1.3 - joas, hans - the unhappy marriage of hermeneutics and functionalism (en)

7/30/2019 1.3 - Joas, Hans - The Unhappy Marriage of Hermeneutics and Functionalism (en)

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The Unhappy Marriage of Hermeneutics and Functionalism

The Unhappy Marriage of Hermeneutics and Functionalism

by Hans Joas

Source:

PRAXIS International (PRAXIS International), issue: 1 / 1988, pages: 34-51, on www.ceeol.com.
http://www.ceeol.com/http://www.ceeol.com/http://www.ceeol.com/http://www.dibido.eu/bookdetails.aspx?bookID=467d4faf-0559-446f-94e8-db67f71c7a00http://www.ceeol.com/


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AN EXCHANGE ON "THE THEORY OF COMMUNICATIVEACTION"

*HansJoas

The thematic breadth of Jiirgen Habermas's work is extraordinary, and histheoretical undertaking has been progressing with a high degree of internalcoherence. In his Theory ofCommunicative Action, Habermas has attempted touse his impressive intellectual tools and the results of his theoretical endeavour to produce a systematic work which both clarifies highly abstractfundamental theoretical questions and offers handy formulae that give adiagnosis of the present era. The work's scope and the diversity of theproblems treated in it make it difficult for anyone who wants to enter intodialogue with it to follow the author's course of argumentation with a criticaleye if only to come independently-and not by being seduced by the book'srhetorical persuasiveness-to agreement with For this reason, the discussion ofHabermas's book at the present time is in the somewhat uncomfortablesituation of being split between global appreciations of an apologetic or criticalnature, on the one hand, and the correction of errors of detail, on the other.But what is the significance of amending Habermas's reconstructions of theclassical theories of philosophy and sociology, if it has no important consequences for the line of argument of the work as a whole? On the other hand, ofwhat use are global generalizations about the work if they fail to capture thewealth of the book's various discussions? A typical expression of thisdilemma, it seems to me, is the fact that many critics are inclined to see, veryspeculatively and arbitrarily, the cause of the defects of Habermas's vision inhis fundamental theoretical positions, although the logical relationshipbetween the components of the theory which are cited is by no means clear.Such an arbitrary, and therefore often erroneous localization of theoreticalweak points in his theory is indeed fostered by Habermas himself when heasserts, "in good Hegelian terms" Cl/XXXIX), that there is an indissolubleconnection between the formation of basic concepts and the treatment ofsubstantive issues. The existence of such a connection will not be denied here.However, a certain measure of doubt as to its inextricability does seemappropriate. Critical interpretations of sociological texts need not, by anymeans, assume a rigorous connection between the decisions regarding fun-* Abridged version of a German manuscript published in: Axel Honneth and Hans Joas (eds.),Kommunikatives Handeln. (Frankfurt, Suhrkamp, pp.144-176,1986). It has been translated from theGerman by Raymond Meyer, Palo Alto, California. I quote from Jiirgen Habermas, Theorie deskommunikativen Handelns, 2 vols. (Frankfurt, 1981) indicating the volume number with a Roman numeraland the page number with Arabic numerals (e.g., 11107). Quotations from the second volume-as yetunpublished in English-have been translated by R. Meyer.


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Praxis International 35damental theoretical questions and the diagnosis of an historical period, whichis always based on empirical information. Indeed, even between the solutionsof different fundamental theoretical problems, tensions and ruptures canoccur.The following critical examination ofHabermas's work takes as its startingpoint the conjecture that in this work, which claims to be completelycoherent, we might find simply a "personal union" of theoretical positions.More concretely I would like to advance the thesis that Habermas's booktreats three sets ofquestions, all ofwhich are distinct from one another to suchan extent, that answering one set does not completely predetermine thesolution to the others. These three sets comprise the two fundamentalproblems of sociology, namely the question of human action and that of theconditions of social order, and the question of the central problematics of

society in contemporary capitalist democracies. Between the two metatheoretical problems and the empirical dimension there can exist no relationship of logical consequence. Admittedly, a certain conception ofcontemporary s o c i ~ l problems has a motivating function for the posing andanswering of metatheoretical questions, but the positing of a determinativerelationship between the metatheoretical and substantive levels would makecommunication between different political-ideological positions inconceivablefrom the outset. But even between the two metatheoretical questions, ameaningful distinction can be made.If one takes Habermas's theory as an example, this assertion means thatbetween his theory's contribution to the theory of action, i.e., its takingaccount of communicative action, and its solution to the problem of socialorder by means of the duality of system and life-world, there lie conceptualand empirical steps which make it clear that other solutions as well to theproblem of social order can certainly spring from the soil of communicativeaction. 1 The following exposition will therefore concentrate on examiningHabermas's contribution to the theory of action independently from the

contribution he makes to the theory of social order. With respect to the theoryof action, it will be shown to what extent the introduction of the concept ofcommunicative action in fact constitutes an advance for mainstream sociological theories of action; on the other hand, however, it will be shown to whatextent that concept, like mainstream sociology, continues to ignore a plethoraof pressing questions pertaining to the theory of action .. As for the theory ofsocial order, the examination of the concepts of life-world and system willundertake to demonstrate the indefensibility of Habermas's use of them andto explain how Habermas is led into his unfortunate joining together ofhermeneutics and functionalism through the insufficient radicalness of hiscritique of functionalism and his concomitant failure to recognize the metatheoretical character of the theory of action. I will entirely pass over the morephilosophical questions concerning his use of the notion of rationality, andthus questions about the normative implications of a critical theory of society.Concerning the issue ofHabermas's diagnosis of the present era, I return to itbriefly and only insofar as its plausibility is thrown into doubt whenHabermas's broader theoretical grounds are thrown in doubt.

aCEEOL NL Germany


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36 Praxis InternationalHabermas's most important insight in regard to the theory of action is thatthe specific structure of human communication is irreducible. As opposed toany reduction 'of human action which maintains that it is merely technical,instrumental,'teleologicalor oriented solely to success-whatever the counter...

