PHILOSOPHY AS EMANCIPATION IN HABERMASIAN CRITICAL SOCIAL THEORY

PHILOSOPHY AS EMANCIPATION IN HABERMASIAN CRITICAL SOCIAL THEORY [Published by Sofia. International Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 28, No. 1 (1998-1999): 85-100] J. Ranilo B. Hermida Introduction No less than some of the most significant German thinkers have vigorously proclaimed at different periods in history the end of philosophy. Karl Marx denounced philosophy for its poverty. Accordingly it merely tries to explain the world rather than confront the exigency to change it. Martin Heidegger lamented over metaphysics for having degenerated into the forgetfulness of being. In his view metaphysics, which was directed to answering the question of being, alas, no longer provided the ground on which to cultivate the very conditions of possibility for raising that question. And so what must be undertaken is precisely the overcoming of metaphysics. Hans-Georg Gadamer in turn abandoned the search for epistemological absolutes and foundational principles. Instead he inaugurated a change in perspective regarding the process of understanding and a reconsideration of the truth status of all knowledge. Moreover he advocated the development of a hermeneutic sensibility that recognizes the finitude of the human condition. For his part Jürgen Habermas (1985) asks whether philosophy still has a purpose. In the Philosophical-political profiles he raises this concern: … the unsettling question remains whether, after the downfall of systematic philosophy and now even the retreat of philosophy itself, it is still possible to do philosophy, and, if it is, for what purpose philosophy is needed. Why should not philosophy, like art and religion, fall victim to the world-historical process of rationalization described in historical terms by Max Weber and expressed conceptually by Horkheimer and Adorno in their dialectic? Why should not even philosophy itself fade away in the graveyard of a spirit that can no longer affirm and realize itself as absolute? Does philosophy still have a purpose today, and will it tomorrow? (p. 9). While still able to answer this question affirmatively, Habermas finds it necessary however to prescribe a kind of demotion of philosophy. This is because he considered it more pressing to forge a critical social theory, and he regarded the reconstructive sciences more important for this task. Although the end of philosophy had been rendered in varying descriptive fashions there seems to be however a general understanding among philosophers on one other meaning of the end. They agree that the end is not to be misunderstood as though philosophy has become a thing of the past, like a forgotten relic displayed in a dusty corner of a neglected museum. Neither is it to be interpreted as though philosophy has already fulfilled its telos, like Odysseus finally reaching the shores of Ithaca after a long and arduous journey. It is rather conceded that the end of philosophy signifies the clearing of a path which leads to the possibility of a novel and perhaps more creative way of thinking. Habermas discovers this new way in the conception of knowledge inspired by the movement known as German idealism. According to this view knowledge is to be at the service of freedom; it is not to remain in the level of contemplation but must initiate action towards human emancipation. Thus must philosophy remain true to its classical tradition by renouncing it. “The insight that the truth of statements is linked in the last analysis to the intention of the good and true life can be preserved today only on the ruins of ontology” (Habermas, 1971). A leap therefore has to be made from theory to practice. And this is to be propelled forward by critique because it is that which “conditions the verification of theories and ushers the enlightenment of practice” (Ibana, MFCS, p. 24). This critique is situated by Habermas within a theory of communicative action that is sustained by the identification of the universal presuppositions of everyday communication. It is to be accomplished by way of a science which he called universal pragmatics and which, according to Habermas, requires of philosophy to engage in a kind of self criticism, similar to that which Immanuel Kant demanded of reason to submit itself to its own tribunal. He maintained that the task of reconstruction demands that philosophy abandon its arrogant claim to be able to clarify exclusively the foundation of all knowledge. Instead it must humbly cooperate with the empirical sciences in explicating structures of worldviews and forms of life. Philosophy then has to undergo a radical change of role when it enters into a joint venture with the sciences. Habermas (1981) describes it thus: … it finds itself in a division of labor with reconstructive sciences: these sciences take up the pre-theoretical knowledge of competently judging, acting, and speaking subjects, as well as the collective knowledge of traditions, in order to get at the most general features of the rationality of experience and judgment, action and mutual understanding in language (p. 399). Furthermore, since these reconstructions undertaken with philosophical means propose strong universalistic claims, they retain only a hypothetical character. This means that they are open to further indirect testing. And so Habermas continues: A philosophy that opens its results to indirect testing in this way is guided by the fallibilistic consciousness that the theory of rationality it once wanted to develop on its own can now