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Habermas, Science and Modernity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2010

Friedel Weinert
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Extract

The work of Jürgen Habermas has been described as eclectic. It is also prolific. Fortunately for his readers the prolificacy and eclecticism of the author are mitigated by the recurrence of his themes. These concern the emergence and nature of modern occidental society, both from a sociological and philosophical perspective. On a more philosophical level, there is also a strong plea for a paradigm change. The philosophy of the consciousness made the lone subject, in search of knowledge, face the external world. The dialogic philosophy of Habermas sees interlocutors engaged in dialogue about the material, social and internal world and their many aspects. Furthermore, there are many fruitful sidelines: the nature of language, the personality structure of the individual, socialisation and the status of the social sciences. All these various strands are woven into a coherent model of the nature of western civilisation. In the recombination of the contributory constituents, derived from American pragmatism, German Idealism, Hermeneutics, Marxism, the Frankfurt School of Sociology and Systems Theory, lies the originality and breadth of his work.

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Papers
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 44 , March 1999 , pp. 329 - 355
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 1999

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References

1 Habermas, J., ‘Dialektik der Rationalisierung’, in Die Neue Unübersichtlichkeit (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1985), p. 171.Google Scholar

2 Ibid., p. 204.

3 Habermas, J., Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns, II (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1981), pp. 179, 226Google Scholar; The Theory of Communicative Action, II (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1987), pp. [117], [15Of]Google Scholar; Legitimationsproblemeim Spätkapitalismus (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1973), p. 14Google Scholar; Legitimation Crisis (London: Heinemann Educational, 1976), p. [4]Google Scholar; Zur Rekonstruktiondes Historischen Materialismus (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1976), p. 114Google Scholar; Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp 1985), p. 421Google Scholar; The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1987), p. [363].Google Scholar

4 Habermas, J., Theorie, II, pp. 391–4 [261–3].Google Scholar

5 Habermas, J., Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns, I (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1981), pp. 324 –31Google Scholar; The Theory of Communicative Action, I (Boston: Beacon Press, 1984), pp. [237–42]Google Scholar. The types of rationality involved are cognitive-instrumental rationality (science), moral-practical rationality (law and morality) and aesthetic-practical rationality (art), but cognitive-instrumental rationality is, according to Habermas, the dominant type of rationality in occidental societies.

6 Theorie, II, pp. 488ff [332ff].

7 Ibid., p. 209 [138] and Habermas, J., Nachmetaphysisches Denken (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1988), pp. 95ff.Google Scholar

8 Habermas, J., Nachmetaphysisches Denken, p. 99Google Scholar; Die Neue Unübersichtlichkeit, p. 186; Diskurs der Moderne, pp. 365, 378f, 397f [313, 325f, 343f].

9 Habermas, J., Rekonstruktion, p. 339.Google Scholar

10 Habermas, J., Rekonstruktion, p. 11Google Scholar; this book is partly translated as Communication and the Evolution of Society (London: Heinemann Educational, 1979); the corresponding reference to this translation is on p. [97]; Theorie, I, pp. 99–113 [63–74]. Habermas is aware (Theorie, I, p. 154 [103f]) that especially the concepts of normative rightness and subjective truthfulness are not as straightforward as that of propositional truth.Google Scholar

11 Theorie, I, pp. 202, 306, 320 [140, 221, 232f].

12 Diskurs, p. 421 (this is my own translation which I prefer to the ‘official’ one which is to be found in the English translation of Diskurs, p. [363]; Theorie, II, p. 391 [261].

13 Theorie, I, p. 109 [71]; Neue UnÜbersichtlichkeit, pp. 183, 236, 252. The reflexivity of modern societies has also been stressed by Giddens, A., Consequences of Modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990), pp. 36ff, 144, 152f.Google Scholar

14 Habermas, J., Theorie, I, pp. 328–9 [240–1]Google Scholar; Theorie, II, p. 488 [331]. The qualification concerning the modalities of exchange is made in Diskurs der Moderne, p. 394 [340]. The emergence of autonomous expert fields entails problems of mediation, as Habermas explains in ‘Questions and Counterquestions’, in Bernstein, R.J. ed., Habermas and Modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1985), p. 209.Google Scholar

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16 Habermas, J., ‘Questions and Counterquestions’, in Habermas and Modernity, pp. 209, 197Google Scholar; Theorie, I, pp. 328–9 [240–1].