concepts might be, and no matter whether they are precise or impreciseHabermas juxtaposed the view that human beings can have dealings with oneanother without making each other into means for achieving individuallypredetermined ends, without closing themselves to the ilnplicit or explicitdemands of their fellow human beings for true knowledge, correct conduct,and authentic self-presentation. Since Habermas formulated the distinctionbetween "labor" and "interaction" in the form of a radical dichotomy, andused this distinction in his critique of Marx's concept of labor, this idea has, been hotly debated.2 This discussion has made unequivocally clear that thedistinction proposed by Habermas is defensible only as an analytical one. Inevery social activity, aspects of both types of action can be found; even for theacquisition of the abilities required for human commerce with things,elementary communicative abilities appear to be a prerequisite.3 The heart ofthe distinction does not seem to me to be affected by such criticisms. Atbottom, Habermas is directing attention to a fundamental difference inattitude among actors in social action-situations and those in non-social'action.:.situations, although it is certainly true that even my counterpart in asocial situation can in many ways be made into a mere object of my influenceand' of my will. The typology of action put forward in The Theory of'Communicative Action (1/384) consists in nothing else than a system of thesethree types of action: the instrumental, the strategic, and the communicative.Just how meager this typology is can be shown by even a brief glance atHabermas's own theoretical development. If my own impression, andThomas McCarthy's reconstruction of that development do not deceive me,4then opposition to a reduction of action to the "instrumental" was already amotive of Habermas's thought long before the concept of communicativeaction had assumed the role of a comprehensive counter-concept. At first,Habermas proposed a concept of praxis informed by the ancient Greekphilosophy of praxis and by the early modern resistance to a theory of societyinfluenced by the natural sciences. Even if there are good reasons forintroducing the concept of communication or for making a triadic distinctionamong labor, work and action, as Hannah Arendt does,s nevertheless one mayask whether the concept of communication is capable of assuming all themeanings previously carried by the notion of praxis in its fullest sense. For itcould indeed be the case that there are more reasons for rejecting thelimitation of the practical to the technical than can be derived from theconcepts of communication and interaction.This question becomes even more acute when it is raised not just withrespect to the individual theoretical development of Jiirgen Habermas, butwith respect to the entire history of theory concerned with this matter. Evenin classical antiquity, the ideas about praxis were developed, according toRudiger Bubner,6 through the critique of the Sophists' attempt to apply the


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Praxis International 37Isaiah Berlin and Charles Taylor,7 an "expressionistic" counter-model ofaction as the expression of the actor was developed opposition to utilitariantendencies of Enlightenment. This model, which may not be confined tolinguistic expression or to stylizing self-presentation, exercised widely ramified influences in post-Kantian German Idealism, in German Romanticism,and in the thought of Karl Marx, whose concept of labor is quite unsuited toserve as an example of the technicist-instrumentalist limitation of the conceptof action. An important current of Marxist discussion in this century hasconcerned itselfwith the expressive moments of the concept of labor in Marx'searly writings and with the constitutive significance of this concept for thecritique of political economy. Pragmatism, with its emphasis on creativeproblem-solving, opposed to the instrumentalist reduction of action analternative model of action, and was thereby led to reassess playful and artisticcommerce with objects. Previously in intellectual history, play and art had, inthe most diverse contexts, been presented as counter-notions to instrumentalist reductionism. Durkheim, Parsons, and Gehlen, either within theframework of the theory of action or via a critique of utilitarian views on thesocial order, each elaborate a conception of "ritual" as norm-constitutingaction as a counter-concept to the instrumentalist restriction of the concept ofaction. Habermas knows all this. The immediate purpose of the precedingenumeration is to call attention to the fact that a present-day theory of actionmust be capable of typologically reconstructing all these phenomenal 'domains.How little Habermas succeeds in this regard can also be illustrated by thetypology of concepts of action which are widely used in the social sciences,and which Habermas himself presents in the context of his discussion ofaction's relations to world and of its aspects of rationality (1/126 ff.). Herehe distinguishes the teleological or strategic models of action from normregulated, dramaturgical, and communicative action. Even a brief comparisonof this typology with the concepts of action actually used in the social sciencesand in philosophy suffices to show, its serious defects. In the case ofteleological action, Habermas makes no distinction between an action thataccomplishes a previously set end and the type of action stressed bypragmatism phenomenology which finds its end within situations.Playful commerce with objects and situations as a type of action is also entirelyabsent typology. The description of norm-regulated action isoriented to the model of norm-observance, while symbolic interactionism andethnomethodology by contrast emphasize the vague demarcation of behavior,the meaningfulness of which is situation-specific.8 Consequently, interactionthat is not normatively regulated, or is so only slightly, is lacking inHabermas's typology. The notion of dramaturgical action refers to thestrategic presentation of oneself to a public. As a result, the truly expressionistic model of self-expression in actions performed without strategic intent isalso lacking in the typology. The notion of communicative action at first(1/128) appears to refer to the type of interaction that is normativelyunregulated, or that regulates itself only in the immediate process of


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38 Praxis InternationalHabermas'sis neither anor even aa classifi

distinction-admittedly aI l - f ' - 'U 'U ... ...,JI."-' _L:l.6nll-"_ c. to the world. Thus, wel I .4l1.,. l l ._Jl..fI.JLtJlI". ' ' ' ' ' ' ''l from standpoint ofof kinds of action, andsuch as jam-packed

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..,'lriI.!!--'I.IJ.II......... J l . I I . . . I ~ J L . I I . , . . . of the philosophy of consciousness and thecommunicative action into the sociological theoryimportance, but I dispute the identity of these two

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AIlo".&AA"-II\.'-l.Ji.AA,\ .. A..LIl.'I.4J.. premise pragmatism'stheory does not conceive ofsubject establishes a priorito be mere material atcontrary, pragmatismprior to any setting of" ' J l L A . I l U " , ~ ' - l L " " ' I o d " in various situations.

