Remarks on the concept of critique in Habermasian thought
Author: Simon Susena
Abstract
The main purpose of this paper is to examine the concept of critique in Habermasian thought. Given that the concept of critique is a central theoretical category in the work of the Frankfurt School, it comes as a surprise that little in the way of a systematic account which sheds light on the multifaceted meanings of the concept of critique in Habermas's oeuvre can be found in the literature. This paper aims to fill this gap by exploring the various meanings that Habermas attributes to the concept of critique in 10 key thematic areas of his writings: (1) the public sphere, (2) knowledge, (3) language, (4) morality, (5) ethics, (6) evolution, (7) legitimation, (8) democracy, (9) religion, and (10) modernity. On the basis of a detailed analysis of Habermas's multifaceted concerns with the nature and function of critique, the study seeks to demonstrate that the concept of critique can be considered not only as a constitutive element but also as a normative cornerstone of Habermasian thought. The paper draws to a close by reflecting on some of the limitations of Habermas's conception of critique, arguing that in order to be truly critical in the Habermasian sense we need to turn the subject of critique into an object of critique.
Keywords: communication; critical capacity; critical theory; critique; emancipation; Habermas; language; rationality; validity
View Full Text Article
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Thursday, December 09, 2010
Recent papers by Habermas
1) Jürgen Habermas (2010). Review Article: The 'Good Life'—A 'Detestable Phrase': The Significance of the Young Rawls's Religious Ethics for His Political Theory. European Journal of Philosophy 18 (3):443-454.
2)Jürgen Habermas (2010). The Concept of Human Dignity and the Realistic Utopia of Human Rights. Metaphilosophy 41 (4):464-480.
Abstract: Human rights developed in response to specific violations of human dignity, and can therefore be conceived as specifications of human dignity, their moral source. This internal relationship explains the moral content and moreover the distinguishing feature of human rights: they are designed for an effective implementation of the core moral values of an egalitarian universalism in terms of coercive law. This essay is an attempt to explain this moral-legal Janus face of human rights through the mediating role of the (...) concept of human dignity. This concept is due to a remarkable generalization of the particularistic meanings of those "dignities" that once were attached to specific honorific functions and memberships. In spite of its abstract meaning, "human dignity" still retains from its particularistic precursor concepts the connotation of depending on the social recognition of a status—in this case, the status of democratic citizenship. Only membership in a constitutional political community can protect, by granting equal rights, the equal human dignity of everybody
(from here)
3)Jürgen Habermas (2009). Life After Bankruptcy: An Interview. Constellations 16 (2):227-234.
2)Jürgen Habermas (2010). The Concept of Human Dignity and the Realistic Utopia of Human Rights. Metaphilosophy 41 (4):464-480.
Abstract: Human rights developed in response to specific violations of human dignity, and can therefore be conceived as specifications of human dignity, their moral source. This internal relationship explains the moral content and moreover the distinguishing feature of human rights: they are designed for an effective implementation of the core moral values of an egalitarian universalism in terms of coercive law. This essay is an attempt to explain this moral-legal Janus face of human rights through the mediating role of the (...) concept of human dignity. This concept is due to a remarkable generalization of the particularistic meanings of those "dignities" that once were attached to specific honorific functions and memberships. In spite of its abstract meaning, "human dignity" still retains from its particularistic precursor concepts the connotation of depending on the social recognition of a status—in this case, the status of democratic citizenship. Only membership in a constitutional political community can protect, by granting equal rights, the equal human dignity of everybody
(from here)
3)Jürgen Habermas (2009). Life After Bankruptcy: An Interview. Constellations 16 (2):227-234.
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
Philosophical Foundations of Habermas’ Critique of Particularistic Liberalism
Abstract
Jürgen Habermas has emerged as a sharp, and occasionally harsh, critic of the Bush administration’s policies since the Iraq war. Habermas has developed this critique in several of his short pieces and interviews, some of which are available in fine collections in both English and other languages. However, the occasional and journalistic character of Habermas’ political interventions often hide the theoretical basis of his critique. In this paper, I argue that Habermas’ critique of the Bush administration’s foreign policy emanates from, and is founded upon, his conception of modernity, and specifically his views about the relationship between “particularity” and “generality.” The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate how Habermas’ critique can actually be read as a critique of particularism, which Habermas sees operating behind American (and British) foreign policy, and which, in his view, compromises the key achievements of modernity (especially in its Kantian version.)
read full paper here (pdf)
Jürgen Habermas has emerged as a sharp, and occasionally harsh, critic of the Bush administration’s policies since the Iraq war. Habermas has developed this critique in several of his short pieces and interviews, some of which are available in fine collections in both English and other languages. However, the occasional and journalistic character of Habermas’ political interventions often hide the theoretical basis of his critique. In this paper, I argue that Habermas’ critique of the Bush administration’s foreign policy emanates from, and is founded upon, his conception of modernity, and specifically his views about the relationship between “particularity” and “generality.” The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate how Habermas’ critique can actually be read as a critique of particularism, which Habermas sees operating behind American (and British) foreign policy, and which, in his view, compromises the key achievements of modernity (especially in its Kantian version.)
read full paper here (pdf)
Monday, November 29, 2010
On Habermas’s Critique of Husserl
Matheson Russell
abstractpdf
Over four decades, Habermas has put to paper many critical remarks on Husserl’s work as occasion has demanded. These scattered critical engagements nonetheless do add up to a coherent (if contestable) position regarding the project of transcendental phenomenology. This essay provides a comprehensive reconstruction of the arguments Habermas makes and offers a critical assessment of them. With an eye in particular to the theme of intersubjectivity (a theme of fundamental interest to both thinkers), it is argued that Habermas’s arguments do indeed show up deficiencies in Husserlian phenomenology and yet that they do not succeed in proving that we must abandon the methods and tasks of phenomenological research. On the contrary, it is argued that phenomenological methods may well be needed in order to investigate certain philosophical questions that Habermas’s theory of communication has thus far only partially addressed.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
An Awareness of What Is Missing
Jűrgen Habermas et al.
