Conceptual confusions

"Blumenberg introduced a useful distinction between the transposition of ideas from a religious to a secular context, the ‘reoccupation’ of religious positions by functionally equivalent secular thought, and a merely ‘linguistic secularisation’, where people go on using religious-sounding rhetoric simply because another, more appropriate vocabulary has yet to evolve."

Malcolm Bull in the recent issue of LRB reviewing John Gray's recent book.

I think the above distinctions should be very important in understanding the whole debate about Religion and Philosophy in Habermas and generally. Malcolm Bull's devastating critique of John Gray is worth reading in full.

Methodological distinctions and ontological presuppositions

Habermas claims that the methodological distinction between external and internal perspectives is ontologically neutral. A question arises however: in what sense is the methodological distinction to be considered ontologically neutral? The distinction is not ontologically neutral in that it does not have any ontological implications. The distinction is only ontologically neutral in the sense that it is compatible with more than one ontological position. Thus both idealism and naturalism are in principle compatible with the methodological dualism presupposed by a transcendentalist approach. Deriving an ontological position from a methodological distinction involves committing two types of fallacies, viz. an idealistic fallacy and a naturalistic fallacy:

“Only the idealistic fallacy of inferring an ontological difference between mind and body (or Being and beings) from a methodological distinction misleads us into locating the transcendental conditions of objective experience in a transmundane realm of intelligible – or of the history of Being. Conversely the naturalistic fallacy is but the other side of the same coin; it simply assimilates transcendental conditions to empirical conditions, without considering aporias of self-referentiality, and projects them onto a scientifically objectified realm.”

In order to provide ontological support to the above mentioned methodical distinction one needs to take an additional step. Habermas’ weak naturalist hypothesis is meant to provide this additional step. Thus ‘weak’ naturalism is an ontological position that can maintain the methodological distinction between internal and external perspectives without committing either to idealism (which according to Habermas has been discredited) or strong naturalism which Habermas wants to avoid.

Also read Epistemic dualism vs. Ontological monism

Interpreting Habermas

Pitior writes:

why does views on habermas have to be presented correctly?

Habermas synthesized a viewpoint, it only stands to reason that it will evolve as we learn more.

My response:

I agree with your point. As I said in response to Carl Sachs that Habermas' synthesis "interests me because it has philosophical repercussions which are quite general."

The final lines of introduction to my dissertation on Habermas read as follows:

"The second qualification is about the method of this study. The study is primarily an interpretation and reconstruction of Habermas’ notion of transcendence from within and is not primarily its evaluation or critique. It is true that every interpretation involves evaluation and to that extent I do not pretend that I do not make any value judgements by reading Habermas the way I read him. However, I do claim that the study is not an evaluation of Habermas’ notion of transcendence from within in any explicit and sustained manner. Furthermore, an interpretation of Habermas’ notion of transcendence from within also involves a great amount of reconstruction as Habermas does not discuss the notion explicitly in his work in any systematic way. Thus the boundary is often blurred between what Habermas says and what I claim him to be saying at the implicit level. The problem of true attributation arises here and I am not sure how to resolve it. However, fortunately we do not have to worry about it here since our purpose is to discuss Habermas’ notion of transcendence from within and not whether everything attributed to him in this study is attributable to him or not. After all, Habermas himself has taught us to differentiate between ‘representation’ and ‘thought’ and that thought is not the property of individual or collective consciousness. The study then is about the thought of Habermas and is not a ‘representation’ of what is going on in his mind."

Thus, it's quite clear that I am not much bothered about what is in Habermas' "head" so to speak. However, I do hope that within these qualifications, I still do understand Habermas' position in general and don't make basic mistakes in describing his position. Most of all I do hope that at least I know what Habermas means by the "internal perspective"!!

Habermas, Kant and Darwin

“Weak naturalism neither incorporates nor subordinates the “internal perspective” of the lifeworld to the “external perspective” of the objective world. Rather, it keeps these theoretical perspectives separate, connecting them at the metatheoretical level by assuming a continuity between nature and culture.” (TJ: 28)

The unbridgeable gap between the “internal perspective” and the “external perspective” corresponds to the distinction between reason and nature. On the methodological level, Habermas maintains this dualism (more appropriately, this sharp distinction) as his homage to the Kantian insight about the irreducibility of “reason” and “nature,” reason and the space of law. However on the metatheoretical level, Habermas postulates an ontological continuity between nature and reason, hence implying that the methodological distinction has emerged historically from the evolution of learning processes which trace their origin back to/in nature. This is Habermas’ homage to Darwin.

Note: This post should be read in the context of the previous posts (here and here)

Darwin, Kant and idealism in Habermas

Carl Sachs in his comments to my previous post writes:

As a final thought: I don't see why Darwin is necessary here. That is, I don't see why bringing Darwin(ism) into the picture allows one to get out of idealism. Surely one could be both a Darwinian and a transcendental idealist -- one would simply say that Darwinism is merely empirically real, and the truth (or falsity) of transcendental idealism is untouched.

Carl’s comments above seem to me to be based on a misunderstanding of Habermas’ position (which is most probably due to my own poor formulation of Habermas’ position). Anyway Carl’s comments provide me an opportunity to try to understand Habermas’ position in a better way.