be sought only in the felicitous coherence of different theoretical fragments. Coherence is the sole criterion of considered choice at the level on which mutually fitting theories stand to one another in relations of supplementing and reciprocally presupposing, for it is only the individual propositions derivable from theories that are true or false (pp. 399-340). The ultimate implication of the above for Habermas is the rejection of a hierarchical arrangement of the sciences. With no single science asserting foundationalist claims, all theories then, be they philosophical in origin or otherwise, have to fit with one another and together carry out the tasks of a critical theory of society. Critical Theory Critical theory began with the efforts of thinkers from widely divergent fields of thought - economics, political science, philosophy, literary criticism, sociology - to present a new interpretation of Marxist theory and to focus speculation on issues and problems that had rarely been tackled by more orthodox approaches to Marxism (Held, 1980). It is generally acknowledged to have been initiated by the Frankfurt school, so called because it was there where the Institute of Social Research was established during the first quarter of this century, and this institute served as the center for its first adherents - Horkheimer, Pollock, Adorno, Fromm, Marcuse, Neumann, Kichheimer, Lowenthal, Grossman, Gurland. What distinguished this school were the essential features it assigned to critical social theory. It held that critical social theory is reflective as differentiated from the natural science theory which it characterized as objectifying. In addition critical social theory possesses cognitive element. And this kind of theory moreover serves as guide for human action. It is aimed at inducing enlightenment among its proponents so that they are able to clearly determine what their true interests are. Most important of all it is emancipatory because it frees agents from a kind of coercion which is self-imposed because it is the result of self-frustration of conscious human action (Geuss, 1981). To this tradition of thinking Habermas belongs. His work however is more recent and his sources include, not only those from which the earlier members of the Frankfurt school had drawn their main ideas, but also from Anglo-American disciplines, especially the philosophies of science and linguistic philosophies. He has also recast the notion of critical theory by installing rationality and communication at its center. For him the study of society is to be approached via a theory of communication. This he justified in his inaugural lecture at Frankfurt where he declared that what raises us out of nature is the only thing whose nature we can know and that is language (Habermas, 1971). Today the notion of critical social theory is more and more identified with Habermas. He is in fact considered as “one of the most exciting and widely read academic figures at the present time” (Rockmore 1987). This ascension of Habermasian philosophy is accounted for by Richard Bernstein (1985) in the following: Habermas is a thinker who at once stands against many of the intellectual currents and self-images of our time and speaks to our deepest aspirations and hopes. For we live in an era when there is a suspicion of reason, and of the very idea of universal validity claims that can be justified through argument… despite present fashions - he addresses himself to what many of us still believe, or want to believe: that it is possible to confront honestly the challenges, critiques, the unmasking of illusions; to work through these, and still responsibly reconstruct an informed comprehensive perspective on modernity and its pathologies (p. 25). In other words, although he was vocal about his misgivings towards traditional philosophy, none the less, Habermas established his project on a systematic philosophy still. He explored another alternative for reason, it is true; but, it was a quest for the possibility of a non-repressive conception of that same reason - what Maeve Cooke (1994) describes as “a conception that provides standards for the critique of irrational or unjust forms of individual and social life while avoiding possibly repressive metaphysical projections” (p. ix). Universal Pragmatics Habermas shifted from a theory of knowledge to a theory of language as starting point for his critical social theory. The main reason of Habermas for this linguistic turn, as spelled out by Rüdiger Bubner (1982), is to ensure that “he can set about the task of developing a theory which on the one hand is not endangered by ideology, in the sense of the traditional model of science, while on the other hand its critical thrust is not exhausted by the endless repetition of acts of reflection which have no theoretical consistency” (p. 46). This theory was first formulated as a doctrine of dialogue without coercion and later on was presented as a programme of universal pragmatics: “I have proposed the name universal pragmatics for the research program aimed at reconstructing the universal validity basis of speech” (Habermas, 1979). Robert Badillo (1991) explains how this universal pragmatics functions within the critical social theory of Habermas: Whereas universal pragmatics is concerned with elucidating the formal conditions of rational discourse, critical theory is concerned with appropriating this scheme in a theory of society explicitly dedicated to a form of human life free from all forms of prejudice, self-deception and error. For