The ArgumentIn the liberal democratic capitalist societies of “the West,” psychological know-how has made itself indispensable, not only in the regulation of domains from the factory to the family but also in the ethical systems according to which citizens live their lives. We cannot fully understand the role that psychology has come to play in terms of the application of science, the diffusion of ideas, or the entrepreneurial activities of a profession. Rather, we need to see psychology as making possible (...) forms of expertise that have a particular capacity to graft themselves onto the practices of all those concerned with the conduct of conduct. Psychology operates within these practices to make individuals who are calculable, to make intersubjective spaces that are manageable, to simplify the heterogeneous tasks of authorities and to underpin them with an ethico-therapeutic rationale. Psychology has also come to infuse contemporary “technologies of the self,” with its promises to restore persons to freedom and autonomy. These features of the “techne” of psychology are intrinsically linked to the problematics of liberal democracies, which seek to govern through privacy, rationality, and autonomy. And if the expert technologies of psychology have come to play such a significant role in the regulation of conduct in the West, we should not be surprised if psychological expertise is a beneficiary of current transformations of the societies of Eastern Europe. (shrink)

Food is a powerful symbol in the struggle to transition to a more sustainable pathway since the food choices citizens make have deep environmental and social impacts within their communities and around the world. Using transformative learning theory, this research explored the learning that took place among individual adults who consumed goods directly from local organic producers, and how this behavior affected their worldview. Learning was classified as instrumental, communicative, or transformative. Ultimately, we considered if the learning created lasting change, (...) directed toward a more sustainable society, among learners. Three different models of producer/consumer interfaces located in Atlantic Canada were considered: a market-garden operation, an education and outreach center, and a community shared agriculture project. It was found that all participants experienced some form of learning, either instrumental or communicative, through their participation in organic agriculture. Closing the gap between producer and consumer through direct contact with the farmer at a market, visiting the farm, or participating in food production oneself is both a desirable step in reaching a more sustainable lifestyle and a powerful learning tool in linking the consumer to a host of other environmental and social issues. (shrink)

Habermas's theory of social evolution has been subjected to critique by environmentally motivated sociologists. They argue that his decision to recast social theory in terms of an extended, if selective analogy with biology leads him into a set of practical positions that are irreconcilable with Green politics and inconsistent with the goals of traditional critical theory. This article argues that these criticisms are based on an inaccurate assessment of the role of evolutionary concepts in Habermas's thought. By drawing out the (...) similarities between Habermas and Kant on the question of the relationship between history and natural history, it is possible to see that Habermas's use of evolutionary metaphors plays a regulative rather than a constitutive role in his thinking on society. This strategy does not save Habermas's position, but shows instead that it may be vulnerable to an immanent critique that pulls out the real underlying antagonisms in his system. (shrink)

The Rawls–Habermas debate is having a revival. In this article I argue that both philosophers develop different freestanding conceptions of political legitimacy, and show how they diverge when it comes to how political legitimacy can be justified. Habermas is looking for a deeper justification than Rawls will allow for. I then proceed to show how the different meta-ethical positions yield two different versions of democratic theory, focusing in particular on rights and popular sovereignty. I demonstrate how both conceive of the (...) co-originality of private and public autonomy, and subsequently take issue with Habermas’ reading of Rawls. I argue that Rawls should not be understood as a natural rights theorist, that Habermas misunderstands the role of the original position, and that Rawls cannot be considered a strong constitutionalist. Thus, the real difference between Rawls and Habermas revolves around their different conceptions of political legitimacy. (shrink)

The author begins by sketching the characteristics or elements of every tradition. Some reasons are then suggested for the propensity of so many authors to contrast statutes with other, allegedly more traditional kinds of law. However, it is argued that statutes are deeply embedded, along with customary and judge‐made law, in the highly traditional practices of law and that this matters much more than is commonly suspected. The thesis being defended here is not merely that law includes traditions along with (...) rules, principles, maxims, and so on, but rather that legal systems should be understood as traditions, albeit highly complex ones. Not only are ancient legal systems (the Talmudic, for example) held to be traditional; modem legal positive orders are viewed as being traditional too. Finally, the concept of “communities of interpretation” is applied to the contemporary posited statutes which are believed by many to be a distinguishing feature of modem legal systems. (shrink)

