“. . . on a Kantian account, the appropriate causal history of one’s token identity of one’s beliefs . . . is not sufficient for understanding. This is because understanding that p requires not merely arriving at one’s belief that p by the correct causal route, that is, having this belief produced by the appropriate set of prior beliefs; it also requires taking or recognizing these prior beliefs as warranting the belief that p. Reason can function as reasons only when they are consciously recognized as such. And this recognition cannot, in turn, be analyzed simply as the possession of a further, second-order belief about the relationship between one’s first-order beliefs. Not only such view fail to account for this moment of recognition, it would lead inevitably to the infinite regress. . . .” (Henry E Allison, (1995) "On Naturalizing Kant's Transcendental Psychology", Dialectica, 49(2-4), pp. 335-351, here p. 348, italics added).
As noted earlier, though Habermas would disagree with the above as far as it is meant to explain an adequate conception of experience, he would totally agree with Kant in claiming that “ Reason can function as reasons only when they are consciously recognized as such.” For Haberams, as for Kant, reason is normative through and through and in defending this normativity he is certainly a Kantian.
There are variety of ways, in which Habermas defends Kant’s insight. One important strategy through which Habermas defends the above Kantian insight is to claim that there is no interpretation without evaluation:
“For reasons to be sound and for them to be merely considered sound are not the same thing, 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.” (Habermas, Reconstruction and Interpretations in the Social Sciences, in MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AND COMMUNICATIVE ACTION, pp. 21-41, here p. 30)
“. . . reasons can be understood only insofar as they are taken seriously as reasons and evaluated.” (p. 30).
“There is a sense in which any interpretation is a rational interpretation.” (p. 31).
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
McDowell, Putnam, Habermas and "transcendence from within"
McDowell (in the essay cited here) claims that Rorty ignores an important distinction between an assertion that “validity claims” are raised within a context (which is by definition a particular context) and a different assertion that justification is reducible to the particular context. Habermas explains the same point (and he makes this point in his discussion of Rorty as well) in the following way:
“. . . the validity claimed for propositions and norms transcends space and times, but in each case the claim is raised here and now, in a specific context, and accepted or rejected with real implications for social interactions.” (PT: 139).
Habermas’ assertion that the validity of a proposition ‘transcends space and times,” might be misleading in the way it stands but what he really means is that when we raise claims (necessarily within a particular context) we implicitly (undertake) to defend in all possible contexts.
It is interesting to note that Habermas presents that above formulation as his way of rendering of Putnam’s following remarks:
“Reason is, in this sense, both immanent (not to be found outside of concrete language games and institutions) and transcendent (a regulative idea that we use to criticize the conduct of all activities and institutions).” [Putnam, “Why Reason Can’t be Naturalized,” Synthese 52 (1982)].
Habermas quotes Putnam’s above remarks with his own equivalent of it (quoted above) in order to substantiate his assertion that:
“From the possibility of reaching understanding linguistically, we can read off a concept of situated reason that is given voice in validity claims that are both context-dependent and transcendent.” (PT: 139).
A situated reason is context dependent but provides the basis of transcendence which is a situated transcendence and hence “transcendence from within.”
Addendum: “. . . with the validity claims factually raised and recognized within an action coordinating role, an element of unconditionality enters into every day communicative practice. Criticizable validity claims have two faces: as claims, at least from the viewpoint of the participants, they transcend all merely local agreements and base themselves on a subversive, continually flexible potential of disputable reasons. Yet they must be raised here and now within specific contexts and with coverage provided by an unquestioned cultural background and accepted (or rejected) with a view to non-reversible action sequence. The social reality of the lifeworld consists of such action sequence as are interlinked via criticizable validity claims.” (Habermas, "A reply" in Communicative action : essays on Jurgen Habermas's The theory of communicative action , pp. 214-264, here p. 243).
“. . . the validity claimed for propositions and norms transcends space and times, but in each case the claim is raised here and now, in a specific context, and accepted or rejected with real implications for social interactions.” (PT: 139).
Habermas’ assertion that the validity of a proposition ‘transcends space and times,” might be misleading in the way it stands but what he really means is that when we raise claims (necessarily within a particular context) we implicitly (undertake) to defend in all possible contexts.
It is interesting to note that Habermas presents that above formulation as his way of rendering of Putnam’s following remarks:
“Reason is, in this sense, both immanent (not to be found outside of concrete language games and institutions) and transcendent (a regulative idea that we use to criticize the conduct of all activities and institutions).” [Putnam, “Why Reason Can’t be Naturalized,” Synthese 52 (1982)].
Habermas quotes Putnam’s above remarks with his own equivalent of it (quoted above) in order to substantiate his assertion that:
“From the possibility of reaching understanding linguistically, we can read off a concept of situated reason that is given voice in validity claims that are both context-dependent and transcendent.” (PT: 139).
A situated reason is context dependent but provides the basis of transcendence which is a situated transcendence and hence “transcendence from within.”
Addendum: “. . . with the validity claims factually raised and recognized within an action coordinating role, an element of unconditionality enters into every day communicative practice. Criticizable validity claims have two faces: as claims, at least from the viewpoint of the participants, they transcend all merely local agreements and base themselves on a subversive, continually flexible potential of disputable reasons. Yet they must be raised here and now within specific contexts and with coverage provided by an unquestioned cultural background and accepted (or rejected) with a view to non-reversible action sequence. The social reality of the lifeworld consists of such action sequence as are interlinked via criticizable validity claims.” (Habermas, "A reply" in Communicative action : essays on Jurgen Habermas's The theory of communicative action , pp. 214-264, here p. 243).
Monday, April 18, 2005
Habermas and McDowell: Two conceptions of transcendence
I have just finished reading McDowell’s interesting piece entitled “Towards rehabilitating Objectivity,” in Rorty and his critics ed. By Robert Brandom, pp. 109-123, that was suggested to me by Carl Sachs.
I believe that McDowell’s position in the article is not only compatible with Habermas’ position but is in Habermasian spirit as well. I have noticed several interesting parallels which I will try to allude to in the future post, but here I will limit myself to describing the most important parallel that come up in the essay. The parallel is between Habermas and McDowell’s respective conceptions of “transcendence.”
McDowell takes issue with Richard Rorty’s interpretation of Putnam’s claim that “norms expressible with notions like that of truth are internal to our world view.” (p. 118). McDowell challenges Rorty’s interpretation of Putnam’s above insight in terms of his claim that “the norms that govern claim-making can only be norms of consensus” (ibid.). According to McDowell the act of raising and defending claims also inevitably refers to the world which is not of our own making and hence is “transcendent.” Rorty rejects any reference to this “transcendent world” on the ground of the above mentioned Putnam maxim, which McDowell also accepts (and so does Habermas). However McDowell claims that Rorty confuses between two conceptions of transcendence when he rejects any reference to the “transcendent world.” McDowell terms these two conceptions of transcendence as a) Illusory concept of transcendence and b) Innocuous concept of transcendence, respectively. McDowell further claims that accepting Putnam’s insight entails rejecting a) but not b).
Le us see how McDowell understand these two different conceptions. Illusory concept of transcendence is succumbing “to the illusion that we need to climb outside our own minds, the illusion that though we aim our thought and speech at the world form a standpoint constituted by our present practices and competences, we must be able to conceive the conformity of our thought and speech to the world form outside any such standpoint.” (p. 118).
Innocuous concept of transcendence on the other hand rests on the insight that “in claim-making we make ourselves answerable not just to the verdicts of our fellows but to the facts themselves. That is, if you like, to say that norms of inquiry transcend consensus.” (p. 119). McDowell goes on to add that: “These norms are internal to our world view, just as Putnam urged that the relevant norms must be. It is just that the world view to which they are internal has the world in view otherwise than as constituted by what linguistic performances will pass muster in our present practice. But that is merely a requirement for us to have the world in view at all – for moves within the relevant practices to be expressive of a world view, as opposed to merely aspiring to vocalize in step with one another. Taking this transcendence in stride requires no more than confidence in our capacity to direct our meaning at, say, whether or not cold fusion has occurred.” (p. 119).
What McDowell calls an “innocuous conception of transcendence," I believe, is precisely what Habermas terms as “transcendence form within.” This should be clear from what Habermas says in the following:
“. . . the objectivity of experience cannot be made dependent upon the agreement – no matter how rational – of a contingent number of participants, i.e; a contingent agreement within any particular group. Better arguments, which would refute what is here and now held to be true by you and me, might emerge in different contexts or on the basis of further experiences. With the concept of reality, to which every representation necessarily refers, we presuppose something transcendent. As long as we move within a particular linguistic community or form of life, this transcendent relation cannot be supplanted by the rational acceptability of an argument. Since we cannot break out of the sphere of language and argumentation altogether, we can only establish the reference to reality . . . by projecting a “transcendence from within.” . . . . If we understand realty as the conceptual totality of all assertions that are true . . . we are able to do justice to its transcendence without having without having to surrender the internal connection between the objectivity of experience and the intersubjectivity of reaching mutual understanding.” (PT: 103).
Despite difference in terminology the concept of “transcendence form within” which Habermas describes here with reference to Peirce’s ideas (the concept is better defended in more recent writings) shows very interesting parallels with McDowell’s idea of “innocuous conception of transcendence.”
Read more
I believe that McDowell’s position in the article is not only compatible with Habermas’ position but is in Habermasian spirit as well. I have noticed several interesting parallels which I will try to allude to in the future post, but here I will limit myself to describing the most important parallel that come up in the essay. The parallel is between Habermas and McDowell’s respective conceptions of “transcendence.”
McDowell takes issue with Richard Rorty’s interpretation of Putnam’s claim that “norms expressible with notions like that of truth are internal to our world view.” (p. 118). McDowell challenges Rorty’s interpretation of Putnam’s above insight in terms of his claim that “the norms that govern claim-making can only be norms of consensus” (ibid.). According to McDowell the act of raising and defending claims also inevitably refers to the world which is not of our own making and hence is “transcendent.” Rorty rejects any reference to this “transcendent world” on the ground of the above mentioned Putnam maxim, which McDowell also accepts (and so does Habermas). However McDowell claims that Rorty confuses between two conceptions of transcendence when he rejects any reference to the “transcendent world.” McDowell terms these two conceptions of transcendence as a) Illusory concept of transcendence and b) Innocuous concept of transcendence, respectively. McDowell further claims that accepting Putnam’s insight entails rejecting a) but not b).
Le us see how McDowell understand these two different conceptions. Illusory concept of transcendence is succumbing “to the illusion that we need to climb outside our own minds, the illusion that though we aim our thought and speech at the world form a standpoint constituted by our present practices and competences, we must be able to conceive the conformity of our thought and speech to the world form outside any such standpoint.” (p. 118).
Innocuous concept of transcendence on the other hand rests on the insight that “in claim-making we make ourselves answerable not just to the verdicts of our fellows but to the facts themselves. That is, if you like, to say that norms of inquiry transcend consensus.” (p. 119). McDowell goes on to add that: “These norms are internal to our world view, just as Putnam urged that the relevant norms must be. It is just that the world view to which they are internal has the world in view otherwise than as constituted by what linguistic performances will pass muster in our present practice. But that is merely a requirement for us to have the world in view at all – for moves within the relevant practices to be expressive of a world view, as opposed to merely aspiring to vocalize in step with one another. Taking this transcendence in stride requires no more than confidence in our capacity to direct our meaning at, say, whether or not cold fusion has occurred.” (p. 119).
What McDowell calls an “innocuous conception of transcendence," I believe, is precisely what Habermas terms as “transcendence form within.” This should be clear from what Habermas says in the following:
“. . . the objectivity of experience cannot be made dependent upon the agreement – no matter how rational – of a contingent number of participants, i.e; a contingent agreement within any particular group. Better arguments, which would refute what is here and now held to be true by you and me, might emerge in different contexts or on the basis of further experiences. With the concept of reality, to which every representation necessarily refers, we presuppose something transcendent. As long as we move within a particular linguistic community or form of life, this transcendent relation cannot be supplanted by the rational acceptability of an argument. Since we cannot break out of the sphere of language and argumentation altogether, we can only establish the reference to reality . . . by projecting a “transcendence from within.” . . . . If we understand realty as the conceptual totality of all assertions that are true . . . we are able to do justice to its transcendence without having without having to surrender the internal connection between the objectivity of experience and the intersubjectivity of reaching mutual understanding.” (PT: 103).
Despite difference in terminology the concept of “transcendence form within” which Habermas describes here with reference to Peirce’s ideas (the concept is better defended in more recent writings) shows very interesting parallels with McDowell’s idea of “innocuous conception of transcendence.”
