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Habermas's Evolutions
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2020
Extract
Jürger Habermas has been attempting to develop a critical theory of society with a practical intent, on the basis of communication and a theory of the evolution of practical and moral social competence. He thinks that the studies of language rules (or capacities) and language learning (or acquisition) from Piaget, Searle, Chomsky and others have and continue to provide models elsewhere - from productive activity to moral activity. Moreover, the models are said to extend to social learning, which will be exhibited in the development of society.
Furthermore, speech acts, which are to be described by a theory of pragmatics, anticipate the establishment of ideal speech situations, which are the avenue to ‘truth, freedom, and Justice.'
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References
1 Habermas, J. ‘Towards a Theory of Communicative Competence,’ Inquiry, 13 (1970) 372CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2 Habermas, J. Communication and the Evolution of Society (Boston: Beacon Press 1979).Google Scholar This is a translation of a collection of essays which was originally published in 1976. Further references will be made as ‘Communication’ and citations will be given in the text as ‘H', followed by the page numbers.
3 McCarthy, Thomas The Critical Theory of Jürgen Habermas (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press 1978).Google Scholar Further references will be made as ‘Critical Theory’ and citations will be given in the text as ‘M', followed by the page numbers.
4 For example, see McCarthy, Thomas ‘Rationality and Discourse’ in Geraets, T.F. ed., Rationality Today (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press 1979) 441-7Google Scholar and ‘Rationality and Relativism: Habermas’ “Overcoming” of Hermeneutics’ in Held, V. ed., Critical Essays in Habermas (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press forthcoming).Google Scholar
5 See Therborn, Göran ‘Habermas: A New Eclecticism’ in New Left Review, No. 67 (May-June, 1971) 69–83.Google Scholar
6 Chomsky, Noam Rules and Representations (New York: Columbia University Press 1980) 224Google Scholar
7 J. Habermas, ‘Towards a Theory of Communicative Competences,’ 360-75
8 Rules and Representations, 245. For an extensive discussion of the relevant empirical issues and strategies, see Piattelli-Palmarini, Massimo ed., Language and Learning: The Debate between Jean Piaget and Noam Chomsky (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1980).Google Scholar
9 John Flavell's comments (p. 187) to Brainerd, Charles J. ‘The Stage Question in Cognitive-Developmental Theory’ (with comments and response), The Behavioural and Brain Sciences, 2 (1978) 173-213.Google Scholar In comments to the same paper, Karmiloff-Smith notes that the notion of stages is not central to Piaget's theory (p. 189), although it does appear to be central to Habermas's theory of the evolution of society, which I discuss below.
10 Habermas, Knowledge and Human Interests (Boston: Beacon Press 1971) 282Google Scholar
11 For the view that speech acts and their meanings cannot be context independent see Searle, John ‘Literal Meaning,’ Erkenntnis, 13 (1978) 207-24,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and ‘The Background of Meaning’ in Searle, John Kiefer, Ferenc and Bierwisch, Manfred eds., Speech Act Theory and Pragmatics (Dordrecht: Reidel 1980) 221-32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar A defence of the context independence of meaning that Habermas could not appeal to is found in Katz, Jerrold ‘Literal Meaning and Logical Theory,’ The Journal of Philosophy, 78 (1981) 203-33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
12 See H3 and M428, n. 37 on understanding and the relevant ambiguities in English and German.
13 Habermas, ‘Towards a Theory of Communicative Competence,’ 372Google Scholar
14 Habermas's consensus theory of truth is not discussed in Communication. For that see McCarthy, Critical Theory, Chap. 4.2; Habermas's Wahrheitstheorien' in Wirklichkeit und Reflexion (Pfullingen: Neske 1973) 211-65; and the criticism by Hesse, Mary ‘Habermas's Theory of Truth,’ in her Revolutions and Reconstruction in Science (Brighton: Harvester 1980).Google Scholar
15 Consider Habermas's remark about historical materialism in Theory and Practice (London: Heinemann 1974) 1-2: The theory specifies the conditions under which reflection on the history of our species by members of this species themselves has become objectively possible; and at the same time it names those to whom this theory is addressed, who then with its aid can gain enlightenment about their emancipatory role in the process of history.
16 In discussion (p. 208) of his paper, ‘Aspects of the Rationality of Action’ in Geraets, ed., Rationality Today, 185-212
17 ‘Towards a Theory of Communicative Competence,’ 371
18 ‘Aspects of the Rationality of Action,’ 212
19 Much of Chomsky's Rules and Representations is a criticism of ‘the bifurcation thesis’ that psychology (and other theories of humans and society) are qualitatively different from the natural sciences. (See especially pp. 16-22.)
20 See the excellent critical notice of Knowledge and Interests by Sara Ruddick in Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 2 (1972-73) 545-69; the review by Richard Miller in The Philosophical Review, 84 (1975) 261-6; and McCarthy's, Critical Theory, Chap. 2.Google Scholar
21 On the view that Habermas uses restricted characterizations of science and positivism, see Ruddick's critical notice of Knowledge and Interests and Andrew lugg's critical notice of The Positivist Dispute in German Sociology in Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 9 (1979) 739-56.
