Subject: HAB: Habermas - The Dialectician? (Matt, #59)
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2002 00:42:03 


Gary,

You say:

>There is
>nothing basically "dialectical" about Habermas's work.

In _Autonomy and Solidarity_ (ed. Dews,1992: 105), Habermas says in response 
to the question "How do you tie together the different lines of thought 
you've been developing for the last ten years in the project of 
communicative action?":

"Finally I went back to Max Weber to treat a substantial theme. For I did 
not just want to show how the theory of communicative action can be useful 
for social theory. I also had a third motif, namely, the *dialectic of 
social rationalization*. That was already the main theme of the *dialectic 
of enlightenment*. I wanted to show that one can develop a theory of 
modernity using communications-theoretical concepts which possess the 
analytic precision neede for socio-pathological phenomena, for what the 
Marxist tradition calls reification".[Habermas's emphases]

Now the import of this quote for our present discussion is covered by your 
statement that:

>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)...

Put simply, of course Habermas is concerned with dialectical themes as the 
dialectical analyses of Horkheimer and Adorno constitute a large part of the 
object domain of his inquiry in the _TCA_. This doesn't make Habermas's own 
mode of inquiry dialectical, nor does it substantiate the claim that 
Habermas identifies the logic of the learning processes which he argues have 
driven the social evolution of Modern Occidental societies is a dialectical 
logic:

>[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).


I am not sure how one would go about convincing you of the validity of the 
claim that there is a dialectical core to Habermas's mode of inquiry as well 
as to the content of his analysis of the developmental dynamics of 
Modernity's social evolution.What I hope to achieve in this posting is to 
dissolve your objection to the claim that the logic of societal learning 
processes is dialectical on the basis that dialectical logic is conflictual 
whilst the developmental logic guiding the transition to higher order 
learning stages is not:

>Dialectic is a
>conflict-based dynamic, applicable for rough description of
>processes of distortion, but inappropriate for description
>of lifeworld phenomenology.

"Knowledge-constitutive interests mediate the natural history of the human 
species with the logic of its self formative 
process...Knowledge-constitutive interests can be defined exclusively as a 
function of the objectively constituted problems of the preservation of life 
that have been solved by the cultural form of existence as such." 
(_KHI_,1972: 196)

"I propose to explain the evolutionary changes of social systems with 
simultaneous reference to developmental logics (structures of consciousness) 
and historical processes (events)...The emergence of a new historical event 
can be explained by reference to contingent peripheral conditions and to the 
*challenge posed by structurally open possibilities*." (_History and 
Evolution_ printed in _Telos_,1979: 30-31)

"The theory of communicative action can explain why this is so: the 
development of society must *itself* give rise to the problem situations 
that *objectively* afford contemporaries a privileged access to the general 
structures of the lifeworld...It may be that this provocative threat, this 
challenge that places the symbolic structures of the lifeworld as a whole in 
question, can account for why they have become accessible to us.' 
(_TCA2_,1995: 403)

Habermas's theory of social evolution is a theory of crisis *par 
excellence*. It is a theory of crisis permeated by the language of conflict 
and resolution; that is by the language of a dialectical logic. This is the 
same language of the original quote I provided from _KHI_ which exposed the 
similarities in the logics guiding the development of the 
knowledge-constitutive interests embodied in technological 
rationality/practical rationality and elsewhere emancipatory rationality.
_______________________________________________________________
>-- 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?

My use of the phrase *positive dialectics* is precisely connected to 
Habermas's engagement in the discourse over Horkheimer's and Adorno's thesis 
on the dialectic of enlightenment. I am after two shades of meaning here 
using *negative* in the perjorative sense to reference H. & A's pathos of 
despair; and then the *negative* in Adorno's _Negative Dialectics_ to refer 
to his critical strategy. Describing Habermas's critical communication 
theoretic as "positive dialectics" relates to both these *negatives*. First 
as an alternative paradigm of open ended futurity (positivity) to the 
despairing finitude of the closure apparent in H. & A's dialectical 
analyses, and, second, the (dare I say) optimistic or at least forward 
looking synthesizing strategies of Habermas's critical hermeneutical stance 
in opposition to the relentless *negative* critique Adorno prescribed for 
critical philosophy in _Negative Dialectics_.

In other words, Gary, *negative* and *positive* are pertinent to the 
discursive language game Habermas (and students of Habermas) are engaged 
with.
_________________________________________________________________
>
>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. 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").

Until such time as.....you guessed it.... conflict arises in the form of new 
problems to be solved according to the dialectical logic embedded in the 
learning processes of social evolution. What your eloquent description above 
pertains to is the ideal condition of the lifeworld akin to a condition of 
homeostasis. Why do I suggest you render the lifeworld statically? Because 
your rendition of the lifeworld above concentrates on ideal conditions and 
overlooks systematic distortions and conflictual threats to the symbolic 
reproduction of the lifeworld.
______________________________________________________________________

>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.

Is this the same as saying that the emancipatory interest of critique 
properly serves social integration mindful of Habermas's dismissal of the 
holistic aspirations of emancipatory movements in _BFN_?

Regards,

MattP

_________________________________________________________________
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