WhatisNeoAristotelianism?

WhatisNeoAristotelianism?

byHerbertSchndelbach

Source: PRAXISInternational(PRAXISInternational),issue:3+4/1987,pages:226237,onwww.ceeol.com.
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NEW CURRENTS IN SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY

WHAT IS NEO-ARISTOTELIANISM?*
Herbert Schnaedelbach

One of the paradoxes of the modern age is that classics have renaissances: but what doesn't die can't be born again. When in the 18th century people began to speak of "the classical," they meant something that provides a model or standard for all eternity - something immortal, like the Platonic Ideas, absent only when we now and then lose sight of them. However, the historical consciousness of the 19th century discovered that even the classical is mortal, that its rebirth requires midwifery. Since then, the "classical" has become peculiarly discontinuous: having become an object of reflection, it is now marked by the very subjectivity-as something supposedly objective and substantial-it rejects. Measured against the myth of the phoenix or the stoic figure of an "eternal return," contrived rebirths are somewhat absurd, particularly when the newborn bears little resemblance to that which has developed naturally or historically. The simulated, artificial quality of all rebirths since the Renaissance is characteristic of philosophical ones as well. In the last 150 years the names of "great" philosophers have often appeared between the prefix "new-" or "neo-" and some variety of "-ism": NeoKantianism, Neo-Marxism, and so forth. The perpetrators are unconcerned as to whether this constitutes an act of self-characterization or an act of being characterized by others. What they have in mind is not simply the old, that which has been, but something new and modern-yet something in the spirit of the old. (The prototype of such lexical constructions-which often refer to historical positions, e.g. Neo-Positivism, Neo-Realism, Neo-Liberalism-is "Neo-Platonism," coined in the late 18th century and referring solely to the history of philosophy). The orthodoxy of such 'neo-positions' lies always in their methodologywhether Otto Liebmann's Neo-Kantianism, Georg Lukacs essay, "What is Orthodox Marxism?", or the Neo-Positivists' empiricist criterion of meaning. (There even exists a similar orthodoxy of the so-called 'Frankfurt School'). The methodological self-definition of such orthodoxies has the initial advantage of providing scope to the 'historically enlightened person' in dealing with new ideas and experiences. Of course the notion of associating the old and classical with method, the new and modern with subject matter, is particularly precarious where, for methodological reasons (as in Neo-Hegelianism and Neo-Marxism), one defends the unity of method and subject matter. One cannot hide the dilemma encountered by attempts to resurrect the historical past and to serve it up as something 're-born'. Neither a simple traditionalism fixated on what has been historically transmitted, nor conceptual decisionism decreeing what and how we should think, are desirable paths at the present.
* This translation is a slightly abridged version of the German original.
Translated by Benjamin Gregg Praxis International 7:3/4 Winter 1987/8