An Awareness of What Is Missing
Trans. Ciaran Cronin. Polity, Cambridge, 2010. 96pp., £12.99 pb
ISBN 9780745647210
Reviewed by Tom Angier
An Awareness of What Is Missing
Trans. Ciaran Cronin. Polity, Cambridge, 2010. 96pp., £12.99 pb
ISBN 9780745647210
Reviewed by Tom Angier
This slim volume is the outcome of a discussion held in 2007 between Jürgen Habermas and philosophers from the Jesuit School for Philosophy in Munich. Since Habermas’ contribution occupies a mere twenty-one pages, the book is effectively even slimmer than it appears. Indeed, anyone interested in Habermas’ views on the relation between faith and reason will find little here that goes beyond his much more substantial collection of essays, Between Naturalism and Religion (Polity 2008). Nonetheless, the present volume is worthwhile reading, and this for two main reasons. First, it was inspired in part by Pope Benedict’s Regensburg address in 2006, which, besides upsetting many people in the Muslim world, was itself an attempt to elaborate the relations between faith and reason. And second, it represents an attempt to engage a section of the academic world – viz. philosophers in Catholic universities – who rarely appear on the radar of philosophers in mainstream, de facto (if not de jure) secular institutions. So despite what I will argue are severe shortcomings, especially from a left-political perspective, this collection of brief exchanges is valuable, if only as a brave attempt to challenge the self-imposed constraints of current academia.Full review here
Monday, November 08, 2010
Leadership and Leitkultur By JÜRGEN HABERMAS
SINCE the end of August Germany has been roiled by waves of political turmoil over integration, multiculturalism and the role of the “Leitkultur,” or guiding national culture. This discourse is in turn reinforcing trends toward increasing xenophobia among the broader population.
These trends have been apparent for many years in studies and survey data that show a quiet but growing hostility to immigrants. Yet it is as though they have only now found a voice: the usual stereotypes are being flushed out of the bars and onto the talk shows, and they are echoed by mainstream politicians who want to capture potential voters who are otherwise drifting off toward the right. Two events have given rise to a mixture of emotions that are no longer easy to locate on the scale from left to right — a book by a board member of Germany’s central bank and a recent speech by the German president.
It all began with the advance release of provocative excerpts from “Germany Does Away With Itself,” a book that argues that the future of Germany is threatened by the wrong kind of immigrants, especially from Muslim countries. In the book, Thilo Sarrazin, a politician from the Social Democratic Party who sat on the Bundesbank board, develops proposals for demographic policies aimed at the Muslim population in Germany. He fuels discrimination against this minority with intelligence research from which he draws false biological conclusions that have gained unusually wide publicity.
In sharp contrast to the initial spontaneous objections from major politicians, these theses have gained popular support. One poll found that more than a third of Germans agreed with Mr. Sarrazin’s prognosis that Germany was becoming “naturally more stupid on average” as a result of immigration from Muslim countries.
After half-hearted responses in the press by a handful of psychologists who left the impression that there might be something to these claims after all, there was a certain shift in mood in the news media and among politicians toward Mr. Sarrazin. It took several weeks for Armin Nassehi, a respected sociologist, to take the pseudoscientific interpretation of the relevant statistics apart in a newspaper article. He demonstrated that Mr. Sarrazin adopted the kind of “naturalizing” interpretation of measured differences in intelligence that had already been scientifically discredited in the United States decades ago.
(full article here)
These trends have been apparent for many years in studies and survey data that show a quiet but growing hostility to immigrants. Yet it is as though they have only now found a voice: the usual stereotypes are being flushed out of the bars and onto the talk shows, and they are echoed by mainstream politicians who want to capture potential voters who are otherwise drifting off toward the right. Two events have given rise to a mixture of emotions that are no longer easy to locate on the scale from left to right — a book by a board member of Germany’s central bank and a recent speech by the German president.
It all began with the advance release of provocative excerpts from “Germany Does Away With Itself,” a book that argues that the future of Germany is threatened by the wrong kind of immigrants, especially from Muslim countries. In the book, Thilo Sarrazin, a politician from the Social Democratic Party who sat on the Bundesbank board, develops proposals for demographic policies aimed at the Muslim population in Germany. He fuels discrimination against this minority with intelligence research from which he draws false biological conclusions that have gained unusually wide publicity.
In sharp contrast to the initial spontaneous objections from major politicians, these theses have gained popular support. One poll found that more than a third of Germans agreed with Mr. Sarrazin’s prognosis that Germany was becoming “naturally more stupid on average” as a result of immigration from Muslim countries.
After half-hearted responses in the press by a handful of psychologists who left the impression that there might be something to these claims after all, there was a certain shift in mood in the news media and among politicians toward Mr. Sarrazin. It took several weeks for Armin Nassehi, a respected sociologist, to take the pseudoscientific interpretation of the relevant statistics apart in a newspaper article. He demonstrated that Mr. Sarrazin adopted the kind of “naturalizing” interpretation of measured differences in intelligence that had already been scientifically discredited in the United States decades ago.
(full article here)
Thursday, February 04, 2010
A postsecular world society?: an interview with Jürgen Habermas
A postsecular world society?: an interview with Jürgen Habermas (from The Immanent Frame)
Excerpt:
Click here to read the remainder of this interview [pdf].
