Date: Sat, 25 Oct 1997 17:19:14 -0800
From: Gary <gedavis-AT-pacbell.net>
Subject: HAB: Re: Postmetaphysic Reason


Nickos asks: “What I have confused a bit, is whether the term
postmetaphysical denotes the shift from the philosophy of the subject
towards communicative rationality, or whether it initiates the
substitution of religious or metaphysical forms of legitimation for
legitimacy grounded on practical reason. It seems to me that the latter
use of the term is more valid.”

You probably mean, in the latter instance, that ‘postmetaphysical’
denotes an employment of practical reason for legitimation rather than
an employment of religious or metaphysical forms for legitimation. The
term pertains to that definitely. 

But your confusion seems to me no confusion at all. Habermas develops
the notion of “postmetaphysical” in terms of a shift from the philosophy
of the subject towards communicative rationality. He does this in
_Philosophical Discourse of Modernity_; and he develops this further,
overtly in terms of the intersubjectivity of reason, in
_Postmetaphysical Thinking_, which focuses extendedly on “the return to
pragmatics” and includes Habermas’ outstanding study of “individuation
through socialization: on George Herbert Mead’s theory of subjectivity.”

Practical reason, after Kantian metaphysics, is rigorously based in the
intersubjectivity of communication, which is the communication of
intersubjectivity. The inherency of the pretense of being reasonable
shows itself in the intersubjective structure (scenicness) of our
communicative form of life. Without metaphysical pretense, one can show
the legitmating potential of validity claims in terms of and through
(always already through) communicative action.

This entails that the employability of practical reason in place of
religious and metaphysical forms of understanding is a *result* of the
shift from the philosophy of the subject towards communicative
rationality, because the character of practical reason distinct from
ontotheological understanding does not derive from the historical event
of rebellion or alienation from ontotheological understanding. Rather,
the differentiation of existence from ontotheological forms arose from
insight into the conditions for the possibility of understanding, which
(beyond Kant) *is* that intersubjectivity itself shows the inherency of
“the reasonable person standard” through its communicative form of life. 

You note that “Habermas claims in BFN p. 469 that  'using the tools of
postmetaphysical theorising... social-contract theories were proposed...
[that] translated the Aristotelian concept of the political authority -
the self-rule of free and equal persons - into the basic concepts of the
philosophy of the subject'.”

It's not trivial to note that the distance expressed by your first
ellipsis ("...") is two pages of Habermas' text. Habermas is indicating
three aspects of early modern "revolutionary consciousness" *through
which* "a radically this-worldly, postmetaphysical concept of the
political penetrated the consciousness of a mobilized population" (467).
The third aspect of revolutionary consciousness was "the trust in
rational discourse" (467), which Habermas is discussing at the point of
your quote. But the point which Habermas wishes to make is that this
medium of revolutionary consciousness was "disasterous for political
practice" (470). Though "a politics radically situated in this world
should be justifiable on the basis of reason," according to
revolutionary consciousness, "using the tools of postmetaphysical
theorizing" cannot be equated with the whole of a postmetaphysical
concept of the political. The subject-centered version of the
postmetaphysical, which we find in Hegel and others, turned out to be
dangerous. 

A translation of Aristotelian intuitions of political life was also a
reduction of ethical rule to instrumentalist means, which reduces an
expansive sense of solidarity to egoistic operators in a game. 

You note that “Benhabib argues in Situating the Self, p. 4-5 that the
'first step in the formulation of a post-metaphysical universalist
position is to shift from a substantialistic to a discursive,
communicative concept of rationality'.

The only way that an egoistic operator can assure himself of the
reliability of the game is to act as if egoism and the game are
universalizable on its own terms; that is, the universe of interaction
is naturally a struggle among egoistic operators, which requires
presuming one’s own egoistic condition as a natural attitude.
Subjectivity is one’s destiny. Every-body’s got their opinion, and
nobody’s is any better than anybody else’s, except inasmuch as it can
trump the other in a game. Relativism reigns, with a vengeance. 

For the egocentric conception of the self, the shift to realzing one’s
denial of the heart, so to speak, can be a painful one, inasmuch as
one’s longing for appreciation--for *validation* --cannot be fulfilled
(to-and-by the egoist) by turning to others, in solidarity, in
kindredness, or in intimacy. 

Only a communicative sense of understanding can retrieve for egocentrism
the intersubjective basis of onself in ontogeny and existence, which is
the condition for the possibility of caring for others. In all cases,
egocentrism (beyond childhood’s healthy narcissism) is an emphatic
announcement (tacitly, but definitely) of the *carelessness* in one’s
own background. 

Without a genuine sense of our belonging together, one is driven to get
all the goods one deserves. 

Gary


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