Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T13:59:31.408Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Habermas, Machiavelli, and the Humanist Critique of Ideology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Victoria Kahn
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This essay takes Habermas's early work as a point of departure for considering the place of humanism in contemporary debates about ideology and interested critical judgment. I argue that from the Renaissance to the present the humanist tradition demonstrates a continuity of reflection on the relation between knowledge and human interests. Habermas can be seen as the inheritor of those Renaissance humanists who argue for the possibility of political consensus based on a shared faculty of critical judgment. Machiavelli's critique of this consensual strain of humanism can offer contemporary critics another model of judgment, in which conflict and dissent are of paramount importance.

Type
Special Topic: The Politics of Critical Language
Information
PMLA , Volume 105 , Issue 3 , May 1990 , pp. 464 - 476
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Adorno, Theodor W., and Horkheimer, Max. Dialectic of Enlightenment. Trans. Cumming, John. New York: Continuum, 1972.Google Scholar
Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1958.Google Scholar
Aristotle. Rhetorica. Ed. Roberts, W. Rhys. London: Oxford UP, 1971. Vol. 11 of The Works of Aristotle. 12 vols. 1908–52.Google Scholar
Barker, Francis. The Tremulous Private Body: Essays on Subjection. London: Methuen, 1984.Google Scholar
Belsey, Catherine The Subject of Tragedy: Identity and Difference in Renaissance Drama. London: Methuen, 1985.Google Scholar
Benhabib, Seyla. Critique, Norm, and Utopia: A Study of the Foundations of Critical Theory. New York: Columbia UP, 1986.Google Scholar
Benhabib, Seyla. Rev. of The Critical Theory of Jürgen Habermas, by Thomas McCarthy. Telos 40 (1979): 177–87.Google Scholar
Benhabib, Seyla, and Cornell, Drucilla, eds. Feminism as Critique. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1987.Google Scholar
Cohen, Walter. “Political Criticism of Shakespeare.” Howard and O'Connor 18–46.Google Scholar
Dallmayr, Fred R. “Is Critical Theory a Humanism?” Boundary 2 12 (1984): 463–93.Google Scholar
de Man, Paul. The Resistance to Theory. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1986.Google Scholar
Dews, Peter. “Adorno versus Post-structuralism.” New Left Review 157 (1986): 28–44.Google Scholar
Dollimore, Jonathan. Radical Tragedy: Religion, Ideology, and Power in the Drama of Shakespeare and His Contemporaries. Brighton, Eng.: Harvester, 1984.Google Scholar
Dreyfus, Hubert L., and Rabinow, Paul. Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics. 2nd ed. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1983.Google Scholar
Easthope, Antony. Poetry as Discourse. New York: Methuen, 1983.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. Afterword. Dreyfus and Rabinow 229–52. Fraser, Nancy. “Foucault on Modern Power: Empirical Insights and Normative Confusions. ” Praxis International 1 (1981): 272–87.Google Scholar
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Truth and Method. New York: Crossroad, 1982.Google Scholar
Gaschá, Rodolphe. “Setzung and Ubersetzung: Notes on Paul de Man.” Diacritics 11 (1981): 36–57.Google Scholar
Gaschá, Rodolphe. “Unscrambling Positions: On Gerald Graffs Critique of Deconstruction.” MLN 96 (1981): 1015–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grafton, Anthony. “Renaissance Readers and Ancient Texts: Comments on Some Commentaries.” Renaissance Quarterly 38 (1985): 615–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gramsci, Antonio. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. Ed. and trans. Hoare, Quintin and Smith, Geoffrey Nowell. New York: International, 1971.Google Scholar
Greenblatt, Stephen. Renaissance Self-Fashioning. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1980.Google Scholar
Greene, Thomas M.The Light in Troy: Imitation and Discovery in Renaissance Poetry. New Haven: Yale UP, 1983.Google Scholar
Guicciardini, Francesco. Considerazioni intorno ai Discorsi del Machiavelli sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio. Scritti politiciericordi. Ed. Palmarrochi, Roberto. Ban: Laterza, 1933.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jurgen. Communication and the Evolution of Society. Trans. McCarthy, Thomas. Boston: Beacon, 1979.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jurgen. “Hannah Arendt's Communications Concept of Power.” Social Research 44 (1977): 3–24.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jurgen. Knowledge and Human Interests. Trans. Shapiro, Jeremy J. Boston: Beacon, 1971.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jurgen. The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity. Trans. Lawrence, Frederick. Cambridge: MIT P, 1987.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jurgen. “A Philosophico-Political Profile.” New Left Review 151 (1985): 75–105.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jurgen. Theory and Practice. Trans. Viertel, John. Boston: Beacon, 1973.Google Scholar
