It’s such a pleasure to find these men talking about the things that matter. As if I’d been starving for decades! It’s funny that they think they contradict each other, they might on some levels, but they are all aspects of the same tapestry.
Welcome to the Public Square Mr. Habermas, I will learn from you.
Jürgen Habermas
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Full name Jürgen Habermas
Born June 18, 1929 (age 80)
Era 20th century
Region Western Philosophy
School Continental philosophy
Main interests Social Theory · Epistemology
Political theory · Pragmatics
Notable ideas Communicative rationality
Discourse ethics
Deliberative democracy
Universal pragmatics
Communicative action
Public Sphere
Influenced by[show]
Influenced[show]
Jürgen Habermas (pronounced /ˈjɜrɡən or ˈjʊrɡən ˈhɑːbərˌmɑːs/[1]; German pronunciation: [ˈjʏʁɡən ˈhaːbɐmaːs]; born June 18, 1929) is a German sociologist and philosopher in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. He is perhaps best known for his work on the concept of the public sphere, the topic of his first book entitled The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. His work focuses on the foundations of social theory and epistemology, the analysis of advanced capitalistic societies and democracy, the rule of law in a critical social-evolutionary context, and contemporary politics—particularly German politics. Habermas’s theoretical system is devoted to revealing the possibility of reason, emancipation, and rational-critical communication latent in modern institutions and in the human capacity to deliberate and pursue rational interests.
Contents [hide]
1 Biography
1.1 Teacher and mentor
2 Theory
2.1 Reconstructive science
2.2 The public sphere
3 Habermas versus Postmodernists
4 Important Transitional Works
5 Key Dialogues
5.1 Historikerstreit (Historians’ Quarrel)
5.2 Habermas and Derrida
5.3 Dialogue with Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI)
6 Habermas Today
7 Major works
8 See also
9 References
9.1 Notes
9.2 Sources
10 Awards
11 External links
[edit]Biography
Born June 18, 1929 (age 80)
Era 20th century
Region Western Philosophy
School Continental philosophy
Main interests Social Theory · Epistemology
Political theory · Pragmatics
Notable ideas Communicative rationality
Discourse ethics
Deliberative democracy
Universal pragmatics
Communicative action
Public Sphere
Influenced by[show]
Influenced[show]
Jürgen Habermas (pronounced /ˈjɜrɡən or ˈjʊrɡən ˈhɑːbərˌmɑːs/[1]; German pronunciation: [ˈjʏʁɡən ˈhaːbɐmaːs]; born June 18, 1929) is a German sociologist and philosopher in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. He is perhaps best known for his work on the concept of the public sphere, the topic of his first book entitled The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. His work focuses on the foundations of social theory and epistemology, the analysis of advanced capitalistic societies and democracy, the rule of law in a critical social-evolutionary context, and contemporary politics—particularly German politics. Habermas’s theoretical system is devoted to revealing the possibility of reason, emancipation, and rational-critical communication latent in modern institutions and in the human capacity to deliberate and pursue rational interests.
Contents [hide]
1 Biography
1.1 Teacher and mentor
2 Theory
2.1 Reconstructive science
2.2 The public sphere
3 Habermas versus Postmodernists
4 Important Transitional Works
5 Key Dialogues
5.1 Historikerstreit (Historians’ Quarrel)
5.2 Habermas and Derrida
5.3 Dialogue with Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI)
6 Habermas Today
7 Major works
8 See also
9 References
9.1 Notes
9.2 Sources
10 Awards
11 External links
[edit]Biography
Part of a series on the
Frankfurt School
Frankfurt School
Major works
Reason and Revolution
Dialectic of Enlightenment
Minima Moralia
Eros and Civilization
One-Dimensional Man
Negative Dialectics
The Theory of Communicative Action
Notable theorists
Max Horkheimer · Theodor Adorno
Herbert Marcuse · Walter Benjamin
Franz Neumann · Friedrich Pollock
Erich Fromm · Leo Löwenthal
Helmut Reichelt · Jürgen Habermas
Important concepts
Critical theory · Dialectic · Praxis
Psychoanalysis · Antipositivism
Popular culture · Culture industry
Advanced capitalism · Privatism
v • d • e
Born in Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, in 1929, to a middle class and rather traditional family, Habermas came of age in postwar Germany. In his early teens, during World War II, Habermas was profoundly affected by the war. The Nuremberg Trials were a key formative moment that brought home to him the depth of Germany’s moral and political failure under National Socialism.
Until his graduation from gymnasium, Habermas lived in Gummersbach, near Cologne. His father, Ernst Habermas, was executive director of the Cologne Chamber of Industry and Commerce, and was described by Habermas as a Nazi sympathizer. He was brought up in a staunchly Protestant milieu, his grandfather being the director of the seminary in Gummersbach. He studied at the universities of Göttingen (1949/50), Zürich (1950/51), and Bonn (1951–54) and earned a doctorate in philosophy from Bonn in 1954 with a dissertation written on the conflict between the absolute and history in Schelling’s thought, entitled, Das Absolute und die Geschichte. Von der Zwiespältigkeit in Schellings Denken (“The absolute and history: on the contradiction in Schelling’s thought”). His dissertation committee included Erich Rothacker and Oskar Becker.
From 1956 on, he studied philosophy and sociology under the critical theorists Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt am Main Institute for Social Research, but because of a rift between the two over his dissertation—Horkheimer had made unacceptable demands for revision—as well as his own belief that the Frankfurt School had become paralyzed with political skepticism and disdain for modern culture—he finished his habilitation in political science at the University of Marburg under the Marxist Wolfgang Abendroth. His habilitation work was entitled, Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit; Untersuchungen zu einer Kategorie der Bürgerlichen Gesellschaft (published in English translation in 1989 as The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: an Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society). In 1961, he became a privatdozent in Marburg, and—in a move that was highly unusual for the German academic scene of that time—he was offered the position of “extraordinary professor” (professor without chair) of philosophy at the University of Heidelberg (at the instigation of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Karl Löwith) in 1962, which he accepted. In this same year he gained his first serious public attention, in Germany, with the publication of his habilitation, Strukturwandel der Offentlichkeit (Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere; English ed., 1989), a detailed social history of the development of the bourgeois public sphere from its origins in the 18th century salons up to its transformation through the influence of capital-driven mass media. In 1964, strongly supported by Adorno, Habermas returned to Frankfurt to take over Horkheimer’s chair in philosophy and sociology. The philosopher Albrecht Wellmer was his assistant in Frankfurt from 1966 to 1970.
He accepted the position of Director of the Max Planck Institute in Starnberg (near Munich) in 1971, and worked there until 1983, two years after the publication of his magnum opus, The Theory of Communicative Action.
Habermas then returned to his chair at Frankfurt and the directorship of the Institute for Social Research. Since retiring from Frankfurt in 1993, Habermas has continued to publish extensively. In 1986, he received the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, which is the highest honour awarded in German research. He also holds the uncharacteristically postmodern position of “Permanent Visiting” Professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and “Theodor Heuss Professor” at The New School, New York.
Habermas was awarded The Prince of Asturias Award in Social Sciences of 2003. Habermas was also the 2004 Kyoto Laureate in the Arts and Philosophy section. He traveled to San Diego and on March 5, 2005, as part of the University of San Diego’s Kyoto Symposium, gave a speech entitled The Public Role of Religion in Secular Context, regarding the evolution of separation of Church and State from neutrality to intense secularism. He received the 2005 Holberg International Memorial Prize (about € 520,000).
[edit]Teacher and mentor
Habermas is a famed teacher and mentor. Among his most prominent students were the pragmatic philosopher Herbert Schnädelbach (theorist of discourse distinction and rationality), the political sociologist Claus Offe (professor at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin) , the social philosopher Johann Arnason (professor at La Trobe University and chief editor of the journal Thesis Eleven), the sociological theorist Hans Joas (professor at the University of Erfurt and at the University of Chicago), the theorist of societal evolution Klaus Eder, the social philosopher Axel Honneth (the current director of the Institute for Social Research), the anarcho-capitalist philosopher Hans-Hermann Hoppe, the American philosopher Thomas McCarthy, the co-creator of mindful inquiry in social research Jeremy J. Shapiro, and the assassinated Serbian prime minister Zoran Đinđić.
[edit]Theory
Reason and Revolution
Dialectic of Enlightenment
Minima Moralia
Eros and Civilization
One-Dimensional Man
Negative Dialectics
The Theory of Communicative Action
Notable theorists
Max Horkheimer · Theodor Adorno
Herbert Marcuse · Walter Benjamin
Franz Neumann · Friedrich Pollock
Erich Fromm · Leo Löwenthal
Helmut Reichelt · Jürgen Habermas
Important concepts
Critical theory · Dialectic · Praxis
Psychoanalysis · Antipositivism
Popular culture · Culture industry
Advanced capitalism · Privatism
v • d • e
Born in Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, in 1929, to a middle class and rather traditional family, Habermas came of age in postwar Germany. In his early teens, during World War II, Habermas was profoundly affected by the war. The Nuremberg Trials were a key formative moment that brought home to him the depth of Germany’s moral and political failure under National Socialism.
Until his graduation from gymnasium, Habermas lived in Gummersbach, near Cologne. His father, Ernst Habermas, was executive director of the Cologne Chamber of Industry and Commerce, and was described by Habermas as a Nazi sympathizer. He was brought up in a staunchly Protestant milieu, his grandfather being the director of the seminary in Gummersbach. He studied at the universities of Göttingen (1949/50), Zürich (1950/51), and Bonn (1951–54) and earned a doctorate in philosophy from Bonn in 1954 with a dissertation written on the conflict between the absolute and history in Schelling’s thought, entitled, Das Absolute und die Geschichte. Von der Zwiespältigkeit in Schellings Denken (“The absolute and history: on the contradiction in Schelling’s thought”). His dissertation committee included Erich Rothacker and Oskar Becker.
From 1956 on, he studied philosophy and sociology under the critical theorists Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt am Main Institute for Social Research, but because of a rift between the two over his dissertation—Horkheimer had made unacceptable demands for revision—as well as his own belief that the Frankfurt School had become paralyzed with political skepticism and disdain for modern culture—he finished his habilitation in political science at the University of Marburg under the Marxist Wolfgang Abendroth. His habilitation work was entitled, Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit; Untersuchungen zu einer Kategorie der Bürgerlichen Gesellschaft (published in English translation in 1989 as The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: an Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society). In 1961, he became a privatdozent in Marburg, and—in a move that was highly unusual for the German academic scene of that time—he was offered the position of “extraordinary professor” (professor without chair) of philosophy at the University of Heidelberg (at the instigation of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Karl Löwith) in 1962, which he accepted. In this same year he gained his first serious public attention, in Germany, with the publication of his habilitation, Strukturwandel der Offentlichkeit (Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere; English ed., 1989), a detailed social history of the development of the bourgeois public sphere from its origins in the 18th century salons up to its transformation through the influence of capital-driven mass media. In 1964, strongly supported by Adorno, Habermas returned to Frankfurt to take over Horkheimer’s chair in philosophy and sociology. The philosopher Albrecht Wellmer was his assistant in Frankfurt from 1966 to 1970.
He accepted the position of Director of the Max Planck Institute in Starnberg (near Munich) in 1971, and worked there until 1983, two years after the publication of his magnum opus, The Theory of Communicative Action.
Habermas then returned to his chair at Frankfurt and the directorship of the Institute for Social Research. Since retiring from Frankfurt in 1993, Habermas has continued to publish extensively. In 1986, he received the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, which is the highest honour awarded in German research. He also holds the uncharacteristically postmodern position of “Permanent Visiting” Professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and “Theodor Heuss Professor” at The New School, New York.
Habermas was awarded The Prince of Asturias Award in Social Sciences of 2003. Habermas was also the 2004 Kyoto Laureate in the Arts and Philosophy section. He traveled to San Diego and on March 5, 2005, as part of the University of San Diego’s Kyoto Symposium, gave a speech entitled The Public Role of Religion in Secular Context, regarding the evolution of separation of Church and State from neutrality to intense secularism. He received the 2005 Holberg International Memorial Prize (about € 520,000).
[edit]Teacher and mentor
Habermas is a famed teacher and mentor. Among his most prominent students were the pragmatic philosopher Herbert Schnädelbach (theorist of discourse distinction and rationality), the political sociologist Claus Offe (professor at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin) , the social philosopher Johann Arnason (professor at La Trobe University and chief editor of the journal Thesis Eleven), the sociological theorist Hans Joas (professor at the University of Erfurt and at the University of Chicago), the theorist of societal evolution Klaus Eder, the social philosopher Axel Honneth (the current director of the Institute for Social Research), the anarcho-capitalist philosopher Hans-Hermann Hoppe, the American philosopher Thomas McCarthy, the co-creator of mindful inquiry in social research Jeremy J. Shapiro, and the assassinated Serbian prime minister Zoran Đinđić.
[edit]Theory
Sociology
Portal
General aspects
History · Positivism · Antipositivism
Functionalism · Conflict theory
Social theory · Critical theory
Structure & agency · Socialization
Research · Public sociology
Sociology of: childhood · culture
deviance · education · environment
· ethnicity · family · gender · health
industry · internet · knowledge · law
military · rationalization · religion
science · secularization · stratification
Related fields and subfields
Anthropology
Criminology · Cultural studies
Economic sociology · Islamic sociology
Media studies · Medical sociology
Political sociology · Social anthropology
Social psychology · Social work
Socioeconomics · Sociography
Sociolinguistics · Statistics
Systems theory
Categories and lists
Journals · Publications · Outline
List of sociologists · Index
v • d • e
Habermas has constructed a comprehensive framework of social theory and philosophy drawing on a number of intellectual traditions:
the German philosophical thought of Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Schelling, G. W. F. Hegel, Wilhelm Dilthey, Edmund Husserl, and Hans-Georg Gadamer
the Marxian tradition — both the theory of Karl Marx himself as well as the critical neo-Marxian theory of the Frankfurt School, i.e. Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, and Herbert Marcuse
the sociological theories of Max Weber, Émile Durkheim, and George Herbert Mead
the linguistic philosophy and speech act theories of Ludwig Wittgenstein, J.L. Austin, P. F. Strawson, Stephen Toulmin and John Searle
the developmental psychology of Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg
the American pragmatist tradition of Charles Sanders Peirce and John Dewey
the sociological social systems theory of Talcott Parsons and Niklas Luhmann
Neo-Kantian thought
Jürgen Habermas considers his major contribution to be the development of the concept and theory of communicative reason or communicative rationality, which distinguishes itself from the rationalist tradition by locating rationality in structures of interpersonal linguistic communication rather than in the structure of either the cosmos or the knowing subject. This social theory advances the goals of human emancipation, while maintaining an inclusive universalist moral framework. This framework rests on the argument called universal pragmatics – that all speech acts have an inherent telos (the Greek word for “end”) — the goal of mutual understanding, and that human beings possess the communicative competence to bring about such understanding. Habermas built the framework out of the speech-act philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, J. L. Austin, and John Searle, the sociological theory of the interactional constitution of mind and self of George Herbert Mead, the theories of moral development of Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg, and the discourse ethics of his Heidelberg colleague Karl-Otto Apel.
Habermas’s works resonate within the traditions of Kant and the Enlightenment and of democratic socialism through his emphasis on the potential for transforming the world and arriving at a more humane, just, and egalitarian society through the realization of the human potential for reason, in part through discourse ethics. While Habermas has stated that the Enlightenment is an “unfinished project,” he argues it should be corrected and complemented, not discarded. In this he distances himself from the Frankfurt School, criticizing it, as well as much of postmodernist thought, for excessive pessimism, misdirected radicalism and exaggerations.
Within sociology, Habermas’s major contribution was the development of a comprehensive theory of societal evolution and modernization focusing on the difference between communicative rationality and rationalization on the one hand and strategic/instrumental rationality and rationalization on the other. This includes a critique from a communicative standpoint of the differentiation-based theory of social systems developed by Niklas Luhmann, a student of Talcott Parsons.
His defence of modernity and civil society has been a source of inspiration to others, and is considered a major philosophical alternative to the varieties of poststructuralism. He has also offered an influential analysis of late capitalism.
Habermas perceives the rationalization, humanization, and democratization of society in terms of the institutionalization of the potential for rationality that is inherent in the communicative competence that is unique to the human species. Habermas contends that communicative competence has developed through the course of evolution, but in contemporary society it is often suppressed or weakened by the way in which major domains of social life, such as the market, the state, and organizations, have been given over to or taken over by strategic/instrumental rationality, so that the logic of the system supplants that of the lifeworld.
[edit]Reconstructive science
Habermas introduces the concept of “reconstructive science” with a double purpose: to place the “general theory of society” between philosophy and social science and re-establish the rift between the “great theorization” and the “empirical research”. The model of “rational reconstructions” represents the main thread of the surveys about the “structures” of the world of life (“culture”, “society” and “personality”) and their respective “functions” (cultural reproductions, social integrations and socialization). For this purpose, the dialectics between “symbolic representation” of “the structures subordinated to all worlds of life” (“internal relationships”) and the “material reproduction” of the social systems in their complex (“external relationships” between social systems and environment) has to be considered. This model finds an application, above all, in the “theory of the social evolution”, starting from the reconstruction of the necessary conditions for a phylogeny of the socio-cultural life forms (the “hominization”) until an analysis of the development of “social formations”, which Habermas subdivides into primitive, traditional, modern and contemporary formations. This paper is an attempt, primarily, to formalize the model of “reconstruction of the logic of development” of “social formations” summed up by Habermas through the differentiation between vital world and social systems (and, within them, through the “rationalization of the world of life” and the “growth in complexity of the social systems”). Secondly, it tries to offer some methodological clarifications about the “explanation of the dynamics” of “historical processes” and, in particular, about the “theoretical meaning” of the evolutional theory’s propositions. Even if the German sociologist considers that the “ex-post rational reconstructions” and “the models system/environment” cannot have a complete “historiographical application”, these certainly act as a general premise in the argumentative structure of the “historical explanation”.
(Abstract of Luca Corchia, Explicative models of complexity. The reconstructions of social evolution for Jürgen Habermas, in S. Balbi – G. Scepi – G. Russolillo – A. Stawinoga (eds.), Book of Short Abstracts, 7th International Conference on Social Science Methodology – RC33 – Logic and Methodology in Sociology, Napoli, Italia, 9.2008, Jovene Editore, 2008.
[edit]The public sphere
For more details on this topic, see public sphere.