actor andways.A'O' ' I I ' " " , ,01l ' ' ' '1 I11'Y' ' i1 .Anro 1111:1 estab-


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Praxis International 39natural totalities of action according to means and ends. John Dewey's view ofthe matter, for example, is that when the imprecise directedness with whichcustomary actions are performed proves insuffficent to overcome the resistance encountered a particular situation, only then is the hitherto implicitintentionality of the action brought into the full light of consciousness andcompelled to focus on the situation such as to make itself more precise.9Playful self-development and creative solution of problems, as used by thepragmatists, repudiates the primacy of an instrumentalist concept of labor foraction just as radically as does the adducing of interaction and communicationas kinds of action not accounted for by a model based upon labor.What then would be the consequences if Habermas had clearly distinguished the two trains of reasoning Wllich lead to the supersession of thephilosophy of consciousness and to the emergence of the concept of communicative action? First, it would have been necessary to take into account,within the theory of action, non-teleological forms of dealing with objects innon-social situations. Second, and this is more important, the very way inwhich end or success-oriented human action is viewed would change. It wouldbecome clear that the setting of ends is a self-reflective and thereforesecondary presentation of an action in situations. On the level of the theory ofaction, a domain would thereby be brought into view, in which all action "hasalways been" embedded. Io Focussing upon this "domain" permits a moreradical refutation of the notion that individual actors enter into actionsituations with preconceived intentions than is made possible by the thesisthat meanings are linguistically constituted. It is in this domain that theactors' corporeality and prelinguistic sociality must be located. This domainhas been examined from very different theoretical vantage points, andHabermas's theory of communicative action provides effective means forrejecting structuralism's claim on this "domain." But does his theory succeedin conceptualizing this domain as the life-world? If the life-world is supposedto be a correlate of communicative action, then there arises the problem thatthe "domain" under discussion here is the basis of all action, thus also ofteleological action no matter how it is defined. 11As stated above, Habermas identifies in a misleading fashion a typology ofaction with the distinction among types of coordination of action. A numberof Habermas's critics (Berger, Bader, Honneth)I2 have pointed out that inmany formulations he connects too closely different types of action anddifferent societal spheres of action, insofar as he speaks of sub-systems ofpurposively rational or of communicative action. This is a valid criticism,since we must assume that every societal sphere of action exhibits a wealth ofdifferent types of action. In The Theory of Communicative Action, Habermasappears to want to avoid this problem by talking about types of coordinationof action and by introducing on this level of his theory the distinction betweensuccess oriented versus communicatively oriented action. However, sincethere is no typology adequate to the rich variety of the different kinds of actionthat correspond to the distinction among different forms of the coordinationof action, and since to each of the societal domains and spheres of action only


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40 Praxis Internationalcorrespondence among types of action, types of coordination of action, andsocietal domains is once again established. Once this relationship has beentheoretically established in this manner, then of course no phenomena canblock the progress of Habermas's argumentation, and he can shift back andforth between the different levels at will. When considered from thestandpoint of the theory of action, this state of affairs is clearly problematic.However, the topic of the coordination of action leads to the second centralmetatheoretical problem of sociology, namely the question of social order.

Habermas's contribution to the solution of the problems posed by thetheory of social order consists in his defense of two opposed conceptions of thetheory of social order and in his attempt to join them by using empiricalarguments. On the one hand, it is a matter of a type of social order that issupposed to correspond to communicatively oriented action and is represented as being intuitionally comprehensible and rooted in the actors'intentions. To refer to this type of social order, Habermas uses the concept of"life-world." The precise manner in which this concept is introduced intoHabermas's argumentation will have to be treated later. However, accordingto Habermas, this concept alone is insufficient to solve the problems raised bya theory of social order, as it is constrained by the essential limits of any theoryof action. An adequate theory of society must reach out beyond forms ofsociality based on primary groups and beyond the intended results of action,and to do this it must critically draw upon functionalist systems' theory.Habermas then elucidates the relationship between two models of socialorder, the "life-world" and "systems," in a quasi-empirical fashion, that is,first by means of an historical theory about the gradual uncoupling of thesystem from the life-world. Second, he analyzes the present relationshipamong the societal spheres that supposedly correspond to these types of socialorder, and finally, he introduces a theoretical model, based on the mediatheory of functionalist theorists, concerning the interactions among thesespheres and of the "mediatization", "instrumentalization", and "colonization"of the life-world through the imperatives of the system. In order to makeperceptible the problems in Habermas's theory, which is sometimesdeveloped at levels of abstraction so high that they make the reader's headspin, it is necessary to scrutinize in order: 1) Habermas's understanding of thestatus of the theory of action; 2) his interpretation and employment offunctionalist systems' theory; and 3) his introduction of the concept of thelife-world into the argument. The problems that appear as we proceed alongthis path will give the reader an idea of just how infelicitous is the joiningtogether of "life-world" and "system", of hermeneutic and functionalistconceptions of social order.1) In many passages of his book, Habermas speaks of essential limits on


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two paradigms. assertion seems to me toas a way of stating matter; but unsatisfactorya understanding of the problem. It is myconfounds the distinctiontheory of social order with, on the onesocial order provided by functionalistthe substantive question of the