The main purpose of this paper is to examine the concept of critique in Habermasian thought. Given that the concept of critique is a central theoretical category in the work of the Frankfurt School, it comes as a surprise that little in the way of a systematic account which sheds light on the multifaceted meanings of the concept of critique in Habermas's oeuvre can be found in the literature. This paper aims to fill this gap by exploring the various meanings (...) that Habermas attributes to the concept of critique in 10 key thematic areas of his writings: (1) the public sphere, (2) knowledge, (3) language, (4) morality, (5) ethics, (6) evolution, (7) legitimation, (8) democracy, (9) religion, and (10) modernity. On the basis of a detailed analysis of Habermas's multifaceted concerns with the nature and function of critique, the study seeks to demonstrate that the concept of critique can be considered not only as a constitutive element but also as a normative cornerstone of Habermasian thought. The paper draws to a close by reflecting on some of the limitations of Habermas's conception of critique, arguing that in order to be truly critical in the Habermasian sense we need to turn the subject of critique into an object of critique. (shrink)

Many political theorists today appeal to, or assume the existence of, a political culture in which the public values of Western liberal democracies are embedded – a political culture that is necessary to render their ideas plausible and their proposals feasible. This article contrasts this approach with the more ambitious arguments advanced by Jürgen Habermas in his original account of discourse ethics – a moral theory to which, he supposed, all human beings were demonstrably and ineluctably bound by the communicative (...) constitution of collective life. Although these arguments have been largely discredited, I argue that Habermas’ analysis can be enlisted in defence of a weaker claim: namely, that principled commitment to discussion is not always necessary for genuine deliberative engagement to occur. As a result, there may be hope for democratic deliberation in contexts where a liberal democratic political culture is lacking. (shrink)

We argue for a procedural approach to ethical critique in CDA based upon the ‘argumentative turn’ in CDA advocated in our recent publications. This is not a matter of abandoning substantive critique, or abandoning the long-standing commitment of our version of CDA to critique of domination and of ideology, but of integrating them into a deliberative procedure for critical questioning, from an impartial and unbiased standpoint. The advantage of this position is that it enables us to accentuate ethical criticism and (...) critique in CDA, rather than advocacy and partisanship. The task of critical discourse analysts is to subject argumentation, including their own argumentation, to systematic critical questioning in the spirit of open debate, with no ideological parti-pris. (shrink)

This article defends deliberative democracy against the problem of tacit knowledge. It has been argued that deliberative democracy gives a privileged position to linguistic communication and therefore excludes tacit forms of knowledge which cannot be expressed propositionally. This article shows how the exclusion of such knowledge presents important challenges to both proceduralist and epistemic conceptions of deliberative democracy, and how it has been taken by some to favour markets over democratic institutions. After pointing to the limitations of market alternatives, deliberative (...) democracy is defended by arguing that tacit knowledge can be brought into deliberation through the mechanism of trust in testimony. By trusting the testimony of a speaker, deliberators are able to act on knowledge even without it being explicitly expressed. The article then goes on to discuss the implications of this defence for deliberative theory, and particularly, the forms of reason which deliberative democrats must see as legitimate. (shrink)

According to T.M. Scanlon, the core idea of contractualism consists in the claim that what we are morally required to do is conceptually grounded in the value of living in “relations of mutual recognition” with others. Specifically, Scanlon's contractualist idea of “living in relations of mutual recognition with others” requires that one act only in ways that cannot be reasonably rejected by all of those affected, according to the results of a hypothetical reflection conducted within one's own mind. I claim, (...) however, that Scanlon is mistaken to rely on a single individual's hypothetical reflection (monological reflection) to determine what no one affected could reasonably reject. Instead, following Jürgen Habermas, I claim that we must engage in actual dialogue with all who stand to be affected, in order to live in relations of mutual recognition with others. (shrink)