Thanks to Thomas Gregersen for the link.
Excerpt:
"Our Western self-understanding of modernity emerged from the confrontation with our own traditions. The same dialectic between tradition and modernity repeats itself today in other parts of the world. There, too, one reaches back to one’s own traditions to confront the challenges of societal modernization, rather than to succumb to them. Against this background, intercultural discourses about the foundations of a more just international order can no longer be conducted one-sidedly, from the perspective of “first-borns.” These discourses must become habitual [sich einspielen] under the symmetrical conditions of mutual perspective-taking if the global players are to finally bring their social-Darwinist power games under control. The West is one participant among others, and all participants must be willing to be enlightened by others about their respective blind spots. If we were to learn one lesson from the financial crisis, it is that it is high time for the multicultural world society to develop a political constitution."
Click here to read the remainder of this interview [pdf].
Thanks to Thomas Gregersen for the link.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Habermas on ethics, morality and European identity
Habermas on ethics, morality and European identity
Author: Russell Keat a
Affiliation: a School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh, UK
Abstract
This paper examines Habermas's theoretical account of ethical (as distinct from moral) reasoning in politics, presented in Between facts and norms, and considers its possible application to his later discussion of European identity and the need for political union to address the impact of globalisation and the threat posed by neoliberalism. It argues that this practical application of the theory point to serious defects in it: a failure to show that ethics differs from morality in being inseparable from identity, and an inability to explain how a genuinely rational debate about the specifically ethical dimensions of political issues can be conducted. It concludes by considering the relationship between Habermas's view of the place of ethics in political reasoning and debates about neutrality and perfectionism in liberal theory, including Dobson's recent argument in Supranational citizenship that different principles should operate at different levels of governance.
source
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Science as instrumental reason: Heidegger, Habermas . .
Abstract In modern continental thought, natural science is widely portrayed as an
exclusively instrumental mode of reason. The breadth of this consensus has partly
preempted the question of how it came to persuade. The process of persuasion, as it
played out in Germany, can be explored by reconstructing the intellectual exchanges
among three twentieth-century theorists of science, Heidegger, Habermas, and
Werner Heisenberg. Taking an iconic Heisenberg as a kind of limiting case of ‘‘the
scientist,’’ Heidegger and Habermas each found themselves driven to place new
constraints on their previously more capacious assessments of science, especially its
capacity to reflect on its method. Tracing how that happened, through archival and
historical contextualization and close readings of their texts, lets us make visible
Heidegger and Habermas’s intellectual affinities and argumentative parallels, which
derived not only from their shared grounding in earlier reactions against positivism,
but also from confrontation with contemporary events. The latter included, for
Heidegger, the rise of a technically powerful science exemplified by nuclear
physics, and for Habermas, post-World War II controversies over science, technology,
and their socially critical possibilities.
full article here
exclusively instrumental mode of reason. The breadth of this consensus has partly
preempted the question of how it came to persuade. The process of persuasion, as it
played out in Germany, can be explored by reconstructing the intellectual exchanges
among three twentieth-century theorists of science, Heidegger, Habermas, and
Werner Heisenberg. Taking an iconic Heisenberg as a kind of limiting case of ‘‘the
scientist,’’ Heidegger and Habermas each found themselves driven to place new
constraints on their previously more capacious assessments of science, especially its
capacity to reflect on its method. Tracing how that happened, through archival and
historical contextualization and close readings of their texts, lets us make visible
Heidegger and Habermas’s intellectual affinities and argumentative parallels, which
derived not only from their shared grounding in earlier reactions against positivism,
but also from confrontation with contemporary events. The latter included, for
Heidegger, the rise of a technically powerful science exemplified by nuclear
physics, and for Habermas, post-World War II controversies over science, technology,
and their socially critical possibilities.
full article here
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Habermas’s Later Pragmatist Turn
Habermas’s Later Pragmatist Turn
By Ali Rizvi
Robert Brandom describes pragmatism “as a movement centered on the primacy of the practical.” This primacy of practice over theory is manifested in Habermas’s writings in two ways. First, it emerges in his lifelong insistence on the primacy of “know how” (what he often calls intuitive knowledge) over “know that.” This is a key Heideggerian distinction, which Habermas uses in his theoretical analyses and his formal pragmatics, as well as in developing his social theory. Second, it is manifested in Habermas’s rejection of what he calls the “spectator model” of knowledge, and his insistence that action has “cognitive” significance – in other words, that our way of acting is also our way of knowing the world. This is also derived from Heidegger’s notion of “being in the world.”
Habermas has always been a pragmatist in the senses mentioned above, but after Knowledge and Human Interest (KHI) he did not pay much attention to issues in theoretical philosophy; therefore, with his Truth and Justification (TJ) he wanted to amend this situation. In TJ, Habermas went back to revive the “weak naturalism” he espoused in KHI, and in so doing he aimed to achieve two things. First, he wished to relate his theoretical enterprise both to his formal pragmatics and to his theory of communicative action. Second, he wanted to overcome certain impasses and aporias that his theories of communicative action and social evolution face. His renewed emphasis on pragmatic themes is of crucial importance to both these endeavors.
