Richard Wolin
Abstract：Throughout his career, Habermas sought to remain faithful to the idea of a non-dogmatic and reflexive Marxism-Marxism as “critique.”Although Habermas never adopted the framework of social phenomenology per se, by the same token, his reception of the later Husserl’s notion of the lifeworld would play a central methodological role in his later work, enabling him to parry the well-entrenched scientistic biases of philosophy and social science.In “Knowledge and Human Interests”(1965), his inaugural lecture at University of Frankfurt, Habermas embraced Husserl’s critique of modern science’s misguided “mathematicization of nature.”Yet his systematic employment of Husserl would not occur until Theory of Communicative Action (1981).There, the notion of the “Lifeworld”(Lebenswelt)as an inexhaustible repository of non-thetic, implicit meanings signifies a reservoir of semantic resistance vis--vis the predatory subsystems of “money”and “power”(Geld und Macht)that, under late capitalism, increasingly assume hegemony.Habermas coined the phrase, the “colonization of the lifeworld,”to describe the process whereby informal spheres of human interaction are increasingly subjected to regulation and control by superordinate economic and bureaucratic structures.For Habermas, the discourse of social phenomenology, as it derived from the later Husserl, ultimately supplanted the role that “hermeneutics”had formerly played in his work—that is, as a methodological alternative to the objectivating approach that the social sciences.For Habermas, the attempt to remedy philosophy’s positivistic self-misunderstanding was more than an abstract, theoretical concern.At stake was the growing “scientific-technical organization of the lifeworld,”whose expansion had begun to threaten to the normative self-understanding of the West, which, in Habermas’s view, revolved around the mutually complementary ideals of individual autonomy and democratic self-determination.In this respect, Habermas’constructive encounter with the later Husserl was wholly consistent with his overall project of developing a “Critical Theory with a practical intent.”
Keywords：Habermas; Critical Theory; HermeneuticsHusserl came to social phenomenology relatively late in life, with his 1936 manuscript on theCrisis
of
the
European
Sciences
and
Transcendental
Phenomenology.Two decades laterits reception helped to inspire the emergence ofphenomenological
Marxism.In Central Europe, this paradigmstood as a reflexive alternative to official Marxism qua “diamat”(dialectical materialism)which, in the lands of “really existing socialism,”had congealed into a dogmatic and repressive “science of legitimation.”Phenomenological Marxism’s leading representatives were Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Karel Kosik, Tran Duc Thao, and Enzo Paci.In the Czech context, one might go so far as to say that, given Kosik’sprominence, it played an important role in the Renaissance of Marxist humanism that culminated in the notion of “Socialism with a Human Face”and the Prague spring.The “crisis of Marxism”was reflected in Marxism’s objectivistic self-understanding as “scientific socialism,”an approach that downplayed subjectivity and thus seemed to negate human freedom, as the regimes governed by orthodox Marxismdid in actual practice.Husserl’s notion of intentionality offered a compelling alternative to the prevailing scientism, and it was this aspect that was embraced by the phenomenological Marxists in their search for a philosophical orientation that could counter the reigning methodological dogmatism.Insofar as Husserl’s concept of intentionality identified the constitutive function of the transcendental ego as a sine qua non for experience and cognition, it represented a thoroughgoing challenge to all variants of positivism.These preoccupations are central to Husserl’slatework on theCrisis
of
the
European
Sciences, in which he identifies the “mathemati-cization of nature”as the main culprit.As Husserl observes：“The exclusiveness with which the total worldview of modern man, in the second half of the nineteenth century, let itself be determined by the positive sciences and be blinded by the ‘prosperity’they produced, meant an indifferent turning-away form the questions which are decisive for a genuine humanity.Merely fact-minded sciences make merely fact-minded people.It excludes in principle precisely the questions which man, given over in our unhappy times to the most portentous upheavals, finds the most burning：questions of the meaning or meaninglessness of the whole of this human existence.”(Husserl 6)
Hermeneutics
Underlying Habermas’s reception of Dilthey’s work during the 1960s is both a scholarly context as well as a political context.The scholarly context pertains to the revival of debates concerning “explanationvs.