In The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere Jürgen Habermas developed the influential concept of the public sphere, which emerged in the 18th century in Europe as a space of critical discussion, open to all, where private people came together to form a public whose “public reason” would work as a check on state power. Habermas argues that prior to the 18th century, European culture had been dominated by a “representational” culture, where one party sought to “represent” itself on its audience by overwhelming its subjects.[2] As an example of “representational” culture, Habermas argued that Louis XIV’s Palace of Versailles was meant to show the greatness of the French state and its King by overpowering the senses of visitors to the Palace.[3] Habermas identifies “representational” culture as corresponding to the feudal stage of development according to Marxist theory, arguing that the coming of the capitalist stage of development marked the appearance of Öffentlichkeit (the public sphere).[4] In the culture characterized by Öffentlichkeit, there occurred a public space outside of the control by the state, where individuals exchanged views and knowledge.[5] In Habermas’s view, the growth in newspapers, journals, reading clubs, Masonic lodges, and coffee-houses in 18th century Europe, all in different ways, marked the gradual replacement of “representational” culture with Öffentlichkeit culture.[6] Habermas argued that the essential characteristic of the Öffentlichkeit culture was its “critical” nature.[6] Unlike “representational” culture where only one party was active and the other passive, the Öffentlichkeit culture was characterized by a dialogue as individuals either met in conversation, or exchanged views via the print media.[6] Habermas maintains that as Britain was the most liberal country in Europe, the culture of the public sphere emerged there first around 1700, and the growth of Öffentlichkeit culture took place over most of the 18th century in Continental Europe.[6] In his view, the French Revolution was in large part caused by the collapse of “representational” culture, and its replacement by Öffentlichkeit culture.[6] Though Habermas’ main concern in The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere was to expose what he regarded as the deceptive nature of free institutions in the West, his book had a major impact on the historiography of the French Revolution.[4]
According to Habermas, a variety of factors resulted in the eventual decay of the public sphere, including the growth of a commercial mass media, which turned the critical public into a passive consumer public; and the welfare state, which merged the state with society so thoroughly that the public sphere was squeezed out. It also turned the “public sphere” into a site of self-interested contestation for the resources of the state rather than a space for the development of a public-minded rational consensus.
In his magnum opus Theory of Communicative Action (1981) he criticized the one-sided process of modernization led by forces of economic and administrative rationalization. Habermas traces the growing intervention of formal systems in our everyday lives as parallel to development of the welfare state, corporate capitalism and the culture of mass consumption. These reinforcing trends rationalize widening areas of public life, submitting them to a generalizing logic of efficiency and control. As routinized political parties and interest groups substitute for participatory democracy, society is increasingly administered at a level remote from input of citizens. As a result, boundaries between public and private, the individual and society, the system and the lifeworld are deteriorating. Democratic public life only thrives where institutions enable citizens to debate matters of public importance. He describes an ideal type of “ideal speech situation”,[7] where actors are equally endowed with the capacities of discourse, recognize each other’s basic social equality and speech is undistorted by ideology or misrecognition. In this version of the consensus theory of truth Habermas maintains that truth is what would be agreed upon in an ideal speech situation.
Habermas has expressed optimism about the possibility of the revival of the public sphere. He discerns a hope for the future in the new era of political community that transcends the nation-state based on ethnic and cultural likeness for one based on the equal rights and obligations of legally vested citizens. This deliberative theory of democracy requires a political community which can collectively define its political will and implement it as policy at the level of the legislative system. This political system requires an activist public sphere, where matters of common interest and political issues can be discussed, and the force of public opinion can influence the decision-making process.
Several noted academics have provided various criticisms of Habermas’s notions regarding the public sphere. John B. Thompson, a Professor of Sociology at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Jesus College[8], has pointed out that Habermas’s notion of the public sphere is antiquated due to the proliferation of mass-media communications. Michael Schudson from the University of California, San Diego argues more generally that a public sphere as a place of purely rational independent debate never existed.
[edit]Habermas versus Postmodernists
General aspects
History · Positivism · Antipositivism
Functionalism · Conflict theory
Social theory · Critical theory
Structure & agency · Socialization
Research · Public sociology
Sociology of: childhood · culture
deviance · education · environment
· ethnicity · family · gender · health
industry · internet · knowledge · law
military · rationalization · religion
science · secularization · stratification
Related fields and subfields
Anthropology
Criminology · Cultural studies
Economic sociology · Islamic sociology
Media studies · Medical sociology
Political sociology · Social anthropology
Social psychology · Social work
Socioeconomics · Sociography
Sociolinguistics · Statistics
Systems theory
Categories and lists
Journals · Publications · Outline
List of sociologists · Index
v • d • e
Habermas has constructed a comprehensive framework of social theory and philosophy drawing on a number of intellectual traditions:
the German philosophical thought of Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Schelling, G. W. F. Hegel, Wilhelm Dilthey, Edmund Husserl, and Hans-Georg Gadamer
the Marxian tradition — both the theory of Karl Marx himself as well as the critical neo-Marxian theory of the Frankfurt School, i.e. Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, and Herbert Marcuse
the sociological theories of Max Weber, Émile Durkheim, and George Herbert Mead
the linguistic philosophy and speech act theories of Ludwig Wittgenstein, J.L. Austin, P. F. Strawson, Stephen Toulmin and John Searle
the developmental psychology of Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg
the American pragmatist tradition of Charles Sanders Peirce and John Dewey
the sociological social systems theory of Talcott Parsons and Niklas Luhmann
Neo-Kantian thought
Jürgen Habermas considers his major contribution to be the development of the concept and theory of communicative reason or communicative rationality, which distinguishes itself from the rationalist tradition by locating rationality in structures of interpersonal linguistic communication rather than in the structure of either the cosmos or the knowing subject. This social theory advances the goals of human emancipation, while maintaining an inclusive universalist moral framework. This framework rests on the argument called universal pragmatics – that all speech acts have an inherent telos (the Greek word for “end”) — the goal of mutual understanding, and that human beings possess the communicative competence to bring about such understanding. Habermas built the framework out of the speech-act philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, J. L. Austin, and John Searle, the sociological theory of the interactional constitution of mind and self of George Herbert Mead, the theories of moral development of Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg, and the discourse ethics of his Heidelberg colleague Karl-Otto Apel.
Habermas’s works resonate within the traditions of Kant and the Enlightenment and of democratic socialism through his emphasis on the potential for transforming the world and arriving at a more humane, just, and egalitarian society through the realization of the human potential for reason, in part through discourse ethics. While Habermas has stated that the Enlightenment is an “unfinished project,” he argues it should be corrected and complemented, not discarded. In this he distances himself from the Frankfurt School, criticizing it, as well as much of postmodernist thought, for excessive pessimism, misdirected radicalism and exaggerations.
Within sociology, Habermas’s major contribution was the development of a comprehensive theory of societal evolution and modernization focusing on the difference between communicative rationality and rationalization on the one hand and strategic/instrumental rationality and rationalization on the other. This includes a critique from a communicative standpoint of the differentiation-based theory of social systems developed by Niklas Luhmann, a student of Talcott Parsons.
His defence of modernity and civil society has been a source of inspiration to others, and is considered a major philosophical alternative to the varieties of poststructuralism. He has also offered an influential analysis of late capitalism.
Habermas perceives the rationalization, humanization, and democratization of society in terms of the institutionalization of the potential for rationality that is inherent in the communicative competence that is unique to the human species. Habermas contends that communicative competence has developed through the course of evolution, but in contemporary society it is often suppressed or weakened by the way in which major domains of social life, such as the market, the state, and organizations, have been given over to or taken over by strategic/instrumental rationality, so that the logic of the system supplants that of the lifeworld.
[edit]Reconstructive science
Habermas introduces the concept of “reconstructive science” with a double purpose: to place the “general theory of society” between philosophy and social science and re-establish the rift between the “great theorization” and the “empirical research”. The model of “rational reconstructions” represents the main thread of the surveys about the “structures” of the world of life (“culture”, “society” and “personality”) and their respective “functions” (cultural reproductions, social integrations and socialization). For this purpose, the dialectics between “symbolic representation” of “the structures subordinated to all worlds of life” (“internal relationships”) and the “material reproduction” of the social systems in their complex (“external relationships” between social systems and environment) has to be considered. This model finds an application, above all, in the “theory of the social evolution”, starting from the reconstruction of the necessary conditions for a phylogeny of the socio-cultural life forms (the “hominization”) until an analysis of the development of “social formations”, which Habermas subdivides into primitive, traditional, modern and contemporary formations. This paper is an attempt, primarily, to formalize the model of “reconstruction of the logic of development” of “social formations” summed up by Habermas through the differentiation between vital world and social systems (and, within them, through the “rationalization of the world of life” and the “growth in complexity of the social systems”). Secondly, it tries to offer some methodological clarifications about the “explanation of the dynamics” of “historical processes” and, in particular, about the “theoretical meaning” of the evolutional theory’s propositions. Even if the German sociologist considers that the “ex-post rational reconstructions” and “the models system/environment” cannot have a complete “historiographical application”, these certainly act as a general premise in the argumentative structure of the “historical explanation”.
(Abstract of Luca Corchia, Explicative models of complexity. The reconstructions of social evolution for Jürgen Habermas, in S. Balbi – G. Scepi – G. Russolillo – A. Stawinoga (eds.), Book of Short Abstracts, 7th International Conference on Social Science Methodology – RC33 – Logic and Methodology in Sociology, Napoli, Italia, 9.2008, Jovene Editore, 2008.
[edit]The public sphere
For more details on this topic, see public sphere.
In The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere Jürgen Habermas developed the influential concept of the public sphere, which emerged in the 18th century in Europe as a space of critical discussion, open to all, where private people came together to form a public whose “public reason” would work as a check on state power. Habermas argues that prior to the 18th century, European culture had been dominated by a “representational” culture, where one party sought to “represent” itself on its audience by overwhelming its subjects.[2] As an example of “representational” culture, Habermas argued that Louis XIV’s Palace of Versailles was meant to show the greatness of the French state and its King by overpowering the senses of visitors to the Palace.[3] Habermas identifies “representational” culture as corresponding to the feudal stage of development according to Marxist theory, arguing that the coming of the capitalist stage of development marked the appearance of Öffentlichkeit (the public sphere).[4] In the culture characterized by Öffentlichkeit, there occurred a public space outside of the control by the state, where individuals exchanged views and knowledge.[5] In Habermas’s view, the growth in newspapers, journals, reading clubs, Masonic lodges, and coffee-houses in 18th century Europe, all in different ways, marked the gradual replacement of “representational” culture with Öffentlichkeit culture.[6] Habermas argued that the essential characteristic of the Öffentlichkeit culture was its “critical” nature.[6] Unlike “representational” culture where only one party was active and the other passive, the Öffentlichkeit culture was characterized by a dialogue as individuals either met in conversation, or exchanged views via the print media.[6] Habermas maintains that as Britain was the most liberal country in Europe, the culture of the public sphere emerged there first around 1700, and the growth of Öffentlichkeit culture took place over most of the 18th century in Continental Europe.[6] In his view, the French Revolution was in large part caused by the collapse of “representational” culture, and its replacement by Öffentlichkeit culture.[6] Though Habermas’ main concern in The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere was to expose what he regarded as the deceptive nature of free institutions in the West, his book had a major impact on the historiography of the French Revolution.[4]
According to Habermas, a variety of factors resulted in the eventual decay of the public sphere, including the growth of a commercial mass media, which turned the critical public into a passive consumer public; and the welfare state, which merged the state with society so thoroughly that the public sphere was squeezed out. It also turned the “public sphere” into a site of self-interested contestation for the resources of the state rather than a space for the development of a public-minded rational consensus.
In his magnum opus Theory of Communicative Action (1981) he criticized the one-sided process of modernization led by forces of economic and administrative rationalization. Habermas traces the growing intervention of formal systems in our everyday lives as parallel to development of the welfare state, corporate capitalism and the culture of mass consumption. These reinforcing trends rationalize widening areas of public life, submitting them to a generalizing logic of efficiency and control. As routinized political parties and interest groups substitute for participatory democracy, society is increasingly administered at a level remote from input of citizens. As a result, boundaries between public and private, the individual and society, the system and the lifeworld are deteriorating. Democratic public life only thrives where institutions enable citizens to debate matters of public importance. He describes an ideal type of “ideal speech situation”,[7] where actors are equally endowed with the capacities of discourse, recognize each other’s basic social equality and speech is undistorted by ideology or misrecognition. In this version of the consensus theory of truth Habermas maintains that truth is what would be agreed upon in an ideal speech situation.
Habermas has expressed optimism about the possibility of the revival of the public sphere. He discerns a hope for the future in the new era of political community that transcends the nation-state based on ethnic and cultural likeness for one based on the equal rights and obligations of legally vested citizens. This deliberative theory of democracy requires a political community which can collectively define its political will and implement it as policy at the level of the legislative system. This political system requires an activist public sphere, where matters of common interest and political issues can be discussed, and the force of public opinion can influence the decision-making process.
Several noted academics have provided various criticisms of Habermas’s notions regarding the public sphere. John B. Thompson, a Professor of Sociology at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Jesus College[8], has pointed out that Habermas’s notion of the public sphere is antiquated due to the proliferation of mass-media communications. Michael Schudson from the University of California, San Diego argues more generally that a public sphere as a place of purely rational independent debate never existed.
[edit]Habermas versus Postmodernists
Habermas offered some early criticisms in an essay, “Modernity versus Postmodernity” (1981), which has achieved wide recognition. In that essay, Habermas raises the issue of whether, in light of the failures of the twentieth century, we “should try to hold on to the intentions of the Enlightenment, feeble as they may be, or should we declare the entire project of modernity a lost cause?”[9] Habermas refuses to give up on the possibility of a rational, “scientific” understanding of the life-world.
Habermas has several main criticisms of postmodernism.
First, the postmodernists are equivocal about whether they are producing serious theory or literature.
Second, Habermas feels that the postmodernists are animated by normative sentiments but that what those sentiments are is concealed from the reader.
Third, Habermas accuses postmodernism of being a totalizing perspective that fails “to differentiate phenomena and practices that occur within modern society”[10].
Lastly, Habermas asserts that postmodernists ignore that which Habermas finds absolutely central – namely, everyday life and its practices.
[edit]Important Transitional Works
Habermas has several main criticisms of postmodernism.
First, the postmodernists are equivocal about whether they are producing serious theory or literature.
Second, Habermas feels that the postmodernists are animated by normative sentiments but that what those sentiments are is concealed from the reader.
Third, Habermas accuses postmodernism of being a totalizing perspective that fails “to differentiate phenomena and practices that occur within modern society”[10].
Lastly, Habermas asserts that postmodernists ignore that which Habermas finds absolutely central – namely, everyday life and its practices.
[edit]Important Transitional Works
In the period between Knowledge and Human Interest and The Theory of Communicative Action, Habermas began to develop a distinctive method for elaborating the relationship between a theoretical social science of modern societies, on the one hand, and the normative and philosophical basis for critique, on the other. Following Horkheimer’s definition of critical theory, Habermas pursued three aims in his attempt to combine social science and philosophical analysis: it must be explanatory, practical, and normative. This meant that philosophy could not become the sole basis for normative reflection. Rather, Habermas argued, adequate critique requires a thoroughgoing cooperation between philosophy and social science.
In this transitional phase from Knowledge and Human Interest to The Theory of Communicative Action, Habermas’s basic philosophical endeavor was to develop a more modest, fallibilist, empirical account of the philosophical claim to universality and rationality.
[edit]Key Dialogues
In this transitional phase from Knowledge and Human Interest to The Theory of Communicative Action, Habermas’s basic philosophical endeavor was to develop a more modest, fallibilist, empirical account of the philosophical claim to universality and rationality.
[edit]Key Dialogues
[edit]Historikerstreit (Historians’ Quarrel)
Main article: Historikerstreit
Habermas is famous as a public intellectual as well as a scholar; most notably, in the 1980s he used the popular press to attack the German historians Ernst Nolte, Michael Stürmer, Klaus Hildebrand and Andreas Hillgruber. Habermas first expressed his views on the above-mentioned historians in the Die Zeit (literally The Times) newspaper on July 11, 1986 in a feuilleton (opinion piece) entitled “A Kind of Settlement of Damages”. Habermas criticized Nolte, Hildebrand, Stürmer and Hillgruber for “apologistic” history writing in regards to the Nazi era, and for seeking to “close Germany’s opening to the West” that in Habermas’s view had existed since 1945.[11] He argued that they had tried to detach Nazi rule and the Holocaust from the mainstream of German history, explain away Nazism as a reaction to Bolshevism, and partially rehabilitate the reputation of the Wehrmacht (German Army) during World War II. Habermas wrote that Stürmer was trying to create a “vicarious religion” in German history which together with the work of Hillgruber glorifying the last days of the German Army on the Eastern Front was intended to serve as a “…kind of NATO philosophy colored with German nationalism”[12] The so-called Historikerstreit (“Historians’ Quarrel”) was not at all one-sided, because Habermas was himself attacked by scholars like Joachim Fest[13], Hagen Schulze[14], Horst Möller[15], Imanuel Geiss[16] and Klaus Hildebrand[17] In turn, Habermas was supported by historians such as Martin Broszat[18], Eberhard Jäckel[19], Hans Mommsen[20] and Hans-Ulrich Wehler[21].
[edit]Habermas and Derrida
Habermas and Jacques Derrida engaged in a series of disputes beginning in the 1980s and culminating in a mutual understanding and friendship in the late 1990s that lasted until Derrida died in 2004[22]. They originally came in contact when Habermas invited Derrida to speak at The University of Frankfurt in 1984, the next year Habermas published “Beyond a Temporalized Philosophy of Origins: Derrida” in The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity in which he described Derrida’s method as being unable to provide a foundation for social critique.[23] Derrida, citing Habermas as an example, remarked that, “those who have accused me of reducing philosophy to literature or logic to rhetoric … have visibly and carefully avoided reading me”[24]. After Derrida’s final rebuttal in 1989 the two philosophers didn’t continue, but groups in the academy “conducted a kind of ‘war’, in which we ourselves never took part, either personally or directly” [22]. Then at the end of the 1990s Habermas approached Derrida at a party held at a university in the United States where they were both lecturing. They then met at Paris over dinner, and afterwards have participated in many joint projects. In 2000 they held a joint seminar on problems of philosophy, right, ethics, and politics at the University of Frankfurt[22]. In the aftermath of 9/11, Derrida and Habermas laid out their individual opinions on 9/11 and the War on Terror in Giovanna Borradori’s Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida. In early 2003, both Habermas and Derrida were very active in opposing the coming Iraq War, and called for in a manifesto that later became the book Old Europe, New Europe, Core Europe for a tighter union of the states of the European Union in order to provide a power capable of opposing American foreign policy. Derrida wrote a foreword expressing his unqualified subscription to Habermas’s declaration of February 2003, “February 15, or, What Binds Europeans Together: Plea for a Common Foreign Policy, Beginning in Core Europe,” in Old Europe, New Europe, Core Europe which was a reaction to the Bush administration demands upon European nations for support for the coming Iraq War[25]. Habermas has offered further context for this declaration in an interview.
[edit]Dialogue with Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI)
In early 2007, Ignatius Press published a dialogue between Habermas and Roman Catholic Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), entitled The Dialectics of Secularization.
It addresses such important contemporary questions as these:
Is a public culture of reason and ordered liberty possible in our post-metaphysical age?
Is philosophy permanently cut adrift from its grounding in being and anthropology?
Does this decline of rationality signal an opportunity or a deep crisis for religion itself?
