 9. Maurice Merleau-Ponty/Uve/ifurej o f the Dialectic, tr. by Joseph Bien (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973), 26. Hereafter cited in the body of the text as AD . 10. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Sigtis, tr. by Richard C. McCleary (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1964), 20. Hereafter cited in the body of the text as S. 11. See also MT, 372-375. 12. I document this claim in my The Politics o f Hope (London and New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986), 23-39. See also MT, 361-384. 13. Merleau-Ponty’s root requirement is a special sort of procedural require ment. It is the “ur-procedural” requirement that all specific requirements, substantive and procedural, must satisfy if they are to be binding. 14. For a fuller discussion of the important distinction between holding a political position hypothetically and holding it categorically, see my “Ideol ogy, Utopia, and Responsible Politics” in this volume. Relational Freedom and Its Political Consequences (pp. 65-84) 1. One’s own psychological handicaps count, on this view, as part of the Other. 2. See Sir Isaiah Berlin, “Two Concepts of Liberty” in his Four Essays on Liberty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969) 118-172. Berlin does not develop his own position exclusively in terms of this distinction. His position is much more subtle and resembles in important ways the position I will defend. Another example of one who takes the notion of freedom as auton omy for granted is William K. Frankena. See his Ethics, 2nd ed. (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1973) 7-8.

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3. See P. H. Partridge, “Freedom,” in Encyclopedia o f Philosophy, ed. by Paul Edwards (New York: Macmillan and the Free Press, 1967), Vol. 3, 222223. Though Partridge mentions Mortimer Adler’s The Idea o f Freedom, 2 vols. (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1958), he takes no discernible notice of the careful, crucial distinctions Adler draws. Adler’s The Idea o f Freedom is hereafter cited as IF. 4. Partridge’s concept of coercion is not unlike that given by Michel Foucault in his “Afterword: The Subject of Power,” in Hubert L. Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow, Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 220. 5. This conception of man is a staple of the post-Renaissance Western intel lectual tradition. Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, and Nietzsche all articulate it in some fashion. A more complicated, though hardly un troubled, notion of human autonomy appears in the early Hegel. See, in this latter connection, Jean Hyppolite, Studies o f Marx and Hegel, tr. by John O’Neill (New York: Basic Books, 1969) 38-39 and 44-45. One should also note Hegel’s own analysis of the connection between terror and misconstrued freedom. See his Phenomenology o f Spirit, tr. by A. V. Miller (Oxford: Clar endon Press, 1977), 355-363. 6. See Descartes, Discourse de la Methode, in his Oeuvres Philosophiques, ed. by Ferdinand Alqui6 (Paris: Garnier Frdres, 1963), Vol. 1, 643. Hereafter cited as DM. Descartes himself apparently held a more modest view than the one I sketch here. He says only that we are to be as it were lords and possessors of nature. Marx, too, sometimes gives one reason to think that he holds some version of the doctrine of autonomous freedom. As Charles Taylor points out, “the young Marx is heir of the radical Enlightenment ... in his notion that man comes to shape nature and eventually society to his purposes.” See his Hegel and Modem Society (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni versity Press, 1979), 141. Hereafter cited as HMS. 7. See Alexander P. D’Entrdves, The Notion o f the State (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967) 78 and 212-230.

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8. There is some reason to think that Rawls is modifying the position he took in his famous A Theory o f Justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971). See for example his “The Idea of an Overlapping Consensus,” Oxford Journal o f Legal Studies, Vol. 7, no. 1, 1987, 1-25. 9. HMS, 74. 10. DM, 594. Here again Descartes’ own view is more complex than this quotation shows. Though he does insist upon radical autonomy for the realm of thought, he does not explicitly require it for the realm of action. His epigones, though, have not always shown the same restraint. 11. See Jean-Paul Sartre, Critique o f Dialectical Reason, tr. by Alan SheridanSmith (London: New Left Books, 1976), Vol. 1, esp. 401 and 424-444. Here after cited as CDR. 12. See Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, tr. by Hazel E. Barnes (New York: Washington Square Press, 1968), esp. 86-112 and 559-619. 13. The interpretation of freedom as autonomy is widespread not only among those who admit that men are free but also among those who deny it. Many of the arguments against freedom are really directed against claims that men can be autonomous. Both behaviorist and structuralist denials of freedom regularly rest on evidence adduced to show that men are inextricably depen dent both upon one another and upon material nature. Thus they conclude that the sort of autonomy which supposedly constitutes freedom is in prin ciple unattainable. 14. HMS, 6-7. 15. Anthony Kenny, Will, Freedom, and Power (New York: Harper and Row, 1976), 134. 16. CDR, 422. 17. See Edmund Husserl, The Crisis o f European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, tr. with an introduction by David Carr (Evanston: North western University Press, 1970), 327-334.

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18. Insightful as Sartre’s CDR is, so far as I can see he fails to grasp the correlativity of individual and communal praxis. On more than one occasion he treats communal praxis as decomposable into a multiplicity of individual praxes. There is, I believe, some praxis, or at least features of praxis, which is ours, even though it is not properly either mine or yours, e.g., making music together. 19. See Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Prose o f the World, ed. by Claude Lefort, tr. by John O’Neill (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973), esp. 143-44. Hereafter cited as PW. 20. PW, 14. 21. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible, ed. by Claude Lefort, tr. by Alphonso Lingis (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1968), 143-155. Hereafter cited as VI. 22. VI, 129, and PW, 144. 23. This conclusion obviously contradicts Descartes’ claim in Meditations that the human will is infinite. See Descartes’ Philosophical Writings, tr. and ed. by Elizabeth Anscombe and Peter Geach (Indianapolis: Library of Liberal Arts, 1971), 93-94. 24. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology o f Perception, tr. by Colin Smith (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1962). Hereafter cited as PhP. 25. PhP, 442. 26. PhP, 453. Merleau-Ponty’s position here is compatible with that of Hei degger in the latter’s Being and Time and “On the Essence of Truth.” In Being and Time Heidegger emphasizes that freedom is distinctive of man’s kind of being, but his kind of being is always to be in the world among things and with others. See Being and Time, tr. by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), 294-331 and 417. Hereafter cited as BT. In “On the Essence of Truth,” Heidegger shows that freedom, which is a participation in the revelation of what-is-as-such, requires both restraint and involvement with the Other. See “On the Essence of Truth,” in

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Heidegger, Existence and Being, ed. by Werner Brock (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1949), 307-319. Heidegger recognizes, even if only elliptically, that his doctrine of freedom, which forbids vengeance on the Other, has political consequences. He says: “The space of that freedom which is won over vengeance is equally foreign to pacifism, to the politics of might, and to a calculating neutrality.” See “Wer ist Nietzsches Zarathustra” in Heidegger, Vortrage un Aufsatze (Pfullingen: Neske, 1967), vol. 1, 102. See also my “Heidegger: Spokesman for the Dweller,” The Southern Journal o f Philoso phy, vol. XV, 1977, 189-199. 27. Charles Sherover, who also links freedom to finitude, temporality and historicity, defends a strikingly similar view in his “The Temporality of the Common Good: Futurity and Freedom,” Review o f Metaphysics, vol. 37,1984, 475-497. My proposal also meshes smoothly, I believe, with Agnes Heller’s and Ferenc Feh6r’s basic law of democratic politics, namely, “act in a way which allows all free and rational human beings to assent to the political principles of your action,” provided this law is not interpreted ahistorically. See their The Political Condition (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), 70. 28. My account of freedom is structurally similar to Aristotle’s account of happiness in the Nicomachean Ethics 1095b29-1096a2 and 1101al3-21. As happiness is an exercised capacity and not simply a capacity, so too is free dom an exercised capacity and not simply a capacity. In speaking of freedom as a process, I use this term in much the same way as Carol Gould does in her description of Marx’s view of freedom as a process. She says: “A pro cess, as distinct from an entity or a relation, is an activity that has continuity. The process described here also is marked by emergence, that is, by real novelty as the character of this continuity itself. It is a process of constant change. But it is not sheer flux. Rather it is the preservation of a past state by transforming it into new forms.” Carol Gould, Marx’s Social Ontology (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1978), 127-128. Whether Gould has accurately reported Marx’s view is, of course, not to the point here. For anticipations of the other sorts, see Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1981), 149, and Martin Buber, “What Is Man?” in his Between Man and Man, tr. by Ronald Gregor Smith (New York: MacMil lan, 1978), 177-181. My proposal is also consonant in the main with that of

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Mortimer Adler, though I give a different cast than he does to the tension between self and other. See IF, vol. 1, 608-620. Though our vocabularies differ, my position is also compatible with Sheldon Wolin’s argument in his “The Idea of the State in America,” in Humanities in Society, vol. 3, 1980, 151-168. For another sort of anticipation, see Heidegger’s discussion of heritage and destiny in BT, 434-439. 29. Thus, it makes sense for Kierkegaard, in Fear and Trembling, to regard Shakespeare’s Richard III as a man who, through his crimes, stifles his own freedom. 30. See in this connection William Richardson, “The Mirror Inside: The Problem of Self” in Review o f Existential Psychology and Psychiatry, vol. 16, 1978-1979, esp. 108. 31. This condition is not violated by the fact that my performance of some activity X at time T precludes my performing any other activity y at this same time T. Since this fact holds for all activity, it cannot be cited in criti cism of any particular activity. 32. The distinction among these kinds of relationships is categorical, not classificatory. Concrete relationships may involve aspects of all three of these kinds. Citizenship relationships, for example, appear to involve all three of them. 33. The term ‘reflection’ designates first the minimal condition that only what have been traditionally called human acts as opposed to mere acts of humans can be free. It admits secondly that there can be degrees of awareness in human acts. The greater the awareness of what can be accomplished, the greater the field of freedom. Finally, ‘reflection’ refers to the unity of the three stages in the development of voluntary action which Paul Ricoeur dis tinguishes, namely, decision (including choice and motivation), setting the body into voluntary motion, and consent. See his Philosophie de la volunti: Le Volontaire et I'Involontaire (Paris: Aubier, 1950). 34. When the patient is cured, the physician-patient relationship dissolves, of course, perhaps to be replaced by another relationship.