The Habermas–Foucault debate, despite the excellent commentary it has generated, has the standing of an ‘unfinished project’ precisely because it occasions the interrogation of the fundamental categories of modernity, and because the lingering sense of anxiety, which continues to remain after arguments and counter-arguments, demands new interpretations. Here, I advance the claim that what gives Habermas’s criticisms of Foucault’s histories and theoretical formulations their bite is the categorial distinction he maintains between facts and rights, and by extension, between causes and (...) reasons. The Kantian distinction between de jure validity and de facto effectivity underwrites the categorial distinction between both ‘norms/facts’ and ‘reasons/causes’ conceptual pairs, which distinction, in turn, is reinforced by a picture of the natural world as matter in motion and human agency as self-determination. I want to claim that Foucault’s work enacts a critique of Habermas not by evading the problem of justification but by undermining the very distinctions Habermas needs to maintain the universal and necessary status of communicative rationality. Drawing on Jonathan Lear’s discussion of reasons and causes in relation to the unconscious, I claim that psychoanalytic discourse helps us make intelligible a type of reflection—such as one finds in Foucault’s historiography—that is at once “critical and empirical.” Moreover, the realization that the distinction between causes and reasons may not be categorial and exhaustive shows how Habermas’s insistence on the contrary leads to one particular kind of misrecognition of our practices. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article takes part in the discussion of the post-politicization of climate change by studying how consensus and disagreement were articulated in the coverage of four UN climate summits in the Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat. From the perspective of discourse theory and an agonistic theory of democracy, the article argues that the hegemonic articulation of consensual politics, solving the problem of climate change, and establishing an international treaty on emission reductions to a chain of equivalence have reduced the field of (...) disagreement to a choice between solving and not solving climate change. While such a form of hegemony represses more radical forms of political discourse, it is often considered helpful in building the consensus that is seen as a prerequisite for decisive action on climate change. This article argues that in building a durable relationship regarding climate change, political conflicts should be embraced in the name of democratic politics rather that suppressed in the name of generating and sustaining consensus. (shrink)

This paper argues that ambivalence can serve as a proxy for consensus-based debates in public discourse as it allows for individuals to maintain flexible and analytic perspectives on matters that otherwise appear contradictory. In particular, an affirmative understanding of ambivalence will be presented to supplement the highly influential Habermasian approach by drawing from sociological theories of ambivalence found in the work of Simmel, Bauman and Kołakowski. While the theme of ambivalence is not completely absent from Habermas’s work on the public (...) sphere, it is typically described as a structural consequence of contradiction rather than a form of action that is capable of working with and around inconsistencies in ethics, knowledge and social values. This allows for participation to be sustained through contradiction, rather than being withdrawn in frustration, while also encouraging open-minded judgements capable of avoiding forms of fanaticism. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:The primacy of shareholder demands in the traditional theory of the firm has typically excluded marginalised stakeholder voices. However, shareholders involved in social shareholder engagement (SSE) purport to bring these voices into corporate decision-making. In response to ethical concerns about the legitimacy of SSE, we use the lens of discourse ethics to provide a normative analysis at both action and constitutional levels. By specifying three normative questions, we extend the analysis of SSE to identify a political role for shareholders in (...) pursuit of the common good. We demonstrate the desirability for SSE to promote regulatory/institutional change to guarantee marginalised stakeholders a voice in corporate decisions that affect them. The theory of SSE we propose thus calls into question the stark separation of the political and economic spheres and reveals an underlying tension, often overlooked, within the responsible investment literature. (shrink)

John Dryzek's justification of deliberative democracy rests on a critique of instrumental rationality and a defence of Habermas's idea of communicative rationality. I question each stage of Dryzek's theory. It defines instrumental rationality broadly but only criticises narrow applications of it. It conflates communicative rationality with Habermas's idea of ‘discourse’ – the real motor of Dryzek's democratic theory. Deliberative democracy can be better defended by avoiding overstated criticisms of instrumental rationality, by altering the emphasis on communicative rationality, and by focusing (...) more on different models of politics than different models of rationality. Dryzek's theory can thus present deliberative democracy as a better means to better ends – a more powerful and more positive position. (shrink)