To start with, Habermas is not aiming to overcome idealism. For Habermas, idealism has been decisively refuted. It has become untenable. It has lost its persuasive force etc. Similarly, Habermas is not aiming to prove Darwinism or naturalism in general. He takes the belief in naturalism to be the cumulative effects of learning process of the last two hundred years (not only in philosophy but in sciences but also at the level of culture in general).

So what’s Habermas aiming at? I think, Habermas' aim is to reconcile ‘transcendentalism” and Darwinism. Transcendentalism is a position that involves many things but particularly a commitment to the notion of embedded rationality and the view that every understanding must spring from within our own lifeworld even if it will eventually have resources also to go beyond it. Habermas treats this sort of ‘transcendentalism’ as an irrefutable fact which he thinks we have (or should have) learnt form Kant, Hegel, Heidegger and others. Such a transcendentalism has its own problems. One of them is that it leads to (or may lead to) an anthropocentric version of rationality, which Habermas wants to avoid. Such a transcendentalism also conflicts with Habermhas’ equally strong commitment to naturalism which requires giving ontological priority to “nature” (considered broadly). Hence the whole business of reconciling Kant and Darwin. Kant here is a stand-in for the sort of transcendentalism explained above while Darwin is a stand-in for ‘naturalism.’

Now I don’t claim that such a project or vision is without its problems. However, as far as I understand him, this is the view espoused by Habermas and it interests me because it has philosophical repercussions which are quite general.

Habermas and Post-Metaphysical approach.

The fundamental insight of a postmetaphysical approach is that we start from “within.” There is no way to circumvent our own way of life or form of life. We start from within our own position or situation. We are always already within our language and our own life form so there is no way to understand nature or reality from “without.” We can only understand them from within. The postmetaphysical approach starts with rejecting objectivism of the kind which purports to grasp objects from “nowhere” or “without.” In this sense “objectivism” is equal to metaphysics. This postmetaphysical stance is not just a methodological position but a certain conception of our situation in the world which is essentially based on a certain reading of the history of Western Philosophy. This postmetaphysical approach essentially rests on Kant’s transcendentalism which differentiates between “transcendental” and “empirical” and proclaims that the conditions of the possibility of experience cannot be given in experience. The upshot of such a transcendental approach is the rejection of the kind of metaphysical objectivism referred to above. Thus, Habermas’ commitment to a postmetaphysical approach implies his commitment to an essentially Kantian transcendentalism. However, Habermas takes his commitment to transcendentalism in a methodological sense since he wants to avoid Kantian idealism while adopting the postmetaphysical stance flowing from it. In this sense Habermas starts from the vantage point of Kantian transcendentalism sans his idealism in order to reconcile Kant and Darwin.

Habermas and Coffee

“The German philosopher Jurgen Habermas has argued that coffee shops were both an important site and a constitutent element of what he calls the emergence of the “public sphere.” [20] Habermas claimed that the eighteenth century saw the beginning of a public discourse about politics, society, and the proper role of both citizens and government, all topics which had been the more-or-less exclusive domain of elites in the past. Just as it had provided a social setting for discussion in the Islamic World, coffee shops in Europe were some of the most fertile locales for the discussion of new political and social ideas.

Habermas:

Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit: Untersuchungen zu einer Kategorie der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft, Neuwied: Hermann Luchterhand, 1962.

Habermas: “Transformation of the Public Sphere” 1962
from here

Habermas, America and Iraq

[rough notes]

1) Habermas believes that there is universal core to the Western civilisation. This universal core is not based in the particular experiences the Western societies went through but in the linguistic character of our being in the world.

2) As beings bound by the use of language we are all equally heirs to the potential inherent in the language use. This potential is described by Habermas in terms of his theory of communicative action.

3)Thus, language use according to Habermas is the primary mode of action coordination and socialisation. Since we are all linguistic beings, history of different human societies must reflect this shared potential of language use and must be able to realise this potential to a certain extent.

4)[Communicative action is the basic type of social interaction in which actors coordinate their respective action plans according to commonly supposed world interpretations and mutual expectations. In acting communicatively, individuals more or less naively accept as valid the various claims raised with their utterance or actions and mutually suppose that each of them is prepared to provide reasons for the claims should their validity be questioned. In a slightly more specific (and controversial) sense, and one more closely tied to modern structures of rationality Habermas also claims that individuals who act communicatively self reflectively aim at reaching a shared understanding (or Verstaendingung) about something in the world by relating their interpretations to various idealizing, yet unavoidable, supposition of discourse, including claims to validity. Given the close connection between validity, reason and action, communicative action must initially be approached interpretatively, that is, from the internal perspective of the participants or virtual participants who are able to give and assess reasons.]

5) Habermas has a quasi Marxist account of why different human societies have failed to realise this potential. A revised version of false consciousness in details of which I do not want to go here. [Marx established in what sense the category of labour is a universal concept applicable to all societies. He shows that only to the extent that the capitalist mode of production has become established are the objective conditions fulfilled that allow him, Marx, access to an understanding of the universal character of this category ‘labour’. With regard to . . . a theory of communication, one must use the same method to clarify how the development of late capitalism has objectively fulfilled conditions that allow us to recognize universals in the structures of linguistic communication, providing criteria for a critique which can no longer be based on the philosophy of history (Habermas, 1986: 99).]