22 Chomsky, Rules and Representations, 141Google Scholar
23 Habermas, J. ‘The Place of Philosophy in Marxism,’ The Insurgent Sociologist, 5 (1975) 47CrossRefGoogle Scholar
24 See, for example, Boden, Margaret A. Piaget (Glasgow: Fontana 1979);Google Scholar Bryant, Peter Perception and Understanding in Young Children (London: Methuen 1974);Google Scholar M. Piattelli-Palmarini, ed., Language and Learning, and Charles Brainerd, 'The Stage Question in Cognitive-Developmental Theory.'
25 ‘Aspects of the Rationality of Action,’ 206
26 Kohlberg, Lawrence ‘From Is to Ought,’ in Mischel, Theodore ed., Cognitive Development and Epistemology (New York: Academic Press 1971) 166Google Scholar
27 Legitimation Crisis (Boston: Beacon Press 1975) 110
28 Chomsky, Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press 1965) 3Google Scholar
29 For a discussion of this problem in Kohlberg, see William P. Alston, ‘Comments on Kohlberg's “From Is to Ought” ‘, in Mischel, ed., Cognitive Development and Epistemology, 269-84.
30 Kohlberg, ‘From Is to Ought,’ 188Google Scholar
31 See ibid. and Alston's comments and Kohlberg's ‘The Claim to Moral Adequacy of a Highest Stage of Moral Judgement’ with abstracts of comments by Baier, Kurt and Henson, Richard in The Journal of Philosophy, 70 (1973) 630-49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
32 In ‘On Social Identity,’ Telos, no. 19 (Spring, 1974), Habermas speaks of ‘equal opportunity to participate’ (e.g., p. 100). The stronger principle is found in H186 and ‘Towards a Theory of Communicative Competence,’ 372.
33 There is a good discussion of this by Seyla Ben Habib in her review of McCarthy's Critical Theory in Telos, no. 40 (Summer, 1979) 177-87.
34 The conclusion of the Conference Board in Canada as reported in The Financial Post, February 24, 1981.
35 Aronowitz, Stanley ‘Marx, Braverman, and the Logic of Capital,’ The Insurgent Sociologist, 8 (1978) 143CrossRefGoogle Scholar
36 Habermas focusses on Marx's autobiographical sketch in the famous preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. See Tucker, Robert C. ed., The Marx-Engels Reader, 2nd Edition (New York: W.W. Norton 1978) 3–6.Google Scholar
37 Ibid., 5
38 The principal source for Marx's views is the famous preface in ibid., 3-6. An important interpretation and defence of these views is found in Cohen's, G.A. Karl Marx's Theory of History (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1978).Google Scholar
39 These economic Issues are not discussed in Communication, but see Habermas's Legitimation Crisis and the discussion of many of the economic issues by Sensat, Julius Jr. in Habermas and Marxism (Beverly Hills and London: Sage Publications 1979).Google Scholar See also McCarthy's Critical Theory, Chapter 5.
40 See the ‘Manifesto of the Communist Party’ in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Collected Works, vol. 6 (New York: International Publishers 1976) 493.
41 Habermas, J. ‘History and Evolution,’ Telos, no. 39 (Spring, 1979) 13Google Scholar
42 See also Theory and Practice, 13.
43 ‘History and Evolution,’ 44, although in Theory and Practice (p. 37) he seems to say that strategic action must be taken without appealing to a theory.
44 Theory and Practice, 34
45 Bolaffi, Angelo ‘An Interview with Jürgen Habermas,’ in Telos, no. 39 (Spring 1979) 172Google Scholar
46 Theory and Practice, 38 (my emphasis)
47 Ibid., 34
48 See Frankel, Boris ‘Habermas Talking: An Interview.’ Theory and Society, 1 (1974) 37–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
49 The criticism comes from Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 5, p. 89. Note the comparison with Eduard Bernstein, who said that the struggle depends upon the growth of social wealth ‘particularly, in conjunction with intellectual and moral advance of the workingclasses themselves.’ in Evolutionary Socialism: A Criticism and Affirmation (New York: Schocken Books 1961) 213.
50 Some other sources for the criticism that Habermas's political views are utopian, idealistic, liberal and/or individualistic are the following: Therborn, ‘Habermas: A New Eclecticism'; Nielsen, Kai ‘The Political Relevance of Habermas.’ Radical Philosophers’ Newsjournal, no. 6 (August 1976) 1–11;Google Scholar Roger S. Gottlieb, ‘Habermas and Critical-Reflective Emancipation.’ in Geraets, ed., Rationality Today; Howard, Dick ‘A Politics in Search of the Political.’ Theory and Society, 1 (1974) 271–306;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Misgeld, Dieter ‘Habermas's Retreat from Hermeneutics,' Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory, 5 (1981) 8–44Google Scholar
51 Marx's statement about higher relations of production in The Marx-Engels Reader, 2nd Edition, p. 5
52 Bolaffi, ‘An Interview with Jürgen Habermas,’ 169
53 As quoted in Ben Habib's review of Critical Theory, 180. This review also con· tains an interesting discussion of Habermas's procedural egalitarianism.
54 In the research of this paper, I benefitted greatly from the hospitality of the InterUniversity Centre in Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia and from the stimulation of the participants at seminars held there from January through April, 1980. The help of many others has been important, but continuing discussions with Kai Nielsen have been particularly important in stimulating and correcting my ideas. As always, Jude Carlson has helped me understand some of the systematic distortions.