these are unconsciously appropriated in the self-formative process of an individual or group and significantly thwart the emancipatory potential of the persons or groups so affected (p. 55). As the above clearly indicates the intended goal is really emancipation which, in the assessment of Habermas, is hindered by constraints that are rooted in language. Universal pragmatics provides the methodological framework whereby the dissolution of said constraints is effected. This is to be done through the rational reconstruction of universal competencies or the articulation of the infrastructure that underlies speech and action. The inquiry into the foundation of language was accorded significance by Habermas (1971) in an earlier work, Knowledge and Human Interests, where he classified scientific disciplines into three categories in terms of their corresponding knowledge-constitutive interests. The first consists of the empirical-analytic sciences which procure knowledge for the sake of technical control. They are dictated by technical knowledge-constitutive interest in the instrumental regulation of objectified processes. The signification of empirical statements formulated in these sciences depends on their possible prediction and technical exploitability. The second is composed of the historical-hermeneutic sciences, which produce knowledge for the sake of interpretation. They are governed by practical interest in inter-subjective understanding. The signification of propositions advanced in these sciences proceeds from understanding meaning. Habermas identified a third group, the emancipatory sciences, which are motivated by interest in emancipation or self-reflection. In the following criticism of the empirical-analytic and the historical-hermeneutic sciences, he defends his preference for these emancipatory over the two other sciences: The latter displace our connection with tradition into the realm of the arbitrary while the former, on the leveled off basis of the repression of history, squeeze the conduct of this life into the behavioral system of instrumental action (p. 316). Only the emancipatory sciences for Habermas make use of knowledge for the sake of emancipation. While both the empirical and the interpretative sciences may not be denied their legitimate contributions towards human emancipation from the oppressive conditions of nature and of culture, respectively, it should be asserted at the same time however that in the process they perpetuate new oppressive conditions and other forms of pathologies. Rainier Ibana (IMFCS) points this out with unerring clarity: While empirical science liberates humans from the exigencies of the natural world, it creates new forms of domination as exemplified by the alienating conditions of technology and environmental pollution. Furthermore, empirical knowledge makes humans indifferent not liberated. The “objectivist illusion” that masks the empirical science deceives humans of the fallibility of their hypotheses… The interpretative sciences also have emancipatory potentials. Habermas does not deny that collective self-consciousness is a prerequisite to social emancipation. His problem is the self-serving justifications of the interpreter who merely projects biases on the data at hand. While this is not a vice in itself, it does not leave room for criticizing “systematically distorted” forms of communication where the presentation of data are willfully corrupted by those in power (pp. 25-26). Universal pragmatics is an emancipatory science. Through the ideal speech situation that it portrays it is able to expose the manner in which language can serve as a source and perpetrator of unconscious constraints. The ideal speech situation thus serves as an instrument for emancipatory critique. Universal pragmatics is also a reconstructive science for it investigates the universal and unavoidable presuppositions behind the successful operation of speech acts oriented to achieving mutual understanding. Habermas (1979) elaborates this aspect of universal pragmatics: … It thematizes the elementary units of speech (utterances) in an attitude similar to that in which linguistics does the units of language (sentences). The goal of reconstructive language analysis is an explicit description of the rules that a competent speaker must master in order to form grammatical sentences and to utter them in an acceptable way… It is… assumed that communicative competence has just as universal a core as linguistic competence. A general theory of speech actions would thus describe exactly that fundamental system of rules that adult subjects master to the extent that they can fulfill the conditions for a happy employment of sentences in utterances, no matter to which individual languages the sentences may belong and in which accidental contexts the utterances may be embedded (p. 26). For Habermas then language has a pragmatic context. Consequently a theory of language like universal pragmatics must involve an explication of how a speaker is able to bring about an interpersonal engagement with a hearer so that the latter can rely on him. It cannot remain a purely linguistic enterprise that disregards the pragmatic dimension present in every speech performance directed towards understanding. This is because, as Badillo stressed, “the essential notion operative in universal pragmatics… is that there are no speech acts without dialogical participants; that is, speech is not possible without, at the very least, a speaker and a hearer engaged in the process of communication” (p. 