ABSTRACT
There is little doubt that modem professionals exercise considerable power, that this power is somehow related to a function of advice or guidance that they perform, and that they perform it on the basis of verified or at least verifiable knowledge. On all three counts, Gadamer is here expressing what I think are generally acknowledged ‘facts’ of our time. But beyond this there is much less agreement about the particular historical developments which may account for the emergence of these realities, about the contemporary conditions which support or at least allow the continuation of these realities, or about the consequences and desirability of this state of affairs in the broader order of things.