U,",,," .Il.'loo-ll..iUi..ll. processes occur independently of the intentions ofdoes not per se compete with the theory of social order.empirical assumption that all results of action areactors, or within the control and intuitivefact, theory of action directly compels us toof social Every theory of action entails theoreticalnature of social order that implicitly or explicitly

correspond to it. is true even of the poorest but very influential theory ofaction, utilitarianism, which the corresponding model of socialorder is the market,14 as well as of theories of action originating inethnomethodology, which refer to the model of social order based on thefragile interaction among individual subjects. It is not the case that thetheory action stands in a competitive relation to functionalist systemstheory; rather, an anthropologically grounded theory of human action and of'the basic structures of human sociality resist the unconsidered apprehensiondomain studied by the social sciences insofar as these use the categoriesof a systems theory per se is not yet tailored to the specific characteristicsof this domain. Functionalist systems' theory is a proposal about how to solvethe problems posed by theory of social order that is, in relation to thesocial, still only metaphorical, that might, though, prove to be fruitful after ithas been made more specific. functionalist systems theory should in factturn out to fruitful, then this not be due to the essential limitations ofwhat theory of action can accomplish, to its own possible superiorityover other models of social order.Like Merton and Parsons,15 Habermas adduces the problem of

unintended results of action as an important reason for changing over tofunctionalist models of social order. This cannot be a compelling reaSOll, sinceunintended results of action are made the focal point of attention in a largenumber of theoretical approaches, without leading these theories into functionalism. example is the political theory of John Dewey, 16 for which theperception and the control of unintended results of group action constitute animportant starting point. Some authors, for instance, Blau, Boudon, andothers,17 adduce the possibility of unintended results of action as evidenceagainst functionalism, since from no perspective can all unintended results ofaction interpreted as functional. This indicates that there is at least aproblem in Habermas's distinction between two types of coordination ofaction. For he presents these types as the two members of a dichotomy in


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42 Praxis Internationalaction. Now all coordination of action with reference to intentions isextremely unstable, if retro-actions of unintended or unanticipated results ofaction continuously occur that cannot be consensually interpreted within theframework of the actor's systems ofmeanings. Conversely, social integrationeffected by means of the results of action can mean not the interconnecting ofthe actors through all the results of action, but merely the definition of certainkinds of results that are recorded as legitimate. 18The foregoing reflection on the status of the theory of action was intendedboth to stress the inevitable existence of questions pertaining to the theory ofsocial order in the fundamental problems of sociology and to refute thenecessity of seeking answers to the theoretical questions of social order by wayof functionalist systems theory. For the moment, all that is clear is that thetheory of action entails the development of a typology of forms of communaland societal integration, and that the introduction of a theory of communicative action on the level of the theory of action compels the inclusion in such atypology of a type of social order that could be called a social order founded ondiscursively reached agreement. However, on this level it is still impossible tomake any assertion about the normative precedence of this type over othertypes of social order, or about the empirical relationship among existing typesof social order. 192. Habermas gives the impression that the limitations of the theory of actionmake it necessary to have recourse to functionalist theories of systems. If weare not content to stop at phenomena that occur within the horizon of actors'intentions, or erroneously to explain macrosocial complexes of interrelationswith reference to this model, then there seems to be no other choice than toanalyze these nexuses according to the example given by systems' theory. Theonly matter of dispute, then, is the claim of functionalist analysis to beexhaustive of the social totality. Habermas firmly rejects this claim, insistingon the constitution of systemic complexes of interrelations in life-wordlynexuses of action. Let us examine more closely the procedure, the problems,and the motives of this critical examination and appropriation of functionalism, which is, however, no more than that.To Habermas, the phenomenon of the interconnection of unintendedresults of action in the form of self-regulating societal mechanisms seem to beundeniable. He wants to free such mechanisms from the odium of being intheir essence evidence of alienation. To this end he frequently emphasizes theproblem-solving role of such mechanisms or media, which eases the burden

on communication. In the sphere of rational economic activity, which is inconformity with the medium of money, and in the sphere of rationaladministration, whiC;h is in conformity with the medium of power, he seessuccessful forms for fulfilling societal tasks. In relation to these tasks, thedemand for communicative regulation would be out of place, because it wouldnever be capable of competing, from the standpoint of effectivity, with theother kinds of regulation proper to these spheres. The market, in particular, ispresented as the prototype of a sociality that, while it is normatively


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Praxis International 43means provided by functionalist systems theory, to arguing for the indispensability of this kind of social order for the fulfillment of a particular societaltask, namely that of material reproduction. "Not even in limiting cases,however," states Habermas, "does the material reproduction of the life-worldshrink down to such easily and clearly graspable dimensions that it might beconceived of as the intended result of collective cooperation. Normally,material reproduction of the life-world occurs as the fulfillment of latentfunctions extending beyond the action-orientations of the participants. Insofar asthe aggregated effects of cooperative actions fulfill imperatives of the preservation of the material substrate, these nexuses of actions can becomefunctionally stabilized, that is,by means of the feeding back of informationabout the functional secondary effects." (11/348) Not only does Habermasfunctionalistically conceive of the unintended effects of action a priori as"latent functions" in this passage; in addition, he also gives a substantializingturn to the formalism of the systems model in the direction of materialreproduction of a society.Neither the one nor the other is self-evidently true. That the problem ofunintended results of action does not compel one to have recourse tofunctionalism has already been stressed ,numerous times. It is also astonishing,in view of the pervasiveness in the social sciences of a normatively orientedfunctionalism that concentrates precisely on phenomena of "symbolic reproduction," that Habermas assigns to functionalism the task of explainingspecifically material reproduction. This position contains at least a tendencytoward reification of a principle of social order. This tendency is also revealedin Habermas's use of the concepts of system integration and social integration.This pair of concepts has become widely recognized and used following DavidLockwood's critique of Parsons from a leftist perspective20 and has becomeone of the focal points of the discussion of macrosociological theory. Thedistinction made by these two concepts in fact expresses the experience of theWest European Left that smoothly running economic reproduction by nomeans guarantees the socio-cultural integration of a society, and thateconomic crises do not necessarily trigger political or socio-cultural crises.With these concepts, Lockwood sought to go beyond the superficial critiqueof Parsons from the standpoint of the theory of social conflict, and to setagainst the notion of a system of values common to all the members of asociety as a fundamental prerequisite of social order a completely differenttheoretical plane: that of the real interdependence of parts and domains ofsociety. No matter how inexact this attempt to formulate an interesting ideamight have been, it was clear that system integration and social integrationreferred to two dimensions of integration that are always present simultaneously and which did not belong to two distinct societal spheres. Habermas, incontrast, believes that a differentiation between system and life..world tookplace in the course of history; thus he arrives at the proposition that "societiesrepresent systemically stablized action ..nexuses of socially integrated groups."(11/228) The scope of societal integration is thus regarded, at least in modern