57). Habermas professed great interest in investigating the validity basis of speech. For he maintained that there is a rational foundation, a series of validity claims possessing cognitive interest, which is behind every attempt at successful communication. … Anyone acting communicatively must, in performing any speech action, raise universal validity claims and suppose that they can be vindicated [or redeemed: einlösen]. Insofar as he wants to participate in a process of reaching understanding, he cannot avoid raising the following - and indeed precisely the following - validity claims. He claims to be: 1. Uttering something understandably; 2. Giving (the hearer) something to understand; 3. Making himself thereby understandable; and, 4. Coming to an understanding with another person (p. 2). So four types of claims are always present before interlocutors who wish to reach an understanding: comprehensibility or intelligibility (Verständlichkeit)- that the utterance is understandable; truth (Warheit) - that its propositional content or existential presupposition is true; rightness or correctness (Richtigkeit) - that it is a legitimate utterance within the given context; and, sincerity (Wahrhaftigkeit) - that it is spoken truthfully. Together they constitute the conditio sine qua non of every communicative action. In other words such interaction can be pursued only to the degree to which the participants involved in it credibly sustain these four types of validity claims. Of course it must be admitted that in ordinary conversations these claims are taken for granted. Yet they are assumed all the time so that the interacting subjects could vindicate their beliefs if the situation so warrants. This assumption always persists as the reciprocal presupposition unavoidable in speech. According to Habermas the goal of coming to an understanding is the attainment of genuine consensus which he defines as “an agreement that terminates in the intersubjective mutuality of reciprocal understanding, shared knowledge, mutual trust, and accord with one another” (p. 3). Universal pragmatics focuses on the elements and general conditions of said understanding. This it accomplishes through an examination of the relation to reality that the speaker establishes in his every sentence. There are three realms of reality in which every sentence is first embedded through the act of utterance: a) external reality - the world of external nature, of perceived and potentially manipulable objects; b) normative reality - our world of society or of socially recognized expectations, values, rules; and, c) inner reality - my world of internal nature, the arena of intentions. Through language the subject engages in a process of demarcation: The universality of the validity claims inherent in the structure of speech can perhaps be elucidated with reference to the systematic place of language. Language is the medium through which speakers and hearers realize fundamental demarcations. The subject demarcates himself: (1) from an environment that he objectifies in the third-person attitude of an observer; (2) from an environment that he conforms to or deviates from in the ego-alter attitude of a participant; (3) from his own subjectivity that he expresses or conceals in a first-person attitude; and finally (4) from the medium of language itself (p. 66). These demarcations are accompanied by basic attitudes on the part of the speaker: objectivating with respect to external nature, conformative vis-à-vis society, and expressive with regard to internal nature. To these correspond furthermore three parallel modes of communication: cognitive, interactive, and expressive. Habermas highlights the claim of intelligibility as the only claim attached to a sentence that can be fulfilled immanently in language. A sentence needs only to be grammatical and conform to an established system of recognized rules for the use of language. The other three claims however require something more beyond language: … The validity of the propositional content of an utterance depends… on whether the proposition stated represents a fact (or whether the existential presuppositions of a mentioned propositional content hold); the validity of an intention expressed depends on whether it corresponds to what is actually intended by the speaker; and the validity of utterance performed depends on whether his action conforms to a recognized normative background. Whereas a grammatical sentence fulfills the claim to comprehensibility, a successful utterance must satisfy three additional validity claims: it must count as true for the participants insofar as it represents something in the world, it must count as truthful insofar as it expresses something intended by the speaker; it must count as right insofar as it conforms to socially recognized expectations (p. 28). Universal pragmatics furthermore pursues the rational reconstruction of communicative competence. This last refers to the various means of using language to arrive at consensus and agreement between two or more speaking and acting subjects. It should not be associated exclusively with the specialized work of intellectuals, for in fact communicative competence involves the universal means in which speech is used to create and foster social relationship (Pusey, 1987). And what this entails is much more than the mastery of syntactical and grammatical rules of a language. There is a specific function that speech performs in each of the three modes of communication: for the cognitive, the representation of facts; for