In KHI, Habermas tried to marry Kantian transcendentalism with naturalism (in the broad sense of the term) by maintaining a distinction between “subjective/objective nature” and “nature in itself.” This, according to Habermas and his critics, led to an aporia similar to the one that Kant faced when making a distinction between “phenomenon” and “noumenon.” The aporia is this: in order to maintain the distinction between “subjective/objective nature” and “nature in itself,” it appears necessary to have a “glimpse behind the stage set by the human mind.” (TJ: 22). But to do this would be to violate the basic assumption of post metaphysics, which is something that Habermas wanted to avoid at any cost. In TJ, however, Habermas aims to show that the afore-mentioned aporia is not so much a result of attempting to marry a transcendental approach to naturalism, but is rather the result of a representationalism which must be abandoned in the wake of pragmatism. Representationalism conceives knowledge in terms of a two-way relation between subject and object, where access to what is beyond the object must be conceived in terms of a glimpse behind the constitution of the human mind. However, if knowledge is considered in pragmatic terms, and if we consequently abandon the representational model of knowledge and give action its cognitive due, we can transcend this aporia. Habermas claims that this requires the adoption of what he calls a “non-classical” form of realism.
In developing his formal pragmatics and theory of communicative action, Habermas initially tried to go beyond the representational model of knowledge, replacing the two-way model of representation with a three-way model in which an actor tries to reach an understanding with another actor about something in the world. Similarly, in his theory of communicative action, Habermas conceptualized objectivity as a condition of reaching an understanding between two or more interlocutors. However, this theory of objectivity is a far cry from our own realist intuitions about the world, and so Habermas’s renewed emphasis on pragmatism leads him to reconsider and deepen this model. The world is not only a condition of mutual understanding, but is also something we encounter in pursuing actions. We experience the resistance of reality when our plans are frustrated; we experience its cooperation when we are able to fulfil our plans of action.
The world that we experience in pursuing our material goals is beyond objectification (because objectification involves “mind” and not “being in the world” as such), and so we are able to get a “glimpse” into the existence and reality of a world beyond our “objectification,” albeit through our actions and not through our minds. This world which is beyond the world of our objectification is nothing but “nature in itself.” Thus we gain access to “nature in itself,” in this model, not on the level of perceptions of mind but through “disclosures” of action. This in turn helps us overcome the aporia mentioned above, of having to “glimpse beyond the stage set by the human mind” without having to relinquish the distinction between subjective world, objective world and nature in itself. The distinction is pertinent on the level of mind, but on the level of action we experience something which is beyond the distinctions which are made indispensible within the bounds of our mind and our language. Here, the world overwhelms us in a way, and we experience its resistance or cooperation on an immediate, direct and unmediated level.
The resistance (or cooperation) of the world that we face at the pragmatic level must also feed back to our linguistic and mental apparatus. This suggests that our mental and linguistic apparatuses have also developed under the constraints of reality, even if the constraint is an indirect one. This suggests a way out of contextualism that haunts any serious version of transcendentalism and linguistic turn. Habermas now claims that if our conceptual apparatus has developed under the constraints of reality, which has been shown to be a reality that resists us and is beyond the whims and caprice of our individual or communal desires, then we must take the continued viability of our conceptual repertoire as proof of their objectivity. This pulls the rugs from under the feet of any contextualism. However this doesn’t entail a return to conceptual realism, as the constraint on our conceptual apparatus is an indirect one and there is a certain distance between the constraints of reality and the workings of our language and our conceptual apparatus (Habermas calls it “half transcendence”). In this way, in Habermas’s “later” theoretical philosophy pragmatism plays a crucial role in combining transcendentalism and naturalism on the one hand, and realism and transcendentalism on the other.
References
Aboulafia, Mitchell, Myra Bookman and Catherine Kemp, eds, Habermas and Pragmatism (London: Routledge, 2002).
Brandom, Robert. “Pragmatics and Pragmatisms,” in Hilary Putnam: Pragmatism and Realism, eds. James Conant and Ursula M. Zeglen, 40-58 (London: Routledge, 2002).
Jürgen Habermas. Knowledge and Human Interests , trans. Jeremy J. Shapiro (London: Heinemann, 1972).
Habermas, Jürgen. “A Postscript to Knowledge and Human Interests.” Philosophy of Social Sciences 3 (1973): 157-189.
Habermas, Jürgen. On the Pragmatics of Communication, ed. Maeve Cooke (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998).
Habermas, Jürgen. On the Pragmatics of Social Interaction: Preliminary Studies in the Theory of Communicative Action, trans. Barbara Fultner (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001).
Habermas, Jürgen. “Transcendence from Within, Transcendence in this World” in Religion and Rationality: Essays on Reason, God, and Modernity, 67-94, ed. Eduardo Mendieta (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002).
Habermas, Jürgen. Truth and Justification, ed. and trans. Barbara Fultner (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003).
Habermas, Jürgen. Zwischen Naturalismus und Religion: Philosophische Aufsätze (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2005). [Why no translation?]
Habermas, Jürgen. “The Language Game of Responsible Agency and the Problem of Free Will: How Can Epistemic Dualism Be Reconciled with Ontological Monism?” (trans. Joel Anderson). Philosophical Explorations: An International Journal of the Philosophy of Mind and Action 10:1 (March 2007).
McDowell, John. Mind and World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996).
McDowell, John. “Experience the World,” in Reason and Nature : Lecture and Colloquium in Münster, 1999 (Münster : LIT, 2000).
McDowell, John. “Towards Rehabilitating Objectivity,” in Robert Brandom, ed., Rorty and his Critics, 109-123 (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2000).
Renn, Joachim. “One world is enough.” European Journal of Social Theory 3, 4 (2000): 485-498.
Swindal, James. “Habermas's ‘Unconditional Meaning Without God': Pragmatism, Phenomenology, and Ultimate Meaning.” Ultimate Reality and Meaning 26, 2 (2003): 126-149.
© 2009, Ali Rizvi.
[This is the English version of “Pragmatische Wende,”in Habermas-Handbuch: Leben –Werk – Wirkung, Herausgegeben von Hauke Brunkhorst, Regina Kreide und Cristina Lafont, Verlag J.B. Metzler, Stuttgart, 2009: 360-362.].