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35. Aristotle, Politics, 1332b25-26. See also 1261a31-1261b6. Aristotle of course allowed undue restrictions on eligibility for citizenship. 36. Aristotle, Politics, 1268a24. 37. Sartre is right in seeing that yielding to others or putting constraints on one’s own future praxis is itself praxis. But he apparently regards this as degenerate praxis as compared to the praxis which constitutes the fused group. If so, I think he is wrong. See CDR, Vol. 1, 417-421 and passim. 38. One can show that respect is a condition for artistic and religious mani festations of efficacious freedom as well, but this is not the place to argue for the general thesis. 39. See Rom Harre, Social Being (Ottowa: Rowman and Littlefield, 1979), 24-25. Hereafter cited as SB. 40. See Michael Walzer, Spheres o f Justice (New York: Basic Books, 1983), 274-275. Walzer discusses self-respect here. But what he says applies to all respect. In general, I would argue that my Politics o f Hope (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986), hereafter cited as PH, supplies a firm under pinning for several of the claims and conclusions Walzer presents in Spheres o f Justice. Hereafter cited as SJ. 41. SJ, 274. 42. SJ, 277. My emphasis. Though I fully endorse the words I cite, Walzer uses them in a somewhat different context. Unlike Walzer, I do not restrict them to the notion of “democratic citizenship.” In the spirit of MerleauPonty, I give them a global sense. See “Merleau-Ponty’s Political Thought: Its Nature and Its Challenge,” in this volume. 43. SJ, 278. 44. SB, 24. 45. See Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Garden City: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1959), 215-219.

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46. Heidegger’s remarks on heritage and destiny support my claim. See BT, 434-439. 47. SJ, 278. 48. See Herbert Spiegelberg, “Ethics for Fellows in the Fate of Existence,” in Mid-Twentieth Century Philosophy, ed. by Peter A. Bertocci (New York: Humanities Press, 1974), 193-219. 49. See in this connection the essay “Politics and Coercion” in this volume. 50. Though I will not try to do so here, I think that the sort of respect flow ing from the concept of relational freedom makes it possible also to har monize the requirements of the aesthetic domain with those of morality and politics. I and Mine (pp. 85-96) 1. Cliffort Geertz, “From the Native’s Point of View,” in Interpretive Social Science, ed. Paul Rabinow and William M. Sullivan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), 229. 2. See Anthony Giddens, Central Problems in Social Theory (Berkeley: Uni versity of California Press, 1979) 29. Hereafter cited as CP. 3. See Louis Althusser and Etienne Balibar, Reading Capital (London: New Left Books, 1970), 180-189. “The structure is immanent in its effects in the Spinozist sense of the term,..i/ie whole existence o f the structure consists o f its effects .... [The structure] is merely a specific combination of its particular elements, is nothing outside its effects”(188-189). For a good overview of this and other continental analyses which claim to undercut the distinctive ness of the self, see CP, 9-48. 4. See Samuel Ijsseling, “Hermeneutics and Textuality,” Research in Phenom enology 9 (1979): 10. 5. Anthony Kenny defended this position in the untitled paper he read at the “Continental and Anglo-American Philosophy: A New Relationship?” con-

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ference at the University of Chicago, May 11-13, 1984. See also G.E.M. Anscombe, “The First Person,” in Mind and Language ed. S. Guttenplan (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975) 59. 6. CP, 70. 7. CP, 55-56. 8. See William Wimsatt, “Robustness, Reliability, and Multiple Determina tion in Science,” in Scientific Inquiry and the Social Sciences, ed. Marilyn M. Brewer and Barry E. Collins (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1981) 124-163, esp. 126-128. Hereafter cited as RR. 9. RR, 144-147. 10. See Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, tr. John Maquarrie and Edward Robinson (New York: Harper and Row, 1962) 67-69. Hereafter cited as BT. 11. BT, 68. See also Heidegger, The Metaphysical Foundation o f Logic tr. Michael Hein (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984) 188-189. Here after cited as FL. 12. BT, 303. 13. BT, 308. 14. Heidegger, “Was Heisst Denken?” in Vortrage und Aufsdtze (Pfullingen: Neske, 1967), Vol. 2, 3; Basic Writings, ed. David Krell (New York: Harper and Row, 1977) 345. 15. See Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue (Notre Dame: Notre Dame Univer sity Press, 1981), 96-97. Hereafter cited as AV. 16. A V , 89. My insertion. 17. A V , 91.

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18. See Paul Ricoeur, The Rule o f Metaphor, tr. Robert Czerny with Kathleen McLaughlin and John Costello (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977) 7. Hereafter cited as RM. 19. Ricoeur himself suggests something of this “rebound” effect. See RM, 87-89. 20. See in this connection Hannah Arendt, “The Concept of History: Ancient and Modern,” in her Between Past and Future (New York: Viking Press, 1965). Hereafter cited as PF. 21. For a discussion of this issue from another angle, see my “Authors, Audi ences and Texts,” Human Studies (1982) 137-146. 22. H.-N. Castaneda, “On the Phenomeno-Logic of the I,” Akten des X IV Intemationalen Kongresses fur Philosophic, Wien, 1968, 261. Husserl, it should be recalled here, speaks of the “primal ‘I’ ... which can never lose its uniqueness and indeclinability.” See his The Crisis o f European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, tr. David Carr (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970) 185. Hereafter cited as TC. 23. TC, 266. 24. Colin McGinn, The Subjective View (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983) 5355. Hereafter cited as SV. He explicitly criticizes here G.E.M. Ancombe’s position referred to above, and thereby implicitly attacks the Kenny thesis I have mentioned. 25. SV, 91. 26. SV, 91. 27. SV, 91 fn. 32. 28. SV, 93. 29. McGinn does deal, under another heading, with the dimension with which I am concerned. He recognizes that his position poses problems for

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physicalist accounts of experience. He himself, though, does defend a spe cific version of physicalism. See SV, 137-145. 30. This argument parallels MacIntyre’s contention, discussed above, that a full account of determinism would have to be couched in a “neutral” lan guage, but that no such neutral language is either available or in prospect. 31. See in this connection Richard Bauman, Let Your Words Be Few (Cam bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983) 14. Hereafter cited as YfV. 32. See in this connection, Paul Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory (Fort Worth: TCU Press, 1976) 22. 33. The possibility of shifting emphasis between the topic and the audience also makes possible the historical distinction between rhetoric and science. However much one might today want to attenuate this distinction, it is hard to claim that all discourse has the same manifest emphasis. Styles of dis course differ from one another and are deployed at the discretion of the speaker. 34. YW, 10-11 and 30. 35. For more detailed argument, see my Silence: The Phenomenon and Its Ontological Significance (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980), esp. 54-82. Arendt makes a comparable point in terms of thinking and its in dependence from space-time. See PF, 13. 36. Heidegger, The Basic Problems o f Phenomenology, tr. Albert Hofstradter (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982) 171. See also H-G. Gadamer, Philosophical Hermeneutics, tr. David E. Linge (Berkeley: University of Cali fornia Press, 1976). Gadamer says: “Self-understanding only realizes itself in the understanding of a subject-matter and does not have the character of a free self-realization” (55). 37. Emmanuel Mounier makes something of this same point from another standpoint. See his Personalism, tr. Phillip Mairet (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1952) 39, 59-64.

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38. CP, 56-57. 39. CP, 84. 40. For an interesting account of the self, see Edward Ballard’s Man and Technology: Toward the Measurement o f Culture (Pittsburgh: Duquesne Uni versity Press, 1978) esp. 124-129, and his Principles o f Interpretation (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1983), esp 216-225. See also FL, 139. 41. My conclusions about selves mesh well with those reached by Paul Ricoeur in his Soi-mime comme un autre (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1990). The Human Way of Being (pp. 97-113) 1. A case can be made for also mentioning Hegel and Marx in this context. But this is not the place to make it. 2. For Heidegger’s critique, see for example Being and Time, tr. by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), 122134, hereafter cited as BT, and his Nietzsche, tr. by Frank A. Capuzzi and edited by David Farrell Krell (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1982), IV, 96122. 3. See Martin Jay, Marxism and Totality (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 515. 4. The interpretation I propose, though developed independently, fits well with the interpretations of the ‘I’ in evidence in Robert Sokolowski’s Moral Action (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985), esp. 156-174. See in this connection my “The Ego Revisited,” Journal o f the British Society for Phenomenology, Vol. 21, January 1990, 48-52. 5. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, tr. by Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale (New York: Random House, 1967), 267-270. 6 . 1do not suggest that these writers all share a common position. Nor do I suggest that I have done justice to the complex thought of any one of them. I make no claim to contribute here to the scholarly discussion of any of their

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works taken as a whole. Rather, I want to assess a widespread contemporary view in support of which these writers have regularly been invoked. 7. Roland Barthes, “The Death of the Author” in his Image -Music -Text, ed. and tr. by Stephen Heath (New York: Hill and Wang, 1977), 143. Hereafter cited as DA. 8. DA, 145. 9. DA, 148. 10. Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus, tr. by Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen Lane (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983), 16. Hereafter cited as AO . 11. A O , 20. 12. Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, tr. by Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), 3. 13. Stanley Fish, “How To Recognize a Poem When You See One,” in his Is There A Text In This Class? (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980), 325. 14. There is some evidence that Foucault was not wholly hostile to a con stituting subjectivity in his last works. But exactly what he pointed to, as Hubert Dreyfus and Paul Robinon show, is by no means clear. See their “Conclusion” and Foucault’s “Afterword” in their Michel Foucault (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 205-226. 15. Michel Foucault, The Order o f Things, tr. by A. M. Sheridan Smith (New York: Vintage Books, 1973), 387. 16. Michel Foucault, The Archaeology o f Knowledge, tr. by A. M. Sheridan Smith (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), 116-117. Hereafter cited as AK. 17. A K , 122. 18. A K , 169.

