Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 07:02:31 GMT
From: Chris Burford <cburford-AT-gn.apc.org>
Subject: M-PSY: re: Habermas, Marx, and Freud


I do not know about other people, but I have found it difficult
to get into the discourse about Habermas.

Necessarily on a list like this, subscribers are having to 
straddle subjects, and spheres of interest as well as 
knowledge of writers.

Even using John Lechte's "Fifty Key Contemporary Thinkers" 
(1994) it is not easy as far as I am concerned:

"Because correctives are needed,
[to the pathologies and disequilibria of modern capitalism]
it is imperative that the
normative basis of the lifeworld be revealed with all 
possible clarity. Habermas sees himself as engaged in this
process, while others have wondered how Habermas's 
rather turgid style has contributed to the clarity he 
seeks to achieve."

Lechte's commentary suggests that the (to me) unfamiliar
terminology of the "lifeworld" comes from Husserl and Schutz
(comments?).

It suggests Habermas's fundamental allegiance is to the 
relevance of Hegel and Marx and against positivism.
In which case it seems to be strange that he should also
lean on writers like Talcott Parsons on society as a social
system, and on Piaget, whose psychological theories are really
cognitive. 

So Tod Sloan's reservations make a glimmer of sense to me, 
and I wonder what connection Habermas really did draw 
with Freud?

On the other hand I do not understand, Marc, why you would
hope to see signs of an abandonment of Freud's theory
of the unconscious, in Habermas?

I wonder, if Marc is not so confident in his knowledge of 
Habermas, whether he might help by summarising how: 

"Marcuse could, in _Eros & Civilization_,
postulate the end of capitalism via the mechanics of Freud, in a marked
parallel to the kinds of operations predicted by Marx."

This would seem a central relevant theme of this list: the 
effect of capitalism on psychopathology.

If Patrick is right that Habermas leans for psychoanalytical
insight on Lorenzener rather than Freud, could he say
whether any of Lorenezener's ideas are implicitly or
explicitly critical of capitalism?

Robert Johnston's comments draw attention to more evidence
that Habermas despite wishing to believe he was an anti-positivist
leaned on other writers who at first sight (the American 
pragmatists) come from the positivist tradition. Is
there a riddle here? Because all ideas are at best 
only a partial reflection of reality, positivist writers
can come full circle and contribute to a wider essentially
non-positivist picture of reality?

It is helpful also when Rob Schaap comes back to start to answer
his own question. 

I was a bit surprised at the emphasis on the psychanalytic
experience of developing an understanding of one's history,
as an analogy for a full marxist approach to the pathologies of 
capitalism. I thought a marxist would not think it was enough
to understand the world. I wondered if Habermas had the experience
of personal psychoanalysis because it is a powerful experience
and for those with whom it works, gives the feeling of change.
Does Rob or anyone else know if Habermas had psychanalysis?

Rob quotes Giddens quite a lot, and I assume that Giddens
is an authority on Habermas, [that would not necessarily
be known, and the reference would not be available to other
subscribers unless they are familiar with the territory -
just a point about working together across disciplines, 
and life experiences].

The quote though that Rob gives from Giddens implies
a highly positivist interpretation of a Marx which he 
at any rate rejects:

"'Marxism is inadequate as a basis for
accomplishing social change, insofar as it is solely concerned with 'iron
laws', 'inevitable trends', etc. it is then only the science of human
unfreedom.  A philosophically more sophisticated critical theory must
recognise that an emancipated society would be one in which human beings
actively control their own destinies, through a heightened understanding of
the circumstances in which they live.'"

I certainly hold the view that Marxism has been misinterpreted 
in the 20th century in positivist ways, but that was not 
necessarily the intention of Marx. I am immediately sure
for example that I could retrieve a comment by
Engels on "laws" that make it quite clear his understanding
is of probability not of rigid certainty. This mechanical
deterministic type of misinterpretation does indeed counterpose
the possibility of individual action to social movements. It 
is a dialectical contradiction but not a logical contradiction, 
not an absurdity. IMHO the more recent concepts of the emergent
properties of complex systems gives another explanation
of the inter-relationship between the individual and the society.
But the dialectical tradition of Marx handles this quite 
adequately, and can and should be recovered.

I am wary of the priority that Habermas seems to give to 
ideas like "emancipation" which sound to me subjective and
idealist. Most wary of all that John Lechte's summary says that
although Habermas regarded himself as a defender of marxism, he 
did not endorse the law of value. 

If in all these words, not just from Habermas, but everyone
else, we are trying to anchor ourselves, it has to be in 
reality, and the triumph of commodity exchange under developed 
capitalism is certainly a major feature of that reality, whether
there is a direct relationship to psychopathology or not. 

Why did Habermas reject the law of value? Because he 
thought it had no connection with the unconscious? Because,
as we have discussed on this list already, IMHO, it does.

But as far the origins of this thread are concerned, the 
basic question remains as: what connections did 
Habermas see between Marx and Freud?



Chris Burford
London



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