>On Mon, 30 Jul 2001, Kenneth MacKendrick wrote:
>
> > Derrida and Foucault are just fooling around. Habermas doesn't like it and
> > thinks it conservative, but his real worry is a return to slaughter,
> > anti-humanism, and destruction. He sees kernels of this in each and every
> > vindication of irrational thought, and he defends a theory of rationality -
> > which if even the smallest pinprick were to be taken seriously - would make
> > the devastation which has become common, unthinkable.
>
>In fact, the implementation of "rationality" in actual human life, like
>religious beliefs, has led to a great deal of misery in human history.
Right, Habermas makes this explicit.
>Every modern nation-state requires a regime of rational, calculated
>bureaucratic procedures; every multinational corporation is in fact
>a paradigm of action based on rational calculation.
Right, Habermas acknowledges his debt to Horkheimer and Adorno's analysis too.
> To say that the
>problems we face in the world today--massive maldistribution of
>resources, exploitation of labor, environmental abuse--can be resolved
>by creating a universal "theory of rationality" seems hopeful at
>best.
Habermas is under no illusions that a theory of rationality can do anything, except provide knowlege about rationality. If we can 'know' something about language, why can't we know about communication? or about reason?
> I would argue, contra JH, that it is the universalization of
>rationality in everyday life settings--work, school, prison, govt--
>that is a crucial component of the various forms of inequality and
>domination we see in the world today.
And Habermas would agree, 100% - and he would add that these things have been institutionalized according to the dictates of instrumental reason, which is contrary to the potential of our human capacity to adopt a communicative perspective - which is what the dominators had to do when they decided to rule the world.
The problem is this: if instrumental reason is 'the whole' - then criticism cannot exist, because if instrumental reason is equated with domination, then there can be no assurance that the critique is not one more piece of domination manifesting itself. In other words, criticism becomes groundless.
Habermas escapes this aporia by pointing to a more differentiated understanding of reason, which is completely irreducible to instrumental reason.
ken