Abstract According to Habermas' colonization thesis, reification is a social pathology that arises when the communicative infrastructure of the lifeworld is 'colonized' by money and power. In this paper I argue that, thirty years after the publication of the Theory of Communicative Action, this thesis remains compelling. However, while Habermas offers a functionalist explanation of reification, his normative criticism of it remains largely implicit: he never explains what is wrong with reification from the perspective of the people whose social relations (...) are reified. As a result, Habermas cannot explain why only some forms of colonization lead to reification effects. In particular, he suggests that reification effects result from the juridification of communicatively structured domains of action but not from the commodification of labour power. I criticize this argument and suggest that if the normative dimension of the colonization thesis is made explicit, a more nuanced explanation of reification becomes possible. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that Habermas’s method of rational reconstruction faces limitations when it comes to analysing newly emerging and contested political practices. As rational reconstruction aims to criticize existing practices by determining their normative meaning as reflected in the participants’ idealizing presuppositions, it reaches its limits where emerging and contested practices make it impossible to identify a shared self-understanding and a single participants’ perspective. Using the example of membership politics, I argue that this is often the case where (...) nationally constituted forms of politics become controversial or are fundamentally questioned. Building on the work of Benhabib and Fraser, I develop an alternative reconstructive method of plural reconstruction, which modifies the basic premises of rational reconstruction, adjusting it to emerging and contested political contexts. (shrink)

La ficción narrativa tiene el poder de alterar nuestras más arraigadas intuiciones y expectativas acerca de lo que significa seguir una vida éticamente buena, así como del tipo de sociedad que facilitaría tal situación. A veces su poder disruptivo es develador, lo cual lleva a un cambio éticamente significativo en la percepción. Sostengo que los poderes disruptivos y develadores de una ficción narrativa constituyen un potencial para el conocimiento ético. Interpreto este conocimiento como un proceso de aprendizaje, orientado por una (...) preocupación acerca de la verdad, que involucra la acción racional y el compromiso afectivo de un sujeto humano encarnado. Con el fin de mostrar esto, me enfrento de manera crítica a la lectura de Kafka realizada por Adorno, usando la historia de Kafka titulada “En la colonia penitenciaria” para desafiar tal análisis. (shrink)

Narrative fiction has the power to unsettle our deep-seated intuitions and expectations about what it means to live an ethically good life, and the kind of society that best facilitates this. Sometimes its disruptive power is disclosive, leading to an ethically significant shift in perception. I contend that the disruptive and disclosive powers of narrative fiction constitute a potential for ethical knowledge. I construe ethical knowledge as a learning process, oriented by a concern for truth, which involves the rational agency (...) and affective engagement of an embodied human subject. For the purposes of showing this, I engage critically with Adorno’s reading of Kafka, using Kafka's story ‘In the Penal Colony’ to challenge Adorno’s analysis. (shrink)

The most fundamental challenge facing humans today is the imminent destruction of the life-generating and life-sustaining ecosystems that constitute the planet Earth. There is considerable evidence...

In liberal democracies it is now a commonplace that public debates in the institutionalized political sphere should involve only arguments and reasons that are in principle intelligible, accessible and acceptable to all citizens. Many political theorists take the view that religious arguments and reasons do not meet these requirements. My article interrogates this widely held position, considering each of the three requirements in turn. Motivating my discussion is the view that religious beliefs and practices should not be regarded as essentially (...) private matters, with discussion of their validity confined to some antecedently demarcated sphere. Rather, claims made for the validity of religious beliefs and practices should be thematized and evaluated in public processes of deliberation, opening them to possible challenges from other citizens, irrespective of whether these other citizens are religious believers. My article offers a freedom-based argument for this position. (shrink)

