Mimesis and Reason: Habermas's Political Philosophy

Introduction

Introduction Those in earnest over the modern narrowing of human interests to economic interests must revisit such basic processes as meaning-making in communication to help think past a narrowly instrumental and interest-based account of human activity and the political. Jürgen Habermas’s conception of critical theory extends the scope of critique deeper than and beyond questions of political economy to consider those conditions of the production of meaning that foreground any question concerning the deliberate distribution of resources.1 It is one of Habermas’s singular contributions to have brought philosophy’s linguistic turn to critical theory, that is, to have drawn attention to language and communication as a medium and mode of interaction and power, of domination both legitimate and not. Habermas’s normative theory attempts to defend an ideal of underVWDQGLQJ WKDWVDWLVßHVWKHGHHSHSLVWHPRORJLFDOFKDOOHQJHVRIWKHOLQJXLVWLF turn in philosophy with respect to a positive valuation of modernity’s value-pluralism. Although Habermas consistently emphasizes the universal ambitions of his theory of communicative action—that the democratic structure of ideal speech can act as a normative counterfactual for all speech events aimed at understanding, and that the deep structure of speech holds the power to dissolve and transcend any merely conventional value—his attention to the complex differentiation of modernity forces a shift in the nature of how universal theory can be conceived, the implications of which are still being worked out.2 7KHPDLQWKUXVWRI+DEHUPDVÖVQRUPDWLYHSURMHFWLVWRUHßJXUHWKHFRQcept of reason as a force aiding the constitution of just ends. Communicative rationality is the centerpiece of a paradigm shift away from reason narrowly construed as a subjective faculty of instrumental, means–end calculation. A concept of subjective, calculative reason remains essential, of course, for when we want to think about how humans come to decisions HIßFLHQWO\, EXWTXHVWLRQVRIHIßFLHQF\EHJDWKHRU\RIWKHFRQVWLWXWLRQRIWKDWZKLFK LVWREHHIßFLHQWO\DUUDQJHG'RZHZLVKWRGHQ\a priori the applicability of the status of rational to all but those purposive decisions and actions 1 2 Mimesis and Reason taken by self-interested actors to satisfy pre-established goals? If not, then how shall we characterize a modern, postsubjectivist practice of reason, one that is neither so narrow that it ceases to help in addressing the most fundamental of political questions—who are we, and what ought we to do?—nor so full, as in Hegel’s view of Reason, that it subsumes and determines all answers in advance? If a reasonable politics does not merely denote the procedure by which political actors make tradeoffs among competing interests, but also helps WRSURGXFHWKRVHLQWHUHVWVLQWKHßUVWSODFHWKHQKRZPLJKWZHDUWLFXODWH a concept of reason, or rather, a practice of reasoning, which contributes to the positive making of good decisions? If a classical notion of politics remains relevant—politics as participation in community—then how is the identity of the we that makes decisions implicated in the reasonable expression of and development of our political will? Can the common employ of reason inspire political solidarity, and is this solidarity reasonable? Can political solidarities derive from within themselves answers to the demands of a reason sprung from their own process of working themselves out? Is there any other alternative? Toward forcing a basic shift in our collective thinking about the nature of reason in advocating a paradigm shift from subjective reason to communicative reason, Habermas conceives of communicative rationality as: (a) intersubjective, not subjective; (b) an achievement rather than an endowment ; (c) an experience arrived at and rearrived at through the action of discussion; (d) an experience whose principle basis is articulated speech in public rather than privately held thoughts or feelings; (e) answering to a VHWRIPRUDOSUHFRQGLWLRQVßJXUHGDVJRYHUQLQJWKHHYHQWRIXQGHUVWDQGLQJ rather than answering to either an underarticulated, intuitive moral sense RUDPRUDOVHQVHRYHUVSHFLßHGE\GRJPDDQG I SURGXFLQJDQGYDOLGDWLQJ claims in a process of coming to understanding, rather than mirroring or corresponding to objective truth. In brief, Habermas’s concept of communicative action aims to overcome subjectively individualistic and metaphysical accounts of reason so DV WR ORFDWH D VSHFLßFDOO\ communicative rationality as an emergent aspect of human interaction—of intersubjectivity—one that is in need of constant renewal, and therefore subject to continuous testing and reinvigoration in its application and revision. In these terms...