Date: 	Sun, 26 Jan 1997 13:50:15 -0500
From: Kenneth MacKendrick <kenneth.mackendrick-AT-utoronto.ca>
Subject: Re: General Question


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> 
> >The theory of communicative action needs to be pushed further - "brushed
> >against
> >the grain" if you will.  Habermas's theory stands head and shoulders above
> >most
> >of the stuff out there right now - i'm thinking of political hermeneutics,
> >analytic
> >philosophy, postmodernism, and pragmatism.
> 
> 
> Could you expand on this?  How should it brush against the grain- what
> grain?  Also, how does it stand above other stuff- e.g. Rawls?

The way i read Habermas - his theory makes several rigid distinctions (between 
the good and the just, the public and the private, lifeworld and systems, 
justification and application etc.).  This distinctions are often problematic.  By 
"brushing habemas against the grain" i would like to hold his ideals against 
themselves.  Seyla Benhabib has done this to a considerable degree, in my 
opinion.  Habermas initially expressed a consequentialist model of discourse - in 
rationalist form.  Benhabib argues that instead of developing a full blow model of 
justification - it is more appropriate to develop a lifestyle whereby the conversation 
is always being conducted - with greater and greater inclusivity, participation, etc.  
The focus jumps from justification to the process of communicating.  See _Situating 
the Self_ and her new stuff on democracy _Democracy and Difference_ (ed vol) and 
_the relectant modernity of hannah arendt_

as for heads and shoulders above the rest - this is obviously my personal value 
judgement on theory in general (i'm not privileging anything - "there can only be 
participants in the enlightenment).  i think habermas has articulated an important 
aspect of human relations - in the idea of communication.  and i agree that the 
faculty of reason is tied to this.  this model preserves the ideals of the 
enlightenment (freedom, truth, etc.) but twists them inside out by playing them 
against themselves (benjamin again) in the arena of intersubjective 
communication.  freedom doesn't stop at the kantian axis - it shifts quit literaly to 
the freedom of all - in the form of an anticipated utopia - projected from our everday 
communicative efforts.
theorists like rorty reject these kind of "grand narratives" because, among other 
things, he thinks habermas is a moralist in spades - outstripping what reason can 
actually do.  rorty thinks there are limits - huge limits on reason.  bottom line - i 
think he sells the enlightenment out.  i think theorists like rawls, heller, and bloch 
are a bit too constructivist - although they do articulate a "visionary" world based 
on the realization of enlightenment ideals (which is nice but confuses the 
boundaries of theory and practice).  the postmoderns, many of them anyway, jump 
off the dock.  abandoning ideas like truth, freedom etc. in the name of the OTHER (a 
black hole, it seems, which suchs in concepts) - and fail to engage, in an 
appropriate manner the political element of society.  writers in hermeneutics 
(gadamer) are close to habermas in many respects - but i think gadamer is too 
much of a tinker for my taste (how can one "fantastically overestimate" something 
which has never been realized???!!!???).  Please note - these are merely my 
intimations.  I'm not (yet) making full blow arguments.

> As I see it, Habermas' communicative action has one fatal flaw- its primary
> assumption or belief that communication is meant to transfer truth.  A
> nietzschean crticique of this is that "truth" is just one more means to
> holding power over others.  Further, I don't see how escapes criticism like
> that aimed at Ralws' veil of ignorance- that is, it doesn't apply to the
> real world with real people.  Further, it falls under another type of
> criticism given against Kantian type moral theories- e.g. that it is too
> masculine.  What about the rtole of emoption and passion in thought.  In
> short, we are not Vulcans, as I like to say, and I am not sure that we want
> to be.  Even so, how can the theory of communicative action contend with
> the humean claim that reason does not move our wills but emotion and
> passion- reason is only the slave of the passions.

benhabib's critique of rawl's in _feminism as critique_ is correct, i think.  rawl's 
articulates a "generalized other" instead of a "concrete other."  as for emotions - i 
follow agnes heller - _a theory of feelings_.  feelings are inexorably (speling?) tied 
with reason.  They are not and cannot be separated.  it is a reified dualism.  we are 
passionate with reason and reasonable with passion.
as for communication conveying truth - i guess habermans's appropriation of 
gadamer makes sense.  language is oriented toward understanding (with the 
exception of functional language systems which convey nothing).    linguistic 
statements only potentially convey truth.  words, or validity claims, are 
propositional in factivcity only.  they invite people to response and ask for 
justification - which the speaker can then give in the form of good reasons.  
language is a coordinating element of human beings.  even if it is interpreted as 
sheer will to power it still functions to coordinate actions (ie. directed toward 
understanding).  fascists and democrats alike use language in the same way.  as 
georgia warnke notes "there isn't anything else."  i suppose a case could be made 
for a functional language being substituted for ordinary language - the result being 
the total reification of human relations.... but i'm unsure about how to think about 
such a thing.... (how would one know?).
ken


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