The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol 1: Reason the Rationalization of Society by Jürgen Habermas

The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol 1: Reason the Rationalization of Society Reviews

• 
  Justin Evans

  This is a difficult book to rate, since it's obviously very important/influential. And the horrific style could bias anyone against it. But I finally settled on two stars. Why?
  
  * Habermas' theory is meant to be an advance beyond previous critical theories. He argues that their focus on consciousness philosophy (broadly speaking, an individualist approach to social theory, which assumes that individuals are the primary bearers of meaning) leads them into all sorts of problems. But his interpretations of those previous critical theories are, not to put too fine a point on it, appalling. He misreads Hegel; he misreads Marx to such a great extent that one might almost believe he'd never even read *Capital*; and his take on earlier critical theorists is more or less limited to Horkheimer's 'Eclipse of Reason.' Habermas' main criticism of Adorno is that Adorno seeks a solution to the problems of modern societies in a kind of irrationalist mysticism. It is no surprise that almost all of his evidence for this is taken from books *about*, rather than *by* Adorno. (Good rebuttals of Habermas' readings of Hegel and Marx can be found in Pippin's 'Idealism as Modernism,' and Postone's 'Time, Labor and Social Domination' respectively.)
  * For Habermas, the main problem with previous critical theories is that they don't seem to be grounded. Habermas sees a strict dichotomy here. Either you ground your theory by taking on a universalist perspective, or you lapse into relativism. Because critical theory has tended to avoid universalism, it must be relativistic. This is tied to his failure to understand Hegel's work. Hegel shows that the dichotomy between universalism and relativism is flawed; that something can be grounding without being universal. On this approach, critical theory is right to find its foundation only in an immanent critique of the present, without a universalist standpoint.
  * Habermas claims to find his universalist standpoint in language. He argues that any any speech act assumes the possibility of rational agreement, and that this can be a basis of a critical theory. Language becomes the inalienable repository of freedom and reconciliation. This is where Habermas' rejection of 'consciousness philosophy' hurts him most. Why is it that language can remain more or less pure? He has no answer for this question. 'Consciousness philosophy,' of course, would argue that since language is bound up with consciousness; and since consciousness somewhat obviously cannot remain 'pure' in an impure world; then language itself cannot remain pure, and cannot be the universal standpoint Habermas seeks.
  * Finally, Habermas tries to combine two sociological approaches: systems theory and action theory. He never asks, however, if these theories themselves might be reflections of actual social problems which cannot be merely 'combined' at the theoretical level. A critical theory will show the problems with these theories, and explain how to move past them. Habermas does not do this, because he accepts Daniel Bell's thesis of 'end of ideology.' Theories are now just different standpoints from which we view the same content, not reflections of that content itself. Again, a bit more 'consciousness philosophy' would have led Habermas to see that this separation of form and content - which he sees as a key moment of modernism - is theoretically untenable.
  * On a somewhat more obvious level, this was a theory designed for a welfare-state world. This world collapsed just as these volumes were being published in German. Habermas himself said, in an interview around the time they were being published, that this work assumed such a welfare state world ("The Dialectics of Rationalization," in 'Telos'). The disappearance of that world made it clear that 'power' was no more than a handmaiden to 'money.' The best recent work of critical theory, Postone's book mentioned above, makes this argument very well.
  
  That's all substantive stuff. On a less high-falutin' level, this book is horrifically written, spends far too much time summarizing previous sociological theories, and shows a frankly bizarre addiction to unnecessary, quasi-scholastic hair-splitting. For those interested in critical theory, I recommend reading the 'intermediate reflections' and 'concluding reflections.' Otherwise, it's like reading a freshman-comp paper written by a staggering genius.
• 
  John