Read more
Thursday, April 14, 2005
Apel's critique of Habermas
This post is based on Andrew Montin's penetrating comments on my post here. I will take some of the issues Andrew raise in future posts:
"In my opinion, Apel does a good job of taking Habermas to task for his notion of the 'weak' transcendental. The dispute circles around the problem of moral justification, but it has implications for the role of philosophy more generally. Apel charges Habermas with the "naturalistic fallacy" of deriving norms from facts in a number of places, but this is how he formulates the criticism in his essay "Normatively Grounding Critical Theory?":
"Although the Habermasian reconstruction of cultural evolution also assumes that prephilosophical lifeworld communication, given its background resources, was *not* in a position to justify the claims to normative rightness raised by conventional morality; thus although the level of discourse we can and must carry out today always already crosses the cultural threshold to philosophical argumentation so that the postconventional situation of argumentative discourse always already belongs to the "forestructure" of our reaching agreement [Verständigung] over... principles of norm justification... the philosophical justification of a principled ethics (including discourse ethics) is nevertheless supposed [by Habermas] to be replaced by *a recourse to the factually functioning ethical life of communicative action in the lifeworld*."
Habermasian formulations such as "we cannot imagine it being otherwise" (which have a definite Rorty-like ring to them) seem to me precisely what Apel is talking about, namely the grounding of quasi-transcendental justifications within the lifeworld. But Apel asks: why does Habermas persist in tracing back such justifications to the context of the lifeworld when his own reconstructive practice already presupposes "a process of lifeworld rationalization" which goes beyond the resources of an ethical lifeworld? Habermas's appeal to the lifeworld to resolve issues of justification is already obsolete - could Apel be suggesting that Habermas himself falls prey to performative contradiction? Certainly he argues in the same essay that Habermas is being openly inconsistent:
"[T]he Habermasian strategy of avoiding a methodological distinction between philosophy and empirically testable reconstructive science seems to me openly inconsistent: I suspect Habermas will have to make up his mind one day whether he wants to persist in the inconsistency or give back to philosophy its genuine *justificatory function*, together with its a priori universal and self-referential validity claims.""
"In my opinion, Apel does a good job of taking Habermas to task for his notion of the 'weak' transcendental. The dispute circles around the problem of moral justification, but it has implications for the role of philosophy more generally. Apel charges Habermas with the "naturalistic fallacy" of deriving norms from facts in a number of places, but this is how he formulates the criticism in his essay "Normatively Grounding Critical Theory?":
"Although the Habermasian reconstruction of cultural evolution also assumes that prephilosophical lifeworld communication, given its background resources, was *not* in a position to justify the claims to normative rightness raised by conventional morality; thus although the level of discourse we can and must carry out today always already crosses the cultural threshold to philosophical argumentation so that the postconventional situation of argumentative discourse always already belongs to the "forestructure" of our reaching agreement [Verständigung] over... principles of norm justification... the philosophical justification of a principled ethics (including discourse ethics) is nevertheless supposed [by Habermas] to be replaced by *a recourse to the factually functioning ethical life of communicative action in the lifeworld*."
Habermasian formulations such as "we cannot imagine it being otherwise" (which have a definite Rorty-like ring to them) seem to me precisely what Apel is talking about, namely the grounding of quasi-transcendental justifications within the lifeworld. But Apel asks: why does Habermas persist in tracing back such justifications to the context of the lifeworld when his own reconstructive practice already presupposes "a process of lifeworld rationalization" which goes beyond the resources of an ethical lifeworld? Habermas's appeal to the lifeworld to resolve issues of justification is already obsolete - could Apel be suggesting that Habermas himself falls prey to performative contradiction? Certainly he argues in the same essay that Habermas is being openly inconsistent:
"[T]he Habermasian strategy of avoiding a methodological distinction between philosophy and empirically testable reconstructive science seems to me openly inconsistent: I suspect Habermas will have to make up his mind one day whether he wants to persist in the inconsistency or give back to philosophy its genuine *justificatory function*, together with its a priori universal and self-referential validity claims.""
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Two models of "disenchantment" and two models of "re-enchantment"
Those who deny that Habermas’ project is aimed at reconciliation between nature and reason do so on the basis of Habermas’ acceptance of the Weberian conception of “disenchantment of the world” and (of nature) as an irreversible insight of Modernity which cannot be rejected without abandoning Modernity. Consequently Habermas rejects any attempts at “re-enchanting the world or nature” which for the proponents of reconciliation is essential if there is to be reconciliation between nature and reason.
What I would claim is that such critics confuse two different conception of “disenchantment of the world” and consequently between two different notions of “re-enchantment of the world” and hence two different conception of reconciliation between nature and reason. While Habermas adheres to the conception of “disenchantment of the world” in the Weberian sense and deems any “re-enchantment of the world” in the corresponding sense as regressive he does not accept “disenchantment of the world” in what I will term as an Adornian sense of the term. On the contrary he is committed to overcoming “disenchantment of the world” and consequently to “re-enchantment of the world” in this sense. Hence I would claim that Habermas aims at reconciliation between nature and reason in this second sense.
Wellmer describes the Weberian sense of “disenchantment of the world” and its corresponding conception of rationalization very well:
“. . . for [Weber] the emergence of modern science and modern law as well as the emergence of secularized systems of instrumental or strategic action and the destruction of “objective” meaning systems (like religious world-views) is internally related to what he has called the “disenchantment of the world.” Not only is this disenchantment of the world, historically and conceptually, necessary precondition for rationalization processes of that type which for Weber are specific to modern European history, it rather also signifies for Weber a cognitive achievement of a substantive kind, through which the boundaries of what may be called “rational” are defined in a new way.” (Albrecht Wellmer, “ Reason, Utopia, and Enlightenment,” in Habermas and modernity, 35-66, here 42, italics by Wellmer.)
“That the world, objectively speaking, is devoid of meaning and of values, can only be claimed by somebody for whom the process of disenchantment is a process of disillusionment, i.e; a process of enlightenment. This process of enlightenment is a process of rationalization in a peculiar sense: for first it amounts . . . to a differentiation of categories of knowledge and spheres of validity from each other – which in traditional societies are not yet clearly separated from each other, and secondly, on the basis of this process of differentiation, it brings to awareness the sphere of symbolically mediated human praxis as the only possible source of meaning and validity, and therefore is the only possible frame of reference for intersubjective validity claims. Without external guarantees for meaning or validity, every belief becomes a potential claim for which no intersubjective redemption is possible except through arguments.” (Albrecht Wellmer, “ Reason, Utopia, and Enlightenment,” 42-43, italics by Wellmer).
As stated above Habermas would reject any notion of “re-enchantment of the world” and hence reconciliation with nature that consists in reversing above mentioned “disenchantment of the world” and its corresponding rationalization. Furthermore Habermas’ resistance to the above seems to me to be itself a part of his commitment to the concept of reconciliation between reason and nature in so far as reason is brought back from “transcendent realm” (whether conceived in terms of the transcendent God of religious world views or in terms of metaphysical conception of objective reason) to this worldly argumentative practices.
What I call the Adornian conception of “disenchantment of the world” is described well by J. M. Bernstein:
“The transcendental separation of nature from the space of reason, the nature from the normative, is the disenchantment of nature.” (J.M. Bernstein, “Re-Enchanting Nature,” 217, italics added).
Here disenchantment is construed as separation between nature and reason. Habermas is committed to overcoming this separation and hence committed to overcoming disenchantment in this sense.
Read more
What I would claim is that such critics confuse two different conception of “disenchantment of the world” and consequently between two different notions of “re-enchantment of the world” and hence two different conception of reconciliation between nature and reason. While Habermas adheres to the conception of “disenchantment of the world” in the Weberian sense and deems any “re-enchantment of the world” in the corresponding sense as regressive he does not accept “disenchantment of the world” in what I will term as an Adornian sense of the term. On the contrary he is committed to overcoming “disenchantment of the world” and consequently to “re-enchantment of the world” in this sense. Hence I would claim that Habermas aims at reconciliation between nature and reason in this second sense.
Wellmer describes the Weberian sense of “disenchantment of the world” and its corresponding conception of rationalization very well:
“. . . for [Weber] the emergence of modern science and modern law as well as the emergence of secularized systems of instrumental or strategic action and the destruction of “objective” meaning systems (like religious world-views) is internally related to what he has called the “disenchantment of the world.” Not only is this disenchantment of the world, historically and conceptually, necessary precondition for rationalization processes of that type which for Weber are specific to modern European history, it rather also signifies for Weber a cognitive achievement of a substantive kind, through which the boundaries of what may be called “rational” are defined in a new way.” (Albrecht Wellmer, “ Reason, Utopia, and Enlightenment,” in Habermas and modernity, 35-66, here 42, italics by Wellmer.)
“That the world, objectively speaking, is devoid of meaning and of values, can only be claimed by somebody for whom the process of disenchantment is a process of disillusionment, i.e; a process of enlightenment. This process of enlightenment is a process of rationalization in a peculiar sense: for first it amounts . . . to a differentiation of categories of knowledge and spheres of validity from each other – which in traditional societies are not yet clearly separated from each other, and secondly, on the basis of this process of differentiation, it brings to awareness the sphere of symbolically mediated human praxis as the only possible source of meaning and validity, and therefore is the only possible frame of reference for intersubjective validity claims. Without external guarantees for meaning or validity, every belief becomes a potential claim for which no intersubjective redemption is possible except through arguments.” (Albrecht Wellmer, “ Reason, Utopia, and Enlightenment,” 42-43, italics by Wellmer).
As stated above Habermas would reject any notion of “re-enchantment of the world” and hence reconciliation with nature that consists in reversing above mentioned “disenchantment of the world” and its corresponding rationalization. Furthermore Habermas’ resistance to the above seems to me to be itself a part of his commitment to the concept of reconciliation between reason and nature in so far as reason is brought back from “transcendent realm” (whether conceived in terms of the transcendent God of religious world views or in terms of metaphysical conception of objective reason) to this worldly argumentative practices.
What I call the Adornian conception of “disenchantment of the world” is described well by J. M. Bernstein:
“The transcendental separation of nature from the space of reason, the nature from the normative, is the disenchantment of nature.” (J.M. Bernstein, “Re-Enchanting Nature,” 217, italics added).
Here disenchantment is construed as separation between nature and reason. Habermas is committed to overcoming this separation and hence committed to overcoming disenchantment in this sense.
Read more
Sunday, April 10, 2005
McDowell, Bernstein and "our animal embodiment"
The following post is entirely based on Carl Sachs' illuminating comments on my last post (see here).
"McDowell notes, in his response to Bernstein, that the "intermible oscillation" isn't between coherentism and bald naturalism, but between coherentism and the Myth of the Given: between idealism and empiricism, if you will. Davidson figures as the coherentist, and Gareth Evans is cast as the unwitting defender of the Myth of the Given. (Although MOG also appears in Quine, and is at the heart of the entire empiricist tradition from runs from Locke to Russell.)
Bald naturalism and the alternative, "rampant platonism," are attempts to halt the oscillation. The former does so by reducing the space of reasons to the space of laws (reducing sapience to sentience, perhaps?), whereas rampant platonism divorces the space of reasons from all human conceptual capacities.
I agree that McDowell's notion of experience is too "thin." Like the post-analytic philosophers with whom he's engaged (Quine, Davidson, Selllars), McDowell thinks of experience as percpetual recognition of objects. (Although this is also where Kant starts digging.)
The narrowness of McDowell's conception of experience is, I think, well revealed in the Bernstein essay. But he reveals it partly through considerations of our animal embodiment. This takes Bernstein towards Adorno, not Habermas (which, of course, is a big part of his current project). I don't know what Habermas has to say about embodied animal experience. Certainly the impression one has of him is that everything normative and rational occurs at the level of language; animal embodiment simply drops out of the picture. There is a difference between the exercise of reason and the spontaniety of animal life, but there is also, if not identity, at least continuity."
Read more
"McDowell notes, in his response to Bernstein, that the "intermible oscillation" isn't between coherentism and bald naturalism, but between coherentism and the Myth of the Given: between idealism and empiricism, if you will. Davidson figures as the coherentist, and Gareth Evans is cast as the unwitting defender of the Myth of the Given. (Although MOG also appears in Quine, and is at the heart of the entire empiricist tradition from runs from Locke to Russell.)
Bald naturalism and the alternative, "rampant platonism," are attempts to halt the oscillation. The former does so by reducing the space of reasons to the space of laws (reducing sapience to sentience, perhaps?), whereas rampant platonism divorces the space of reasons from all human conceptual capacities.
I agree that McDowell's notion of experience is too "thin." Like the post-analytic philosophers with whom he's engaged (Quine, Davidson, Selllars), McDowell thinks of experience as percpetual recognition of objects. (Although this is also where Kant starts digging.)
The narrowness of McDowell's conception of experience is, I think, well revealed in the Bernstein essay. But he reveals it partly through considerations of our animal embodiment. This takes Bernstein towards Adorno, not Habermas (which, of course, is a big part of his current project). I don't know what Habermas has to say about embodied animal experience. Certainly the impression one has of him is that everything normative and rational occurs at the level of language; animal embodiment simply drops out of the picture. There is a difference between the exercise of reason and the spontaniety of animal life, but there is also, if not identity, at least continuity."