In this debate a recent shift of Habermas became evident — in particular, his rethinking of the public role of religion. Habermas writes as a “methodological atheist,” which means that when doing philosophy or social science, he presumes nothing about particular religious beliefs. Yet whilst writing from this perspective his evolving position towards the role of religion in society has led him to some challenging questions, and as a result conceding some ground in his dialogue with the Pope, that would seem to have consequences which further complicate the positions he holds about a communicatively rational solution to the problems of modernity.
In an interview in 1999 Habermas stated that,
“For the normative self-understanding of modernity, Christianity has functioned as more than just a precursor or catalyst. Universalistic egalitarianism, from which sprang the ideals of freedom and a collective life in solidarity, the autonomous conduct of life and emancipation, the individual morality of conscience, human rights and democracy, is the direct legacy of the Judaic ethic of justice and the Christian ethic of love. This legacy, substantially unchanged, has been the object of a continual critical reappropriation and reinterpretation. Up to this very day there is no alternative to it. And in light of the current challenges of a post-national constellation, we must draw sustenance now, as in the past, from this substance. Everything else is idle postmodern talk.”[26]
The statement was later misquoted in a number of American newspapers and magazines as: “Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilization,”[27] which Habermas did not say.
Habermas now talks about the emergence of “post-secular societies” and argues that tolerance is a two-way street: secular people need to tolerate the role of religious people in the public square and vice versa.[28]
[edit]Habermas Today
Main article: Historikerstreit
Habermas is famous as a public intellectual as well as a scholar; most notably, in the 1980s he used the popular press to attack the German historians Ernst Nolte, Michael Stürmer, Klaus Hildebrand and Andreas Hillgruber. Habermas first expressed his views on the above-mentioned historians in the Die Zeit (literally The Times) newspaper on July 11, 1986 in a feuilleton (opinion piece) entitled “A Kind of Settlement of Damages”. Habermas criticized Nolte, Hildebrand, Stürmer and Hillgruber for “apologistic” history writing in regards to the Nazi era, and for seeking to “close Germany’s opening to the West” that in Habermas’s view had existed since 1945.[11] He argued that they had tried to detach Nazi rule and the Holocaust from the mainstream of German history, explain away Nazism as a reaction to Bolshevism, and partially rehabilitate the reputation of the Wehrmacht (German Army) during World War II. Habermas wrote that Stürmer was trying to create a “vicarious religion” in German history which together with the work of Hillgruber glorifying the last days of the German Army on the Eastern Front was intended to serve as a “…kind of NATO philosophy colored with German nationalism”[12] The so-called Historikerstreit (“Historians’ Quarrel”) was not at all one-sided, because Habermas was himself attacked by scholars like Joachim Fest[13], Hagen Schulze[14], Horst Möller[15], Imanuel Geiss[16] and Klaus Hildebrand[17] In turn, Habermas was supported by historians such as Martin Broszat[18], Eberhard Jäckel[19], Hans Mommsen[20] and Hans-Ulrich Wehler[21].
[edit]Habermas and Derrida
Habermas and Jacques Derrida engaged in a series of disputes beginning in the 1980s and culminating in a mutual understanding and friendship in the late 1990s that lasted until Derrida died in 2004[22]. They originally came in contact when Habermas invited Derrida to speak at The University of Frankfurt in 1984, the next year Habermas published “Beyond a Temporalized Philosophy of Origins: Derrida” in The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity in which he described Derrida’s method as being unable to provide a foundation for social critique.[23] Derrida, citing Habermas as an example, remarked that, “those who have accused me of reducing philosophy to literature or logic to rhetoric … have visibly and carefully avoided reading me”[24]. After Derrida’s final rebuttal in 1989 the two philosophers didn’t continue, but groups in the academy “conducted a kind of ‘war’, in which we ourselves never took part, either personally or directly” [22]. Then at the end of the 1990s Habermas approached Derrida at a party held at a university in the United States where they were both lecturing. They then met at Paris over dinner, and afterwards have participated in many joint projects. In 2000 they held a joint seminar on problems of philosophy, right, ethics, and politics at the University of Frankfurt[22]. In the aftermath of 9/11, Derrida and Habermas laid out their individual opinions on 9/11 and the War on Terror in Giovanna Borradori’s Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida. In early 2003, both Habermas and Derrida were very active in opposing the coming Iraq War, and called for in a manifesto that later became the book Old Europe, New Europe, Core Europe for a tighter union of the states of the European Union in order to provide a power capable of opposing American foreign policy. Derrida wrote a foreword expressing his unqualified subscription to Habermas’s declaration of February 2003, “February 15, or, What Binds Europeans Together: Plea for a Common Foreign Policy, Beginning in Core Europe,” in Old Europe, New Europe, Core Europe which was a reaction to the Bush administration demands upon European nations for support for the coming Iraq War[25]. Habermas has offered further context for this declaration in an interview.
[edit]Dialogue with Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI)
In early 2007, Ignatius Press published a dialogue between Habermas and Roman Catholic Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), entitled The Dialectics of Secularization.
It addresses such important contemporary questions as these:
Is a public culture of reason and ordered liberty possible in our post-metaphysical age?
Is philosophy permanently cut adrift from its grounding in being and anthropology?
Does this decline of rationality signal an opportunity or a deep crisis for religion itself?
In this debate a recent shift of Habermas became evident — in particular, his rethinking of the public role of religion. Habermas writes as a “methodological atheist,” which means that when doing philosophy or social science, he presumes nothing about particular religious beliefs. Yet whilst writing from this perspective his evolving position towards the role of religion in society has led him to some challenging questions, and as a result conceding some ground in his dialogue with the Pope, that would seem to have consequences which further complicate the positions he holds about a communicatively rational solution to the problems of modernity.
In an interview in 1999 Habermas stated that,
“For the normative self-understanding of modernity, Christianity has functioned as more than just a precursor or catalyst. Universalistic egalitarianism, from which sprang the ideals of freedom and a collective life in solidarity, the autonomous conduct of life and emancipation, the individual morality of conscience, human rights and democracy, is the direct legacy of the Judaic ethic of justice and the Christian ethic of love. This legacy, substantially unchanged, has been the object of a continual critical reappropriation and reinterpretation. Up to this very day there is no alternative to it. And in light of the current challenges of a post-national constellation, we must draw sustenance now, as in the past, from this substance. Everything else is idle postmodern talk.”[26]
The statement was later misquoted in a number of American newspapers and magazines as: “Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilization,”[27] which Habermas did not say.
Habermas now talks about the emergence of “post-secular societies” and argues that tolerance is a two-way street: secular people need to tolerate the role of religious people in the public square and vice versa.[28]
[edit]Habermas Today
Habermas currently ranks as one of the most influential philosophers in the world.[citation needed] Bridging continental and Anglo-American traditions of thought, he has engaged in debate with thinkers as diverse as Gadamer and Putnam, Foucault and Rawls, Derrida and Brandom. His extensive written work addresses topics stretching from social-political theory to aesthetics, epistemology and language to philosophy of religion, and his ideas have significantly influenced not only philosophy but also political-legal thought, sociology, communication studies, argumentation theory and rhetoric, developmental psychology and theology. Moreover, he has figured prominently in Germany as public intellectual, commenting on controversial issues of the day in German news papers such as Die Zeit.
Two broad lines of enduring interest are found in Habermas’s work, one having to do with the political domain, the other with issues of rationality, communication, and knowledge. [29]
[edit]Major works
Two broad lines of enduring interest are found in Habermas’s work, one having to do with the political domain, the other with issues of rationality, communication, and knowledge. [29]
[edit]Major works
The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1962) ISBN 0262581086
Theory and Practice (1963)
On the Logic of the Social Sciences (1967)
Toward a Rational Society (1967)
Technology and Science as Ideology (1968)
Knowledge and Human Interests (1971, German 1968)
“On Social Identity”. TELOS 19 (Spring 1974). New York: Telos Press
Legitimation Crisis (1975)
Communication and the Evolution of Society (1976)
On the Pragmatics of Social Interaction (1976)
The Theory of Communicative Action (1981)
Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action (1983)
Philosophical-Political Profiles (1983)
The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity (1985)
The New Conservatism (1985)
Postmetaphysical Thinking (1988)
Justification and Application (1991)
Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy (1992)
On the Pragmatics of Communication (1992)
The Inclusion of the Other (1996)
A Berlin Republic (1997, collection of interviews with Habermas)
The Postnational Constellation (1998)
Rationality and Religion (1998)
Truth and Justification (1998)
The Future of Human Nature (2003) ISBN 0745629865
Old Europe, New Europe, Core Europe (2005) ISBN 184467018X
The Divided West (2006)
The Dialectics of Secularization (2007, w/ Joseph Ratzinger)
Between Naturalism and Religion: Philosophical Essays (2008)
Europe. The Faltering Project (2009)
[edit]
Theory and Practice (1963)
On the Logic of the Social Sciences (1967)
Toward a Rational Society (1967)
Technology and Science as Ideology (1968)
Knowledge and Human Interests (1971, German 1968)
“On Social Identity”. TELOS 19 (Spring 1974). New York: Telos Press
Legitimation Crisis (1975)
Communication and the Evolution of Society (1976)
On the Pragmatics of Social Interaction (1976)
The Theory of Communicative Action (1981)
Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action (1983)
Philosophical-Political Profiles (1983)
The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity (1985)
The New Conservatism (1985)
Postmetaphysical Thinking (1988)
Justification and Application (1991)
Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy (1992)
On the Pragmatics of Communication (1992)
The Inclusion of the Other (1996)
A Berlin Republic (1997, collection of interviews with Habermas)
The Postnational Constellation (1998)
Rationality and Religion (1998)
Truth and Justification (1998)
The Future of Human Nature (2003) ISBN 0745629865
Old Europe, New Europe, Core Europe (2005) ISBN 184467018X
The Divided West (2006)
The Dialectics of Secularization (2007, w/ Joseph Ratzinger)
Between Naturalism and Religion: Philosophical Essays (2008)
Europe. The Faltering Project (2009)
[edit]
6. Elena - February 20, 2010 [Edit]The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society (in German Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit. Untersuchungen zu einer Kategorie der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft), by Jürgen Habermas, was published in 1962 and translated into English in 1989 by Thomas Burger and Frederick Lawrence. This book is an important contribution to modern understanding of democracy and is notable for “transforming media studies into a hardheaded discipline.”[1]
Contents [hide]
1 The Public Sphere
2 Jürgen Habermas
2.1 Habermas’ Thesis
3 Criticism of the book
4 Notes
5 References
6 External links
[edit]The Public Sphere
Contents [hide]
1 The Public Sphere
2 Jürgen Habermas
2.1 Habermas’ Thesis
3 Criticism of the book
4 Notes
5 References
6 External links
[edit]The Public Sphere
The notion of the ‘public sphere’ evolved during the Renaissance in Western Europe and the United States. This was brought on partially by merchants’ need for accurate information about distant markets as well as by the growth of democracy and individual liberty and popular sovereignty. The public sphere was a place between private individuals and government authorities in which people could meet and have rational-critical debates about public matters. Discussions served as a counterweight to political authority and happened physically in face-to-face meetings in coffee houses and cafes and public squares as well as in the media in letters, books, drama, and art.[2] Habermas saw a vibrant public sphere as a positive force keeping authorities within bounds lest their rulings be ridiculed. One writer elaborated: “In Habermasian theory, the bourgeois public sphere was preceded by a literary public sphere whose favored genres revealed the interiority of the self and emphasized an audience-oriented subjectivity.”[2]
Today, in contrast, there is scant public debate, few public forums, and political discussion has degenerated from a fact-based rational-critical examination of public matters into a consumer commodity. There is the illusion of a public sphere, according to Habermas. Citizens have become consumers, investors, workers. Real news (information which helps free people stay free) is being elbowed out by advice, soft-porn, catchy garbage, celebrity antics, and has become infotainment, that is, a commodity competing in a mass entertainment market. It matters less whether news is right or wrong, and matters more whether it’s gripping. Habermas’ sociological and philosophical work tries to explain how this transformation happened by examining a wide range of disciplines, including political theory, cultural criticism, ethics, gender studies, philosophy, sociology,[3] history, and media studies.[4]
[edit]Jürgen Habermas
Today, in contrast, there is scant public debate, few public forums, and political discussion has degenerated from a fact-based rational-critical examination of public matters into a consumer commodity. There is the illusion of a public sphere, according to Habermas. Citizens have become consumers, investors, workers. Real news (information which helps free people stay free) is being elbowed out by advice, soft-porn, catchy garbage, celebrity antics, and has become infotainment, that is, a commodity competing in a mass entertainment market. It matters less whether news is right or wrong, and matters more whether it’s gripping. Habermas’ sociological and philosophical work tries to explain how this transformation happened by examining a wide range of disciplines, including political theory, cultural criticism, ethics, gender studies, philosophy, sociology,[3] history, and media studies.[4]
[edit]Jürgen Habermas
The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere was Habermas’s first major work. It also satisfied the rigorous requirements for a professorship in Germany; in this system, independent scholarly research, usually resulting in a published book, must be submitted, and defended before an academic committee; this process is known as Habilitationsschrift or habilitation. The work was overseen by the political scientist Wolfgang Abendroth, to whom Habermas dedicated it.
Habermas has been lauded as the “preeminent leftist philosopher of his generation”[5] and his “rationalist system of social thought” has been described as “the most elaborate and methodical in the contemporary world.”[1] He is a strong proponent of reason and democracy.[1] He is a strong critic of totalitarianism and has been described as being critical of the “contortions of structuralists.”[6]
[edit]Habermas’ Thesis
Habermas has been lauded as the “preeminent leftist philosopher of his generation”[5] and his “rationalist system of social thought” has been described as “the most elaborate and methodical in the contemporary world.”[1] He is a strong proponent of reason and democracy.[1] He is a strong critic of totalitarianism and has been described as being critical of the “contortions of structuralists.”[6]
[edit]Habermas’ Thesis
The book describes the development of a bourgeois public sphere in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries as well as its subsequent decline.
The first transition occurred in England, France, the United States, and Germany over the course of 150 years or so from the late seventeenth century. England led the way in the early nineteenth century, with Germany following in the late nineteenth century. Habermas tries to explain the growth and decline of the public sphere by relating political, social, cultural and philosophical developments to each other in a multi-disciplinary approach. Initially, there were monarchical and feudal societies which made no distinction between state and society or between public and private, and which had organized themselves politically around symbolic representation and status. These feudal societies were transformed into a bourgeois liberal constitutional order which distinguished between the public and private realms; further, within the private realm, there was a bourgeois public sphere for rational-critical political debate which formed a new phenomenon called public opinion. Spearheading this shift was the growth of a literary public sphere in which the bourgeoisie learned to critically reflect upon itself and its role in society. This first major shift occurred alongside the rise of early non-industrial capitalism and the philosophical articulation of political liberalism by such thinkers as Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, and then Kant. The bourgeois public sphere flourished within the early laissez-faire, free-market, largely pre-industrial capitalist order of liberalism from the late eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century.
The second part of Habermas’ account traces the transition from the liberal bourgeois public sphere to the modern mass society of the social welfare state. Starting in the 1830s, extending from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century, a new constellation of social, cultural, political, and philosophical developments took shape. Hegel’s critique of Kant’s liberal philosophy anticipated the shift, according to Habermas, and this shift came to a philosophical head in Marx’s astute diagnosis of the contradictions inherent in the liberal constitutional social order. Habermas saw the modified liberalism of Mill and Tocqueville with their ambivalence toward the public sphere as emblematic manifestations of these contradictions. Paralleling this philosophical progression against classical liberalism were major socio-economic transformations based on industrialization, and the result was the rise of mass societies characterized by consumer capitalism in the twentieth century. Clear demarcations between public and private and between state and society became blurred. The bourgeois public sphere was transformed into a world marked by increasing re-integration and entwining of state and society which resulted in the modern social welfare state. This shift, according to Habermas, can be seen as part of a larger dialectic in which political changes were made in an attempt to save the liberal constitutional order, but had the ultimate effect of destroying the bourgeois public sphere. Habermas drew on the cultural critiques of critical theory from the Frankfurt School,[7] which included important thinkers such as Theodor Adorno, who was one of Habermas’ teachers. There was speculation Habermas’ initial habilitation at the Institute for Social Research was prevented by the Frankfurt School’s founder, philosopher and sociologist Max Horkheimer. Habermas focused on the pernicious effects of commercialization and consumerization on the public sphere through the rise of the mass media, public relations, and consumer culture. He shows how political parties undermined parliamentarian politics, and how numerous factors worked against rational-critical debate.
The book was reprinted many times in German and other languages, and has been enormously influential, especially since its translation into English, for scholars of political science, media studies, and rhetoric.[1] It is also an important work for historians of philosophy and scholars of intellectual history. After publication, Habermas has been identified as an important philosopher of the twentieth century.
[edit]Criticism of the book
The first transition occurred in England, France, the United States, and Germany over the course of 150 years or so from the late seventeenth century. England led the way in the early nineteenth century, with Germany following in the late nineteenth century. Habermas tries to explain the growth and decline of the public sphere by relating political, social, cultural and philosophical developments to each other in a multi-disciplinary approach. Initially, there were monarchical and feudal societies which made no distinction between state and society or between public and private, and which had organized themselves politically around symbolic representation and status. These feudal societies were transformed into a bourgeois liberal constitutional order which distinguished between the public and private realms; further, within the private realm, there was a bourgeois public sphere for rational-critical political debate which formed a new phenomenon called public opinion. Spearheading this shift was the growth of a literary public sphere in which the bourgeoisie learned to critically reflect upon itself and its role in society. This first major shift occurred alongside the rise of early non-industrial capitalism and the philosophical articulation of political liberalism by such thinkers as Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, and then Kant. The bourgeois public sphere flourished within the early laissez-faire, free-market, largely pre-industrial capitalist order of liberalism from the late eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century.
The second part of Habermas’ account traces the transition from the liberal bourgeois public sphere to the modern mass society of the social welfare state. Starting in the 1830s, extending from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century, a new constellation of social, cultural, political, and philosophical developments took shape. Hegel’s critique of Kant’s liberal philosophy anticipated the shift, according to Habermas, and this shift came to a philosophical head in Marx’s astute diagnosis of the contradictions inherent in the liberal constitutional social order. Habermas saw the modified liberalism of Mill and Tocqueville with their ambivalence toward the public sphere as emblematic manifestations of these contradictions. Paralleling this philosophical progression against classical liberalism were major socio-economic transformations based on industrialization, and the result was the rise of mass societies characterized by consumer capitalism in the twentieth century. Clear demarcations between public and private and between state and society became blurred. The bourgeois public sphere was transformed into a world marked by increasing re-integration and entwining of state and society which resulted in the modern social welfare state. This shift, according to Habermas, can be seen as part of a larger dialectic in which political changes were made in an attempt to save the liberal constitutional order, but had the ultimate effect of destroying the bourgeois public sphere. Habermas drew on the cultural critiques of critical theory from the Frankfurt School,[7] which included important thinkers such as Theodor Adorno, who was one of Habermas’ teachers. There was speculation Habermas’ initial habilitation at the Institute for Social Research was prevented by the Frankfurt School’s founder, philosopher and sociologist Max Horkheimer. Habermas focused on the pernicious effects of commercialization and consumerization on the public sphere through the rise of the mass media, public relations, and consumer culture. He shows how political parties undermined parliamentarian politics, and how numerous factors worked against rational-critical debate.
