Habermas Lecture

Habermas Lecture 25/11/05

Habermas has a huge reputation amongst some social theorists, psychologists, philosophers.

One of the best places to start thinking about Habermas is by looking a the two theorists central to second wave Critical Theory – they are Karl Marx and and Sigmund Freud – we will start with looking at Habermas in relation to Marx.

Habermas says:

(quote 1)

“to develop a theoretical program that I understand as a reconstruction of historical materialism” – Jurgen Habermas, Communication and the Evolution of Society

“[the problem in Marx’s work] is the reduction of the self-generative act of the human species to labor” – Jurgen Habermas, Knowledge and Human Interests

“I take as my fundamental starting point the fundamental distinction between work and interaction” – Jurgen Habermas, Toward a Rational Society

Throughout his writings Habermas looks at this distinction – but he mostly uses the terms: purposive-rational action (work) and communicative action (interaction).

Habermas takes Marx’s species-being “sensuous human activity” as his own starting point.

Habermas argues that the mistake Marx makes is to not distinguish between work (purposive-rational action) and social (or symbolic) interaction (or communicative action).

Habermas thinks that Marx ignored the later (interaction) and reduced it to work.

(quote 2)

Purposive-rational action

Instrumental action - concerned with a single actor rationally calculating the best means to a given goal.

Strategic action – involves two or more individuals coordination purposive-rational action in the pursuit of a goal.

The object of both instrumental and strategic action is instrumental mastery.



Habermas, of course, was most interested in communicative action:

(quote 3)
“the actions of the agents involved are coordinated not through egocentric calculations of success but through acts of reaching understanding. In communicative action participants are not primarily orientated to their own successes; they pursue their individual goals under the conditions that they can harmonize their plans of action on the basis of common situation definitions” - Jurgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action. Vol. 1, Reason and the Rationalization of Society. [italics added]

Whereas the end of purposive-rational action is to achieve a goal, the objective of communicative action is to achieve communicative understanding.

It is important that this communicative action not be reduced to only speech acts or nonverbal expressions – though there is obviously a strong speech component.

Habermas’s most radically departure from Marx is to argue that it is communicative action and NOT purposive-action (work) that is the most distinctive and persuasive human phenomena.

According to Habermas, Communicative action is the foundation of all sociocultural life and well as the human sciences.

Therefore – where Marx focused on work – Habermas focuses on communication.

So Marx critiques work – and he uses as his baseline work that is free and creative.

In the same way – Habermas critiques communication – and his baseline is undistorted communication, communication without compulsion.

Habermas is concerned with those social structures which distort communication – just as Marx examined the structural sources of the distortion of work.

The VERY important thing to note here is that although Habermas and Marx have different baselines – they both have baselines.

These baselines are what make judgments possible – and this is how they escape relativism.

Habermas is very critical of earlier critical theorists who did not have these baselines – especially Weber – and accused them of lapsing into relativism.

There is another parallel between Habermas and Marx and their baselines – these baselines are not only there analytical starting points, but also there political objectives.




For Marx: a communist society in which undistorted work would exist for the first time.

For Habermas: a society of undistorted communication.

Habermas and Marx’s immediate goals might be expressed like this:

For Marx: the elimination of (capitalist) barriers to undistorted work.

For Habermas: the elimination of barriers to free communication.

It is here - that Habermas (in his book; Theory and Practice) – like other Critical Theorists – turns to Sigmund Freud – and sees many parallels between what psychoanalysts do on an individual level – and what he thinks needs to be done on a societal level.

Habermas sees psychoanalysis a theory of undistorted communication and as trying to help individuals communicate in an undistorted way.

So just as the psychoanalysis seeks to find the distortions in individual communication and tries to help the individual overcome these blocks – in the same way therapeutic critique – “a form of argumentation that serves to clarify systematic self-deception” – the critical theorist tries to help people overcome barriers to undistorted communication.

Habermas believes that there are elements of undistorted communication to be found in every act of contemporary communication – in much the same way as Marx believed that there were elements of species-being to found in the work in capitalist society.

Now let’s look at the notion of rationalization and Habermas – it here that Habermas is influenced by not only Marx’s work – but also, of course, by Max Weber’s.

In Habermas’s notion of rationalization – Habermas’s distinction between purposive-rational and communicative action remains important.

Habermas believes that most theorizing has focused on the rationalization of purposive-rational action – which leads to a growth of productive forces and an increase in technological control over life.

It is this form of rationalization which is a major – probably the major problem – for Marx and Weber – in the modern world.

But for Habermas it NOT rationalization that is the problem – but what is being rationalized.

For Habermas the problem is the rationalization of purposive-rational action - not rationalization in general

In fact, Habermas the solution to the problem of the rationalization of purposive-rational action is the rationalization of communicative action.

The rationalization of communicative action leads to communication free from domination – free and communication.

Rationalization here means removing restrictions on communications.

At the social level – such rationalization would mean a decrease in normative repressiveness and rigidity – leading to increases in individual flexibility and reflectivity.

This less restrictive or nonrestrictive normative system is at the heart of Habermas’s theory of social evolution – the end point being a more rational society.

Again: rationalization, for Habermas, leads to a new, less distorting, normative system – a system where the barriers that distort communication have been removed – but more importantly:

(quote 4)

A communication system in which ideas are openly presented and defended against criticism; unconstrained agreement develops during argumentation.