Alfred Schutz’s theory of the social world, often neglected in philosophy, has the potential to capture the interplay of identity and difference which shapes our action, interaction, and experience in everyday life. Compared to still dominant identity-based models such as that of Jürgen Habermas, who assumes a coordination of meaning built on the idealisation of stable rules, Schutz’s theory is an important step forward. However, his central notion of a “type” runs into a difficulty which requires constructive criticism. Against the (...) background of Schutz’s theory of meaning inspired by Bergson and Husserl, his idea of types “taken for granted until further notice” is shown to express a primacy of identity which, in the final analysis, leads into the implausible scenario of ‘ubiquitous tunnel vision’. This makes it necessary to go beyond Schutz and assume an inherently motivated tendency towards difference in meaning termed ‘spontaneity’. Where spontaneity and the opposed tendency towards identity of meaning work together in the application of types, they enable embodied subjects to interact with the world and with each other in the routine yet flexible and sometimes innovative ways which we all know. (shrink)

Contemporary Anglo-American political thought is witnessing a revival of theories of deliberative democracy. The principle of public argumentation, according to which the legitimation of a general norm is predicated upon a rational and open dialog among all those affected by this norm, constitutes their common underlying assumption. This assumption is itself grounded in the metatheoretical claim that arguing is the defining activity of a demos of free and equal members. Habermas' well-known formulation of communicative or discursive democracy represents one of (...) the earliest, most discussed, and indeed most emblematic versions of the existing models of deliberative democracy. It is here, I believe, that Castoriadis' political theory can prove exceptionally important as it provides a starting point and a solid ground for articulating one of the most incisive and convincing critiques of the limits and flaws of communicative democracy. Although Castoriadis himself never directly discussed deliberative democracy as such, we can try to approximate from various parts of his work what he might have thought about, especially when it comes to Habermas' model. (shrink)

Jean Piaget, along with Sigmund Freud and B. F. Skinner, is one of the most influential thinkers in psychology. His influence on developmental and cognitive psychology, pedagogy and the so-called cognitive revolution is without doubt. The contributors to the book under review aim to show his past, contemporary as well as future relevance to important areas of psychology. I argue that they fail because they use Piaget’s own terminology, instead of explaining his ideas and relevance in a way accessible to (...) someone not already familiar with or sceptical about his assumptions and ideas. Thus, the book neither meets the authors’ own stated goals, nor provides an accessible exposition of Piaget for the uninitiated or sceptical reader. A companion book like this one should help give answers to questions which someone unfamiliar with or sceptical of, but curious about, Piaget’s work would ask. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact that developments in transhumanist technologies may have upon human cultures, and to do so by exploring a potential debate between Habermas and the transhumanists. Transhumanists, such as Nick Bostrom, typically see the potential in genetic and other technologies for positively expanding and transcending human nature. In contrast, Habermas is a representative of those who are fearful of this technology, suggesting that it will compound the deleterious effects of the colonisation of (...) the lifeworld, further constraining human autonomy and undermining the meaningfulness of the lifeworld by expanding the technological control and manipulation of humanity. It will be argued that these opposed positions are grounded in fundamentally different understandings of the consequences of scientific and technological advance. On one level, the transhumanists remain confident that the lifeworld has within it the resources necessary to find meaning and purpose in a society deeply infused by genetic technology. Habermas disagrees. On another level, the difference is articulated by Horkheimer and Adorno in Dialectic of Enlightenment, primarily by challenging what may be understood as a Baconian faith in science as a project for the domination of nature. While the transhumanists broadly embrace this faith, Habermas returns to something akin to Horkheimer and Adorno’s pessimistic scepticism. (shrink)

. Imre Lakatos's philosophy of science can provide helpful leads for theological methodology, but only when mediated by the disciplines that lie between the natural sciences and theology. The questions of relativism and truth are used as indices for comparing disciplines, and Lakatos's theory of natural science is taken as the starting point. Major modifications of Lakatos's work are demanded as one moves from the natural sciences, through economics, the interpretive social sciences, literary theory, and into theology. Although theology may (...) consist of Lakatosian research programs, it also includes programs of interpretation and programs for living. This conclusion must influence our definition of theological truth and our assessment of theological relativism. (shrink)