Read more
Saturday, April 09, 2005
“interminable oscillation” between ‘bald naturalism’ and ‘coherentism’
J.M Bernstein describes John McDowell’s work as attempt to go beyond the “interminable oscillation” between ‘bald naturalism’ and ‘coherentism’. Bald naturalism “upholds the empiricism requirement by forsaking autonomy of reason, reducing the space of reason to the space of law”, while, coherentism “aims to resolving the difficulty by surrendering the role of sensibility and experience, thus making nature at most only causally but only rationally relevant to epistemic claiming.” (J.M. Bernstein, “ Re-Enchanting Nature” in Reading McDowell : on mind and world, pp. 217-245, here p. 217.)
This way of describing the project of McDowell has strong parallel with Habermas's weak naturalism. Habermas on the one hand differentiates his weak naturalism from what he terms as strong naturalism which is obviously another way of describing what McDowell calls bald naturalism. On the other hand Habermas differentiates his project from linguistic idealism (Heidegger is the main culprit here). Heidegger’s so called linguistic idealism has been described by Habermas in terms that parallel with the description of coherentism above.
The only difference in my opinion is that Habermas as against McDowell (who is still working with an “empiricist” conception of experience) construes experience in much broader terms and gives it a pragmatic reading.
Read more
This way of describing the project of McDowell has strong parallel with Habermas's weak naturalism. Habermas on the one hand differentiates his weak naturalism from what he terms as strong naturalism which is obviously another way of describing what McDowell calls bald naturalism. On the other hand Habermas differentiates his project from linguistic idealism (Heidegger is the main culprit here). Heidegger’s so called linguistic idealism has been described by Habermas in terms that parallel with the description of coherentism above.
The only difference in my opinion is that Habermas as against McDowell (who is still working with an “empiricist” conception of experience) construes experience in much broader terms and gives it a pragmatic reading.
Read more
Kant and Normativity of reason- some thoughts
“It is our capacity for freedom or, in [Kant’s] words, to “set ends” – that is, to think and act on the basis of considerations (“reasons”) that once can reflectively endorse – that is central to Kant’s account of human reason. Though at time he describes this capacity as our “spontaneity” and suggests it discloses our membership in a noumenal world, the core idea, I believe, is the idea that freedom, and hence reason, are irreducibly normative concepts.” (Kenneth Baynes, Habermas’s “Kantian pragmatism” in The Cambridge Companion to Critical Theory, pp. 194-218, here p. 196).
So freedom and reason are normative concepts, but in what sense? I think Brandom describes this aspect of reason and freedom better:
“One of Kant’s most basic ideas is that what distinguishes our judgments and actions from the responses of merely natural creatures is that they are things we are in a distinctive way responsible for – that they involve the undertaking of commitments. He understands judging and acting as essentially discursive activities – that is, as consisting in the applications of concepts. And he takes concepts to be rules: rules that specify what one has committed oneself to, what one has become responsible for, in producing a judgment or action.” (Pragmatics and Pragmatisms, in Hilary Putnam: Pragmatism and Realism, pp. 40-58 here p. 49).
To be able to reason and to be free is to be responsible for what we claim, to be able to undertake commitments. To follow rule is necessarily normative in the sense that it implies a capacity to violate rules and (or comply with them willingly). Thus the normativity of reason implies our ability to reflect, to detach from what is given, and to be able to do and think otherwise. However we must give reason for this 'otherwise' as normativity implies commitment and responsibility and not arbitrariness.
One of Kant's greatest mistakes was to attach this normatively to his account of the way we acquire knowledge of objects. Allison describes this in what follows:
“. . . it is necessary to realize that what is required for objective representation is not simply the de facto presence of a rule governed unity of representation in consciousness . . . but the thought or conceptual recognition of this unity. In other words, this unity must not only be in a single consciousness, it must be for that consciousness in the sense that mind must be able to represent it to itself or, equivalently, to recognize it as such. This reflexive dimension of cognition follows directly from the normative nature of the claim of objective connection. For unless the mind could think, that is, represent to itself or recognize the rule-governedness of the unification. It would remain a merely contingent, causally conditioned connection of mental states without any epistemic significance.” (Henry E Allison, (1995) "On Naturalizing Kant's Transcendental Psychology", Dialectica, 49(2-4, pp. 335-351, here pp. 343-344).
Habermas like Kant relates normativity to objectivity but dissociates the analysis of objectivity from the level of perception and brings it to the level of communicative understanding.
So freedom and reason are normative concepts, but in what sense? I think Brandom describes this aspect of reason and freedom better:
“One of Kant’s most basic ideas is that what distinguishes our judgments and actions from the responses of merely natural creatures is that they are things we are in a distinctive way responsible for – that they involve the undertaking of commitments. He understands judging and acting as essentially discursive activities – that is, as consisting in the applications of concepts. And he takes concepts to be rules: rules that specify what one has committed oneself to, what one has become responsible for, in producing a judgment or action.” (Pragmatics and Pragmatisms, in Hilary Putnam: Pragmatism and Realism, pp. 40-58 here p. 49).
To be able to reason and to be free is to be responsible for what we claim, to be able to undertake commitments. To follow rule is necessarily normative in the sense that it implies a capacity to violate rules and (or comply with them willingly). Thus the normativity of reason implies our ability to reflect, to detach from what is given, and to be able to do and think otherwise. However we must give reason for this 'otherwise' as normativity implies commitment and responsibility and not arbitrariness.
One of Kant's greatest mistakes was to attach this normatively to his account of the way we acquire knowledge of objects. Allison describes this in what follows:
“. . . it is necessary to realize that what is required for objective representation is not simply the de facto presence of a rule governed unity of representation in consciousness . . . but the thought or conceptual recognition of this unity. In other words, this unity must not only be in a single consciousness, it must be for that consciousness in the sense that mind must be able to represent it to itself or, equivalently, to recognize it as such. This reflexive dimension of cognition follows directly from the normative nature of the claim of objective connection. For unless the mind could think, that is, represent to itself or recognize the rule-governedness of the unification. It would remain a merely contingent, causally conditioned connection of mental states without any epistemic significance.” (Henry E Allison, (1995) "On Naturalizing Kant's Transcendental Psychology", Dialectica, 49(2-4, pp. 335-351, here pp. 343-344).
Habermas like Kant relates normativity to objectivity but dissociates the analysis of objectivity from the level of perception and brings it to the level of communicative understanding.
Tuesday, April 05, 2005
sentience/sapience distinction and Habermas' weak naturalism
In the last post I had promised to elaborate on the following:
"The above (the primacy of implicit knowledge over explicit knowledge) is in no way incompatible with Habermas’ prioritization of conceptual (discursive) over non-discursive (this would ally Habermas with Brandom as against Adorno and McDowell for example). The distinction between implicit knowledge and explicit knowledge is geared towards understanding the conceptual and is not meant as a contrast between mediated and non mediated knowledge."
I have also in mind following comments by Carl Sachs:
"I'd like to use Sellars' distinction, which has become important to Brandom, between sentience and sapience. Let "sentience" refer to reliable differential responses to stimuli. Let "sapience" refer to conceptually structured relations of material inference. (One of the many reasons I like this contrast is that it forces into the open that by "Nature" we do not mean inert matter (hyle, res extensa) but animal embodiment. And one of Nietzsche's great achievements, I think, was to put the question of our own animal embodiment back on the agenda." (full here)
I will try to elaborate my above comments with the help of Brandom's description of his own strategy which in my opinion is very close to Habermas' strategy (despite their crucial differences).
Brandom describes his project in the following terms:
“The overall topic is the nature of the conceptual as such. This choice already entails certain significant emphases of attention: within the philosophy of mind, on awareness in the sense of sapience rather than of mere sentience; within semantics, on specifically conceptual content, to the determent of concern with others sort of contentfulness; within pragmatics, on singling out discursive (that is, concept-using) practice from the background of various other kinds of skilful doing. The aim is to focus on the conceptual in order to elaborate a relatively clear notion of the kind of awareness of something that consists in applying a concept to it – paradigmatically by saying or thinking something about it.” (Articulating Reasons, p. 2).
The methodological decision of giving priority to sapience over sentience requires some explanation. As Brandom puts it:
“One fork in the methodological road concerns the relative priority accorded to the continuities and discontinuities between discursive and nondiscursive creatures: the similarities and the differences between the judgments and actions of concept users, on the one hand, and the uptake of environmental information and instrumental interventions of non-concept-using organisms and artefacts, on the other. We can ask how sharp this distinction is – that is, to what extent and in what ways the possibility of intermediate cases can be made intelligible.” (ibid; pp. 2-3).
Brandom adds that:
“And more or less independently of the answer to this question, it is possible for theorists to differ as to whether they start by describing a common genus and go on to elaborate differentiate (whether qualitative or in terms of some quantitative ordering by a particular kind of complexity), as opposed to beginning with an account of what is distinctive of the conceptual, which is only later placed in a larger frame encompassing the doings of less capable systems.” (p. 3).
Brandom goes on to warn against dangers involved in such methodological choices:
““Theories that assimilate conceptually structured activity to the nonconceptual activity out of which it arises (in evolutionary, historical, and individual-developmental terms) are in danger of failing to make enough of the difference. Theories that adopt the converse strategy, addressing themselves at the outset to what is distinctive of or exceptional about the conceptual, court the danger of not doing justice to generic similarities.” (ibid; p. 3).
Brandom describes his own work as “motivated by a concern with what is special about or characteristic of the conceptual as such. I am more interested in what separates concept users from non-concept user than what unites them.” (p. 3).
Brandom’s strategy of giving preference to sapience over sentience should be seen in this context. Similarly Brandom’s discussion about ‘implicit’ and ‘explicit’ and their mutual relationship should be understood as his attempt to understand ‘sapience’ and has no direct relation with sapience/sentience distinction as such (although obviously there would be an indirect relation with sentience).
Now in this context it is easier to understand Habermas’ concern in his ‘weak naturalism’. Habermas at a meta-level presupposes continuity between sapience and sentience through his background assumption of weak naturalism:
“. . . weak naturalism contents itself with the basic background assumption that the biological endowment of the cultural way of life of Homo sapiens have a “natural” origin and can in principle be explained in terms of evolutionary theory.” (TJ: 27-28).
However having made this meta assumption Habermas’ sole concern is with sapience and not with sentience. Like Brandom he is interested in explaining what is unique about sapience as distinguished from sentience given essential continuity with the sapience and sentience. This is what I believe to be Habermas’ problematic and it requires explanation of human reason in broadly “naturalistic” terms however without reducing sentience to sapience. This is in my opinion the essence of Habremas’ weak naturalism.
"The above (the primacy of implicit knowledge over explicit knowledge) is in no way incompatible with Habermas’ prioritization of conceptual (discursive) over non-discursive (this would ally Habermas with Brandom as against Adorno and McDowell for example). The distinction between implicit knowledge and explicit knowledge is geared towards understanding the conceptual and is not meant as a contrast between mediated and non mediated knowledge."
I have also in mind following comments by Carl Sachs:
"I'd like to use Sellars' distinction, which has become important to Brandom, between sentience and sapience. Let "sentience" refer to reliable differential responses to stimuli. Let "sapience" refer to conceptually structured relations of material inference. (One of the many reasons I like this contrast is that it forces into the open that by "Nature" we do not mean inert matter (hyle, res extensa) but animal embodiment. And one of Nietzsche's great achievements, I think, was to put the question of our own animal embodiment back on the agenda." (full here)
I will try to elaborate my above comments with the help of Brandom's description of his own strategy which in my opinion is very close to Habermas' strategy (despite their crucial differences).
Brandom describes his project in the following terms:
“The overall topic is the nature of the conceptual as such. This choice already entails certain significant emphases of attention: within the philosophy of mind, on awareness in the sense of sapience rather than of mere sentience; within semantics, on specifically conceptual content, to the determent of concern with others sort of contentfulness; within pragmatics, on singling out discursive (that is, concept-using) practice from the background of various other kinds of skilful doing. The aim is to focus on the conceptual in order to elaborate a relatively clear notion of the kind of awareness of something that consists in applying a concept to it – paradigmatically by saying or thinking something about it.” (Articulating Reasons, p. 2).
The methodological decision of giving priority to sapience over sentience requires some explanation. As Brandom puts it:
“One fork in the methodological road concerns the relative priority accorded to the continuities and discontinuities between discursive and nondiscursive creatures: the similarities and the differences between the judgments and actions of concept users, on the one hand, and the uptake of environmental information and instrumental interventions of non-concept-using organisms and artefacts, on the other. We can ask how sharp this distinction is – that is, to what extent and in what ways the possibility of intermediate cases can be made intelligible.” (ibid; pp. 2-3).