the expressive, the disclosure of the speaker’s subjectivity; and, for the interactive, the establishment of legitimate interpersonal or social relations. In explaining the meaning of communicative competence Habermas ascribes particular importance to the last function. Allied with communicative competence is the theory of speech acts which Habermas adopted from the work of Austin and Searle (McCarthy, 1991). A speech act is the basic unit of a sentence in an utterance. A linguistic utterance has a performative status which is to say that when a speaker says something he is simultaneously doing things. And this is the formation of a certain relation between him and his counterpart besides his conveyance of something to the latter. Habermas therefore distinguishes two communicative levels on which speaker and hearer must simultaneously come to an understanding if they want to communicate their intentions to each other. … (1) the level of intersubjectivity on which speaker and hearer, through illocutionary acts, establish the relations that permit them to come to an understanding with one another, and (2) the level of propositional content which is communicated (p. 42). Thus the participants in a dialogue have to combine communication of a content with communication about the role in which the communicated content is used (Held, 1980). Habermas was keenly interested in tracing the illocutionary force of an utterance to its source. He wanted to know how a speaker is able to influence his hearer to enter into an interpersonal relationship with him. He sought to pinpoint the basis of the generative power that a speech act wields. And his preoccupation with these concerns was specifically centered on a particular kind of speech acts, the propositionally differentiated and institutionally unbound speech actions, or the “speech acts that do not presuppose specific institutions [or sets of institutions] where quite explicit rules and norms determine the conditions of speech action [as in, for instance… marrying, christening]” (Held, 1980). There are certain conditions that determine the success or failure of speech actions. Success refers to a situation in which the hearer not only captures the meaning of the sentence uttered but also willingly enters the relationship intended by the speaker. This is explained by Habermas in the following: The bond into which the speaker is willing to enter with the performance of an illocutionary acts means a guarantee that, in consequence of his utterance, he will fulfill certain conditions - for example, regard a question as settled when a satisfactory answer is given; drop an assertion when it proves to be false; follow his own advice when he finds himself in the same situation as the hearer; stress a request when it is not complied with; act in accordance with an intention disclosed by avowal, and so on. Thus the illocutionary force of an acceptable speech act consists in the fact that it can move a hearer to rely on the speech-act-typical commitments of the speaker (p. 62). Admittedly this pattern of relations is easily built when institutional speech acts are concerned because of the binding force of established norms that constitute their background and medium. What challenged Habermas is the matter of institutionally unbound speech acts. He noted that the illocutionary power of these latter acts cannot derive from the binding force of the normative context. He sought and found that illocutionary force in what he calls the reciprocal recognition of validity claims. With their illocutionary acts, speaker and hearer raise validity claims and demand they be recognized. But this recognition need not follow irrationally, since the validity claims have a cognitive character and can be checked. I would like, therefore, to defend the following thesis: In the final analysis, the speaker can illocutionarily influence the hearer and vice versa, because speech-act-typical commitments are connected with cognitively testable validity claims - that is, because the reciprocal bonds have a rational basis. The engaged speaker normally connects the specific sense in which he would like to take up an interpersonal relationship with a thematically stressed validity claim and thereby chooses a specific mode of communication… Thus assertions, descriptions, classifications, estimates, predictions, objections, and the like, have different specific meanings; but the claim put forward in these different interpersonal relationships is, or is based on, the truth of corresponding propositions or on the ability of a subject to have cognitions. Correspondingly, requests, orders, admonitions, promises, agreements, excuses, admissions, and the like, have different specific meanings; but the claim put forward in these different interpersonal relationships is, or refers to, the rightness of norms or to the ability of a subject to assume responsibility. We might say that in different speech acts the content of the speaker’s engagement is determined by different ways of appealing to the same, thematically stressed, universal validity claim. And since as a result of this appeal to universal validity claims, the speech-act-typical commitments take on the character of obligations to provide grounds or to prove trustworthy, the hearer can be rationally motivated by the speaker’s signaled engagement to accept the latter’s offer (p. 63). In a capsule this signifies that the hearer can be rationally motivated to accept the content proposed by the speaker. This acceptance is facilitated by the