Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2001 17:10:01 -0700 (PDT)
From: Gary E Davis <gedavis1-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: HAB: An existential reading of Habermas?


There seems to be something oddball about Martin Matustik's _Juergen
Habermas: a philosophical-political profile_, Rowen & Littlefield,
2001, a book which apparently seeks to introduce Habermas' work
relative to the contexts of his biography, not just to give context
to the work, rather to understand the work as a product of Habermas's
life. I wonder what Habermas thinks of this kind of project. 

I'd like to hear from others about this book, who know what
Habermas's attitude is toward his student's endeavor. Joel Anderson,
what's T. McCarthy think?

Matustik is clearly trading on his 1.5 year academic residence with
Habermas during the auspicious "fall" of 1989 through mid-1991 (e.g.,
recounting the many after-seminar outings at the Dionysus Café where
Habermas was more "passionate" with his students about The Fall than
he would be in class). But there is no indication up front that
Habermas saw Matustik's manuscript. (Matustik notes that his essay
for the anthrology _Perspectives on Habermas_ is directly derived
from the manuscript that has become  his present book. Habermas
refused to participate in that _Perspectives..._ project, reportedly
because he objected to the quality of its contributions, across the
board.)

Prima facie, Matustik's profile seems very appealing. But it risks
several blunders: implying that:

(1) Politiical-philosophical work primarily expresses or reflects
political issues of the philosopher's life (rather than the life
exemplifying philosophical engagements); I don't know yet that
Matustik over-politicizes Habermas's broad-based philosophical
project, but it's a risk that existentialist reading has.

(2) The significance of Habermas's philosophy primarily pertains to
issues of his life in Germany, thereby being less significant in
proportion to one's distance (either temporal or geographical) from
that historical situation (according with those who claim that
Habermas's philosophy is FOR his German audience--and reading him is
part German Studies); and 

(3) Habermas's philosophy is primarily political in intent,
conception, and practical import (as if his formal pragmatic
philosophy of communicative social evolution is not philosophical in
Habermas's own sense of philosophy, as generally
metatheoretical-reconstructive disursive inquiry). This is close to
risk (1) above, but different: beyond framing broad-based
philosophical practice through political situations, understanding
the philosophical practice as primarily political in design (which
makes risk (1) "natural" or no risk at all). 

Though Matustik recounts Habermas's work in its own terms (to some
degree), Matustik's own existential frame seems to read the
philosophical work through the political profile, rather than reading
the political profile via the philosophical work. Matustik is a
philosopher, so one would expect the philosophical interest to
hermeneutically prevail over the political profile; i.e., the life
explicates the philosophy--political and otherwise; rather than the
philosophy primarily explaining a political life. Of course,
profiling philosphers is a fine thing in its own right, but
Matustik's AIM is to write a textbook on Habermas's whole career of
work, not just do his own thing. He seems to want to map the effects
of 1989 (which greatly politicized Habermas' activity) back to 1968
(overtly, Matustik does this) and then forward from 1968 to
re-politicize the intervening work.

I hereby confess that I've only had a chance to flip through the
book, reading parts of the Introduction and several pages of key
sections (e.g., parts of the chapter on the "architecture" of
Habermas's "systematic" work), so I'm very aware that I'm probably
wrong in my initial impression. But I know I'm not wrong to open the
covers of this overtly "existential" "textbook" on Habermas, with the
concerns like those that I've expressed above. 

Cheers,

Gary




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