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Aristotle was subjected to Neo-Aristotelianism early on. If we ignore that Aristotelianism which was not a renaissance of the classical (the Aristotelianism of High Scholasticism and of Leibniz and Hegel), then Trendelenburg counts as the first Neo-Aristotelian. A conscious, methodologically reflected return to Aristotle-motivated by a systematic intent and often with polemical goalshas become quite common. Trendelenburg's logic was aimed against Hegel, the ontology of Nicolai Hartmann against Neo-Kantianism, and the more recent teleological interpretation of nature by Hans Jonas and Robert Spaemann against modern mechanistic thought and the ethical vacuum it created. Today the philosophical literature on Neo-Aristotelianism refers to something quite different. It refers to the renaissance of Aristotelian thought in practical philosophy, which in turn understands itself as the rehabilitation of practical philosophy in general. It also refers to the idea of a causal connection between this renaissance and the current neo-conservatism in Germany since Helmut Kohl took office in 1982. Yet Neo-Aristotelianism is difficult to identify. Many who contributed to the well-documented 'rehabilitation of practical philosophy' (Riedel) were not particularly close to Aristotle or Aristotelianism. If anyone who considers the basic ideas of the Aristotelian tradition to be relevant and indispensable is therefore an Aristotelian, then perhaps anyone who philosophizes is really a Neo-Aristotelian, and perhaps there is no such thing as "the" Neo-Aristotelian position per se. Should we then say, with Marx, that a specter haunts the philosophical landscape-and nothing but a specter? I would maintain that Neo-Aristotelianism is more than a ghostly dream. Significant aspects of Aristotle's practical philosophy are alive today in a variety of competing theories, even (as will be shown) in theories which completely reject Neo-Aristotelianism. One still might be able to identify aspects of the real Aristotle in all this-if one were to ask which elements of the newest Aristotle-reception influence contemporary neo-conservatism (to the extent that it admits of philosophical in influence at all). Conversely, one can imagine that the Aristotle interpretation on which neo-conservatism is based is itself politically and culturally motivated. Here the term "conservative" is not one of disparagment; one can honorably be conservative-even though we Germans still have certain problems with this. As the existence of an extensive literature suggests, defining conservatism may be even more difficult than identifying Neo-Aristotelianism. My discussion is confined to two characteristics. Conservatism is a reactive position or orientation which reflects off from what it reacts against. Modern conservatism was born in the French Revolution, as a reaction against it, as a rejection of the claims of Enlightenment liberalism and rationalism to provide a new foundation for politics and culture. (Germany's most recent neoconservatism sees itself as a necessary counter-reaction to some purported cultural revolution of the Left). This reactive pattern explains why conservative thought always believes itself to be free of ideology: the real ideologues of course are the others, those who measure the status quo against exhorbitant standards and thereby destroy it. The conservative differs from the traditionalist or the blind reactionary in that he wants to be a realist. He concedes that

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the status quo, including tradition, needs to be developed further, to be renewed, and he therefore considers himself a modern person. Yet he never takes the initiative himself, but always places the burden of proof on the innovator. Then, when the innovation can't be held off any longer, the conservative tries to limit the resulting 'damage'-or what he takes to be the 'damage'. (It is typical of "our" conservative that he doesn't object to policies of economic and technological modernization. He usually achieves some modus vivendi with such policies, and views himself as compensating for the cultural side-effects caused by technological innovation). Conservatism cannot easily identify the extent to which conservation of the status quo is possible and feasible, since it always charges its opponents with the burden of thinking abstractly about principles and criteria. The fact that it leaves this task to common sense and prudence explains the conservatives' theoretical insecurity. This insecurity produces on the one hand a measure of discord among the conservatives often underestimated by outsiders. On the other hand, it seduces the conservative into taking the worries of the establishment upon himself and identifying with the powers that be, powers which have successfully opposed all forces which problematize and destabilize. The conservatives' emblem is the Owl of Minerva: reactive thought understands or legitimizes what is, or what has happened, only after the fact. The reactionary also reacts, yet the conservative reacts not blindly but thoughtfully; he reacts conservatively with deliberation. This means that, since the Enlightenment, all conservatives have been enlightened about the true nature of the Enlightenment, and today they consider being enlightened about the end of the Enlightenment as the most enlightened thing of all. Not to champion the Enlightenment, but-in the reaction against the Enlightenment-to champion the enlightened denunciation of the Enlightement: this basic pattern of conservative thought from Edmund Burke to Arnold Gehlen unavoidably leads to the problem often described as the 'dilemma of conservatism' (Greiffenhagen). Viewed philosophically, it consists in a situation where the conservative is forced to argue-where the only intellectual means available to him are those of the Enlightenment itself, the very force he seeks to restrain. Conservatism's fundamental intention is not to enlighten the Enlightenment about what its goals should be, but to defeat it with its own weapons. This generates the contemporary renaissances of classics mentioned earlier; as Habermas said of Gehlen, these are "imitation substantiality"-artifical ersatz for tradition. By itself, the fusion of Neo-Aristotelianism and neo-conservatism does not provide us with the differentia specifica we seek. In political philosophy it may be difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish Neo-Aristotelianism from Neo-Hegelianism. In a certain sense Hegel was himself a Neo-Aristotelian, such that the modern conservative reception of Hegel's legal philosophy might easily be tied to that of Aristotelian politics (cf. Joachim Ritter and his followers). Moreover, German political science, which after World War 11 developed in reaction to 'Third Reich' ideology, was strongly Aristotelian without being thoroughly conservative. Like the later 'rehabilitation of practical philosophy', it was one more attempt to situate practical philosophy