The book was reprinted many times in German and other languages, and has been enormously influential, especially since its translation into English, for scholars of political science, media studies, and rhetoric.[1] It is also an important work for historians of philosophy and scholars of intellectual history. After publication, Habermas has been identified as an important philosopher of the twentieth century.
[edit]Criticism of the book
Since publication, the Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere has been critiqued for Habermas’s formulation of the concept of a public sphere which he claimed “stood or fell with the principle of universal access … A public sphere from which specific groups would be eo ipso excluded was less than merely incomplete; it was not a public sphere at all.” (Habermas 1967:85) However the bourgeois public sphere required as preconditions of entry an excellent education and property ownership – which correlated to membership of the upper classes. Critics have argued that Habermas’s work is invalid since the public sphere was limited to an upper-class strata of society and didn’t represent most of the citizens in these emerging nation-states, and they maintain that by using Habermas’s own logic, his claims would therefore be invalid.
Some critics claim the public sphere, as such, never existed, or existed only in the sense of excluding many important groups, such as the poor, women, slaves, migrants, and criminals. They maintain that the public sphere remains an idealized conception, little changed since Kant, since the ideal is still to a great extent what Habermas might call an unfinished project of modernity. (Cubitt 2005:93)
Similar critiques regarding the exclusivity of the bourgeois public sphere have been made by feminist and post-colonial authors in the years following publication.
The Economist magazine criticized Habermas for missing “the big lesson of 1989: that politics need not be just the boring business of elites and insiders. It is, at least potentially, an exciting affair in which outsiders, even against great odds, can make a difference. Those who took part in the Orange Revolution in Ukraine or in the wild enthusiasm of Barack Obama’s campaign for the American presidency felt something of the same.”[6]
Last, the book has been criticized for its writing style. One reviewer described Habermas as a “sage by people who would rather chew glass than read his lumbering prose.”[1]
Some critics claim the public sphere, as such, never existed, or existed only in the sense of excluding many important groups, such as the poor, women, slaves, migrants, and criminals. They maintain that the public sphere remains an idealized conception, little changed since Kant, since the ideal is still to a great extent what Habermas might call an unfinished project of modernity. (Cubitt 2005:93)
Similar critiques regarding the exclusivity of the bourgeois public sphere have been made by feminist and post-colonial authors in the years following publication.
The Economist magazine criticized Habermas for missing “the big lesson of 1989: that politics need not be just the boring business of elites and insiders. It is, at least potentially, an exciting affair in which outsiders, even against great odds, can make a difference. Those who took part in the Orange Revolution in Ukraine or in the wild enthusiasm of Barack Obama’s campaign for the American presidency felt something of the same.”[6]
Last, the book has been criticized for its writing style. One reviewer described Habermas as a “sage by people who would rather chew glass than read his lumbering prose.”[1]
7. Elena - February 20, 2010 [Edit]If the critics are well founded the criticism couldn’t be more necessary. How would Habermas ever reduce the Public Square to a CLUB again?
The premises though are well founded: the media belongs to those in the upper classes and yet that is still not the Public Square. Perhaps we are heading towards it rather than coming from it. Perhaps this Public Square that was born in the freedom and confinement of the internet is just a seed: the fact that we can talk even if no one listens!!!
Just the fact that people are talking to each other, hearing each other, makes huge differences. Even if we just look at the fofblog, we interpenetrated each other’s soul in ways we would have never been able to do through a book.
It is so very exciting to live in this times! To slowly come to the present!
8. Elena - February 21, 2010 [Edit]Popular sovereignty
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article and discuss the issue on the talk page.
Popular sovereignty or the sovereignty of the people is the belief that the legitimacy of the state is created by the will or consent of its people, who are the source of every political power. It is closely associated with the social contract philosophers, among whom are Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Popular sovereignty expresses a concept and does not necessarily reflect or describe a political reality.[1] It is often contrasted with the concept of parliamentary sovereignty. Benjamin Franklin expressed the concept when he wrote, “In free governments the rulers are the servants and the people their superiors and sovereigns.”[2]
Contents [hide]
1 History
2 Popular sovereignty in the United States
3 See also
4 Notes
[edit]History
Popular sovereignty or the sovereignty of the people is the belief that the legitimacy of the state is created by the will or consent of its people, who are the source of every political power. It is closely associated with the social contract philosophers, among whom are Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Popular sovereignty expresses a concept and does not necessarily reflect or describe a political reality.[1] It is often contrasted with the concept of parliamentary sovereignty. Benjamin Franklin expressed the concept when he wrote, “In free governments the rulers are the servants and the people their superiors and sovereigns.”[2]
Contents [hide]
1 History
2 Popular sovereignty in the United States
3 See also
4 Notes
[edit]History
The Declaration of Arbroath from 1320 makes clear that the King of Scots at the time, Robert the Bruce, only held his position as monarch subject to him resisting English attempts to control Scotland and makes clear that another king would be chosen if he failed to live up to this responsibility. This has been viewed as a suggestion of popular sovereignty – especially at a time when ‘the Divine right of Kings’ was widely accepted, though the reality was that it would have been nobles rather than the people at large who would have done any choosing.[3]
Popular sovereignty is an idea that also dates to the social contracts school (mid-1600s to mid 1700s), represented by Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), John Locke (1632-1703), and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), author of The Social Contract, a prominent literary work that clearly highlighted the ideals of “general will” and further matured the idea of popular sovereignty. The central tenet is that legitimacy of rule or of law is based on the consent of the governed. Popular sovereignty is thus a basic tenet of most democracies. Hobbes and Rousseau were the most influential thinkers of this school, all postulating that individuals choose to enter into a social contract with one another, thus voluntarily giving up some rights in return for protection from the dangers.
A parallel development of a theory of popular sovereignty can be found among the School of Salamanca (see e.g. Francisco de Vitoria (1483–1546) or Eric Skrzyniarz (1548–1617)), who (like the theorists of the divine right of kings) saw sovereignty as emanating originally from God, but (unlike those theorists) passing from God to all people equally, not only to monarchs.
Republics and popular monarchies are theoretically based on popular sovereignty. However, a legalistic notion of popular sovereignty does not necessarily imply an effective, functioning democracy: a party or even an individual dictator may claim to represent the will of the people, and rule in its name, pretending to detain auctoritas.
Popular sovereignty is an idea that also dates to the social contracts school (mid-1600s to mid 1700s), represented by Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), John Locke (1632-1703), and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), author of The Social Contract, a prominent literary work that clearly highlighted the ideals of “general will” and further matured the idea of popular sovereignty. The central tenet is that legitimacy of rule or of law is based on the consent of the governed. Popular sovereignty is thus a basic tenet of most democracies. Hobbes and Rousseau were the most influential thinkers of this school, all postulating that individuals choose to enter into a social contract with one another, thus voluntarily giving up some rights in return for protection from the dangers.
A parallel development of a theory of popular sovereignty can be found among the School of Salamanca (see e.g. Francisco de Vitoria (1483–1546) or Eric Skrzyniarz (1548–1617)), who (like the theorists of the divine right of kings) saw sovereignty as emanating originally from God, but (unlike those theorists) passing from God to all people equally, not only to monarchs.
Republics and popular monarchies are theoretically based on popular sovereignty. However, a legalistic notion of popular sovereignty does not necessarily imply an effective, functioning democracy: a party or even an individual dictator may claim to represent the will of the people, and rule in its name, pretending to detain auctoritas.
9. Elena - February 21, 2010 [Edit]From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The School of Salamanca is the renaissance of thought in diverse intellectual areas by Spanish theologians, rooted in the intellectual and pedagogical work of Francisco de Vitoria. From the beginning of the 16th century the traditional Catholic conception of man and of his relation to God and to the world had been assaulted by the rise of humanism, by the Protestant Reformation and by the new geographical discoveries and their consequences. These new problems were addressed by the School of Salamanca. The name refers to the University of Salamanca, where de Vitoria and others of the school were based.
Francisco de Vitoria, Domingo de Soto, Martín de Azpilcueta (or Azpilicueta), Tomás de Mercado, and Francisco Suárez, all scholars of natural law and of morality, founded a school of theologians and jurists who undertook the reconciliation of the teachings of Thomas Aquinas with the new political-economic order. The themes of study centered on man and his practical problems (morality, economics, jurisprudence, etc.), but almost equally on a particular body of work accepted by all of them, as the ground against which to test their disagreements, including at times bitter polemics within the School.
The School of Salamanca in the broad sense may be considered more narrowly as two schools of thought coming in succession, that of the Salmanticenses and that of the Conimbricenses. The first began with Francisco de Vitoria (1483–1546), and reached its high point with Domingo de Soto (1494–1560). The Conimbricenses were Jesuits who, from the end of 16th century took over the intellectual leadership of the Catholic world from the Dominicans. Among those Jesuits were Luis de Molina (1535–1600), the aforementioned Francisco Suárez (1548–1617), and Giovanni Botero (1544-1617), who would continue the tradition in Italy. The name Conimbricenses refers to the University of Coimbra in Portugal, where the Jesuit professors were based.[1]
Contents [hide]
1 Law and justice
1.1 Natural law and human rights
1.2 Sovereignty
1.3 The law of peoples and international law
1.4 Just war
1.5 The conquest of America
2 Economics
2.1 Antecedents
2.2 Private property
2.3 Money, value, and price
2.4 Interest on money
3 Theology
3.1 Morality
3.2 The polemic De auxiliis
3.3 The existence of evil in the world
4 References
5 See also
6 External links
[edit]Law and justice
Francisco de Vitoria, Domingo de Soto, Martín de Azpilcueta (or Azpilicueta), Tomás de Mercado, and Francisco Suárez, all scholars of natural law and of morality, founded a school of theologians and jurists who undertook the reconciliation of the teachings of Thomas Aquinas with the new political-economic order. The themes of study centered on man and his practical problems (morality, economics, jurisprudence, etc.), but almost equally on a particular body of work accepted by all of them, as the ground against which to test their disagreements, including at times bitter polemics within the School.
The School of Salamanca in the broad sense may be considered more narrowly as two schools of thought coming in succession, that of the Salmanticenses and that of the Conimbricenses. The first began with Francisco de Vitoria (1483–1546), and reached its high point with Domingo de Soto (1494–1560). The Conimbricenses were Jesuits who, from the end of 16th century took over the intellectual leadership of the Catholic world from the Dominicans. Among those Jesuits were Luis de Molina (1535–1600), the aforementioned Francisco Suárez (1548–1617), and Giovanni Botero (1544-1617), who would continue the tradition in Italy. The name Conimbricenses refers to the University of Coimbra in Portugal, where the Jesuit professors were based.[1]
Contents [hide]
1 Law and justice
1.1 Natural law and human rights
1.2 Sovereignty
1.3 The law of peoples and international law
1.4 Just war
1.5 The conquest of America
2 Economics
2.1 Antecedents
2.2 Private property
2.3 Money, value, and price
2.4 Interest on money
3 Theology
3.1 Morality
3.2 The polemic De auxiliis
3.3 The existence of evil in the world
4 References
5 See also
6 External links
[edit]Law and justice
The juridical doctrine of the School of Salamanca represented the end of medieval concepts of law, with a revindication of liberty not habitual in Europe of that time. The natural rights of man came to be, in one form or another, the center of attention, including rights as a corporeal being (right to life, economic rights such as the right to own property) and spiritual rights (the right to freedom of thought and to human dignity).
[edit]Natural law and human rights
The School of Salamanca reformulated the concept of natural law: law originating in nature itself, with all that exists in the natural order sharing in this law. Their conclusion was, given that all humans share the same nature, they also share the same rights to life and liberty. Such views constituted a novelty in European thought and went counter to those then predominant in Spain and Europe that people indigenous to the Americas had no such rights.
Gabriel Vázquez (1549–1604) held that natural law is not limited to the individual, but obliges societies to act in accord and be treated with justice.
[edit]Sovereignty
The School of Salamanca distinguished two realms of power, the natural or civil realm and the realm of the supernatural, which were often conflated in the Middle Ages through doctrines such as the Divine Right of Kings and the temporal powers of the pope. One direct consequence of the separation of realms of power is that the king or emperor does not legitimately have jurisdiction over souls, nor does the Pope have legitimate temporal power. This included the proposal that there are limits on the legitimate powers of government. Thus, according to Luis de Molina a nation is analogous to a mercantile society (the antecedent of a modern corporation) in that those who govern are holders of power (effectively sovereigns) but a collective power, to which they are subject, derives from them jointly. Nonetheless, in de Molina’s view, the power of society over the individual is greater than that of a mercantile society over its members, because the power of the government of a nation emanates from God’s divine power (as against merely from the power of individuals sovereign over themselves in their business dealings).
At this time, the monarchy of England was extending the theory of the divine right of kings — under which the monarch is the unique legitimate recipient of the emanation of God’s power — asserting that subjects must follow the monarch’s orders, in order not to contravene said design. Counter to this, several adherents of the School sustained that the people are the vehicle of divine sovereignty, which they, in turn, pass to a prince under various conditions. Possibly the one who went furthest in this direction was Francisco Suárez, whose work Defensio Fidei Catholicae adversus Anglicanae sectae errores (The Defense of the Catholic Faith against the errors of the Anglican sect 1613) was the strongest defense in this period of popular sovereignty. Men are born free by their nature and not as slaves of another man, and can disobey even to the point of deposing an unjust government. As with de Molina, he affirms that political power does not reside in any one concrete person, but he differs subtly in that he considers that the recipient of that power is the people as a whole, not a collection of sovereign individuals — in the same way, Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s theory of popular sovereignty would consider the people as a collective group superior to the sum that composes it.
For Suárez, the political power of society is contractual in origin because the community forms by consensus of free wills. The consequence of this contractualist theory is that the natural form of government is democracy, while oligarchy or monarchy arise as secondary institutions, whose claim to justice is based on being forms chosen (or at least consented to) by the people.
[edit]The law of peoples and international law
Francisco de Vitoria was perhaps the first to develop a theory of ius gentium (the rights of peoples), and thus is an important figure in the transition to modernity. He extrapolated his ideas of legitimate sovereign power to society at the international level, concluding that this scope as well ought to be ruled by just forms respectable of the rights of all. The common good of the world is of a category superior to the good of each state. This meant that relations between states ought to pass from being justified by force to being justified by law and justice. Francisco de Vitoria essentially invented international law.
Francisco Suárez subdivided the concept of ius gentium. Working with already well-formed categories, he carefully distinguished ius inter gentes from ius intra gentes. Ius inter gentes (which corresponds to modern international law) was something common to the majority of countries, although being positive law, not natural law, was not necessarily universal. On the other hand, ius intra gentes, or civil law, is specific to each nation.
[edit]Just war
Given that war is one of the worst evils suffered by mankind, the adherents of the School reasoned that it ought to be resorted to only when it was necessary in order to prevent an even greater evil. A diplomatic agreement is preferable, even for the more powerful party, before a war is started. Examples of “just war” are:
In self-defense, as long as there is a reasonable possibility of success. If failure is a foregone conclusion, then it is just a wasteful spilling of blood.
Preventive war against a tyrant who is about to attack.
War to punish a guilty enemy.
A war is not legitimate or illegitimate simply based on its original motivation: it must comply with a series of additional requirements:
It is necessary that the response be commensurate to the evil; use of more violence than is strictly necessary would constitute an unjust war.
Governing authorities declare war, but their decision is not sufficient cause to begin a war. If the people oppose a war, then it is illegitimate. The people have a right to depose a government that is waging, or is about to wage, an unjust war.
Once war has begun, there remain moral limits to action. For example, one may not attack innocents or kill hostages.
It is obligatory to take advantage of all options for dialogue and negotiations before undertaking a war; war is only legitimate as a last resort.
Under this doctrine, expansionist wars, wars of pillage, wars to convert infidels or pagans, and wars for glory are all inherently unjust.
[edit]Natural law and human rights
The School of Salamanca reformulated the concept of natural law: law originating in nature itself, with all that exists in the natural order sharing in this law. Their conclusion was, given that all humans share the same nature, they also share the same rights to life and liberty. Such views constituted a novelty in European thought and went counter to those then predominant in Spain and Europe that people indigenous to the Americas had no such rights.
Gabriel Vázquez (1549–1604) held that natural law is not limited to the individual, but obliges societies to act in accord and be treated with justice.
[edit]Sovereignty
The School of Salamanca distinguished two realms of power, the natural or civil realm and the realm of the supernatural, which were often conflated in the Middle Ages through doctrines such as the Divine Right of Kings and the temporal powers of the pope. One direct consequence of the separation of realms of power is that the king or emperor does not legitimately have jurisdiction over souls, nor does the Pope have legitimate temporal power. This included the proposal that there are limits on the legitimate powers of government. Thus, according to Luis de Molina a nation is analogous to a mercantile society (the antecedent of a modern corporation) in that those who govern are holders of power (effectively sovereigns) but a collective power, to which they are subject, derives from them jointly. Nonetheless, in de Molina’s view, the power of society over the individual is greater than that of a mercantile society over its members, because the power of the government of a nation emanates from God’s divine power (as against merely from the power of individuals sovereign over themselves in their business dealings).
At this time, the monarchy of England was extending the theory of the divine right of kings — under which the monarch is the unique legitimate recipient of the emanation of God’s power — asserting that subjects must follow the monarch’s orders, in order not to contravene said design. Counter to this, several adherents of the School sustained that the people are the vehicle of divine sovereignty, which they, in turn, pass to a prince under various conditions. Possibly the one who went furthest in this direction was Francisco Suárez, whose work Defensio Fidei Catholicae adversus Anglicanae sectae errores (The Defense of the Catholic Faith against the errors of the Anglican sect 1613) was the strongest defense in this period of popular sovereignty. Men are born free by their nature and not as slaves of another man, and can disobey even to the point of deposing an unjust government. As with de Molina, he affirms that political power does not reside in any one concrete person, but he differs subtly in that he considers that the recipient of that power is the people as a whole, not a collection of sovereign individuals — in the same way, Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s theory of popular sovereignty would consider the people as a collective group superior to the sum that composes it.
For Suárez, the political power of society is contractual in origin because the community forms by consensus of free wills. The consequence of this contractualist theory is that the natural form of government is democracy, while oligarchy or monarchy arise as secondary institutions, whose claim to justice is based on being forms chosen (or at least consented to) by the people.
[edit]The law of peoples and international law
Francisco de Vitoria was perhaps the first to develop a theory of ius gentium (the rights of peoples), and thus is an important figure in the transition to modernity. He extrapolated his ideas of legitimate sovereign power to society at the international level, concluding that this scope as well ought to be ruled by just forms respectable of the rights of all. The common good of the world is of a category superior to the good of each state. This meant that relations between states ought to pass from being justified by force to being justified by law and justice. Francisco de Vitoria essentially invented international law.
