ABSTRACT
Apel's work in the field of hermeneutics has been paralleled by that of Habermas. As a dialectical social science, Habermas's critical hermeneutics attempts to mediate the objectivity of historical processes with the motives of those acting within it. This chapter focuses on Habermas's appreciation and critique of Gadamer's work which, in a sense, contains the seeds of a number of related developments which culminate in a projected theory of communicative competence. Habermas introduced hermeneutic thought into the methodology of the social sciences in order to exhibit the shortcomings of current interpretative approaches. Habermas introduced hermeneutics into the methodology of the social sciences in order to combat the objectivism in scientistic approaches to the social world. Habermas arrives at an outline of a dialectical-hermeneutical theory of action through a Aufhebung of both hermeneutic philosophy and psychoanalysis. The meta-hermeneutic Habermas is aiming for takes the form of a theory of communicative competence.