understanding”(?vs)in the human sciences.Whereas the empirical sciences seek to “explain”social phenomena and historical events by subjecting them to causal-nomological accounts, theGeisteswissenschaften, conversely seek tointerpretthem via the non-objectivating technique of understanding (Verstehen).Qua method, understanding seeks, above all, to heed the motivations and intentions of historical actors.In Dilthey’s rendition ofVerstehen, the technique of “empathy”orEinfühlenwas also paramount.This procedure suggested that it was necessary for the historian or interpreter to intuit or identify with the mind set of the actors whose motivations she was trying to comprehend.As a philosopher of culture Dilthey was also the foremost generational representative of-, displaying all of the quirks and limitations of that perspective.Foremost among these limitations was’rather
frank
devaluation
of
ratiocination
and
conceptualization.Bluntly put,intellection, in all its guises and manifestations,constituted
a
falsification
of
the
vibrant
immediacy
of“life.”As a philosopher of cognition (Erkenntnistheoretiker), Dilthey viewed it as his task to “detranscendentalize”the transcendental subject, orego
cogito, that had been epistemologically venerated by Descartes and Kant.He vigorously contested the transcendental ego’smaterial
impoverishment, which he interpreted as a denigration of,or“lived
experience,”a condition that he associated with the acuteexperiential
vacuity
of
a
hyper-rationalized,Western
.As Dilthey remarks in seminal passage fromEinfuhrung
in
die
Geistewissen-schaften：“No
real
blood
flows
in
the
veins
of
the
knowing
subject
constructed
by
Locke,Hume,and
Kant;it
is
only
the
diluted
juice
of
reason,a
mere
process
of
thought.”(Dilthey 162)Dilthey viewed the very act ofcognitive
apprehension,or“science,”as
a
betrayal
of“life”().Yet how could one in good conscience aspire to “science”or “knowledge,”if all theory were, as Dilthey claimed, intrinsically an act of betrayal or falsification? In his critique of historical reason Dilthey sought to formulate objective concepts that would make historical life intelligible.Yet isn’t this very act ofsubsuming
the
singularity
of
lived
experienceunder the general concepts of “life,”“expression,”and“experience”itself a violation and, as such, objectionable.Even if historicism’s claims about the epistemological superiority of “life”over “ratiocination”were true, from a normative perspec-tive, we would nevertheless remain perplexed：awash
in
the
flux
of
experience,and
thus
lacking
a
fixed
and
reliable
point
of
orientation
to
guide
us(Schn?delbach 145).Behind such attitudes and contentions it was not difficult to discern the distinctive echoes of vintageGerman-i.e., theanti-Western,anti-civilizationalethosthat would rise to fever pitch during the 1920s with the work of Spengler, Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, and Martin Heidegger.Like other representatives of German historicism Dilthey was a cultural relativist.Late in life, he elaborated his doctrine of-orworldviews：the
mental
parameters
that
defined
a
given
period
or
epoch.According to this perspective, “values”were intrinsically arbitrary and could never be objectively grounded or justified.For Habermas, Dilthey’s hermeneutics represented what one might call a usable past.By emphasizing the specificity and irreducibility ofVerstehen, Dilthey’s hermeneutics could be enlisted in the methodological and political struggle against the depradations of modern scientism, which had sought to extend its instrumental attitude toward physical nature to the domain of human social action.According to Habermas, “Whereas
the
empirical-analytical
methods
aim
at
disclosing
and
comprehending
under
the
transcendental
viewpoint
of
technical
control,hermeneutic
methods
aim
at
mutual
understanding
in
ordinary
language
communication
and
in
action
according
to
common
norms.”(Schn?del-bach 176)Surprisingly, the “ideological”objections that the Critical Theory tradition had frequently raised about Dilthey’s work-reservations that had vigorously called into question the “conventionalism,”or over-identification with tradition, as well as thevalue-relativismof the hermeneutic approach-were absent in Habermas’s account.Instead, his criticism of Dilthey paralleled his critique of the other intellectual protagonists discussed inKnowledge
and
Human