6) According to Habermas democratic procedures and human rights represent this universal potential of our linguistic being and is the shared heritage of all human societies.

7) Thus, Habermas clearly demarcates the universal core of the Western civilisation, which is based on our linguistic being in the world and hence is truly universal, from the particular historical experience through which the Western societies have institutionalised these universal insights.

8) Habermas urges the West to “export” the first but he thinks the West should not try to impose its own historically specific experiences through which it has institutionalised those universal insights, and the particular forms that this institutionalisation has taken.

9) This is the basis of Habermas’ objection to American strategy in Iraq. America according to Habermas, is trying to impose its own historically specific institutions on Iraqis and others. That must be avoided.

10) The fall of Saddam Hussein's monument is a sign that Iraqis too yearn for freedom, democracy and human rights. On the other hand the fierce resistance to Americans in Iraq is resistance to what Habermas calls liberal nationalism, which tries to impose the particularity on the other. Thus, the resistance is not directed against the universal as such. It is directed against a particularity which is at most only one representative of the universal.

11) Thus, the falling of the monument represents the urge for freedom, for the universality that is the core of Western civilisation while the resistance to the invading army and occupation represent loath against the imposition of a particularistic interpretation of the universal. The resistance is a protest against unequal treatment, against the egocentric perception of America.

12) What Habermas wants America to do is to go through decentration, to recognise the other, and the right of the other to try to realise the universal according to his or her own specific experience. Thus Habermas please for egalitarian universalism.

13) The particular policy implication of this plea is Habermas’ rejection of the American unilateralism, since it represents American liberal nationalism and not egalitarian universalism. Habermas counterposes to this the policy of upholding of the international law and making the UN the basis of all policy initiatives.

14) Habermas does not seriously consider for a second the inherently unequal character of the UN itself (although he does mention it in passing). And for good reasons of its own. For the primacy of international law and the UN is actually a plea for the unity of the Western forces and her allies. This becomes clear when we consider Habermas’ support of an equally unauthorised invasion of Kosovo. Habermas enumerates three points that differentiate the present case (that of Iraq) from the Kosovo invasion. However, the third and the last point is crucial: “undisputed democratic and rule of law character of all members of the acting military coalition. Today normative dissent has divided the West itself”. The collective action of the West in itself is a sort of guarantee against particularism.

15) This should not surprise us since Habermas does not consider for a moment the possibility that the people of Iraq or any other part of the world may genuinely resist not only the particularities mentioned above but the universal itself. This is strange considering Habermas own reference to the possibility of what he calls “less friendly use of democracy”. John Gray a leading European critic of neo liberal policy argues that the outcome of the imposition of democracy in the Middle East would not be a liberal order but a theocratic rule.

16) I totally disagree with Habermas diagnosis. Firstly, among the Western countries, America is least susceptible to the temptations to impose its own particular values on others. Compare with France for example.

17)Secondly and most importantly he indugles in strange misinterpretation of events by imputing policy changes to individuals [Pauls Wolfwits is dubbed as a revolutionary!] and to neo conservatism [ignoring the Clintonian basis of current policy as recently argued by Philip Bobbit in his Shield of Achilles].

18) However, the most glaring omission of Habermas analysis is the relation of democracy to the capitalist imperatives. This is strange for a thinker who has been sufficiently sensitive to the necessity of addressing the system imperatives through out his career.

19)The role of America in today’s system is not due to any unilateralism but because of its role as the sole defender of the capitalist order and the changed nature of capital accumulation. Today interventions are needed not to export values or any other reasons but to keep the lines of supplies safe for the global capitalist order. And this is not just the interest of America, it is the interest of the whole capitalist world. The people who have claimed oil to be the sole cause of invasion are as wrong as Habermas. Habermas ignores the system imperatives; the others ignore the the distinction between the particularites of the accumulation and its generalities.

20) Europe knows that it is totally dependent on America for the growth of its economy. However, at the same time America is totally dependent on foreign investment to sustain its growth and finance its debt. America today needs constant intervention throughout the world to sustain this life line.

21) Habermas and others have a point but that must be understood on a totally different level. The problem is not that America is trying to impose its own values. The problem is that the sole defender of the capitalist order is a nation state. Thus it cannot fulfil its obligation consistently. When Habermas and others argue for a new role for the UN they are actually calling for a truly universal state (with the reservations which are beyond the scope of this presentation, see TDW for detail).

Habermas and Philosophy of education

"Although Jurgen Habermas is not typically viewed as an educational philosopher, his ideas have been recognized as having significance for adult and postsecondary education. Stephen Brookfield (2005) offers a particularly enlightening reading of Habermas. My philosophy of education is grounded in this particular understanding of Habermas, which I'll describe below."

full here

Jürgen Habermas Interview

The Kantian Project of Cosmopolitan Law-Jürgen Habermas

Dialogical Rationality

Dialogical Rationality (A working outline).

1) Define dialogical rationality or dialogical mode of understanding.

2) The purpose of dialogue:
2.1 Understanding the “Other.”
2.2 Testing our arguments (reasons). [Habermas]
2.3 Expanding our horizon (Gadamer).

