Key Arguments

• He insists that Lefort’s 'fundamental indeterminacy' cannot be the final word, because people have reasons for preferring democracy to totalitarianism: 'This "fundamental indeterminacy" cannot be the last word: for men and women have reasons to prefer to totalitarianism a system as uncertain as this one regarding the founda tion of its legitimacy.'
• He identifies these reasons with the very reasons to want to live together and suggests that the social contract fiction helps articulate them: 'These arc the very reasons that are constitutive of wanting to live together, and one of the ways of becoming aware of them is through projecting the fiction of an ahistorical social contract.'
• He characterizes these reasons as mixing universality claims and historical contingencies in what Rawls calls 'overlapping consensus': 'These reasons mix together claims to universality and the historical contingencies in what Rawls terms, in an essay written fifteen years after the Theory of Justice, "overlapping consensus."35'
• He notes that this overlapping consensus intersects several cultural traditions: 'This intersects with several cultural tra ditions: in addition to the project of the Enlightenment, which Habcrmas rightly judges to be "incomplete,"36 it encounters the reinterpreted forms of Jewish, Greek, and Christian traditions that have successfully under gone the critical test of AufklHrung.'
• He asserts there is 'nothing better to offer' against the legitimation crisis than the memory and intersection of such traditions that have made room for tolerance and pluralism out of inner conviction: 'There is nothing better to offer, in reply to the legitimation crisis (which, in my opinion, affects the idea of domination more than that of power, as a people's desire to live and act together), than the memory and the intersection in the public space of the appearance of the traditions that make room for tolerance and pluralism, not out of concessions to external pressures, but out of inner conviction, even if this is late in coming.'
• He proposes that 'good counsel' consists in recalling all these beginnings and sedimented traditions: 'It is by calling to mind all the beginnings and all the rebeginnings, and all the traditions that have been sedimented upon them, that "good counsel" can take up the challenge of the legitimation crisis.'
• He concludes that if such good counsel prevails, Hegelian Sittlichkeit can be recast as public phronesis aligned with democratic debate: 'If, and to the extent that, this "good counsel" docs prevail, Hegelian Sittlichkeit—which itself is also rooted in Sitten, in "mores"—proves to be the equivalent of Aristotle's phronesis: a plural, or rather public, phronesis resembling the debate itself Might'
• By equating Sittlichkeit with 'a plural, or rather public, phronesis', he completes his programmatic 'bending' of Hegel toward Aristotle within the political domain.

Source Quotes

The thinker of democracy begins by confessing a "fundamental indeterminacy as to the basis of power, law, and knowledge, and as to the basis of relations between self and other, at every level of social life."33 According to Lefort, democracy is born out of a revolution at the heart of the most fundamental symbolism from which all the forms of society stem; it is the system that accepts its contradictions to the point of institutionalizing conflict.34 This "fundamental indeterminacy" cannot be the last word: for men and women have reasons to prefer to totalitarianism a system as uncertain as this one regarding the founda tion of its legitimacy. These arc the very reasons that are constitutive of wanting to live together, and one of the ways of becoming aware of them is through projecting the fiction of an ahistorical social contract. These reasons mix together claims to universality and the historical contingencies in what Rawls terms, in an essay written fifteen years after the Theory of Justice, "overlapping consensus."35 This intersects with several cultural tra ditions: in addition to the project of the Enlightenment, which Habcrmas rightly judges to be "incomplete,"36 it encounters the reinterpreted forms of Jewish, Greek, and Christian traditions that have successfully under gone the critical test of AufklHrung.