Interest：Marx, Peirce, and Freud.Habermas suggested that, like these other thinkers, Dilthey’s approach had succumbed to a “scientistic self-misunderstanding.”Thus despite his penetrating insights concerning the methodological limitations of the natural sciences, Dilthey ultimately succumbed to the predominant illusions of his epoch and sought to legitimate the practice of hermeneutics in the language of scientific objectivity.Paradoxically, he suggested that hermeneutics’claim to methodological superiority was due to the fact that, in the realm of the human sciences, its results could guarantee a greater measure of “objectivity”than could the competing, “naturalizing”approaches that were borrowed from the domain of theNaturwissens-chaften.Habermas refers to this peculiar methodolo-gical blind spot as Dilthey’s “covert positivism”(Schn?delbach 179).InTruth
and
Method, Gadamer went far toward redressing one of the major drawbacks of Dilthey’s hermeneutics：its methodological objectivism or latent positivism.Gadamer countered Dilthey’sscien-tistic self-misunderstanding by rejecting the methodological ideal of finality or completion-the Rankean notion that one should interpret historical events “as they really were,”through the eyes of the actors-in favor of a more open-ended, dialogical and hermeneutically situated model of understanding.Yet as Habermas shows, in deftly avoiding one set of methodological failings, Gadamer proceeded to open himself up to another series of complications and compromises.Habermas took exception to the arch-conservative implications of Gadamerian hermeneu-tics, viewing itsglorification
of
tradition
as
unacceptable, insofar as,historically,traditions
concealed
relations
of
domination
that
were
inconsistent
with
the(Kantian)precepts
of
autonomy
and
self-determination.Playing Kant to Gadamer’s Burke, he insisted on the ineliminable prerogatives of “reflection”(Reflexion)：thusthe
principles
of
democratic
citizenship
mandated
that
only
those
traditions
were
acceptable
that
could
be
explicitly
and
rationally
agreed
to
by
those
who
were
subject
to
its
dictates
and
decrees.Thus Gadamer’s unabashed “prejudice
in
favor
of
prejudice”was flatly irreconcilable with the values of social emancipation.In Habermas’s view, Gadamer’s inflexible defense of tradition (Uberlieferung)was ultimately reminiscent of the discredited worldview of the GermanObrigkeitsstaat(authoritarian state)—a mentality that was conducive to the cultivation of “subjects”(Untertane)rather than “citizens”(ü)who possessed the capacity for self-rule.As Habermas points out, “understanding”(Verstehen)worthy of the name does not mean blindly surrendering to the authority of tradition, but always entails its critical appropriation.When
all
is
said
and
done,Gadamer’s
glorification
of
prejudice
and
tradition
demonstrates
that
he
values
authority
over
reason,preservation
of
the
status
quo
over
the
ideal
of
political
self-determination.Thus whether one chooses Dilthey, Gadamer, or Heidegger, one sees that the hermeneutic tradition suffers certain as.This aversion to universal reason was one of the legacies of the German intellectual-Germany’s self-understanding as aKulturnationin opposition to the purportedly superficial practices ofr?sonnierenthat predominated in the West.Many aspects of the hermeneutic approach were geopolitically conditioned and betrayed what one might callan
anti-civilizational
affect—a
disposition
that
surfaced,above
all,in
the
valorization
of“life”(Leben)over“reason.”As a philosopher, Habermas under-took to cure German political culture of these longstanding prejudices-intellectual habitudes that had had such a deleterious impact on the nation’s moral and political development.With these considerations in mind, it is not surprising to find that, when inTheory
of
Communicative
Action(1981), Habermas reconceived the theoretical framework he had originally developed inKnowledge
and
Human
Interests,the
references
to
hermeneutics
disap-pear
almost
entirely.Instead, in a momentous conceptual shift, he relies on the tradition ofsocial
phenomenologyas developed by the late Husserl inThe
Crisisand by Alfred Schütz and Thomas Luckm-ann inStructures
of
the
Lifeworld.In retrospect, this change in perspective seems entirely plausible, since Habermas’s social theoretic reformulation of the critique of instrumental reason parallels Husserl’s interrogation of the worldview of modern science in theCrisis.InTheory