immanent obligation of each type of speech action to provide, for every validity claim made, either grounds (in the case of constatives), justifications (in the case of regulatives), or confirmations (in the case of avowals). The satisfaction of this obligation can be done either immediately - in the context of utterance, or mediately - in discourse or in the succession of consistent actions. Immediately it is satisfied through recourse to experiential certainty (with respect to truth); through indicating a corresponding normative background (with respect to rightness); or through affirmation of what is evident to oneself (with respect to sincerity). On the contrary the mediate satisfaction of this immanent obligation is realized according to the mode of communication engaged in. David Held (1980) explicates the process involved in each of the three modes: In the cognitive use of language, if an initial statement is found unconvincing, the truth claim can be tested in a theoretical discourse. In the interactive use of language, if the rightness of an utterance is doubted, it can become the subject of a practical discourse. In the expressive use of language, if the truthfulness or sincerity of an utterance is questioned, it can be checked against future action (p. 338). Thus universal pragmatics generates a genuine optimism over the comprehensive possibility to examine an utterance. This is an essential component of the rational motivation behind the illocutionary force of a speech action. Habermas assures us of this: We can examine every utterance to see whether it is true or untrue, justified or unjustified, truthful or untruthful, because in a speech, no matter what the emphasis, grammatical sentences are embedded in relations to reality in such a way that in an acceptable speech action segments of external nature, society, and internal nature always come into appearance together (p. 68). Four types of speech action are enumerated. John Thompson (1982) details the nature of each one: … the ‘communicatives’ (to say, to ask, etc.)… are directed at the process of communication as such, and… facilitate the distinction between meaning and the fluctuating signs wherein it is expressed… the ‘constatives’ (to assert, to describe, etc.), are concerned with the cognitive application of sentences, enabling a subject to differentiate between a public world of being and a private world of appearance. ‘Representatives’ (to admit, to conceal, etc.),… serve to express the intentions, attitudes and feelings of the speaker, thereby making possible the distinction between the individuated self and the expressions in which it appears… the ‘regulatives’ (to order, to prohibit, etc.),… refer to norms that can be followed or broken, and which thus mark a distinction between empirical regularities and valid rules (pp. 122-123). These various aspects of universal pragmatics are schematically illustrated in the table below: Domains Of Reality Modes of Communication and Basic Attitudes Types of Speech-Action Validity Claims Themes Immanent Obligation of Speech-Action to Provide General Functions of Speech ‘The’ world of external nature Cognitive Objectivating attitude Constatives Truth Propositional content Grounds Representation of facts ‘Our’ world of society Interactive Conformative attitude Regulatives Correctness Rightness Appropriateness Interpersonal content Justifications Establishment of legitimate interpersonal or social relations ‘My’ world of internal nature Expressive Expressive attitude Representatives Avowals Sincerity Truthfulness Speaker’s intention Confirmations Disclosure of speaker’s subjectivity Language ------------ Communicatives Intelligibility Comprehensibility ------------ ------------ ------------ All these can function smoothly if the validity claim that is proffered is accepted and hence a consensus is reached. That consensus however may be questionable as to its authenticity. It could be a true or false consensus. Moreover discourse itself may be systematically distorted. Habermas recognizes these problematic situations and he maintains that these can be overcome by ensuring that the speech situation rests on the suspension of the constraints of action. No form of compulsion is to be tolerated other than the force of the better argument and finally only one motive is allowed to dominate and that is the cooperative search for truth. Another problem area in universal pragmatics is when communication is frustrated. This happens when a validity claim is initially challenged or rejected outright. In such a situation there is a need for the claim to be redeemed, otherwise communication cannot continue, or if it does then it usually leads to a recourse to other types of action like struggle and conflict. There is however a possibility to adequately redeem a validity claim so as to reach consensus still. Habermas posits the concept of an ideal speech situation which accordingly guarantees the development of a grounded consensus. How the conditions of this ideal speech situation are specified by Habermas is detailed for us by Held: The conditions for a grounded consensus is a situation in which there is mutual understanding between participants, equal chances to select and employ speech acts, recognition of the legitimacy of each to participate in the dialogue as ‘an autonomous and equal partner’ where the resulting consensus is due simply ‘to the force of the better argument’. In other words the conditions of the ideal speech situation must ensure equal opportunity for discussion, free from all