Date: Sat, 25 Jan 1997 21:05:47 -0500
From: jlnich1-AT-service1.uky.edu (J.L. Nicholas)
Subject: Re: General Question



>Reason, I would argue, is characterized by self-conscious reflection.
>The necessary relation between reason and "universality, democracy,
>etc." rests on the fact that it is because we can reflect on our
>practices that we can judge them as inadequately realizing the ends
>which are the purpose of our activity. It is only through reflection
>that we can step back and examine those practices, only in relfection
>that we require SOMETHING ELSE (i.e. a conception of what our purpose
>is) to justify the practice, instead of taking the practice itself as
>the end itself. In other words, reason IS critical, criticism IS
>rational.

        This needs to be shown- i.e. that reason is critical and criticism
is rational.  This is very Kantian of the "What is Enlightenement" and
sounds like a quote from Karl Popper's _Conjectures and Refutations_.  But
there are other traditions in which, I would think, criticism is not
rationality- particularly if we are talking about criticism of a tradition.



>> 2.  since he hasn't been bitten by the aesthetic bug he doesn't leave
>>much room for
>> aesthetics.  this is a problem.  aesthetics play a much larger role in
>>life than
>> simply affairs of the private.  ie. there is no poetry in habermas.
>>following agnes
>> heller - "habermasian man has no feelings.... and is constituted wholly by
>> abstract reasoning" (or something like that).
>
>This is no place to go into this one.

Why not- IO think this is a very important criticism of HAbermas,
especially as he claims a liunk with Ardorno, Marcuse, Horkheimer....

which I think are related to
>his distinction between right and good, but to speak of Habermasian Man
>as without feelings BECAUSE rational is to carry over a cliche from the
>conception of reason Habermas is criticizing. Reflection need not
>exclude feelings, but it must transform them.

Which conception and how doesn't Habermas fall into that conception?
Habermas has not come up with a new kind of reason but only a different
color whose roots are in Kant.



>Authoritarian? Habermas considers legitemate only the force of the
>better argument, or a practice grounded in it. To demand on the other
>hand that I accept an argument without grounds IS authoritarian. The
>only thing that can make me accept such is--power! Habermas knows all
>too well about the role of power. But you speak of power in that it is
>"structured directly into our reasoning skills". I don't know how you
>can take this line, since Habermas has done such a good job of showing
>that taking this position results in a performative contradiction--which
>is THE sign that theory and practice have split in your reflection.


What is the force of the better argument?  Why should I accept the better
argument?  The contradiction to which you allude relies on the assumption
that speaking and arguing is a search for truth rather than a search for
control or power - which is beleid by the term "force".

Thanks for the citations btw.

Jeffery