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44There is, however, a host specific to use offunctionalist notions. I would here especially to twodifficulties. The first concerns uncoupling from life-world of sub-systems of purposive rational action. Within the framework of a Weberian

typology of action, this manner formulation could still be considered tomake a certain sense. But Habermas, in order to demonstrate the necessity of"going over" from the theory of action to systems' theory, relies strongly onNiklas Luhmann's critique ofWeber and the use of the concept of purpose atthe level of system-rationality. Luhmann's critique, however, maintains thatthere is a rupture between the actor's end-oriented rationality ofaction and the functional rationality of social systems. Therefore systemrationality does not at all require a rationality of action that is structurallyanalogous to it. The thesis that there are subsystems of purposively rationalaction is consequently untenable not only because it allows a societal domainto be based on a single type of action, but also because it assumes that asubsystem can be characterized by referellce to the type of action dominant init. 21 The second immanent difficulty reveals itself when one recalls theargument that Habermas himself used in some of his earlier writings tocritique functionalism. 22 There he demonstrated that functionalist analyses inthe social sciences encounter what he calls a problematic of the value thatshould be realized by a social system; this means, such analyses run into thefact that no self-evident, taken-for-granted guiding value is given beforehandto social systems-such as that of sheer self-preservation or of biologicalsurvival-but that this value can only be defined by the investigator. Thisinsight ought to lead us to a distrust of any assumption of actually effectiveteleological tendencies in social systems. Of course, this line of reasoning canbe extended beyond the decisionist positing of such guiding values by aninvestigator, to the question of the guiding values institutionalized in socialsystems. Then, however, with regard to functional interconnections it is againa matter of tendencies that, from the standpoint of such dominant "guidingvalues," are intended or at least acceptable. From this perspective, realprocesses that are functional in themselves are theoretically precluded. This isalso true of material reproduction, implicit in which is, certainly, the task ofself-preservation, but in a modified form. If this is so, then talk of systemprocesses that are uncoupled from the life-world but which are neverthelessfunctional, becomes meaningless.In recent years, it has been above all Anthony Giddens who has

championed-in contrast to Habermas-a radical critique of functionalismwhich does not fall back into methodological individualism and which doesnot deny phenomena such as homeostatic processes, to the existence ofwhichthe programmatic adherents of functionalism like to call attention.23 Such aradical critique of functionalism is aimed in the direction of a theory ofcollective action, the focus ofwhich is the intended and unintended results ofcollective and individual action, and the collective constitution of normativeregulations and collective procedures for dealing with normative conflicts.


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Praxis International 45is unwilling to follow this route. He is forced to adopt a truncated version of

theory of action and to take recourse to functionalist lines of reasoningbecause he does not see the theory of action in relation to the task ofdescribing collective actions, of describing the constitution of collective actorsand identities. my opinion, he has expressed his motives for not doing thismost clearly in the speech he made in Stuttgart when accepting the HegelPrize. 25 In his discussion of the question of whether complex societies arecapable of developing a reasonable identity, he speaks of the two great,influential forms of collective identity in modern history: the nation-state andthe political party. order to judge the claim of these collective identities torationality, he measures both of them by the standard ofwhether they embodygoals that can be universalized. He adjudges that historically both have playedsuch a role. the current context, however, a nationalist consciousnessmeans for him the danger of a particularist regression. He also regards thehopes set in the proletarian party as outmoded, after the historical experienceswe have had with bureaucratized state parties and reformist parties integratedinto the competitive political system of capitalist democracies. We shall notjudge the factual basis of these assessments. What is clear, though, is that thisjudgment sends Habermas on a search for a structure of collective identitythat is not very closely associated with the empirically available forms ofpartial collective identity. The explanation for Habermas's orientation, underLuhmann's influence, towards a functionalism that has been given a criticalturn is to be found, in my view, in the above-mentioned assessments and inHabermas's suspicion that any theory centered on the constitution ofcollective actors (1) promotes the reification of organizations into collectivesubjects and (2) the assumption made by the philosophy of history that thehistory of humanity has a single persisting subject. This seems to be thecrucial point from which Habermas is led into the dilemma arising out of theunion of hermeneutics and functionalism.26

3) In Habermas's theory, the concept of the life-world fulfills simultaneously two tasks. It characterizes a type of social order and an epistemologicalposition. Using concepts from the tradition of pragmatism and of sociologyinfluenced by pragmatism, the type of social order in question is that called"democracy" or "negotiated order;" the epistemological theory is that theoryaccording to which cognition is constituted in a "world that is there." Imention these concepts in order to point out that a theory can and mustcontain both kinds of concepts; they should, though, be clearly distinct fromeach other. In introducing the concept of the life-world into his argument,Habermas does not begin with theories of the constitution of cognition incontexts of everyday certainties of action and of social intercourse, theoriesthat are not fundamentally transcendentalist from the outset like the oneMead develops in his later writings, or the theory of everyday life presented inthe works of Lukacs during his last period and in the writings of AgnesHeller.27 He begins, rather, with the contributions made by phenomenology,which have been more influential in the social sciences. He criticizes their useof a model of individual perceptions taken from the philosophy of conscious