Habermas makes a distinction between communicative action and discourse – communicative action happens in everyday life, whereas discourse:

(quote 5)

“[discourse is] that form of communication that is removed from contexts of experience and action and whose structure assures us: that the bracketed validity claims of assertions, recommendations, or warnings are the exclusive object of discussion; that the participants, themes, and contributions are not restricted except with reference to the goal of testing the validity claims in questions; that no force except that of the better argument is exercised; and that all motives except that of the cooperative search for truth are excluded.” – Jurgen Habermas, Legitimation Crisis (pgs. 107-108)

The notion of Habermas’s discourse is the “ideal speech situation” – in which force or power does not determine which arguments win out; instead the better argument wins out.

This is very important: The arguments that emerge from such a discourse (and the participants agree on) are true – thus, Habermas adopts a consensus theory of truth rather than a copy theory of truth.

As Thomas McCarthy says in his book on Habermas:


(quote 6)

“The idea of truth points ultimately to a form of interaction that is free from all distorting influences. The ‘good and true life’ that is the goal of critical theory is inherent in the notion of truth; it is anticipated in every act of speech” – Thomas McCarthy, The Critical Theory of Jurgen Habermas.

(quote 7)

Consensus arises theoretically in discourse (and pretheoretically in communicative action) when four types of validity claims are raised and recognized by the interactants:

(1) The speaker’s utterances are seen as understandable, comprehensible.

(2) The propositions offered by the speaker are true; that is, the speaker is offering reliable knowledge.

(3) The speaker is being truthful in offering the propositions; the speaker is reliable.

(4) It is right and proper for the speaker to utter such propositions; she or he has the right to do so.

Consensus arises when all these validity claims are raised and accepted; it breaks down when one or more are questioned (for example, questioning the right of the speaker to utter certain propositions).

There are – remember – Habermas claims – forces in the modern world which would distort this process – prevent the emergence of a consensus – and would have to be overcome for Habermas’s ideal society to come about.

Jurgen Habermas: Colonization of the Life-World

Habermas has developed his theory further – especially using a wide number of sociological theorists – George Herbert Mead, Talcott Parsons, Alfred Schutz, and Alfred Durkheim.

Habermas’s most recent ideas could be broadly thought of as Colonization of the Life-World.

We will look at what Habermas means by: colonization, life-world, system.

What must be remember is that Habermas’s main theoretical concern remains communicative action – free and open communication remains his baseline and political objective – in fact, Habermas’s interest in the colonization of our life-world’s is the way in which this colonization adversely affects free communication.



Life-World

The concept is drawn, obviously, from phenomenology – particularly the social phenomenology of Alfred Schutz.

For Habermas the Life-World represents the internal viewpoint – while system represents the external viewpoint.

Habermas: “Society is conceived from the perspective of the acting subject.”

Habermas view Life-World and Communicative Action as complementary concepts.

More specifically communicative action can be seen as occurring within the life-world.

(quote 8)

The lifeworld is, so to speak, the transcendental site where speaker and hearer meet, where they reciprocally raise claims that their utterances fit the world … and where the can critize and confirm those validity claims, settle their disagreements, and arrive at agreements” – Jurgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action. Vol. 2, Lifeworld and System: A Critique of Functionalist Reason.

The lifeworld is “a context-forming background of processes of reaching understanding” through communicative action – it presupposes a mutual understanding.

Habermas is concerned with the rationalization of this lifeworld – which involves increasingly rational communication in the lifeworld.

The lifeworld includes: culture, society, and personality (Parsons).

Engaging in communicative action in each of these leads to the reproduction of the lifeworld through reinforcement of culture, the integration of society, and the formation of personality.

Rationalization in the modern world means the “growing differentiation between culture, society, and personality”

System

System involves the external aspect: “from a observer’s perspective of someone not involved”.

Each of the major components of the lifeworld has a corresponding element in the system – cultural reproduction, social integration, and personality formation take place at the system level.

System has its roots in the lifeworld but develops its own structural characteristics: family, judiciary, state, economy – these structures evolve and become more distant from the life world.

Rationalization increases this differentiation at the systems level.

As these systems grow they, also, develop more controlling power over the lifeworld – they also have less to do with developing consensus and in fact limit that process.

Social Intergration and System Intergration

Taking this into account, Habermas concludes that:

(quote 9)

“The fundamental problem of social theory is how to connect in a satisfactory way the two conceptual strategies indicated by the notions of ‘system’ and ‘lifeworld’ - Jurgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action. Vol. 2, Lifeworld and System: A Critique of Functionalist Reason.[italics added]

Habermas goes on to contrast the increasing rationality of system and life world – the rationalization of the lifeworld leads to more communicative action – it is freed from normative constraint and is able to achieve mutual understanding more and more.

A more and more rationalized system however: restricts communication and “unleashes systems imperatives that burst the capacity of the lifeworld that they instrumentalize”.

A violence which produces pathologies in the lifeworld – Habermas links many of these deformities to systems in capitalism – however, Habermas abandons this Marxian approach because he forced to admit that: “[the pathologies] are no longer localizable in any class specific ways” – showing, perhaps, in the end his stronger influence by Weber.

Colonization – the rationalization of the system comes to triumph over the rationalization of the life-world, with the result that the life-world comes to be colonized by the system.