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19. See Jean-Fran?ois Lyotard and Jean-Loup Th6baud, Just Gaming, tr. by Wlad Godzich (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985), 73-88. 20. Charles Taylor, “Foucault on Freedom and Truth,” in Foucault: A Criti cal Reader, ed. by David Couzens Hoy (Oxford and New York: Basil Blackwell, 1986), 89. Hereafter cited as FCR. 21. FCR, 90. 22. Ian Saunders, “The Concept Discourse,” Textual Practice, 2, 1988, 230. My emphasis. Hereafter cited as CD. 23. CD, 231. My emphasis. 24. CD, 230. 25. An excellent source for the contemporary status of criticism concerning Heidegger’s views on what it is to be human is the set of papers of the 1989 Spindel Conference published in The Southern Journal o f Philosophy, Vol. 28, Supplement. 26. Conversations with Fred Dallmayr have helped me to clarify my account of the human. Whatever flaws remain are, of course, wholly mine. 27. BT, 114-122. 28. BT, 156-157. 29. BT, 233. 30. Martin Heidegger, The Basic Problems o f Phenomenology, tr. by Albert Hofstadter (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982), 171. Hereafter cited as BP. 31. BP, 297. See also 278. 32. BP, 278-279.

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33. Martin Heidegger, ‘T h e Origin of the Work of Art,” in his Poetry, Langiiage and Thought, tr. by Albert Hofstadter (New York: Harper and Row, 1971), esp. 62, 66-68, and 77-78. Hereafter cited as OA. 34. OA, esp. 46-50, 63-64, and 68-70. 35. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible, tr. by Alphonso I .ingis (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1968), 159-160. See also 104. Hereafter cited as VI. 36. VI, 133. See also 120 and 124. 37. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Garden City: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1959), 169. Hereafter cited as HC. 38. HC, 171-172. 39. Calvin Schrag’s reply to my critique of his Communicative Praxis at the October 1989 meeting of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy shows that there is substantial agreement between us about what it is to be human. See Communicative Praxis (Bloomington: Indiana Univer sity Press, 1986), esp. Parts 1 and 2. 40. I acknowledge a tension here between my position and that of some versions of religious thought which speak of our destiny to an afterlife. Though I do not think my position is incompatible with one which looks to an afterlife, it does conflict with any view which permits slighting this life for the sake of an afterlife. 41. See in this connection my “Heidegger: Spokesman for the Dweller,” The Southern Journal o f Philosophy, Vol 15, no. 2, 1977, 189-199. 42. Paul Ricoeur, “The Tasks of the Political Educator,” Philosophy Today, Vol. 17, no. 2, 1973, 145. 4 3 .1 have developed in more detail the interpretation of the human way of being as being en route and the political consequences thereof in my The Politics o f Hope (New York and London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986).

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44. For more detailed discussion of these characteristics of human existence see my “Relational Freedom” in this volume. 45. See in this connection Paul Ricoeur, “Ethique et politique,” Esprit, no. 101, mai 1985, 1-11. 46. See in this connection Gabriel Marcel, Creative Fidelity, tr. by Robert Rosthal (New York: Farrar, Straus and Co., 1964), esp. 38-57. Hope and Its Ramifications for Politics (pp. 117-137) 1. Tendencies toward these two positions can be found in the entire history of Western thought prior to the seventeenth century. But the modern works exhibit these two positions in their starkest form. For a somewhat fuller discussion, see my “Renovating the Problem of Politics,” in this volume. 2. See Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, tr. by Martin Ostwald (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1962), 1160b 1-11. Hereafter cited as NE. 3. I have suggested, in my aforementioned essay, that Heidegger, too, his Nazi involvement notwithstanding, provides clues pointing to a promising third way. See also Gregory Schufreider, “Heidegger on Community,” Man and World, Vol. 14, 1981, 25-54 for an excellent defense of the claim that totalitarianism is incompatible with Heidegger’s thought. 4. See my “Merleau-Ponty’s Political Philosophy: Its Nature and Its Chal lenge,” in this volume. 5. In the words of Johannes B. Metz, “The unity and co-ordination of reli gion and society, as well as religions and social existence, was acknowledged in former times as an unquestionable reality.” See his “Religion and Society in Light of a Political Theory,” in The Future o f Hope, ed. by Walter H. Capps (Philadelphia: The Fortress Press, 1970), 137. Hereafter cited as FH. 6. S. Harent, “Espdrance,” in Dictionnaire de Theologie Catholique, ed. by A. Vacant and E. Mangenot (Paris: Librairie Letouzey, 1939), Vol. 5, part 1, 609. Translations from this article are mine. Hereafter cited as DTC.

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7. See St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I, II, q. 40 art. 1. 8. DTC, 611. My emphasis. 9. See Rudolf Baultmann, “E \H L$” in Theological Dictionary o f the New Testament, ed. by Gerhard Kittel, tr. and ed. by Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Erdmans Publishing Col, 1966) Vol II, 521-522. Hereafter cited as TD. 10. TD, 522-523. 11. TD, 518. He cites Plato, Philebus 39e and Laws 644c and Aristotle, Me taphysics XI, 1072bl8, Rhetoric II, 1368a2-30, and De Memoria I, 449bl0ff. 12. H. Frankel, quoted in TD, 519. 13. TD, 521. 14. Seneca, Epistle V, quoted in DTC, 612. 15. This does not appear to be a distinguishing feature of hope. Hope ap parently shares it with other acts such as love, despair, etc. 16. Ernst Bloch dissociates confidence from hope but gives no compelling reason for doing so. See his “Man as Possibility,” in The Future o f Hope, ed. by Walter H. Capps (Philadelphia: The Fortress Press, 1970), 67. In general, much of what I say is consonant with central features of Bloch’s descriptions of hope, provided that his Marxism and atheism are not taken as essential features of these descriptions. See his Das Prinzip Hoffnung (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1959). For criticisms of Bloch’s Marxism and atheism see Alois Edmaier, Horizonte der Hoffnung (Regensburg: Verlag Friedrick Pustet, 1968), esp. 232-239. 17. Disagreements over the character and extent of the openness of the fu ture can lead to distinctions within hope between those acts of hope which are sensible and those which are foolish and vain.

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18. See Gabriel Marcel, Homo Viator, tr. by Emma Crauford (London: Vic tor Gollancz, 1951), 29-67. Hereafter cited as HV. 19. HV, 67.3 20. HV, 60. 21. Mahatma K. Gandhi, Hindu Dharma (Kalupuri: Navajivan Press, 1950), 48. Hereafter cited as HD. 22. Bhagavad-Gita tr. by Swami Swarupananda (Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1956), 57. 23. HD, 14. 24. HD, 9, 23, 24, 34, 314ff. 25. HD, 38-39. Gandhi is apparently making reference here to Christian texts for the sake of his English, and Western, audience. I assume that he is nonetheless faithfully recounting a thoroughly Hindu approach. 26. Frank Reynolds, “The Two Wheels of Dhamma: A Study of Early Bud dhism,” in The Two Wheels o f Dhamma ed. by Bardwell L. Smith (Chambersburg, PA: American Academy of Religion, 1972), 30. Hereafter cited as TWD. 27. TWD, 32. See also T!\e Mahavamsa or the Great Chronicle o f Ceylon, tr. by Wilhelm Geiger (Colombo: Ceylon Government Information Department, 1960). Hereafter cited as GCC. 28. GCC, 47. 29. GCC, 39. 30. TWD, 27. 31. GCC, 47. 32. GCC, 50.

