Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2002 01:38:00 -0800 (PST)
Subject: HAB: re: Habermas - The Dialectician? (Matt, #59)


MattP:

I much enjoyed your long retort to my critical response to
Steve. Very challenging. Many favorite themes! 

Responding in detail would be very enjoyable, but a little
more clarification from you seems called for.  

--Do you genuinely feel that you're expressing your claim
accurately that "the technological, practical and
emancipatory interests Habermas identifies in _KHI_  share
an *identical logical structure*"? (my emphasis). You
believe that purposive-rational, practical and emancipatory
interests of knowledge have identical logical structure?
This is untenable. 

-- What do you mean by 'dialectic' such that the same word
applies in both phrases "negative dialectic" and "positive
dialectic"? You *use* dialectic in a way that is apparently
synonymous with 'dynamic' or 'process'. What do you believe
is especially "dialectical" about pragmatic-fallibilistic
inquiry? I don't think there's anything constructive
expressed in the phrase "positive dialectic" other than
something like "constructive dynamic". But what IS the
"nature" of a constructive dynamic, be it psychological,
cultural, political or economic? 'Dialectic' is a tired
trope for a dynamical or process-oriented perspective,
while there is SO much work on psychological dynamics,
cultural dynamics, political dynamics, and economic
dynamics that antedates a rhetoric of dialectic beyond
rough description of conflictual processes. There is
nothing basically "dialectical" about Habermas's work. 

--What specifically causes you to read that I'm apparently
"prioritizing" a "static...Lifeworld model"? You're
actually writing to yourself (using my posting as a foil). 

Your direct question can be answered easily (in a
Habermasian vein). You ask: "...where - in your
non-dialectical rendering of Habermas's theory of social
evolution - does the *life* in the Lifeworld come from?" 

It comes from JH's own sense of lifeworld TEMPORALITY,
which is primarily futural and cannot be comprehended
dialectically, i.e., conflictually. Dialectic is a
conflict-based dynamic, applicable for rough description of
processes of distortion, but inappropriate for description
of lifeworld phenomenology. Lifeworld temporality is based
in the PLAY of modalities of lived time: anticipation,
remembrabce, and perception (or experiential presentness),
which interplay, like the "membranes" (JH's word) between
world-relations: subjective, intersubjective, and
objectivating--or like, as Gadamer put it (in _T&M_), a
"play of light on water"). 

To call a non-conflictual dynamic "dialectical" is just
begging the issue of what you're talking about. You should
be clear about what you mean by 'dialectical'. But trying
to do so will, I anticipate, dissolve the constructiveness
of the trope. 

Your reading of my response to Steve occludes the
difference between [a] the importance of dialectical /
crisis dynamics in JH's reading of *modernity*  (which I'm
not disputing) and [b] the *conceptual basics* of JH's
understanding (metatheoretically or philosophically) of
social evolution, reconstructive inquiry, theory of
communicative action, etc , which is not "dialectical" in
any sense (which was the kind of point I was making to
Steve). 

G>> The "theory" (really a metatheory) "of communicative
action" is a deeply, broadly complex discourse dealing with
what a derivative emancipatory / critical interest
*serves*. Critique serves "communication and the evolution
of society," which JH DOES NOT basically understand
dialectically--which was my main point to Matt.

M> Gary, could you elaborate please on this dynamic of
*serving*? I cannot quite grasp what the nature of the
operation is. 

The emancipatory interest is derivative; it only exists
relative to processes of distortion or oppression. A
successful emancipatory (therapeutic) process *restores* an
identity or individual to its own life, be it a
self-formative interest in realizing potentials, a
practical interest in consolidating interactions and
cooperating constructively, or a purposive-rational
interest in actualizing plans or reaching goals (all of
which commingle in the dailiness of a life).  Critical
processes, always relative to a structure of conflict,
distortion, oppression, etc., can come to closure (relative
to their specific urgency) in a successful restoraation of
a life to its fundamental interest in self-formation,
practices, and efficacy, which is expressed through
education processes, organizations of daily life, projects
or programs we carry out, etc. Critique serves the durable,
lifespan-relevant interests of self-formation, practicality
and efficacy. It is the lifeworld dynamic of
self-formativity, practicality, and efficacy that is basic
to that lifeworld--a dynamic, an interplay of interests,
potentials, knowledge. Habermas' understanding of this is
in the terms of the "lifeworld" of our form of life, the
dynamic of individuation, the formal pragmatics of
cognition, etc. His understanding of critique derives from
this lifeworld-individuation-pragmatic; and serves this
rich dynamic, in terms of metatheory and in his
exemplifiations of interpretive practice. 

Regards,

Gary





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