  I was actually surprised by how thoughtless Habermas’ critique of Marx was, relying as it does on the Weber reading, and the whole base/superstructure trope. For those of you who heard about this famous duality and want to critique Marx based on it: Marx said this ONCE, and with contextual specificity. He didn’t really believe you could just dump the social on top of some stool called “economy” (this is an economist reading).
  Habermas also seems to think Marxism can’t account for the welfare state, or the other somewhat underhanded tactics Capitalism has used to keep itself afloat through ever worsening financial crisis. I think he would be hard pressed to find a Marxist economist who isn’t dealing with this currently, not to mention Marx himself being relatively clear on how capitalism won’t abide a barrier, and has historically come up with extremely remarkable ways to keep moving. Habermas doesn’t deal with the core of Marx’s real addendum to the political economic discourse of the time, namely that its core isn’t just the commodity relation, but surplus-value. While scooting around Marx’s ideas about value in general, he never actually gets at the core factor, which is that the surplus-value relationship which is inherent to Capitalism is inherently exploitative, and no amount of restructuring will cure this fundamental ailment. There is no real “pacification” of class antagonism, and we are beginning to see Marx’s foresight on this matter now. Habermas posses another fundamentally poorly framed question when he wonders why modern resistance is declassed in a way (as in coming from students rather than workers). Firstly I don’t think anyone looking at the conflicts happening around the world in the 60’s could be so deluded as to not understand the class interaction of situations like Vietnam, and secondly he perhaps should relook at the class positions of many students.
  Not to mention his claim that Marx somehow ignores or subsumes culture in this severe way…
  
  A few other problems with Habermas:
  
  -The idea that we have to work from the assumption that language has an inherent drive toward consensus/understanding (and that somehow this is not teleological in a hard sense because its merely “goal-oriented”). The abstract theory of language that serves as the foundation of his entire method is simply terrible. His system falls apart without its fallacious starting point being assumed.
  -Economy and State are considered in isolation from culture, those making the problem remarkably similar to a bad reading of Marx in that his problem is these “systems” (economy, state) invading the “lifeworld” (culture, language). How economy is not a cultural and linguistic practice is totally beyond my comprehension. It seems like there is just some mystical assumption about how economy just flows on its own, and any mention of the ruling classes and their historical and current role in shaping that interaction are ignored (what about imperialism!?)
  -The appeal to general political “legitimacy”, which eliminates all forms of political struggle save communicative action. The assumption that we can rationally talk out our problems and thus solve any dispute, and that this is the only legitimate way to do so, leaves a great deal to be desired.
  -In his theory of communicative action, regulative validity claims are subject to acceptance (in the Yes or No dichotomy of responses to validity claims) based on their normativeness, which seems problematic if this is the type of speech act which we use to request or regulate others.
  -An inability to fold art/poetry into his proceduralist account of communicative action towards satisfying reason leads him to put it wholly outside the world. The autonomous realm of art is just a mythology, whether from those who wish to validate it, or from those who say it is not reasonable enough.
  -Linguistic Kantianism based on “regulatory ideals” is a one way ticket back to Hegel’s critique of universal morality. How can Habermas claim to have an intersubjective account with this monstrous presupposition looming all of our discourse? (I understand the attempted tripartite of objective, inter-subjective, and subjective, I just think it fails to come through.)
  -The problem of “social order” and its explanation has never been a satisfying frame for my understanding of social systems (stemming from Parson’s social integration theory). Marx describes our economic condition as anarchic, and I tend to agree. Phrasing the problem in such a way as to assume that there is a relative degree of social equilibrium really misses the power relationships at the bottom of even the most basic agreements (though I generally sympathize with Habermas in that he is responding to post-structuralist power analysis). I think Parson’s critique of Hobbes is missing the main thrust of the Hobbsian argument, which is that fear of violent death accounts for “social order”— this is lurking closer to the surface than we often realize. This is the difference between a “crises” model that recognizes the internal contradictions of the capitalist system, and a “consensus” model; one wonders if Parson’s had a window in his ivory tower. Habermas at least tries to explain why our society is in perpetual crisis (“systems” invading “life-world”), but that our “natural culture and language” is bent towards rejection of systems seems more than arbitrary, it is down right anti-dialectic.
  -ANTHROPOCENTRISM, only humans have language, the environment and the animals are just going to have to deal with our decision.
  -ETHNOCENTRISM, being situated in and being the self-proclaimed heir to western philosophical/linguistic thought, the backwards cultures that have yet to evolve to western standards of rationality are just waiting to be subsumed, and receive this prescriptive division from immediate mythological binding ( ala Durkheim).
• 
  Gary Beauregard Bottomley

  Habermas’ approach for understanding communication is a danger to a functioning society and ignores the reality of the world we live in.
  
