In the Shadow of Hegel

8/11/2019 In the Shadow of Hegel

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IN THE SHADOW OF HEGEL 8 7

m ark of dista nce lliaL docs no i constitute a rea l difference at all. U

can be argued that Gadamer's whole of tradition is bnt a vat^iation

on tlie Hegelian "truth is the whole," that dialogi-te remains wedded

to determination not utilikc Hegelian concrete univcrsalit)-, and that

the movement of tradition iy not unlike the tnovcment of spirit tiiat

wants to make itself at home in the world,

The problem with respect to the tiattire of this distance has much

to do with the fact that, unlike Heidegger, Gadamer continues to ref-

erence finitude in relation to infinity and to iink understattditig to a

process of mediatioti. C'onsider the way in which Gadamer annoutices

his project in the Preface to

Truth and

Method. As a philosophical con-

cern, the project of pliilosophical hermeneutics wants to "discover what

is common to all tnodcs of understanding"

{TM,

xxxi). VVliat is to be

diseovered is the fact that un de rsta nd ing is eattght up in an "effective

history'" that is prior to all conseioiis itiietiding of meaning. This con-

dition of always thinking from histoty is die mark of our finittidc:

'Historically effected eonsciousness," Gadamer writes, "iy so radically

finite that our whole being, effected in the totality of otir destiny,

inevitably transcends its knowledge of

it,self" {TM,

xxxiv). From this

condition of htiitude, ofthe infinite separation of being from its undcr-

.standing, Gadamer further claims that "the province of hermeneutics

is u n iv e rs a l and adds "thai: langua ge is the form in whieh unde r-

standing is aeliieved" (TAf, xxxiv). On the basis of Gadamer's snbse-

quetit analysis in

Triilh and

Method.,

we know that this achievement ol

understanditig by language enaets a peculiar tnediation: Uuough lati-

guage the strueture of experienee is formed and constandy changed

whereby the order of being comes itito existence as if for the lirst

time.

This dynamie of langitage, whieh in efiect is the self-retation of

language to its own differenee, occurs as dialogue. Thus Gadamei'

writes in the Preface that nnderstatiding is achieved in "the infinity of

the dialogne"

{TM,

xxxivj.


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9 0 JAMES RISSER

II

Let

us

begin here

by

recalling Hegel's idea

of the

spurious

or "bad"

infinite. It is an infinity that is not yet a true infinite. It functions by

being unable Losever its relation to the finite, wliicfi entails both lim-

itation and nonbeing. Finitude is at once determination as limitation,

i.e.. a determination determined by not being itsotlier, and that which

is negatively related to itself, i.e., a determination that alters sucii that

it ceases to be. Finite beings, Hegel tells us, "have the germ of pass-

ing away [Vergehens]

as

their being-vvithin-itself

the

hour

of

their birth

is the hour of their d ea th ." " C onsidered dialectieally, the infinite as

such emerges when the understanding attempts to grasp the limil of

the finite, but in holding on to a notion of limit, vanishes into this

other: the infinite is held fast to the finite. Such an infinity is spuri-

ous, an infinite diat is itself finite. Unable to escape limit, the spuri-

ous infiniLe progresses to infinity; it is an infinity of infinite progress,

an infinite related to transcending limitation.The tnie infinite for Hcgcl

overcomes limitation sueh that it is the relation of itself to itself

When Gadamer then acknowledges thathe wishes to save the honor

of the bad infinity, we have to locate first the context for this remark

and decide on its intended meaning before we let it elecidc the ques-

tion of an infinite dialogue. There are two places in Gadamer's writ-

ings where we find more than a passing reference to this idea.'- In

both places Gadamer introduces the idea in tlie context of recogniz-

ing the infiuence of Hegel on hisphilo sophica i p roject, while alsorec-

ognizing the infiuenee of Heidegger. From this context, I would not

argue, however, as a critic ofG adamer has recently done, ' ' that Gada-

m er is primarily drawn to the spirit of Hegel's philosophy, a philoso-

phy of spirit unfoldiug to its end, but under the infiuence of Heidegger

and the hermeneutics of" facticity. knows full well that the unfolding

can never complete itself. In other words, the very fact that Gadamer

is drawn

to

Hegel

in the

first plaee indicates that

the

function

of

fini-


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IN THE SHADOW OF HEGEL

91

theon' of essence and aeUiality'"'and ignore the distinctive way tliat

possibility an d self-difference function in G ad am er 's hcrm cne utics . Th a t