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33. Confucius, Analects, ed. and tr. by William E. Soothill (New York: Para gon Book Reprint Corp., 1968) BK XIV, Chapter XIII, 683. Hereafter cited as CA. 34. CA, Book XIX, Chapter I, 883-885. 35. See, for example, CA, Book XIV, Chapter XXXIII, 691-693. 36. See Wolfgang Eberhard, “The Political Function of Astronomy and As tronomers in Han China,” in Chinese Thought and Institutions, ed. by John K. Fairbank (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), 37. Hereafter cited as CTI. See also The Sacred Books o f Confucius, tr. and ed. by Ch’u Chai and Winberg Chai (New Hyde Park: University Books, 1965), 163-164. 37. John K. Fairbank, The United States and China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), 120-121. Hereafter cited as USC. Fairbank notes, though, that the reason for this abstention from statism was a matter of circumstance rather than theory. Confucianist governments were only a superficial layer of the whole society. 38. See W. T. DeBary, “Chinese Depostism and the Confucian Ideal: A Seventeenth-Century View,” in CTI, 176. 39. CTI, 194. 40. The superhuman, of course, is not always construed as personal. But it is always construed as that with which it is both sensible and beneficial to ally oneself. The superhuman is never the merely impersonal, if the term “im personal” is taken to refer only to the correlative opposite of the personal. 41. NE, 1160a 9-29. Note in this connection the emphasis given by John Rawls to fraternity. See his A Theory o f Justice (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1971), 105ff. Hereafter cited as TJ. 42. See Michael Oakeshott, “The Voice of Poetry in the Conversation of Mankind,” in his Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays (New York: Basic Books Publishing Co., 1962), 243-247.

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43. Their very closeness partially explains why they can be such fierce com petitors. As a matter of fact, they have often competed. Consider the his tory of the Holy Roman Empire. This competition has also occurred even in Confucian China. See USC, 112 and 117, and C. K. Yang, “The Function al Relationship between Confucian Thought and Chinese Religion,” in C77, 290. Whether art, too, can be thought of as a competitor with religion and politics for the fundamental position in a community or whether art is an equiprimordially fundamental reality is an intriguing and important issue which cannot be developed here. For hints about such questions, see Hei degger, “The Origin of the Work of Art,” in Poetry, Language, Thought, tr. by Albert Hofstadter (New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1978) and Mikel Dufrenne, Art et politique (Paris: Union Gendrale d’fiditions, 1974). 44. I must leave open here the question whether religion is essentially total ized or whether it too can be totalizing without attempting to be totalized. 45. Though I tend to believe that politics is essentially non-totalizable and that therefore hope belongs to the essence of politics, I do not wish to assert this strong thesis here. 46. For criticism of the individualistic notion of freedom and defense of this relational notion, see my essay “Relational Freedom” in this volume. 47. See Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible, ed. by Claude Lefort, tr. by Alphonso Lingis (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1968), 129. Hereafter cited as VI. See also his The Prose o f the World, ed. by Claude Lefort, tr. by John O’Neill (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973), 144. 48. VI, 144. 49. NE, 1155a 15. 50. NE, 1155a 29. Though my position is in important ways at variance with TJ, Rawls, too recognizes the centrality of respect. He says: “In particular, I assume that being a member of some community and engaging in many forms of cooperation is a condition of human life.” TJ, 438. See also 44,178, and 441.

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51. See in this connection Mikel Dufrenne, Art et politique (Paris: Union G6n6rale d’feditions, 1974), 19. My own assessment of institutions is more “benign” than is Dufrenne’s. 52. See Louis Althusser, “Ideologies et appareils iddologiques d’foat,” La Pensie,, No. 151, Juin, 1970. Sartre, too, ultimately rejects institutions on the grounds that they embody power and power is intrinsically alienating. See, for example, his Life Situations, tr. by Paul Auster and Lydia Davis (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978), 84. 53. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Adventures o f the Dialectic, tr. by Joseph Bien (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973), 143. 54. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Themes from the Lectures, tr. by John O’Neill (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970) 40. 55. FH, 150. 56. Patriotism is not necessarily tied to one’s natal land. Obviously, one can adopt citizenship elsewhere. But to adopt citizenship is also to adopt the heritage that goes with it. 57. See in this connection HD, 14; and Alasdair Maclntrye, After Virtue (No tre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981), 236-237. 58. See in this connection my “Politics and Coercion” in this volume. 59. On the political importance of forgiveness, see Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Garden City: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1959), 215-219. 60. Marxism, too, has claimed to find a bound to legitimate violence in the condition that violence must aim to eliminate violence. See Maurice Mer leau-Ponty, Humanism and Terror, tr. by John O’Neill (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969), xvii; and Joseph L. Walsh, Revolutionary Violence in MerleauPonty, Marx, and Engels, unpublished dissertation, Brandeis University, 1975. 61. This distinction between the critical and dogmatic roles is similar to the distinction between critical and dogmatic concepts used by Hans-Georg Gad-


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amer in his Truth and Method, tr. by Garrett Barden and John Cumming (New York: The Seabury Press, 1975), 471. 62. In preparing this essay, I have been greatly helped by the advice and criticism of Thomas R. Flynn, Thomas Ganschow, George Howard, and Shanta Ratnayaka. The Place of Hope in Politics (pp. 139-158) 1. See John Dunn, Rethinking Modem Political Theory (Cambridge: Cam bridge University Press, 1985) 171-172. Hereafter cited as RMPT. See also Sheldon Wolin, “Max Weber: Legitimation, Method, and the Politics of Theory,” Political Theory, Vol. 9, no. 3, 1981, esp. 404. 2. On the enthymematic arguments and their proper subject matter see Aris totle, Prior Analytics, 24a21-24bl5 and Rhetoric, 1356b3-1357al8 and 1402b21-23. 3. In political thought, if anywhere, one must start in medias res. There is no Archimedean point of either support or departure. 4. My account of the domain of politics is heavily indebted to, but does not simply repeat, Wolin’s. See his Politics and Vision (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1960) 7-11. Hereafter cited as PV. 5. Aristotle, Politics, 1252al-1253a38. 6. Paul Ricoeur, “Ethique et politique,” Esprit, no. 101, mai 1985, 1-11. 7. Wolin has accurately pointed out antipolitical tendencies which would either eliminate politics or so fragment it so as to render it practically im potent. See PV, 407-429. 8. See Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Adventures o f the Dialectic, tr. by Joseph Bien (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973), 56-57 and 203-204, and his Themes From The Lectures A t College de France 1952-1960, tr. by John O’ Neill (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970), 40-41.

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9. See Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Sigps, tr. by Richard C. McCleary (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1964) 4, 35. For some details of the una voidable international character of contemporary life see Soedjatmoko, "Edu cation Relevant to People’s Needs," Deadalus, Vol. 118, No. 1, Winter 1989, 211-218. I do not, though, endorse all of Soedjatmoko’s recommendations. How indebted I am in this essay to Merleau-Ponty can be seen from my The Politics o f Hope (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986) esp. 23-42. Hereafter cited as PH. 10. See in this connection, Hans Jonas, The Imperative o f Responsibility (Chi cago: University of Chicago, 1983) esp. 1-24. Hereafter cited as IR. 11. See Robert Dahl, Dilemmas o f Pluralist Democracy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982) 92-137. Charles Taylor, from a quite different point of departure, reaches much the same conclusion. See his Hegel and Modem Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979) esp. 70-154. 12. See Herbert A. Simon, Administrative Behavior, 2nd ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1957) esp. 78-80, and his Models o f Man, Social and Rational (New York: Wiley, 1957) esp. 196-200. For noteworthy criticisms of this managerialism see PV, 419-429 and Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1981) 24-30. 13. See Ferenc Feher, “Redemptive and Democratic Paradigms in Radical Politics,” Telos, no. 63, Spring 1985, 150-154. Hereafter cited as RDP. 14. See Joel Whitebook, “The Politics of Redemption,” Telos, no. 63, Spring 1985, 157. Hereafter cited as POR. 15. See RPD, 148, 151-154, and POR, 158. 16. Martin Jay, “Fin-de-Siecle Socialism,” Praxis International, Vol. 8, No. 1, April 1988, 10. As Jay makes clear, some Leftist thinkers, e.g., Paul Breines and Richard Wolin, still maintain faith in the possibility of redemption. Hereafter cited as FSS.

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17. FSS, 10, citing Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Soci alist Strategy, trans. by Winston Moore and Paul Commack (London: Verso, 1985) 190. 18. See Jurgen Habermas, Autonomy and Solidarity: Interviews with Jurgen Habermas, ed. by Peter Dews (London: Verso, 1986) 212. 19. POR, 162. Whitebook cites in his support Agnes Heller’s “The Dissatis fied Society,” Praxis International, vol. 2, no. 4, January 1983, 361. 20. POR, 165. The same reasons which prompt one to accept a politics of maturity show the bankruptcy of what I have elsewhere called the politics of vision and the politics of will. See PH, 2-3 and passim. 21. The gerundive form desideranda unlike the participial form desiderata, has normative connotations. 22. Montesquieu’s The Spirit o f the Laws in many ways exemplifies these desideranda. 23. See in this connection Benjamin Barber, The Conquest o f Politics: Liberal Philosophy in Democratic Times (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988) and Michael Walzer’s review of it entitled, “Flight from Philosophy,” The New York Review o f Books, Vol XXXVI, no. 1, February 2, 1989, 42-44. 24. Michael J. Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits o f Justice (Cambridge: Cam bridge University Press, 1982) 179. Hereafter cited as L U . 25. See Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, tr. by Garrett Barden and John Cumming (New York: Seabury Press, 1975), 285 and his Reason In The Age O f Science, tr. by Frederick G. Laurence (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1981) 80. 26. See L U , 183. Sandel’s argument is directed against political liberalism of the Rawls and Nozick sorts. To the extent that the politics oiMundigkeit shares Enlightenment roots with liberalism, his'argument also affects it.

