Date: Mon, 09 Mar 1998 00:02:33 -0800
Subject: HAB: Is identity formation basically psychocultural or sociocultural?


Bryce,

I share your belief (3/5 posting, <HAB: Re: Intersubjective
constitution...>), relative to Charles’ 3/4 response to Ken, that
Habermas moved away from a basic interest in philosophical anthropology
in the early ‘70s, though I’m drawn to the notion as a catch-all for
interdisciplinary thinking in the human sciences and humanities.

So, when Charles talks of philosophical anthropology, I’m interested--to
a degree, if only to support a more fundamental sense of reflectivity in
theoretical discourse than sometimes shows. But Habermas’ theory of
social evolution in TCA is not philosophical in any traditional sense, I
think; and his notion of philosophy, in MCCA, ch. 1, postures
“philosophy” as a metatheoretical stand-in for empirically relevant
reconstructive inquiry. So, in the final analysis, I’m wary of Charles’
strategy, contra Ken, of advocating a notion of philosophical
anthropology because it fosters the very thing that Habermas has sought
to avoid: suspicions of metaphysics (which Ken shows). Since Habermas’
work is postmetaphysical, talk of philosophical anthropology, taken too
seriously, is misleading of what Habermas is basically doing.

Your notion of communicative attitude is interesting. You write: “This
involves a kind of bracketing operation, a virtualization of sorts, of
one's own interests in order to be able to comprehend what the other
person is attempting to say on their own terms.” How does this relate to
Habermas’ sense of reciprocal role competence (which includes taking the
other’s stance) in “Moral Development & Ego Identity” (_Comm & the Evol.
Soc._) or “Moral Consciousness & Communicative Action” (_MCCA_)?

 “I'd want to argue,” you write, “that this ‘communicative move’ is the
basis for intersubjectivity as such; that what is involved in this
moment of intersubjective recognition is a recognition of the other as
Other to oneself;...” What, though, do you take to be the nature (so to
speak) of this “basis, ” if not the ontogenic emergence of
intersubjectivity, which you’re “not so concerned with” (your 3/6
posting)?

“It is on this basis that the moment of negativity necessary for the
develop[ment] of a sense of self is introduced into the consciousness of
the individual in question. Individuals develop a sense of self only
through coming to terms with the fact that there is a difference between
themselves and others.” Given a healthy infant-mother relationship and
good enough family relations, do you believe that one’s difference with
others is always a “moment of negativity”? Such a necessity is implied
by Hegelian dialectics, but is such a moment borne out by human
developmental studies?

I don’t think so. But just how *does* self identity emerge relative to
the variably formidable otherness of others is a very elusive issue!
And I am at present very wrapped up in clarifying my sense of this; so,
I’m especially interested in the efforts of others to grapple with this
issue of, so to speak, identity-in-difference
(“...simultaneity...between the individual and the other...” [3/6], as
you put it). In particular, I’m disillusioned with sociocentric views of
identity formation (such as Mead), based on recent empirical and
clinical work in identity formation, and I am looking for perspectives
that are post-sociologistic or that are basically psychocultural rather
than basically sociocultural. I don’t expect that you’re working in this
direction, but I’ve been meaning to indicate this direction of interest
of mine, and now is as good a time as any.

In any event, I agree with you intensely that the construction of
identity and communicative action are “mutually implicative,” but just
how much of this is intersubjective and how much is individually
cognitive is a very difficult issue, especially as one is concerned to
foster a creative individuality capable of “post-conventional”
innovations in various venues of sociocultural life.

Is “the fundamental prerequisite for the development of a sense of self”
the “adoption of a communicative attitude” (3/5), which suggests a
subject-centered freedom toward communication. Or is this fundamental
prerequisite available post-natally, as the epigenetic capacity for
language (the brain) and speech (vocal physiology) which maternity
educes to flower intersubjectively? In either case, a priority of
subject-centered capacity is implied; intersubjectivity has no
primordiality. In the former case, there seems to be an egoistic
decision to communicate (your view?), while in the latter case, there is
a genetic disposition symbolize, which intersubjectivity fosters.
Intersubjectivity is supplemental in the former case (while remaining
fundamental to sociality, which is derivative of psychologically-based
intersubjectivity). Intersubjectivity is primal, in the latter case, but
still has no primordiality.

I’ve come to believe that social research has little to say about the
basis of intersubjectivity. When I look at clinical infant research, it
seems that Mead is a speculative theorist, outstripped by the facts of
infant and early child development in healthy environments. It seems to
be environments of oppression and domination that give credence to
sociocentric views of human development, thus of the basis of
communicative competence. Inasmuch as this view has validity, it has
fundamental implications for Habermas’ views about the development of
communicative competence, but, I think, makes no difference toward the
larger aims of his Project, since a revision of the relationship of
identity formation to communicative action would still give to
communicative action the same centrality in all the venues of his work
that it has had, even in moral-cognitive development studies. But such
work can’t be based on Mead. Mead’s profoundly valid view of the
development of social identity just has no ontogenetic merit and must be
integrated with a empirical-clinical research.

But this entails a clearer separation of issues of identity formation
and issues of communicative action than would otherwise be the case,
while the entwinement of communicative action and *intersubjectivity*
remains mutually implicative.

Yet, the relationship between valid intersubjectivity and healthy
identity formation cannot be understood from a sociocentric perspective,
since the relationship is not basically a matter of “socialization,” as
any creative person *feels*.

It could be, then, that I more strongly endorse your belief that “human
beings have a need for a sense of self” (3/5) than you would!  But I’m
not as willing to associate this with a philosophical anthropology as
Charles would (surmising, though, that he wouldn’t welcome a
post-sociocentric view of development in the first place).

This is all very different from your interest in Charles’ views, which
motivates my present posting.  In the months ahead, I want to present
some aspects of a post-sociocentric view of development (in keeping with
a post-conventionally conceived approach to cultural evolution, as
Habermas conceives this), which may also basically pertain to the
difficulties that readers of Habermas have grasping a practical sense of
working *with* him, rather than either working for him (like a disciple)
or against him (like a disciple of negative dialectic).

In this venture, I would signal to social Freudians that cognitive
psychoanalysis left Freud behind some time ago, though the news hasn’t
reached the Francophiles, apparently.

Be this as it may, a post-sociocentric approach to identity and
communication gives more weight to a phenomenological component than is
usual in Critical Theory. So, your indication of “a kind of
phenomenological moment in subjective experience in which the individual
simultaneously experiences themself and the other in a reflexive
fashion” (3/6) has more appeal to me than you might expect of a
Habermasian.

In your clarification of your sense of communicative attitude, bear in
mind that there is a difference in Habermas’ work between a
propositional attitude and propositional speech. An infant can have a
propositional attitude (as shown by infant research) long before s/he
can form propositional speech.

Finally, I share your fascination with the prospect of “an experiential,
intuitive basis for an appreciation of a qualitative understanding of
democracy (as a form of life) in the moment of a suspension/bracketting/
Aufhebung of one's (reified/fetishized/occluded) sense of self” (3/6).

But what is the nature of this capacity for reflexivity (called “field
independence” by Habermas in “Moral Development & Ego Identity”)? Do
babies come into the world in need of emancipation? No. The emancipatory
potential of democracy must arise from a more fundamental potential of
democracy--a democracy geared to the advancement of human potential, not
mere emancipation from domination. The fundamental potential of
democracy is perhaps to foster the realization of human potential, which
is felt by every infant’s reach for the unreachable.

Cheers,

Gary




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