Abstract
The goals Max Horkheimer had set out for the Institute for Social Research were passed on to Jürgen Habermas in the 1960s when he was named professor of philosophy and sociology at the University of Frankfurt. Faithful to the attitude of Critical Theory, Habermas’ evolving work has been driven between two seemingly opposed, but in fact mutually dependent, poles: the concrétisation of Critical Theory as a research program and the political concerns bound up with the Marxian heritage of Critical Theory. By actively inheriting the tension between these two poles, Habermas has been able to rethink many of the questions that blocked the development of Marxism. He has also been attacked politically by others who also claim to be heirs of Marx. This is not the place to adjudicate that case. At the end of the 1970s, Habermas was still in his 40s; his philosophical thought began to develop the idea of a ‘communicative reason’ that could overcome reified rationality. While waiting for the promised new study, a reflection on the path traveled by Critical Theory under his leadership offers a useful pause.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
I make use of insights from manuscripts or published papers from other members of the Institute (where I was a Humboldt Fellow in 1982). I refer also (n. 14) to an essay by a former member, Albrecht Wellmer, first presented at Stony Brook University.
- 2.
Habermas does not use the specific concept of ‘the political’, which I have adopted from Claude Lefort. His theory is particularly indebted to three younger colleagues at Starnberg: Rainer Döbert, Klaus Eder, and Gertrud Nunner-Winkler. References to their work are found in the earlier editions of this volume. In a sense, Legitimation Crises can be seen as a report summing up and drawing temporary conclusions from the first phase of the work of the Starnberg institute.
- 3.
Jürgen Habermas, Theorie und Praxis, ‘Einleitung zur Neuausgabe’ (Suhrkamp Verlag: Frankfurt am Main, 1971), p. 14. (Note that all references to Theorie und Praxis, unless otherwise specified, refer to the Introduction to this 1971 edition.)
- 4.
The most influential use of the term at this time was Ernest Mandel’s in Der Spätkapitalismus. That Trotskyist theorist insists that the concept does not claim to reveal a ‘new essence’ of capitalism that transcends Marx’s Capital and Lenin’s Imperialism. Just as Lenin built on Marx, today’s capitalism is merely the enrichment of yesterday’s. As a result, Mandel’s concept is chronological rather than synthetic; he prefers it to neo-capitalism in order to stress that there is no discontinuity between the two. Habermas’ interpretation is discussed in part II. I had criticized Mandel’s theoretical premises already in ‘Genetic Economics vs. Dialectical Materialism’, Radical America, Vol. III, No. 4, August 1969, pp. 21–31.
- 5.
Pages in parenthesis refer to the original German, Legitimationsprobleme im Spätkapitalismus (Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1973). The English translation by Jeremy J. Shapiro is titled Legitimation Crises (Boston: Beacon Press, 1975).
- 6.
Habermas’ appeal to this ‘law’ is curious. He had criticized its formulation in Theory und Praxis, pointing to historical factors such as the way science leads to the increase of surplus-value, contradicting the Marxist theory of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. (Cf., the original 1963 German edition, pp. 192–4.) A further problem is seen in Legitimation Crises where the role of the state, the increasing size of monopolies, and the end of the free market are said to lead to the political determination of wages. C.f., also the Starnberg working paper by Ulrich Rödel, ‘Zusammenfassung kritischer Argumente zum Status der Werttheorie und zur Möglichkeit einer werttheoretisch formulierten Krisentheorie’ (1973).
The problem of an economically imposed crisis theory is present throughout the Marxian legacy, creating both theoretical and practical antinomies. It is faced frontally by Cornelius Castoriadis, as will be seen in Chap. 9.
- 7.
Claus Offe, Strukturprobleme des kapitalistischen Staates (Suhrkamp Verlag: Frankfurt am Main, 1972), particularly the discussion of ‘Spätkapitalismus—Versuch einer Begriffsbestimmung’, p. 24.
- 8.
Faithful to the ethos of the Institute for Social Research, Habermas presents empirical analyses of each type of crisis and describes the difficulties faced by attempted solutions. It is not necessary to follow these detailed accounts in the present context.
- 9.
Cf. Legitimationsprobleme, pp. 19, 99, 117, 123, and so on. Recourse to an autonomous permits Habermas to avoid reducing the legitimation crisis to contingent factors, as will be seen.
- 10.
Cf. Döbert-Nunner, ‘Konflikt und Riickzugspotential im spätkapitalistischen Gesellschaften’, working paper of Max Planck Institute, Starnberg.
- 11.
Cf. J. Habermas, Technik und Wissenschaft als ‘Ideologic’ (Suhrkamp Verlag: Frankfurt am Main, 1968), esp. pp. 75ff.
- 12.
Theorie und Praxis, op. cit., p. 9.
- 13.