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next to (or above) normative ethics and empirical social science-by returning to forgotten intellectual traditions. It is not yet a case of Neo-Aristotelianism when this occurs by recourse to antiquity, where Aristotle is invoked affirmatively-as in the case, for example, of Hannah Arendt. For one then invokes aspects of our common heritage, or at least of its dominant traditions (excepting the Sophists and Epicureans). By this I mean the normative orientation of ethical and political thought in contrast to the modern value-free logic of self-preservation; the ontology of human essence (or the conditio humana) in contrast to the self-determination or even self-generation of the modern autonomous subject; the thesis that the polis takes precedence over the individual, whose very essence teleologically prescribes participation in social and public spheres (unlike the individualism and subjective utilitarianism of contractarian theories). The question, "What is Neo-Aristotelianism?", can only be answered by way of ideal-types. The following remarks therefore do not refer to anyone in particular. We would do well to start with the very points which were themselves controversial in the 'debate' between Plato and Aristotle, i.e. within the dominant tradition of practical philosophy. In the relevant literature one repeatedly finds three pairs of concepts which not only recall the historical controversy, but which characterize Aristotelianism in practical philosophy as well: (1) theory and praxis, (2) praxis and poiesis, and (3) ethics and ethos. I maintain that Neo-Aristotelianism, in a narrower sense, in constituted solely by the third pair. Aristotle's critique of Plato in the Nicomachean Ethics culminates in the sentence: "Even if there is some one good which is universally predicable of goods or is capable of separate and independent existence, clearly it could not be achieved or attained by man; but we are now seeking something attainable". (NE 1096b, 32-36). Then we read: "It is hard, too, to see how a weaver or a carpenter will be benefited in regard to his own craft by knowing this 'good itself, or how the man who has viewed the Idea itself will be a better doctor or general thereby". (1097a, 7f). Since the idea of the Good is something towards which one can take an exclusively theoretical stance, Aristotle's arguments imply theory's limited practical significance-itself based on praxis' limited theoretical capacity. The pure theory of the Good is useless when one seeks the practical Good, i.e. something which humans can actively realize or acquire. The reason is ontological: the objects of theory and praxis are at different ontic levels. One can know only what is general and "in itself'; action, (Handeln) on the other hand, is always carried by a particular individual and is particular in nature, and it lies within our power. For Aristotle, this does not mean that praxis is entirely without theory, or that a theory of praxis is impossible. Indeed, 11e develops his practical philosophy with a practical intent-"for we are inquiring not in order to know what virtue is, but in order to become good, since otherwise our inquiry would have been of no use" (1103b, 26f). Yet he warns against any expectations that a theory of praxis might guide praxis in all its particulars, for "we will have to be content with whatever degree of determinacy corresponds

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to the matter at hand." (1194b, 12). The point is that exhorbitant demands on the practical significance of theory would actually destroy the theoretical capacity of praxis. Scientific or scholarly theory could focus only on general features within particular praxis situations, thereby missing what is specific in praxis. The theory of praxis would then become practically irrelevant-as Aristotle says of the physician or general who, during an operation or in battle, seeks practical consequences from dwelling on the idea of the Good. For Aristotle, the fact that, in terms of scientificity, the theory of praxis lags behind the theory of the cosmos, is for all practical intents actually an advantage. The practical irrelevance, for praxis, of a pure knowledge of principles means that practical philosophy must reduce its claims to scientificity; yet it thereby becomes all the closer to praxis. A consideration of the political consequences of this Aristotelian theorypraxis model leads us back again to Aristotle: philosopher-kings and their dictatorship of theory become obsolete. For Aristotle, the possession of theoretical insight is not in itself an adequate basis for the legitimate exercise of power: the capacity for scientific knowledge (episteme) has no appreciation for the contingent, the contextually dependent-in other words, precisely what it needs in praxis. By 'appreciation' I mean 'prudence' (phronesis), which can be sharpened by, but not replaced with, scientific knowledge. The Aristotelian philosophy of phronesis gives 'healthy reason' (orthos logos), i.e. common sense, a chance vis-a.-vis the elitist knowledge of experts. It thus forms the basis of our understanding of liberal democracy, where the acceptability of political arguments and decisions is not measured exclusively or even primarily in terms of theoretically defined truth. It is Aristotelian to place greater hope in the public sphere than in the authority of science, to rely on the consensual or majority decisions of experienced, upright citizens with a healthy sense of reality, to keep technocrats and intellectuals in their place. Implausible, however, are the reasons why those with the greatest understanding should not therefore be the decision-makers. It has always been difficult to explain this to others, and Aristotle has always been helpful here. If Neo-Aristotelianism were nothing more than the revival of this theorypraxis concept, its connection to neo-conservatism would be difficult to establish. When speaking of philosopher-kings, our Neo-Aristotelians mean the Left above all, and they overlook the fact that the majority of the New Left had a radical-democratic, not a Stalinist, orientation, that it was therefore closer to Aristotle than to Plato. Only indirectly does the concept seem to be conservative. A leitmotif of theory about the humanities since the last century has been the extent to which praxis admits of theory, and the extent to ~which theory can be relevant to praxis. It does battle on two fronts: against Hegel's philosophy of history and its logical deduction of the Historical from the Abstract-Rational; and against a "social physics", i.e. the concept of a natural science of the human world. Within this opposition, Hegel and Newton are seen as representatives of the pure theory from which praxis and phronesis need to be protected (a position now occupied by orthodox Marxism and systems theory). At the same time, the humanities-above all, history-were understood in