is to say, it is true that for Gadamer eveiy conversation is endless

thus the inhnite dialogue does indeed have a sense of being a bad

inh nity bu t it is not neeessarily an unfo lding (of t ie sam e), for as

G ad am er insists, wh en we unde rstan d we und erstand differently.'- '

G iven th e full im plications of this altern ative idea, 1 wo uld arg ue

that saving die honor of the bad inhnity is intended to recognize pre-

cisely the Heid egg erian radica l hn itud e that determ ine s l ie very cha r-

acter of an inhnite dialogue. But if this is indeed the case, then why

does G ad am er turn to He ge in the hrst place? T h e answer to this

question becomes clear when we follow Gadamer's own explanation

of w hat it m ean s to save the hon or o ft h e bad infinity. In "Reflections

on My Philosophical Jo ur ne y," G ad am er leads up to this ann ou nce -

ment by contrasting Heidegger with Hegel on the issue of tiie philo-

sophical thinking of being. Gadamer sees Heidegger, in teaching us to

think trudi as unconcealing and concealing at the same time, as pre-

senting a fundamental alternadve to Hegel's philosophical thinking of

being. For Gadamer himself, thinking in the tradition stands within

this tension, and thus he writes: "The concepts in which thinking is

formulated stand silhouetted like dark shadows on a wall. They work

in a one-sided way . . . in a process of which [they are] no t a w are .""'

On the basis of tliis remark alone we can say that if conversation is

endless, it is not, to state the matter precisely, because the end delays

its arrival, but because there is an occlusion in the heart oi all

conceptual tliinkinga blindness that cannot be confused with the

one-sidedncss that occurs in dialectical thinking. It is a blindness that

pertains to the veiy historical character of concepts in language. As

productions of language, concepts arc, for Gadamer, what they are

for Heidegger, not artifices of dehnitions, but determinations of the

historical life of being that undergo a self-alienation, the recovery from

which entails a step back from dialectic. In this step back, Gadamer


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9 2 JAMES RISSKR

Heidegger's in that he loo wants to "shatter the predominance of sub-

jectivism" and "the transcendental principle of the

self"

It is on this

po int, w hich, positively stated, pertain s to ihe self-presentation ol'b ein g

through the speculative element in dialectical thinldng, tliat Gadamer

wishes to align himscH' with H eg el.'" O n the basis of this alTinity,

Gadamer then tells us that as a first determination of the site of his

own effort at thinking, he wants to save the lionor of HcgePs bad

infinity, but with a decisive modification. Tiie key passage reads: 'Tor

in m y view th e inliniie dialog ue of the soul with itseii' which tliinldng

is,

is not properly characterized as an endlessly refined cletcrmiiiation

of the objects that we are seeking to know, either in the Neo-Kantian

sense ofthe infinite task or in the Hegelian dialeetieal sense that think-

ing is always moving beyond every particular limit. Rather, here I

think H eide gge r showed me a new p ath when , . . he turned to a cri-

tique ofthe metaphysieal traditionand in doing so found himself "on

the way to language'."'"' For Gadamer, ihe infinite dialogise of think-

ing is sometiiing thai is tmdcrgone from within the peeuliar spectila-

tive self-movement of language, a movement that Hegel does not fol-

low because he considers language, in Gadamer's eyes at least, in terms

of the statement. For Hegel the speculative movement of language is

nothing other than the dialectical mediation of the ,speculative

state-

ment.