17 Theorie, II, pp. 293, 391–419, 421 [196, 261–82, 283].

18 See Bernstein, R.J., ‘Introduction’, in Habermas and Modernity, p. 23Google Scholar; Theorie, II, pp. 470f, 483 [318f, 327].

19 Habermas, J., Neue UnÜbersichtlichkeit, pp. 189, 195Google Scholar; also Giddens, ‘Reason without Revolution?’, in Habermas and Modernity, p. 110.

20 Theorie, II, pp. 215, 471ff, 523ff, 575ff [143, 318ff, 356ff, 391ff].

21 Diskurs der Moderne, pp. 138, 364f [113, 312f]; Habermas, J., Die Moderne - ein unvollendetes Projekt (Leipzig: Reclam, 1990), p. 41.Google Scholar

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23 Zur Logik der Sozialwissenschaften (Frankfurt: Surhkamp, 1970), pp. 85f, 93fGoogle Scholar; On the Logic of the Social Sciences (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988), pp. [12f, 18f]Google Scholar;.

24 Theorie, II, p. 584 [397f].

25 It should be noted that there are serious doubts about the scientific status of the Freudian model of the mind. Habermas re-interprets Freud in terms of his theory of communicative action; see Erkenntnis und Interesse (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1973), pp. 262–332Google Scholar; Knowledge and Human Interests (London: Heinemann, 1978), pp. [214–45]Google Scholar; Theorie, II, pp. 152, 570f [99, 388f]; Die Neue Unubersichtlichkeit, pp. 214, 230.

26 Born, M., Natural Philosophy of Cause and Chance (Oxford, 1949), p. 75Google Scholar. This idea has been expressed by other physicists, c.f. Heisenberg, W., Gesammelte Werke, Abteilung C, Vol. I (Munich: Piper, 1984), pp. 29, 40Google Scholar; Eddington, A.S., The Philosophy of Physical Science (Cambridge, 1939), p. 33Google Scholar; Langevin, P., La Physique Depuis 20 Ans (Paris, 1923), pp. 301–3Google Scholar; and Cassirer, E., Determinismus und Indeterminismus in der modernen Physik (Darmstadt, 1977), p. 273.Google Scholar

27 Born, , Natural Philosophy, p. 2Google Scholar; cf.Planck, M., Vorträge und Erinnerungen (Darmstadt, 1975), p. 53Google Scholar; Eddington, A., The Philosophy of Physical Science (Cambridge University Press, 1939), p. 8Google Scholar; Jeans, J., Physics and Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 1943), p. 2.Google Scholar

28 SeeCushing, J. T., ‘Quantum Theory and Explanatory Discourse’, Philosophy of Science, 58 (1991), pp. 337–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Folse, H. J., ‘Ontological constraints and understanding quantum phenomena, Dialectica, 50, (1996), pp. 121–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29 See Planck, Vorträge, pp. 29, 129, 131.

30 ‘Philosophische Probleme in der Theorie der Elementarteilchen’ (1967), in Heisenberg, W., Gesammelte Werke C/Vol. II (Munich, 1984), pp. 410–22Google Scholar; ‘The Concept of Understanding in Theoretical Physics’ (1969), in: Heisenberg, W., Gesammelte Werke C/Vol. III (Munich, 1985), pp. 335–8.Google Scholar

31 Dilworth, C., The Metaphysics of Science (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1996), p. 71CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Burtt's, E.A. classic study The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science (1924)Google Scholar discusses the philosophical underpinning of the scientific thinking of Copernicus, Galileo, Newton and others without reference to any of the empirical discoveries associated with these scientists.

