From: "Frederik van Gelder Ph.D." <Gelder-AT-em.uni-frankfurt.de>
Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 16:48:57 +0000
Subject: Re: HAB: What's 'discourse'?



Dialectics, theory and practice, totality: those are the three themes
one is forced to probe if one wishes to understand what Critical
Theory (including Habermas) is all about, and one way (perhaps not
the only way) to do so is to trace out what these things have meant
in the European tradition from Hegel's Kant-critique onwards.

But there's a caveat. If one approaches these things without
questioning the 'common-sense' empiricism into which we are
socialised in most of the anglophone world, (the effect of Locke,
Hume, Russell, Moore, Popper) then the quest for intellectual
antecedants can turn into one more 'history of ideas': knowledgeable,
learned, informative, and forgettable. In a word: academic.
Philosophical equivalent of a coffee-table art catalogue.

Empiricism, political liberalism, a kind of technocratic pragmatism:
those are the core values of what Hobsbawm calls the _Age of
Extremes_, i.e. our own century. Interwoven both with the potential
for an end to poverty, ignorence and fear on this planet, as well as
a resurgence of militant nationalisms armed with the latest in modern
weapons systems. Habermas addresses these complex and disquieting
issues, and he does so in the context of an enormous expansion of
tertiary education in the industrialised world in the last fourty
years. That seems to me to be the 'real world' context which it helps
to bear in mind when discussing Habermas' _Theory of communicative
action_.

best regards,
fvg


> I was fascinated by Frederick van Gelder's perspective in Habermas' use
> of the term 'discourse' - this account made 'discourse' sound very like
> a communicative reflection of Hegel's 'evolving world spirit'. Is there a
> Hegelian theme underlying Habermas' ideas here? This would account for the
> very different reception which Habermas' work receives in anglophone
> countries where the Hegelian background is, largely, absent. I hope that
> someone can enlighten me.
> 
> Martin Spaul
> Anglia Polytechnic University, UK.
> 
> 
> 
-------------------------------------------
Frederik van Gelder  Ph.D.
Institut fuer Sozialforschung
Frankfurt University
(Yes, the 'old' Frankfurt School)

Gelder-AT-em.uni-frankfurt.de
-------------------------------------------