Brandom adds that:
“And more or less independently of the answer to this question, it is possible for theorists to differ as to whether they start by describing a common genus and go on to elaborate differentiate (whether qualitative or in terms of some quantitative ordering by a particular kind of complexity), as opposed to beginning with an account of what is distinctive of the conceptual, which is only later placed in a larger frame encompassing the doings of less capable systems.” (p. 3).
Brandom goes on to warn against dangers involved in such methodological choices:
““Theories that assimilate conceptually structured activity to the nonconceptual activity out of which it arises (in evolutionary, historical, and individual-developmental terms) are in danger of failing to make enough of the difference. Theories that adopt the converse strategy, addressing themselves at the outset to what is distinctive of or exceptional about the conceptual, court the danger of not doing justice to generic similarities.” (ibid; p. 3).
Brandom describes his own work as “motivated by a concern with what is special about or characteristic of the conceptual as such. I am more interested in what separates concept users from non-concept user than what unites them.” (p. 3).
Brandom’s strategy of giving preference to sapience over sentience should be seen in this context. Similarly Brandom’s discussion about ‘implicit’ and ‘explicit’ and their mutual relationship should be understood as his attempt to understand ‘sapience’ and has no direct relation with sapience/sentience distinction as such (although obviously there would be an indirect relation with sentience).
Now in this context it is easier to understand Habermas’ concern in his ‘weak naturalism’. Habermas at a meta-level presupposes continuity between sapience and sentience through his background assumption of weak naturalism:
“. . . weak naturalism contents itself with the basic background assumption that the biological endowment of the cultural way of life of Homo sapiens have a “natural” origin and can in principle be explained in terms of evolutionary theory.” (TJ: 27-28).
However having made this meta assumption Habermas’ sole concern is with sapience and not with sentience. Like Brandom he is interested in explaining what is unique about sapience as distinguished from sentience given essential continuity with the sapience and sentience. This is what I believe to be Habermas’ problematic and it requires explanation of human reason in broadly “naturalistic” terms however without reducing sentience to sapience. This is in my opinion the essence of Habremas’ weak naturalism.
Monday, April 04, 2005
‘fundamental pragmatism’
I had quoted Brandom definition of what he calls ‘fundamental pragmatism” earlier. Brandom defines fundamental pragmatism as follows:
“It is characteristic of pragmatism in the broad sense to see knowing how as having a certain kind of explanatory priority of knowing that. This is one influential form taken by an insistence on the explanatory primacy of the practical over the theoretical. Explicit theoretical beliefs can be made intelligible only against a background of implicit practical abilities. Pragmatism in this sense – call it ‘fundamental pragmatism’ – is opposed to the kind of Platonistic intellectualism that seeks to explain practical abilities in terms of some sort of grasp of principles; some sort of knowing that behind each bit of know how.” (Hilary Putnam: Pragmatism and Realism,p. 46).
As we had discussed earlier this squares nicely with Habermas’s distinction between know how and know that in his construction of formal pragmatics and in his theory of communicative action. In his recent writings Habermas reasserts the distinction in the context of his pragmatic conception of knowledge.
“[The] intuitive and habitual know-how – the practical understanding of generative rules or mastery of a practice – enjoys primacy over explicit knowledge of rules. Implicit knowledge of such “skills” supports the totality of the web of basic practices and activities of a community that articulate its form of life. Because of the implicit and, in a certain sense, holistic nature of this know-how, Husserl already described the intersubjectively shared lifeworld as an unthematically concomitant “background.”” (TJ: 11).
There are few things to be noted in this regard:
i)Habermas argues for the primacy of implicit knowledge over explicit knowledge and thus for the primacy of practical over theoretical. However it should be noted that this primacy is to be viewed within the theoretical knowledge in a broad sense and has nothing to do with the Kantian distinction between theoretical and practical (moral) knowledge. In fact that former distinction encompasses the latter distinction. I think Habermas is not always very clear about this.
ii)The above is in no way incompatible with Habermas’ prioritization of conceptual (discursive) over non-discursive (this would ally Habermas with Brandom as against Adorno and McDowell for example). The distinction between implicit knowledge and explicit knowledge is geared towards understanding the conceptual and is not meant as a contrast between mediated and non mediated knowledge.
[I would elaborate on (ii) in a separate post.]
Following Brandom we can say that as a ‘fundamental pragmatist’ Habermas partakes in the post Kantian anti Platonism and anti intellectualism. However if we stop here we would miss what is unique about Habermas and his strategy. The pragmatic move at detranscendentalisation is certainly meant as deflation of high flying Platonism but in Habermas it also is a move to salvage what is salvageable in Platonism through this very move. If we miss this point, in my opinion, we would have missed what is unique to Habermas’ contribution in this regard. Habermas’ insight is that the “Platonic” distinction between ‘knowing’ and ‘believing’, the transcendental distinction between ‘reality’ and ‘appearance’, the tension between ‘facticity’ and ‘validity’, and the distinction between intelligible realm and phenomenal realm can be maintained within lifeworld itself (TJ: 218, OPC: 359, BFN: 34-35).
“It is characteristic of pragmatism in the broad sense to see knowing how as having a certain kind of explanatory priority of knowing that. This is one influential form taken by an insistence on the explanatory primacy of the practical over the theoretical. Explicit theoretical beliefs can be made intelligible only against a background of implicit practical abilities. Pragmatism in this sense – call it ‘fundamental pragmatism’ – is opposed to the kind of Platonistic intellectualism that seeks to explain practical abilities in terms of some sort of grasp of principles; some sort of knowing that behind each bit of know how.” (Hilary Putnam: Pragmatism and Realism,p. 46).
As we had discussed earlier this squares nicely with Habermas’s distinction between know how and know that in his construction of formal pragmatics and in his theory of communicative action. In his recent writings Habermas reasserts the distinction in the context of his pragmatic conception of knowledge.
“[The] intuitive and habitual know-how – the practical understanding of generative rules or mastery of a practice – enjoys primacy over explicit knowledge of rules. Implicit knowledge of such “skills” supports the totality of the web of basic practices and activities of a community that articulate its form of life. Because of the implicit and, in a certain sense, holistic nature of this know-how, Husserl already described the intersubjectively shared lifeworld as an unthematically concomitant “background.”” (TJ: 11).
There are few things to be noted in this regard:
i)Habermas argues for the primacy of implicit knowledge over explicit knowledge and thus for the primacy of practical over theoretical. However it should be noted that this primacy is to be viewed within the theoretical knowledge in a broad sense and has nothing to do with the Kantian distinction between theoretical and practical (moral) knowledge. In fact that former distinction encompasses the latter distinction. I think Habermas is not always very clear about this.
ii)The above is in no way incompatible with Habermas’ prioritization of conceptual (discursive) over non-discursive (this would ally Habermas with Brandom as against Adorno and McDowell for example). The distinction between implicit knowledge and explicit knowledge is geared towards understanding the conceptual and is not meant as a contrast between mediated and non mediated knowledge.
[I would elaborate on (ii) in a separate post.]
Following Brandom we can say that as a ‘fundamental pragmatist’ Habermas partakes in the post Kantian anti Platonism and anti intellectualism. However if we stop here we would miss what is unique about Habermas and his strategy. The pragmatic move at detranscendentalisation is certainly meant as deflation of high flying Platonism but in Habermas it also is a move to salvage what is salvageable in Platonism through this very move. If we miss this point, in my opinion, we would have missed what is unique to Habermas’ contribution in this regard. Habermas’ insight is that the “Platonic” distinction between ‘knowing’ and ‘believing’, the transcendental distinction between ‘reality’ and ‘appearance’, the tension between ‘facticity’ and ‘validity’, and the distinction between intelligible realm and phenomenal realm can be maintained within lifeworld itself (TJ: 218, OPC: 359, BFN: 34-35).
Thursday, March 31, 2005
Transcendental Constraints and Transcendental Features
Mark Sacks in an important article which is referred to and briefly commented on by Habermas in his introduction to TJ, makes a distinction between Transcendental constraint (TC) and Transcendental feature (TF). Let us see first how Sacks define these terms:
“TC indicates a dependence of empirical possibilities on a non-empirical structure, say, the structure of anything that can count as a mind. Such constraints will determine non-empirical limits of possible forms of experience. So here we have a direction of determination that runs from a certain transcendental structure, say of the mind, to the range of empirical forms of experience that can be actualised.”
“A merely TF on the other hand, is significantly weaker. Transcendental features indicate the limitation on what, at a time, can be envisaged as possible, and to which alternatives cannot be made intelligible as long as they retain their transcendental status. But these features are rendered transcendental only by the empirical variety of language games currently available; they are relative to the way we are currently minded, in Lear’s phrase.” (p. 178).
First let me state that Sacks uses the terms “empirical” ambiguously to describe both what is ‘experienced’ empirically and what in principle can be ‘experienced’ empirically. According to this distinction TF would be empirical only in the latter sense. This should weaken the sharp contrast Sacks makes to a certain extent though his general point remains intact. Sacks' point is that only TC can determine the form of possible experience, while TF can provide no such guarantee. However the above distinction considerably weaken Sacks' following points:
“TF, expressing limits of what we can currently envisage, might serve as constraints on what serve as constraints on what projects we undertake, what we can recognize as a viable option, etc. But the contingency of those TF means that their force as constraints in no way privileged over that of ordinary empirical constraints. This is because it is a contingent matter whether they are sustained, rather than a shift in our practices sustaining alternatives to them, whether or not we can now make those alternatives intelligible.” (p. 179).
Now the fact is that TF are in a critical sense privileged over “ordinary empirical constraints.” While we can objectify ordinary empirical constraints in toto, TF, like lifeworld or language can only be objectified partially. It is impossible for us to objectify language or lifeworld in toto.
A further point is that Sacks' sharp contrast between the necessary character of TC and merely contingent character of TF is itself a residual of the transcendental model. Once we abandon a transcendental model of the Kantian sort the sharp contrast between the necessity of intelligible and the contingency of empirical should also give way to a less sharp distinction. This is another way of saying that the distinction between intelligible and empirical is not to be conceived as a dichotomy.
==
related post
“TC indicates a dependence of empirical possibilities on a non-empirical structure, say, the structure of anything that can count as a mind. Such constraints will determine non-empirical limits of possible forms of experience. So here we have a direction of determination that runs from a certain transcendental structure, say of the mind, to the range of empirical forms of experience that can be actualised.”
“A merely TF on the other hand, is significantly weaker. Transcendental features indicate the limitation on what, at a time, can be envisaged as possible, and to which alternatives cannot be made intelligible as long as they retain their transcendental status. But these features are rendered transcendental only by the empirical variety of language games currently available; they are relative to the way we are currently minded, in Lear’s phrase.” (p. 178).
First let me state that Sacks uses the terms “empirical” ambiguously to describe both what is ‘experienced’ empirically and what in principle can be ‘experienced’ empirically. According to this distinction TF would be empirical only in the latter sense. This should weaken the sharp contrast Sacks makes to a certain extent though his general point remains intact. Sacks' point is that only TC can determine the form of possible experience, while TF can provide no such guarantee. However the above distinction considerably weaken Sacks' following points:
“TF, expressing limits of what we can currently envisage, might serve as constraints on what serve as constraints on what projects we undertake, what we can recognize as a viable option, etc. But the contingency of those TF means that their force as constraints in no way privileged over that of ordinary empirical constraints. This is because it is a contingent matter whether they are sustained, rather than a shift in our practices sustaining alternatives to them, whether or not we can now make those alternatives intelligible.” (p. 179).
Now the fact is that TF are in a critical sense privileged over “ordinary empirical constraints.” While we can objectify ordinary empirical constraints in toto, TF, like lifeworld or language can only be objectified partially. It is impossible for us to objectify language or lifeworld in toto.
A further point is that Sacks' sharp contrast between the necessary character of TC and merely contingent character of TF is itself a residual of the transcendental model. Once we abandon a transcendental model of the Kantian sort the sharp contrast between the necessity of intelligible and the contingency of empirical should also give way to a less sharp distinction. This is another way of saying that the distinction between intelligible and empirical is not to be conceived as a dichotomy.
==
related post
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
two senses of the linguistic turn
Habermas differentiates between two senses of the linguistic turn: linguistic turn as a paradigm shift and “merely methodological understanding” of the turn. Here is an explanation of what he means by a methodological understanding of the linguistic turn:
“. . . there continues from Russel and Carnap onward an empiricist analysis of language with a merely methodological understanding of the linguistic turn, a strand that has gained worldwide acceptance through the work of Quine and Davidson. From the outset, Davidson assimilates an interlocutor's understanding of a linguistic expression to an observer’s interpretation of data and ends up with a nominalist conception of language that accords primacy to the passing idiolects of individual speakers over the social realm of linguistically embodied and intersubjectively shared meaning. With this move language loses the status of social fact, with Humboldt had attributed to it by subsuming it under the concept of subjective spirit.” (TJ: 69).