32 SeePenrose, R., The Emperor's New Mind (London, 1990), pp. 273–8Google Scholar; Pagels, H., The Cosmic Code (London, 1994), p. 75Google Scholar; de Broglie, L., Matter and Light (Dover, 1939), p. 227Google Scholar

33 Planck, , Vorträge, p. 292Google Scholar; Born, , Natural Philosophy, pp. 101–2.Google Scholar

34 Theorie I, pp. 328f [240]; cf. Th. McCarthy, ‘Reflections on Rationalisation’ in the Theory of Communicative Action, in Habermas and Modernity, pp. 176–7. Crombie, A.C., Styles of Scientific Reasoning in the European Tradition, Vol. II (London: Duckworth, 1994), pp. 1198–9.Google Scholar

35 SeePais, A., Niel's Bohr's Times (Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 151Google Scholar

36 See Habermas, J., ‘Questions and Counterquestions’, in Habermas and Modernity, p. 196Google Scholar and Theorie, II, pp. 584ff [397ff].

37 Theorie, I, p. 328 [240]; see also Habermas and Modernity, pp. 102, 177, 207.

38 Giddens, , Consequences of Modernity, p. 38 and pp. 144–54.Google Scholar

39 Bauman, Z., Postmodernity and its Discontents (Oxford: Polity Press, 1996).Google Scholar

40 Landes, D.S., Revolution in Time (Harvard University Press, 1983), p. 325Google Scholar; Rossum, G. Dohrn-van, Die Geschichte der Stunde (Munich: Carl Hanser Verlag, 1992), pp. 150, 163, 251.Google Scholar

41 See Nowotny, H., Eigenzeit (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1989)Google Scholar; Elias, N., Über die Zeit (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1988)Google Scholar; Giddens, A., Consequences of Modernity, pp. 14ffGoogle Scholar relates the dynamism of modernity, amongst other factors, to ‘the separation of time and space and their recombination in forms which permit the precise time-space “zoning” of social life’. The classic sources for the impact of time awareness on social structures are Thompson, E., ‘Time, work-discipline and industrial capitalism’, in Past & Present, 38 (1967), pp. 56–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Le Goff, Jacques, ‘Le temps du travail dans la “crise” du XIVe siécle: du temps médiéval au temps moderne’, in Pour un Autre Moyen Age (Paris: Gallimard, 1977), pp. 66–79.Google Scholar

42 A famous example is Dali's picture The Persistence of Memory (1931).

43 Die Neue Uniibersichtlichkeit, p. 145.

44 Diskurs der Moderne, p. 11 [3]; see also Wellmer, A., ‘On the Dialectic of Modernism and Postmodenism’, in Praxis International, 4 (October, 1984), pp. 337–62Google Scholar. An expanded version of this essay has recently been published in Wellmer, A., The Persistence of Modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991), pp. 36–94.Google Scholar

45 Theorie I, p. 75(ff) [45(ff)].

46 Theorie I, pp. 85, 99, 109f [52f, 64, 71f].

47 Giddens, A., ‘Reason without Revolution?’, in Habermas and Modernity, p. 100Google Scholar. This claim is discussed most explicitly in Rekonstruktion, pp. 34–5, 152–7, 162, 278, 330 [119f, 138–42, 148, 184f–.

48 Nachmetaphysisches Denken, chapter 7; Postmetaphysical Thinking (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992), chapter 6.Google Scholar

49 Habermas, Nach meta-physiches Denken, p. 179 [139]; Theorie I, pp. 93, 88 [58f, 55].

50 Die neue Uniibersichtlichkeit, p. 136.

51 Habermas, , ‘Questions and Counterquestions’, in Habermas and Modernity, pp. 196–7.Google Scholar

52 Diskurs der Moderne, p. 366 [314ff]; Theorie, I, pp. 25ff [8ff]; Nachmetaphysisches Denken, chapter I [I]; Rekonstruktion, p. 34 [119f].

53 Nachmetaphysisches Denken, p. 42; I have slightly amended the English translation on p. [35].

54 Nachmetaphysisches Denken, p. 46 [38]; Neue Uniibersichtlichkeit, p. 208.