Francisco Suárez subdivided the concept of ius gentium. Working with already well-formed categories, he carefully distinguished ius inter gentes from ius intra gentes. Ius inter gentes (which corresponds to modern international law) was something common to the majority of countries, although being positive law, not natural law, was not necessarily universal. On the other hand, ius intra gentes, or civil law, is specific to each nation.
[edit]Just war
Given that war is one of the worst evils suffered by mankind, the adherents of the School reasoned that it ought to be resorted to only when it was necessary in order to prevent an even greater evil. A diplomatic agreement is preferable, even for the more powerful party, before a war is started. Examples of “just war” are:
In self-defense, as long as there is a reasonable possibility of success. If failure is a foregone conclusion, then it is just a wasteful spilling of blood.
Preventive war against a tyrant who is about to attack.
War to punish a guilty enemy.
A war is not legitimate or illegitimate simply based on its original motivation: it must comply with a series of additional requirements:
It is necessary that the response be commensurate to the evil; use of more violence than is strictly necessary would constitute an unjust war.
Governing authorities declare war, but their decision is not sufficient cause to begin a war. If the people oppose a war, then it is illegitimate. The people have a right to depose a government that is waging, or is about to wage, an unjust war.
Once war has begun, there remain moral limits to action. For example, one may not attack innocents or kill hostages.
It is obligatory to take advantage of all options for dialogue and negotiations before undertaking a war; war is only legitimate as a last resort.
Under this doctrine, expansionist wars, wars of pillage, wars to convert infidels or pagans, and wars for glory are all inherently unjust.
[edit]The conquest of America
In this period, in which colonialism began, Spain was the only western European nation in which a group of intellectuals questioned the legitimacy of conquest rather than simply trying to justify it by traditional means.
Francisco de Vitoria began his analysis of conquest by rejecting “illegitimate titles”. He was the first to dare to question whether the bulls of Alexander VI known collectively as the Bulls of Donation were a valid title of dominion over the newly discovered territories. In this matter he did not accept the universal primacy of the emperor, the authority of the Pope (because the Pope, according to him, lacked temporal power), nor the claim of voluntary submission or conversion of the Native Americans. One could not consider them sinners or lacking in intelligence: they were free people by nature, with legitimate property rights. When the Spanish arrived in America they brought no legitimate title to occupy those lands and become their master.
Vitoria also analyzed whether there were legitimate claims of title over discovered lands. He elaborated up to eight legitimate titles of dominion. The first and perhaps most fundamental relates to communication between people, who jointly constitute a universal society. Ius peregrinandi et degendi is the right of every human being to travel and do commerce in all parts of the earth, independently of who governs or what is the religion of the territory. For him, if the “Indians” of the Americas would not permit free transit, the aggrieved parties had the right to defend themselves and to remain in land obtained in such a war of self-defense.
The second form of legitimate title over discovered lands also referred back to a human right whose obstruction is a cause for a just war. The Indians could voluntarily refuse conversion, but could not impede the right of the Spanish to preach, in which case the matter would be analogous to the first case. Nonetheless, Vitoria noted that although this can be grounds for a just war, it is not necessarily appropriate to make such a war, because of the resulting death and destruction.
The other cases of this casuistry are:
If the pagan sovereigns force converts to return to idolatry.
If there come to be a sufficient number of Christians in the newly discovered land that they wish to receive from the Pope a Christian government.
In the case of overthrowing a tyranny or a government that is harming innocents (e.g. human sacrifice)
If associates and friends have been attacked — as were the Tlaxcaltecas, allied with the Spanish but subjected, like many other people, to the Aztecs — once again, this could justify a war, with the ensuing possibility of legitimate conquest as in the first case
The final “legitimate title” although qualified by Vitoria himself as doubtful, is the lack of just laws, magistrates, agricultural techniques, etc. In any case, title taken according to this principle must be exercised with Christian charity and for the advantage of the Indians.
This doctrine of “legitimate” and “illegitimate” titles was not agreeable to Emperor Charles V, then ruler of Spain, in that they meant that Spain had no special right; he tried without success to stop these theologians from expressing their opinions in these matters.
[edit]Economics
In this period, in which colonialism began, Spain was the only western European nation in which a group of intellectuals questioned the legitimacy of conquest rather than simply trying to justify it by traditional means.
Francisco de Vitoria began his analysis of conquest by rejecting “illegitimate titles”. He was the first to dare to question whether the bulls of Alexander VI known collectively as the Bulls of Donation were a valid title of dominion over the newly discovered territories. In this matter he did not accept the universal primacy of the emperor, the authority of the Pope (because the Pope, according to him, lacked temporal power), nor the claim of voluntary submission or conversion of the Native Americans. One could not consider them sinners or lacking in intelligence: they were free people by nature, with legitimate property rights. When the Spanish arrived in America they brought no legitimate title to occupy those lands and become their master.
Vitoria also analyzed whether there were legitimate claims of title over discovered lands. He elaborated up to eight legitimate titles of dominion. The first and perhaps most fundamental relates to communication between people, who jointly constitute a universal society. Ius peregrinandi et degendi is the right of every human being to travel and do commerce in all parts of the earth, independently of who governs or what is the religion of the territory. For him, if the “Indians” of the Americas would not permit free transit, the aggrieved parties had the right to defend themselves and to remain in land obtained in such a war of self-defense.
The second form of legitimate title over discovered lands also referred back to a human right whose obstruction is a cause for a just war. The Indians could voluntarily refuse conversion, but could not impede the right of the Spanish to preach, in which case the matter would be analogous to the first case. Nonetheless, Vitoria noted that although this can be grounds for a just war, it is not necessarily appropriate to make such a war, because of the resulting death and destruction.
The other cases of this casuistry are:
If the pagan sovereigns force converts to return to idolatry.
If there come to be a sufficient number of Christians in the newly discovered land that they wish to receive from the Pope a Christian government.
In the case of overthrowing a tyranny or a government that is harming innocents (e.g. human sacrifice)
If associates and friends have been attacked — as were the Tlaxcaltecas, allied with the Spanish but subjected, like many other people, to the Aztecs — once again, this could justify a war, with the ensuing possibility of legitimate conquest as in the first case
The final “legitimate title” although qualified by Vitoria himself as doubtful, is the lack of just laws, magistrates, agricultural techniques, etc. In any case, title taken according to this principle must be exercised with Christian charity and for the advantage of the Indians.
This doctrine of “legitimate” and “illegitimate” titles was not agreeable to Emperor Charles V, then ruler of Spain, in that they meant that Spain had no special right; he tried without success to stop these theologians from expressing their opinions in these matters.
[edit]Economics
Much attention has been drawn to the economic thought of the School of Salamanca by Joseph Schumpeter’s History of Economic Analysis (1954). It did not coin, but certainly consolidated, the use of the term School of Salamanca in economics. Schumpeter studied scholastic doctrine in general and Spanish scholastic doctrine in particular, and praised the high level of economic science in Spain in the 16th century. He argued that the School of Salamanca most deserve to be considered the founders of economics as a science. The School did not elaborate a complete doctrine of economics, but they established the first modern economic theories to address the new economic problems that had arisen with the end of the medieval order. Unfortunately, there was no continuation of their work until the end of the 17th century and many of their contributions were forgotten, only to be rediscovered later by others.
The English historian of economic thought Marjorie Grice-Hutchinson has published numerous articles and monographs on the School of Salamanca.
Although there does not appear to be any direct influence, the economic thought of the School of Salamanca is in many ways similar to that of the Austrian School. Murray Rothbard referred to them as proto-Austrians.
The English historian of economic thought Marjorie Grice-Hutchinson has published numerous articles and monographs on the School of Salamanca.
Although there does not appear to be any direct influence, the economic thought of the School of Salamanca is in many ways similar to that of the Austrian School. Murray Rothbard referred to them as proto-Austrians.
[edit]Antecedents
In 1517, de Vitoria, then at the Sorbonne, was consulted by Spanish merchants based in Antwerp about the moral legitimacy of engaging in commerce to increase one’s personal wealth. From today’s point of view, one would say they were asking for a consultation about the entrepreneurial spirit. Beginning at that time, Vitoria and other theologians looked at economic matters. They moved away from views that they found to be obsolete, adopting instead new ideas based on principles of natural law.
According to these views, the natural order is based in the “freedom of circulation” of people, goods, and ideas, allowing people to know one another and increase their sentiments of brotherhood. This implies that merchantry is not merely not reprehensible, but that it actually serves the general good.
In 1517, de Vitoria, then at the Sorbonne, was consulted by Spanish merchants based in Antwerp about the moral legitimacy of engaging in commerce to increase one’s personal wealth. From today’s point of view, one would say they were asking for a consultation about the entrepreneurial spirit. Beginning at that time, Vitoria and other theologians looked at economic matters. They moved away from views that they found to be obsolete, adopting instead new ideas based on principles of natural law.
According to these views, the natural order is based in the “freedom of circulation” of people, goods, and ideas, allowing people to know one another and increase their sentiments of brotherhood. This implies that merchantry is not merely not reprehensible, but that it actually serves the general good.
[edit]Private property
The adherents of the School of Salamanca all agreed that property has the beneficial effect of stimulating economic activity, which, in turn, contributed to the general well being. Diego de Covarubias y Leyva (1512–1577) considered that people had not only the right to own property but — again, a specifically modern idea — they had the exclusive right to the benefit from that property, although the community might also benefit. Nonetheless, in times of great necessity, there all goods become a commons.
Luis de Molina argued that individual owners take better care of their goods than is taken of common property, a form of the tragedy of the commons.
The adherents of the School of Salamanca all agreed that property has the beneficial effect of stimulating economic activity, which, in turn, contributed to the general well being. Diego de Covarubias y Leyva (1512–1577) considered that people had not only the right to own property but — again, a specifically modern idea — they had the exclusive right to the benefit from that property, although the community might also benefit. Nonetheless, in times of great necessity, there all goods become a commons.
Luis de Molina argued that individual owners take better care of their goods than is taken of common property, a form of the tragedy of the commons.
[edit]Money, value, and price
The most complete and methodical developments of a Salamancan theory of value were by Martín de Azpilcueta (1493–1586) and Luis de Molina. Interested in the effect of precious metals arriving from the Americas, de Azpilcueta proved that in the countries where precious metals were scarce, prices for them were higher than in those where they were abundant. Precious metals, like any other mercantile good, gained at least some of their value from their scarcity. This scarcity theory of value was a precursor of the quantitative theory of money put forward slightly later by Jean Bodin (1530–1596).
The most complete and methodical developments of a Salamancan theory of value were by Martín de Azpilcueta (1493–1586) and Luis de Molina. Interested in the effect of precious metals arriving from the Americas, de Azpilcueta proved that in the countries where precious metals were scarce, prices for them were higher than in those where they were abundant. Precious metals, like any other mercantile good, gained at least some of their value from their scarcity. This scarcity theory of value was a precursor of the quantitative theory of money put forward slightly later by Jean Bodin (1530–1596).
Up until that time, the predominant theory of value had been the medieval theory based on the cost of production as the sole determinant of a just price (a variant of the cost-of-production theory of value, most recently manifested in the labor theory of value). Diego de Covarrubias and Luis de Molina developed a subjective theory of value and prices, which asserted that the usefulness of a good varied from person to person, so just prices would arise from mutual decisions in free commerce, barring the distorting effects of monopoly, fraud, or government intervention. Expressing this in today’s terms, the adherents of the School defended the free market, where the fair price of a good would be determined by supply and demand.
On this Luis Saravia de la Calle wrote in 1544:
Those who measure the just price by the labour, costs, and risk incurred by the person who deals in the merchandise or produces it, or by the cost of transport or the expense of traveling…or by what he has to pay the factors for their industry, risk, and labour, are greatly in error…. For the just price arises from the abundance or scarcity of goods, merchants, and money…and not from costs, labour, and risk…. Why should a bale of linen brought overland from Brittany at great expense be worth more than one which is transported cheaply by sea?… Why should a book written out by hand be worth more than one which is printed, when the latter is better though it costs less to produce?… The just price is found not by counting the cost but by the common estimation.
Those who measure the just price by the labour, costs, and risk incurred by the person who deals in the merchandise or produces it, or by the cost of transport or the expense of traveling…or by what he has to pay the factors for their industry, risk, and labour, are greatly in error…. For the just price arises from the abundance or scarcity of goods, merchants, and money…and not from costs, labour, and risk…. Why should a bale of linen brought overland from Brittany at great expense be worth more than one which is transported cheaply by sea?… Why should a book written out by hand be worth more than one which is printed, when the latter is better though it costs less to produce?… The just price is found not by counting the cost but by the common estimation.
However the school rarely followed this idea through systematically, and, as Friedrich Hayek has written, “never to the point of realizing that what was relevant was not merely man’s relation to a particular thing or a class of things but the position of the thing in the whole…scheme by which men decide how to allocate the resources at their disposal among their different endeavors.”
[edit]Interest on money
Usury (which in that period meant any charging of interest on a loan) has always been viewed negatively by the Catholic Church. The Second Lateran Council condemned any repayment of a debt with more money than was originally loaned; the Council of Vienne explicitly prohibited usury and declared any legislation tolerant of usury to be heretical; the first scholastics reproved the charging of interest. In the medieval economy, loans were entirely a consequence of necessity (bad harvests, fire in a workplace) and, under those conditions, it was considered morally reproachable to charge interest.
In the Renaissance era, greater mobility of people facilitated an increase in commerce and the appearance of appropriate conditions for entrepreneurs to start new, lucrative businesses. Given that borrowed money was no longer strictly for consumption but for production as well, it could not be viewed in the same manner. The School of Salamanca elaborated various reasons that justified the charging of interest. The person who received a loan benefited; one could consider interest as a premium paid for the risk taken by the loaning party. There was also the question of opportunity cost, in that the loaning party lost other possibilities of utilizing the loaned money. Finally, and perhaps most originally, was the consideration of money itself as a merchandise, and the use of one’s money as something for which one should receive a benefit in the form of interest.
Martín de Azpilcueta also considered the effect of time, formulating the time value of money. All things being equal, one would prefer to receive a given good now rather than in the future. This preference indicates greater value. Interest, under this theory, is the payment for the time the loaning individual is deprived of the money.
[edit]Theology
[edit]Interest on money
Usury (which in that period meant any charging of interest on a loan) has always been viewed negatively by the Catholic Church. The Second Lateran Council condemned any repayment of a debt with more money than was originally loaned; the Council of Vienne explicitly prohibited usury and declared any legislation tolerant of usury to be heretical; the first scholastics reproved the charging of interest. In the medieval economy, loans were entirely a consequence of necessity (bad harvests, fire in a workplace) and, under those conditions, it was considered morally reproachable to charge interest.
In the Renaissance era, greater mobility of people facilitated an increase in commerce and the appearance of appropriate conditions for entrepreneurs to start new, lucrative businesses. Given that borrowed money was no longer strictly for consumption but for production as well, it could not be viewed in the same manner. The School of Salamanca elaborated various reasons that justified the charging of interest. The person who received a loan benefited; one could consider interest as a premium paid for the risk taken by the loaning party. There was also the question of opportunity cost, in that the loaning party lost other possibilities of utilizing the loaned money. Finally, and perhaps most originally, was the consideration of money itself as a merchandise, and the use of one’s money as something for which one should receive a benefit in the form of interest.
Martín de Azpilcueta also considered the effect of time, formulating the time value of money. All things being equal, one would prefer to receive a given good now rather than in the future. This preference indicates greater value. Interest, under this theory, is the payment for the time the loaning individual is deprived of the money.
[edit]Theology
In the Renaissance era, theology was generally declining in the face of the rise of humanism, with scholasticism becoming nothing more than an empty and routine methodology. Under Francisco de Vitoria, the University of Salamanca led a period of intense activity in theology, especially a renaissance of Thomism, whose influence extended to European culture in general, but especially to other European universities. Perhaps the fundamental contribution of the School of Salamanca to theology is the study of problems much closer to humanity, which had previously been ignored, and the opening of questions that had previously not been posed. The term positive theology is sometimes used to distinguish this new, more practical, theology from the earlier scholastic theology.
[edit
]Morality
In an era when religion (whether Catholicism, Calvinism, Islam, or others) permeated everything, to analyze the morality of the acts was considered the most practical and useful study one could undertake to serve society. The novel contributions of the School in law and economics were rooted in concrete challenges and moral problems which confronted society under new conditions.
It was a revolutionary idea to assert that Christian believers could behave in an evil manner and people entirely ignorant of Christianity could do good. That is to say, morality did not depend on conscious knowledge of God. This was particularly important in terms of behavior toward pagans, who could not be presupposed to be evil merely because they were not Christians.
[edit
]Morality
In an era when religion (whether Catholicism, Calvinism, Islam, or others) permeated everything, to analyze the morality of the acts was considered the most practical and useful study one could undertake to serve society. The novel contributions of the School in law and economics were rooted in concrete challenges and moral problems which confronted society under new conditions.
It was a revolutionary idea to assert that Christian believers could behave in an evil manner and people entirely ignorant of Christianity could do good. That is to say, morality did not depend on conscious knowledge of God. This was particularly important in terms of behavior toward pagans, who could not be presupposed to be evil merely because they were not Christians.
Over the years a casuistry, a fixed set of answers to moral dilemmas, had been developed. However, by its nature, a casuistry can never be complete, leading to a search for more general rules or principles. From this developed Probabilism, where the ultimate criterion was not truth, but the certainty of not choosing evil. Developed principally by Bartolomé de Medina and continued by Gabriel Vázquez y Francisco Suárez, Probabilism became the most important school of moral thought in the coming centuries..
[edit]The polemic De auxiliis
The polemic De auxiliis was a dispute between Jesuits and Dominicans which occurred at the end of the 16th century. The topic of the controversy was grace and predestination, that is to say how one could reconcile the liberty or free will of humans with divine omniscience. In 1582 the Jesuit Prudencio Montemayor and Fray Luis de León spoke publicly about human liberty. Domingo Báñez considered that they gave free will too great a weight and that they used terminology that sounded heretical; he denounced them to the Spanish Inquisition, accusing them of Pelagianism, a belief in human free will to the detriment of the doctrine of original sin and the grace granted by God. Montemayor and de León were banned from teaching and prohibited from defending such ideas.
Báñez was then denounced to the Holy Office by Leon, who accused him of “committing the error of Lutheranism”, that is of following the doctrines of Martin Luther. According to Lutheran doctrine, man is “dead in his trespasses” (Ephesians 2:1) as a consequence of original sin and cannot save himself by his own merit; only God can save man, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9) Báñez was acquitted.
[edit]The polemic De auxiliis
The polemic De auxiliis was a dispute between Jesuits and Dominicans which occurred at the end of the 16th century. The topic of the controversy was grace and predestination, that is to say how one could reconcile the liberty or free will of humans with divine omniscience. In 1582 the Jesuit Prudencio Montemayor and Fray Luis de León spoke publicly about human liberty. Domingo Báñez considered that they gave free will too great a weight and that they used terminology that sounded heretical; he denounced them to the Spanish Inquisition, accusing them of Pelagianism, a belief in human free will to the detriment of the doctrine of original sin and the grace granted by God. Montemayor and de León were banned from teaching and prohibited from defending such ideas.
