>CB: Doesn't this mean that H is using analytical ideal types in the manner
>of instrumental ( toollike) reason, which is a no-no for H , isn't it ?
from what you've obviously just read, a repost:
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a. purposive rational action secures our capacity to satisfy human material needs (addition: note, there is no judgement about it being a no-no) <...>
Technical rationalization,frees us from hunger, toil, and the exigencies of nature, but such 'freedom from' is not the same as human emancipation, which also requires 'freedom to' reflect on what we are doing and what we want to do. For critical theory, reason involves "a notion of freedom that signifies both freed from the blind necessity of natural causality and freedom to self-consciously determine one's own action" emancipation requires practical as well as technical rationalization. (addition: again, no judgment about no-nos. in fact, Habermas, as he's been summarized here is saying that, of course (like, uhm, no duh) we need rationality/instrumental or technical rationality/whatever ya wanna call it because it allows us to understand the laws of nature in order to free us from the exigencies of nature.)
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what's he's saying is that class society, particularly under capitalism, means that technical rationality dominates at the expense of practical rationality (reason) when proceduralism, formalism, standardizationa, calculation come to reign. people come to see voting as participation in the forum, equality of opportunity as the best measure of justice, rather than asking about the substantive outcomes of a structurally oppressive economic and social order. etc.