From: Vunch-AT-aol.com
Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 02:07:49 EST
Subject: Re: HAB: Thinking beyond the old Gadamer-Habermas debate


In a message dated 2/19/2001 6:55:27 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
kenneth.mackendrick-AT-utoronto.ca writes:

> The think is, a Lacanian 
>  intervention forecloses the direction Habermas moves in, even if he 
> elaborates 
>  it well, so in this regard his earlier work is more fruitful to work with

This is such a curious remark that I have to ask you why you believe this?  
Usually I am not opposed to Lacanism but in this case I became skeptical

It is true that Freud rarely surfaces in Habermas discussions, but I have 
always taken it for granted that everyone concerned took psychoanalysis as 
part and parcel of the background requirements for communicative competency.  
It is not difficult to identify strategic communicators because their grasp 
of psychoanalysis is either obviously distorted or not at all in place, so to 
speak!  

Also, your remarks about critical theory being referred to as a dangerous 
utopia or even Habermas' remark that "there is an anarchic core in 
communicative action,"
seem  unusual as I can hardly believe that these remarks were unqualified.  
Perhaps it was the translation or the particularistic reading, but the use of 
these incendiary terms, e.g. utopia and anarchistic, should be elaborated 
upon.  My reading of habermas these days is that he is especially clear and 
precise about his terms and ideas, tho I can imagine him making off-the-cuff 
remarks but only within a certain topic-comment context.

fwelfare


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