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the nineteenth century as the only real praxis-orienting disciplines. That they became "purely theoretical" reveals the decay of their original ethos, a decay brought about by the historical convergence of historicism and humanistic Aristotelianism. The ontological framework of Aristotelian practical philosophy (found in Aristotle's psychology) has also been historicized, namely when interpreted as a mere relatively valid foundation for ethics and politics. The degree to which praxis admits of theory-the degree conceded by Aristotle in his general statements about man and his world-is even further reduced. The humanitites then become value-free as well-something resolutely opposed by politicizing historians. In the end, the historicization of Aristotelian anthropology theoretically strengthens conservatism. What can no long be tied to strong normative claims can no longer ground radical critique. Of course theoretical scepticism benefits the power of the status quo; it is no coincidence that Descartes also invented provisional morality. The historically enlightened Neo-Aristotelian cannot be anything but a sceptic. Following an Abschied vom Prinzipiellen ["taking leave of normative foundations"] (Otter Marquard), and located equi-distantly between Kantian imperative ethics [Sollensethik] , Plato-izing value-ethics and theoretical social science, the Neo-Aristotelian makes praxis a matter of practical prudence. He thus frees us from normative demands and expectations. The distinction between praxis and poiesis is the foundation of actiontheoretical Aristotelianism. One can show historically that the Aristotelian tradition in practical philosophy faded away to the very degree that the conceptual distinction between action and production, doing and making, ceased to be useful. To understand this difference in Aristotle himself, one must begin with his critique of Plato. Action-guiding knowledge, says Aristotle, is not purely theoretical, nor is it general and universally applicable technical knowledge (what we now call "know how"). As the capacity for practical knowledge, phronesis is fundamentally different from both episteme (science) and techne (art)-for an ontological reason: since action and production differ, so too must the corresponding dianoetic capacities of phronesis and techne (cf. NE 1140a, Iff.). The differences between praxis and poiesis follow from the fact that both types of human activity exemplify both types of possible movement: the perfect and the imperfect. According to Aristotle, that movement is perfect which contains its telos within itself, whereas the one whose telos is external to itself is imperfect. In the language of means and ends-the language of everyday practical-discourse-this means that action is itself a goal-and not a self-goal-whereas production for some goal occurs as a means to a goal not internal to it. This structural difference has significant consequences for the normative stance one takes toward human activity in general. Action and production are not subject to the same criteria, since an action which is its own goal must contain within itself the conditions and standards for its own success, whereas the criteria for successful production are external to that production. Action for Aristotle is life, not merely a means to life (like production), and therefore has a higher status ontically and in terms of value.