domination, whether arising from conscious strategic behavior and/or systematically distorted communication (internal and/or external constraints). A consensus attained in this situation, referred to by Habermas as a ‘rational consensus’, is the ultimate criterion of the truth of a statement or the correctness of norms. The criterion is ‘not the fact that some consensus has been reached; but rather that at all times and all places, if only we enter a discourse, a consensus can be arrived at under conditions which show the consensus to be grounded’ (pp. 343-344). Another helpful explanation of this ideal speech situation is contributed by Thompson who noted that Habermas assumed that the structure of communication itself produces no constraints if and only if, for all possible participants, there is a symmetrical distribution of chances to choose and to apply speech acts. The assumption of symmetry forms the general framework of the ideal speech situation, allowing the latter to be specified… in terms of the four classes of speech-acts. Equality in the opportunity to apply communicatives means that all potential participants have the same chance to initiate and sustain discussion through questions and answers, claims and counter-claims. A symmetrical distribution of chances to apply constatives implies that all potential participants have the same opportunity to proffer interpretations and explanations, so that no preconceptions remain excluded from view. An equal opportunity to apply representatives gives all potential participants the same chance to express intentions and attitudes, creating the circumstances in which subjects become transparent to themselves and others in what they say and do. Finally, symmetry in the distribution of chances to apply regulatives entails that all potential participants have the same opportunity to order and prohibit, to obey and refuse, thereby precluding the privileges that arise from one-sided norms (pp. 124-125). Habermas readily admits that the conditions he laid down are ideal but he quickly adds also that this does not thereby diminish the significance of the ideal speech situation. While granting that they may be counterfactual, he argues however that they need not necessarily be so. And so he said that he would rather speak of an anticipation of an ideal speech situation which accordingly is the only warrant that permits us to join the claim of a rational consensus to an actually attained consensus. At the same time this ideal speech situation serves as a critical standard to measure and evaluate every actually realized consensus. Conclusion The development of society, Habermas observed, progresses not only along the lines of technological innovation and labor but also in the dimension of communicative interaction. This last refers to the autonomous sphere in which cultural traditions are historically transmitted and social relations are institutionally organized. His concern for this sphere introduced Habermas to hermeneutics, which he instantly complimented for its recognition of language as constituting social and historical phenomena. He detected however a certain shortcoming in hermeneutics, namely, its tendency to idealize the constitutive role of language. Habermas opined that contrary to the hermeneutic position language is in itself dependent on social processes which are not entirely linguistic in nature. As a matter of fact it can also be a medium of domination and social force (Thompson, 1982). For this reason, and owing to his interest in emancipation, Habermas takes a leap from hermeneutics to pragmatics as point de depart of his critical social theory. It is manifest then that the fundamental norms of rational speech articulated by Habermas are not mere appurtenances of his universal pragmatics. They actually point to a larger vision of society that he nurtures in his critical social theory - a society where the reign of truth, freedom and justice can flourish through the inherent structure of social action and language. For after all, as Habermas (1971) declared, truth and virtue, facts and values, theory and practice are inseparable and “the truth of statements is linked… to the intention of the good and true life” (p. 317). Habermas has been widely criticized for the alleged utopian character of his critical theory and the idealistic overtures of his pragmatics. Bubner (1982) offers a rejoinder to this perception: This idea of freedom or the interest in emancipation must always be considered… as an anticipation of a condition which by definition does not yet exist. Only the future can promise one the ‘fulfilled life’ which echoes the ancient ideal of political eudaimonia, whereas the history known to us must be reconstructed as a process of the suppression of dialogue. After language as dialogue has offered philosophy the prospect of grasping a rationality of life in a manner more direct than the old dichotomy between ideal and reality, between life as it is and life as it ought to be, the a priori evidence shifts away once again into a utopian assumption of a condition which does not yet exist and which hitherto never has existed (p. 48). The crucial point is that this interest in emancipation impels us to initiate or promote efforts towards building more humane societies by advocating a rigorous analysis of the complex relationships between espoused ideals and social structures. Too often the set of conditions which must exist for the ideal to become a fully social reality are ignored or considered too difficult a task and thus