of
Communicative
ActionHabermas reconceptualizes his earlier critique of thetechnological“scientization
of
politics”in
terms
of
the
theme
of
the“colonization
of
the
lifeworld.”In the view of most commentators, Husserl’sCrisis, represented a radical new departure.As Paul Ricoeur enquired in his study of Husserl：“How can a philosophy of the cogito, of the radical return to the ego as the founder of all being, become capable of a philosophy of history?”(Ricoeur 145)Conversely, in the eyes of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, theCrisisrepresented a genuine breakthrough, since by abandoning the program of eidetic phenomenology or the search for timeless essences, Husserl had succeeded in exposing phenomenology to new possibilities and horizons.Of course, in theCrisis, although one can unquestionably sense the political tumult of the 1930s hovering in the background, Husserl was only indirectly concerned with real history.Instead, his main focus is on themeaningof history when viewed “eidetically.”His concern was that, in an essential sense, the West had lost its way-by which he meant the telos that had been established during the halcyon days of the Greek Enlightenment.The
idea
that
or
reason
should
govern
the
world—as
opposed
to
myth,fate,or
brute
force—was
a
Greek
innovation
that
had
been
codified
by
the
Socratic
School.Yet, since the late nineteenth century, there could be no denying the fact thatthe
West’s
trust
in
reason
had
been
tarnished.In its wake, to quote Max Weber, a set of “warring
gods”had arisen,which
sought
to
supplant
the
virtues
of
intellection
with
irrational
appeals
to
the
forces
of“blood”and“race.”Under the circumstances, Husserl, who previously had paid scant attention to moral philosophy, was compelled to undertake a general, metahistorical enquiry concerningthe
fate
of
reason.Yet the real conceptual innovation offered by this rich and fascinating text pertains to Husserl’s development of the idea of the “lifeworld”(Lebenswelt), a bedrock of implicit meanings or taken-for-granted normative assumptions and practices that underlie more formalized domains of social interaction.The lifeworld is the indispensable horizon and basis of human experience.As such, it possesses an existential primacy in light of which all other spheres of life appear as secondary elaborations or constructions.As Husserl explains：“the
life-world
...
is
pregiven
to
us,the
waking,practically
interested
subjects,always
and
necessarily,as
the
universal
field
of
all
actual
and
possible
praxis,as
horizon.”(Ricoeur 142)
The lifeworld is the realm of original self-evidences ...All conceivable verification leads back to these modes of self-evidence ...lies in these intuitions themselves as that which is actually, intersubjectively experienceable and verifiable; it is not a subtruction of thought; whereas such a substruction, insofar as it makes a claim to truth, can have actual truth only by being related back to such self-evidences.(Rico-eur 127-28)As individuals, there are two basic attitudes we can assume toward the self-evidences of the lifeworld：a
na?ve
attitude
and
one
that
is
reflective.It is the latter that Husserl associateswith
the
philosophical
point
of
viewand which, for this reason, he judges to be superior.The na?ve attitude declines to go beyond the lifeworld in its immediate givenness.It remains immersed in these experiences and rests content with its immersion.Conversely,the
reflective
attitude
represents
what
one
might
call
the
beginning
of
wisdom.Rather than accepting the lifeworld as given, it systematically enquires into the “how”of the lifeworld, its fundamental modalities of givenness.Husserl aptly describes this approach as a “transfor-mation
of
the
thematic
consciousness
of
the
world
that
breaks
through
the
normality
of
straightforward
living.”(Ricoeur 144)Subsequently,what
was
once
self-evident
and
unproblematic
cease
to
be
so.The reflective approach is the fruit of what Husserl refers to in theCrisisas thetranscendental
epochē：a standpoint that permits the phenomenologist to break with the familiarity of the natural attitude.For
a
philosophical
analogy,one
might
have
recourse
to
the
celebrated“cave
allegory”in
Plato’s,in
which
one
prisoner
breaks
free
from
his
chains
in
order
to
perceive
the
shadow-play
that
his
fellow
prisoners
take
for
reality
or
the
truth.