3. Can we understand the “other” through dialogue?

4. What do we mean by understanding the other?

4.1 Understanding alien mode of thoughts?

4.2 Understanding the other in her otherness?

4.3 Understanding those parts of the ‘Thought” of the other that make her the other.

5. To understand the other is to take her seriously, i.e. to be ready to transform oneself if required.

6. Why is ‘dialogue’ unable to open up the other in her otherness (disclosure)?

6.1 Dialogue versus silence.

7. Why dialogue is ineffective in reaching understanding with the other?

7.1 Understanding work on the basis of background consensus. Even misunderstanding (as Gadamer emphasises) arises only in the background of deep understanding.

7.1 When the background consensus is thin or lacking, we are not really likely to talk to each other, we rather talk across each other.

7.2 When we talk to ‘other’ in view of her otherness, there is not enough background consensuses to form the basis of any meaningful understanding of her.

7.3 The issue can be understood by understanding the way the embedded rationality works.

7.4 “Silence” – the domain of other is located in the space of silence, and why?

8 A counterexample: Habermas’ argument and why is it a weak argument in this context.

The limits of dialogical rationality

Abstract:

Dialogical rationality or dialogical modes of understanding are normally considered to be the preferred modes of understanding the “other,” be that other a culture or another mode of thinking. However, I will argue that the dialogical model of understanding is most efficient in the cases where we have considerable amount of background consensus, i.e., where we are not dealing with the other what’s “our” own. I will argue that the dialogical model is least efficient when it comes to understanding the other. I shall bring home this point by concentrating on the works of Habermas and Foucault (with occasional references to Gadamer). I shall not be arguing that dialogical mode of understanding is totally irrelevant for understanding the other. However, what I will argue is that it give little or no access when it comes to the crunch issues (the issues that with the “otherness” of the other.)

Critique: Internal or external?

Abstract:
The concept of “critique” is one of the defining concepts of the post Kantian Philosophy. Today, however, we need to problematise the concept of “critique” by pointing towards the fact that most critical theorists seem to deny the possibility of (or efficacy) of external critique and insist that a critique of Modernity (for example) must be internal. I argue that giving up on the concept of external critique is to give up the concept of critique itself. In order to argue my position I shall first develop the much needed typology of the concept of critique differentiating different meanings of the term critique and paying particular attention to developing a clear cut distinction between immanent critique and internal critique.

The Philosophical foundations of Habermas’ critique of American foreign policy

Abstract:

Many critics have noted the sharp tone of Habermas’ critique of the Bush administration’s policies and actions in the wake of September 11 and the invasion of Iraq. Few have, however, noticed how far Habermas’ critique is anchored in his specific philosophical and theoretical outlook. The occasional and journalistic character of Habermas’ political interventions is likely to hide this theoretical basis of his critique. In this paper I shall argue that Habermas’ critique of the Bush administrations’ foreign policy emanates from and is founded upon his conception of Modernity specifically his views about the relationship between “particularity” and “generality.” The purpose of this essay is to make explicit how Habermas’ critique can be read as a critique of “particularism,” which Habermas sees operating behind American (and British) foreign policy, which in his view compromises the key achievements of Modernity (specially in its Kantian version).

German team beaten!

Though significantly Habermas was missing!

A political constitution for the pluralist world society?

Jürgen Habermas

"The chances of the project of a “cosmopolitan order” being successful are not worse now than they were in 1945 or in 1989-90. This does not mean that the chances are good; but we should not lose sight of the scale of things. The Kantian project first became part of the political agenda with the League of Nations, in other words after more than 200 years; and the idea of a cosmopolitan order first received a lasting embodiment with the foundation of the United Nations. Since the early 1990s, the UN has gained in political significance, and has emerged as a not inconsiderable
factor in world political conflicts. Even the superpower saw itself compelled to enter into confrontation with the world organization when the latter refused to provide legitimacy for a unilateral intervention. The United Nations survived the
subsequent attempt to marginalize it and is now about to manage the urgently needed reform of its main body and limbs."

Full text here

H/T Habermas Forum

Europa: Vision und Votum

Von Jürgen Habermas

"Als vor 50 Jahren die Gründung der Europäischen Wirtschaftsgemeinschaft feierlich beschlossen wurde, stand die innenpolitische Frage der atomaren Ausrüstung der Bundeswehr weit mehr im Zentrum nicht nur meiner Aufmerksamkeit. Wie viele andere habe auch ich damals nicht begriffen, dass diese Zollunion bereits mit verfassungsähnlichen Institutionen ausgestattet wurde und damit die Perspektive auf eine Europäische Gemeinschaft, also eine politische Vereinigung der Länder Westeuropas, eröffnete."

Full text here

Related texts: Depicting Europe by Perry Anderson

"These transports may seem peculiarly Anglo-Saxon, but there is no shortage of more prosaic equivalents on the Continent. For Germany’s leading philosopher, Jürgen Habermas, Europe has found ‘exemplary solutions’ for two great issues of the age: ‘governance beyond the nation-state’ and systems of welfare that ‘serve as a model’ to the world. So why not triumph in a third? ‘If Europe has solved two problems of this magnitude, shouldn’t it issue a further challenge: to defend and promote a cosmopolitan order on the basis of international law’ – or, as his compatriot the sociologist Ulrich Beck puts it, ‘Europeanisation means creating a new politics. It means entering as a player into the meta-power game, into the struggle to form the rules of a new global order. The catchphrase for the future might be: Move over America – Europe is back!’ In France, Marcel Gauchet, theorist of democracy and an editor of Le Débat, the country’s central journal of ideas, explains, more demurely, that ‘we may be allowed to think that the formula the Europeans have pioneered is destined eventually to serve as a model for the nations of the world. That lies in its genetic programme.’"