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The praxis-poiesis distinction endures with a remarkable persistence even where Aristotelian ontology has long been abandoned: examples include Kant's distinction between the Technical-Practical and the Moral-Practical, Hegel's differentiation between labor and action, and Max Weber's ideal-typical distinction between value- and purposive-rationality. (Hannah Arendt's further distinction between laboring and producing represents a systematic development of action-theoretical Aristotelianism). It follows that the praxis-poiesis difference is independent of whether any given action-theory is teleological or causalistic. For Kant as for Max Weber, actions are causal occurrences in the world; they differ from other occurrences in that the actor associates them with his own subjective orientations. Whether this "subjective sense" (as the action's goal) actually effects the action, is an empirical question which can never be answered definitively. At the same time, Kant and Weber are concerned with actions worthy of being done for their own sake and not for any external goals: either specifically moral or value-rational actions. Aristotle so clearly grasped the intuitively plausible difference between that which we do for its own sake and that which we do towards a detenninate goal, that the distinction has never entirely disappeared from the tradition of practical philosophy. The most obvious theoretical consequences of the praxis-poiesis distinction lies not in ethics, but in the theory of politics. If politics is action and not production, then not only can there no longer be any philosopher-kings who are both politically successful and have technical expertise in matters of control; the technical understanding of politics must in praxis lead to the destruction of action, and therefore of human life at a political and social level. Poiesis in the political sphere is violence; to achieve goals which lie outside of action itself, the conditions for action must remain constant and controllable. Other humans are then nothing but material-"human material"-and cannot themselves act, as that would endanger the success of political production. For Aristotle, of course, the endangerment of freedom is not the primary argument against a technical understanding of politics; he, too, considers the techne of founding a polis, or the techne of constitutional reform, to be one of the virtues of great political figures. Decisive for him is that human life, in the sense of man's fundamental political and linguistic essence, can succeed only in an intersubjective lifecontext; a man who does not need beings like himself is either a god or an animal. A human being cannot act alone, he can only produce. Pure poiesis-politics would therefore mean the tyranny of a monologizing, superhuman sovereign, whereas praxis-politics implies the utopia of a selfcontained, self-regulating, polyvocal and multi-dimensional concert of interests and initiatives. Not only political liberalism, but economic and social liberalism is Aristotelian. And lest one take Aristotle to be the patron saint of the conservative trend in West Germany since Helmut Kohl became chancellor, one should recall that anarchism, as the most radical form of liberal thought, was born of the Aristotelian spirit. Production and action, the Technical-Practical and the Moral-Practical, purposive rationality and value rationality, instrumental and dialectical reason, labor and interaction, instrumental and communicative action, system

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and lifeworld-these distinctions, used critically, all imply a critique of homo faber as the archetype of modernity. His image is tied to the reversal of the hierarchical relationship between praxis and poiesis-a reversal which, in the history of metaphysics, follows from the complete loss of an objective teleology. If all goals to be sought through action are based on man's free self-determination, and if his own being is added to the list of 'things' he can control, then the objective context of meaning, in which human action can itself be a goal, has been exploded: poiesis becomes almost total. Hence we find it difficult, after this revolution in thought, to specify what constitutes successful praxis (i.e. the good life) if not the achievement of self-chosen goals. In conditions of modernity, the good life can no longer be separated from what humans with a free will believe to be the good life. This difficulty is poignantly demonstrated by older Critical Theory. The Aristotelian inspired critique of pure purposive rationality cannot by itself restore value-rationality, as no one can simultaneously assume both individual autonomy of the will and a hierarchy of universally valid, highest values. As Hobbes showed, one can assume a descriptive, observing stance towards the value-orientation of humans only if one concedes them a free will. Mere, reflexive contemplation of the natural history of homo faber does not of itself fill the normative vacuum left behind by the emancipation of poiesis from Aristotelian praxis. Since then, there have been various attempts by Neo-Aristotelians and others to reconstruct criteria for the good life on the basis of a modified concept of praxis. This raises two problems. First, the claim that action is more valuable than production would have to be redeemed, since "Prometheus forever unbound" (Hans Jonas) is supposed to be resocialized into the practical life-world-something for which the ontology of perfect and imperfect movement hardly suffices. One would then need a criterion for the success or failure of action itself, and it could not be solely functionalist-otherwise it would be applicable to any given context of social functioning whatsoever. What functions is not for that reason necessarily good. The action-theoretical Aristotelian cannot allow for external normative perspectives, since normative orientations external to action would move the praxis model of action closer to poiesis. Hence the praxis-poiesis differentiation generates a concept with extraordinary weak normative consequences. This temporarily unburdens praxis of strong normative claims-and strengthens conservatism. My remarks on the theory-praxis relation and on the praxis-poiesis relation are intended to show that a return to Aristotle, even if it strengthens conservatism, does not itself engender Neo-Aristotelianism in the strict sense. This is the case only when we add the Aristotelian model of the ethics-ethos relation. As Aristotle says: "Each man judges well the things he knows, and of these he is a good judge.... Hence a young man is not a proper hearer of lectures on political science. For he is inexperienced in the actions that occur in life, and yet its discussions start from these and are about these". (NE I095a, Iff). The anti-Platonic argument-that there cannot be any 'pure' theory of praxis-here reveals its other side. If the theory of praxis is not pure, then it may properly treat of praxis only to the extent that theory proceeds from