Habermas redefines the Marxist concept of an economically determined ‘social formation’ by the systems theoretical idea of a ‘social organizational principle’. Under late capitalist conditions, this leads him reinterpret Max Weber’s sociological interpretation of the historically distinct forms of social organization in terms of their different forms of legitimation. He goes further than Weber insofar as the sociologist interpreted ‘legitimation’ as produced either by empirical psychological reasons or as the result of ‘value choices’ that are ultimately inexplicable or irrational. That is why Habermas seeks to formulate a philosophical theory of social evolution.
- 14.
Cf., Albrecht Wellmer, ‘Communication and Emancipation. Reflections on the Linguistic Turn in Critical Theory’, in Stony Brook Studies in Philosophy, ed. P. Byrne, C. Evans and D. Howard (Stony Brook, New York, 1974), 1.
- 15.
Cf. Habermas’ essay ‘Arbeit und Interaktion. Bemerkungen zu Hegels Jenenser “Philosophic des Geistes”’, in Technik und Wissenschaft als Ideologic, op. cit.
- 16.
There has been much debate about this distinction. In the Appendix to the English translation of Knowledge and Human Interests (which was not published in German originally), Habermas explains that ‘I do not mind at all calling both phenomena praxis. Nor do I deny that normally instrumental action is embedded in communicative action (productive activity is socially organized, in general). But I see no reason why we should not adequately analyze a complex, i.e., dissect it into its parts’.
- 17.
Cf. Jürgen Habermas/Niklas Luhmann, Theorie der Gesellschaft oder Sozialtechnologie (Suhrkamp Verlag: Frankfurt am Main, 1971), especially pp. 114–22 and 202–20. (Hereafter referred to as ‘Habermas/Luhmann’.)
- 18.
Cf. Jürgen Habermas, ‘Wahrheitstheorien’, published in Festschrift für Walter Schultz (Neske Verlag, 1973), cited here, and later reprinted in Vorstudien und Ergänzungen zur Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns, Habermas explains that ‘The ideal speech situation is neither an empirical phenomenon nor a mere construct but rather an unavoidable assumption that is reciprocally presupposed in all discourses. Though this assumption can be counterfactual it need not be; but even when it is made counterfactually it is an operatively effective function in the communication procedure. I thus speak preferably of an anticipation, a premise for an ideal speech situation’ (p. 258). Always careful, Habermas adds that the ideal speech situation is not a regulative principle in Kant’s sense; it is a factual anticipation necessary for the very act of speaking; nor is it a concrete concept in Hegel’s sense since there is no historical social form which perfectly corresponds to it (p. 259).
- 19.
On this, cf. Legitimationsprobleme, op. cit., pp. 155–8, and Habermas/Luhmann, op. cit., p. 281.
- 20.
C.f., Habermas’ analysis of ‘The End of the Individual’ in Legitimationsprobleme, op. cit., pp. 162–78.
- 21.
The difficulty is apparent in Legitimationsprobleme when Habermas explains that in late capitalism, ‘God becomes the name for a communicative structure which forces men under the penalty of the loss of their humanity to go beyond their accidental empirical nature by encountering one another mediately, namely through the mediation of an Objective Thing which they themselves are not’ (op. cit., p. 167).
- 22.
‘Wahrheitstheorien’, op. cit., p. 251.
- 23.
C.f., Offe, Strukturprobleme, op. cit., pp. 85ff.
- 24.
The question whether interests, by definition, are particular returns below in the discussion of Habermas’ theory of ‘cognitive interests’.
- 25.
Cf., for example, Theorie und Praxis, op. cit., p. 25, for a clear illustration.
- 26.
Rödel, ‘Zusammenfassung’, op. cit., p. 10.
- 27.
Offe, Strukturprobleme, op. cit., p. 90.
- 28.
Habermas/Luhmann, op. cit., p. 281.
- 29.
On this, besides the Habermas/Luhmann debate, and the book by R. Döbert already mentioned, cf. the two Theorie-Diskussion volumes published by Suhrkamp after the Habermas/Luhmann debate. See also R. Bubner, ‘Wissenschaftstheorie und Systembegriff’, in R. Bubner, Dialektik und Wissenschaft, and the provocative, Hegelian-inspired essay by Klaus Hartmann, ‘Systemtheoretische Soziologie und kategoriale Sozialphilosophie’, in Philosophische Perspektiven, Band 5, 1973.
- 30.
Cf. H. Baier, ‘Soziologie und Geschichte’, in Archiv, für Rechtsund Sozialphilosophie, 1966, LII, 1, pp. 67–89; reprinted in Kritik und Interpretation der kritischen Theorie (The Hague, 1971). The citation is from p. 377 of the latter, whose political bias toward a more orthodox Marxism should be noted.
- 31.
This does not mean, as M. Theunissen suggests, that Habermas must give up the principle that epistemology is based on social theory; it means only that he recognizes the need to provide grounds for that assertion. C.f., ‘Die Gefährdung des Staates durch die Kultur’, a review of Legitimationsprobleme, in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, October 9, 1973.
- 32.
Similarly, c.f., Döbert, op. cit., as well as Döbert-Nunner-Winkler on child development. See also Habermas’ ‘Moral Development and Ego Identity’ and my note on its presentation in Telos, No. 27, 1976.