The above understanding of the language leads to a different conception of how we are related to (connected to) the world. For the likes of Quine and Davidson whose understanding of the linguistic turn is merely methodological our fundamental or basic relation with the world is “causal” (so they remain in the empiricist tradition of Hume even after the linguistic turn) while for those who take the turn in the meaning of paradigm shift our basic connection with the world is not “causal” but “semantic” (causality work in the context of "world disclosing semantics" and not the other way round).
In this context Habermas further differentiates between two distinct approaches to the linguistic turn understood as paradigm shift. Here he differentiates between those who have an overburdened understanding of linguistic world disclosure and hence of semantic connection with the world and those who give equal weight to innerworldly learning processes and do not reduce innerwordly to the world disclosure:
“. . . I am interested in a third current represented by philosophers as diverse as Putnam, Dummett and Apel. What these authors have in common that they take seriously the linguistic turn in the sense of a paradigm shift, without paying the price of the culturalist assimilation of being true to taking to be true. It is characteristics of these thinkers that they fight on two fronts: against the half-hearted linguistic analysis that merely tackles the old problems of Kant and Hume by new means, on the one hand; and, on the other hand, against semantic particularism that is hostile to the enlightenment and ignores the rational self understanding of language users as creatures for whom reasons are binding.” (p. 69).
“. . . there continues from Russel and Carnap onward an empiricist analysis of language with a merely methodological understanding of the linguistic turn, a strand that has gained worldwide acceptance through the work of Quine and Davidson. From the outset, Davidson assimilates an interlocutor's understanding of a linguistic expression to an observer’s interpretation of data and ends up with a nominalist conception of language that accords primacy to the passing idiolects of individual speakers over the social realm of linguistically embodied and intersubjectively shared meaning. With this move language loses the status of social fact, with Humboldt had attributed to it by subsuming it under the concept of subjective spirit.” (TJ: 69).
The above understanding of the language leads to a different conception of how we are related to (connected to) the world. For the likes of Quine and Davidson whose understanding of the linguistic turn is merely methodological our fundamental or basic relation with the world is “causal” (so they remain in the empiricist tradition of Hume even after the linguistic turn) while for those who take the turn in the meaning of paradigm shift our basic connection with the world is not “causal” but “semantic” (causality work in the context of "world disclosing semantics" and not the other way round).
In this context Habermas further differentiates between two distinct approaches to the linguistic turn understood as paradigm shift. Here he differentiates between those who have an overburdened understanding of linguistic world disclosure and hence of semantic connection with the world and those who give equal weight to innerworldly learning processes and do not reduce innerwordly to the world disclosure:
“. . . I am interested in a third current represented by philosophers as diverse as Putnam, Dummett and Apel. What these authors have in common that they take seriously the linguistic turn in the sense of a paradigm shift, without paying the price of the culturalist assimilation of being true to taking to be true. It is characteristics of these thinkers that they fight on two fronts: against the half-hearted linguistic analysis that merely tackles the old problems of Kant and Hume by new means, on the one hand; and, on the other hand, against semantic particularism that is hostile to the enlightenment and ignores the rational self understanding of language users as creatures for whom reasons are binding.” (p. 69).
the meaning of "weak" in Habermas
Habermas frequently uses the adjective "weak" to qualify his use of terms like transcendentalism etc. It is not often clear what Haberams exactly means by the qualification. Here is a clue from Habermas himself (from his discussion of Putnam in TJ):
"[The] indispensability argument is "weak" insofar as it argues not that a presupposition is unrevisable or necessary, but that it is - for the time being - unavoidable, that we cannot imagine it being otherwise." (pp. 219-220).
Read more
"[The] indispensability argument is "weak" insofar as it argues not that a presupposition is unrevisable or necessary, but that it is - for the time being - unavoidable, that we cannot imagine it being otherwise." (pp. 219-220).
Read more
Sunday, March 27, 2005
continuities and discontinuities
Carl Sachs wrote here:
"Ali, you wrote that the "factual' can produce what is not only sharply distinct from it but also in some sense antithesis of it." What bothers me about this way of framing the issue is this: is the opposition between sapience ("Reason") and sentience ("Nature") constitutive of the distinction? Or is rather that we moderns have inherited a certain tradition, given inflection and expression by Plato, Descartes, and Kant, that construes this distinction as an opposition? If the latter (as I suspect) then the very notion of an opposition between Nature and Reason might itself be part of the philosophy of the subject that we need to overcome."
First let me say that maintaining the right balance between ‘continuity’ and discontinuity’ is a tricky matter. As Brandom puts it nicely:
“Theories that assimilate conceptually structured activity to the nonconceptual activity out of which it arises (in evolutionary, historical, and individual-developmental terms) are in danger of failing to make enough of the difference. Theories that adopt the converse strategy, addressing themselves at the outset to what is distinctive of or exceptional about the conceptual, court the danger of not doing justice to generic similarities.” (Articulating Reasons, p. 3).
Carl, perhaps you are right to object to my use of the term anti-thesis here. I think I am happy to drop it. Thank you for that. My intention however was to emphasise on the one hand the clear distinction that Habermas makes between facticity and validity, a distinction which for him is the corner stone of modernity. Thus he claims that in mythic societies we cannot find a concept of validity which is not confused with the “admixture of empirical efficacy.” (see TCA I, chapter 1 under the discussion of mythical views.). On the other hand Habermas also stresses the need for a thoroughgoing detranscendentalisation that does away with all kinds of attempts to ground distinctions like facticity and validity in metaphysical or ontological dualisms. From this the conclusion I draw is that the only way to combine the above two stances is to argue that the distinction between facticity and validity emerges from ‘within’, i.e. from the factual, taken in broad terms. As Habermas puts it:
“Transcendental reason has come down from its supersensible pedestal and has sedimented itself in the pores of the practices and forms of life of actual linguistic communities. As a result of this cultural embodiment of reason, the transcendental distinction become less clear. However, they do not disappear entirely. The distinction between the realm of reason and the realm of appearances returns in detranscendentalized forms.” (TJ: 218).
Clearly the conclusion I draw above is drawn by Habermas himself in the above quote and at several other places. My only contribution (if there is any) is to put the whole issue into sharp focus (which it has not yet received in my opinion).
"Ali, you wrote that the "factual' can produce what is not only sharply distinct from it but also in some sense antithesis of it." What bothers me about this way of framing the issue is this: is the opposition between sapience ("Reason") and sentience ("Nature") constitutive of the distinction? Or is rather that we moderns have inherited a certain tradition, given inflection and expression by Plato, Descartes, and Kant, that construes this distinction as an opposition? If the latter (as I suspect) then the very notion of an opposition between Nature and Reason might itself be part of the philosophy of the subject that we need to overcome."
First let me say that maintaining the right balance between ‘continuity’ and discontinuity’ is a tricky matter. As Brandom puts it nicely:
“Theories that assimilate conceptually structured activity to the nonconceptual activity out of which it arises (in evolutionary, historical, and individual-developmental terms) are in danger of failing to make enough of the difference. Theories that adopt the converse strategy, addressing themselves at the outset to what is distinctive of or exceptional about the conceptual, court the danger of not doing justice to generic similarities.” (Articulating Reasons, p. 3).
Carl, perhaps you are right to object to my use of the term anti-thesis here. I think I am happy to drop it. Thank you for that. My intention however was to emphasise on the one hand the clear distinction that Habermas makes between facticity and validity, a distinction which for him is the corner stone of modernity. Thus he claims that in mythic societies we cannot find a concept of validity which is not confused with the “admixture of empirical efficacy.” (see TCA I, chapter 1 under the discussion of mythical views.). On the other hand Habermas also stresses the need for a thoroughgoing detranscendentalisation that does away with all kinds of attempts to ground distinctions like facticity and validity in metaphysical or ontological dualisms. From this the conclusion I draw is that the only way to combine the above two stances is to argue that the distinction between facticity and validity emerges from ‘within’, i.e. from the factual, taken in broad terms. As Habermas puts it:
“Transcendental reason has come down from its supersensible pedestal and has sedimented itself in the pores of the practices and forms of life of actual linguistic communities. As a result of this cultural embodiment of reason, the transcendental distinction become less clear. However, they do not disappear entirely. The distinction between the realm of reason and the realm of appearances returns in detranscendentalized forms.” (TJ: 218).
Clearly the conclusion I draw above is drawn by Habermas himself in the above quote and at several other places. My only contribution (if there is any) is to put the whole issue into sharp focus (which it has not yet received in my opinion).
"transcendent / transcendental" and Derrida
A couple of posts back Andrew Montin made the following comments about the transcendent/transcendental distinction in Derrida. I thought the comments were illuminating even though lacking any specialised knowledge of Derrida I cannot add much to them. I thought others with more Derrida knowledge might benefit from them and might have something to add (hope Andrew does not mind us putting them here).
"I just wanted to say something about the transcendent / transcendental issue in Derrida.
In "Introduction to Husserl's Origin of Geometry" (English trans.), Derrida on p.146, n.177 writes after quoting Husserl:
"If the Idea is thought here to have a transcendental sense and, as we shall see in a moment, is "beyond" only compared with the constituted moment of transcendental subjectivity, we can observe that Husserl profoundly recuperates the original scholastic sense of the transcendental (unum, verum, bonum, etc., as the transcategorial of Aristotelian logic) over and above its Kantian meaning, but also in a development of the Kantian enterprise."
So it seems that Derrida attributes the "confusion" between the transcendent and transcendental, or more precisely between the Scholastic and Kantian senses, to Husserl. At any rate, Derrida doesn't consider them mutually exclusive. The issue crops up again in "The Supplement of Copula" (Margins, p. 195):
"Here we are taking the word 'transcendental' in its most rigorous accepted sense, in its most avowed 'technicalness,' precisely as it was fixed in the course of the development of the Aristotelian problematic of the categories, including whatever remains beyond the categories. Transcendental means transcategorical. Literally, 'that which transcends every genre.' (Despite the contextual differences, this definition of the word undoubtedly invented by the Chancellor Philip, 1128, also suits the Kantian and Husserlian concepts of the transcendental.)"
In a passage in "Of Grammatology" Derrida restricts his notion of the transcendental (as he does above, but given what he says about Husserl and Kant, how restrictive is this restriction?) to the Scholastic sense when dealing with the transcendental signified:
"[T]he 'transcendental' signified ('transcendental' in a certain sense, as in the Middle Ages the transcendental - ens,unum, verum, bonum - was said to be the 'primum cognitum')..." (p. 20)
If in Derrida this doesn't lead to a "naturalization of the transcendental" or a "collapsing into a psychologization of transcendence" it is because he originally found justification for this convergence in the phenomenological tradition."
"I just wanted to say something about the transcendent / transcendental issue in Derrida.
In "Introduction to Husserl's Origin of Geometry" (English trans.), Derrida on p.146, n.177 writes after quoting Husserl:
"If the Idea is thought here to have a transcendental sense and, as we shall see in a moment, is "beyond" only compared with the constituted moment of transcendental subjectivity, we can observe that Husserl profoundly recuperates the original scholastic sense of the transcendental (unum, verum, bonum, etc., as the transcategorial of Aristotelian logic) over and above its Kantian meaning, but also in a development of the Kantian enterprise."
So it seems that Derrida attributes the "confusion" between the transcendent and transcendental, or more precisely between the Scholastic and Kantian senses, to Husserl. At any rate, Derrida doesn't consider them mutually exclusive. The issue crops up again in "The Supplement of Copula" (Margins, p. 195):
"Here we are taking the word 'transcendental' in its most rigorous accepted sense, in its most avowed 'technicalness,' precisely as it was fixed in the course of the development of the Aristotelian problematic of the categories, including whatever remains beyond the categories. Transcendental means transcategorical. Literally, 'that which transcends every genre.' (Despite the contextual differences, this definition of the word undoubtedly invented by the Chancellor Philip, 1128, also suits the Kantian and Husserlian concepts of the transcendental.)"
In a passage in "Of Grammatology" Derrida restricts his notion of the transcendental (as he does above, but given what he says about Husserl and Kant, how restrictive is this restriction?) to the Scholastic sense when dealing with the transcendental signified:
"[T]he 'transcendental' signified ('transcendental' in a certain sense, as in the Middle Ages the transcendental - ens,unum, verum, bonum - was said to be the 'primum cognitum')..." (p. 20)
If in Derrida this doesn't lead to a "naturalization of the transcendental" or a "collapsing into a psychologization of transcendence" it is because he originally found justification for this convergence in the phenomenological tradition."
Saturday, March 26, 2005
Nietzsche, Habermas and factual validity distinction . . .
Following comments by Carl Sachs were in my opinion too important to be buried in the comments section. I hope Carl does not mind me putting them here. I will comment on some of the issues raised in here later, but let me say that on the whole I am in basic agreement with Carl:
"I've been thinking about Habermas' critique of Nietzsche, in KHI. Habermas also wrote an essay on Nietzsche's epistemology in 1968, but I haven't looked at it yet.