  Habermas believes as a given, the sincerity of the speaker, the presumption of authenticity of one’s own subjective experiences and a coherent mythos of their own world view. By doing that, it will bound to lead to a fantasy where both sides have legitimate life-worlds to advocate. They do not. One side has their truths come from the comment sections of the Wall Street Journal (Breitbart News, Fox News, ….) assuaging their feelings of hate while the other side tackles real life problems beyond just the anecdotal and rely on science to inform and direct and base their actions on.
  
  Habermas wants to use Enlightenment concepts to save the Enlightenment from its own process and try to safe Reason from its dichotomy inherent between the subjective and objective nature within Reason. At least that’s what he tries to do. Husserl in Crisis of European Sciences tried to do a similar thing but he did it phenomenologically and would appeal more directly to Descartes’ cogito, and by the way, Husserl’s book is a better book.
  
  Habermas has an assumption that truth comports to reality while believing that truth is out there and even obtainable. In the Dialectic of Enlightenment (a book frequently cited by the author) they thought the same thing, but those authors believed the myths the Nazi’s had had been just the wrong myths, just as I believe the myths that the MAGA hat morons have today are the wrong myths. Habermas thinks truth through comportment to reality is near at hand, and that social interactions presume reasonableness except maybe for savages (remember this book was written in 1981).
  
  Each are featured in this book: Popper, Wittgenstein, Adorno, Horkheimer, Macintyre, as well as deep dives into Weber and Marx. What Habermas is doing is arguing for a pragmatic approach to the world with a bit of Hegelian dialectics to reconcile the dichotomies around Reason.
  
  Habermas does at times distinctly analyze the problem of societal communications as for within the individual and its creation of consciousness, the communication between individuals, and then at the social level between social groups. My reading of Hegel saw Hegel do the same thing, and for Hegel the spirit becomes aware of itself within each stage of development.
  
  Habermas is trying to reconstitute the objective and subjective divisions of Reason that’s been torn apart by the rationalization described by Weber as applied mostly to institutions and the reification warned at by Marx instrumentally between social classes.
  
  Postmodernism is the belief that there is no narrative about the overriding narrative (see Lyotard’s The Postmodern Condition for amplification). By no means is Habermas a postmodern, but what he does do is allow the ultimate postmodernist such as the MAGA hat morons and their leader to twist reality such that anything they say is the truth and is worthy of being considered. BOTH SIDES DON’T ALWAYS HAVE GOOD POINTS. (Climate deniers, vaccine deniers, election deniers, and evolution deniers are not worthy of consideration). That reminds me, Habermas had lots of hints of evo-devo nonsense floating around before it became fashionable, and also some psychoanalysis mumbo-jumbo.
  
  The danger I see from this book is when your only standard for truth is comportment to reality through pragmatism that precludes allowing coherence to be a standard, and as Hume would say (and he too is quoted frequently in this book), Reason is that which coheres. By reassessing the Enlightenment Project one risk giving credence to fascist whose truths come from their feelings alone, and the comment sections of the Wall Street Journal become valid.
• 
  Sue

  These ideas need to be considered more - if we want real democracy to flourish we need to implement some of them. We do not talk about important things anymore... We ought to.
• 
  Lorin

  The problem that most adults face in Modern society is that they have almost no ideas with which to formulate an understanding of how they can transform again. Most assume that they will learn more things that are learnable just as other things were in the past. Habermas (1984, p. 68), however, described the difference well:
  "With the transition to a new stage the interpretations of the superseded stage are, no matter what their content, categorically devalued. It is not this or that reason, but the kind of reason, which is no longer convincing."
  People incapable of imagining transformation no longer can conceive of new kinds of reasons…they can only conceive of “more” reasons that are simply more of the same kind. Looking at stage theories with advances well beyond that of the most advanced adults gives us a sense of humility to at least know that we do not know.
  
