Sunday, January 16, 2005

Kantian pragmatism of Habermas

Talking of Kantian pragmatism in the previous post reminds me of a new book on Critical Theory in the Cambridge companion series (The Cambridge Companion to Critical Theory). It seems to be a fine product like the earlier (The Cambridge Companion to Habermas). The present volume contains at least two essays specifically on Habermas ("The transcendental turn: Habermas' "Kantian pragmatism" by Kenneth Baynes and "Critical Theory and Poststructuralism: Habermas and Foucault" by Beatrice Hanssen).

I look forward to reading the book pretty soon, especially Kenneth Baynes essay which looks good and related to what I am doing currently. Just at the start I read this puzzling statement which characterizes Knowledge and Human Interests (1968) as a work "which is perhaps . . . most philosophically distant from Kant" (p. 194). It is amazing how people can so contradictory opinion about the same piece, as lot of people would think Knowledge and Human Interest as Habermas' most Kantian work in which he still clings to the so called quasi transcendentalism.

Although as far as Habermas is already operating with his weak naturalism in Knowledge and Human Interest (Habermas clearly states this in Truth and Justification p. 6) it still can be said that his transcendentalism in Knowledge and Human Interest in already very un Kantian.

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