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46 Praxis Internationalcommunication. This effort is influenced by the findings of analyticalphilosophy. If this transformation is successful, then we can "conceive of thelife-world as represented by a culturally transmitted and linguistically organized store of interpretive patterns." (11/189). What the content of thislife-world is, is of course unknown to the actors; it is merely background,which can become relevant or problematical, depending on the situation."From a standpoint that is immediate to a given situation, the life-worldappears as a reservoir of matters that are to be taken for granted, or ofunshaken convictions, that the participants in communication use for cooperative processes of interpretation. However, individual elements, particularmatters that are taken for granted, are mobilized only in the form of a knowledgethat is agreed to and that can also be called into question, when they becomerelevant to a situation." Up to this point I see no difficulty in principle inHabermas's procedure. This changes, though, with the next step. Habermasis unsatisfied with what he has achieved, inasmuch as the life-world concept ofthe theory of communication "still (lies) on the same analytical plane as thetranscendental life-world concept of phenomenology." (11/205). This planemust be surpassed, however, says Habermas, if the goal is not to remainwithin the framework of epistemology, but to achieve a demarcation of thedomain of investigation of the social sciences. Then, he continues, thelife-world, which is conceived from the perspective of participants in actionsituations, must be "objectivated." Habermas sees a first model for how thismight happen in ordinary, everyday narrations, which can refer to the totalityof socio-cultural facts without necessarily originating from the point ofview ofa participant in the narrated action. The crucial step, however, is the one thatfollows: "This concept of the socio-culturallife-world, which is intuitively atour disposal, can acquire theoretical fruitfulness when from it there issuccessfully developed a frame of reference for descriptions and explanationswhich pertain to a life-world in its entirety and not just to events that occur init. While the narrative account refers to intra-mundane matters, the theoretical account should explain the reproduction of the life-world i t s e l f ~ / ( I I / 2 0 7 ) .The result of this attempt at objectivation is Habermas's contention that thelife-world fulfills the functions of cultural reproduction, social integration,and socialization. In accordance with these functions that have been identified, Habermas distinguishes three structural components of the life-world:culture, society, and personality. By following Habermas in his train ofreasoning, we have come to the very same result as Parsons, who at thebeginning of the fifties presented his distinction among three levels of systemsof action.28 Still, we have arrived at it along a wholly different path.Should this coincidence cause us to be skeptical? I think so. After theconcept of the life-world has been appropriated for the theory of communication and re-interpreted accordingly, Habermas's daring constructionpresents us with two completely different ideas under the rubric of theobjectivation of the participant perspective. The first idea has to do with anobjectivation such as an ordinary storyteller or an historian undertakes. The


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Praxis Intemational 47resulting from his understanding of the frames of reference within which heinterprets the actions of others. He does not become an uncomprehendingobserver, but an interpretive r t ~ c o n s t r u c t o r of the subjectively intended and"objective" meaning of the actions of others. Just as the totality of theirlife-wordly background remains essentially non-cognizable for the actors whoare the object of the narration, so too does the life-wordly background of thenarrator remain essentially non-cognizable in its totality for him. Our narratorcould become the object of narration for a second narrator, and so on, adinfinitum. This process would produce ever new "stories;" and these newstories would perhaps be ever more "objective," relative to the limitedperspective of the original actors. However, in this process no plane would bereached that is essentially different from that of the reconstruction of themeaning of others' actions against the background of a life-world.The other idea that Habermas links to the concept of objectivation does nothave to do with the perspective of the storyteller or of the historian, but withthe perspective of the epistemologist. The latter can make the mode ofconstitution of cognition itself, as it is performed by actors or narrators orhistorians, the object of his reflection. This is true, of course, even of thephenomenological theorist of the life-world. If phenomenology abandons itsclaim that the objects of cognition are transcendentally constituted, the resultis an epistemological theory that attempts self-reflectively to bring into sight

the preconditions of cognition. This effort yields corporeality, intersubjectivity, and the structuredness of knowledge as preconditions' of all cognition.With regard to this objectivation, it is a matter of a self-reflective confirmationof the preconditions of cognition and action. This confirmation can onlyassume the character of a formal definition of such preconditions. For as soonas it tries to go beyond a formal 'definition of them, it becomes a particulartheory, which necessarily arises upon a determinate life-worldly foundationthat as such is essentially non-cognizable. It is, therefore, no accident thatHabermas discovers as the structural components of the life-world preciselythose dimensions which Parsons identified as the levels at which the conceptof system is to be applied in the social sciences. However, no theory aboutchanges of cultural reproduction, of social integration, and of socialization canclaim to have originated from an objectivation in principle of the life-world. Itholds good also for the human being }iirgen Habermas that the life-worldenvironing him, which forms the horizon of his cognition, cannot, inprinciple, be fully thematized or completely and clearly grasped. Thediscernment of structural components of the life-world therefore cannotsmoothly pass over into propositions about the differentiation and structuralrationalization of the life-world. The epistemologist's self-reflective certaintydoes not vouch for the empirical plausibility of his further conclusions. Thatdoes not mean that these conclusions are wrong; I am only stressing theircomplete theoretical independence, which, so it appears to me, Habermasconceals. If my reasoning is correct, then neither the objectivation of thelife-world by the historian, nor its objectivation by the epistemologist, leads usto abandon the participant's point of view for that of the kind of observer who


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48 Praxis Internationalobservers with respect to all socio-cultural processes, even at the highest levelsof macrosocial complexes of relations. We are compelled neither by thealleged limitations of the theory of action, nor by the inevitability offunctionalist analyses, nor by the theoretical sterility of the participant 'sperspective, to Gonceptually grasp societal processess in any way other than incategories of action and of social order grounded in action. Action and socialorder can be normatively judged according to the degree of which the resultsof action and the effects of social order can be legimitated from the perspectiveof the individuals concerned and of course ourselves, that is, the degree towhich those results and effects are rational when judged from that perspective. 29

This critical examination of Jiirgen Habermas's Theory of CommunicativeAction sought to call attention to difficulties in the fundamental theoreticalargumentations presented in that work, and so to place in doubt theautomatism with which a theory of communicative action yields the dualismof life-world and system, and the historical diagnosis that the present period ismarked by a painless uncoupling of system and life-world, as well as bydangers of a "colonization" of the life-world. It would, of course, beinconsistent after repeated declarations that argumentations on these differentlevels can be separated, to now draw substantive conclusions about thecharacteristics of the present era. The program that has been suggested,namely that of a more broadly based theory of action, the drawing of a clearerdistinction between the superseding of the philosophy of consciousness andthe intersubjective turn, of a theory of social order centered on the constitution of collective actors-this program, too, yields no substantive conclusions. Such conclusions likewise could be no more than the speculativetransferral ofmetatheoretical decisions into empirical assertions. On the otherhand, it goes without saying that the way this program is structured ismotivated by substantive empirical and normative premises. What this leadsto has already been formulated by several authors: 30 they doubt the allegedease with which the "monetary-bureaucratic" complex is uncoupled from thelife-world; they criticise the lack of a dimension of "intra-systeniic" problemsand contradictions; they lament the defensiveness of an argumentation that nolonger poses the question of democratic control of economy and state; theypoint out the hypostatization of "system" and "life-world" into the societaldomains, of state and economy, on the one hand, and the public sphere andthe private sphere (family, neighborhood, wl,roluntary associations), on theother hand (11/458); they find fault with the abstractness of a position that,while it correctly interprets capitalist modernization as one-sided rationa


