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Theory by Overcoming the So-Called Pessimism of the Dialecticof Enlightenment

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Theory by Overcoming the So-Called Pessimism of the Dialecticof Enlightenment Propriety of the Erich Fromm Document Center. For personal use only. Citation or publication of material prohibited without express written permission of the copyright holder. Eigentum des Erich Fromm Dokumentationszentrums. Nutzung nur für persönliche Zwecke. Veröffentlichungen – auch von Teilen – bedürfen der schriftlichen Erlaubnis des Rechteinhabers. From Honneth to Fromm Seiki Okazaki I Introduction As is well known, Jiirgen Habermas opens up the frontiers of "radical democracy" in the history of critical theory by overcoming the so-called pessimism of The Dialecticof Enlightenment. It is Axel Honneth who takes over the political orientation from Habermas, who nevertheless criticizes Habermas's language-theoretic version of communication paradigm and advocates his own recognition-theoretic version of communication paradigm. In The Fragmented World of the Social (1995), Honneth refers to "four thematic domains" of his post-Habermasian critical theory (Honneth 1995, pp. xiii-xxv): (A) "everydaymoral experience" connected with a "struggle for recognition"; (B) relation between "work" and "recognition"; (C) "pathologies of modern society" having nothing to do with the problem of "rationality"; and (D) "psychoanalytic concept of the subject." I find potentialities in Honneth's critical theory in that it will contribute to elucidatemany problems on which Habermas fails to shed light. However, in spite of its attractiveness, there exists a crucial difficulty in Honneth's critical theory. In this article I would like to attempt to overcome the difficulty of Honneth's critical theory through the dialogue with one of the most important critical theorists, Erich Fromm (1900-1980). While he had been "a member of staff who had for a considerable time been the most significant one for its theoretical work" (1), Fromm was excluded from the Institute for Social Research, partly because of the opposition to Adorno. And Fromm was labeled as a "neo-Freudian revisionist" in the so-called Fromm-Marcuse Debate in the 1950s (2). In this article I would like to show that Fromm's " 'another' critical theory" (3) has the potential to overcome the difficulty of Honneth's critical theory, and to advocate a theoretical shift toward an active communication theory. [1] Okazaki, S., 1999a: Fromm Honeth to Fromm, Typescript available at the Fromm Archive, 17 pp. Propriety of the Erich Fromm Document Center. For personal use only. Citation or publication of material prohibited without express written permission of the copyright holder. Eigentum des Erich Fromm Dokumentationszentrums. Nutzung nur für persönliche Zwecke. Veröffentlichungen – auch von Teilen – bedürfen der schriftlichen Erlaubnis des Rechteinhabers. II Critical Theory of Honneth 1 Honneth's Criticism of Habermas Let's start with a brief sketch of Honneth's critical theory. Honneth looks back on his intellectual history in the interview held on the journal Radical Philosophy (Honneth 1993). According to it, he started to study philosophy and literature at the University of Bonn in 1969. At that time he was influenced by Adorno and was not active politically. However, after moving to the University of Bochum in 1971, he became a member of the USOS, the youth organization of SPD. There Honneth began to read Habermas and wrote his Magisterarbeit concerning Habermas's interpretation of psychoanalysis. Then Honneth moved to the Free University in Berlin and studied sociology. Although he was a "totally convinced Habermasian," Honneth had already some objections to Habermas. Honneth objected that Habermas reducedthe concept of "work" into "instrumental action." Besides, contrary to Habermas, Honneth came to be closer to "philosophical anthropology." In The Critique ofPower (1986), which is the enlarged version of his dissertation submitted to the Free University in Berlin, Honneth thinks highly of Habermas (and Foucault) for his "rediscovery of the social," which overcomes the "incapacity for social analysis" from Horkheimer to Adorno. Furthermore, Honneth thinks highly of Habermas's "communication-theoretic transformation" of The Dialectic of Enlightenment, in comparison with Foucault's "systems-theoretic dissolution" of it. This does not mean, however,that Honneth agrees with Habermas entirely: Honneth criticizes Habermas for failing to grasp the role of "struggle" in the history of species. According to Honneth, among the two competing models, Habermas develops the "model of a two-tiered reproduction of society within instrumental-rational and communicative spheres of action," not the "model of a maintenance of the social order through institutionally mediated communicative