Báñez was then denounced to the Holy Office by Leon, who accused him of “committing the error of Lutheranism”, that is of following the doctrines of Martin Luther. According to Lutheran doctrine, man is “dead in his trespasses” (Ephesians 2:1) as a consequence of original sin and cannot save himself by his own merit; only God can save man, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9) Báñez was acquitted.
Nonetheless, this did not end the dispute, which Luis de Molina continued with his Concordia liberi arbitrii cum gratiae donis (1588). This is considered the best expression of the Jesuit position. The polemic continued over the course of years, including an attempt by the Dominicans to get Pope Clement VIII to condemn the Concordia of de Molina. Finally Paul V in 1607 recognized the liberty of Dominicans and Jesuits to defend their ideas, prohibiting that either side of this disagreement be characterized as heresy.
[edit]The existence of evil in the world
The existence of evil in a world created and ruled by an infinitely good and powerful God has long been viewed as paradoxical. (See Problem of evil). Vitoria reconciled the paradox by arguing first that free will is a gift from God to each person. It is impossible that each person will always freely choose only the good. Thus, evil results as a necessary consequence of human free will.
[edit]The existence of evil in the world
The existence of evil in a world created and ruled by an infinitely good and powerful God has long been viewed as paradoxical. (See Problem of evil). Vitoria reconciled the paradox by arguing first that free will is a gift from God to each person. It is impossible that each person will always freely choose only the good. Thus, evil results as a necessary consequence of human free will.
10. Elena - February 21, 2010 [Edit]I’m delighted catching up in history even through wikipedia. The School of Salamanca is impressive! Everything mattered and that matters! They seemed to have to touch on so many different areas and were so right about it, unlike our times and in the Fellowship in which people were happy not dealing with anything but their so called personal evolution… as if evolution could be personal!
Everything I am publishing has to do with the Fellowship Cult. I am just getting the numbers in the equation so that I can present you the equation later!
It is a beautiful equation!
In studying all these things, I publish only what is related to the cult but indeed, everything is related to the cult. My aim is to understand at least for my self how and what happened to us. Why were we such easy victims. From where were we coming from that we bought into it like guinea pigs who had been raised for sacrifice.
I am convinced that the answer is of course, in our selves, but our “selves” as the sum total of what we had received and had not processed! That is why cults are so dangerous: they attract people in vulnerable conditions.
11. Elena - February 24, 2010 [Edit]Biopower
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Biopower was a term originally coined by French philosopher Michel Foucault to refer to the practice of modern states and their regulation of their subjects through “an explosion of numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugations of bodies and the control of populations.” Foucault first used it in his courses at the Collège de France, but the term first appeared in The Will To Knowledge, Foucault’s first volume of The History of Sexuality [1]. In both Foucault’s work and the work of later theorists it has been used to refer to practices of public health, regulation of heredity, and risk regulation (François Ewald), among many other things often linked less directly with literal physical health. It is closely related to a term he uses much less frequently, but which subsequent thinkers have taken up independently, biopolitics.
Contents [hide]
1 Foucault
2 References
3 See also
4 External links
[edit]Foucault
Contents [hide]
1 Foucault
2 References
3 See also
4 External links
[edit]Foucault
For Foucault, biopower is a technology of power, which is a way of managing people as a group. The distinctive quality of this political technology is that it allows for the control of entire populations. It is thus essential to the emergence of the modern nation state, modern capitalism, etc. Biopower is literally having power over other bodies, “an explosion of numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugations of bodies and the control of populations” [2]. It relates to the government’s concern with fostering the life of the population, and centers on the poles of discipline (“an anatomo-politics of the human body”) and regulatory controls (“a biopolitics of the population”).
Biopower for Foucault contrasts with traditional modes of power based on the threat of death from a sovereign. In an era where power must be justified rationally, biopower is utilized by an emphasis on the protection of life rather than the threat of death, on the regulation of the body, and the production of other technologies of power, such as the notion of sexuality. Regulation of customs, habits, health, reproductive practices, family, “blood”, and “well-being” would be straightforward examples of biopower, as would any conception of the state as a “body” and the use of state power as essential to its “life”. Hence the conceived relationship between biopower, eugenics and state racism.
With the concept of “biopower”, which first appears in courses concerning the discourse of “race struggle”, Foucault develops a holistic account of power, in opposition to the classic understanding of power as basically negative, limitative and akin to censorship. Sexuality, he argues, far from having been reduced to silence during the Victorian Era, was in fact subjected to a “sexuality dispositif” (or “mechanism”), which incites and even forced the subject to speak about their sex. Thus, “sexuality does not exist”, it is a discursive creation, which makes us believe that sexuality contains our personal truth (in the same way that the discourse of “race struggle” sees the truth of politics and history in the everlasting subterranean war which takes place beneath the so-called peace).
Furthermore, the exercise of power in the service of maximizing life carries a dark underside. When the state is invested in protecting the life of the population, when the stakes are life itself, anything can be justified. Groups identified as the threat to the existence of the life of the nation or of humanity can be eradicated with impunity. “If genocide is indeed the dream of modern power, this is not because of the recent return to the ancient right to kill; it is because power is situated and exercised at the level of life, the species, the race, and the large-scale phenomena of the population.”
Biopower for Foucault contrasts with traditional modes of power based on the threat of death from a sovereign. In an era where power must be justified rationally, biopower is utilized by an emphasis on the protection of life rather than the threat of death, on the regulation of the body, and the production of other technologies of power, such as the notion of sexuality. Regulation of customs, habits, health, reproductive practices, family, “blood”, and “well-being” would be straightforward examples of biopower, as would any conception of the state as a “body” and the use of state power as essential to its “life”. Hence the conceived relationship between biopower, eugenics and state racism.
With the concept of “biopower”, which first appears in courses concerning the discourse of “race struggle”, Foucault develops a holistic account of power, in opposition to the classic understanding of power as basically negative, limitative and akin to censorship. Sexuality, he argues, far from having been reduced to silence during the Victorian Era, was in fact subjected to a “sexuality dispositif” (or “mechanism”), which incites and even forced the subject to speak about their sex. Thus, “sexuality does not exist”, it is a discursive creation, which makes us believe that sexuality contains our personal truth (in the same way that the discourse of “race struggle” sees the truth of politics and history in the everlasting subterranean war which takes place beneath the so-called peace).
Furthermore, the exercise of power in the service of maximizing life carries a dark underside. When the state is invested in protecting the life of the population, when the stakes are life itself, anything can be justified. Groups identified as the threat to the existence of the life of the nation or of humanity can be eradicated with impunity. “If genocide is indeed the dream of modern power, this is not because of the recent return to the ancient right to kill; it is because power is situated and exercised at the level of life, the species, the race, and the large-scale phenomena of the population.”
12. Elena - February 24, 2010 [Edit]This concept of biopower is not far off from the idea of brainwashing. It is simply placed in the context of society and not necessarily a concentration camp or a cult.
The techniques used in the Fellowship cult were much closer to this biopower than to those in concentration camps.
“Regulation of customs, habits, health, reproductive practices, family, “blood”, and “well-being” would be straightforward examples of biopower, as would any conception of the state as a “body” and the use of state power as essential to its “life”.”
The cult phenomenon is well described in this passage. The idea in the member’s minds is not that they are being controlled and overpowered, on the contrary, they willingly submit to the absolute “sovereignity” of the guru. I am talking about those in the main center where the guru resides. 600 people in Oregon House at one time.
13. Elena - February 24, 2010 [Edit]This text is highly loaded with intellectual discourse but makes points on the differences between Habermas and Foucault which I am much interested in.
It’s a bit soon to come to conclusions but worth asking right away, did these men ever pose a theory on why people cannot separate from the norm or normativization? Have they found the “link” between the “government” or authorities, groups, families, and the individual? the “links” would be even better for probably each center has its own link: economic-instinctive, emotional, intellectual. Did Reich come closer to analyzing the links than Foucault and Habermas?
It’s a fun exploration but much more of it is needed. What is amazing is how quickly we can find this things on the internet! We live in a different world to that of our parents!
Dianna Taylor 2009
ISSN: 1832-5203
Foucault Studies, No 7, pp. 45-63, September 2009
ISSN: 1832-5203
Foucault Studies, No 7, pp. 45-63, September 2009
ARTICLE
Normativity and Normalization
Dianna Taylor, John Carroll University
Dianna Taylor, John Carroll University
ABSTRACT: This article illustrates ways in which the concepts of the norm and
normativity are implicated in relations of power. Specifically, I argue that these
concepts have come to function in a normalizing manner. I outline Michel Fou-
cault’s thinking on the norm and normalization and then provide an overview of
Jürgen Habermas’s thinking on the norm and normativity in order to show that
Habermas’s conceptualizations of the norm and normativity are not, as he posits,
necessary foundations for ethics and politics, but in fact simply one philosophical
approach among many. Uncritically accepting a Habermasian framework therefore
produces normalizing effects and inhibits alternative and potentially emancipatory
thinking about ethics and politics. Having problematized the requirement of norma-
tive foundations as it is currently articulated, I conclude by examining the emanci-
patory potential of a particular aspect of Foucault’s work for the practice of philo-
sophy.
normativity are implicated in relations of power. Specifically, I argue that these
concepts have come to function in a normalizing manner. I outline Michel Fou-
cault’s thinking on the norm and normalization and then provide an overview of
Jürgen Habermas’s thinking on the norm and normativity in order to show that
Habermas’s conceptualizations of the norm and normativity are not, as he posits,
necessary foundations for ethics and politics, but in fact simply one philosophical
approach among many. Uncritically accepting a Habermasian framework therefore
produces normalizing effects and inhibits alternative and potentially emancipatory
thinking about ethics and politics. Having problematized the requirement of norma-
tive foundations as it is currently articulated, I conclude by examining the emanci-
patory potential of a particular aspect of Foucault’s work for the practice of philo-
sophy.
Keywords: Norm, Normativity, Normalization, Freedom.
I believe that one of the meanings of human existence – the source of human
freedom – is never to accept anything as definitive, untouchable, obvious, or
immobile. No aspect of reality should be allowed to become a definitive and
inhuman law for us.1 ~ Michel Foucault
freedom – is never to accept anything as definitive, untouchable, obvious, or
immobile. No aspect of reality should be allowed to become a definitive and
inhuman law for us.1 ~ Michel Foucault
I recently presented a conference paper in which I argued that Foucault’s
conceptualizations of the norm and normalization are relevant for contemporary
feminism. I justified my claim in part by asserting that Foucault’s elucidation of the
power effects and contingency of particular social norms (such as sex and gender),
conceptualizations of the norm and normalization are relevant for contemporary
feminism. I justified my claim in part by asserting that Foucault’s elucidation of the
power effects and contingency of particular social norms (such as sex and gender),
1
Michel Foucault, ‚Power, Moral Values, and the Intellectual.‛ Interview with Michael
Bess (November 3, 1980), IMEC (Institut Mémoirs de l’Édition Contemporaine) Archive
folder number FCL2. A02-06.
Taylor: Normativity and Normalization
46
Michel Foucault, ‚Power, Moral Values, and the Intellectual.‛ Interview with Michael
Bess (November 3, 1980), IMEC (Institut Mémoirs de l’Édition Contemporaine) Archive
folder number FCL2. A02-06.
Taylor: Normativity and Normalization
46
extends to the idea of the norm itself. For Foucault, the norm is a norm. But it is one
of those norms (e.g., sex and gender) that effectively presents itself not as a norm,
but as a given and therefore outside of power – benign and closed to critical analysis.
Just as he does with the idea of sex in Volume I of The History of Sexuality, Foucault
traces across several of his Collège de France courses the emergence of the idea of
the norm as a modern concept and illustrates its implication in modern relations of
power. In my paper, I argued that this tracing and illustrating is important because
it effectively supports Foucault’s contention that nothing, even (for Foucault,
especially) those concepts, categories, and principles that appear to be most
fundamental to making sense of the world, need simply be accepted, and that such
refusal creates possibilities for developing alternative modes of thought and
existence which increase persons’ capacities and expand their possibilities without
simultaneously increasing and expanding the proliferation of power within society.
Refusing to simply accept what is presented as natural, necessary, and normal – like
the ideas of sex and the norm itself – presents possibilities for engaging in and
expanding the practice of freedom.
During the question and answer period, a conference participant asserted
that Foucault’s work could possess only minimal relevance for feminism. ‚It’s not
normative,‛ the individual stated flatly, while several people sitting nearby nodded
their heads in agreement. Neither the questioner nor the tacit supporters elaborated;
indeed, the assumption appeared to be that no elaboration was needed: to contend
that Foucault’s work was lacking in normative content simply spoke for itself. The
burden was therefore on me, for if Foucault’s work was not in fact normative there
was no way it could possess relevance for feminist thought and practice.
In this essay, I present the long version of my response to persons such as the
conference participants described above. My focus here is not the relevance of
Foucault’s work for feminism, but rather the more fundamental claim that his work
is ‚not normative.‛ In making that assertion, it seemed to me at the time (and still
does) that the conference participants missed the point of my paper. From their
perspective, one may critically analyze things like what it means to say a practice is
normative, how particular norms or normative practices function, and whether a
particular norm is oppressive, but the necessity of the norm and normativity for any
discussion of ethics and politics, let alone for articulating emancipatory ethical and
political theory and practice, must be accepted; indeed, it is simply assumed. My
point, by contrast, was that assuming and uncritically accepting, as my questioner
did, the necessity of a concept not only for promoting freedom, but also and more
fundamentally for making sense at all, is itself normalizing and that, moreover, part
of the way normalizing norms work is by masking their own effects of power and
thus inhibiting the kind of critical analysis that would have allowed the questioner
to perceive the uncritical assumptions she was making.
Foucault Studies, No. 7, pp. 45-63
of those norms (e.g., sex and gender) that effectively presents itself not as a norm,
but as a given and therefore outside of power – benign and closed to critical analysis.
Just as he does with the idea of sex in Volume I of The History of Sexuality, Foucault
traces across several of his Collège de France courses the emergence of the idea of
the norm as a modern concept and illustrates its implication in modern relations of
power. In my paper, I argued that this tracing and illustrating is important because
it effectively supports Foucault’s contention that nothing, even (for Foucault,
especially) those concepts, categories, and principles that appear to be most
fundamental to making sense of the world, need simply be accepted, and that such
refusal creates possibilities for developing alternative modes of thought and
existence which increase persons’ capacities and expand their possibilities without
simultaneously increasing and expanding the proliferation of power within society.
Refusing to simply accept what is presented as natural, necessary, and normal – like
the ideas of sex and the norm itself – presents possibilities for engaging in and
expanding the practice of freedom.
During the question and answer period, a conference participant asserted
that Foucault’s work could possess only minimal relevance for feminism. ‚It’s not
normative,‛ the individual stated flatly, while several people sitting nearby nodded
their heads in agreement. Neither the questioner nor the tacit supporters elaborated;
indeed, the assumption appeared to be that no elaboration was needed: to contend
that Foucault’s work was lacking in normative content simply spoke for itself. The
burden was therefore on me, for if Foucault’s work was not in fact normative there
was no way it could possess relevance for feminist thought and practice.
In this essay, I present the long version of my response to persons such as the
conference participants described above. My focus here is not the relevance of
Foucault’s work for feminism, but rather the more fundamental claim that his work
is ‚not normative.‛ In making that assertion, it seemed to me at the time (and still
does) that the conference participants missed the point of my paper. From their
perspective, one may critically analyze things like what it means to say a practice is
normative, how particular norms or normative practices function, and whether a
particular norm is oppressive, but the necessity of the norm and normativity for any
discussion of ethics and politics, let alone for articulating emancipatory ethical and
political theory and practice, must be accepted; indeed, it is simply assumed. My
point, by contrast, was that assuming and uncritically accepting, as my questioner
did, the necessity of a concept not only for promoting freedom, but also and more
fundamentally for making sense at all, is itself normalizing and that, moreover, part
of the way normalizing norms work is by masking their own effects of power and
thus inhibiting the kind of critical analysis that would have allowed the questioner
to perceive the uncritical assumptions she was making.
Foucault Studies, No. 7, pp. 45-63
47
A norm is normalizing if, as noted above, it links the increase of capacities
and expansion of possibilities to an increase in and expansion of the proliferation of
power within society. Simply put, normalizing norms encourage subjects to become
highly efficient at performing a narrowly defined range of practices. This is the case
with gender, where subjects are divided into two mutually exclusive groups, the
appropriate behaviors of which are predetermined and which these subjects are
encouraged to repeat over and over again. In time, the repeated behaviors become
embedded to the point where they are perceived not as a particular set of prevailing
norms, but instead simply as ‚normal,‛ inevitable, and therefore immune to critical
analysis. Normalizing norms thus hinder not only critical analysis itself but also, to
the extent that they become naturalized, the recognition that such engagement is
needed or possible at all. So, for example, while the specific character of acceptable
gender roles may change over time, the idea persists that women and men are
different in some fundamental ways that simply must be accepted. To the extent
that normalizing norms maintain or strengthen the link between increased capacities
and expanded possibilities and increased power and inhibit or even prevent the
cultivation and exercise of practices which elucidate and loosen this link, these
norms are counter to freedom.
The response my conference paper generated suggests to me that the
concepts of the norm and normativity have come to play a normalizing role within
philosophical discourse, particularly with respect to ethics and politics. While I
believe that a broad analysis of the normalizing effects of the norm and normativity
is called for, in this essay I limit myself to analyzing these normalizing effects
relative to the work of Foucault, for if Foucault’s insight into the normalizing effects
of the idea of the norm, let alone the broader ethico-political relevance of his work, is
to be taken seriously the characterization of his work as ‚not normative‛ must be
addressed. In order to address this issue, I contrast Foucault’s conceptualization of
the nature and function of the norm with that of Jürgen Habermas. Habermas’s
work is paradigmatic of the view that ethics and politics generally and emancipatory
ethics and politics more specifically can be meaningfully articulated only if they are
grounded in certain normative principles. Analyzing his work in relation to Fou-
cault’s therefore provides an effective means through which to illustrate how the
demand for normative criteria has come to function as a kind of normative criterion,
to illustrate the contingency of this norm, and to analyze its normalizing effects.