By Ali Rizvi
Robert Brandom describes pragmatism “as a movement centered on the primacy of the practical.” This primacy of practice over theory is manifested in Habermas’s writings in two ways. First, it emerges in his lifelong insistence on the primacy of “know how” (what he often calls intuitive knowledge) over “know that.” This is a key Heideggerian distinction, which Habermas uses in his theoretical analyses and his formal pragmatics, as well as in developing his social theory. Second, it is manifested in Habermas’s rejection of what he calls the “spectator model” of knowledge, and his insistence that action has “cognitive” significance – in other words, that our way of acting is also our way of knowing the world. This is also derived from Heidegger’s notion of “being in the world.”
Habermas has always been a pragmatist in the senses mentioned above, but after Knowledge and Human Interest (KHI) he did not pay much attention to issues in theoretical philosophy; therefore, with his Truth and Justification (TJ) he wanted to amend this situation. In TJ, Habermas went back to revive the “weak naturalism” he espoused in KHI, and in so doing he aimed to achieve two things. First, he wished to relate his theoretical enterprise both to his formal pragmatics and to his theory of communicative action. Second, he wanted to overcome certain impasses and aporias that his theories of communicative action and social evolution face. His renewed emphasis on pragmatic themes is of crucial importance to both these endeavors.
In KHI, Habermas tried to marry Kantian transcendentalism with naturalism (in the broad sense of the term) by maintaining a distinction between “subjective/objective nature” and “nature in itself.” This, according to Habermas and his critics, led to an aporia similar to the one that Kant faced when making a distinction between “phenomenon” and “noumenon.” The aporia is this: in order to maintain the distinction between “subjective/objective nature” and “nature in itself,” it appears necessary to have a “glimpse behind the stage set by the human mind.” (TJ: 22). But to do this would be to violate the basic assumption of post metaphysics, which is something that Habermas wanted to avoid at any cost. In TJ, however, Habermas aims to show that the afore-mentioned aporia is not so much a result of attempting to marry a transcendental approach to naturalism, but is rather the result of a representationalism which must be abandoned in the wake of pragmatism. Representationalism conceives knowledge in terms of a two-way relation between subject and object, where access to what is beyond the object must be conceived in terms of a glimpse behind the constitution of the human mind. However, if knowledge is considered in pragmatic terms, and if we consequently abandon the representational model of knowledge and give action its cognitive due, we can transcend this aporia. Habermas claims that this requires the adoption of what he calls a “non-classical” form of realism.
In developing his formal pragmatics and theory of communicative action, Habermas initially tried to go beyond the representational model of knowledge, replacing the two-way model of representation with a three-way model in which an actor tries to reach an understanding with another actor about something in the world. Similarly, in his theory of communicative action, Habermas conceptualized objectivity as a condition of reaching an understanding between two or more interlocutors. However, this theory of objectivity is a far cry from our own realist intuitions about the world, and so Habermas’s renewed emphasis on pragmatism leads him to reconsider and deepen this model. The world is not only a condition of mutual understanding, but is also something we encounter in pursuing actions. We experience the resistance of reality when our plans are frustrated; we experience its cooperation when we are able to fulfil our plans of action.
The world that we experience in pursuing our material goals is beyond objectification (because objectification involves “mind” and not “being in the world” as such), and so we are able to get a “glimpse” into the existence and reality of a world beyond our “objectification,” albeit through our actions and not through our minds. This world which is beyond the world of our objectification is nothing but “nature in itself.” Thus we gain access to “nature in itself,” in this model, not on the level of perceptions of mind but through “disclosures” of action. This in turn helps us overcome the aporia mentioned above, of having to “glimpse beyond the stage set by the human mind” without having to relinquish the distinction between subjective world, objective world and nature in itself. The distinction is pertinent on the level of mind, but on the level of action we experience something which is beyond the distinctions which are made indispensible within the bounds of our mind and our language. Here, the world overwhelms us in a way, and we experience its resistance or cooperation on an immediate, direct and unmediated level.
The resistance (or cooperation) of the world that we face at the pragmatic level must also feed back to our linguistic and mental apparatus. This suggests that our mental and linguistic apparatuses have also developed under the constraints of reality, even if the constraint is an indirect one. This suggests a way out of contextualism that haunts any serious version of transcendentalism and linguistic turn. Habermas now claims that if our conceptual apparatus has developed under the constraints of reality, which has been shown to be a reality that resists us and is beyond the whims and caprice of our individual or communal desires, then we must take the continued viability of our conceptual repertoire as proof of their objectivity. This pulls the rugs from under the feet of any contextualism. However this doesn’t entail a return to conceptual realism, as the constraint on our conceptual apparatus is an indirect one and there is a certain distance between the constraints of reality and the workings of our language and our conceptual apparatus (Habermas calls it “half transcendence”). In this way, in Habermas’s “later” theoretical philosophy pragmatism plays a crucial role in combining transcendentalism and naturalism on the one hand, and realism and transcendentalism on the other.
References
Aboulafia, Mitchell, Myra Bookman and Catherine Kemp, eds, Habermas and Pragmatism (London: Routledge, 2002).
Brandom, Robert. “Pragmatics and Pragmatisms,” in Hilary Putnam: Pragmatism and Realism, eds. James Conant and Ursula M. Zeglen, 40-58 (London: Routledge, 2002).
Jürgen Habermas. Knowledge and Human Interests , trans. Jeremy J. Shapiro (London: Heinemann, 1972).
Habermas, Jürgen. “A Postscript to Knowledge and Human Interests.” Philosophy of Social Sciences 3 (1973): 157-189.
Habermas, Jürgen. On the Pragmatics of Communication, ed. Maeve Cooke (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998).
