On Sun, 10 Jun 2001 17:27:23 +1100 Rob Schaap <rws at comedu.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
> Habermas taxed Foucault (rightly, for mine) with simply totalising his
'critique' such that the contradiction between norms and realities - the
tensions that drive our real lived lives - are effaced (pfft! There goes Marx
...). For Foucault's target is to do away with baby and bathwater - draining
the pursuit of truth, the respect for reason and the commitment to freedom -
the constitutive norms of modernity that allowed you the woman and me the wog
into the university, for instance - in the process. So Habermas (now an old
conservative, for mine) called Foucault a 'young conservative' ...
Habermas taxed Foucault with an argument that entails that our organic capacity to speak is synonymous with an anticipatory utopia. As much as one might wish to hold onto a normative viewpoint in the face of diversity, in Habermas's case a procedural unity of reason, Habermas must eclipse the affective dimensions of the unconscious to do so. In his critique of Foucault he appeals to his earlier work on Freud, whereby dreams are nothing more than distortions in speech. If we clear up the distortions, our dreams disappear (a dream is the symptom of an unacceptable instinctual demand that has cathected a word such that it becomes withdrawn from public acceptability). For all intents and purposes, what Habermas calls 'discourse' is a conversation among subjects without an internal nature, or at least without an internal nature that can be liquidated in the process of collective will formation. He bastardizes a term from Adorno to make this point: our discussions must be 'exact fantasies.' Of course, there is nothing in psychoanalytic theory to support this claim, not that Habermas cares all that much about psychoanalytic confirmation. Object-relations theory and Lacanian theory both treat Foucault differently, offering up a theory of mutual recognition (Hegelian) in the case of the former, and an 'ethics of the real' in the case of the latter. Since you've already heard my thoughts on Lacan, give or take a year, I won't go into it here... only encourage that one avoid appealing to Habermas unless one is will to go all the way: every act of language-use is an expression of the universal ideals of autonomy and solidarity.. which have been concretized in European and North American constitutions and legal frameworks... and can be actualized with procedural dealings with reality on matters of science (objectivity) and morality (of the good life theory must remain silent).
It isn't difficult to see a variety of problems here though. For instance, as Freud remarked a long time ago: equality, which requires sacrifices by some (perhaps many) in order to establish equality also comes with an affective dimension of envy and rivalry. If I am just like everybody else, then what is unique about me? Well, nothing... nothing that matters anyway. Freud argues that the sacrifices (renunciations) that must be imposed on those 'above' and the 'gifts' given to those below is a social configuration ripe with jealousy and indignation... equality, in other words, is a breeding ground for aggression. Habermas would simply argue that this is pathological, and can be treated with therapeutic critique: you ought to be rational - and maintain your rationality as one among equals. One might wish to note here that questions regarding gender, sexuality and etc. all disappear within this procedural framework. When one comes to the table of reason, one is a citizen first, neither male nor female, greek nor jew (if I'm remembering my Epistle to the Galacians correctly). I don't quite see how this encourages political struggle if when you get there everything that made political struggle of interest now becomes irrelevant (this is why I am more inclined to agree with Seyla Benhabib, that when we come to the table we need to bring both our bodies and our minds -- and discourse must revolve around both issues regarding our individuality and our humanity... Habermas has returned the volley by saying that this makes consensus impossible, and therefore suffers from an inadequate philosophical justification... not to mention requires the adoption of substantial norms as opposed to his more rigorous universal norms (Benhabib argues that Habermas's universals are, in fact, particulars without knowing it...). What gives Benhabib's argument credibility is the way in which it coincides with a psychoanalytic understanding of language: in order for a word to have meaning it must be cathected, we must invest meaning in the word - words do not have 'rational force' outside of an affective bond or attachment, which entails giving the unconscious a wider appreciation (she doesn't make this argument but it follows).
You also mentioned a respect for reason... this isn't exactly Habermas's position, although this is still an area of contention. Habermas argues that we don't respect reason, we respect people (Albrecht Wellmer sympathetically argued in his critique of discourse ethics that Habermas's framework did entail respect for reason at the expense of people).
Whew. I've barely mentioned Foucault at all. I'll mention this, in the last few years Habermas has come to see that Foucault's work is far more innovative than he thought (in PDModernity).... and has expressed support for pursuing lines of inquiry that would link Foucault with hermeneutics (to which Habermas is more closely allied). Which is a way of saying that the 'totalising' critique that Habermas charges Foucault with might be off the mark if it can be demonstrated that power-discursive struggles share enough of a family resemblance to articulate a case supporting the universal significance of communication qua cognitive-historical development [ie. unless a Foucaultian analysis harbours a non-interpretive dimension, then it is safe to say that it is hermeneutic... which means that a normative viewpoint is in fact open to the force of the better argument].
ken