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27. Julius Moravscik, “Communal Ties,” Proceedings and Addresses o f The American Philosophical Association, Supplement to Vol. 62, no. 1, Septem ber, 1988, 220. 28. See Paul Ricoeur, Lectures on Ideology and Utopia, ed. by George H. Taylor (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986) 1-2 and passim. See also my “Ideology, Utopia, and Responsible Politics” in this volume, and Anthony Giddens, “Reason Without Revolution? Habermas’s Theorie des Kommunikativen Handelns,” Praxis International, Vol. 2, no. 3, October 1982, 333-334. 29. See Richard J. Bernstein, “The Rage Against Reason,” Philosophy and Literature, Vol. 10, no. 2, 205. Bernstein’s cautions against the dangers of violently imposed “virtuous” interaction are well taken. 30. Edmund Husserl, The Crisis o f European Man and Transcendental Phe nomenology, tr. by David Carr (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970), 280. 31. John Dunn, Rethinking Modem Political Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 42. Hereafter cited as RMPT. 32. See my “Hope and Its Ramifications for Politics,” in this volume. Here after cited as HRP. See also PH, 105-119. 33. It is worth noting that in the Philebus Plato says that human existence is determined not merely by the aisthesis which receives the present but also by the mneme of the past and the elpis (hope) of the future. 34. Nicholas Lash, A Matter o f Hope (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1982), T il. Lash argues that Marx’s “vision of the future ... remained optimistic, prematurely transcending desperation in the imagination, and did not, therefore, mature into hope,” 270. See also Jerald Wallulis, “Hope, Loyalty, and the Need for Critical Distance,” Logos, Vol 5, May 1984. I abstain from comment here on Lash’s criticism of Marx.

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35. The superhuman, of course, is not always construed as personal. But it is always construed as potent and as something with which it is both sensible and beneficial to be linked. The superhuman is never merely impersonal, if the term “impersonal” is taken to refer only to the negation of the personal, to that which is wholly indifferent to human persons. 36. RMPT, 102. 37. See Joseph J. Godfrey, A Philosophy o f Human Hope (Dodrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1987), 142-146 and passim. Hereafter cited as HH. Godfrey does not draw the implications of hope for politics. But his study, building as it does upon analyses of hope presented by Kant, Ernst Bloch, and Gab riel Marcel, makes a significant contribution to political reflection. 38. Godfrey shows that any defensible ultimate hope rests on sonje set of background beliefs. See HH, 169-175. 39. For a good discussion of the difference between mere desire and hope, see Gabriel Marcel, “Desire and Hope,” in Readings in Existential Phenome nology, ed. by Nathaniel Lawrence and Daniel O’Connor (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1967) 277-285. 40. So far as I can tell, my account of hope is consistent with Ernst Bloch’s description of what he calls subjective or hoping hope. If there is a disagree ment between us, and I am not sure that there is, it would be about his view of objective hope. Objective hope, for Bloch, is hope for the “highest good.” People give content to this formal notion by way of “real symbols.” “And a real symbol,” Bloch says, “is one where the thing signified is still disguised from itself, in the real object, and not just for the human apprehension of that thing.” An example of these symbols is the Christian symbol of the kingdom. These symbols, however multiple and diverse, must all point to some as yet indiscernible unitary objective, some definitive terminus that Bloch speaks of as an Ithaca. Nothing in my account requires that there be this sort of unitary, “noumenal,” Ithaca for hope to make complete sense. How strongly Bloch would insist upon this unity is open to question. Fur ther, it is not clear that Bloch would give, as I do, unequivocal priority to the persons in whom one hopes over the state of affairs for which one hopes. See Ernst Bloch, The Principle o f Hope, tr. by Neville Plaice, Stephen Plaice,

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and Paul Knight (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1986), III, 1312-1376, esp. 1346-1347 and 1365-1373. 41. Disagreements about how and to what extent the future is open can lead to distinctions between sensible hopes and foolish or vain hopes. 42. Gabriel Marcel, Homo Viator, tr. by Emma Cranfurd (London: Victor Gollancz, 1951) 67. Hereafter cited as HV. My description of hope owes much to Marcel. But it does not imply, as he seems to, that all genuine hope ultimately presupposes the existence of a personal God. See in this connection HRP, 460. 43. The following exemplifies a hope in humans which is not explicitly politi cal. “Humanism is a way of hoping, or wishing men to be brothers one with another, and of wishing that civilizations, each on its own account and all together, should save themselves and save us. It means accepting and hoping that the doors of the present should be wide open to the future, beyond all the failures, declines and catastrophes predicted by strange prophets .... The present cannot be the boundary, which all centuries, heavy with eternal trage dy, see before them as an obstacle, but which the hope of man, ever since man has been, has succeeded in overcoming.” Fernand Braudel, “The His tory of Civilization” in his On History, tr. by Sarah Matthews (Chicago: Uni versity of Chicago Press, 1980) p. 217. 44. It is worth noting that the specific “future time” toward which a hope is oriented is not sufficient to distinguish political from religious hope. All political hope is, to be sure, “this worldly.” But all religious hope need not be “otherworldly.” See Pedro Ramet, “The Interplay of Religious Policy and Nationalities Policy in the Soviet Union” in his Religion and Nationalism in Soviet and East European Politics (Durham: Duke University Press, 1984) esp. pp. 3-4. 45. Alasdair MacIntyre has seen something of the sort of political hope which I describe. He argues that the Hegelian, and Marxian, concept of alienation and its overcoming rests upon a hope which is distinct both from “the religious faith that was its predecessor, and from the scientific depen dence on would-be predictions of inevitable progress.” Strictly speaking, MacIntyre says, Marxist humanism does not claim to make a warranted

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prediction about a transition to socialism. It does not pretend to prescribe a specific solution for the problem of alienation. But it does claim to “specify certain characteristics that any solution must possess.” If one admits that no solution to political problems is definitive, then this sort of specification of characteristics of solutions is what I too claim as the result of political hope. See his Marxism and Christianity (New York: Schocken Books, 1968) 89-90. I neither endorse nor reject MacIntyre’s claims about Marxism. I only note our agreement about the existence, or at least the possibility, of political hope. 46. On the possibility and importance of such a belief, see HH, 172. 47. See PH, 2-3, and passim. 48. The negative connotations associated with presumption and despair can not be avoided. But since each of them can animate politics, their can didacies deserve consideration here. 4 9 .1 was guided to see these two possible orientations as forms of despair by Kierkegaard’s analysis of despair in Sickness Unto Death. 50. For a good example of politics of containment in practice, consider the dealings of the several governments arranging the treaties terminating World War I. Each government tried to contain every other one, whether ally or foe. For a clear account of these dealings see David Stevenson, The First World War and International Politics, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988). 51. See John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. by Peter H. Nidditch (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), II, 44, 65, and 70, and his Epistola de Tolerantia, ed. by R. Klibansky and J. W. Gough (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), 15-16. See also RMPT, 42-43 and 46. 52. I have no conceptual basis for claiming that it is impossible that there be other candidates for this role of fundamental orientation. But to my knowl edge history provides no grounds for considering any others. All political claims concerning proper attitudes of which I am aware can be analyzed in terms of the candidates I have discussed here.

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53. See in this connection IR, esp. 1-10. It is of course virtually certain that biological factors will eventually lead to the termination of the human race. But that will be unavoidable. Hope precludes avoidable risks of annihilation of the human species. 54. See CT, 220. See also Heidegger’s distinction between proper and dis torted care or solicitude (Filrsorge) in Being and Time, tr. by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (New York: Harper and Row, 1962) 158-159. 55. Godfrey, following Marcel, sees hope as ideally aiming at mutual love. See HH, 45-46 and esp. 113. Also see HV, esp. 49-50. This linking of hope to love leads me to think that the sort of hope Marcel and Godfrey have in mind is religious rather than political. Politics and Coercion (pp. 161-174) 1. For a detailed presentation of this position and its connection with the works of Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, see my “Renovating the Problem of Politics” in this volume. Hereafter cited as RP. 2. Merleau-Ponty, Adventures o f the Dialectic, tr. Joseph Bien (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973), 28. 3. My distinctions between first and third person expressions make use of leads provided by Georges Gusdorf in his Traite de I’existence morale (Paris: Colin, 1949), 75-85. 4. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Garden City: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1959), 218. Hereafter cited as HC. 5. Obviously I have not given a complete account of these four types of ex pressions. I think that it would be profitable to explore further the charac teristics of the different types of expression. But what I have presented is sufficient for present purposes. 6. Support for, but not proof of, these claims can be found in my “On Speech and Temporality,” Philosophy Today, Vol. 18, Fall 1974,171-180.

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7. See HC, esp. 178-184 and 220-221, and her “Reflections on Violence,” New York Review o f Books, Feb. 27, 1969, 19-31. Throughout this paper, when I use the term “consent” I am not using it in a Lockean sense. That is, I do not hold that consent establishes or inaugurates the body politic de novo.. Rather, consent in this context involves an acknowledgment that one is born into a heritage which pre-delineates, without causally d e te r m in in g , his destiny. Later in the paper, I use the metaphor “circle of consent.” Again, this circle is not inaugurated de novo by the contemporaries who inhabit it. Rather, the circle is acknowledged as that community into which they are born and which provides the concrete basis, e.g. language, particular history, models, etc., from which one’s own expressive activity springs. 8. Gabriel Marcel, Homo Viator, tr. by Emma Craufurd, (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1951), 67. Hereafter cited as HV. See also HC, 219-223. 9. HV, 29-67. 10.1 find oblique support for this claim in HC, 220. Marcel notes that what I would call circles of consent have a duty “to remain in a sort of state of active expectation or availability in relation to other groups moved by a dif ferent inspiration....” See his Man Against Mass Society, tr. by G. S. Fraser, (Chicago: Henry Regency Co., 1962), 268. Marcel does not satisfactorily distinguish, however, between you-expression and we-expression. 11. See RP. 12. It should be pointed out that since there can be any number of reasons for the absence of consent, the moral, as opposed to the political, legitimacy of coercion depends upon the grounds of the lack of support. 13. Just as the different types of expression give rise to tensions in the inter course among men, so too the intrinsic possibility of each man’s engaging in different types of expression gives rise to an irreducible tension within each man. I would claim, though I will not argue it here, that it is the necessity of coping with this tension within a man that gives rise to ethics. The Aristote lian distinction between ethics and politics and the orientation of ethics to politics articulates, I think, the complexity of the issues arising from man’s inherent possibility of engaging in multiple types of expression.