Habermas, Jürgen. On the Pragmatics of Social Interaction: Preliminary Studies in the Theory of Communicative Action, trans. Barbara Fultner (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001).
Habermas, Jürgen. “Transcendence from Within, Transcendence in this World” in Religion and Rationality: Essays on Reason, God, and Modernity, 67-94, ed. Eduardo Mendieta (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002).
Habermas, Jürgen. Truth and Justification, ed. and trans. Barbara Fultner (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003).
Habermas, Jürgen. Zwischen Naturalismus und Religion: Philosophische Aufsätze (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2005). [Why no translation?]
Habermas, Jürgen. “The Language Game of Responsible Agency and the Problem of Free Will: How Can Epistemic Dualism Be Reconciled with Ontological Monism?” (trans. Joel Anderson). Philosophical Explorations: An International Journal of the Philosophy of Mind and Action 10:1 (March 2007).
McDowell, John. Mind and World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996).
McDowell, John. “Experience the World,” in Reason and Nature : Lecture and Colloquium in Münster, 1999 (Münster : LIT, 2000).
McDowell, John. “Towards Rehabilitating Objectivity,” in Robert Brandom, ed., Rorty and his Critics, 109-123 (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2000).
Renn, Joachim. “One world is enough.” European Journal of Social Theory 3, 4 (2000): 485-498.
Swindal, James. “Habermas's ‘Unconditional Meaning Without God': Pragmatism, Phenomenology, and Ultimate Meaning.” Ultimate Reality and Meaning 26, 2 (2003): 126-149.
© 2009, Ali Rizvi.
[This is the English version of “Pragmatische Wende,”in Habermas-Handbuch: Leben –Werk – Wirkung, Herausgegeben von Hauke Brunkhorst, Regina Kreide und Cristina Lafont, Verlag J.B. Metzler, Stuttgart, 2009: 360-362.].
Audio with Jürgen Habermas, Charles Taylor, Judith Butler & Cornel West
Audio with Jürgen Habermas, Charles Taylor, Judith Butler & Cornel West from the conference on "Rethinking Secularism: The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere"
(New York University, October 22, 2009): Here
The link courtesy of Thomas
(New York University, October 22, 2009): Here
The link courtesy of Thomas
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
The philosopher-citizen, by Charles Taylor
Jürgen Habermas is one of the most prominent philosophers on the global scene of the last half century. His work is of an impressive range and depth. It would be impossible to sum it up in a short essay, but I shall try to single out three facets of his extraordinary achievement which help throw light on his deserved fame and influence.(read full here)
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Habermas and analytical Marxism
Habermas and analytical Marxism
Joseph Heath
University College, University of Toronto, Canada
John Roemer once described the ‘intellectual foundations’ of analytical Marxism as the recognition that, despite having a valid core, Marxism rested upon outdated social science. The solution, he believed, was to update the theory ‘using state-of-the-art methods of analytical philosophy and "positivist" social science’. If one takes this definition literally, Jürgen Habermas’ early work qualifies as that of an analytical Marxist. Yet although he developed his project in a way that was independent of the self-identified analytical Marxists, there are important points of convergence in their views. In particular, in their efforts to update Marxism, both Habermas and the analytical Marxists managed to talk themselves out of being Marxists in any recognizable sense of the term. This is a noteworthy outcome, given the differences in their points of departure. This article tracks the intellectual history of these two movements, in order to identify the tendencies that pushed this rather disparate group of theorists in the same direction.
Key Words: analytical Marxism • capitalism • egalitarianism • exploitation • functionalism • Jürgen Habermas • rational choice theory
Philosophy & Social Criticism, Vol. 35, No. 8, 891-919 (2009)
Joseph Heath
University College, University of Toronto, Canada
John Roemer once described the ‘intellectual foundations’ of analytical Marxism as the recognition that, despite having a valid core, Marxism rested upon outdated social science. The solution, he believed, was to update the theory ‘using state-of-the-art methods of analytical philosophy and "positivist" social science’. If one takes this definition literally, Jürgen Habermas’ early work qualifies as that of an analytical Marxist. Yet although he developed his project in a way that was independent of the self-identified analytical Marxists, there are important points of convergence in their views. In particular, in their efforts to update Marxism, both Habermas and the analytical Marxists managed to talk themselves out of being Marxists in any recognizable sense of the term. This is a noteworthy outcome, given the differences in their points of departure. This article tracks the intellectual history of these two movements, in order to identify the tendencies that pushed this rather disparate group of theorists in the same direction.
Key Words: analytical Marxism • capitalism • egalitarianism • exploitation • functionalism • Jürgen Habermas • rational choice theory
Philosophy & Social Criticism, Vol. 35, No. 8, 891-919 (2009)
Monday, July 27, 2009
The Philosophy of Jürgen Habermas:
The Philosophy of Jürgen Habermas
A Critical Introduction
Uwe Steinhoff
"Jürgen Habermas seeks to defend the Enlightenment and with it an <"emphatical>", <"uncurtailed>" conception of reason against the post-modern critique of reason on the one hand, and against so-called scientism (which would include critical rationalism and the greater part of analytical philosophy) on the other. His objection to the former is that it is self-contradictory and politically defeatist; his objection to the latter is that, thanks to a standard of rationality derived from the natural sciences or from Weber's concept of purposive rationality, it leaves normative questions to irrational decisions. Habermas wants to offer an alternative, trying to develop a theory of communicative action that can clarify the normative foundations of a critical theory of society as well as provide a fruitful theoretical framework for empirical social research.