From
a
Hegelian
perspective,the
reflective
attitude
expresses
the
transition
from
consciousness
to
self-consciousness.It serves as a metaphor for theconversion
experience
that
distinguishes
the
philosophical
point
of
view
from
common
sense
perspective
of
the
everyday
life.
The
epochēaffords
access
to
what
Husserl
describes
as
the“miracle”of
transcendental
subjectivity：the realization that the world does not exist as a self-subsistent entity, as na?ve consciousness might assume.Instead, its being is dependent on the constitutive function of intentional consciousness.Thus,following
the
precedents
of
Descartes
and
Kant,Husserl
alleges
that
the
world
never
appears
as
such.
Instead
our
interaction
with
it
is
conditioned
a
priori
by
the
transcendental
and
constitutive
modalities
of
intentionality.Here, the concept of intentionality is pivotal insofar as it suggests epistemological limits to the third-person, observer perspective favored by both the natural sciences as well as the positivistically biased social sciences (Geisteswissenschften).In other words：the world-and the socio-cultural world, in particular-cannot be objectively reduced to the “totality of (self-subsistent)facts”if such “facts”are ultimately dependent on the intentionality of consci-ousness.InTheory
of
Communicative
Actionthe lifeworld stands as a realm of informal social meanings and unproblematical cultural assumptions which social actors are able to draw upon freely in order to arrive at shared understandings and to realize their individual and collective projects.Habermas’s normative concerns parallel Husserl’s insofar as both philosophers seek to parry the risks and temptations ofscientific
overreach：an ever-escalating process whereby more and more aspects of human social life forfeit their autonomy as well as their existential integrity at the hands of highly formalized organiza-tional systems.In the discourse of classical sociology such developments were a central topos.In his pathbreaking studies onSuicideand theDivision
of
Labor, Durkheim addressed it under the rubric of thetransition
from
mechanical
to
organic
solidarity.
In a number of key works, Max Weber harbored similar fears and concerns.He famously concludedThe
Protestant
Ethic
and
the
Spirit
of
Capitalismby denigrating the ethos of the modernFachmenschor specialist as a cultural setback when considered against the backdrop of the Renaissance ideal of the well-rounded personality.His critique of thefateful
one-sidedness
of
modern
cultural
development—the
triumph
of“objective”over“subjective”culture-led him to formulate his conception of modernityas
a
process
of
twofold“loss”：a “loss of meaning”and a “loss of freedom”(und).“Loss
of
meaning”derives from the process of rationalization, whereby the mores and convictions of traditional society areincreasingly
subjected
to
the
corrosive
force
of
intellectualist
criteria
as
well
as
the
universal
solvent
of
scientific
reason.“Loss
of
freedom”results from the universaltriumph
of
bureaucracyas a seemingly inescapable mode of social organization.Thus increasinglyfewer
spheres
of
life
are
able
to
escape
the
straightjacket
of
formal
reason.Bureaucracy’s rise means thatincreasingly
fewer
aspects
of
social
and
vocational
life
are
left
to
individual
inclination,whim,initiative,or
choice.Instead, nearly all aspects of social life areregulated
and
predetermined-down to the innermost “corpuscu-lar”level, as Michel Foucault observes with reference to the growth of “biopower”in the modern world.Reliance on the lifeworld concept allows Habermas to analyze such developments in ways thatthe
hermeneutic
approach—with
its
shortsighted
and
limited
glorification
of
the
ineffable
immediacy
of“life”-did not.Thereby, he can indict the improper overreach of “functionalist
reason”：the illicit interferences of rational-purposive approaches to social action (zweckra-tionalesHandeln)in areas of society that are rooted in the lifeworld：thefamily,culture,community
life,and
voluntary
associations, whose informal modalities are increasingly subjected to the formal media of money and power.Habermas
develops
the
idea
of
the“colonization
of
the
lifeworld”to
highlight
the
illegitimate
and
destructive
violations
of
the
lifeworld’s
integrity
by
the
forces
of
instrumental
rationality
deriving
from
the
subsystems
of
the
economy
and
state
administration.Nevertheless, there are shortcomings to the lifeworld approach, as developed by social phenomenologists like Husserl and Schutz, which, inTheory
of
Communicative
Action, Habermas seeks to surmount.Despite the pluralistic implications of the lifeworld concept, phenomenology remains wedded to the perspective of transcendental subjectivity, which perceives the world from the standpoint of individually thinking and acting subjects.Hence, phenomenology’s well known difficulties when it comes to the problem of “other minds”or intersubjectivity.Habermas wishes to circumvent these obstacles by reformulating the lifeworld idea in keeping with the tenets ofcommunicative
reason, for whichintersubjectivityremains a touchstone.But also, from the phenomenological standpoint, reason and rationality remain extraneous concerns; they have no place in discussions of the lifeworld, where implicit knowledge, rather than rationality, predominates.Via hiscommunicative