Full text here

Spontaneity of experience

"My concern here is with the way Hegel’s conception of experience and logic attempts to overcome Kant’s antithetical formulation of the concept-intuition distinction which separates thought from any possible content. The Phenomenology tries to overcome this dualism by establishing the conceptual character of experience. Indeed the very notion of experience is stripped of its passivity and is imbued with spontaneity." (Satisfying the Demands of Reason: Hegel’s Conceptualization of Experience, by Simon Lumsden Topoi 22: 41–53, 2003, herep. 42).

=
This resembles Habermas’ stress on the surprising character of experience. But the difference is that for Habermas ‘conceptual’ interpretation of experience robes it of its surprising character, see Habermas’ critique of Brandom and McDowell on this. The reason for this seems to be the fact that for Habermas the origin of spontaneity doesn’t lie in concepts. Spontaneity belongs to understanding only by virtue of Reason and he castigates both Hegel and Heidegger for blurring the Kantian distinction between Reason and understanding.

Kant’s conditions of cognitions are not under the constraints of the world precisely because they are the conditions of the possibility of our cognition. Habermas accepts Kantian position but rejects the idea that conditions of the possibility are beyond the reach of the world. Habermas here makes a crucial and subtle move. According to Habermas Kant’s argument is only valid so far as our relation with “objects” is that of cognition. However, that doesn’t imply that “objects” as far as they are not the “objects” of our cognition and are not conceptualised by us, can’t “affect” our conceptual apparatus. The surprising character of experience is tamed only to the extent that we “domesticate” it through conceptualising it and only as long as we keep doing that. However, the domestication of experience is never exhaustive and can never be exhaustive given our finitude (Habermas’ referral to Putnam’s rejection of “God’s eye view” is relevant here).

It should be noted that the word “experience” is ambiguous. By experience we can either mean the states a subject goes through when he or she encounters the world or the content of any such experience. The former is an example of passivity while the later that of spontaneity. What is passive, here, is really the subject and not the "experience" which is overwhelming for the subject. It’s only when the subject routes some of what he is faced with through his mental categories that he is able to "pacify" the experience.

The Third Annual SEP-FEP Joint Conference: A short report

I just got back from the U.K. I was there to attend the thrid annual SEP-FEP conference. The conference was held from 8-11 September. The conference was jointly organized by the Society for European Philosophy U.K and the Forum for European Philosophy based at LSE. The conference was held at Bramber House Conference Centre at the University of Sussex. The University of Sussex is located at Falmer, on the outskirts of Brighton, England. The conference went very well. There were excellent papers as well as food and other conference facilies were quite good.

The conference was focused on contemporary European Philosophy. The specific themes of the conference for this year included: Politics and Critique, Phenomenology, Aesthetics, German Idealism, and Ethics. The conference was comprised of four plenary sessions, 9 themed panels, and over 20 open parallel sessions, not all of which were themed. The total numbers of papers presented were 92. The four keynote speakers were: Frederick Neuhouser, Barnard College, University of Columbia; Cristina Lafont, Northwestern University; Alexander Garcia Düttmann, Goldsmiths; and Rüdiger Bittner, University of Bielefeld. Neuhouser presented his paper on “The Critical Function of Genealogy in Rousseau's Second Discourse,” Lafont on “Religion and Democratic Deliberation in the Public Sphere,” Düttmann on “A Matter of Life and Death: Spinoza or Derrida?,” and Bittner on “A horse in the basement. Nietzschean Reflections on Political Theory.” Other speakers of note included Gordon Finlayson (organized a themed panel on “Normativity and Critical Theory”), David Owen presented a paper on the theme of Critique and Genealogy, and Herman Siemens presented on Nietzsche.

My paper also went well (presentation here). The conference was also unique in the sense that at least 11 papers were presented on Habermas. Normally I feel that Habermas is equally ignored in conferences on European and Analytic philosophy. People doing European philosophy don’t consider him enough “continental” and people doing analytic philosophy don’t consider him enough of analytic. One of the reason for this change in focus might be that one of the conference organisers was himself a prominent Habermasian.

The conference was interesting and fruitful. It was attended by some top scholars in contemporary European Philosophy from the U.K, Europe, the U.S, Australia and from the rest of the world. The conference also provided an opportunity to understand the current emphases of research within the wider field of contemporary European Philosophy.

Back from the conference I stayed one night in London and had dinner with one of my friends from London at one of the Pakistani Restaurants in South Hall, London (a predominantly south Asian area of London). The dinner was excellent. One thing which strikes you in England (especially in cities) is the prominence of South Asians.

I went back to England after eight years. Nothing has changed much (at least that was my first impression) except that congestion at Heathrow airport has increased beyond description. The plane reached Heathrow 15 minutes before the curfew time ends so we had to hover over London for 15 minutes, then after landing we had to wait for almost an hour to find the slot for disembarkment. Once in the immigration area I had to wait an hour in queue to get to the immigration officer for visa (the actual visa process took less than a minute!).

Bridging the gap . . .