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praxis. Theory becomes empirical in the sense that even its reception presupposes the pre-scientific, lived experience of its object. It also follows from the praxis-poiesis distinction that theoretical knowledge of action can never attain the same degree of precision as knowledge of production-which, qua control over the general conditions of successful poiesis, is on the same theoretical level as episteme. Phronesis is not itself the medium of practical philosophy, since the latter recognizes only the general, whereas phronesis knows the particular as well. Yet the theory of praxis could never guide phronesis if it did not leave a dimension open; phronesis serves to fill out this dimension. Once again, knowledge of the particular is experience-which is neither producible theoretically, nor replaceable by theory. That Aristotle's practical philosophy is directly linked to life-experience means for every Aristotelian or Neo-Aristotelian that ethics is linked to a lived ethos. In methodological terms, this is the concept of 'hermeneutics as practical philosophy' (Gadamer). Unlike the empiricist who objectivistically reinterprets the Aristotelian empeiria of praxis, the Neo-Aristotelian ethicist views the recourse to experience as a reflective confirmation of life-contexts in which ethical reasoning has always been embedded. He interprets this process as being itselfa life-process; as a historically enlightened person, he expects to transform and develop the ethos. At the same time he feels he must warn Platonists of all stripes against systematically underestimating real praxis in their ethics. He distrusts "pure" theories of praxis, considering them products of a "freefloating" intelligentsia alienated from a lived ethos. The fundamental conservatism of this notion of ethics is revealed by its own polemical consequences: a critique of utopia and a rejection of any ultimate foundation for ethics. In the Aristotelian tradition, criticism of a practical "Beyond," of an ideal image of the Good or a pure Ought, is not based on arguments from the theory of science against the possibility of a pure theoria-or poiesis-knowledge of praxis. The basis premise is that the Good is already in the world, that there is no need to introduce it from some abstract ideal sphere. The idea that we must realize the Good in the world through action raises no problems for the Neo-Aristotelian, since he distinguishes between action and production. Therefore action can never be understood as the realization in this world of something otherworldly, but only as a realization of real possibilities. For Aristotelianism, this anti-utopian motif outlives the historical Enlightenment-since the historicist understanding of history excludes utopias as "unhistorical" even when they function, within a philosophy of history, as an ideal or telos of history. The modern Neo-Aristotelian replaces what Aristotle conceived in a static manner, as lived ethos, by 'reason in history'. The central task of philosophical ethics is then to interpret reason in its practical reality. The Neo-Aristotelian differs from Hegel in that he foregoes the guarantees offered by a philosophy of history, yet this forces him to place an even greater trust in accumulated practical experience (i.e. tradition) than would the Hegelian, convinced that history has a goal. If history is open, then 'reason in history' is essentially reason in tradition. Traditionalism for the Neo-Aristotelian is almost unavoidable. In Neo-Aristotelianism the critique of utopia corresponds to a rejection of a