Exposing the demand for normative criteria as both contingent and normalizing, I
argue, facilitates measured analysis and therefore better understanding of work such
as Foucault’s which, under prevailing conceptions of the norm and normativity, is
seen as possessing limited ethical and political relevance or at worst as ethically and
politically harmful. Once the demand that Foucault’s work satisfy prevailing ideas
about the norm and normativity is lifted, his refusal to comply with, as well as his
criticism of, that demand no longer renders his work ethically and politically
Taylor: Normativity and Normalization
48
and expansion of possibilities to an increase in and expansion of the proliferation of
power within society. Simply put, normalizing norms encourage subjects to become
highly efficient at performing a narrowly defined range of practices. This is the case
with gender, where subjects are divided into two mutually exclusive groups, the
appropriate behaviors of which are predetermined and which these subjects are
encouraged to repeat over and over again. In time, the repeated behaviors become
embedded to the point where they are perceived not as a particular set of prevailing
norms, but instead simply as ‚normal,‛ inevitable, and therefore immune to critical
analysis. Normalizing norms thus hinder not only critical analysis itself but also, to
the extent that they become naturalized, the recognition that such engagement is
needed or possible at all. So, for example, while the specific character of acceptable
gender roles may change over time, the idea persists that women and men are
different in some fundamental ways that simply must be accepted. To the extent
that normalizing norms maintain or strengthen the link between increased capacities
and expanded possibilities and increased power and inhibit or even prevent the
cultivation and exercise of practices which elucidate and loosen this link, these
norms are counter to freedom.
The response my conference paper generated suggests to me that the
concepts of the norm and normativity have come to play a normalizing role within
philosophical discourse, particularly with respect to ethics and politics. While I
believe that a broad analysis of the normalizing effects of the norm and normativity
is called for, in this essay I limit myself to analyzing these normalizing effects
relative to the work of Foucault, for if Foucault’s insight into the normalizing effects
of the idea of the norm, let alone the broader ethico-political relevance of his work, is
to be taken seriously the characterization of his work as ‚not normative‛ must be
addressed. In order to address this issue, I contrast Foucault’s conceptualization of
the nature and function of the norm with that of Jürgen Habermas. Habermas’s
work is paradigmatic of the view that ethics and politics generally and emancipatory
ethics and politics more specifically can be meaningfully articulated only if they are
grounded in certain normative principles. Analyzing his work in relation to Fou-
cault’s therefore provides an effective means through which to illustrate how the
demand for normative criteria has come to function as a kind of normative criterion,
to illustrate the contingency of this norm, and to analyze its normalizing effects.
Exposing the demand for normative criteria as both contingent and normalizing, I
argue, facilitates measured analysis and therefore better understanding of work such
as Foucault’s which, under prevailing conceptions of the norm and normativity, is
seen as possessing limited ethical and political relevance or at worst as ethically and
politically harmful. Once the demand that Foucault’s work satisfy prevailing ideas
about the norm and normativity is lifted, his refusal to comply with, as well as his
criticism of, that demand no longer renders his work ethically and politically
Taylor: Normativity and Normalization
48
irrelevant or dangerous; instead, its value in promoting practices of freedom can be
explored.
I want to be clear that while my argument reflects a Foucauldian perspective,
I do not mean to reject Habermas’s work or pit the work of Foucault against that of
Habermas; nor will I attempt to show that the work of these two thinkers is in fact
compatible.2 Indeed, I believe these kinds of strategies assume and therefore
perpetuate the very ways of thinking about the norm and normativity that I seek to
call into question. I do want to make a point about how the uncritical acceptance of
Habermasian notions of the norm and normativity necessarily posits Foucault’s
work as non-normative and therefore ethically and politically irrelevant or harmful.
Yet my broader aim is to show that it is only through critical interrogation of what
has been presupposed or uncritically accepted that the emancipatory potential of
any philosophy – whether work such as Habermas’s which asserts the necessity of
normative foundations for ethics and politics, or such as Foucault’s, which seeks to
elucidate the power effects of such assertions – can be effectively explored. My
question in this essay, and the direction in which I see Foucault’s work pointing, is
therefore not, ‚Is it normative?‛ but rather ‘What motivates the question, ‚Is it
normative?‛ and what are the effects of this question?’ Simply put, my question is
not ‚Is it normative?‛ but ‚Is it normalizing?‛
I proceed by outlining relevant aspects of Foucault’s thinking on the norm
and normalization across several of his Collège de France courses,3 and then
providing an overview of Habermas’s thinking on the norm and normativity. I next
explored.
I want to be clear that while my argument reflects a Foucauldian perspective,
I do not mean to reject Habermas’s work or pit the work of Foucault against that of
Habermas; nor will I attempt to show that the work of these two thinkers is in fact
compatible.2 Indeed, I believe these kinds of strategies assume and therefore
perpetuate the very ways of thinking about the norm and normativity that I seek to
call into question. I do want to make a point about how the uncritical acceptance of
Habermasian notions of the norm and normativity necessarily posits Foucault’s
work as non-normative and therefore ethically and politically irrelevant or harmful.
Yet my broader aim is to show that it is only through critical interrogation of what
has been presupposed or uncritically accepted that the emancipatory potential of
any philosophy – whether work such as Habermas’s which asserts the necessity of
normative foundations for ethics and politics, or such as Foucault’s, which seeks to
elucidate the power effects of such assertions – can be effectively explored. My
question in this essay, and the direction in which I see Foucault’s work pointing, is
therefore not, ‚Is it normative?‛ but rather ‘What motivates the question, ‚Is it
normative?‛ and what are the effects of this question?’ Simply put, my question is
not ‚Is it normative?‛ but ‚Is it normalizing?‛
I proceed by outlining relevant aspects of Foucault’s thinking on the norm
and normalization across several of his Collège de France courses,3 and then
providing an overview of Habermas’s thinking on the norm and normativity. I next
2
A good deal of scholarly analysis has been generated that addresses the problem of the
norm and normativity in the work of Foucault and Habermas. The problem figures
centrally in two edited volumes, Critique and Power: Recasting the Foucault/Habermas
Debate, ed. Michael Kelly (Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1994) and Foucault Contra Habermas, eds.
Samantha Ashenden and David Owen (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1999), and is also
apparent in a number of the essays (including Habermas’s own) in Foucault: A Critical
Reader, ed. David Couzens Hoy (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1986). All of these volumes
contain essays that make valuable contributions to Foucault and Habermas scholarship,
and some of them (such as James Tulley’s contribution to the Ashenden/Owen volume,
which I cite later in this essay) move in the direction of my own analysis. But I think the
majority of the contributions ultimately accept prevailing notions of the norm and
normativity and, hence, end up covering the same ground concerning whether
Foucault’s work is normative or not.
3
Foucault addresses the problematic nature and function of norms in his published work,
Discipline and Punish and Volume I of The History of Sexuality being particularly important
in this regard insofar as these texts illustrate the workings of disciplinary power and
biopower, respectively. I have chosen to focus on the Collège de France courses because
within their context one can clearly see Foucault formulating his ideas as he works
though various problems. The courses thus provide valuable insight into the
development of Foucault’s thought across time which is not as apparent within the
context of his published works.
Foucault Studies, No. 7, pp. 45-63
A good deal of scholarly analysis has been generated that addresses the problem of the
norm and normativity in the work of Foucault and Habermas. The problem figures
centrally in two edited volumes, Critique and Power: Recasting the Foucault/Habermas
Debate, ed. Michael Kelly (Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1994) and Foucault Contra Habermas, eds.
Samantha Ashenden and David Owen (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1999), and is also
apparent in a number of the essays (including Habermas’s own) in Foucault: A Critical
Reader, ed. David Couzens Hoy (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1986). All of these volumes
contain essays that make valuable contributions to Foucault and Habermas scholarship,
and some of them (such as James Tulley’s contribution to the Ashenden/Owen volume,
which I cite later in this essay) move in the direction of my own analysis. But I think the
majority of the contributions ultimately accept prevailing notions of the norm and
normativity and, hence, end up covering the same ground concerning whether
Foucault’s work is normative or not.
3
Foucault addresses the problematic nature and function of norms in his published work,
Discipline and Punish and Volume I of The History of Sexuality being particularly important
in this regard insofar as these texts illustrate the workings of disciplinary power and
biopower, respectively. I have chosen to focus on the Collège de France courses because
within their context one can clearly see Foucault formulating his ideas as he works
though various problems. The courses thus provide valuable insight into the
development of Foucault’s thought across time which is not as apparent within the
context of his published works.
Foucault Studies, No. 7, pp. 45-63
49
show that Habermas’s conceptualizations of the norm and normativity are not, as he
posits, necessary foundations for ethics and politics, but in fact simply one
philosophical approach among many. On the one hand, then, uncritically accepting
a Habermasian framework produces normalizing effects; on the other hand, ways of
thinking about, conceptualizing, and practicing ethics and politics that do not
require a particular understanding of ‚normative foundations‛ and which could in
fact possess emancipatory potential are possible. Having problematized the
requirement of normative foundations as it is currently articulated, I conclude by
examining the emancipatory potential of a particular aspect of Foucault’s work for
the practice of philosophy.
Foucault’s conceptualizations of the nature and function of the norm and
normalization can be traced through four of his Collège de France courses:
Psychiatric Power (1974); Abnormal (1975); Society Must be Defended (1976); and
Security, Territory, Population (1978). In these courses, Foucault associates the norm
with specifically modern forms of power. He argues that with the rise of modernity,
sovereign power found itself unable to effectively control all aspects of increasingly
complex societies, with the result that certain techniques of power which had up
until that point had been employed only within religious contexts were generalized
to society more broadly.4 Foucault sees the norm as being at the heart of these
techniques of modern power.
In his 1974 and 1975 courses, Foucault ties the norm to disciplinary power,
which targets individual bodies in order to train subjects that are simultaneously
efficient and obedient. In Psychiatric Power, Foucault argues that within a
disciplinary context, the norm functions ‚as the universal prescription for all‛
disciplinary subjects.5 The following year, in Abnormal, Foucault identifies the norm
as the ‚element‛ upon which ‚a certain exercise of power is founded and
legitimized.‛6 He also elaborates on precisely how the norm functions within a
disciplinary context, arguing that the norm ‚brings with it a principle of both
qualification and correction. The norm’s function is not to exclude and reject.
Rather, it is always linked to a positive technique of intervention and transfor-
mation, to a sort of normative project.‛7 Under disciplinary power, Foucault writes,
‚there is an originally prescriptive character of the norm,‛ in the sense that the norm
posits, necessary foundations for ethics and politics, but in fact simply one
philosophical approach among many. On the one hand, then, uncritically accepting
a Habermasian framework produces normalizing effects; on the other hand, ways of
thinking about, conceptualizing, and practicing ethics and politics that do not
require a particular understanding of ‚normative foundations‛ and which could in
fact possess emancipatory potential are possible. Having problematized the
requirement of normative foundations as it is currently articulated, I conclude by
examining the emancipatory potential of a particular aspect of Foucault’s work for
the practice of philosophy.
Foucault’s conceptualizations of the nature and function of the norm and
normalization can be traced through four of his Collège de France courses:
Psychiatric Power (1974); Abnormal (1975); Society Must be Defended (1976); and
Security, Territory, Population (1978). In these courses, Foucault associates the norm
with specifically modern forms of power. He argues that with the rise of modernity,
sovereign power found itself unable to effectively control all aspects of increasingly
complex societies, with the result that certain techniques of power which had up
until that point had been employed only within religious contexts were generalized
to society more broadly.4 Foucault sees the norm as being at the heart of these
techniques of modern power.
In his 1974 and 1975 courses, Foucault ties the norm to disciplinary power,
which targets individual bodies in order to train subjects that are simultaneously
efficient and obedient. In Psychiatric Power, Foucault argues that within a
disciplinary context, the norm functions ‚as the universal prescription for all‛
disciplinary subjects.5 The following year, in Abnormal, Foucault identifies the norm
as the ‚element‛ upon which ‚a certain exercise of power is founded and
legitimized.‛6 He also elaborates on precisely how the norm functions within a
disciplinary context, arguing that the norm ‚brings with it a principle of both
qualification and correction. The norm’s function is not to exclude and reject.
Rather, it is always linked to a positive technique of intervention and transfor-
mation, to a sort of normative project.‛7 Under disciplinary power, Foucault writes,
‚there is an originally prescriptive character of the norm,‛ in the sense that the norm
4
‚Far too many things,‛ Foucault states, ‚were escaping the old mechanism of the power
of sovereignty, both at the top and at the bottom, both at the level of detail and at the
mass level.‛ See Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the Collège de
France 1975-76, trans. David Macey (New York: Picador, 2003), 249.
5
Michel Foucault, Psychiatric Power: Lectures at the Collège de France 1973-1974, trans.
Graham Burchell (New York: Palgrave, 2006), 55.
6
Michel Foucault, Abnormal: Lectures at the Collège de France 1974-1975, trans. Graham
Burchell (New York: Picador, 2003), 50.
7
Ibid.
Taylor: Normativity and Normalization
50
‚Far too many things,‛ Foucault states, ‚were escaping the old mechanism of the power
of sovereignty, both at the top and at the bottom, both at the level of detail and at the
mass level.‛ See Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the Collège de
France 1975-76, trans. David Macey (New York: Picador, 2003), 249.
5
Michel Foucault, Psychiatric Power: Lectures at the Collège de France 1973-1974, trans.
Graham Burchell (New York: Palgrave, 2006), 55.
6
Michel Foucault, Abnormal: Lectures at the Collège de France 1974-1975, trans. Graham
Burchell (New York: Picador, 2003), 50.
7
Ibid.
Taylor: Normativity and Normalization
50
determines what is normal.8 Subjects constitute themselves and are in turn
constituted through techniques of power that presuppose the norm, construed as an
ideal or ‚optimal model.‛9
As a result of his evolving conception of the nature and function of modern
power, Foucault modifies his conception of the norm in the 1976 course. Power does
not only target individual bodies, Foucault has come to realize in Society Must Be
Defended, it also targets populations by way of a second form of modern power
which he refers to as biopower. Generally speaking, biopower proliferates through
the actions of the State in such a way as to regulate populations at the biological
level in the name of promoting the health and protecting the life of society as a
whole. This protection and regulation intersects with the disciplining of individual
bodies within the context of modern societies, Foucault argues, and the norm is the
mechanism along which this intersection occurs. It circulates between the disci-
plinary and the regulatory; it is ‚something that can be applied to both a body one
wishes to discipline and a population one wishes to regularize.‛10 While the norm
still founds and legitimizes power, it does so specifically by linking disciplinary and
biopower and thus facilitating the flow of power through and across all facets of
modern societies.
Foucault returned to the Collège in 197811 having further modified his
conception of the norm. The norm can still be said to found and legitimize modern
power by providing a link between disciplinary power and biopower, but in
Security, Territory, Population he argues that it functions differently within
disciplinary and biopolitical contexts. With discipline, the norm establishes the
normal: individuals are brought and bring themselves into conformity with some
pre-existing standard. With biopower, the norm is established from several
‚normals,‛ as represented specifically by ‚curves of normality;‛ statistical analysis,
according to Foucault, constitutes a key technique for regulating and managing
populations. From these normals, the ‚most normal‛ or the ‚optimal normal‛ – i.e.,
the norm – for a particular population is established: within a biopolitical context
‚the norm is an interplay of differential normalities . . . the normal comes first, and
the norm is deduced from it.‛12 As Foucault describes it, different normal curves are
produced by studying a population, from those normal curves the norm gets
established as an optimal or ideal normal which is then brought back to bear on the
population in order to regulate that population – that is, to dictate how the
constituted through techniques of power that presuppose the norm, construed as an
ideal or ‚optimal model.‛9
As a result of his evolving conception of the nature and function of modern
power, Foucault modifies his conception of the norm in the 1976 course. Power does
not only target individual bodies, Foucault has come to realize in Society Must Be
Defended, it also targets populations by way of a second form of modern power
which he refers to as biopower. Generally speaking, biopower proliferates through
the actions of the State in such a way as to regulate populations at the biological
level in the name of promoting the health and protecting the life of society as a
whole. This protection and regulation intersects with the disciplining of individual
bodies within the context of modern societies, Foucault argues, and the norm is the
mechanism along which this intersection occurs. It circulates between the disci-
plinary and the regulatory; it is ‚something that can be applied to both a body one
wishes to discipline and a population one wishes to regularize.‛10 While the norm
still founds and legitimizes power, it does so specifically by linking disciplinary and
biopower and thus facilitating the flow of power through and across all facets of
modern societies.
Foucault returned to the Collège in 197811 having further modified his
conception of the norm. The norm can still be said to found and legitimize modern
power by providing a link between disciplinary power and biopower, but in
Security, Territory, Population he argues that it functions differently within
disciplinary and biopolitical contexts. With discipline, the norm establishes the
normal: individuals are brought and bring themselves into conformity with some
pre-existing standard. With biopower, the norm is established from several
‚normals,‛ as represented specifically by ‚curves of normality;‛ statistical analysis,
according to Foucault, constitutes a key technique for regulating and managing
populations. From these normals, the ‚most normal‛ or the ‚optimal normal‛ – i.e.,
the norm – for a particular population is established: within a biopolitical context
‚the norm is an interplay of differential normalities . . . the normal comes first, and
the norm is deduced from it.‛12 As Foucault describes it, different normal curves are
produced by studying a population, from those normal curves the norm gets
established as an optimal or ideal normal which is then brought back to bear on the
population in order to regulate that population – that is, to dictate how the
8
Michel Foucault, Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France 1977-
1978, trans. Graham Burchell (New York: Palgrave, 2007), 57.
9
Ibid.
10
Ibid., 252-253.
11
The 1976 course ended in March of 1976; the 1978 course did not commence until January
of 1978.
12
Foucault, Security, Territory, Population, 63.
Foucault Studies, No. 7, pp. 45-63
Michel Foucault, Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France 1977-
1978, trans. Graham Burchell (New York: Palgrave, 2007), 57.
9
Ibid.
10
Ibid., 252-253.
11
The 1976 course ended in March of 1976; the 1978 course did not commence until January
of 1978.
12
Foucault, Security, Territory, Population, 63.
Foucault Studies, No. 7, pp. 45-63
51
population ought to behave. Since populations are not fully engaged in relations of
power until this prescriptive function is implemented, the foundation and
legitimation of biopower still hinges on the norm in important ways.
The idea that the norm functions differently within disciplinary and
biopolitical contexts leads Foucault to in turn mark a distinction between the
techniques of power to which the norm gives rise in these respective contexts. Prior
to the 1978 course, Foucault has referred to all power techniques originating with the
norm as ‚normalization.‛ In the 1974 course, Foucault specifically describes the
function of disciplinary power in these terms. Within a disciplinary context, he
argues, ‚uninterrupted supervision, continual writing, and potential punishment
enframed [the] subjected body and extracted a psyche from it . . . [the] individual is a
subjected body held in a system of supervision and subjected to procedures of
normalization.‛13 In the 1975 course, Foucault again speaks of normalization as
consisting of techniques he associates with disciplinary power. He describes these
techniques as ‚simultaneously positive, technical, and political,‛ and argues that
they function in the service of bringing subjects into conformity with a pre-
determined norm.14
At the beginning of the 1976 course, Foucault invokes the idea of
normalization primarily in order to distinguish it (and therefore disciplinary power)
from juridical or sovereign power. ‚The discourse of disciplines,‛ he asserts, ‚is
about a rule: not a juridical rule derived from sovereignty, but a discourse about a
natural rule, or in other words a norm. Disciplines will define not a code of law but
a code of normalization.‛15 By the end of that course Foucault has ceased to use the
term ‚normalization‛ altogether and speaks only of ‚normalizing societies‛
(societies characterized by the linking together of disciplinary power and biopower).
