File spoon-archives/habermas.archive/habermas_1998/habermas.9803, message 63


Subject: HAB: Re: Performative Contradiction
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1998 10:43:27 -0500


Ken et al:

Unless cutbacks have devastated the U of T acquisitions, the journal
Philosophy and Social Criticism should be there. At least it used to be
there.

I have just recently obtained a copy of the article in question, but I
haven't read it fully.

I am quite familiar with Asher Horowitz, since I went to school with him at
the U of T and took classes form his brother, who taught in the same
department and of his work on Habermas. My position may be considered
biased, since I have had some major disputes with him, ( I put this out so
that my cards are on the table) but I have a very low opinion of his
previous work on Habermas of which this appears to be an extension.
Horowitz comes out ofd  Marcusuean background and tends to see Habermas'
work as a sellout. And he starts from the assumption that only a theory of
totality (or some suitable substitute) can ground a critical theory.
Everything else will lead to contradictions. From this point of view he
criticizes the view that rationalization and reification can be separated.
In his earlier essay he followed Fred Dallmayrs position (well criticized
by Richard Bernstein in an article in Political Theory a few years back)
that Habermas' Weberian assumption that culture is split into distinct
value spheres to be caught up in the very reification it attempts to
analyze. He treats differentiation as diremption.

Like Dallmayr he argues that Habermas' theory is objectifying, seeing it as
a "cognitive" and he also argued that Habermas theory of language was a
sham. However, His potion in that article really doesn't show much of an
understanding of Habermas' basic positions or his theory of the life world.
Its really a sophisticated dismissive criticism. I say it is dismissive
because it doesn't engage Habermas thought on its own terms nor does it
make an effort to do so but attempts to find terms that will be suitable
for dismissal.

I'll let you know when I read his more recent efforts.

Brian Caterino
----------
> From: Kenneth <kenneth.mackendrick-AT-utoronto.ca>
> To: Habermas-List <habermas-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU>
> Subject: HAB: Performative Contradiction
> Date: Tuesday, March 10, 1998 1:57 AM
> 
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> Date: 	Tue, 10 Mar 1998 04:44:41 -0500
> From: Kenneth <kenneth.mackendrick-AT-utoronto.ca>
> Subject: HAB: Performative Contradiction
> To: Habermas-List <habermas-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU>
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> 
> Asher Horowitz argues that Habermas is begging the question 
> with regard to the performative contradiction argument in his 
> article "Like a Tangled Mobile" in Philosophy and Social 
> Criticism 24, no. 1. 1998 pgs. 1-23.  More forthcoming once I 
> can get my hands on that journal (which they don't carry at the 
> U of T).
> 
> ken
> 
> 
> 
> 
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