This essay attempts to distinguish and discuss the importance and limitations of different ways of being wrong. At first it is argued that strictly falsifiable knowledge is concerned with simple (instrumental) mistakes only, and thus is incapable of understanding more complex errors (and truths). In order to gain a deeper understanding of mistakes (and to understand a deeper kind of mistake), it is argued that communicative aspects have to be taken into account. This is done in the theory of communicative (...) action, which adds to our knowledge of errors the notion of communicative mistakes: mistakes as obstacles for sincere communication. However, to overcome this still purely negative judgement of errors, two processes are examined in which mistakes are best regarded as developmental steps, that is, steps not only meaningful in their own right (as containing some truth), but also as necessary preconditions for further progress. This would suggest that truth is born out of errors. But if so, one has to understand the wrongness of such errors; how is it that they are erroneous if they (somehow) contain the truth? At the end of this essay, a tentative answer to this question is given. (shrink)

We argue that multiple levels of trauma were present in Egypt before, during and after the 2011 revolution. Individual, social and political trauma constitute a triangle of traumatisation which was strategically employed by the Egyptian counter-revolutionary forces – primarily the army and the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood – to maintain their political and economic power over and above the social, economic and political interests of others. Through the destruction of physical bodies, the fragmentation and polarisation of social relations and (...) the violent closure of the newly emerged political public sphere, these actors actively repressed the potential for creative and revolutionary transformation. To better understand this multi-layered notion of trauma, we turn to Habermas’ ‘colonisation of the lifeworld’ thesis which offers a critical lens through which to examine the wider political and economic structures and context in which trauma occurred as well as its effects on the personal, social and po... (shrink)

Matti Häyry’s new book Rationality and the Genetic Challenge discusses the ethics of human genetic modification and the bioethical rationalities that inform the different ethical conclusions authors have advanced. It is aimed at correcting the belief that “only one rationality exists or one morality exists; that those that disagree [with them] are unreasonable or evil.” Häyry argues that there are multiple rationalities, and that even though ethical issues may have solutions within individual rationalities, disagreements that have their root in separate (...) rational approaches cannot be universally solved by intellectual arguments. In debates about the ethics of using new biotechnologies to genetically modify human beings, the normal state is one of fundamental disagreement over almost all of the anticipated uses to which the technology could be put. Häyry’s point is that such a state of affairs is not necessarily due to a lack of reason because there are many, equally valid, ways of being reasonable. (shrink)

Much of the most influential free speech scholarship emphasises that ‘political speech’ warrants the very highest standards of protection because of its centrality to self-governance. This central idea mitigates against efforts to justify the regulation of political speech and renders some egregiously offensive or harmful speech worthy of protection from a theoretical perspective. Yet paradoxically, in practice, in many liberal democracies such speech is routinely restricted. In this paper, I develop an argument that is compatible with both the argument from (...) democracy and the notion of political speech, and that can justify the regulation of hate speech, by joining an understanding of the constitutive role of speech in individuals’ lives derived from Nussbaum's capabilities theory with ideas of democratic deliberation and legitimation drawn from a Habermasian framework. This approach attends to the conditions required at an individual level for democratic legitimation to occur at a social level. It permits the development of a robust theoretical justification for the protection of a broad range of speech. It simultaneously provides a guiding framework for regulatory policy designed to ameliorate the effects of, and inhibit the expression of, that speech, which could imperil the conditions required for individuals to develop their own capabilities and which instantiates anti-democratic practice, and thus discourse, preventing the very communications required to perform democracy from being uttered. Thus, my argument also strengthens and transforms the argument from democracy as a justification for free speech protection more generally. (shrink)

CDA has become widespread not only in Europe but also in the international arena. The concept and practice of the ‘critical’ may become problematic when they cross cultural, social and political boundaries. This paper focuses on the meanings of the English word critical and on the Chinese words used to translate it. We assume that the meaning of each set of words is linked to the historical discourse practices in which it emerged. We briefly examine the cultural and socio-political histories (...) of the two sets with a view to stimulating questions concerning the question: Is the concept and practice of critique culturally relative or a human universal? We suggest some ways in which this fundamental question, not hitherto posed in CDA, may be approached in today's global scientific environment. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Deliberative democratic theory, commonly used to explore questions of “political” corporate social responsibility, has become prominent in the literature. This theory has been challenged previously for being overly sanguine about firm profit imperatives, but left unexamined is whether corporate contexts are appropriate contexts for deliberative theory in the first place. We explore this question using the case of Starbucks’ “Race Together” campaign to show that significant challenges exist to corporate deliberation, even in cases featuring genuinely committed firms. We return to (...) the underlying social theory to show that this is not an isolated case: for-profit firms are predictably hostile contexts for deliberation, and significant normative and strategic problems can be expected should deliberative theory be imported uncritically to corporate contexts. We close with recent advances in deliberative democratic theory that might help update the PCSR project, and accommodate the application of deliberation to the corporate context, albeit with significant alterations. (shrink)

