From: MSalter1-AT-aol.com
Date: Sun, 23 Mar 1997 16:03:37 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: HAB: Habermas and Social Action


In reply to Rob's interesting response, and - on my part - not so badly
intentioned as to admit to being well intentioned.

Yes but the Neo-Kantian dimension of Habermas lies in the idea of a wholly
cognitivist / formalist / universalist /justice-centred discourse ethics in
which one half of some pretty traditional dualisms seems to trump its other
half, combined with some exemplary out-hegeling of hegelian dialecitical
overcoming of fact / norm, legal positivism/natural law, liberal/republican
is/ought, fact/value, empirical / normative legal theory,
hermeenuetical/system theory dualisms. My argument is that Habermas BOTH
overcomes and reinstates different either/or dualisms, e.g.,
contextualist/universalist and that only the overcoming moment is compatable
with the earlier critical theory. His contribution to the "postivist dispute"
text strikes me as a pretty clear and insightful view of dialectics. A
curious thing about BFN is that the dialectical aspects stand out most
clearly in the later postscript. Perhaps, Habermas seems at his least
dialectical when he is at his most overtly "philosophical"


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