In the Kantian tradition, Reason is autonomous. It doesn’t succumb to any external authority (physical or social). But causes are external to reasons. So how can we reconcile this with undeniable connection between reasons and the world? If reason succumbs to the causal order, reason has succumbed to something that is not of its own making (that is external to it). However, if no rational connection between the claims of reasons and the causal order is established we end up not only with a threatening gap between reason and the world but also with a sort of idealism because in this case reason is no longer answerable to the world. I think something like the above is at the heart of Habermas' and McDowell’s project of bridging the gap between reasons and the world. If we can come up with a plausible link between the world and reasons that is non causal than we can reconcile reason and the world.

Dualism of "reasons" and "causes"

1. The discussion on the relation between Kant and Habermas is generally focused on their practical (moral and political) philosophy.

1.1.1 Within theoretical philosophy the focus has been on global themes such as Habermas’ alleged (often claimed to be residual) transcendentalism.

1.1.2 It’s important that we explore the relation between the two thinkers on the level of theoretical philosophy but the focus should be on specific themes.

1.1.3 In this paper I explore a specific issue, viz Habermas’ and Kant’s combined claim that “causes” are distinct from and irreducible to “reasons” or vice versa. In the contemporary idiom what both Habermas and Kant are claiming is that the “space of reasons” is irreducible to (and incompatible to) the “space of law.”

1.1.4 However, I should emphasize here that Habermas incompatiblism is of a peculiar type. The incompatiblism we are talking about here is only valid from within lifeworld. Habermas aims to eventually reconcile the space of reasons and the space of law by locating them in the context of natural history. This is the aim of Habermas’ weak naturalism.

2. Habermas then is committed to the thesis that the two spaces (mentioned above) are incompatible. However, he wants to avoid what he considers to be the otherworldiness of Kant’s position. According to Habermas in order to defend the incompatability of “reasons” and “causes” Kant had to posit “a transmundane realm of intelligible” (a world beyond and unaffected by senses).

2.1 Of course there are other well known differences between Kant and Habermas, for example, Habermas’ rejection of Kant’s subjectivism (Habermas relocates rationality in the public space of objective mind), however I shall (assume but) not discuss this pivotal difference in this essay.

3. Habermas defends the distinction between causes and reasons in several contexts: Specifically:

3.1 In his discussion of Austin’s notion of the “force” of illocutionary speech acts and his distinction between ‘meaning’ and ‘force’ of speech acts.

3.2 In his discussion of the pivotal distinction between communicative action and strategic action. The point of the distinction is to establish that the effects produced within strategic actions are causal while they are non causal in the case of communicative action.

3.3 Habermas claims that “For reasons to be sound and for them to be merely considered sound are not the same things, whether we are dealing with reasons for asserting facts, for recommending norms and values, or for expressing desires and feelings. That is why the interpreter cannot simply look at and understand such reasons without at least implicitly passing judgment on them as reasons.” (MCCA: 30).

4. Habermas doesn’t only claim that “causes” and “reasons” are irreducible to each other. He also claims that:

4.1 Reasons have their own unique causality.
4.2 This causality is effective in actuality (this is Habermas’ sociological thesis).

5. Natural causes are deterministic.

5.1 Habermas works with an “interventionist conception of cause.” Habermas refers to Kant, Pierce and von Wright. The concept in fact goes back to Galileo. The interventionist conception of cause can be described thus: “Generally: If we wish to explore whether A is a cause of B, we will need to establish whether deliberate and purposive variations in A result in changes in B. If changes in A produce changes in B, the causal relation is established.” (http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00002580/01/Galileo's_Interventionist_Notion_of_Cause_JHI.doc).

5.2 Habermas claims that “law like generalities, allowing for counterfactual conditional statements, are conceptually dependent on the idea of instrumental action.”

5.3 A is a cause of B, entails that B can be objectified under the aspect of potential technical control.

5.4 A is a cause of B, refers to an underlying law like regularities and the relation between A and B can be expressed in a counterfactual statement: if A hadn’t occurred, B wouldn’t have occurred.” (Cf. Lewis, Causation).

5.5 A is a cause of B is conceptually linked to the idea of instrumental action. A is a cause of B means B can be objectively intervened in (through grasping the causal connection) and hence brought under control.

5.6 Causal explanations exclude any reference to causally effective propositional attitudes. Causal explanations don’t refer to the position a person might take within the space of reasons.

6. The causality we attribute to reasons is different from the causality explained in 5.

6.1 Proof: Indeterminacy of rational argumentation – there are no knock down arguments.

7. Submitting to reasons: is submitting to rules that are not up to the agent.

7.1 However, they don’t compel in the way natural causality does. The former is enabling in the sense that it makes possible for us to be free, i.e. to say ‘no,’ to the reasons, while the latter is disabling in the sense that it’s totally deterministic.

[[“The mediation by reasons is the only form of determination that is compatible with free will.”]].

7.2 Here Habermas’ distinction between subjective mind and objective mind is relevant.

7.3 Distinction between Relative and Absolute spontaneity: According to Allison, “spontaneity” is relative when subjects are spontaneous relative to the input of senses but are not outside the bound of causality. Absolute spontaneity on the other hand implies that subjects are not only free in relation to the input of senses but are outside the nexus of causality altogether.

