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The Work of Jurgen Habermas, from the wikipedia (06/10/3)

Jürgen Habermas (born June 18, 1929 in Düsseldorf) is a German philosopher and sociologist in the tradition of critical theory and American pragmatism, best known for his concept of the public sphere based in his theory and pragmatics of communicative action. His work focuses on the foundations of social theory and epistemology; the analysis of advanced capitalist industrial society and of democracy; the rule of law in a critical social-evolutionary context; and contemporary – especially German – politics. He developed a theoretical system devoted to revealing the possibility of reason, emancipation and rational-critical communication embedded in modern liberal institutions and in the human capabilities to communicate, deliberate and pursue rational interests.

Jürgen Habermas considers his own major achievement the development of the concept and theory of communicative reason or communicative rationality, which distinguishes itself from the rationalist tradition by locating rationality in structures of interpersonal linguistic communication rather than in the structure of either the cosmos or the knowing subject. This social theory advances the goals of human emancipation, while maintaining an inclusive universalist moral framework. This framework rests on the argument called universal pragmatics - that all speech acts have an inherent telos (the Greek word for "purpose" or "goal") — the goal of mutual understanding, and that human beings possess the communicative competence to bring about such understanding....

He carries forward the traditions of Kant and the Enlightenment and of democratic socialism through his emphasis on the potential for transforming the world and arriving at a more humane, just, and egalitarian society through the realization of the human potential for reason, in part through discourse ethics. While Habermas concedes that the Enlightenment is an "unfinished project," he argues it should be corrected and complemented, not discarded. In this he distanced himself from the Frankfurt School, criticizing it and much of postmodernist thought for excessive pessimism, misdirected radicalism and exaggerations.

Within sociology, Habermas's major contribution is the development of a comprehensive theory of societal evolution and modernization focusing on the difference between communicative rationality and rationalization on the one hand and strategic/instrumental rationality and rationalization on the other....

His defence of modernity and civil society has been a source of inspiration to others, and is considered a major philosophical alternative to the varieties of poststructuralism. He has also offered an influential analysis of late capitalism.

Habermas sees the rationalization, humanization, and democratization of society in terms of the institutionalization of the potential for rationality that is inherent in the communicative competence that is unique to the human species. Habermas believes communicative competence has developed through the course of evolution, but in contemporary society it is often suppressed or weakened by the way in which major domains of social life, such as the market, the state, and organizations, have been given over to or taken over by strategic/instrumental rationality, so that the logic of the system supplants that of the lifeworld.

The public sphere

Jürgen Habermas wrote extensively on the concept of the public sphere, using accounts of dialogue that took place in coffee houses in 18th century England. It was this public sphere of rational debate on matters of political importance, made possible by the development of the bourgeoise culture centered around coffeehouses, intellectual and literary salons, and the print media that helped to make parliamentary democracy possible and which promoted Enlightenment ideals of equality, human rights and justice. The public sphere was guided by a norm of rational argumentation and critical discussion in which the strength of one's argument was more important than one's identity.

According to Habermas, a variety of factors resulted in the eventual decay of the bourgeois public sphere of the Enlightenment. Most importantly, structural forces, particularly the growth of a commercial mass media, resulted in a situation in which media became more of a commodity – something to be consumed – rather than a tool for public discourse.

Habermas described this sphere in terms of both the actual infrastructure that supported it and the norms and practices that helped the critical political discourse flourish. He distinguished between looking at the public sphere as a concept and as a historical formation. In his view, the idea of the public sphere involved the notion that private entities would draw together as a public entity and engage in rational deliberation, ultimately making decisions that would influence the state. As a historical formation, the public sphere involved a "space" separated from family life, the business world, and the state.

In his magnum opus of Theory of Communicative Action (1984) he criticized the one-sided process of modernization led by forces of economic and administrative rationalization. Habermas traced the growing intervention of formal systems in our everyday lives as parallel to development of the welfare state, corporate capitalism and culture of mass consumption. These reinforcing trends rationalize widening areas of public life, submitting them to generalizing logic of efficiency and control. As routinized political parties and interests groups substitute for participatory democracy, society is increasingly administered at a level remote from input of citizens. As a result, boundaries between public and private, the individual and society, the system and the lifeworld are deteriorating. Democratic public life only thrives where institutions enable citizens to debate matters of public importance. He describes an ideal type of "ideal speech situation," where actors are equally endowed with the capacities of discourse, recognize each other's basic social equality and in which their speech is completely undistorted by ideology or misrecognition.

Habermas is optimistic about the possibilty of the revival of the public sphere. He sees hope for the future in the new era of political community that transcends the nation-state based on ethnic and cultural likeness for one based on the equal rights and obligations of legally vested citizens. This discursive theory of democracy requires a political community which can collectively define its political will and implement it as policy at the level of the legislative system. This political system requires an activist public sphere, where matters of common interest and political issues can be discussed, and the force of public opinion can influence the decision-making process.

LINKS:

Instrumental rationality - Instrumentally rational agents take the course of action which will optimally achieve their desired ends in any situation, the choice of ends being given. It is distinguished from philosophies that propose to use reason to prescribe the ultimate goals. Instrumental rationality uses reason only as a tool to reach the goals, not to say which goals are right. Proponents of instrumental reason counter that reason in and of itself cannot reach a conclusion on ultimate goals....

Lifeworld - Lifeworld (German: Lebenswelt) is a concept used in philosophy and in some social sciences, meaning the world "as lived" prior to reflective re-presentation or analysis.

...For Habermas, lifeworld is more or less the "background" environment of competences, practices, and attitudes representable in terms of one's cognitive horizon. It's the lived realm of informal, culturally-grounded understandings and mutual accommodations. Rationalization of the lifeworld is a keynote of Habermas's 2-volume Theory of Communicative Action. Penetration of lifeworld rationality by bureaucracy is analyzed by Habermas as 'colonization of the lifeworld'.

Social coordination and systemic regulation occur by means of shared practices, beliefs, values, and structures of interaction.... We are inevitably lifeworldly, such that individuals and interactions draw from custom and cultural traditions to construct identities, define situations (at best, by coming to understandings, but also by negotiations), to coordinate action, and create social solidarity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%BCrgen_Habermas

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COMMENT: Habermas' call for a strong "public sphere" supports proposals such as Community Dialgoues with Elected Officials.