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Praxis International 49critique should not, on principle, avoid answering, is whether phenomenathat are convincingly analyzed by the criticized theory, could at all beunderstood also within an alternative theoretical framework. Ifwe identify theautonomous rationalization of the life-world, the painless uncoupling of themonetary-bureaucratic complex from the life-world, and the "painful" colonization of the life-world as the three principle notions guiding Habermas'sanalyses of the problems of the present within the framework of the concepts"system" and "life-world", then, after the validity of a theory of societyproceeding on these two levels has been placed in doubt, we can examine thesenotions separately with respect to whether they can be transferred into analternative theoretical framework. I consider Habermas's explanations of anautonomous rationalization of the life-world in the dimensions of valuegeneralization, universalization of law and morality, and progressive individuation, to be an important accomplishment. However, the stress Habermasplaces on the autonomy of these rationalization processes springs preciselyfrom the pressure exerted against this direction by functionalist models. If onerejects these, however, then it is not the deductive definition of microsocialphenomena on the basis of macrosocial functions that guides us, but areconstruction of the manner in which societal conditions that have becomeautonomous can as such issue from the complex of normative traditions andeveryday actions, of concrete historical situations and actions, and do so in theface of possibilities of resistance to them that are produced, ever \anew. Theupside down world of apparently autonomous social structures is then leftbehind, at least theoretically. The uncoupling of economic development andthe governmental decision-making process from the results of the communication of society's members by means of the privatization of structurallycrucial economic decisions and/or undemocratic political structures, as well asthe repercussions of "thoroughgoing capitalization" and bureaucratization inall domains of society, do not require for their explanation the dualism of atheory based on "system" and "life-world". There remain, then, the thesis ofthe "painless uncoupling" of the processes of material reproduction. Thisuncoupling is presented by Habermas not as a matter of empirical fact, but asa theoretical inference drawn from the nature of the media of communication,money and power. However, this uncoupling cannot be reconstructed in thisfashion in a theoretical framework that refers all phenomena of social order toan actual or virtual collective will of society's members. In such a theoreticalframework, "money" and "power" would remain at the same analytical levelas the other media of communication of systems' theory; that is, they wouldserve to ease the burden borne by communication among society's members,but they could not serve as a substitute for that communication withoutsignificant consequences. Surely, the thesis of the painless uncoupling ofsystem and life-world cannot have been the cause of Jiirgen Habermas'senormous theoretical effort.


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50 Praxis InternationalNOTES

1. For the foundational significance of the problems of action and social order, see especially JeffreyAlexander, Theoretical Logic in Sociology, Vol. I: Positivism: Presuppositions, and Cun'ent Controversies(Berke1ey, 1982). (The independence of the two problems from one another is discussed on p. 117ff.).My approval of Alexander's formulation of this problem should not be construed as an expression ofsubstantive agreement with his theoretical solutions. See my critical discussion of Alexander inInquiry (Oslo; forthcoming).

2. Jiirgen Habermas, "Labor and Interaction: Remarks on Hegel's Jena Philosophy of Mind", in Theoryand Practice (Boston, 1973), pp. 142-169.3. Axe! Honneth, Arbeit und instrumentales Handeln, in: Axel Honneth/Urs Jaeggi (eds.), Arbeit,Handlung, Nonnativitiit. Theorien des Historischen Materialismus 2. (Frankfurt am Main, 1980), pp .

185-233.-For the connection between communicative abilities and human commerce with objects,from the standpoint of the theory of socialization, see the chapter entitled "Consti tution of thePhysical Object and Role-Taking" in: Hans Joas, G. H. Mead. A Contemporary Re-examination of hisThought, translated by Raymond Meyer (Cambridge, Mass., 1985).

4.. Jurgen Habermas, "The Classical Doctrine of Politics in Relation to Social Philosophy", in: Theoryand Practice, pp. 41-81. Thomas McCarthy, The Critical Theory of ]iirgen Habennas (MIT Press:Cambridge, Mass., 1978).5. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: The University ofChicago Press, 1970).6. Riidiger Bubner, Handlung, Sprache und Vernunft. Grundbegriffe praktischer Philosophie, (Frankfurt

am Main, 1982), p. 61 ff.7. Isaiah Berlin, Against the Current. Essays in the History ofIdeas, edited by Henry Harding (New York,1980). Charles Taylor, Hegel (Cambridge, 1975). Habermas rejects the significance of this concept ofaction, objecting to it on empirical grounds, which are as such also questionable, in his "A reply to myCritics", in: J. B. Thompson/D. Held (eds.) Habermas-Critical Debates (London, 1983), pp.

219-283.8. On this point, cf. my definitions of the concept of role in: Hans loas, Role theories and socializationresearch," in: H. J. Helle/S. N. Eisenstadt, eds. Microsociological Theory (Berkeley, 1985), pp. 37-53.9. As one example among many, cf. John Dewey, "The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology", in JohnDewey, The Early Works, vol. 5 (Carbondale, 1972), pp. 96-109. From this viewpoint, cf. theexcellent analysis in Eduard Baumgarten, Die geistigen Grundlagen des amerikanischen Gemeinwesens,

vol. 2, (Frankfurt am Main, 1938) pp. 282 ff. One of the few sociologists who have taken up thecritique of the teleological interpretation of action, although with a very different end in mind thanthe one pursued here, is Niklas Luhmann, (Frankfurt am Main, 1973), pp. 18 ff. Zweckbegriff undSystemrationalitiit.