In contra,st to this, G adam er insists that the speculative m ove-

ment of language doe.s not escape "the imilluminablc obscurity of our

factieiiy" from which we engage in an ""{ingoing reacquisition ihat pro-

ceeds into infinity."^"

Having said tliis, Gadamer still leaves us with the question witii

which we started: How are we to understand the infinite dialogtie as

unending that is not simply an unfolding as endlessly moving beyond

every partieular limit? To state the question positively: How does rad-

ical fmitude detennine the character of infinite dialogue? We are now

in a position to an sw er this ques tion , which 1 wou ld like to do by

summarizing the central analysis in part three of

Tmth and

Method.,


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IN THE SHADOW OK tlEClEL 9 5

which are always historically different. The infinite dialogue is a dialogue

of

being's ownpresenting otheiwise.

This presenting, this coming into lan

gua ge "bein g that can be understood is langu age" -does not mean

tbal a second bein g is acq uire d: first the diing, then second the thing in

langtiage. Since langiiage has a spectilative unity, the distinction between

being and its presentation is not a distinction at all. The inhnite dia-

logue is the event of langviage's own self-differing. And if, by virtue of

finitude, language has already begun, we can afso say that the infinite

dialogue is not really a matter of a postponement (of an end) at all,

but rather, to be precise, always a reenactment of beginning.' '^ Infinite

dialogtie, under the condition of finitnde of always having to go on,

is essentially a dialogue in which there is a

commencing

of the word.

flT

U nd er this third co nsid era tion f w ant to enga ge in a m ore far-

reaehing analysis that will in the end allow me to provide a furUier

determination of the character of inhnite dialogue in philosophical

henneneutic-s. ft can not go unn odc ed th at G ad am er is not alone in

being a proponent of infinite dialogue, that one finds at least in name

something similar in the work of Blanchot as well as Levinas. It would

appear natural, then, to want to attend to this similarity, despite the

fact that a vast distance often se])arates the French scene from the

German intelleetual tradition. Clcriainly all three share in common an

orientation to philosophy that stands under the shadow of Hegel. More

to the point, ail three, in relation to the distanee they wish to take

from Hegel, hold to a notion of infinite dialogue in wiiieh there is the

subverting ofthe puiported power of (Hegelian) self-mastery, tbus hold-

ing to a notion of infinite dialogue in which the speeeh of the other

appears.-*' Here, I want to limit this comparison by focusing primar-

ily on B lanchot an d on one specific issue. 1 w ant to consider with

respect to Blancbot the character of the movement of infinite dialogue,


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9 6 JAMES RISSER

overcome every ' 'unworking"

[distnivreineni] of itself. But

even Hegel

saw that the aeeomplishment of the system was suspect and the com-

pleted cUseoiirse.

in

which

the

enci

is

joined

to its

beginning,

was

held

only by philosophy in its abstracted existence. In his turn from Hegel,

Blanchot

is

interested,

not in the

work

of

philosophy,

but

precisely

in

its iinworking.

His

project

is

directed

at the

production

of a

work

of

the absence ofthe work, which he finds in the curious form of absence

that haunts

the

work

of

philosophy a non -absent absence interrupt-

ing the book of knowledge. Attending to this absence, Blanchot does

not engage

in

"work"

but in

"writing,"

as die

experience

of

language

unworking

itself. In

Blanehot 's words:

''To

write;

the

work

of the

absence

of

work, produ ction that produces nothing except

(or out of)

the absence

of the

subject, mark that uumarLs, infinitive

in

which

die

infinite would like to play itself out even to the neuter: to write does

not depend

on the

present

and

does

not

make

il

raise

itself."-"

Behind

this desciiption of writing lies Blanchot's claim that language has a

paradoxical eharaeter:

the

naming that takes place

in

language

is

always

undercut

by

language.

As

such, language

is the

producdon

of dis-

placement as well as proliferation.