From PhD research on argumentation in the writing of 11 and 12 year olds in the late 1980s through to three research projects in the 1990s on argument in schools, colleges and universities, I have been pursuing questions as to how to improve students' argumentation. This paper looks at some of the key issues, including the place of argument in the curriculum, its role in the relation to citizenship and some of the ways for improving the quality of argument. In (...) the discussion, questions on the nature of argument itself will be addressed. (shrink)

Social philosophy is a somewhat broad and imprecise term. In this article I discuss the social philosophy of Habermas, Foucault and Honneth, arguing that the latter’s work is an interesting, but not unproblematic, conception of the discipline. Following Habermas and Honneth, I argue that social philosophy should be reconstructive, but incorporate insights from Foucault. Specifically, reconstructive social philosophy can be both normative and descriptive, and at the same time establish a dialectical relationship between philosophy and the social sciences, thus fulfilling (...) the ambition for social philosophy originally put forward by Horkheimer. The thesis I defend in this article is that reconstructive social philosophy in Habermasian or Honnethian fashion has the resources available to accomplish this ambitious task. (shrink)

This article positions ‘safety’ and ‘risk’ as key public health problems in mental health. I demonstrate that discourse about safety occurs extensively in relation to mental health, but it does not occur in a way where the mental health system gets any safer for the key actors involved. Ongoing unproductive discourse occurs because the different actors involved are speaking at cross purposes and about different things against the background of a ‘public’ discourse focused on safety crises. I map the general (...) interests of the main set of actors to demonstrate the conflicted and complex nature of discourse around mental health safety. In response I outline a dialogical approach to safety and risk based on the work of Habermas and values of recovery. This is presented as a framework from which to assess whether discourse is occurring effectively to develop shared meanings. Shared understandings of safety will mean that the safety needs of relevant actors can be understood and negotiated rather than giving way to an actuarial process which does not take into consideration the context of a person’s life. (shrink)

Nussbaum’s moral cosmopolitanism informs her capability-based theory of justice, which she uses in order to develop a distinctive model of cosmopolitan democratic education. I characterize Nussbaum’s educational model as a ‘statist model,’ however, because it regards cosmopolitan democratic education as necessary for realizing democratic arrangements at the domestic level. The socio-cultural diversity of virtually every nation, Nussbaum argues, renders it mandatory to educate citizens in a cosmopolitan fashion. Citizens must develop empathy and sympathy towards all co-citizens of their domestic polities (...) and cope effectively with socio-cultural diversity. I criticize Nussbaum’s statist model, because it neglects that due to the ways in which international institutions already constrain national decision-making, citizens will not fully enjoy the human freedom of co-determining the political choices that affect their lives unless international affairs are further democratized. Therefore I suggest extending Nussbaum’s statist model and outline an ‘internationalist model’ of cosmopolitan democratic education. (shrink)

Norbert Elias’s concept of the civilizing process is perhaps the most controversial aspect of his work, attracting frequent criticism for its perceived Eurocentrism, as well as impassioned defences that critics have misunderstood the concept. In this piece, I explore how The Civilizing Process channels unacknowledged Eurocentric stereotypes in ways that infuse the theory at a depth level. I then examine the downstream ramifications of these stereotypes by contrasting Elias’s analysis of the Holocaust, as presented in The Germans, with his analysis (...) of colonialism as presented in The Civilizing Process. I argue that Elias’s failure to integrate forms of state violence directed at the colonial periphery undermines his ability to analyse state violence in the core. A more adequate approach would theorize ‘civilization’ as an ambivalent and contradictory process whose violent character is often – though not always – more exposed and visible on the periphery. (shrink)