• 
  Mary

  Habermas intimidated me quite a deal, I admit, but the thing about analytical philosophers is that while their texts are lengthy and detailed in their proofs, they make for good skimming. In fact, Jeff Walker giving me permission not to worry about focusing on every page was a big part of the best day of my life. The ideas here are remarkably interesting and tie in dreadfully with Burke, I think.
• 
  Bengjaw

  Mr. Habermas, couldn't you write it in a simpler way? Your book is hard to read :))
• 
  Paul

  challenging but brilliant.
• 
  Anastasja

  One of the best book I've ever read. Not only because his views and his theory is part of my research topic but the ides he particularly describe almost change my perception of reality and espesially international relations which I currently studying. Highly recommend.
• 
  Sarah De Ruyter

  Such awful writing style but I still want him to come to my graduation party
• 
  Alexis

  "See the Marxists and other critical theorists are wrong cuz they think production relations are basic, but, in fact, linguistic relations are basic" is probably the only agreeable proposition I found here. JL Austin has been found rolling in his grave for decades.
• 
  Leonardo

  Si la comunicación es uno de los sectores hegemónicos de la producción y actúa sobre todo el campo biopolítico, entonces debemos considerar a la comunicación coexistente con el contexto biopolítico. Esto nos lleva mucho más allá del viejo terreno, como fue descrito por Jürgen Habermas, por ejemplo. De hecho, cuando Habermas desarrolló el concepto de acción comunicativa, demostrando tan fuertemente su forma productiva y las consecuencias ontológicas derivadas de ello, él se basó todavía en un punto de vista exterior a estos efectos de la globalización, un punto de vista de la vida y la verdad que podía oponerse a la colonización informacional del ser.
  
  
  Imperio Pág.32-33
  
  
  El Toyotismo se basa en una inversión de la estructura Fordista de comunicación entre la producción y el consumo. Idealmente, según este modelo, la planificación de la producción se comunicará constante e inmediatamente con los mercados. Las fábricas mantendrán un stock cero, y las mercancías serán producidas justo a tiempo, de acuerdo a la demanda actual de los mercados existentes. De este modo el modelo no implica simplemente un circuito de retroalimentación más veloz sino una inversión de la relación porque, al menos en teoría, la decisión de producción ocurre después y como reacción a la decisión del mercado. En los casos más extremos la mercancía no es producida hasta que el consumidor ya la haya elegido y comprado. Pero en general es más exacto concebir al modelo como empeñado en una rápida comunicación o continua interactividad entre la producción y el consumo. El contexto industrial provee un primer sentido en el que la comunicación y la información han llegado a cumplir un papel central en la producción. Podríamos afirmar que la acción instrumental y la acción comunicativa se han entrelazado íntimamente en el proceso industrial informacionalizado, pero debemos apresurarnos a agregar que esta es una noción empobrecida de la comunicación en cuanto mera transmisión de los datos del mercado.
  
  Pensamos principalmente en la división conceptual de Jürgen Habermas entre acción comunicativa y acción instrumental, en obras tales como The Theory of Communicative Action.
  
  
  Imperio Pág.219
• 
  Stefan Szczelkun

  I read this important book closely as the main theoretical work for my PhD. My summary is here:
  https://stefan-szczelkun.blogspot.com...
  On that page you will find links to two critiques I made. One, a power critique using my knowledge of Foucault and the other an aesthetic judgement critique.
  The other thing to say here is that volume 2 is more radical and interesting than Volume 1 and few people seem to get through to it! Habermas has a pedantic point by point style that can exhaust the reader that needs a bit more pezazz.
  
• 
  Erika

  Difícil compreender. Precisa releitura.