I'd like to use Sellars' distinction, which has become important to Brandom, between sentience and sapience. Let "sentience" refer to reliable differential responses to stimuli. Let "sapience" refer to conceptually structured relations of material inference. (One of the many reasons I like this contrast is that it forces into the open that by "Nature" we do not mean inert matter (hyle, res extensa) but animal embodiment. And one of Nietzsche's great achievements, I think, was to put the question of our own animal embodiment back on the agenda.
In these terms, Habermas' critique is this: Nietzsche reduces sapience to sentience. That is, Nietzsche refuses to acknowledge the distinction between "the game of asking for and giving reasons" (Sellars) and patterns of activity and reactivity that characterize all living things. This is what is at stake when Habermas argues, in KHI, that Nietzsche psychologizes transcendence. For Nietzsche does not only psychologize transcendence, but does so in terms of a psychological theory that makes no distinction of kinds between humans and other animals. It's "will to power" all the way down.
Following that revolution in our self-understanding that is called "Darwin," Habermas acknowledges that the distinction between sapience and sentience must be a "natural" distinction. (Does this mean that we should expect cognitive science to tell us how it happened?) But Habermas wants to resist the "strong naturalism" of Quine that would level out the sapeience/sentience distinction.
On Habermas' reading, is Nietzsche a "strong naturalist" in the same camp as Quine? Reading KHI alongside TJ produces that impression. Is that fair to Nietzsche?
Ali, you wrote that the "factual' can produce what is not only sharply distinct from it but also in some sense antithesis of it." What bothers me about this way of framing the issue is this: is the opposition between sapience ("Reason") and sentience ("Nature") constitutive of the distinction? Or is rather that we moderns have inherited a certain tradition, given inflection and expression by Plato, Descartes, and Kant, that construes this distinction as an opposition? If the latter (as I suspect) then the very notion of an opposition between Nature and Reason might itself be part of the philosophy of the subject that we need to overcome.
Overcoming opposition in the name of difference? There might be a way, here, to re-frame the one-sided debate between Habermas and Nietzsche. But in order to do so one would need to show, it seems to me, that Nietzsche's acocunt of "spiritualization" is an account of the emergence of sapience from sentience. And I don't know if the notion of spiritualization is really worked out well enough, in Nietzsche, to do the work that a defender of Nietzsche would need it to do."
"I've been thinking about Habermas' critique of Nietzsche, in KHI. Habermas also wrote an essay on Nietzsche's epistemology in 1968, but I haven't looked at it yet.
I'd like to use Sellars' distinction, which has become important to Brandom, between sentience and sapience. Let "sentience" refer to reliable differential responses to stimuli. Let "sapience" refer to conceptually structured relations of material inference. (One of the many reasons I like this contrast is that it forces into the open that by "Nature" we do not mean inert matter (hyle, res extensa) but animal embodiment. And one of Nietzsche's great achievements, I think, was to put the question of our own animal embodiment back on the agenda.
In these terms, Habermas' critique is this: Nietzsche reduces sapience to sentience. That is, Nietzsche refuses to acknowledge the distinction between "the game of asking for and giving reasons" (Sellars) and patterns of activity and reactivity that characterize all living things. This is what is at stake when Habermas argues, in KHI, that Nietzsche psychologizes transcendence. For Nietzsche does not only psychologize transcendence, but does so in terms of a psychological theory that makes no distinction of kinds between humans and other animals. It's "will to power" all the way down.
Following that revolution in our self-understanding that is called "Darwin," Habermas acknowledges that the distinction between sapience and sentience must be a "natural" distinction. (Does this mean that we should expect cognitive science to tell us how it happened?) But Habermas wants to resist the "strong naturalism" of Quine that would level out the sapeience/sentience distinction.
On Habermas' reading, is Nietzsche a "strong naturalist" in the same camp as Quine? Reading KHI alongside TJ produces that impression. Is that fair to Nietzsche?
Ali, you wrote that the "factual' can produce what is not only sharply distinct from it but also in some sense antithesis of it." What bothers me about this way of framing the issue is this: is the opposition between sapience ("Reason") and sentience ("Nature") constitutive of the distinction? Or is rather that we moderns have inherited a certain tradition, given inflection and expression by Plato, Descartes, and Kant, that construes this distinction as an opposition? If the latter (as I suspect) then the very notion of an opposition between Nature and Reason might itself be part of the philosophy of the subject that we need to overcome.
Overcoming opposition in the name of difference? There might be a way, here, to re-frame the one-sided debate between Habermas and Nietzsche. But in order to do so one would need to show, it seems to me, that Nietzsche's acocunt of "spiritualization" is an account of the emergence of sapience from sentience. And I don't know if the notion of spiritualization is really worked out well enough, in Nietzsche, to do the work that a defender of Nietzsche would need it to do."
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Running two themes together
There are two themes that run parallel in Habermas.
On the one hand:
1) There is what I call “transcendental theme” in the context of which Habemras forcefully argue for:
a) A sharp distinction between facticty and validity.
b) A sharp distinction between nature and human (social and cultural) world.
c) What following Allison we can term as absolute spontaneity of reason.
d) Spontaneity of human subjectivity and agency.
e) Typically Kantian notions of Reflection, thought and critique.
On the other hand:
2)there is a parallel “detranscendentalization theme” in Habermas as well where he equally forcefully argues for:
a) detranscendentalization of reason.
b) Embeddedness of human agency.
c) Our status as “Being in the world”
d) Critique of transcendental subjectivity and consciousness.
e) Critique of all types of metaphysics that locates reason beyond this world.
Habermas commentators tend to emphasize one theme at the expense of the other depending on their own preferences. However what needs to be done is to understand how we can systematically synthesise these two themes in one coherent “theory” without down plying one theme at the expense of the other.
If we want to do justice two both themes in Habermas then in my opinion the only way out is to emphasise and highlight the theme of “transcendence from within”. This is the only way to go in my opinion.
If we want to say on the one hand that there is a sharp distinction between ‘facticity’ and ‘validity’ while on the other hand we also want to emphasise that ultimate ‘detranscendentalsied’ character of the ‘validity’, the only way out possible is to show how a sharp distinction between facticity and validity can emerge from within, i.e. to show how ‘factual' can produce what is not only sharply distinct from it but also in some sense antithesis of it.
Read more
On the one hand:
1) There is what I call “transcendental theme” in the context of which Habemras forcefully argue for:
a) A sharp distinction between facticty and validity.
b) A sharp distinction between nature and human (social and cultural) world.
c) What following Allison we can term as absolute spontaneity of reason.
d) Spontaneity of human subjectivity and agency.
e) Typically Kantian notions of Reflection, thought and critique.
On the other hand:
2)there is a parallel “detranscendentalization theme” in Habermas as well where he equally forcefully argues for:
a) detranscendentalization of reason.
b) Embeddedness of human agency.
c) Our status as “Being in the world”
d) Critique of transcendental subjectivity and consciousness.
e) Critique of all types of metaphysics that locates reason beyond this world.
Habermas commentators tend to emphasize one theme at the expense of the other depending on their own preferences. However what needs to be done is to understand how we can systematically synthesise these two themes in one coherent “theory” without down plying one theme at the expense of the other.
If we want to do justice two both themes in Habermas then in my opinion the only way out is to emphasise and highlight the theme of “transcendence from within”. This is the only way to go in my opinion.
If we want to say on the one hand that there is a sharp distinction between ‘facticity’ and ‘validity’ while on the other hand we also want to emphasise that ultimate ‘detranscendentalsied’ character of the ‘validity’, the only way out possible is to show how a sharp distinction between facticity and validity can emerge from within, i.e. to show how ‘factual' can produce what is not only sharply distinct from it but also in some sense antithesis of it.
Read more
Sunday, March 20, 2005
scientific conceptions of nature and reconciliation between "nature" and "reason"
Let us begin by a thesis that:
Concept of “nature” as provided by natural sciences is the hindrance in the way of any reconciliation between “nature” and “reason”.
Now there are, many possible ways out, but first a “caution”:
“The reconciliation is to be done without blurring distinction between “reason” and “nature”. In another words there is a distinction which should not be blurred but there is no legetimation for turning that distinction into a dichotomy.
Now here is one possible way out (on this occasion only from the perspective of “nature’ though similar should be done from the side of “reason”):
1) Reconceptualise the concept of “nature” as dealt within natural science.
1a) But the above is ambiguous: It can either mean re-conceptualizing the concept of “nature” as it is used in sciences. It would be argued that unless we arrive at a new conception of science which is qualitatively different form current physicalist reductionist conception of science we cannot effect any reconciliation between nature and reason. Marcuse and his disciples argued for such a position. Habermas is vehemently opposed to such ideas. He sees in them germs of anti modernism.
1b) or it can mean re-conceptualizing the concept of nature as a whole in such a way that the concept of nature as found in sciences would be part of an overall conception of nature (an abstraction albeit a legitimate one) and would not be regarded as equal to nature as such. Then we would have an ample room for experimenting with our idea of reconciliation between nature and reason without abandoning current notions of what science is apart from denying reductionist philosophies based on an appeal to sciences.
2) Obviously Habermas would favour (1b).
Concept of “nature” as provided by natural sciences is the hindrance in the way of any reconciliation between “nature” and “reason”.
Now there are, many possible ways out, but first a “caution”:
“The reconciliation is to be done without blurring distinction between “reason” and “nature”. In another words there is a distinction which should not be blurred but there is no legetimation for turning that distinction into a dichotomy.
Now here is one possible way out (on this occasion only from the perspective of “nature’ though similar should be done from the side of “reason”):
1) Reconceptualise the concept of “nature” as dealt within natural science.
1a) But the above is ambiguous: It can either mean re-conceptualizing the concept of “nature” as it is used in sciences. It would be argued that unless we arrive at a new conception of science which is qualitatively different form current physicalist reductionist conception of science we cannot effect any reconciliation between nature and reason. Marcuse and his disciples argued for such a position. Habermas is vehemently opposed to such ideas. He sees in them germs of anti modernism.
1b) or it can mean re-conceptualizing the concept of nature as a whole in such a way that the concept of nature as found in sciences would be part of an overall conception of nature (an abstraction albeit a legitimate one) and would not be regarded as equal to nature as such. Then we would have an ample room for experimenting with our idea of reconciliation between nature and reason without abandoning current notions of what science is apart from denying reductionist philosophies based on an appeal to sciences.
2) Obviously Habermas would favour (1b).
The distinction between "transcendental" and "empirical" in KHI
Note: Moving to the front due to recent comments
Even in KHI Habermas is working with a notion of "transcendental" which is also "natural":
The “knowledge-constitutive interests mediate the natural history of the human species with the logic of its self-formative process” (KHI: 196). Thus they are the conditions of the possibility of experience in the sense that they constitute the object domain of possible experience (and hence they are transcendental) but they are also the product of the process of natural evolution of human species which is ultimately “contingent” (KHI: 34). Hence the term “quasi transcendental” for these interests (TP: 8).
Habermas credits Nietzsche for doing the same; however he censures him for psychologising those interests. The following summarises Habermas’ verdict on Nietzsche regarding Knowledge and interest: “Nietzsche . . . saw the connection of knowledge and interest, but psychologised it, thus making it the basis of a metacritical dissolution of knowledge as such. Nietzsche carried to its end the self abolition of epistemology inaugurated by Hegel and continued by Marx, arriving at the self denial of reflection” (KHI: 290).
By psychologising "transcendental interests" Nietzsche collapses the distinction between "transcendental" and "empirical". In TJ the same charge would be levelled against Quine and Davidson (albeit in different terms and different tone).
Even in KHI Habermas is working with a notion of "transcendental" which is also "natural":
The “knowledge-constitutive interests mediate the natural history of the human species with the logic of its self-formative process” (KHI: 196). Thus they are the conditions of the possibility of experience in the sense that they constitute the object domain of possible experience (and hence they are transcendental) but they are also the product of the process of natural evolution of human species which is ultimately “contingent” (KHI: 34). Hence the term “quasi transcendental” for these interests (TP: 8).
Habermas credits Nietzsche for doing the same; however he censures him for psychologising those interests. The following summarises Habermas’ verdict on Nietzsche regarding Knowledge and interest: “Nietzsche . . . saw the connection of knowledge and interest, but psychologised it, thus making it the basis of a metacritical dissolution of knowledge as such. Nietzsche carried to its end the self abolition of epistemology inaugurated by Hegel and continued by Marx, arriving at the self denial of reflection” (KHI: 290).
By psychologising "transcendental interests" Nietzsche collapses the distinction between "transcendental" and "empirical". In TJ the same charge would be levelled against Quine and Davidson (albeit in different terms and different tone).
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
detranscendentalisation . . .