reformulation
of
the
lifeworld
ideal, Habermas is able to introduce into the discussion a normative dimension that in phenomenological approaches—with
their
predo-minant
orientation
toward
rather
than-typically remains absent.As
a
norm,communicative
reason
suggests
that
the
denizens
of
the
lifeworld
dispose
over
specific
criteria
of
reasonableness
and
fairness
that
may
be
invoked
to
adjudicate
the
validity
of
the
agreements
and
understandings
they
reach.Thus whereas the notion of the lifeworld, as a constant feature of human societies, is, strictly speaking, transhistorical,with
the
transition
from
commun-ity
to
society,its“rationality
potentials”expand—as
do
its
potentials
for
justice
as
fairness.One of the keys to Habermas’s argument revolves around a process that he denominates the “linguistification
of
the
sacred.”Among traditi-onal societies in which religion remains a primary mode of securing legitimation,the
aura
of
the
sacred
serves
to
immunize
social
authority
from
discursive
challenges, which undercuts the communicative ideal of understanding oriented toward mutual agreement.Conversely, with the advent of secularization, these ideological barriers dwindle.Illegitimate
claims
to
social
authority
are
deprived
of
the
patina
of
divinity
behind
which
they
have
been
traditionally
able
to
dissemble
their
normative
and
political
gist.
In
their
place
there
emerges
a
new
potential
for
a
non-hierarchical,consensual
resolution
of
disputes,along
with
egalitarian
prospects
of
democratic
will-formation.Habermas formulates these issues in a key passage inTheory
of
Commun-icative
Action, volume II：Universal discourse points to an idealized lifeworld reproduced through processes of mutual understanding that have been largely detached from normative contexts and transferred over to rationally motivated yes/no positions.This sort of growing autonomy can come to pass only to the extent thatconstraints
of
material
reproduction
no
longer
hide
behind
the
mask
of
a
rationally
impenetrable,basic,normative
consensus,that
is,stand
behind
the
authority
of
the
sacred[...] A lifeworld rationalized in this sense would by no means reproduce itself in conflict-free forms.But the conflicts would appear in their own names; they would no longer be concealed by convictions immune from discursive examination.(145)By the same token, ultimately, the lifeworld approach shares one of the central methodological shortcomings of its hermeneutic cousin, a failing that we have already discussed under the rubric of “hermeneutic idealism.”This appellation suggests that the model of intentionality and implicit meanings offers inadequate means for conceptualizing problems of power and domination.What is also needed is an analysis of “system integration”that complements the emphasis on symbolic meanings that derive from the phenomenological approach.Systems theory’s methodological point of departure is not the intentionality of the individual social actor or actors.Instead, it adopts the functionalist perspective of the self-maintaining system that it inherits from nineteenth-century social evolutionism.Its socio-political ideal is “homeostasis,”a normative standpoint that it borrows from the life sciences-above all, biology.Habermas’s project of a “critique of functionalist reason”aims to roll back or curtail the illicit interferences of the instrumental imperatives that derive from the self-maintaining systems of economy and power in the lifeworld qua repository of implicit meanings.InTheory
of
Communicative
Action, he describes the reifying or “de-moralizing”effect of system-induced interferences in the lifeworld as follows：A demoralized, positive, compulsory law [...] makes it possible to steer social action via delinguistified media [...] The transfer of action coordination from language over to steering media means an uncoupling of interaction from lifeworld contexts.Media such as money and power [...] encode a purposive-rational attitude toward calculable amounts of value and make it possible to exert generalized, strategic influence [...] whilebypassingprocesses of consensus-oriented communic-ation.[As a result] the lifeworld contexts in which processes of reaching understanding are always embedded are devalued in favor of media-steered interactions.(Theory
of
Communicative
Action154)Thus under conditions of advanced capitalism, domination (Herrschaft)assumes the form of strategic rationality.By virtue of its central role in processes of system maintenance, it acquires an aura of “objectivity”and is thereby substantially immunized against claims of democratic legitimacy.Consequently, thefunctionalimperatives of instrumental reason trump thediscursiveclaims of communicative reason as they are rooted in the lifeworld.The end result of this process is what Habermas callsthe“”(Theory
of
Communicative
Action180,183).By
substituting
impersonal
mechanisms
of
strategic
action
for
communicative
reason,the
coloniza-tion
of
the
lifeworld
facilitates
the
.This occurs insofar aswe
associate
the
capacity
for
moral
action
with
the
values
of
collective
self-determination
and
individual
autonomy.