Seyla Benhabib has displayed a deeply normative concern for the origin, properties, condition and destiny of the modern world in work running from Critique, Norm, and Utopia (1986), to Situating the Self (1992), The Reluctant Modernism of Hannah Arendt (1996), and Another Cosmopolitanism (2006). I hope to show that Benhabib's view of modernity is ambiguous, and that inconsistencies in her position reach back, through Habermas and Weber, to Kant. I begin with a sketch of Benhabib's sense of what modernity is (...) about, turn then to what I think makes her position ambiguous, and conclude with a discussion of what I think is missing in her treatment of modernity. The gap I identify is strikingly pointed up when she uses the term modernism but does not talk about modernism at all. (shrink)

The following discussion highlights the sociological relevance of Maria Márkus’s work for the Budapest School’s concept of ‘radical democracy’. A brief historical sketch exhibits how the concept has emerged. It is in particular the ‘messy’ social conditions for equal and free forms of self-realisation in civil society that underpin radical democracy which are central in Maria Márkus’s critique of the neoliberal state, identity formation and a gendered achievement principle. Her approach, I argue, can be advanced as a prism for the (...) critical analysis of contemporary issues. To do so, I contend that late-modern societies are increasingly defined by a paradox with a pluralisation of identity claims in civil society on the one hand, and tendencies to homogenise identities on the other by concurring economic and political forces. A democratisation of everyday life, and with it diverse and plural forms of self-realisation, appears to be under homogenising pressures from governments and markets alike. This will be briefly demonstrated using Maria Márkus’s work, which also points toward possible departure points to advance a critical sociology of radical democracy. (shrink)

Calhoun is interviewed regarding the relationship of his work on the university to his other research interests. Calhoun elaborates on his hope for a debate over transformations in the structure of the university that is much more sensitive to the public role universities play and the importance of the collective goods they create. In the process he articulates the possibilities for an institutional analysis of the university that meets scholarly standards of knowledge production while remaining engaged with central issues that (...) arise out of institutional transformation. By situating universities in relationship with the public sphere, Calhoun provides a basis for debates about the transformation of the university to overcome the structured and structuring dispositions of the participants, while remaining grounded in social and historical analysis-an approach that can be considered an alternative public sociology. (shrink)

Axel Honneth makes initial and promising steps towards what could be called a two-level account of recognition, according to which the normatively substantial forms of recognition represent various manners in which the primordial acquaintedness with others is expressed. It will be argued that Honneth's promising approach must be revised in regard to the issue of intentionality, which may be achieved by reference to earlier critical theorists such as Adorno and Arendt. With such a foundation, critical theory can enter into new (...) fruitful interdisciplinary dialogue. (shrink)

This article shows how Jürgen Habermas and Claude Lefort try to explain the relationship between universality and particularity in modern democratic societies, politics and civil society. It will demonstrate that Habermas defends a substantive kind of universality that is opposed to particular positions and thus to real politics. This article further argues that Lefort’s lesser known theory of negative universality is better at combining a universal and a particular perspective. It claims that where Habermas requires citizens to transform their particular (...) interests, Lefort emphasizes that individual actors should acknowledge their particular position and interests when invoking universal principles. The article further argues that their disagreement leads to a different interpretation of ideology, politics, power, civil society, human rights, popular sovereignty, elections and the state. (shrink)

I argue that the exception must be a legitimate possibility within law as a revolutionary project, in much the same way that civil disobedience is. In this sense, the exception is not outside law if by "law" we mean not positive law as defined by extant legal documents (statutes, legislative committee reports, written judgments, etc.) but law as a living tradition consisting of both abstract norms and a concrete historical understanding of them. So construed, the exception is what can be (...) exemplary - a law unto itself that best interprets and creatively extends (and transcends) the law that already exists, in order to make it inclusive of the other. In the final analysis, immigration law forces us to consider both the concrete individuality and abstract humanity of refugees, asylum seekers and other homeless persons who have been displaced by global economic underdevelopment. When combined with the "statelessness" of desperate classes of immigrants, this fact about immigration law reveals a revolutionary possibility for future development and perfection leading to its own transcendence: from an inhospitable immigration law that is administered exclusively by the nation state to a cosmopolitan law of universal citizenship under the auspices of a global human rights regime. (shrink)