If "writing'" beeomes the diought of the outside that carries out the

interruption

of

diseourse, then entertaining

a

question

in

writing

is to

interrogate an entertainment that is infinitean inlinitc conversado n

{L'Entretien infini).

Infinite conversation

is not,

properly speaking, infinite

dialogue, since diaiogue

is

understood

by

Blanchot

as the

reeiprocity

of words and equality of speakers in whieh one sees in the other

another

self.

Rather, infinite conversation

or

entertainment

is

plural

speech, a speech that prevents any possibility of symmetiy insofar as

it reverses

die

direction

of the

advent

of

meaning

in

direct commu-

nication. Within speech there slill occurs a movement to infinity, but

not

as die

unfolding

of

meaning; rather.,

the

movement

to

infinity

occurs

in the

dissymmetrical field

of

language,

in

language's irreducible

detour,

a

detour that Blanchot acttially finds

in

Hegel.

In his tum


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IN THE SHADOW OF HEGEL 9 7

a re a struggle tha t extends to de ath an d is history'.'" D eath is thus

not far from langua ge: the word in its perpetual disap pea ranc e earries

death, emptiness, absence. Infinite eonversation, plural speech, takes

up this speech witli eleath in a fundamental way. Within the giving

and receiving of meaning tliere is an interruption that escapes all mea-

sure,

an interruption that, relative to the issue of mastery, robs me of

my power. This interruption, this inhnite separator, is precisely what

I cannot get beyond, is not itself a beyond, and thus consliiutes the

elating of one to anotber, a relating as an involvement witb alterit\'."

Blanchot tbns reproduces the Levinasian dehnition of experience as

contact with alterity. Levinas deseribes this inhnite separator with respect

to language in die distinction between the Saying, as the element of

transeendence that cannot be represented in language, and the Said,

as discourse given over to idenrity. For Levnnas, too, language infinitely

defers from

itself;

it is excessive to the point that it eannoi coincide

with itself Communieation that involves alterity is, accordingly, no

lon ger un de r the reign of self-identical and self-sufficient be ing and its

truth. The dialogue with transcendence is a dialogue in which ""the

word in its very spontaneity is exposed to the response."'-

But unlike Levinas, Blanchot refuses the concept entirely and gives

the relating to alterity a very distinct character. In language

io

inhnity,

language ellaces every detenninate meaning, it is "always undone from

the outside"; language lo infinity is die impossibility of meaning.' ' '

Writing, inhnite entertainment, begins with the gaze of Orpheus, the

gaze that returns the recovciy from death baek to deatli. Euiydiee,

the object of tlie gaze, cannot be restored to the light of being.''^

Tf we tur n bac k to consider again G ad am cr 's notion of infinite dia-

logue primarily in light of Blanchot's position, we ean see tliat, in con-

trast to Blanehot, (iadamer does not want to give up on philosophy

and the work of recognition; be does not want to let being and its

death be consumed by die act of dying; be eannol let (he thought of

the outside destroy tlie movement of time with its peeuhar eoncealing


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IN THE BI-IADOW OK HEGEL

9 9

B ut let US also note tha t this retrieva l, wliich is actualiz ed iu th e Finite

event of tiic movement, does not separate the present moment from

its history.'"' In ihe finite event of the momeni then, there is a pre-

sentauon of time that, by virtue of finitude, is not a progression of

t ime.

Such presentation of time can oniy be regarded as a spacing of

tim e; tha t is to say, an even t of the difTerence o /t im e th e difference

that finitude makes. Infinite dialogue is a dialogue in whieh language

earries time. This means that in infinite dialogue, where one must

begin without beginning, there is not only the commencing of the

word, but in relation to infinity, there is always the word fbr whieh

it is nol vd time.