not worth the enterprise. And then sadly the existing realities are grossly legitimated into a dominant ideology that presents itself as the most desirable option as it shuns critique and hides its own pathologies. James Rurak (1981) therefore vehemently warns us that without visions which take us beyond our present condition we tend to accept our present condition as inevitable. “Without utopian thinking, the given social order may be unduly elevated to the status of the natural order, and so be regarded as unalterable” (p. 186). Towards the avoidance of this eventuality Habermas expects the philosopher to address his project of thinking and action. Ibana believes that indeed the philosopher can contribute substantially towards this end: By participating in the daily discourses of everyday life, philosophers can have an impact on social transformation. Such a project need not be as dramatic as social revolutions. It could take the form of mediating various competing interests so that competing parties can come to mutual understanding on the basis of arguments and insights. Philosophers have a distinct contribution to make in this project since they are well versed in adjudicating the depth of insights and in analyzing the validity of arguments (DACS, p. 13). Habermas in fact proposed the transformation of the liberal public sphere as a forum of critical public discussion of matters of general concern. And “he himself participates actively in the concrete issues of his time and thus putting his reputation as a philosopher in line with the discourse of ordinary people in everyday life” (p. 2). There is always a chasm that separates rhetoric from action in the pursuit of a goal. Against the background of his critical social theory Habermas is convinced that philosophy as emancipation can satisfactorily bridge these two poles. Selected References BOOKS Badillo, Robert P. 1991. The emancipative theory of Jürgen Habermas and metaphysics. Washington: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy. Bernstein, Richard J, ed. 1985. Habermas and modernity. Cambridge: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. Bleicher, Josef. 1980. Contemporary hermeneutics: Hermeneutics as method, philosophy and critique. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Brand, Arie. 1990. The force of reason: An introduction to Habermas’ theory of communicative action. Sydney: Allen and Unwin. Cooke, Maeve. 1994. Language and reason: A study of Habermas’ pragmatics. Cambridge: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. Geuss, Raymond. 1981. The idea of a critical theory: Habermas and the Frankfurt school. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Habermas, Jürgen. 1971. Knowledge and human interests. Translated by Jeremy J. Shapiro. Boston: Beacon Press. ________. 1979. Communication and the evolution of society. Translated by Thomas McCarthy. Boston: Beacon Press. ________. 1985. Philosophical-political profiles. Translated by Frederick G. Lawrence. Cambridge: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. Held, David. 1980. Introduction to critical theory: Horkheimer to Habermas. Berkeley: University of California Press. McCarthy, Thomas. 1991. The critical theory of Jürgen Habermas. Cambridge: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. O’Neill, John, ed. 1989. On critical theory. New York: University Press of America, Inc. Pusey, Michael. 1987. Jürgen Habermas. New York: Routledge. Thompson, John and David Held, eds. 1982. Habermas: Critical debates. Cambridge: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. ARTICLES Broniak, Christopher. 1988. “What is emancipation for Habermas?,” Philosophy Today XXXII, 3 (Fall 1988): 195-206. Bubner Rüdiger. 1982. “Habermas’ concept of critical theory,” in Habermas: Critical debates. Edited by John Thompson and David Held, 42-56. Cambridge: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. Henning, Ottmann. 1982. “Cognitive interests and self-reflection.” in Habermas: Critical debates. Edited by John Thompson and David Held, 79-97. Cambridge: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. Misgeld, Dieter. 1989. “Critical theory and hermeneutics: The debate between Habermas and Gadamer,” in On critical theory. Edited by John O’Neill, 164-183. New York University Press of America, Inc. Rurak, James. 1981. “The imaginative power of utopias: A hermeneutic for its recovery,” Philosophy and Social Criticism VIII, 2 (Summer 1981): 183-206. Thompson, John B. 1982. “Universal pragmatics,” in Habermas: Critical debates. Edited by John Thompson and David Held, 116-133. Cambridge: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. Wellmer, Albrecht. 1989. “Communications and manipulation: Reflections on the linguistic turn in critical theory,” in On critical theory. Edited by John O’Neill, 231-263. New York University Press of America, Inc. MONOGRAPHS Ibana, Rainier. “An introduction to the methodological foundations of civil society in Habermas’ critical theory” (IMFCS). ________. “Civil society and the common good” (CSCG). ________. “Civil society and the principle of solidarity” (CSPSO). ________. “Habermas’ discourse ethics and the project of democratization” (DEPD). ________. “On civil society and the politics of identity” (CSPID). ________. “The democratic aspirations of civil society and Habermas’ discourse theory of morality” (DACS). Reyes, Ramon. “The role of the philosopher as social thinker and critic” (RPSTC). DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY ATENEO DE MANILA UNIVERSITY 22