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14. Arendt has noted the antipolitical character of love (a form of we-expression) in HC, 218, and the antipolitical tendency of both philosophy (a form of it-expression) and art (a form of I-expression) in Between Past and Future (New York: The Viking Press, 1968), 233-246 and 215-218. 15. John Locke, The Second Treatise o f Government (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Col, 1952), 31-35. I do not, of course, accept the theory of consent necessary for establishing the political realm which Locke advocates in this work. 16. Arendt, too, has seen the connection between power and coercion. See HC, 169-171. Ideology, Utopia and Responsible Politics (pp. 175-189) 1.Paul Ricoeur, Lectures on Ideology and Utopia, ed. by George H. Taylor (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986). Hereafter references to this work will be indicated by page numbers incorporated into the body of the text. 2.For Ricoeur, the social “has more to do with the roles ascribed to us with in institutions, whereas the cultural involves the production of works of intel lectual life....The social encompasses the different roles ascribed to us by varying institutions. The cultural, on the other hand, has more to do with the medium of language and the creation of ideas” (323 fn.l). 3.See Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia, trans. by Louis Wirth and Ed ward Shils (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1936), 75. 4,One principal locus for the manifestation of the ideological function is courts of law. Robert Cover writes: The jurisgenerative principle by which legal meaning proliferates in all communities never exists in isolation from violence. Interpreta tion always takes place in the shadow of coercion. And from this fact we may come to recognize a special role for courts. Courts, at least the courts of the state, are characteristically "jurispathic." It is remarkable that in myth and history the origin and justification for a court is rarely understood to be the need for law. Rather, it is un

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derstood to be the need to suppress law, to choose between two or more laws, to impose upon laws a hierarchy. It is the multiplicity of laws, the fecundity of the jurisgenerative principle, that creates the problem to which the court and the state are the solution. Robert Cover, “The Supreme Court 1982 Term, Forward: Nomos and Nar rative,” Harvard Law Review, Vol. 97, No. 4, 1983, 40. Hereafter cited as NN. 5.There is a striking similarity between Ricoeur’s description and assessment of utopia and that presented by Thomas R. Flynn in his “The Use and Ab use of Utopias,” The Modem Schoolman, Vol. 53, No. 3, 1976, 235-264. Unlike Ricoeur, though, Flynn does not correlate utopia with ideology. Nor does Flynn emphasize the imaginative character of utopia. 6.1ndependently of Ricoeur, Robert Cover describes law too as a product of the imagination. He writes: “Law may be viewed as a system of tension or a bridge linking a concept of a reality to an imagined alternative—that is, as a connective between two states of affairs, both of which can be represented in their normative significance only through the devices of narrative. Thus, one constitutive element of a nomos is the phenomenon George Steiner has labeled ‘3116^1/: ‘the “other than the case,” the counterfactual propositions, images, shapes of will and evasion with which we charge our mental being and by means of which we build the changing, largely Active milieu for our somatic and our social existence.’ But the concept of a nomos is not ex hausted by its ‘alternity’; it is neither utopia nor pure vision. A nomos, as a world of law, entails the application of human will to an extant state of af fairs as well as toward our visions of alternative futures. A nomos is a pres ent world constituted by a system of tension between reality and vision.” NN, 9. The passage quoted from Steiner is from After Babel (London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), 222. 7.See in this connection my The Politics o f Hope (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986), 140-146. Hereafter cited as PH. 8.The only utopias in question here are those which call for practical action to implement them. In agreement with Mannheim, Ricoeur says: “A utopia is not only a dream, but a dream that wants to be realized. It directs itself

271

Notes

toward reality; it shatters reality .... The thrust of utopia is to change reality” (289). 9.Ricoeur himself makes an analogous argument in his effort to mediate the Habermas-Gadamer debate concerning the scope of hermeneutics. See his “Ethics and Culture,” Philosophy Today, Vol. 17, no. 2, Summer 1973, esp. 163-164. And Habermas, for his part, has noted: “Reflection dissolves sub stantiality because it not only confirms, but also breaks up, dogmatic forces....Reflection does not wrestle with the facticity of transmitted norms without leaving a trace. It is condemned to be after the fact; but in glancing back it develops retroactive power.” “A Review of Gadamer’s Truth and Method,” in Understanding and Social Inquiry, ed. by Thomas McCarthy and Fred Dallmayr (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1977), 358. 10P H , passim. ll.F o r a discussion of the conditions for defensible coercion, see PH, 169175. Does Anarchy Make Political Sense? (pp. 191-206) 1. Aristotle, Politics, 1266a 1-5, 1293b 29. Hereafter cited as P. 2. P, 1292a 30-32. 3. See especially Reiner Schurmann, “Political Thinking in Heidegger,” So cial Research, 45, 1978, 191-221, hereafter cited as PTH; “Questioning the Foundation of Practical Philosophy,” Human Studies, I, 1978, 357-368, here after cited as QF\ “The Ontological Difference and Political Philosophy,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 40, 1979, 99-122, hereafter cited as ODP\ and Heidegger on Being and Acting: From Principles to Anarchy, tr. by Christine-Marie Gros (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), hereafter cited as HBA. 4. HBA, 288. 5. H BA, 253.

272


6. ODP, 122.

7. HBA, 288, my insertion. 8. //& 4, 270, 273-275. 9.

240.

10. HBA, 240. 11. /ffi/4, 242. 12. PTH, 220; QF, 367; ODP, 101. In this latter piece Schiirmann says: “Action ... is here not only a consequence of understanding but also its con dition.” 13. HBA, 281. 14. HBA, 255-260. 15. HBA, 264. 16. HBA, 260-264. 17. HBA, 265-269. 18. HBA, 270-275. 19. HBA, 279. My emphasis. 20. HBA, 280 and 260. 21. HBA, 280. See also PTH, 115, and ODP, 111-115. 22. HBA, 243. 23. Hubert Dreyfus, for example, gives a subtly and importantly different cast to the politics one can derive from Heidegger. Like Schiirmann, Dreyfus sees that Heidegger encourages us to resist the “totalizing, normalizing un-

Notes

273

derstanding of being” that holds sway in this epoch dominated by technologi cal or technocratic thinking. To resist this totalization, Heidegger, like Fou cault, though less radically, calls for the preservation of the “endangered marginal and local.” The call to preserve the marginal and the local is not a call to try to revive some cultural paradigm and its practices, e.g., Greek republicanism, from the past. Rather, according to Dreyfus, Heidegger “would say that we should, indeed, try to preserve such practices, but they can only save us if they are radically transformed and integrated into a new understanding of reality.” And we ourselves cannot produce this new understanding. It can only come to us as a gift. Though we can see what is needed, the only thing we can do about it is to dispose ourselves to receive this new gift. Thus, Dreyfus concludes: “We must preserve the endangered species of practices that remain in our culture in the hopes that one day they will be pulled to gether in a new paradigm rich enough and resistent enough to give new meaningful direction to our lives. This is what I have called Heidegger’s super-passive optimism.” See Hubert L. Dreyfus, “On the Ordering of Things: Being and Power in Heidegger and Foucault,” The Southern Journal o f Philosophy, Vol. 28, Supplement, 1989, 83-96, esp. 91-95. See also John Haugeland, “Dasein’s Disclosedness,” The Southern Journal o f Philosophy, Vol. 28, Supplement, 1989, 51-74, esp. 65-67. 24. See my The Politics o f Hope (London: Routledge and Keegan Paul, 1986) 2-3, 100-101. Hereafter cited as PH. 25. See Hans Jonas, The Imperative o f Responsibility (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), esp. 6-11. 26. Sartre describes this devolution in his Critique o f Dialectical Reason, tr. by Alan Sheridan-Smith and ed. by Jonathan R6e (London: New Left Books, 1976) I, 345-504. 27. HBA, 292-293. 28. H BA, 288-289.

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29. If Schiirmann should claim that anarchic praxis simply will befall people, then it is hard to see how his position,if not mere wishful thinking, is not a prediction of some sort. But predictions must rest on positive evidence, not mere negative evidence such as the evidence that the metaphysical era is over. 30. QF, 367. 31. HBA, 271. 32. HBA, 279. My emphasis. 33. PTH, 221. My emphasis. 34. See in this connection, ODP, 122. 35. See Dennis H. Wrong, Power (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1988), 113-123. 36. HBA, 273. See also QF, 365. 37. See PH, esp. 102-103 and 142-143. 38. See Herbert Simon, Administrative Behavior (New York: Macmillan, 1947), esp. 38-39 and 109-119. 39. Lawrence J. Biskowski, “Contingency, Irony, and Democracy: The Van ishing Citizen in Richard Rorty’s Political Thought,” unpublished manuscript, 4. Hereafter cited as CID. 40 .1 take this example from Mark Selden, “Reassessing Maoism in the Light of the Democratic Movement in China,” unpublished lecture at the Univer sity of Georgia, May 4, 1990. 41. See in this connection CID, 18-21.