This study is a comprehensive and detailed analysis and sustained critique of Habermas' philosophical system since his pragmatist turn in the seventies. It clearly and precisely depicts Habermas' long chain of arguments leading from an analysis of speech acts to a discourse theory of law and the democratic constitutional state. Along the way the study examines, among other things, Habermas' theory of communicative action, transcendental and universal pragmatics and the argument from <"performative contradictions>", discourse ethics, the consensus theory of truth, Habermas' ideas on developmental psychology, communicative pathologies and social evolution, his theory of social order, the analysis of the tensions between system and lifeworld, his theory of modernity, and his theory of deliberative democracy. For all Habermas students this study will prove indispensable."
Sample chapter
A Critical Introduction
Uwe Steinhoff
"Jürgen Habermas seeks to defend the Enlightenment and with it an <"emphatical>", <"uncurtailed>" conception of reason against the post-modern critique of reason on the one hand, and against so-called scientism (which would include critical rationalism and the greater part of analytical philosophy) on the other. His objection to the former is that it is self-contradictory and politically defeatist; his objection to the latter is that, thanks to a standard of rationality derived from the natural sciences or from Weber's concept of purposive rationality, it leaves normative questions to irrational decisions. Habermas wants to offer an alternative, trying to develop a theory of communicative action that can clarify the normative foundations of a critical theory of society as well as provide a fruitful theoretical framework for empirical social research.
This study is a comprehensive and detailed analysis and sustained critique of Habermas' philosophical system since his pragmatist turn in the seventies. It clearly and precisely depicts Habermas' long chain of arguments leading from an analysis of speech acts to a discourse theory of law and the democratic constitutional state. Along the way the study examines, among other things, Habermas' theory of communicative action, transcendental and universal pragmatics and the argument from <"performative contradictions>", discourse ethics, the consensus theory of truth, Habermas' ideas on developmental psychology, communicative pathologies and social evolution, his theory of social order, the analysis of the tensions between system and lifeworld, his theory of modernity, and his theory of deliberative democracy. For all Habermas students this study will prove indispensable."
Sample chapter
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Friday, July 03, 2009
Critical Theory of World Risk Society: A Cosmopolitan Vision
Critical Theory of World Risk Society:
A Cosmopolitan Vision
Ulrich Beck
A critical theory of world risk society must address at least three questions: (1) What is the basis of the critique? What is “critical” about this critical theory? (The question of the normative horizon of the world risk society) (2)What are the key theses and core arguments of this theory? Is it an empirical theory of society with critical intent? (3) To what extent does this theory break with the automatisms of modernization and globalization which have taken on a life of their own and rediscover the openness of human action to the future at the beginning of the 21st century political perspectives, cosmopolitan alternatives?
free download from here
A Cosmopolitan Vision
Ulrich Beck
A critical theory of world risk society must address at least three questions: (1) What is the basis of the critique? What is “critical” about this critical theory? (The question of the normative horizon of the world risk society) (2)What are the key theses and core arguments of this theory? Is it an empirical theory of society with critical intent? (3) To what extent does this theory break with the automatisms of modernization and globalization which have taken on a life of their own and rediscover the openness of human action to the future at the beginning of the 21st century political perspectives, cosmopolitan alternatives?
free download from here
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Jürgen Habermans on Ralf Dahrendorf
German sociologist Ralf Dahrendorf died today at the age of 80. Jan Feddersen writes: "Dahrendorf was the first intellectual star of the fledging Bundesrepulik to seek and find acknowledgement abroad. He also studied in USA, received his first PhD in 1952 for a dissertation on the concept of justice in the writings of Karl Marx. In 1957 he obtained his 'habilitation' - recognition of the right to lecture in German universities - with the publication of 'Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society'. Jürgen Habermas, who celebrated his 80th birthday last week, and had been an admirer of Dahrendorf's since that time, as he admitted at Dahrendorf's birthday celebrations a few weeks ago, said: "With his constructive intellect that preferred to create clarity with idealised stylisations than to juggle with hermeneutics, Dahrendorg was remarkable for his powerful eloquence, his natural command of authority and his somewhat angular manner of speech. What singled him out from his peers was his ability to see off received ideas with avant-gardist aplomb."
from here
from here
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Sentimentality, communicative action and the social self: Adam Smith meets Jürgen Habermas
Sentimentality, communicative action and the social self: Adam Smith meets Jürgen Habermas
David Wilson
Department of Economics, Finance and International Business, London Metropolitan University, 84 Moorgate, London EC2M 6SQ, UK, d.wilson@londonmet.ac.uk
William Dixon
Department of Economics, Finance and International Business, London Metropolitan University, 84 Moorgate, London EC2M 6SQ, UK
There is a long and tortuous history of misinterpreting Smithian social theory. After rehearsing that history we offer here a way of understanding Smith that, unlike much of recent revisionist Smith scholarship, does not further add to this confusion. Our proposal is to understand the relation between moral and economic behaviour in Smith as analogous to the way in which Habermas makes strategic (and normatively oriented) behaviour parasitic on a more basic communicative competence. Given this analogy, it is ironic that Habermas's own understanding of Smith's theory also leaves much to be desired.
Key Words: economics • Jürgen Habermas • morality • sentiment • Adam Smith
History of the Human Sciences, Vol. 22, No. 3, 75-99 (2009)
David Wilson
Department of Economics, Finance and International Business, London Metropolitan University, 84 Moorgate, London EC2M 6SQ, UK, d.wilson@londonmet.ac.uk
William Dixon
Department of Economics, Finance and International Business, London Metropolitan University, 84 Moorgate, London EC2M 6SQ, UK
There is a long and tortuous history of misinterpreting Smithian social theory. After rehearsing that history we offer here a way of understanding Smith that, unlike much of recent revisionist Smith scholarship, does not further add to this confusion. Our proposal is to understand the relation between moral and economic behaviour in Smith as analogous to the way in which Habermas makes strategic (and normatively oriented) behaviour parasitic on a more basic communicative competence. Given this analogy, it is ironic that Habermas's own understanding of Smith's theory also leaves much to be desired.