Habermas’ use of the term detranscendentalisation is coupled with his critique of the transcendental subjectivity. The whole notion of detranscendentalisation presupposes the Kantian grounding of the distinction between “transcendental” and “empirical” in the two realm distinction (the realm of pure intelligibility and the phenomenal realm). It is only if this Kantian notion is presupposed that the notion of ‘detranscendentalisation’ makes any sense. Habermas says this in his discussion on Quine quite explicitly:
“The heirs of Hume are less affected than the heirs of Kant by the two problems to which the detranscendentalising move gives rise. The unsettling questions regarding the objectivity of knowledge and the difference between the world and what is innerworldly do not even arise unless we start with the assumptions of the transcendental approach in the first place.”
Habermas takes the term “detranscendentalisation” quite literally:
“Detranscendentalisation alters the very concept of the transcendental. Transcendental consciousness loses the connotation of an “otherworldly” dimension rooted in the realm of intelligible. It has come down to Earth in the form of everyday communicative practice, which is no longer sublime. Thus, the profane lifeworld has usurped the transmundane place of the noumenal. Although pragmatism retains the transcendental framing of the issue, it defuses the tension between the transcendental and empirical. To be sure, communicative language still commits participants to strong idealizations. By orienting themselves to unconditional validity claims and presupposing each other’s accountability, interlocutors aim beyond contingent and merely local contexts. But these counterfactual presuppositions are rooted in the facticity of everyday practices.”
Habermas goes on to say that:
“Deflating our original understanding of the transcendental has significant consequences. If transcendental rules are no longer something rational outside the world, they mutate into expressions of cultural forms of life and have a beginning in time. As a consequence, we may no longer without qualification claim “universality” and “necessity,” that is, objectivity for empirical cognition the possibility of which has been established transcendentally. And the transcendental conditions under which we have epistemic access to the world themselves must be conceived as something in the world.”
“The heirs of Hume are less affected than the heirs of Kant by the two problems to which the detranscendentalising move gives rise. The unsettling questions regarding the objectivity of knowledge and the difference between the world and what is innerworldly do not even arise unless we start with the assumptions of the transcendental approach in the first place.”
Habermas takes the term “detranscendentalisation” quite literally:
“Detranscendentalisation alters the very concept of the transcendental. Transcendental consciousness loses the connotation of an “otherworldly” dimension rooted in the realm of intelligible. It has come down to Earth in the form of everyday communicative practice, which is no longer sublime. Thus, the profane lifeworld has usurped the transmundane place of the noumenal. Although pragmatism retains the transcendental framing of the issue, it defuses the tension between the transcendental and empirical. To be sure, communicative language still commits participants to strong idealizations. By orienting themselves to unconditional validity claims and presupposing each other’s accountability, interlocutors aim beyond contingent and merely local contexts. But these counterfactual presuppositions are rooted in the facticity of everyday practices.”
Habermas goes on to say that:
“Deflating our original understanding of the transcendental has significant consequences. If transcendental rules are no longer something rational outside the world, they mutate into expressions of cultural forms of life and have a beginning in time. As a consequence, we may no longer without qualification claim “universality” and “necessity,” that is, objectivity for empirical cognition the possibility of which has been established transcendentally. And the transcendental conditions under which we have epistemic access to the world themselves must be conceived as something in the world.”
Six theses on Habermas, Naturalism and anti-Naturalism
Note: Moving to the front (from March 7) due to recent comments
1) In the course of the 19th century within the history of Philosophy we witness a challenge emerging to the naturalism prevailing since the early modern times. In the Kantian philosophy we find an assertion of the Platonic and rationalist belief in the “otherworldly” character of the key modern concepts like reason, freedom and reflection. For sure, Kant gave crucial concessions to the naturalism in general. He accepted its overall detranscendentalising thrust. However he insisted on preserving something crucial from this overall detranscendentalising project. The concepts of freedom and reason cannot be sustained within a thoroughgoing detranscendentalising trust of the modern philosophy. One needs to make room for a transcendental/intelligible realm where ‘reason’ and ‘freedom’ can be located. This resulted in two crucial premises on which Kantian idealism is based.
1a) Reason is not a thing of ‘this world.’ It cannot be reduced to or emerge from within it. There is a crucial distinction between empirical/natural and rational realm. It is manifested in Kant’s distinction between freedom and nature in a binary way. In sum, for Kant empirical and rational orders are exclusive.
1b) Reason requires a subject, a subject with a possibility of freedom. A subject is not only part of the ‘natural’ order but also a member of the rational order. It is through this ‘dual’ character of the subject that the natural order and rational orders are interrelated.
3) Habermas’ unique synthesis is Not unlike Kant, who at the time, had tried to combine the opposing tendencies of empiricism and rationalism, Habermas also aims to combine naturalism/empiricism and idealism/anti-naturalism.
4) On the one hand Habermas fully agrees with naturalism/empiricism in general on the issue of the ‘desublimation’ and ‘detranscendentalisation’ of the reason, freedom and our understanding of the world in general. He critiques idealism and anti-naturalism on this account throughout his writings. In this regard Habermas’ critiques the notion of the transcendental subject among other notions.
5) On the other hand Habermas also holds fast to the key idealist assumption that ‘reason’ cannot be reduced to the ‘empirical’ and it is important to maintain the transcending powers of reason. He also insists that reason and freedom are closely related and he insists on that in order to preserve the transcending power of reason. We need to hold to the notion of subject capable of accomplishments a subject that is not merely a ‘cultural dope.’ Thus Habermas aims to preserve the conception of a subject capable of accomplishments even when he accepts the critique of subject aimed at the Kantian tradition.
6) Habermas maintains that the naturalist project of desublimation and detranscendentalisation of reason can be combined with the Kantian project of preserving the transcending powers of reason. Habermas’ crucial, central and unique insight is that the Kantian distinction between empirical and transcendental can be preserved without ascribing to the Kantian distinction between empirical and intelligible world/order. This would result, claims Habermas, in a new synthesis where we would be able to combine the best of empiricism and idealism, naturalism, and anti-naturalism without however ascribing to their shortcomings. Habermas calls this position a weak naturalism in his most recent writings.
1) In the course of the 19th century within the history of Philosophy we witness a challenge emerging to the naturalism prevailing since the early modern times. In the Kantian philosophy we find an assertion of the Platonic and rationalist belief in the “otherworldly” character of the key modern concepts like reason, freedom and reflection. For sure, Kant gave crucial concessions to the naturalism in general. He accepted its overall detranscendentalising thrust. However he insisted on preserving something crucial from this overall detranscendentalising project. The concepts of freedom and reason cannot be sustained within a thoroughgoing detranscendentalising trust of the modern philosophy. One needs to make room for a transcendental/intelligible realm where ‘reason’ and ‘freedom’ can be located. This resulted in two crucial premises on which Kantian idealism is based.
1a) Reason is not a thing of ‘this world.’ It cannot be reduced to or emerge from within it. There is a crucial distinction between empirical/natural and rational realm. It is manifested in Kant’s distinction between freedom and nature in a binary way. In sum, for Kant empirical and rational orders are exclusive.
1b) Reason requires a subject, a subject with a possibility of freedom. A subject is not only part of the ‘natural’ order but also a member of the rational order. It is through this ‘dual’ character of the subject that the natural order and rational orders are interrelated.
3) Habermas’ unique synthesis is Not unlike Kant, who at the time, had tried to combine the opposing tendencies of empiricism and rationalism, Habermas also aims to combine naturalism/empiricism and idealism/anti-naturalism.
4) On the one hand Habermas fully agrees with naturalism/empiricism in general on the issue of the ‘desublimation’ and ‘detranscendentalisation’ of the reason, freedom and our understanding of the world in general. He critiques idealism and anti-naturalism on this account throughout his writings. In this regard Habermas’ critiques the notion of the transcendental subject among other notions.
5) On the other hand Habermas also holds fast to the key idealist assumption that ‘reason’ cannot be reduced to the ‘empirical’ and it is important to maintain the transcending powers of reason. He also insists that reason and freedom are closely related and he insists on that in order to preserve the transcending power of reason. We need to hold to the notion of subject capable of accomplishments a subject that is not merely a ‘cultural dope.’ Thus Habermas aims to preserve the conception of a subject capable of accomplishments even when he accepts the critique of subject aimed at the Kantian tradition.
6) Habermas maintains that the naturalist project of desublimation and detranscendentalisation of reason can be combined with the Kantian project of preserving the transcending powers of reason. Habermas’ crucial, central and unique insight is that the Kantian distinction between empirical and transcendental can be preserved without ascribing to the Kantian distinction between empirical and intelligible world/order. This would result, claims Habermas, in a new synthesis where we would be able to combine the best of empiricism and idealism, naturalism, and anti-naturalism without however ascribing to their shortcomings. Habermas calls this position a weak naturalism in his most recent writings.
Henrich on Habermas: some observations
Note: Moving to the front (from Feb 24) due to recent comments
“. . . the capacity for language can only develop along with the spontaneous emergence of a self relation. This emergence in turn requires explanation. And this world require us to speak of an implicit self-relation, which already appears or function at the most elementary level of language acquisition. For it is clear that the capacity to use the grammatical first-person singular (the pronoun ‘I’) is acquired only at late stage in the process of language acquisition. If the existence of a self-relation were dependent on, and determined by, the acquisition of this capacity, then the thesis of the priority of interaction would be unproblematic; it would be a trivial and obvious truth.” (Dieter Henrich, "What is Metaphysics - What is Modernity? Twelve Theses against Jürgen Habermas" in Habermas: A Critical Reader, p. 311).
Consdier however the following:
•Habermas does not deny the biological/physiological/neurological bases of human spontaneity (freedom). Evidently language use and capacity for it presupposes certain degree of freedom and capacity for it. However such capacity is intermeshed, from the start with and ultimately undifferentiated from the capacity to use language. [As Habermas notes: "By no means does (linguistic analysis of the development of consciousness) exclude prelinguistic roots of cognitive development for early childhood: even with primitive rule consciousness, a rudimentary relation-to-self must already develop itself. Such ontogenetic assumptions do not, however, prejudice the description of the functioning of metacognitive abilites at the developmental stage of the mastered mother tongue, where achievements of intelligence are already linguistically organized." (Postmetaphysical Thinking, p. 27 n 18).].
•What Habermas is saying is that human spontaneity (freedom) cannot be explained in terms of biological/physiological/neurological capacity alone. A fuller explanation must involve understanding of the processes individuation through socialization (which obviously involves language use).
• In a sense for Habermas, in a quite contrast with Henrich, the proposition that there is a biological/physiological/neurological basis of human freedom is “unproblematic,” in fact it is “trivial and obvious truth.” What needs explanation is how this capacity grows into a full fledged capability in the face of a thorough going socialization which every individual under goes during his lifetime.
•In order to explain the existence of spontaneity in the fullest sense one needs to understand it in the context of our being in the world and our being with the others.
The above is borne out by what Habermas says here:
“I see the . . . far – reaching contribution of Mead in his having taken up themes that can be found in Humboldt and Kierkegaard: individuation is pictured not as the self.-realization of an independently acting subject carried out in isolation and freedom but as a linguistically mediated process of socialization and the simultaneous constitution of a life history that is conscious of itself. The identity of socialized individuals forms itself simultaneously in the medium of coming to an understanding with others in language and in the medium of coming to a life-historical and intersubjective understanding with oneself. Individuality forms itself in relations of intersubjective acknowledgement and of intersubjectively mediated self-understanding.” (Postmetaphysical Thinking, pp. 152-153).
“. . . the capacity for language can only develop along with the spontaneous emergence of a self relation. This emergence in turn requires explanation. And this world require us to speak of an implicit self-relation, which already appears or function at the most elementary level of language acquisition. For it is clear that the capacity to use the grammatical first-person singular (the pronoun ‘I’) is acquired only at late stage in the process of language acquisition. If the existence of a self-relation were dependent on, and determined by, the acquisition of this capacity, then the thesis of the priority of interaction would be unproblematic; it would be a trivial and obvious truth.” (Dieter Henrich, "What is Metaphysics - What is Modernity? Twelve Theses against Jürgen Habermas" in Habermas: A Critical Reader, p. 311).
Consdier however the following:
•Habermas does not deny the biological/physiological/neurological bases of human spontaneity (freedom). Evidently language use and capacity for it presupposes certain degree of freedom and capacity for it. However such capacity is intermeshed, from the start with and ultimately undifferentiated from the capacity to use language. [As Habermas notes: "By no means does (linguistic analysis of the development of consciousness) exclude prelinguistic roots of cognitive development for early childhood: even with primitive rule consciousness, a rudimentary relation-to-self must already develop itself. Such ontogenetic assumptions do not, however, prejudice the description of the functioning of metacognitive abilites at the developmental stage of the mastered mother tongue, where achievements of intelligence are already linguistically organized." (Postmetaphysical Thinking, p. 27 n 18).].
