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Although he meant it as a criticism, Stanley Rosen was quite right when he as-serted: "Every hermeneutical program is at the same time a political manifesto or the corollary of a political manifesto."¹When Gadamer characterized hermeneutics asscientia practica sive politicahe was indeed underscoring its political nature.²Hermeneutics is political to the degree that the general theory of human understanding it embodies privileges practical reason,phronesis, dialogue. In this chapter I wish to argue that the politics which is a "corollary" of the "hermeneutical program" is none other than classical liberalism—although it may be noted that a liberalism which is successful in incorporating basic hermeneutical notions must inevitably be what in the preceding chapter I referred to as a postmodern liberalism. In the first part of this chapter I shall attempt to outline in as succinct a manner as possible the ethical and political implications of basic hermeneutical theory. I shall then, in the second part of the chapter, attempt to extend these reflections to a domain that has largely been ignored by traditional hermeneutical theory: the rationality of economic activity.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-010-0750-4_8

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