Yet
individual
autonomy
diminishes
the
more
that
the
amoral
steering
media
of
money
and
power
degrade
the
discursive
fabric
of
the
lifeworld
qua
fount
of
intersubjectivity
and
communicative
rationality.
Critical Remarks
One of Habermas’s primary goals inTheoryof
Communicative
Actionis to redress the question of the absent normative foundations of the Frankfurt School.Yet in this regard, there seems to be a fundamental ambivalence at the heart of his approach—an ambivalence that has, in certain respects, persistently haunted Critical Theory.Bluntly put：do these normative foundations possess an immanent or transcendent status? Are they rooted in universal principles or are they, instead, socially embodied.If they are “transcend-ent,”then they risk assuming the character of standards or precepts that have been independently derived and determined by the philosopher or theorist.If, conversely, they are sedimented in the logic of social development, they threaten to become overly concrete：the expression of a particular cultural tradition or a given social formation.As a result, their claim to universality diminishes correspondingly.Habermas, for his part, has shown himself to be extremely uncomfortable with the idea of timeless, unconditional claims to validity as a lapse into foundationalism.Instead, he has on numerous occasions expressed solidarity with trends in “postmetaphysical thinking.”Consequently, his attitude toward the question of ultimate foundations (letzteBegründungen)has persistently oscillated between a transcendental and empirical orientation, as can be seen by his employment of the oxymoron “quasi-transcendental”to characterize his aims.Yet normative claims that are quasi-transcendentalseem
alternately
too
strong
and
too
weak, insofar as they seek the unimpugnability of ultimate foundations without the attendant metaphysical baggage.
Yet here, it is unclear exactly what role the lifeworld, as a realm of informal and taken-for-granted habitudes and meanings, is meant to play in validatingthenormative
telos
of
communicative
reason：uncoerced
reciprocal
agreement,mutual
understanding
free
from
ideological
constraints
or
distortion.As a diffuse congeries of values, significations, and background conditions,there
is
nothing
inherently“rational”about
the
life-world.Instead, one can readily imagine that the lifeworld’s suitability for the ends of communicative transparency would change radically depending on the extent to which it has been institutionally “rationalized,”or exposed to the mechanisms andnorms
of
democratic
publicity(?ffentlichkeit)—a point that Habermas generally seems willing to concede.Thus one can readily conceive of lifeworlds that function in ways that are extremely arbitrary or repressive; lifeworlds in which the distortional effects of tradition prevent the norms of equality and reciprocity that Habermas reveres from flourishing.In sum, ultimately, one must judge the fabric of a given lifeworld on the basis of its normative content,since
lifeworlds
that
are
obstinately
mired
in
custom,habit,and
tradition
can
easily
present
themselves
as
obstacles
to,rather
than
facilitators
of,the
ends
of
social
emancipation.
Thus
lifeworlds
can
be“ethical,”or
cohere
internally,without
being“moral”—that
is,without
adhering
to
broader
norms
of
justice
or
fairness.