These arc the very reasons that are constitutive of wanting to live together, and one of the ways of becoming aware of them is through projecting the fiction of an ahistorical social contract. These reasons mix together claims to universality and the historical contingencies in what Rawls terms, in an essay written fifteen years after the Theory of Justice, "overlapping consensus."35 This intersects with several cultural tra ditions: in addition to the project of the Enlightenment, which Habcrmas rightly judges to be "incomplete,"36 it encounters the reinterpreted forms of Jewish, Greek, and Christian traditions that have successfully under gone the critical test of AufklHrung. There is nothing better to offer, in reply to the legitimation crisis (which, in my opinion, affects the idea of domination more than that of power, as a people's desire to live and act together), than the memory and the intersection in the public space of the appearance of the traditions that make room for tolerance and pluralism, not out of concessions to external pressures, but out of inner conviction, even if this is late in coming.

These reasons mix together claims to universality and the historical contingencies in what Rawls terms, in an essay written fifteen years after the Theory of Justice, "overlapping consensus."35 This intersects with several cultural tra ditions: in addition to the project of the Enlightenment, which Habcrmas rightly judges to be "incomplete,"36 it encounters the reinterpreted forms of Jewish, Greek, and Christian traditions that have successfully under gone the critical test of AufklHrung. There is nothing better to offer, in reply to the legitimation crisis (which, in my opinion, affects the idea of domination more than that of power, as a people's desire to live and act together), than the memory and the intersection in the public space of the appearance of the traditions that make room for tolerance and pluralism, not out of concessions to external pressures, but out of inner conviction, even if this is late in coming. It is by calling to mind all the beginnings and all the rebeginnings, and all the traditions that have been sedimented upon them, that "good counsel" can take up the challenge of the legitimation crisis.

There is nothing better to offer, in reply to the legitimation crisis (which, in my opinion, affects the idea of domination more than that of power, as a people's desire to live and act together), than the memory and the intersection in the public space of the appearance of the traditions that make room for tolerance and pluralism, not out of concessions to external pressures, but out of inner conviction, even if this is late in coming. It is by calling to mind all the beginnings and all the rebeginnings, and all the traditions that have been sedimented upon them, that "good counsel" can take up the challenge of the legitimation crisis. If, and to the extent that, this "good counsel" docs prevail, Hegelian Sittlichkeit—which itself is also rooted in Sitten, in "mores"—proves to be the equivalent of Aristotle's phronesis: a plural, or rather public, phronesis resembling the debate itself Might

It is by calling to mind all the beginnings and all the rebeginnings, and all the traditions that have been sedimented upon them, that "good counsel" can take up the challenge of the legitimation crisis. If, and to the extent that, this "good counsel" docs prevail, Hegelian Sittlichkeit—which itself is also rooted in Sitten, in "mores"—proves to be the equivalent of Aristotle's phronesis: a plural, or rather public, phronesis resembling the debate itself Might

Key Concepts

• These arc the very reasons that are constitutive of wanting to live together, and one of the ways of becoming aware of them is through projecting the fiction of an ahistorical social contract.
• These reasons mix together claims to universality and the historical contingencies in what Rawls terms, in an essay written fifteen years after the Theory of Justice, "overlapping consensus."35
• it encounters the reinterpreted forms of Jewish, Greek, and Christian traditions that have successfully under gone the critical test of AufklHrung.
• There is nothing better to offer, in reply to the legitimation crisis (which, in my opinion, affects the idea of domination more than that of power, as a people's desire to live and act together), than the memory and the intersection in the public space of the appearance of the traditions that make room for tolerance and pluralism, not out of concessions to external pressures, but out of inner conviction, even if this is late in coming.
• It is by calling to mind all the beginnings and all the rebeginnings, and all the traditions that have been sedimented upon them, that "good counsel" can take up the challenge of the legitimation crisis.
• Hegelian Sittlichkeit—which itself is also rooted in Sitten, in "mores"—proves to be the equivalent of Aristotle's phronesis: a plural, or rather public, phronesis resembling the debate itself

Context

Closing movement of this passage, where Ricoeur proposes a hermeneutic‑historical answer to the legitimation crisis by way of overlapping consensus and reinterpreted traditions, and finally identifies Sittlichkeit with a public form of phronesis rather than a supra‑moral spiritual agency.