10. This is, in my opinion, the theoretically interesting theme ofUlrich Oevermann's repeated critique ofHabermas.11. These objections have consequences especially for the assessment of Habermas's interpretation ofDurkheim. I have treated this question in detail in: Hans loas, "Durkheim et le pragmatisme. Lapsychologie de la conscience et la constitution sociale des categories," in: Revue Franfaise de sociologie

25 (1984), pp. 560-581.12. Johannes Berger, "Die Versprachlichung des Sakralen und die Entsprachlichung der Okonomie",Zeitschrift fur Soziologie 11 (1892), pp. 353-365, reprinted in Honneth/Joas, KommunikativesHandeln, pp. 255-277.-Veit-Michael Bader, "Schmerzlose Entkoppelung van System undLebenswelt? Engpasse der Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns von Jiirgen Habermas," in:Kennis en Methode 7 (1983), pp. 329-355. Axel Honneth, Kritik der Macht. Reflexionsslufen einer

kritischen Gesellschaftstheorie (Frankfurt am Main, 1985).13. Using the theory of action, it can be shown that human symbolizing operations make it possible forhuman beings to cooperate and to communicate without being present together in the same place at

the same time.14. This seems to me to be the point correctly made in the article by Alfred Bohnen, "Handlung,


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Praxis International 5115. Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure. (London, 1964); Takot! Parsons, The Social

System (London, 1951): p. 30, note 5.16. John Dewey, The Public and Its Problems (New York, 1927); and Reconstruction in Philosophy (New

York, 1950).17. See also Wolfgang van den Daele, "'Unbeabsichtigte Folgen' sozialen Handelns. Anmerkungen zu rKarriere des Themas" (and the other contributions on this topic) in: Joachim Matthes, ed.,Lebenswelt und soziale Probleme. Verhandlungen des 20. Deutschen Soziologentages zu Bremem 1980(Frankfurt am Main, 1981), p. 237 ff.18. In this connection, H ~ b e r m a s ' s interpretation of the classical theorists ought to be criticized also; withregard to the point in question here, especially his interpretation of Mead, see my introduction toHans Joas ed., Das Problem der Intersubjektivitiit (Frankfurt, 1985) pp. 7-25.

19. At this point, reflections about the consequences of discourse ethics for the judgement of therationality of types of social order are called for.

20. David Lockwood, "Social Integration and System Integration," in: G. ZollschanIW. Hirsch, eds.,Explorations in Social Change. (Boston, 1964), pp. 244-257; Nicos Mouzelis, "Social and SystemIntegration. Some reflections on a fundamental distinction," in British Journal of Sociology IS (1974),pp. 395-409; Ramesh Mishra, "System Integration, Social Action and Change: Some Problems inSociological Analysis," in Sociological Review 30 (1982), pp . 5-22.

21. Habermas humself uses such an argumentation against Horkheimer and Adorno (II/490).22. Jiirgen Habermas, Zur Logik der Sozialwissenschaften. (Tiibingen, 1967).23. Anthony Giddens, "Functionalism: Apres la lutte," in: Social Research 43 (1976), pp. 352-366.

Extremely interesting from this standpoint is the controversy about Jon Elster's critique offunctionalism in Theory and Society 11 (1982), pp. 453-539, with contributions from Jon Elster, G. A.Cohen, P. van Parijs, John E. Roemer, Johannes Berger and Claus Offe, and Anthony Giddens.

24. An exemplary presentation of the theory of "negotiated order" can be found in Anself Strauss, et aI.,"The Hospital and It s Negotiated Order", in: Eliot Freidson ed., The flospital in Modern Society (NewYork, 1963), pp . 147-169. For a review of the relevant literature., see David ]\.'1aines, "SocialOrganization and Social Structure in Symbolic Interactionist Thought," in Annual Re'view ofSociology 3 (1977), pp. 235-259. Also relevant to this topic are the political philosphy of AntonioGramsci and the interesting attempt by Amitai Etzioni, The Active Society (New York, 1971).

25. Jiirgen Habermas, "K6nnen komplexe Gesellschaften eine vernunftige Identitat ausbilden?", in:J. H.lDieter Henrich, Zwei Reden (Frankfurt am Main, 1974), pp. 23-84, above all, p. 57ff.26. Perhaps I should make it clear that I am not condemning social-scientific functionalism entirely.

However, the relative success of its models can also be accounted for and appropriated within adifferent theoretical framework.27. George Herhert Mead, The Philosophy of the Act (Chicago: 1938), pp. 26 ff. Georg Lukacs, DieEigenart des Asthetischen. 2 vols., (Neuwied, 1963). Agnes HelIer, Everyday Life. Translated byGeorge Campbell (Boston, 1984). (See also my introduction to the German edition of Heller's work,(Frankfurt, 1978), pp . 7-23).

28. Talcott Parsons/Edward A. Shils, eds. Toward a General Themy ofAction (New York, 1962), TakonParsons, The Social System (London, 1951).

29. Interesting objections to Habermas's introduction of the concept of the life-world into his argumentation can be found in Herbert Schnadelbach, "Transformation der kritischen Theorie, in:

l ~ h i l o s o p h i s c h e Rundschau 29 (1982), pp. 161-178. Reprinted in Honneth/Joas, eds., KommunikativesHandel, pp. 15-35.

30. See note 12. Also worth reading is Dtto Kallscheuer, "Auf der Suche nach einer politischen Theoriebei Jiirgen Habermas," in Asthetik und Kommunikation 12 (1981), No. 45/46, pp. 171-182.31. With regard to Habermas's interpretation of Marx, I should at least like to point out that, as a rule,Marx is not criticized for his lack of understanding of capitalism's civilizing role, as he is byHabermas, but rather for exaggerating that role.

1.3 - joas, hans - the unhappy marriage of hermeneutics and functionalism (en)

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