Agreement and Difference

Within the perspective of an analysis of the "hermeneutic age of reason", this contribution revisits the opposition between hermeneutical philosophy (Gadamer) and critical hermeneutics (Apel, Habermas), not in order to conciliate them, but in order to highlight their difference in that the former is oriented towards texts while the latter is developed in a communicative situation. This engages the status of critique, which we show finds its true accomplishment in the dialogical oral situation.