Introduction to Critical Theory: Horkheimer to Habermas by Held David

Author:Held, David [Held, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780745667133
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2013-04-29T00:00:00+00:00

10 Discourse, science and society

The public sphere and the scientization of politics

From his earliest published writings Habermas has been concerned with the development and disintegration of the ‘public sphere’ and with the principle of ‘discursive will-formation’ (constraint free discussion) on which it was founded. By public sphere Habermas refers to ‘a realm of social life in which something approaching public opinion can be formed’.1 It is a sphere in which citizens can ‘confer in an unrestricted fashion – that is, with the guarantee of freedom of assembly and association and the freedom to express and publish their opinions – about matters of general interest’.2 It is a realm in which, in principle, political life can be discussed openly; debate proceeds in accordance with standards of critical reason and not by simple appeal to traditional dogmas and authorities (the divine right of kings, for instance). The procedures and presuppositions of free argument are the basis for the justification of opinions. It is these conditions of argument that lend public opinion its legitimizing force; ‘public opinion’ becomes distinguished from mere ‘opinion’ (for example cultural assumptions, customs and collective prejudice).3

In a detailed historical study (Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit) Habermas traces the emergence of ‘public opinion’ to the eighteenth century. Forums for public discussion (clubs, newspapers, journals) developed rapidly in Europe to mediate the growing division between the state and civil society, a division which followed from the expansion of market economies.4 These centres of debate and information nurtured opposition to the traditional and hierarchical forms of feudal authority. The public sphere anticipated the replacement of the rule of tradition with the rule of reason.

Public discussions, Habermas argues, grew out of a specific phase of the development of bourgeois society; a particular constellation of interests lay at the roots of this type of interchange. A large number of ‘private individuals’ (merchants, etc.), excluded from the (then) dominant political institutions, became concerned about the government of society because ‘the reproduction of life in the wake of the developing market economy had grown beyond the bounds of private domestic authority’. These individuals promoted and shaped the public sphere by, among other things, maintaining as many newspapers and journals as possible in order to further debate about the nature of authority. As a result, ‘newspapers changed from mere institutions for the publication of news into bearers and leaders of public opinion – weapons of party politics’.5 Until the establishment of a more open and accountable authority structure, large numbers of papers and journals joined the struggle for freedom, public opinion and the principle of the public sphere.

The public sphere was thought to represent the general interest, although those who participated in it were generally of ‘high standing’ (people with education and property). Members of the bourgeoisie were the ‘reasoning public’; armed with what they took to be knowledge of the general interest they sought to change society into a sphere of private autonomy free of political interference, and to transform the state into an authority restricted to a limited number of functions and supervised by the ‘public’.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.