ABSTRACT
This chapter presents rhetorical criticism of the debate between Hans-Georg Gadamer, a metaphysician who has sparked and informed resurgent interest in philosophical hermeneutics, and Jurgen Habermas, a Frankfurt School sociologist who’s Theory of Communicative Action has influenced communication research as well as social theory. Habermas, however, would have to conceive his critical theory as embodied, and his appropriation of Truth and Method suggests that he will not follow Gadamer in that direction. In Habermas's hands, Gadamer's encounter with Aristotle, including his struggle to understand techne, phronesis, and episteme, is ruthlessly truncated. Habermas is clearly as concerned as Gadamer has been with the importance of recovering a good understanding of moral reason. The comparison under construction in Habermas's appropriation of Gadamer's treatment of phronesis seems to be that theory is to practice as hermeneutics in general is to critical social theory. Issues in influential debates, whether between presidential candidates or celebrity intellectuals, are framing and agenda-setting devices.