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normative foundation of action independent of practical reality. Vis-a.-vis Platonic or Kantian apriori-ism, the Neo-Aristotelian remains an "empiricist." He does not reject all foundational claims, no more than Aristotle foregoes writing an ethics, but "foundation" does not here mean what it usually means in modern philosophy: foundations signify hermeneutically guided arguments suggesting individual agreement on the foundations of any given lived-ethos. Consistent with this is a critique of particulars, not a distancing in general. Hegel calls this a "reconciliation with reality"-which means knowing, among other things, that the "rose at the crossroads of the present" is thorny. The exclusion of a presuppositionless ethics necessarily implies the categorical exclusion of ultimate ethical foundations-a point on which Neo-Aristotelians and Neo-Hegelians agree. If ethics is tied to an ethos, then an ultimate ethical foundation which questions the basis of this ethics is not only ignorant; it is immoral. The Neo-Aristotelian reduction of strong foundational claims in ethics influences the content of those ethics-not only in the sense that the principles of aprioristic models have weaker validity claims. We need but think of Kant to see that hermeneutic ethos-ethics could never ground imperatives which imply a categorical imperative. Ethos-ethics itself would not want this, as this would detach categorical-claims from the sole conditions making them ethically relevant for Neo-Aristotelians: conditions of the lived ethos. At best, ethos-ethics can realize hypothetical imperatives, which are nothing other than situationally specific rules of prudence that Kant would scarcely have called moral. Aristotle's oft-noted amorality has its roots here. Just as he subordinates all of practical philosophy to its usefulness for man, so his doctrine of virtues offer instruction more for a happy life than for a moral existence. Not surprisingly, the Neo-Aristotelian has a deeply rooted mistrust of morality. When Hegel says of true morality that it "is a subjective disposition, but one imbued with what is inherently right", and then calls it "ethical life" [das Sittliche] (Philosophy of Right, Paragraph 141A), he is objecting (by means of this "but") to a moral consciousness become independent of its ethos-background, an instantiation of evil. (There extends an unbroken tradition from Hegel's philippics against the Burschenschaften to the terrorism-hysteria of the 1970s). This suggests how Neo-Aristotelian ethics views the autonomy of the individual. The view differs from Aristotle's own by recognizing autonomy in principle, while reducing it from a principle of morality to a mere moment of Sittlichkeit; Hegel is again the ideal. In ethos-ethics, an unconditional conscience, like the categorical imperative, has no place whatsoever: the Neo-Aristotelian considers it an Unsittliches. Hence he believes that individual autonomy is secure in our "moral world," while excluding from the "moral world" anyone attempting to make serious use of it. For the Neo-Aristotelian turned conservative, autonomy is the same as fundamental opposition. If we recall Kant, whose moral philosophy undertook to deduce a categorical imperative under conditions of individual autonomy, we realize at what high price the hermeneutic reduction of strong validity claims is bought: Kant took for granted that autonomy and the categorical

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imperative belong together, that they cannot be had separately. The neo-Aristotelian ethic of prudence, with its weak foundational provisions and relativization of the principle of autonomy, is ultimately an eminent political ethic. The hermeneutic coupling of ethics to ethos produces not only a habitual bias to the advantage of that which exists; it also produces a systematic mistrust of the individual, who can exemplify but never alone cany an ethos. For this reason, neo-Aristotelians tend to reduce ethics to politics; what indeed is ethos other than political reality in the widest sense of the term? The reality of the ethos is that of the institutions of ethical life [der sittlichen Welt]. Hegel's critique of contract theory and his deification of the state appear again in neo-Aristotelianism in the form of an Institutionalism, which easily gets tied to functionalistic thinking and by which neo-Aristotelians find common ground with our more recent "Hobbists." Admittedly, only after one has left behind the hermeneutic preconception that lived-ethos [das gelebte Ethos] itself is som<:thing value-ridden does a purely functionalistic Institutionalism establish itself. Neo-Aristotelian ethos-ethics leads to a political ethics of institutions which does not deny morality but seeks to reduce it to a subjective, private morality. Since the ethos already realized in politics should take precedence over the moral individual, the tendency of Neo-Aristotelians is understandable-to reduce morality to politics and to warn against moralizing politics. This is not only a question of the extent to which an ethos can be realized, insofar as its realizability follows from the praxis-poiesis distinction. The individual is told that subjectivity has its proper place within the "moral boundaries" of institutions, that he destroys these institutions and thereby himself if he does not remain in them and desist from all claims which would exceed them. In the historically enlightened political-eudemonism of Neo-Aristotelians who interpret the lived-ethos institutionally,the hermeneutic reference becomes a political argument. Taken together, the thesis of a theory-praxis relation, of the difference between action and production, and of the relationships between ethics and ethos, move Neo-Aristotelianism towards what I will call the ideology of phronesis. Phronesis is a specifically Aristotelian stance towards the thought of practical objectivity. It systematically weakens all theory-and validity-claims in favor of lived praxis; it also explains why theory ties itself to this praxis, which then predominates in theory. In order to criticize this ideology, I will introduce a historical and a systematic argument. We must first ask what, in technically and scientifically rationalized world, phronesis might be. The Neo-Aristotelian admits that we no longer live in an essentially static social world of unchanging structures (in terms of which Aristotle conceived phronesis), and he upholds 'reason in history'. But he can hardly demonstrate the adequacy of phronesis to that form of reason which actually determines our history in the modern age. To uphold 'reason in history', he must systematically underestimate the "colonization of the lifeworld" (Habermas) by purposive rationality. The modern dominance of poiesis and homo faber is based not only on forgetting a significant conceptual difference; techne is the true symbol of the age. By conjuring up phronesis,