•What Habermas is saying is that human spontaneity (freedom) cannot be explained in terms of biological/physiological/neurological capacity alone. A fuller explanation must involve understanding of the processes individuation through socialization (which obviously involves language use).
• In a sense for Habermas, in a quite contrast with Henrich, the proposition that there is a biological/physiological/neurological basis of human freedom is “unproblematic,” in fact it is “trivial and obvious truth.” What needs explanation is how this capacity grows into a full fledged capability in the face of a thorough going socialization which every individual under goes during his lifetime.
•In order to explain the existence of spontaneity in the fullest sense one needs to understand it in the context of our being in the world and our being with the others.
The above is borne out by what Habermas says here:
“I see the . . . far – reaching contribution of Mead in his having taken up themes that can be found in Humboldt and Kierkegaard: individuation is pictured not as the self.-realization of an independently acting subject carried out in isolation and freedom but as a linguistically mediated process of socialization and the simultaneous constitution of a life history that is conscious of itself. The identity of socialized individuals forms itself simultaneously in the medium of coming to an understanding with others in language and in the medium of coming to a life-historical and intersubjective understanding with oneself. Individuality forms itself in relations of intersubjective acknowledgement and of intersubjectively mediated self-understanding.” (Postmetaphysical Thinking, pp. 152-153).
Sunday, March 13, 2005
H-H-H tradition and Habermas
Cristina Lafont describes the two founding insights of the German tradition of language which she following Charles Taylor calls Hamann-Herder-Humboldt tradition, in the following way:
“1. The view of language presupposed by the philosophy of consciousness is subjected to a critique. On this view, the role of language is relegated to that of a tool mediating the subject-object relation; consequently, language becomes a medium for the mere expression of prelinguistic thoughts. The critique of this standpoint arises by regarding language as constitutive of thought, and by recognizing accordingly the double status of language as both empirical and transcendental. In virtue of this status, language claims to the constitutive role traditionally attributed to consciousness, to a transcendental subject.
2. Furthermore, this transformation amounts to a detranscendentalization of reason. Reason comes to be unavoidably situated in the midst of a plurality of natural languages, which cannot guarantee the unity of reason in the same way as could the extraworldly strandpoint of a transcendental subject.” (The linguistic turn in Hermeneutic tradition, p. 3).
Habermas basically accepts both insights of the tradition however emphasises the need of ‘transcendence form within’ in the wake of the above by stressing an equal importance of innerworldly learning processes which have capability of altering (in part) the language which is the condition of the possibility of these innerworldy process. This is not possible without a thoroughgoing ‘naturalism’ of Habermas which bars him from accepting a static view of language as the condition of world disclosure.
“1. The view of language presupposed by the philosophy of consciousness is subjected to a critique. On this view, the role of language is relegated to that of a tool mediating the subject-object relation; consequently, language becomes a medium for the mere expression of prelinguistic thoughts. The critique of this standpoint arises by regarding language as constitutive of thought, and by recognizing accordingly the double status of language as both empirical and transcendental. In virtue of this status, language claims to the constitutive role traditionally attributed to consciousness, to a transcendental subject.
2. Furthermore, this transformation amounts to a detranscendentalization of reason. Reason comes to be unavoidably situated in the midst of a plurality of natural languages, which cannot guarantee the unity of reason in the same way as could the extraworldly strandpoint of a transcendental subject.” (The linguistic turn in Hermeneutic tradition, p. 3).
Habermas basically accepts both insights of the tradition however emphasises the need of ‘transcendence form within’ in the wake of the above by stressing an equal importance of innerworldly learning processes which have capability of altering (in part) the language which is the condition of the possibility of these innerworldy process. This is not possible without a thoroughgoing ‘naturalism’ of Habermas which bars him from accepting a static view of language as the condition of world disclosure.
continuity between language and the world
Joachim Renn’s following comments (in his extremely insightful review of TJ which I have discovered only a month or so ago) on how to ground Habermas’ methodological distinction between understanding and observation in his ontology of weak naturalism seems to me quite fascinating:
“Habermas stresses – again in accord with Putnam – primarily the normative status of rationality to avoid naturalistic interpretations of the relation between the biological history of humanity and the history of a reconstructive (internal) perspective with an (external) observational point of view, i.e. the continuity between nature and culture, on a ‘meta-theoretical’ level (TJ: pp. 38-9). The strategic value of this argument lies both in avoiding the reduction of inner-worldly learning to the evolutionary adaptation of the human species to its environment, and in maintaining the connection between rational justification (as an emergent level in comparison to a natural history of adaptation) and the problems in the real world.” (One world is Enough, p. 490).
Thus, the unique Habermasian synthesis depends on the realisation of continuities (and discontinuities) between language and action on the one and language and the world on the other hand.
“Habermas stresses – again in accord with Putnam – primarily the normative status of rationality to avoid naturalistic interpretations of the relation between the biological history of humanity and the history of a reconstructive (internal) perspective with an (external) observational point of view, i.e. the continuity between nature and culture, on a ‘meta-theoretical’ level (TJ: pp. 38-9). The strategic value of this argument lies both in avoiding the reduction of inner-worldly learning to the evolutionary adaptation of the human species to its environment, and in maintaining the connection between rational justification (as an emergent level in comparison to a natural history of adaptation) and the problems in the real world.” (One world is Enough, p. 490).
Thus, the unique Habermasian synthesis depends on the realisation of continuities (and discontinuities) between language and action on the one and language and the world on the other hand.
Thursday, March 10, 2005
Reconciliation with Nature: Habermas and Adorno
I have been arguing that Habermas’ weak naturalism can be interrelated as an attempt at reconciliation with nature. Here is a counter claim and my response.
Axel Honneth claims that:
“[Adorno’s] critique of instrumental rationality ultimately presupposes that only a condition of profound liberation in society can qualify as a medium for a reified common sense, i.e; as an Eindenken der Natur. Only on aesthetic cooperation with nature would allow the domination-free interpretation of inner nature. Thus, the key to Adorno’s philosophy of history is the theme of “reconciliation with nature.” Habermas, however, distrusts the idea of reconciliation. He suspects that an aesthetic communication with nature extends the model of social interaction to natural contexts, and thus overtaxes it. If the idea of reconciliation relies for its viability only on an earlier, originally theological, and theoretically no longer tenable notion, then, of course, Adorno’s criteria for a truly rational society, as introduced into his philosophy of history, also becomes impractical.” (Axel Honneth, “Communication and reconciliation Habermas’ critique of Adorno,” Telos (Spring, 1979), 45-61, here 50, emphasis retained.).
The roots of Habermas’ distrust with the idea of reconciliation as Honneth claims can be found in the way the conception of ‘reconciliation with nature’ is defined and not with the concept a such. After claiming that Adorno’s central project is reconciliation with nature and that Habermas distrusts the very notion of reconciliation, Honneth defines reconciliation as “an aesthetic communication with nature”. Obviously Habermas is not going to like this notion of reconciliation because it is not only goes back to a mythic conception of nature as some sort of proto subjectivity, it also confuses between a 'distinction' and 'dichotomy'.
Habermas’ conception of reconciliation is an ontological conception (not a moral conception) and does not require ‘communication’ with nature. It only requires us to show the ‘co-belonging’ of human beings and nature and to construe the ‘origins’ of human beings and their reason and their way of life as natural in a fairly broad sense without, however, blurring the distinction between humans and objective nature. Habermas’ thrusts for reconciliation comes form the context of attempts to overcome cartesianism which creates dichotomy between thought and being. Kant’s attempt at reconceptualsing the relation between thought and being does not only create its own dichotomies but also rests on a conception of transcendental subjectivity which is incompatible with the detranscendentalising tendencies of modern life forms. This provides the immediate context of Habermas’ attempts at reconciliation with nature.
Habermas’ share this project with post Kantians (including Romantics) such as Schelling and Hegel but sides with Hegel. Andrew Bowie in his excellent review of McDowell’ book Mind and World writes:
“Being familiar with our own spontaneity must, as Fichte insisted, be prior to any sense in which we can talk of the world in such terms, otherwise it is impossible to explain how one would experience the resistance of the object world in intuition as resistance in the first place. At the same time, though, as Novalis will suggest, the spontaneity must also – precisely because we are part of the world – be an aspect of the world: a world of nature which does not involve more than causal relations could ever give rise to the spontaneity of the space of reasons. The alternative to this insistence on the irreducibility of spontaneity is to make the Hegelian claim that subjectivity and objectivity ground each other, so that I gain my awareness of my spontaneity solely from cognitive engagement with the world.” (Andrew Bowie, “ John McDowell’s “Mind and World” and early Romantic Epistemology,” Revue Internationale de Philosophie 50(197), 515-554, here 535.)
Habermas would accept Novalis’ contention that “a world of nature which does not involve more than causal relations could never give rise to spontaneity of the space of reason.”. He will side with Hegel against Fichte in insisting that spontaneity’s ground is nature. Habermas would reject any attempt to locate proto subjectivity in nature in the manner of Romantics and Schelling although he would agree with Schelling that in order to explain spontaneity nature must be construed as more than “sum of “conditioned conditions””(ibid.). However, Habermas explains this fact in non metaphysical terms by adopting a relational and functional approach rather than succumbing to objective idealism (or objective materialism).
Axel Honneth claims that:
“[Adorno’s] critique of instrumental rationality ultimately presupposes that only a condition of profound liberation in society can qualify as a medium for a reified common sense, i.e; as an Eindenken der Natur. Only on aesthetic cooperation with nature would allow the domination-free interpretation of inner nature. Thus, the key to Adorno’s philosophy of history is the theme of “reconciliation with nature.” Habermas, however, distrusts the idea of reconciliation. He suspects that an aesthetic communication with nature extends the model of social interaction to natural contexts, and thus overtaxes it. If the idea of reconciliation relies for its viability only on an earlier, originally theological, and theoretically no longer tenable notion, then, of course, Adorno’s criteria for a truly rational society, as introduced into his philosophy of history, also becomes impractical.” (Axel Honneth, “Communication and reconciliation Habermas’ critique of Adorno,” Telos (Spring, 1979), 45-61, here 50, emphasis retained.).
The roots of Habermas’ distrust with the idea of reconciliation as Honneth claims can be found in the way the conception of ‘reconciliation with nature’ is defined and not with the concept a such. After claiming that Adorno’s central project is reconciliation with nature and that Habermas distrusts the very notion of reconciliation, Honneth defines reconciliation as “an aesthetic communication with nature”. Obviously Habermas is not going to like this notion of reconciliation because it is not only goes back to a mythic conception of nature as some sort of proto subjectivity, it also confuses between a 'distinction' and 'dichotomy'.
Habermas’ conception of reconciliation is an ontological conception (not a moral conception) and does not require ‘communication’ with nature. It only requires us to show the ‘co-belonging’ of human beings and nature and to construe the ‘origins’ of human beings and their reason and their way of life as natural in a fairly broad sense without, however, blurring the distinction between humans and objective nature. Habermas’ thrusts for reconciliation comes form the context of attempts to overcome cartesianism which creates dichotomy between thought and being. Kant’s attempt at reconceptualsing the relation between thought and being does not only create its own dichotomies but also rests on a conception of transcendental subjectivity which is incompatible with the detranscendentalising tendencies of modern life forms. This provides the immediate context of Habermas’ attempts at reconciliation with nature.
Habermas’ share this project with post Kantians (including Romantics) such as Schelling and Hegel but sides with Hegel. Andrew Bowie in his excellent review of McDowell’ book Mind and World writes:
“Being familiar with our own spontaneity must, as Fichte insisted, be prior to any sense in which we can talk of the world in such terms, otherwise it is impossible to explain how one would experience the resistance of the object world in intuition as resistance in the first place. At the same time, though, as Novalis will suggest, the spontaneity must also – precisely because we are part of the world – be an aspect of the world: a world of nature which does not involve more than causal relations could ever give rise to the spontaneity of the space of reasons. The alternative to this insistence on the irreducibility of spontaneity is to make the Hegelian claim that subjectivity and objectivity ground each other, so that I gain my awareness of my spontaneity solely from cognitive engagement with the world.” (Andrew Bowie, “ John McDowell’s “Mind and World” and early Romantic Epistemology,” Revue Internationale de Philosophie 50(197), 515-554, here 535.)
Habermas would accept Novalis’ contention that “a world of nature which does not involve more than causal relations could never give rise to spontaneity of the space of reason.”. He will side with Hegel against Fichte in insisting that spontaneity’s ground is nature. Habermas would reject any attempt to locate proto subjectivity in nature in the manner of Romantics and Schelling although he would agree with Schelling that in order to explain spontaneity nature must be construed as more than “sum of “conditioned conditions””(ibid.). However, Habermas explains this fact in non metaphysical terms by adopting a relational and functional approach rather than succumbing to objective idealism (or objective materialism).
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