It is hard to overstate the growing impact of the works of Andreas Reckwitz and Hartmut Rosa on contemporary social theory. Given the quality and originality of their intellectual contributions, it is no accident that they can be regarded as two towering figures of contemporary German social theory. The far-reaching significance of their respective approaches is reflected not only in their numerous publications but also in the fast-evolving secondary literature engaging with their writings. All of this should be reason enough (...) to take note of their collaborative work, which, most recently, has culminated in the publication of their co-authored book Spätmoderne in der Krise: Was leistet die Gesellschaftstheorie? (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2021). The main purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that the latest exchange between Reckwitz and Rosa contains valuable insights into recent and ongoing trends in society in general and social theory in particular. The first part comprises an outline of the central matters at stake in, and the core lessons learnt from, the constructive dialogue between Reckwitz’s critical analytics and Rosa’s critical theory, before moving, in the second part, to an assessment of the most significant limitations of their respective views and propositions. (shrink)

Philosophy & Social Criticism, Volume 48, Issue 5, Page 703-725, June 2022. In this article, I argue that Habermas’s method of rational reconstruction faces limitations when it comes to analysing newly emerging and contested political practices. As rational reconstruction aims to criticize existing practices by determining their normative meaning as reflected in the participants’ idealizing presuppositions, it reaches its limits where emerging and contested practices make it impossible to identify a shared self-understanding and a single participants’ perspective. Using the example (...) of membership politics, I argue that this is often the case where nationally constituted forms of politics become controversial or are fundamentally questioned. Building on the work of Benhabib and Fraser, I develop an alternative reconstructive method of plural reconstruction, which modifies the basic premises of rational reconstruction, adjusting it to emerging and contested political contexts. (shrink)

The article considers Jürgen Habermas's views on the relationship between postmetaphysical philosophy and religion. It outlines Habermas's shift from his earlier, apparently dismissive attitude towards religion to his presently more receptive stance. This more receptive stance is evident in his recent emphasis on critical engagement with the semantic contents of religion and may be characterized by two interrelated theses: the view that religious contributions should be included in political deliberations in the informally organized public spheres of contemporary democracies, though translated (...) into a secular language for the purposes of legislation and formal decision making and the view that postmetaphysical philosophy should seek to salvage the semantic contents of religious traditions in order to supply the evocative images, exemplary figures, and inspirational narratives it needs for its social and political projects. With regard to, it argues that the translation requirement impairs the political autonomy of religious believers and other metaphysically inclined citizens, suggesting that this difficulty could be alleviated by making a distinction between epistemologically authoritarian and non-authoritarian religious beliefs. With regard to, it argues that the salvaging operation is not as straightforward as Habermas seems to suppose and that social and political philosophy may not be able to tap the semantic power of religious traditions without relying on metaphysical assumptions; it concludes that, here, too, a distinction between authoritarian and non-authoritarian approaches to knowledge and validity may be useful. (shrink)

This article addresses the problem of inter-normative engagement, of constructing dialogical interaction across substantive normative difference. Focusing on how this affects democratic and pluralistic contexts, it argues that a social-practice-based approach to normativity and reasoning offers unique resources to understand and frame such encounters. It specifically draws on pragmatism and the work of Richard Rorty to reframe normativity, authority, identity, and reason, linking these understandings to recent trends to deliberative political inclusivism in democratic theory. The upshot is that framing inter-normative (...) engagement as calls to responsive engagement between diverse systems of normative authority offers real insights for constructing and maintaining ongoing democratic engagements in a non-hierarchical manner. This, the article argues, extends emerging methodological trends in the broader literature while overcoming the morass between conflict- and consensus-oriented approaches in democratic th... (shrink)

Habermas' view that contemporary philosophy and social theory can learn from religious traditions calls for closer consideration. He is correct to hold that religious traditions constitute a reservoir of potentially important meanings that can be critically appropriated without emptying them of their motivating and inspirational power. However, contrary to what he implies, his theory allows for learning from religion only to a very limited degree. This is due to two core elements of his conceptual framework, both of which are key (...) features of his account of postmetaphysical thinking. The first is the requirement of ethical agnosticism; this requires philosophy and social theory to refrain from offering guidance on questions of the good life. The second is his language-immanent conception of truth in the domain of practical reason; this follows from his rejection of any source of validity beyond human communication in this domain. I make the case for a more robust account of learning from religious traditions and metaphysical worldviews, arguing that for this purpose Habermas must modify his requirement of ethical agnosticism and relinquish his language-immanent conception of truth. (shrink)