OT S

1

Th is rchil ion ni" Giid am er to Hcgcl has been taken u p r lscwhpfe. See M erold

Wesiphal, " 'Hegel and Giidamtr," in Henneneiilks and Modem Pkilosophy, cd. Brice

W achtcrhim ser (Aibany: SU NY Press, 1986), 65 -86 ; Fra nc isJ . Amb rosio, "(Jad am er:

On Ma king OiieselT at H om e wilh H egel," Owl of

Minerva

19, no . 1 (ftill 1987):

23-4(1;

R o d C o U m a n .

The Language of^Hermeneutics [iSlhany.

SUNY Press, 1998),

9 5 - 1 1 5 .

2. Haiis-Georg Ciadanier , Wahrheil und Metlwde._

\'(.>1.

1 ol'

(esamnwlti-

VVcrlw (TLihin

M oh r/S ieb ec k, 1990), 177; t rans la ted und er the l il lc Truth and Mellind by Joci

AVfiiisbdmo- liiid Donald Mar.shall {New York: Crossroads PiihlisUing, 1989), 173.

Hereafter


15/18

100 JAMES RISSER

Century." Here Gadamer refers to Hegel along with Kant and the Greeks as thf

tliree great partners of "the language ofthe dialogue." With respect to Hegel, hf

first points out his reservation concerning Hegel's "speculative-dialecucal transcen-

dence ofthe Kantian concept of finiludc" and then adds: "This concept of spirit

that transcends the subjectivity of the ego has its true counterpart in the plie-

nomenon of language, which is coming increasingly to die center of contemporary

philo.sophy. The reiwon is that, in contrast to die concept of spirit thai Hegel drew

from die Chnstian tradition, the phenomenon of language has the meril of heing

appropriate to our finitude. It is infinite, as is spirit, and yet linite, as iaevery

event"

[Philosuphiml

Hi^nmeutki.trans. Da\'id Linge |Berkcley: Univer.siiy ol'Galiforjiia

Press,

1976]), 128.

5. See also Gadamer, "Man and Language," in Philosophical Hinmeneidics, 64.

6. The distinction I am trying to make here is similar to the one Thomas Sheehan

makes in his analysis of 74 ofBeingand Time.The way in which an entity ''lives

from" its essence can be understood in one of tlnt-e ways: \] perfecdon already

attained (God); 2) currently imperfect, but on the way to a future pcrlection (e.g.,

a table under construction); and li) pcrfeet in its imperfectioji (hnniaii being). In

this third way, Dasein is "ever rettirnitig" to itself-qua-lacking in-beiiig, hut with

no prospect of ever overeoming that lack. It is "a movement that, in its veiy

ineompleteness, is characterized by "pcrlecdve a.spect'." The lack of perfected under-

standing in infinite dialogue wiU Jieed tu be read along the lines of this tliird way.

See Thomas Sheehan and Corinne Painter, "Choosing One's Fate: A Rc-Rcading

of &Hiund ^eil 74," Research inPhenoimnohigy 29 (1999): 71.

7. "VVhai seems to be the diedc-like begiiniiiig ofthe inicipretation is in reality already

an answer, and like eveiy answer the .sense of an iiiterprtnation has been deter-

mined through the question ihal is posed. The thalectic of quesdon and answer is

already prefigured in the dialectic: of interpretation. It is this that causes under-

standing to be an event" (7^/, 476).

H. See Gadamer, "Sprache und Versleliai." in

Gesammelk

Werke, 2:196.

9. Gadamer, "Grenzen der Sprathe." in vol. 8 of Gesammelk WerkeiTiibingrn:

Mohr/Sieheek, 993), 361.

l(.).

For Gadamer, our awareness of ihis blindness is preci.sf'Iy what lie means when

he characterizes experience in general, which is the essential structure of iiermeneu-

tic experienee, as the experience of finitude: "The truly experienced person is

one . . . who knows that he is master of neither time nor the future" (T'l-/, 357).

11. Hegel, Science of

Lugk\

trans. A. V. Miller ['New York: Humanities Press, 1969).

129.

