Date: Sat, 08 Jun 2002 21:57:36 -0400
Subject: HAB: Re: THEORY & PRACTICE


THEORY AND PRACTICE (Beacon Press, orig. 1973)  is too expensive as are new 
books in general, and the public library system doesn't have it, but 
nowadays I use Borders Books as my library, so each visit I read another 
chapter.  Neither chapter 6 nor 7 interested me a great deal.

The chapter really pertinent to my interests is the "Introduction: Some 
Difficulties in the Attempt to Link Theory and Praxis" (1971).  Even there 
my eyes began to glaze over and I was nodding off through the first 25 
pages, and then finally I perked up.  I finally hit pay dirt with the 
section on "The Organization of Enlightenment".

Specifically, pp. 32-36 were spot on my interests.  I'm wondering if 
someone could scan these pages for me.  I did take some notes, though.

Habermas distinguishes 3 functions in the mediations of theory and praxis 
(p. 32):

(1) scientific understanding = true statements
(2) organization of processes of enlightenment = authentic insights
(3) strategic action = prudent decisions

The organization of action must be distinguished from the process of 
enlightenment.  There is no justification for legitimizing the "risky 
decisions of strategic action" based on a priori theoretical notions of 
historical mission (p. 33).

Again, on the functions (pp. 33-34):

(1) theory = scientific understanding, requires freedom of the researcher
(2) processes of enlightenment must be limited to therapeutic discourses
(3) political struggle depends on practical discourse of participants

My scribbled notes could be better, not to mention more legible, but I find 
Habermas articulating concerns very close to mine these days, especially in 
conceptually distinguishing organization of enlightenment from political 
action.

Interestingly, Habermas references Lukacs as an exemplar of what he opposes 
(pp. 34-36).  In his essay 1922 "Towards a Methodology for the Problem of 
Organization, Lukacs theorizes the party: the mediation of theory and 
praxis comes solely through political struggle and organization.  Lukacs a 
priori subjects theory to the requirements of strategic action; the 
development of proletarian class consciousness is not a process of 
enlightenment.  In light of the subsequent experience of Stalinism, Lukacs' 
views have an ominous flavor.

If Habermas' judgment of Lukacs is sound, this suggests that the original 
Hegelian Marxism of Lukacs is just as "tainted" as the later Lukacs, 
trapped within the orbit of Stalinism, who repudiated his early 
works.  That will not be a shock to those of us who have never believed in 
the artificial construct of "Western Marxism".  Personally, I think THE 
DESTRUCTION OF REASON should be taken more seriously, and considered as a 
refinement rather than a betrayal of Lukacs' perspective.  Anyway, 
Habermas' accusation implies an irony he did not pursue, namely that Lukacs 
decades later made a comparable complaint about Stalin, who collapsed 
general, long-range perspectives into immediate pragmatic, tactical courses 
of action, obliterating the possibility of critical judgment.

As a general principle, the specific example of Lukacs discounted, I think 
Habermas' viewpoint is sound.  This sort of thing represents an aspect of 
Habermas that first prompted me to take him seriously, regardless of the 
tenability of his overall theoretical structure.

To be fair to Lukacs, however, I pulled out my dust-covered copy of HISTORY 
AND CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS and read Lukacs' essay.  I think Habermas may have 
misread Lukacs' intent here, though, as I say, Habermas' suspicions about 
the intellectual aspect of the vanguard party are important, especially 
given the experience of the succeeding eight decades.  The issue involves 
the very intensive and extensive meaning of the notion of theory and 
practice.  The interference of political parties in the total intellectual 
and cultural life of groups of people and entire nations that we know so 
well obscures the original, delimited extension of the notion of the unity 
of theory and practice, pertaining to instrumental politics specifically 
and not to the entire "organization of enlightenment" about which Habermas 
is justly troubled.  Lukacs has an argument about the accountability of 
revolutionary parties to link their general abstract viewpoints to 
strategic courses of action, taking examples of the failures of Second 
International parties into account.  Hence it is not immediately obvious to 
me that this arrogates to the party the total organization of all processes 
of enlightenment, though the obvious question in hindsight is how to check 
such an arrogation.  Lukacs' statements about devoting one's whole being to 
the revolutionary struggle also has ominous undertones in hindsight, though 
in the immediate context of his argument, they are directed against elitism 
of party officials and bureaucratization of the party apparatus.

At 09:23 AM 05/13/2002 -0700, Kenneth MacKendrick wrote:
>I think 3 of the chapters might be of interest:
>
>4. Labor and Interaction: Remark's on Hegel's Jena Philosophy of Mind (a
>reinterpretation of Hegel through his ealier work, emphasizing language and
>labour, setting up the distinction between communicative and instrumental
>reason)
>6. Between Philosophy and Science: Marxism as Critique (looking primarily at
>praxis, and the way in which criticism can be 'validated' through action)
>7. Dogmatism, Reason, and Decision: On Theory and Praxis in our Scientific
>Civilization (a bit of Habermas's appropriation of Popper, the importance of
>liberation as coincidental with practical reason)
>
>Another early essay you might find of interest would be "Technology and
>Science as 'Ideology'" in Toward a Rational Society (for the most part,
>Habermas's critique of Marcuse)
>
>ken

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