Communication and the Evolution of Society by Jürgen Habermas

Author:Jürgen Habermas [Habermas, Jürgen]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2015-10-08T04:00:00+00:00

IV

The [preceding] two excurses were meant to make plausible the search for homologous structures of consciousness in ego development and social evolution in two areas [viz. world views and collective identities] that are not nearly as well researched as the structures of legal and moral representations. All three complexes lead back to structures of linguistically established intersubjectivity. (a) Law and morality serve to regulate action conflicts consensually and thus to maintain an endangered intersubjectivity of understanding among speaking and acting subjects. (b) The demarcation of different universal object domains —one of which appears in the propositional attitude of the observer as external nature, a second in the performative attitude of the participant in interaction as normative social reality, and a third in the expressive attitude of one who expresses an intention as his own subjective nature—makes possible the differentiation (and if necessary thematization) of those validity claims (truth, rightness, truthfulness) that we implicitly tie to all speech actions. (c) Finally, the construction of personal and corresponding collective identities is a necessary presupposition for taking on the general communicative roles, which are provided for in every speaking and acting situation and which find their expression in the employment of personal pronouns.

To be sure, the communication theory I have in mind is not yet developed to a point at which we could adequately analyze the symbolic structures that underlie law and morality, an intersubjectively constituted world, and the identities of persons and collectives. And we are really far from being able to provide convincing reconstructions of the patterns of development of these structures in the spheres of ontogenesis and species history. The very concept of a developmental logic requires additional sharpening before we can say formally what it means to describe the direction of development in ontogenesis and in the history of the species by means of such concepts as universalization and individualization, decentration, autonomization, and becoming reflective. If I stick to this theme in spite of the (for the time being) unsatisfactory degree of explication, it is because I am convinced that normative structures do not simply follow the path of development of reproductive processes and do not simply respond to the pattern of system problems, but that they have instead an internal history. In earlier investigations I have tried to argue that holistic concepts such as productive activity and Praxis have to be resolved into the basic concepts of communicative action and purposive rational action in order to avoid confusing the two rationalization processes that determine social evolution;31 the rationalization of action takes effect not only on productive forces but also, and independently, on normative structures.32

Purposive-rational actions can be regarded under two different aspects—the empirical efficiency of technical means and the consistency of choice between suitable means. Actions and action systems can be rationalized in both respects. The rationality of means requires technically utilizable, empirical knowledge; the rationality of decisions requires the explication and inner consistency of value systems and decision maxims, as well as the correct derivation of acts of choice.

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