Given such questions and doubts, one cannot help but wonder whether Habermas places more methodological weight on the lifeworld ideal than it can in point of fact bear.Thus in view of the historical variegatedness of individual lifeworlds, how reliable is this concept as a basis or ground for a theory of communicative reason?In a subsequent clarification, Habermas seems to concede too much to thelifeworld
qua“ethical
life”or—that
is,as
a
sphere
of
random, “amoral”sociality—when he claims that attempts to pose questions of “ultimate
justification”(letzteBegründungen)with respect to the lifeworld arefundamentally
misplaced.“The
intuitions
of
everyday
life,”he
avows, “have
no
need
of
clarification
by
philosophers.”Instead, “in
this
case,the
understanding
of
philosophy
as
developed
by
Wittgenstein
seems
appropriate.”(Moral
Cons-ciousness98)In other words：when it comes to the lifeworld, philosophy should not disturb the fragile heritage of tradition, even if that heritage should turn out to be a dead weight.Instead, following Wittgenstein,philosophy’s
job
is
merely
to
clarify
the
nature
of
life
practices
and
the
rules
that
underlie
them,rather
than
to
disrupt
the
lifeworld’s
integrity
by
seeking
to
impose
first
principles
or
to
legislate
norms.Yet in the preceding characterization,the
lifeworld
seems
to
be
synonymous
with
a
approach
to
life,one
that
assumes
that
the
totality
of
inherited
social
facts
is
fundamentally
unalterable.
A-approach
to
life,conversely,suggests
the
advent
of“critical
consciousness”：a
consciousness
that
no
longer
merely
assumes
that
the
contents
of
tradition
merit
acceptance
merely
because
they
have
been
handed
down.Hence, it seems that, in opposition to the conventionalist approach, one must adopt a principle akin to Jaspers’notion of the “axial age,”a concept that denotes theadvent
of“transcendence”as
a
precondition
for
critical
consciousness.As Jaspers proposes inThe
Origin
and
Goal
of
History(1949), “transcendence”signifies
a
capacity
for
that
transcends
the
world
as
a
self-referential
totality
of
facts.Here, it connotes the emergence of acapacity
to
judge
the
normative
failings
and
deficiencies
of“ethical
life”()according
to
considerations
of：according
to
the
higher
moral
standards
of“justice.”Habermas has invoked the idea of the axial age in his later writings on the philosophy of religion; although he has not indicated what role it might play a role in reformulating the idea of the lifeworld he develops inTheory
of
Communicative
Action.Notes① Dilthey,Introduction
to
the
Human
Sciences(Princeton：Princeton University Press, 1989); 1uoted in Dilthey,Selected
Writings, ed.H.Rickman (Cambridge：Cambridge University Press, 1976), 162.See also, Georg Iggers,The
German
Conception
of
History：the
National
Tradition
of
Historical
Thought
from
Herder
to
the
Present(Wesleyan University Press：1983).② “For Husserl, objectivity was always a particular ‘achievement of consciousness’(Bewussteinsleistung)and he was fascinated by the miracle of the process.”See Dermot Moran.Introduction
to
Phenomenology(New York：Routledge, 2000).60.③ See Jaspers,The
Origin
and
Goal
of
History(New York：Routledge, 2016).Works CitedHabermas, Jürgen.Moral
Consciousness
and
Communicative
Action.Cambridge, Mass.：MIT Press, 1992.- - -.Theory
of
Communicative
ActionII.Trans.T.McCarthy.Boston：Beacon Press, 1987.- - -.Theory
and
Practice.Trans.J.Viertel.Boston：Beacon Press, 1973.Husserl, Edmund.The
Crisis
of
the
European
Sciences
and
Transcendental
Phenomenology.Trans.D.Carr.Evanston：Northwestern University Press, 1970.Schn?delbach.Philosophy
in
Germany：1831-1933.New York：Cambridge University Press, 1984.Ricoeur, Paul.Husserl：An
Analysis
of
His
Phenomenology.Trans.E.Ballard and L.Embree.Evanston：Northwestern University Press, 1967.