12. See Ciadamer, "ReHecUons on My Philosophical Jonrney." 37; and Rixmiii ui llie

Age of Science. 40 and 59-60. Gadamer also mcMitions this idea in his essay,

"Hermeneudcs and I^igocentrism," in

Dialogue ci?i/l

Decomlnjclion. ed. Diane A'lichelfelde

and Richard Palmer (Albany: SUN\' Press.. 1989" , 123-24.

13.

See Jtjhn D. Caputo,

More Radical

He.mie>milin- (Bloomington: Indiana University

Press, 2000), ehapter 2.


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1 0 2 JAMES RISSER

SUN Y Press, 1990). Th is misreading is also present u ij o h n C apu to's earlier book

Radical Hemieneulics

but has been corrected somewhat in his more recent

More Radical

Henneneutics. But Gadamer himself eould not be elearer on this point. In Tnith and

Method,G ad am er writes: "Co nversation is a proce.ss of coming to an und erstand -

ing. Thus il belongs to eveiy true eonversation dial eaeh person opens himself to

the other, truly accepts his point of view as valid and transposes liimseif into Ihe

other to such an extent that he understands not die pardcular individual liut wliai

he .says" {TM, 38.3). An d a few page s laler in relation to the idea of iran slalio n,

Gadamer writes: "Reaching an understanding in eonversation presupposes that

hodi partners arc ready for it and trying to recognize the full value of what is

alien and opposed to them" {TM. 387).

27. Maur ice B laneho t , Tlie Infinite Conversation, t rans . Susan Hanson (Minneapol is :

Universily of Minne.sota Press, 1993), 15.

2%. Blanchot, llie Step.NotBeyond, trans. Lycette Nelson (/Mhany: SUNY Press, 1992),

55.

29. See InfmiteQinvermtinn, 35 .

.' 0. Set- Blanchot, The Space- oJLiteralure., irans. Ann Smock (Lincoln: University of

Nebraska Press, 1989). 252.

31.

"T he O the r speaks to me and is only tiiis exigeney of speech. And when the O the r

speaks to me, speech is the relation of that which remains radically separate, die

rela tion of the th ird kind a flirming a rela tion with out UJtity, w itho ut ec|ua ily, . . .

W h e n Antrm speaks to me he does not speak to m e as a self W lien I caU up on

dif Other, I respond to what speaks to me from no site, and thus am separated

from him by a caesura such that he forms with me neither a duality nor a unit)'.

It is this [issurediis relation with the otherthai we ventm-ed to characterize as

an interruption of being. And now we will add: between man and man there is

an interval that would be neither of heing no r non -being, an interval borne by

the Difference of spee ch a difference p rece din g eveiytliing that is different and

everything unique" {Jr^inite Conversation, 69).

32. Em ma nuel Levinas, "Dialogtie: Sell-Consciousness and the Proximity of die Ne ighb or,''

in Of

Cod

W ho

Comes

toMind, tra ns . B ettino B ergo (S tanford: Stanfoi^d Univei'sity

Press, 199B), 48 . Althou gh L e\'inas uses the term "'dialogu e" her e, ihe term should

he put in quotation marks since dialogue as ihis is normally understood presup-

poses a "we " and reduces the proble m of eom inuniea tion to the problem ihat

truth be told. For Levinas the word "exposed to the response" stands in opposi-

tion to dialogue. See Olhemiise.

'Tlian

Beini^ or

heyond

Es.'nce, irans. Alphon.>;o Ling

(Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1987), 119-20.

33. B ecause of B lanchor's acknow ledged closeness to Levijias, ihe difference between

their positions is frecjuently discussed in the secondary literature. See especially,

Leslie Hill, Blanchot:

Extreme

Conteniporan' (New York: Routledge, 1997), and Gerald

Bruns , Maurice

Blanchot:

Tlie R efusal of

Philosophy

(Balt imore: T h e Joh ns Hopkins

University Press, 1997).


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In the Shadow of Hegel

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