relations between morally integrated groups" (Honneth 1986, S. 307, p. 278). This leads Habermas to "twocomplementary fictions": "theexistence of power-free spheres of communication" as well as "the existence of norm-free organizations of action" (Honneth 1986, S. 328, p. 298). According to Honneth, Habermas [2] Okazaki, S., 1999a: Fromm Honeth to Fromm, Typescript available at the Fromm Archive, 17 pp. Propriety of the Erich Fromm Document Center. For personal use only. Citation or publication of material prohibited without express written permission of the copyright holder. Eigentum des Erich Fromm Dokumentationszentrums. Nutzung nur für persönliche Zwecke. Veröffentlichungen – auch von Teilen – bedürfen der schriftlichen Erlaubnis des Rechteinhabers. "not only gives up the possibility of a justified critique of concrete forms of organization of economic production and political administration. Habermas loses above all — and this again makes him heir to the tradition of critical social theory we have investigated here — the communication-theoretic approach he had initially opened up: the potential for an understanding of the social order as an institutionally mediated communicative relation between culturally integrated groups that, so long as the exercise of power is asymmetrically distributed, takes place through the medium of social struggle." (Honneth 1986, S. 334, p. 303) In the introduction of The Struggle for Recognition (1992), Honneth states that The Struggle for Recognition arose in connection with the conclusion of The Critique ofPower. That is, "any attempt to integrate the social-theoretical insights of Foucault's historical work within the framework of a theory of communicative action has to rely on a concept of morally motivated struggle" (Honneth 1992, S. 7, p. 1). What should be pointed out here is that The Critique of Power does not contain the concept of "recognition" (Anerkcnnung) as such, which constitutes an important element of his criticism of Habermas. To be sure, we can find the concept in the "Afterword to the Second German Edition (1988)" of The Critique of Power (Honneth 1986, S. 385-386, pp. xvii-xviii). However, it is in The Strugglefor Recognition that the concept of "recognition" is discussed systematically for the first time. In his inaugural lecture entitled "The Social Dynamics of Disrespect" (1994), Honneth criticizes Habermas's language-theoretic version of communication paradigm from the standpoint of his recognition-theoretic version of communication paradigm (Honneth 1994). To be sure, Honneth acknowledges that Habermas opens up the possibility of an "intramundane transcendence," in contrast to Adorno's "negativist social critique." However, Honneth criticizes Habermas for being incapable of finding "pretheoretical resource" (vorwissenschaftliche Instanz) within social reality. According to Honneth, "moral experiences are not aroused by restricting linguistic competences, rather, they are generated by violating identity claims acquired in socialization" (Honneth 1994, S. 86, p. 262). Therefore, critical theory cannot grasp "normative presuppositions of social interaction" fully, as far as it remains within the communication theory of Habermas. [3] Okazaki, S., 1999a: Fromm Honeth to Fromm, Typescript available at the Fromm Archive, 17 pp. Propriety of the Erich Fromm Document Center. For personal use only. Citation or publication of material prohibited without express written permission of the copyright holder. Eigentum des Erich Fromm Dokumentationszentrums. Nutzung nur für persönliche Zwecke. Veröffentlichungen – auch von Teilen – bedürfen der schriftlichen Erlaubnis des Rechteinhabers. 2 Struggle for Recognition In The Struggle for Recognition Honneth presents his own recognition theory after tackling the recognition theory of the early Hegel and that of G. H. Mead. Honneth argues that "practical identity-formation" presupposes "recognition" and distinguishes three forms of recognition. The first form is "love" (Liebe), which is prior to the other forms of recognition (Honneth 1992, S. 153-172, pp. 95-107; S. 214-215, pp. 132-133). Honneth defines"love" broadlyas "primary relationships insofar as they — on the model of friendships, parent-child relationships, as well as erotic relationships between lovers — are constituted by strong emotional attachments among a small number of people" (Honneth 1992, S. 153, p. 95). When discussing "love," Honneth is based on the psychoanalytic object-relations theory, especially on that of Donald W. Winnicott. According to it, "mother" and child dependon each other in the first months after birth. After that phase, the child become aggressive to the "mother." If the mother reacts to the child without revenge, the child develops a sense of "basic self-confidence." However, "abuse" and "rape" damage the sense of "basic self-confidence." The
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