Given that at this point Foucault was rethinking the norm’s role within
modern relations of power, it seems likely that he was beginning to rethink the
nature of normalization as well. Indeed, by 1978 Foucault has marked a distinction
between normalization, which he now attributes solely to biopower and describes as
the process of establishing the norm from different normal curves, and the
disciplinary process of bringing subjects into conformity with a pre-determined
norm which he now refers to as ‚normation.‛16 This distinction between norma-
lization and normation should not be seen as an indication that Foucault is no longer
concerned with disciplinary power and its ‚normizing‛ techniques. As the rest of
the 1978 course, as well as others of Foucault’s texts,17 makes clear, he continues to
power until this prescriptive function is implemented, the foundation and
legitimation of biopower still hinges on the norm in important ways.
The idea that the norm functions differently within disciplinary and
biopolitical contexts leads Foucault to in turn mark a distinction between the
techniques of power to which the norm gives rise in these respective contexts. Prior
to the 1978 course, Foucault has referred to all power techniques originating with the
norm as ‚normalization.‛ In the 1974 course, Foucault specifically describes the
function of disciplinary power in these terms. Within a disciplinary context, he
argues, ‚uninterrupted supervision, continual writing, and potential punishment
enframed [the] subjected body and extracted a psyche from it . . . [the] individual is a
subjected body held in a system of supervision and subjected to procedures of
normalization.‛13 In the 1975 course, Foucault again speaks of normalization as
consisting of techniques he associates with disciplinary power. He describes these
techniques as ‚simultaneously positive, technical, and political,‛ and argues that
they function in the service of bringing subjects into conformity with a pre-
determined norm.14
At the beginning of the 1976 course, Foucault invokes the idea of
normalization primarily in order to distinguish it (and therefore disciplinary power)
from juridical or sovereign power. ‚The discourse of disciplines,‛ he asserts, ‚is
about a rule: not a juridical rule derived from sovereignty, but a discourse about a
natural rule, or in other words a norm. Disciplines will define not a code of law but
a code of normalization.‛15 By the end of that course Foucault has ceased to use the
term ‚normalization‛ altogether and speaks only of ‚normalizing societies‛
(societies characterized by the linking together of disciplinary power and biopower).
Given that at this point Foucault was rethinking the norm’s role within
modern relations of power, it seems likely that he was beginning to rethink the
nature of normalization as well. Indeed, by 1978 Foucault has marked a distinction
between normalization, which he now attributes solely to biopower and describes as
the process of establishing the norm from different normal curves, and the
disciplinary process of bringing subjects into conformity with a pre-determined
norm which he now refers to as ‚normation.‛16 This distinction between norma-
lization and normation should not be seen as an indication that Foucault is no longer
concerned with disciplinary power and its ‚normizing‛ techniques. As the rest of
the 1978 course, as well as others of Foucault’s texts,17 makes clear, he continues to
13
Foucault, Psychiatric Power, 56-57.
14
Foucault, Abnormal, 50.
15
Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 38.
16
Foucault, Security, Territory, Population, 63.
17
See Michel Foucault, ‚Governmentality,‛ in The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality,
Taylor: Normativity and Normalization
52
Foucault, Psychiatric Power, 56-57.
14
Foucault, Abnormal, 50.
15
Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 38.
16
Foucault, Security, Territory, Population, 63.
17
See Michel Foucault, ‚Governmentality,‛ in The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality,
Taylor: Normativity and Normalization
52
view modern societies as being characterized by both disciplinary and biopower –
and although it is less prominent and not characteristically modern, by sovereign
power as well. Insofar as Foucault explicitly argues that when they emerge, new
forms of power do not entirely displace existing forms, the norm retains its function
of linking the discipline of bodies and the regulation of populations of linking
normation and normalization. Likewise, the norm retains its function of founding
and legitimizing modern power, despite the fact that in normalization the norm is
derived from the normal.
In sum: Foucault posits the norm as playing a fundamental role in the
emergence, legitimation, proliferation, and circulation of modern power. The norm
establishes what is normal. Techniques of normation and normalization in turn
function to ‚make normal.‛ On the one hand, they intervene within both individual
bodies and populations in order to bring them into conformity with particular social
norms. On the other hand, in doing so such techniques perpetuate the power
relations that the norm founds and legitimizes by reproducing norms within the
sociopolitical landscape to the point that they come to be seen not as produced at all
but simply as natural and necessary. Within a disciplinary context the norm gets
established by, for example, factory managers who determine that workers should
be able to produce a product in a certain amount of time. The workers’ bodies are
trained so that they become highly effective at performing the particular operation
that will facilitate the desired outcome. Within the context of biopower the norm
gets established by, for example, economists who deem a certain level of unemploy-
ment or poverty acceptable or even necessary within the overall population in order
for the economy to grow. These ‚normal‛ levels of unemployment or poverty are
cultivated within the population as a whole.18
It is important to bear in mind that not all individual social norms are
normizing/normalizing. From a Foucauldian perspective, social norms act as ‚nodal
points‛ within a broad power matrix. Power passes through and along norms, and
these points of intersection can either facilitate or inhibit the further circulation of
power. Norms that facilitate power’s circulation don’t pose a problem. Given that
he conceives of power in terms of relations, Foucault considers subjects to be free
when they are able to modify, negotiate, and/or reverse these relations – when in
and although it is less prominent and not characteristically modern, by sovereign
power as well. Insofar as Foucault explicitly argues that when they emerge, new
forms of power do not entirely displace existing forms, the norm retains its function
of linking the discipline of bodies and the regulation of populations of linking
normation and normalization. Likewise, the norm retains its function of founding
and legitimizing modern power, despite the fact that in normalization the norm is
derived from the normal.
In sum: Foucault posits the norm as playing a fundamental role in the
emergence, legitimation, proliferation, and circulation of modern power. The norm
establishes what is normal. Techniques of normation and normalization in turn
function to ‚make normal.‛ On the one hand, they intervene within both individual
bodies and populations in order to bring them into conformity with particular social
norms. On the other hand, in doing so such techniques perpetuate the power
relations that the norm founds and legitimizes by reproducing norms within the
sociopolitical landscape to the point that they come to be seen not as produced at all
but simply as natural and necessary. Within a disciplinary context the norm gets
established by, for example, factory managers who determine that workers should
be able to produce a product in a certain amount of time. The workers’ bodies are
trained so that they become highly effective at performing the particular operation
that will facilitate the desired outcome. Within the context of biopower the norm
gets established by, for example, economists who deem a certain level of unemploy-
ment or poverty acceptable or even necessary within the overall population in order
for the economy to grow. These ‚normal‛ levels of unemployment or poverty are
cultivated within the population as a whole.18
It is important to bear in mind that not all individual social norms are
normizing/normalizing. From a Foucauldian perspective, social norms act as ‚nodal
points‛ within a broad power matrix. Power passes through and along norms, and
these points of intersection can either facilitate or inhibit the further circulation of
power. Norms that facilitate power’s circulation don’t pose a problem. Given that
he conceives of power in terms of relations, Foucault considers subjects to be free
when they are able to modify, negotiate, and/or reverse these relations – when in
eds. Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon, and Peter Miller (Chicago, IL: University of
Chicago Press, 1991).
18
Foucault shows that institutions – prisons, schools, factories, the military – play a key
role in the establishment and proliferation of norms and, hence, in the proliferation of
modern power. I am grateful to the editors of this journal for pointing out to me that
Foucault believed developing new, non-normalizing/normizing institutions was an
‚important and crucial issue,‛ at the same time that he admitted he had ‚no precise idea‛
of how such development would occur. See Michel Foucault, ‚Sex, Power and the
Politics of Identity,‛ in Foucault Live: Collected Interviews, 1961-1984, ed. Sylvère Lotringer
(New York: Semiotexte, 1989), 389.
Foucault Studies, No. 7, pp. 45-63
Chicago Press, 1991).
18
Foucault shows that institutions – prisons, schools, factories, the military – play a key
role in the establishment and proliferation of norms and, hence, in the proliferation of
modern power. I am grateful to the editors of this journal for pointing out to me that
Foucault believed developing new, non-normalizing/normizing institutions was an
‚important and crucial issue,‛ at the same time that he admitted he had ‚no precise idea‛
of how such development would occur. See Michel Foucault, ‚Sex, Power and the
Politics of Identity,‛ in Foucault Live: Collected Interviews, 1961-1984, ed. Sylvère Lotringer
(New York: Semiotexte, 1989), 389.
Foucault Studies, No. 7, pp. 45-63
53
other words, the circulation of power within society is at least relatively unimpeded.
It is therefore the sedimentation of power through the uncritical acceptance of
particular norms as natural and therefore necessary that is cause for concern.
Normalizing norms are those which facilitate such sedimentation by linking the
increase of capacities and expansion of possibilities to an intensification of existing
power relations. One way in which sedimentation occurs, taking the example given
above, is through certain conceptions of worker productivity or certain
understandings and levels of poverty and unemployment coming to be seen as
natural. Over time persons not only don’t think critically about these phenomena,
they don’t give them much thought at all; worker productivity, poverty, and
unemployment simply become part of the landscape – what has to be assumed in
order for discussions about the economy to be entered into. Such naturalization
effectively promotes acceptance and conformity with prevailing norms on both an
individual and societal level. Moreover, the norm provides the grounds not only for
distinguishing ‚normal‛ and ‚abnormal‛ individuals and populations, but also for
sanctioning intervention into both in order to ensure conformity or bring into
conformity, to keep or make normal, and also to effectively eliminate the threat
posed by resisting individuals and populations.
Habermas construes the nature and function of the norm very differently
than Foucault does. Whereas for Foucault the norm founds and plays a key role in
the functioning of modern power, for Habermas the norm demarcates the limits of
power; it distinguishes what is good and valid from what is not, where goodness
and validity are determined and legitimized not by relations of power but by reason.
The basics of the Habermasian perspective are outlined in his book, Moral
Consciousness and Communicative Action.
Norms, according to Habermas, possess ‚ought character.‛19 ‚Norm-related
speech acts,‛ he argues, make validity claims, in the sense that when one says ‚x is
good to do‛ or ‚one ought to do x,‛ one is making a claim that x is morally
justifiable; that is, one is saying that one has ‚good reasons‛ for doing x or that one
‚ought to do‛ x.20 To be legitimate, the validity claims that normative speech acts
make must be ‚general.‛ Habermas takes the position that general agreement or
consensus about what constitutes moral and immoral action has to be able, at least in
theory, to be reached in order for harms to be intelligible as ethical violations. In the
absence of some shared and communicable standard which harmful actions can be
said to violate, such actions are not merely idiosyncratic but in fact incoherent. The
normativity of norms is thus interconnected with their intelligibility, making claims
It is therefore the sedimentation of power through the uncritical acceptance of
particular norms as natural and therefore necessary that is cause for concern.
Normalizing norms are those which facilitate such sedimentation by linking the
increase of capacities and expansion of possibilities to an intensification of existing
power relations. One way in which sedimentation occurs, taking the example given
above, is through certain conceptions of worker productivity or certain
understandings and levels of poverty and unemployment coming to be seen as
natural. Over time persons not only don’t think critically about these phenomena,
they don’t give them much thought at all; worker productivity, poverty, and
unemployment simply become part of the landscape – what has to be assumed in
order for discussions about the economy to be entered into. Such naturalization
effectively promotes acceptance and conformity with prevailing norms on both an
individual and societal level. Moreover, the norm provides the grounds not only for
distinguishing ‚normal‛ and ‚abnormal‛ individuals and populations, but also for
sanctioning intervention into both in order to ensure conformity or bring into
conformity, to keep or make normal, and also to effectively eliminate the threat
posed by resisting individuals and populations.
Habermas construes the nature and function of the norm very differently
than Foucault does. Whereas for Foucault the norm founds and plays a key role in
the functioning of modern power, for Habermas the norm demarcates the limits of
power; it distinguishes what is good and valid from what is not, where goodness
and validity are determined and legitimized not by relations of power but by reason.
The basics of the Habermasian perspective are outlined in his book, Moral
Consciousness and Communicative Action.
Norms, according to Habermas, possess ‚ought character.‛19 ‚Norm-related
speech acts,‛ he argues, make validity claims, in the sense that when one says ‚x is
good to do‛ or ‚one ought to do x,‛ one is making a claim that x is morally
justifiable; that is, one is saying that one has ‚good reasons‛ for doing x or that one
‚ought to do‛ x.20 To be legitimate, the validity claims that normative speech acts
make must be ‚general.‛ Habermas takes the position that general agreement or
consensus about what constitutes moral and immoral action has to be able, at least in
theory, to be reached in order for harms to be intelligible as ethical violations. In the
absence of some shared and communicable standard which harmful actions can be
said to violate, such actions are not merely idiosyncratic but in fact incoherent. The
normativity of norms is thus interconnected with their intelligibility, making claims
19
Jürgen Habermas, Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, trans. Christian
Lenhardt and Shierry Weber Nicholsen (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999), 44.
20
Ibid.
Taylor: Normativity and Normalization
54
Jürgen Habermas, Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, trans. Christian
Lenhardt and Shierry Weber Nicholsen (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999), 44.
20
Ibid.
Taylor: Normativity and Normalization
54
of ‚normative rightness‛ different from claims of ‚propositional truth‛ and there-
fore in need of a different kind of justification.21
On the one hand, the justification for norms needs to be relevant for lived
experience. Thus, while the ‚basic intuition‛ of Kant’s categorical imperative
functions as a guide for Habermas, he rejects the notion that a single individual
testing her or his maxims can sufficiently generate general validity.22 For Kant moral
deliberation is ‚monological,‛ whereas for Habermas it is collective in the sense that
it is grounded in and carried out by members of the lifeworld.23 Moreover, for
Habermas moral deliberation aims to restore a moral consensus that has been
disrupted and thus reflects a common as opposed to an individual will.24
On the other hand, to be valid the justification for norms cannot simply be
determined by the vicissitudes of human affairs. It is for this reason that Habermas
locates justification within the form – rather than in the content or outcome – of
rational argumentation. He refers to this form as ‚communicative action.‛ As
opposed to strategic action, where one actor attempts to manipulate or coerce
another in order to achieve personal satisfaction or gain, communicative action takes
the form of rational argumentation aimed at consensus; it is characterized by the
expectation that reasons can be provided for why certain norms should exist or not,
and the communicative process itself entails persons providing such reasons. As
Habermas puts it, ‚one actor seeks rationally to motivate another by relying on the
illocutionary binding/bonding effect of the offer [to make good on assertions by
giving reasons] contained in the speech act.‛25
The validity of norms is thus ‚guaranteed,‛ so to speak, by the fact that they
are the products of a process that is rational as well as collective. Habermas
expresses this idea in what he refers to as the principle of universality (U), which
states that for any valid norm, ‚*a]ll affected can accept the consequences and the
side effects its general observance can be anticipated to have for the satisfaction of
everyone’s interests (and these consequences are preferred to those of known
alternative possibilities for regulation).‛26 As conceived by Habermas, the principle
fore in need of a different kind of justification.21
On the one hand, the justification for norms needs to be relevant for lived
experience. Thus, while the ‚basic intuition‛ of Kant’s categorical imperative
functions as a guide for Habermas, he rejects the notion that a single individual
testing her or his maxims can sufficiently generate general validity.22 For Kant moral
deliberation is ‚monological,‛ whereas for Habermas it is collective in the sense that
it is grounded in and carried out by members of the lifeworld.23 Moreover, for
Habermas moral deliberation aims to restore a moral consensus that has been
disrupted and thus reflects a common as opposed to an individual will.24
On the other hand, to be valid the justification for norms cannot simply be
determined by the vicissitudes of human affairs. It is for this reason that Habermas
locates justification within the form – rather than in the content or outcome – of
rational argumentation. He refers to this form as ‚communicative action.‛ As
opposed to strategic action, where one actor attempts to manipulate or coerce
another in order to achieve personal satisfaction or gain, communicative action takes
the form of rational argumentation aimed at consensus; it is characterized by the
expectation that reasons can be provided for why certain norms should exist or not,
and the communicative process itself entails persons providing such reasons. As
Habermas puts it, ‚one actor seeks rationally to motivate another by relying on the
illocutionary binding/bonding effect of the offer [to make good on assertions by
giving reasons] contained in the speech act.‛25
The validity of norms is thus ‚guaranteed,‛ so to speak, by the fact that they
are the products of a process that is rational as well as collective. Habermas
expresses this idea in what he refers to as the principle of universality (U), which
states that for any valid norm, ‚*a]ll affected can accept the consequences and the
side effects its general observance can be anticipated to have for the satisfaction of
everyone’s interests (and these consequences are preferred to those of known
alternative possibilities for regulation).‛26 As conceived by Habermas, the principle
21
Habermas argues that what he refers to as ‚non-cognitivist approaches‛ are insufficient
for this purpose. On the one hand, such approaches contend that general agreement
cannot ‚ordinarily‛ be reached in ‚disputes about basic moral principles:‛ on the other
hand, they assume the failure of ‚all attempts to explain what it might mean for
normative propositions to be true.‛ In other words, because non-cognitivist approaches
are unable to account for how normative speech acts differ from claims to propositional
truth, such approaches cannot possibly provide the unique justification that normative
speech acts require. Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, 56.
22
Ibid., 64.
23
Ibid., 67.
24
Ibid.
25
Ibid., 58; Habermas’s emphasis.
26
Ibid., 65; Habermas’s emphasis.
Foucault Studies, No. 7, pp. 45-63
Habermas argues that what he refers to as ‚non-cognitivist approaches‛ are insufficient
for this purpose. On the one hand, such approaches contend that general agreement
cannot ‚ordinarily‛ be reached in ‚disputes about basic moral principles:‛ on the other
hand, they assume the failure of ‚all attempts to explain what it might mean for
normative propositions to be true.‛ In other words, because non-cognitivist approaches
are unable to account for how normative speech acts differ from claims to propositional
truth, such approaches cannot possibly provide the unique justification that normative
speech acts require. Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, 56.
22
Ibid., 64.
23
Ibid., 67.
24
Ibid.
25
Ibid., 58; Habermas’s emphasis.
26
Ibid., 65; Habermas’s emphasis.
Foucault Studies, No. 7, pp. 45-63
55
of universality ‚makes agreement in moral argument possible in principle.‛27 This
governing principle of rational discourse gains its justification from what Habermas
refers to as ‚transcendental-pragmatic presuppositions.‛ These universal presuppo-
sitions are rules which are, Habermas argues, implicitly accepted by anyone who
participates in practical discourse and which are in turn generated by or internal to
that discourse itself; they are conditions for the possibility of rational argumentation
as such.
governing principle of rational discourse gains its justification from what Habermas
refers to as ‚transcendental-pragmatic presuppositions.‛ These universal presuppo-
sitions are rules which are, Habermas argues, implicitly accepted by anyone who
participates in practical discourse and which are in turn generated by or internal to
that discourse itself; they are conditions for the possibility of rational argumentation
as such.
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