8. A space of reasons is created with communicative action.

8.1 The space of reasons is culturally circumscribed – communicative action takes place within the context of lifeworld.

8.2 With the space of reasons only the force of good reasons prevail. Actors within the space of reasons have the ability to move without any resistance (ability to put any position into question.

8.3 “Force” depends on the resonance reasons create within the subjective mind.

8.4 The space of reasons provides the milieu in which yes/no positions are taken vis a vis validity claims.

8.5 Validity claims are ciriticisable. Reasons are in a semantic relation with other reasons. Amenable to critique from other reasons.

8.6 The position we take regarding them is not brought about causally.

9. The space of reasons presupposes a conception of personhood (different from subjectivity).

9.1 Based on the distinction between “doing” and “occurrence.”

9.2 “Doing” – Action - based on reasons – conflict between reasons – Right or wrong reasons and there is always a possibility of contradiction.

9.3 “Occurrence” – spatiotemporally determined events – explained monologically, i.e. deterministically (events don’t contradict each other).

10. The space of reasons is created within communicative action – How is it created?

10.1 It’s one of the conditions of the possibility of communicative action that participants suspend the objectivistic attitude and opt for the performative attitude, i.e they treat each other as persons and not as objects.

10.2 Since causality is conceptually dependent on the possibility of objectification with the suspension of the objectivistic attitude, natural causality is also suspended.

11. Strategic versus communicative action:

11.1 Speech acts are used in both communicative action and strategic action with the difference that only in the former they are used non instrumentally or unreservedly.

11.2 In communicative action “the illocutionary forces of speech acts assume an action coordinating role” while in strategic action the illocutionary force of speech acts is not the primary medium of action coordination. Speech acts are subordinated to the intentions and plans of actors and are used only instrumentally or strategically.

11.3 In communicative action, as against strategic actions, intentions of actors are taken over by language itself.

11.4 In strategic action, speech acts are employed but in a manner that contravenes the basic structure of communicative action. The crucial point that distinguishes between communicative and strategic actions (which are both linguistically mediated interactions) is the fact that in communicative as against strategic actions, speech acts are used without reservation.

11.5 As Habermas makes it clear, both communicative action and strategic action have “a teleological structure.” This means actors in both communicative actions and strategic actions have ‘intentions’ and ‘ends’.

11.6 However in communicative action structures of communication are superimposed on the intentions of the actors and their aims as against strategic actions where intentions of actors are the determining factor. The teleological structure of action is interrupted in communicative action.

11.7 Thus in a sense it is right to say that in communicative action language suspends the teleological structure of action (even if only momentarily) and actors in fact dwell in language and its unique causality which is quite distinct from the causality of action.

11.8 The unique causality of reason emerges from within only when actors are ‘delivered’ to language itself. Language interrupts natural causality and makes possible the emergence of the causality of reason as long as we remain delivered to the language itself.

[[“In [communicative action] the consensus achieving force of reaching understanding (Verstandigung) – that is, the binding and bonding energies of language itself – becomes effective for the coordination of actions. In [strategic action] by contrast, the coordinating effect remains dependent on the influence – functioning via non linguistic activities – exerted by the actors on the action situation and on each other.” (OPC: 221).

Seen from the perspective of the participants, the two mechanisms – that of reaching understanding, which motivates convictions, and that of exertion of influence, which induce behavior – must be mutually exclusive. Speech acts cannot be carried out with the simultaneous intentions of reaching an agreement with an addressee with regard to something and of exercising a causal influence on him.” (OPC: 221-222).]]

11.9 Thus in communicative action, with its stringent conditions we enter into the space of reasons and remain within it as long as we keep adopting the participants’ perspective and abide by the stringent conditions of communicative action. Strategic action on the other hand is the abode of causal law and works according to the law of causality. Furthermore if communicative action and strategic action are mutually exclusive then the space of reasons and the space of law are also proven to be mutually exclusive.

12. The distinction between perlocutionary effects and illocutionary aims is another way of distinguishing between communicative action and strategic action. Habermas’ notion of unique illocutionary force comes in to its own only in the context of communicative action. Crucial here is the distinction between illocutionary success and perlocutionary effects. The differentiation is built upon the difference between the aims of the two acts. Habermas differentiates between the immediate aim of illocutionary acts and their far reaching aims. The immediate aim of an illocutionary act is “that the hearer understands [the speaker’s] utterance” while the far reaching aim is that the “hearer accepts [the speaker’s] utterance as valid.” Habermas calls all those effects that go beyond the illocutionary aims perlocutionary effects in the first instance. Habermas then differentiates between two types of perlocutionary effects: “between effects that, in the course of obligations relevant for the sequel of interaction, result from the semantic content of what is said, and those effects that occur contingently independently of grammatically regulated contexts.” By this distinction Habermas differentiates between “strategically and non strategically motivated perlocutionary effects.” We are here only concerned with strategically motivated perlocutionary effects.