- 33.
Theorie und Praxis, op. cit., pp. 22–3. The point is made again below in the discussion of the difference between a critical and a reconstructive theory.
- 34.
Wellmer, op. cit., p. 97.
- 35.
Hegel, Wissenschaft der Logik (Meiner: Hamburg, 1963), p. 19.
- 36.
Ibid., p. 18.
- 37.
‘Postscript’, op. cit., p. 175.
- 38.
Theorie und Praxis, op. cit., p. 16.
- 39.
Ibid., p. 26.
- 40.
Ibid., p. 27.
- 41.
Ibid., note 31.
- 42.
‘Postscript’, op. cit., p. 181.
- 43.
Theorie und Praxis, op. cit., p. 16. C.f., also his ‘Postscript’, op. cit., p. 177, where Habermas writes: ‘The universality of cognitive interests implies that the constitution of object domains is determined by conditions governing the reproduction of the species, i.e., by the socio-cultural form of life as such’.
- 44.
Ibid., p. 44.
- 45.
Wellmer, op. cit., p. 92.
- 46.
Theorie und Praxis, op. cit., p. 45.
- 47.
Cf. Legitimationsprobleme, pp. 27–30, especially p. 28 on the role of learning mechanisms.
- 48.
This logical claim can become the first step on a slippery slope, as is the case for some elements of the Frankfurt School. Of course, a theory of ‘the social’ or the idea that institutions form individuals and social relations can be accused of reification insofar as it denies the particular and/or hypostatizes the social. The stress on particularity can come at the cost of an inability to say anything meaningful about them or even to distinguish them one from another. The challenge for social and political theory is to formulate conditions of mediation permitting the articulation of the universal in the particular and the affirmative relations of the particular to the universal.
- 49.
Habermas recognizes that the strict analogy does not hold; it at best makes sense in the case of the traditional view of the relation of the party to the masses. Cf. Theorie und Praxis, op. cit., pp. 35–7, and ‘Der Universalitätsanspruch der Hermeneutik’, in Hermeneutik und Ideologiekritik (Suhrkamp Verlag: Frankfurt am Main, 1971), as well as the critiques of Geigel and Gadamer in that volume.
- 50.
Negt’s work has taken a less orthodox turn. Cf. his collaboration with the cineaste Alexander Kluge, Öffentlichkeit und Erfahrung. Zur Organisationsanalyse von bürgerlicher und proletarischer Öffentlichkeit (Suhrkamp Verlag: Frankfurt am Main, 1972).
- 51.
Theorie und Praxis, op. cit., p. 33. On the problem of institutions, see the discussion below, as well as the chapters on Merleau-Ponty, Lefort, and Castoriadis.
- 52.
Ibid., p. 39.
- 53.
Cf. the excellent Introduction by Oskar Negt to N. Bukharin, A. Deborin, Kontroversen über dialektischen und mechanistischen Materialismus (Suhrkamp Verlag: Frankfurt am Main, 1969), where this term is defined in detail.
- 54.
Habermas adds here the peculiar argument that ‘Such attempts are precisely also tests; they test the limits of the changeability of human nature, above all of the historically variable structure of motivations or drives. (Antriebsstruktur)—limits about which we do not have, and in my opinion for fundamental reasons of principle cannot have theoretical knowledge’ (Theorie und Praxis, op. cit., p. 42). This is perhaps an anticipation of what would become his theory of evolutionary stages. I take the liberty here of adding a reference to my essay ‘Citizen Habermas’, reprinted in Between Politics and Antipolitics, which discusses in more detail Habermas’ uneasy relations with the New Left.
- 55.
‘Wahrheitstheorien’, op. cit., p. 257.
- 56.
Offe, Strukturprobleme, op. cit., p. 74.
- 57.
Ibid., p. 173.
- 58.
Ibid., p. 130. C.f., Ralph Miliband, The State in Capitalist Society (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1969).
- 59.
Paragraphs 230–56.
- 60.
C.f., the criticisms by the conservative political theorist, Bernard Willms, Kritik und Politik. Jürgen Habermas oder das politische Defizit der ‘Kritischen Theorie’ (Suhrkamp Verlag: Frankfurt am Main, 1973).
- 61.
Theorie und Praxis, op. cit., pp. 31–2.
- 62.
Habermas’ failure to develop a theory of the political offers a partial explanation for the absence of a theory of revolution in even his Marx-inspired early writings. For example, in Theorie und Praxis (p. 37), he asserts that ‘Against many sectarian efforts, it should be pointed out today that in late capitalism the change of the structures of the general educational system is possibly more important for the organization of enlightenment that fruitless cadre schooling or the building of powerless parties. I mean by this only that: these are empirical questions which should not be prejudged’.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Howard, D. (2019). From Critical Theory Toward Political Theory: Jürgen Habermas. In: The Marxian Legacy. Political Philosophy and Public Purpose. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04411-4_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04411-4_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-04410-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-04411-4
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)