275

Notes In stitu tio n s an d Power (pp. 207-226)

1. Frank Lentriccia, Criticism and Social Change (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), 50-51. 2. See Wlad Godzich, “Afterword: Religion, State, and Post(al) Modernism” in Samuel Weber, Institution and Interpretation (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987). Hereafter cited in the body of the text as II. Both Godzich and Weber acknowledge a major debt to Paul De Man. Godzich’s “Afterword” is explicitly framed as a reply to Lentriccia. For present pur poses I will concentrate on Godzich’s contribution and will not deal with Weber, even though Weber’s work is not without interest. Further, see John D. Caputo, Radical Hermeneutics (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987). Hereafter cited in the body of the text as RH. As Caputo makes plain, he is heavily indebted to Kierkegaard and Heidegger as well as D er rida. Unlike Godzich, he makes no mention of Lentriccia. Elsewhere, though, Caputo does defend Derrida against charges of political irrespon sibility. See Caputo’s “Beyond Aestheticism: Derrida’s Responsible Anar chy,” in Research in Phenomenology, Vol. 18. 1988, 59-73. 3. See Herbert Spiegelberg, Steppingstones Toward an Ethics for Fellow Existers (Dordrecht: Nijhoff, 1986) for several essays pertinent to an “ethics of otherness.” His view is vastly different from Caputo’s. 4. As Caputo makes clear (RH, 272), his ethics of Gelassenheit is much in debted to Emmanuel Levinas. See Levinas, Totality and Infinity, tr. by Alphonso Lingis (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969), esp. section 3. 5. Perhaps the fit would be even more comfortable if Caputo would not regard his defiant subversion as religious. 6. See in this connection my “One Central Link Between Merleau-Ponty’s Philosophy of Language and His Political Philosophy,” Tulane Studies in Philosophy, Vol. XXII, 1980, esp. 74-77. 7. It is worth recalling that Kierkegaard treats defiance as a species of des pair, one which consists in denying the self s relatedness to the Divine Power. Caputo’s defier in effect tries to disclaim its full historicality and sociality.

276


See Kierkeggard, Fear and Trembling and Sickness Unto Death, tr. by Walter Lowrie (Garden City: Doubleday Books, 1954), 200-207. 8. See Edward Goodwin Ballard, Philosophy and the Liberal Arts (Dor drecht: Kluwer, 1989), 295. 9. See in this connection Frank Lentriccia, “On Behalf of Theory” in Criti cism in the University, ed. by Gerald Graff and Reginald Gibbons (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1985), 108-109. 10. See Plato, The Republic, 501a. 11. Aristotle, Politics, 1261al0-30, 1266al-5, 1279al7-21, 1293b29. 12. Charles Taylor, Philosophy and the Human Sciences (Cambridge: Cam bridge University Press, 1985), Vol. 2, 191. Hereafter PHS. 13. PHS, Vol. 2, 209. 14. Merleau-Ponty, Adventures o f the Dialectic, tr. by Joseph Bien (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973), 143. Hereafter cited in the body of the text as AD . See also James Miller, History and Human Existence (Berke ley: University of California Press, 1979), 209-212. 15. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Themes from the Lectures at the College de France, 1952-1960, tr. by John O’Neill (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970) 40-41. Hereafter cited in the text as TL. 16. See Merleau-Ponty, Humanism and Terror tr. by John O’Neill (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969), 1. Hereafter cited in the text as HT. 17. See Merleau-Ponty, Sigits, tr. by Richard C. McCleary (Evanston: North western University Press, 1964), 35. Hereafter cited in the text as S. 18. For an earlier version of this claim, see SNS, 152. In another, related context, Merleau-Ponty said: "The pressure of the individual in the institu tion and of the institution in the individual is evident in the case of linguistic change. It is often the wearing down of a form which suggests to us a new

Notes

277

way of using the means of discrimination which are present in the language at a given time.... The contingent fact, taken over by the will to expression, becomes a new means of expression which takes its place, and has a lasting sense in the history of this language." See his In Praise o f Philosophy, tr. by John Wild and James Edie (Evanston: Northwesetern University Press, 1963), 55. 19. Bernhard Waldenfels, “The Ruled and the Unruly: Functions and Limits of Institutional Regulation,” in The Public Realm, ed. by Reiner Schum ann, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), 191-192. 20. See Anthony Giddens, Profiles and Critiques in Social Theory, (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1982) esp. 28-39. Hereafter cited in the text as PCST. 21. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Garden City: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1959), 179-80. 22. See in this connection Charles Sherover, “The Temporality of the Com mon Good: Futurity and Freedom,” The Review o f Metaphysics, Vol. XXXVII, no. 3, March 1984, 496. 2 3 .1 have tried to indicate some of the main features of such a politics in my The Politics o f Hope (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986).

Index

Aeschylus 121 Althusser, L. 86, 133 Anarchy x, 6, 77, 78, 174, 180, 183, 186, 191, 192, 194-196, 199, 201, 202, 203, 206, 219, 222 Aquinas, St. Thomas 74 Arendt, H. 4, 108, 109, 165, 224, 228 Aristotle 3, 4, 75, 77, 120, 130, 132, 140, 191, 200, 219, 228 Art 7, 10-13, 16, 228, 229 Asoka 126, 127 Authority 4, 14, 66, 67, 83, 105, 144, 178, 179, 185, 191, 230 Autonomy 5, 6, 8, 11, 13, 14, 44, 65-70, 72, 77, 112, 113, 117, 140, 144, 161, 220, 223, 224 Ballard, E. 96 Barthes, R. 98-100 Berlin, I. 65 Bernauer, E. 85 Biskowski, L. 204 Blanchot, M. 227 Bruzina, R. 1 Bultmann, R. 120 Burke, K. 177

Capitalism 6, 17, 40, 46, 49 Caputo, J. 208-212, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 222, 225 Castaneda, H.-N. 92 Chiasm 6, 22, 108 Claudel, P. 47 Coercion 14, 33, 66, 67, 82, 135, 136, 157, 161, 162, 163, 165, 169, 170-174, 201, 202, 230 Communism xi, 6, 7, 9, 15, 40, 46 Confidence 87, 119, 120, 122, 123, 124, 126, 129, 131, 133, 134, 150, 151, 203, 209 Confucius 127 Consent 66, 144, 156, 166, 167, 168-174, 178 Conservatism 208 Containment 153, 154, 157 Courage 32, 119, 123, 124, 126, 129, 131, 133, 134, 147, 150 Creon 4 Custom 69, 81, 99 Dahl, R. 141, 142 De Jouvenel, B. 230 De Man, P. 212 Deconstruction 207-209, 213, 214, 218, 222

280

Deleuze, G. 98-100 Democracy 58, 60, 113, 142, 143, 145, 191, 199 Democritus 121 Derrida, J. 227 Descartes, R. 65, 67, 85, 91 Despair 47, 48, 81, 119, 123, 148, 149, 152, 153 Destiny 13, 14, 126, 162, 168, 194, 201, 229 Discourse x, 3, 14, 22-24, 26, 27, 28, 30, 32, 61, 68, 70, 72, 73, 83, 91, 93, 94, 101-104, 131, 133, 177, 181, 192, 217 Dufrenne, M. 220, 223 Dunn, J. 147 Eckhart, M. 195 Economics 9, 101, 112, 129, 140, 142, 156, 157, 166, 192, 195, 203, 205 Engels, F. 176 Equality 125, 132, 213 Esteem 71, 76, 78, 151, 155 Fanaticism 46, 123, 150, 189 Fideism 46, 48, 49, 182, 187, 188, 189 Finitude 17, 22, 28, 31, 34, 35, 51, 61, 72, 82, 111, 112, 116, 131, 132, 133, 135, 136, 137, 141, 144, 145, 151, 172-174, 196, 220, 223, 225 Fish, S. 99, 101 Force xi, 14, 42, 52, 60, 98, 102, 104, 118, 125, 128, 135, 166, 167, 178, 187, 192, 193, 207, 208, 230

Elements o f Responsible Politics Forgiveness 47, 79, 136 Foucault, M. 98, 99,101-103, 210, 214, 216 Frankel, H. 121 Freedom 5, 32, 34, 41, 43, 47, 51, 56, 59, 62, 65, 66, 67-83, 96, 105, 106, 115, 117, 125, 131, 132-135, 142, 144, 154, 155, 162, 220, 221, 222, 230 autonomous freedom 65, 66, 67, 68, 71, 77, 82, 83, 84 relational freedom 63, 65, 73, 77, 78, 80, 83, 84, 131-133, 135-137 Gadamer, H.-G. xi, 145, 214, 227 Gandhi, M. 125, 126 Geertz, C. 85, 86, 94, 177, 178, 180, 184 Giddens, A. 86, 95, 220, 223, 224 Godfrey, J. 149 Godzich, W. 208, 212-214, 217-220, 222, 223, 225 Guattari, F. 99, 100 Habermas, J. 10, 143, 180, 182, 184, 227, 229, 230 Harent, S. 119 Hegel, G. x, 33, 52 Heidegger, M. xi, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10-15, 17, 63, 86, 88, 89, 91, 94, 98, 105, 106, 107, 108, 161, 191, 195, 196, 208, 209, 211, 228, 229, 230 Heraclitus 121 Historicality 16, 51, 55, 61, 65, 111, 112, 145, 152, 184, 186, 1%, 214, 219, 220, 223, 225