Key Words: economics • Jürgen Habermas • morality • sentiment • Adam Smith
History of the Human Sciences, Vol. 22, No. 3, 75-99 (2009)
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Towards Reconciling Two Heroes: Habermas and Hegel
Brandom's first major (?) piece on Habermas! Can be downloaded from here
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Between Naturalism and Religion: Philosophical Essays
Between Naturalism and Religion: Philosophical Essays
Jürgen Habermas, Between Naturalism and Religion: Philosophical Essays, Ciaran Cronin (trans.), Polity Press, 2008, 361pp., $26.95 (pbk), ISBN 9780745638256.
Reviewed by Jeffrey Flynn, Fordham University
full here
Jürgen Habermas, Between Naturalism and Religion: Philosophical Essays, Ciaran Cronin (trans.), Polity Press, 2008, 361pp., $26.95 (pbk), ISBN 9780745638256.
Reviewed by Jeffrey Flynn, Fordham University
Habermas's central aim in this collection of essays is to articulate the appropriate relation between "postmetaphysical thinking" and science and religion. He takes up issues related to both the philosophical and the public use of reason, and makes interesting proposals regarding their interrelation. Habermas is clearly worried about the spread of naturalistic worldviews ("scientism") and religious fundamentalism, but he dismisses neither naturalism nor religion. Rather, he defends what he calls "soft naturalism," which embraces a non-reductionist account of human language and thought in which normativity and intersubjectivity are central. Regarding religion, Habermas maintains that philosophy has long been enriched by secular "translations" of religious ideas. Moreover, he views at least "modernized" religions as allies in the public sphere in combating the effects of uncontrolled capitalist modernization and the spread of reductionistic thinking.
full here
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
CFP reminder: Joint Society for European Philosophy and Forum for European Philosophy 2009
This is the third and final ‘call for papers’ for the 5th Annual Joint Conference of the Society for European Philosophy and the Forum for European Philosophy at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff; Wales, 27-29 August 2009.
Keynote speakers:
Rosi Braidotti (Utrecht)
Claire Colebrook (Penn State)
Leonard Lawlor (Penn State)
Christopher Norris (Cardiff)
The SEP-FEP Joint Conference offers faculty and graduate students the
opportunity to present papers in any area of European Philosophy.
Abstracts of no more than 500 words should be submitted by 1 June 2009 to
Juliana Cardinale, either in electronic form to J.Cardinale@lse.ac.uk or
by mail to:
Forum for European Philosophy
Room J5, European Institute
Cowdray House, Portugal Street
London School of Economics, London, WC2A 2AE United Kingdom
There are also two open plenary sessions:
1. The Future of Hermeneutics (Chair: Nicholas Davey, Dundee) and
2. The Role of Imagery in Ontology and Thought (Chair: Clive Cazeaux,
UWIC).
In addition, proposals relating to Walter Benjamin's Arcades Project are
especially welcome. Cardiff is a city of arcades. A work of sound art
based on Cardiff's arcades has been commissioned to accompany the
conference.
If you would be interested in participating in any of these, please
contact Clive Cazeaux by 1 June 2009 at ccazeaux@uwic.ac.uk
A prize of £250 will be awarded to the best graduate paper, as judged by
members of the SEP and FEP Committees. Graduates who would like their
papers considered for the prize should email their papers (maximum 3,000
words) as Word 2003 attachments to Clive Cazeaux at ccazeaux@uwic.ac.uk
by 3 August 2009.
Deadline summary:
Paper abstracts by 1 June 2009 to J.Cardinale@lse.ac.uk
Graduate papers in full by 3 August 2009 to ccazeaux@uwic.ac.uk
Further details, including registration and accommodation, are available
on the conference website here
Keynote speakers:
Rosi Braidotti (Utrecht)
Claire Colebrook (Penn State)
Leonard Lawlor (Penn State)
Christopher Norris (Cardiff)
The SEP-FEP Joint Conference offers faculty and graduate students the
opportunity to present papers in any area of European Philosophy.
Abstracts of no more than 500 words should be submitted by 1 June 2009 to
Juliana Cardinale, either in electronic form to J.Cardinale@lse.ac.uk or
by mail to:
Forum for European Philosophy
Room J5, European Institute
Cowdray House, Portugal Street
London School of Economics, London, WC2A 2AE United Kingdom
There are also two open plenary sessions:
1. The Future of Hermeneutics (Chair: Nicholas Davey, Dundee) and
2. The Role of Imagery in Ontology and Thought (Chair: Clive Cazeaux,
UWIC).
In addition, proposals relating to Walter Benjamin's Arcades Project are
especially welcome. Cardiff is a city of arcades. A work of sound art
based on Cardiff's arcades has been commissioned to accompany the
conference.
If you would be interested in participating in any of these, please
contact Clive Cazeaux by 1 June 2009 at ccazeaux@uwic.ac.uk
A prize of £250 will be awarded to the best graduate paper, as judged by
members of the SEP and FEP Committees. Graduates who would like their
papers considered for the prize should email their papers (maximum 3,000
words) as Word 2003 attachments to Clive Cazeaux at ccazeaux@uwic.ac.uk
by 3 August 2009.
Deadline summary:
Paper abstracts by 1 June 2009 to J.Cardinale@lse.ac.uk
Graduate papers in full by 3 August 2009 to ccazeaux@uwic.ac.uk
Further details, including registration and accommodation, are available
on the conference website here
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