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the Neo-Aristotelian runs the danger of conjuring up a mere reverse-image of the purposive-rationally constituted world; he runs the danger of strengthening the traditionlism which the neo-conservatives recommend as a remedy for the undesired side effects of technical-scientific modernization. This is not to speak against a return to phronesis, nor is it to speak in favor of a serene belief in techne. It is perhaps old fashioned to recall the concept of reflection: "Only the wounding spear itself can heal the wound it made", as Adorno often said. Today we cannot prove prudence in theory by playing off the idea of phronesis against techne, but only by exceeding the limits of techne by its own means. In systematic terms this means that, in practical philosophy, we should not abandon those validity claims which in Aristotle correspond to episteme and techne, and which in the modern age correspond to a strong concept of rationality. Central here is the claim to universality. For the ethos-ethicist, his point of departure-the practical and sittliche universal-is always a mere concrete-historical action-context, a mere pragmatic universal. In Aristotle, the universal knowledge implied by phronesis is also mere pragmaticuniversal knowledge. If this were not the case, it could then be replaced by theoretical knowledge-which is impossible. The Neo-Aristotelian argues this by denying that the universality of the ethos (which practical philosophy can uncover and examine) is an abstract quantity of principles, and he warns against so interpreting it. In methodological terms, this means that he must accord phronesis a status even lower that what Kant calls 'judgment'. According to Kant, in judgment an indispensible role is played by viewpoints which are not merely pragmatic, but universally valid. Yet principles-and not only pragmatic universals---are what, in a thoroughly rationalized world, can be guaranteed only by individual autonomy. This can be shown with respect to basic rights. The philosophy of phronesis can avoid the danger of being a merely conservative ideology if it reconstructs phronesis itself as practical judgment in Kant's sense. This logically includes progressing from a merely pragmatic-general ethos to a principled-universal of practical reason. The dispute over morality and Sittlichkeit, long fought out between Kantians and Hegelians, can be settled only if all participants agree on a concept of freedom. If, like Kant, one understands freedom as subjective self-determination, then ethos and Sittlichkeit can only be heteronomy; if, like Hegel, one understands freedom as Being-in-and-of-oneself-while-being-withan-Other, then subjective autonomy is a misleading goal. Significantly, the difference between phronesis and judgment is independent of this controversy: in real life one need not conjure up phronesis in order to Be-with-an-Other while Being-in-and-of-onself. A lifeworld institutionalizing universalistic principles which guarantee freedom embodies not only a historical-contingent ethos, but a rational-universalistic one as well. This is something to which the rational individual, someone who insists on his rational goal, can certainly reconcile himself. It is incumbent upon the ethical theorists of discourse here not to surrender the theme of "institutions" to the "institutionalists" and finally to supplement

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their views with an appropriate ethic of institutions. This will only be possible when they begin to talk not only about morality and the ethical life, but also about legality. Legality-taken as a principle or as an ideal-typeconcerns the conditions of freedom in the external relationships of human beings to one another. Precisely this moment of externality, which the traditionalists deplore, we experience subjectively as the precondition for our individual freedom in the modern life-world. Legality is the most important non-Aristotelian element of what we could grasp as our ethos.