Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 21:25:21 EDT
Subject: Re: reification, agency, Habermas


In a message dated 6/2/98 2:17:50 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
kingma-AT-mcmail.CIS.McMaster.CA writes:

<< A parallel with Habermas:  in Habermas's "lifeworld", individuals
 coordinate their activities through "communicative action"; when the
 lifeworld is colonized by economic and bureaucratic "systems", the means
 by which activities are coordinated are beyond the control of individuals. >>

Wait, Habermas claims that in our 'totally administered society' (to borrow
Adorno's phrase) there is a clash between strategic action including strategic
linguistic action as systematically distorted and perlocutionary, and
communicative action when language is justified through validity claims.  I
don't think Habermas means to say that coordination exists without the
subjects intersubjective coordinating activity.  Administered activity or
strategic action when actors and speakers manipulate each other is not
coordination, rather it is a form of steering.  

Fred Welfare