Held, David. Introduction to Critical Theory: Horkheimer to Habermas. Berkeley: U of California P, 1980.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hollinger, Robert, ed. Hermeneutics and Praxis. Notre Dame: U of Notre Dame P, 1985.Google Scholar
Horkheimer, Max. Critical Theory. Trans. O' Don-nell, Matthew J. et al. New York: Seabury, 1972.Google Scholar
Howard, Jean E. “The New Historicism in Literary Studies.” English Literary Renaissance 16 (1986): 13–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howard, Jean E., and O'Connor, Marion F., eds. Shakespeare Reproduced- The Text in History and Ideology. New York: Methuen, 1987.Google Scholar
Hoy, David Couzens. The Critical Circle: Literature, History, and Philosophical Hermeneutics. Berkeley: U of California P, 1982.Google Scholar
Jay, Martin. “Should Intellectual History Take a Linguistic Turn? Reflections on the Gadamer-Habermas Debate.” Modern European Intellectual History: Reappraisals and New Perspectives. Ed. LaCapra, Dominick and Steven, L. Caplan. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1982. 86–111.Google Scholar
Kahn, Victoria. “Reduction and the Praise of Disunion in Machiavelli's Discourses.” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 18 (1988): 1–19.Google Scholar
Kahn, Victoria. Rhetoric, Prudence and Skepticism in the Renaissance. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1985.Google Scholar
LaCapra, Dominick. “Habermas and the Grounding of Critical Theory.” Rethinking Intellectual History: Texts, Contexts, Language. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1983. 145–83.Google Scholar
Landes, Joan B. “Marcuse's Feminist Dimension.” Telos 41 (1979): 158–65.Google Scholar
Lemert, Charles C.Sociology and the Twilight of Man: Homocentrism and Discourse in Sociological Theory. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1979.Google Scholar
Machiavelli, Niccolò. The Discourses. Trans. Walker, Leslie J. Ed. Crick, Bernard. Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin, 1979.Google Scholar
Machiavelli, Niccolò. Istorie florentine, lutte le opere. Ed. Martelli, Mario. Firenze: Sansoni, 1971. 629–844.Google Scholar
Maclntyre, Alasdair. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. Notre Dame: U of Notre Dame P, 1981.Google Scholar
Marcuse, Herbert. “Marxism and Feminism.” Women's Studies 2 (1974): 279–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marcuse, Herbert, Paul Wolff, Robert, and Moore, Barrington Jr.A Critique of Pure Tolerance. Boston: Beacon, 1969.Google Scholar
Mendelson, Jack. “The Habermas-Gadamer Debate.” New German Critique 18 (1979): 44–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Montrose, Louis Adrian. “The Elizabethan Subject and the Spenserian Text.” Literary Theory/Renaissance Texts. Ed. Parker, Patricia and Quint, David. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1986. 303–40.Google Scholar
Montrose, Louis Adrian. “Renaissance Literary Studies and the Subject of History.” English Literary Renaissance 16 (1986): 5–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nägele, Rainer. “Freud, Habermas, and the Dialectic of Enlightenment.” New German Critique 22 (1981): 41–62.Google Scholar
Norris, Christopher. The Contest of Faculties: Philosophy and Theory after Deconstruction. London: Methuen, 1985.Google Scholar
Pechter, Edward. “The New Historicism and Its Discontents: Politicizing Renaissance Drama.” PMLA 102 (1987): 292–303.Google Scholar
Pigman, G.W., iii. “Imitation and the Renaissance Sense of the Past: The Reception of Erasmus' Ciceronianus.” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 9 (1979): 155–77.Google Scholar
Pocock, J.G.A.The Machiavellian Moment. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1975.Google Scholar
Quint, David. “Humanism and Modernity: A Reconstruction of Bruni's Dialogues.” Renaissance Quarterly 38 (1985): 423–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quint, David. Origin and Originality in Renaissance Literature. New Haven: Yale UP, 1983.Google Scholar
Schmidt, James. “Offensive Critical Theory? Reply to Hon-neth.” Telos 39 (1979): 62–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skinner, Quentin. The Foundations of Modern Historical Thought. Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1981.2 vols.Google Scholar
Taylor, Charles. “Justice after Virtue.” Unpublished paper, n.d.Google Scholar
Trinkaus, Charles. “Humanist Dissidence: Florence versus Milan or Poggio versus Valla.” Florence and Milan: Comparisons and Relations. 2 vols. Ed. Craig Hugh Smyth and Giancarlo Garfagnini. Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1989. 1: 17–40.Google Scholar
Valla, Lorenzo. The Treatise of Lorenzo Valla on the Donation of Constantine. Trans. Coleman, Christopher B. New Haven: Yale UP, 1922.Google Scholar
Vedder-Shults, Nancy. “Hearts Starve as well as Bodies.” New German Critique 13 (1978): 5–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Villani, Giovanni. Cronica. Ed. Aquilecchia, Giovanni. Torino: Einaudi, 1979.Google Scholar
Wayne, Don E. “Power, Politics, and the Shakespearean Text: Recent Criticism in England and the United States.” Howard and O'Connor 47–67.Google Scholar