Index History 2, 4, 5, 7, 12, 14, 20, 23, 27-29, 32, 33, 35, 37, 38-43, 45, 48, 49, 51, 52-59, 68, 72, 73, 83, 86, 87, 89, 91, 100, 102, 111, 117, 118, 126, 128-131, 133, 145, 152, 161, 162, 168, 169, 176, 182, 185, 191, 192, 196, 198, 199, 204-206, 208, 216, 217, 219, 221, 225 Hobbes, T. 65, 67, 97, 196, 197 Hope xii, 46, 47, 58, 60, 115, 116, 118-137, 139, 143,145-158, 167, 168, 169, 170, 172, 188, 206 Humanism 9, 32, 33, 35, 53, 57, 229 Husserl, E. 3, 25, 69, 71, 75, 115, 147, 148, 152 Ideology 175-189, 195 Institutions 6, 7, 12, 13, 38, 41, 42, 43, 45, 52, 56, 57, 58, 60-62, 66-68, 83, 128, 131, 132, 133, 134, 136, 207, 208, 210-225 Interrogation 29-31, 35, 59, 60, 71, 105, 107, 108, 111, 141 Intersubjectivity 22, 29, 31, 34, 38, 41, 42, 43, 51, 59, 61, 65, 68, 69, 70, 72, 73, 77, 78, 83, 111, 117, 118, 131 Jay, M. 139, 143 Jonas, H. 197 Justice 52, 57, 81, 82, 105, 125, 139, 144, 147, 222 Kant, I. 97 Kenny, A. 86, 94 Kierkegaard, S. 215

281

Kristeva, J. 98 Laclau, E. 98, 113 Lacoue-Labarthe, P. 227 Law 32, 69, 81, 128, 132 Lentriccia, F. 207, 208, 214 L6vi-Strauss, C. 86 Levinas, E. 227 Liberalism 6, 7, 9, 56-58 Liberty 34, 67, 124, 196 Locke, J. 97, 147, 154, 172 Lyotard, J.-F. 98, 102 Machiavelli, N. 5, 7, 39, 47, 48 MacIntyre, A. 89, 90 Mannheim, K. 177, 180-182, 187 Marcel, G. xi, 46, 124, 151, 167, 228 Marx, K. 8, 33, 41, 53, 56, 175, 176, 177, 180 Marxism 1, 5, 15, 17, 33, 39, 49, 51-54, 56, 117, 176, 177, 178, 196 McBride, W. 2 McGinn, C. 92, 93 Mercy 57, 81 Merleau-Ponty, M. xi, xii, 1, 2, 3, 6-10, 12-15, 17, 19, 20-49, 51-62, 69, 70, 71, 72, 105,107, 108, 118, 132, 133, 141, 161-163, 167, 207, 214, 220-225, 228 Metaphysics 4, 6, 11, 46, 63, 191, 192-194, 196, 199, 202-206, 208, 209, 214 Metz, J. 133 Mill, J.S. 97 Morality 44, 81 Moravscik, J. 146, 152, 156

282

Mouffe, C. 98, 113 Nietzsche, F. 63, 99, 191 Nihilism 110,201 Nozick, R. 145 Oakeshott, M. 130 Pacifism 189 Palmier, J.-M. 228 Partridge, P. 65-67 Patience 119, 124-126 Patriotism 125,131, 134, 135 Pindar 121 Plato 4, 120, 191, 197, 218 Poggeler, O. 228 Political education 130, 156, 186, 187 Politics of hope 37, 46, 47, 48, 49, 118, 131, 135, 137, 156, 157, 188, 225 Politics of Miindigkeit 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 152 Politics of redemption 142, 143, 144, 152 Politics of vision x, 118, 152, 196, 203 Politics of will or might x, 196 Power 4, 8, 10, 14, 35, 42-46, 48, 53, 66, 67, 72, 73, 82, 85, 94, 95, 99, 111, 121, 124, 126, 127, 128, 137, 139, 142, 166-170, 172-174, 178, 179-181, 183, 184, 185, 186, 188, 202, 203, 207-215, 217-221, 223, 224, 225, 230 Praxis 35, 48, 69, 169, 176, 177, 178, 193, 195, 198, 199-201, 204, 206

Elements o f Responsible Politics Presumption 47, 48, 119, 123, 150, 152, 153, 157, 202 Quietism 208, 214, 222 Rawls, J. 67, 145 Reform 45, 48, 210 Religion 119, 125, 130, 131, 133, 140, 156, 179, 205, 212, 216, 217 Renunciation 125, 126 Repentance 136 Resignation 41, 57, 153, 154, 222 Respect 54, 61, 73, 78-80, 111, 112, 127, 132,135, 136,137, 146, 147, 148,151, 152,155, 156, 157, 165, 211, 225 Responsibility xi, xii, 57, 63, 66, 79, 89, 96, 98, 129, 136, 194 Revolution 16, 32-34, 48,169, 205 Ricoeur, P. xi, xii, 86, 90, 91, 110, 140, 175, 176,177, 178,179, 180, 181, 182,183, 184,185, 186, 187, 188, 189 Rousseau, J.-J. 5, 15, 67, 97 Saint-Simon, H. de 180 Sartre, J.-P. xi, 33, 41, 44, 67, 68, 69, 77, 198, 199, 221 Saunders, I. 103, 104 Saussure, F. 38, 39, 41, 70 Schrag, C. 2, 97 Schum ann, R. 191, 192, 194, 195, 196-204, 206 Science 3, 10, 12, 25, 27, 41, 44, 53-55, 69, 92, 117, 176, 177, 210 Seneca 121 Silence 2, 19-25, 27-31, 34, 35, 36, 94, 197

Index Simon, H. 142,203 Sisyphus 110, 215 Sokolowski, R. 3, 227 Sophocles 121 Spiegelberg, H. 82 Taminiaux, J. 21-23 Taylor, C. 67, 102-104, 220 Taylor, G. 175 Technology 10-12, 17, 38, 69, 192, 193-195, 210, 229 Totalitarianism 77 Trotsky, L. 33 Tyranny x, 4, 6, 77, 117, 118, 129, 130, 131, 136, 137, 174, 180, 191, 196, 198-200, 218, 219 Utopia 143, 156, 175, 176, 179, 180-189, 220, 224 Violence 2, 14, 32, 47, 51-61, 192, 194, 199, 201, 209, 211, 221, 222, 224, 228, 230 Voluntarism 49 Waldenfels, B. 220, 222, 223 Walzer, M. 82 Weber, M. 56, 178, 180 Weber, S. 212 Whitebook, J. 143, 144 Whiteside, K. 51, 52, 55, 56, 58, 59, 61 Wilshire, B. 1 Wolin, S. 140 Zimmerman, M. 227, 229

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Contributions to Phenomenology IN COOPERATION WITH THE CENTER FOR ADVANCED RESEARCH IN PHENOMENOLOGY

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BERNARD P. DAUENHAUER

Elements of Responsible Politics The essays collected in this volume address a set of issues crucial to contemporary political thought and action. Some of these issues, e.g. freedom and political agency, are perennial. Others spring from distinctive features of our present situation that are likely to become permanent, e.g. the globalization of economics and politics, the military threat to the continued existence of the human race, and ecological degradation. These essays do not pretend to provide either a complete analysis of or a specific prescription for any of these matters. But they do bring to light elements essential for any responsible grappling with them either in thought or in practice. These essays develop and extend the position Dauenhauer initially articulated in his The Politics of Hope (1986), a position that draws heavily on Aristotle and Merleau-Ponty and incorporates valuable contribu tions from Gadamer and Ricoeur.

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Elements of Responsible Politics

The Elements of Politics

Responsible

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Elements of Politics (Codesria Monograph Series, 92, 3)

The Ethics of Environmentally Responsible Health Care

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The Ethics of Environmentally Responsible Health Care

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Elements of combinatory logic

Elements of Programming

Determination of Trace Elements

Elements of noncommutative geometry

Elements of Modern Algebra

Elements of scientific inquiry

Elements of soil mechanics

Euclid's Elements of Geometry

Elements of Data Compression

Elements of Molecular Neurobiology

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Basic elements of crystallography

Chemistry of the Elements

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Elements of Responsible Politics

The Elements of Politics

Responsible

Responsible Conduct of Research

Responsible Leadership

The Responsible Conduct of Research

Responsible management of information systems

Responsible Management of Information Systems

Elements of Politics (Codesria Monograph Series, 92, 3)

The Ethics of Environmentally Responsible Health Care

Responsible Investment in Times of Turmoil

The Ethics of Environmentally Responsible Health Care

Socially Responsible IT Management

Elements of combinatory logic

Elements of Programming

Determination of Trace Elements

Elements of noncommutative geometry

Elements of Modern Algebra

Elements of scientific inquiry

Elements of soil mechanics

Euclid's Elements of Geometry

Elements of Data Compression

Elements of Molecular Neurobiology

Elements of Computer Music

Elements of Argumentation

Basic elements of crystallography

Chemistry of the Elements

Elements of asymptotic geometry

Elements of Quantum Information

Elements of soil physics

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