Minorities comprise a tiny fraction of media owners, and continued media consolidation exacerbates existing disparities. This article examines this problem by integrating the work of Jurgen Habermas and Jacques Ellul. These theorists identify a common concern—described alternately as technicization and colonization—involving homogenization of content, loss of localism, and decreased ownership diversity. In different ways, each acknowledges the possibility that social action can make a difference. Habermas' discourse ethics provides a normative foundation for arguing on behalf of ownership diversity and policy (...) reform. Though Ellul is skeptical of institutional reform, he offers a complementary vision of concrete action on the part of local, independent community groups. While their solutions are different, we argue that both are necessary. Media reform efforts must incorporate both Habermasian and Ellulian approaches by supplementing federal regulatory reform with independent grassroots activism. A combination of such efforts is essential to the movement's success. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article scrutinises one of the mainstream views of how one grows into responsible membership of society; the view based on Jürgen Habermas’, Lawrence Kohlberg’s and Jean Piaget’s theories. Habermas praises Kohlberg’s and Piaget’s psychological theories and uses them as empirical sources crucial for his theoretical work. We argue that this view should be revised in light of new empirical findings as Habermas’ Kohlberg’s and Piaget’s view is based on a false understanding of the development and functioning of human reason (...) and morality. We do not, however, defend a view that reduces normative questions to empirical facts. In contrast, we agree with Habermas that in an adequate theory, both philosophical and empirical dimensions have to be taken into account but argue that the empirical research results he has utilized are fallacious in light of current research findings. Finally, we discuss the relevance of our argument for educational theorisation. (shrink)

The paper explores ways to bring the approaches of J. Habermas and M. Foucault into a productive dialogue. In particular, it argues that Habermas's concept of deliberative democracy can and should be complemented by a strategic analysis of the state as it is found in Foucault's studies of governmentality. While deliberative democracy is a critical theory of democracy that provides normative knowledge about the legitimacy of a given system, it is not well equipped to generate knowledge that could inform the (...) choice of strategies employed by actors from civil society — especially deliberative democrats — vis-à-vis the state to pursue their goals. This kind of strategic knowledge about strengths and vulnerabilities of a given state is provided by Foucault's reading of the state as driven by varying governing rationalities. Since, particularly in his later works, Habermas finds strategic action normatively acceptable under certain circumstances, I argue that societal actors could profit from an integrated approach that incorporates Foucault's strategic analysis into the framework of deliberative democracy. This approach would yield critical knowledge of both a normative and strategic, action-guiding nature. (shrink)

Much of the appeal of deliberative democracy lies in its emancipatory promise to give otherwise disadvantaged groups a voice, and to grant them influence through reasoned argument. However, the precise mechanisms for delivery of this promise remain obscure. After reviewing Habermas's formulation of deliberation, the article draws on recent theories of argumentation to provide a more detailed account of such mechanisms. The article identifies the key emancipatory mechanism as explicitness in language. It outlines the primary modalities of this mechanism: expressing (...) differences of opinion, mobilising a shared standard of inference, and recognising and excluding fallacious appeals to irrelevant factors such as force or authority. It describes how these modalities are enhanced at a secondary, reflexive level that recognises the partiality and defeasibility of particular argumentative exchanges. Such qualifications, it is argued, support a model of deliberation across discourses that allows a clearer appreciation of its potential and limits. (shrink)

Normative questions concerning political authority and political obligation are widely seen as central questions of political philosophy. Current global transformations require an innovative response from normative political thinking about these two topics. In light of a concrete example of the supranational forms of authority and obligation that have been and are emerging beyond the national state and beyond the traditional domains of international law, I lay out what has become the standard approach to authority and obligation and indicate why this (...) approach is inadequate in contemporary circumstances. I sketch an alternative approach and suggest how the most promising exemplar of this kind, Habermas’ discourse theory of law and politics, can better deal with the example. Having thus made plausible the advantages of the discourse theory of the alternative approach, I end with an ‘internal’ critique of Habermas’ own recent writings on the global political order. (shrink)