12.1 Perlocutionary effects are produced when “illocutionary acts . . . take roles in contexts of strategic action.” Perlocutionary effects “ensue whenever a speaker acts with an orientation toward success and, in doing so, simultaneously connects speech acts with intentions and instrumentalises them for purposes that are only contingently related to the meaning of what is said.”
[[“Perlocutionary effects, like the successful results of teleological actions generally, may be described as states in the world brought about through intervention in the world. By contrast, illocutionary successes are achieved at the level of interpersonal relations on which participants in communication come to an understanding with one another about something in the world. In this sense, they are not innerworldly (nichts innerweltliches) but extramundane (extramundan). At most, successful illocutionary acts occur within the lifeworld to which the participants in communication belong and that forms the background for their processes of reaching understanding. They cannot be intended under the description of causally produced effects.” (OPC: 127). ]]

12.1.1 The illocutionary success (in contrast to the perlocutionary effects) cannot be located within innerworldly because of the distinction between illocutionary aims and perlocutionary aims. Habermas refers to three crucial distinctions between illocutionary and perlocutionary aims in this context:

i) The illocutionary aims cannot be defined independently of the linguistic means of reaching understanding.
ii) The speaker cannot intend illocutionary aims to be something to be effected causally. The “yes” and “no” of the speaker within communicative action are rationally (rather than) causally motivated. Within communicative action the actors have the freedom to say “no.” This freedom is precisely the freedom from causality.

iii)The actors within communicative action confront each other in the performative attitude, they don’t (and cannot) treat each other as “objects” as long as they are within communicative action.

12.1.2 Perlocutionary aims on the other hand may be brought about without recourse to language and hence are not constrained by the structure of language use. As Habermas writes: “”Perlocutionary” is, of course, the name we give to the effects of speech acts that, if need be, can also be brought about causally by non-linguistic actions.” Since illocutionary successes are the functions of the structural conditions of the possibility of communicative action they cannot become the objects of manipulation for the actors within communicative action. Since these conditions constrain actors from behind their back they cannot make them into objects as long as they remain within communicative action. In this sense, these successes are extramundane for actors within communicative action. Since these cannot be intended by actors as objects the law of causality does not apply to them, as the law of causality only applies to the object of our cognition or intention (or representation in general). Thus illocutionary success transcends the terms of causality which applies only to those events that occur within the world. Illocutionary success is located not in the world (innerworldly) but at the extramundane level. The level of extramundane is not an otherworldly realm because it does not refer back to any extramundane realm. Rather it emerges from within communicative action. However, it is a realm that is located beyond innerworldly. In this sense through communicative action and in pursuing illocutionary aims, participants attain transcendence from innerworldly and they attain this transcendence from within, without positing any realm of intelligibility beyond this world. Illocutionary force and illocutionary success cannot be understood on the model of causality of nature because through transcending the innerworldly, participants also transcend causality of nature and as long as they remain within communicative action and are bound by its conditions, they are immune to the causality of nature.

12.1.3 Thus illocutionary force and illocutionary success can only be described on the model of the causality of reason described by Kant. The participants in communication do influence each other (exert force on each other) but this influence (or force) cannot be understood on the causal model and hence must be understood as a rational influence and a rational force. This is precisely what Kant describes as the causality of reason: “Someone . . . [who] is acting communicatively . . . cannot, at the same level of interaction, produce perlocutionary effects at all.”

13 Since the analysis of communicative action is carried out in this worldly terms Habermas seems to have made good on his claim that the distinction between “causes” and “reasons” can maintain in this worldly terms without referring back to Kant’s realm of intelligible.

14. However, Habermas needs to prove the actuality of freedom, and not just it as the condition of the possibility of communicative action. Kant had to posit the otherworldly realms for precisely this reason. It is here that Habermas’ weak naturalism comes in. But that’s the story for another day!

Two types of compulsions . . .

"To the extent to which persons let their actions be guided by reasons, they
submit themselves to the logical-semantic and broadly ‘grammatical’ commitments of
intersubjectively shared systems of rules that are not up to them. At the same time, these rules do not ‘compel’ in the same way that laws of nature do." (Language Game of Responsible agency, p. 17, italics in the original).

Inconsistency of ultimate description of "the universe'

Habermas in a recent essay quote the following great passage from Martin Seel.

"It is precisely the idea of a transcendent, final, ultimate description of ‘the universe’ that is inconsistent. It is the fiction, on the basis of which—and only on the basis of which—our sense of freedom becomes, as viewed from the outside, a fiction. As soon as one sees that the capacity for participating in justificatory practices is essential for all knowledge—and for every intelligible conception of knowledge—this construction collapses."[Teilnahme und Beobachtung: Zu den Grundlagen der Freiheit. Neue Rundschau 116 (4): 141–53, here, 151]

In the footnote to this passage Habermas writes the following:

"In his well-known book The view from nowhere (1986), Thomas Nagel starts out from the similar problem of ‘how to combine the perspective of a particular person inside the world with an objective view of that same world, the person and his viewpoint included’; and he develops, within the domain of ethics, a similar critique of what he calls ‘excess objectivity’:‘If we push the claims of objective detachment to their logical conclusion, and survey the world from a standpoint completely detached from all interests, we discover that there is nothing-no values left of any kind: things can be said to matter at all only to individuals within the world’ (Nagel 1986, 146). Since Nagel sticks to the mentalist opposition of first- and third-person perspectives, I won’t go into his otherwise quite compelling critique of objectivism." (Language game of responsible agency, p. 46).

Is Habermas discovering religion?

Here is what Ernst Tugendhat had to say on this:

[Habermas] himself has no need for religion, he freely admits it. Just what interests him in religion I don't exactly know. But in any case it's not what interests me. I've certainly got a need for religion. He's interested in the moral components of religious tradition, not religion as such.