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The Emancipative Theory of Jürgen Habermas and Metaphysics

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The Emancipative Theory of Jürgen Habermas and Metaphysics Cultural Heritage and Contemporary Change Series I. Culture and Values, Volume 13 The Emancipative Theory of Jürgen Habermas and Metaphysics by Robert Peter Badillo The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy 1 Copyright © 1991 by The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy Gibbons Hall B-20 620 Michigan Avenue, NE Washington, D.C. 20064 All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Badillo, Robert P. The emancipative theory of Jürgen Habermas and metaphysics / Robert P. Badillo. p.cm. — (Cultural heritage and contemporary change. Series I. Culture and values ; vol. 13) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Habermas, Jürgen. 2. Communication—Philosohpy. 3. Metaphysics. 4. Thomas Aquinas, Saint, 1225?-1274—Contributions in metaphysics. I. Title. II. Series ; Cultural heritage and contemporary change. Series I. Culture and values ; vol. 13. B3258.H234B33 1991 91-58112 110—dc21 CIP ISBN 1-56518-042-9 (pbk.) 2 Table of Contents Preface ix Introduction 1 Chapter I. The Objectivist/Relativist Dichotomy:The Habermasian Alternative 3 Bernstein's Practical Alternative Habermas’ Theoretical Alternative The Metaphysical Alternative Chapter II.The Theory of the Cognitive Interests:Primacy of the Emancipatory Interest 27 Preliminary Issues The Theory of Cognitive Interests The Primacy of the Emancipatory Interest Chapter III. The Theory of Universal Pragmatics:The Methodological Framework 55 Reconstruction of Consensual Speech The Discourse Theory of Truth Limits of Theoretical Discourse Chapter IV.The Limits of Discourse Ethics: A Minimal Model of 81 Communicating Subjects The Nature of Discourse Ethics A Model of Communicating Subjects Limits of Practical Discourse Chapter V.Habermas’ Philosophy of Emancipation and Metaphysics 105 The Christian Hermeneutical Horizon and the Sensus Plenior of Habermas’ Philosophy of Emancipation An Application of the Methodology of Metaphysics to Habermasian Categories The Relations Between the Transcendentals, the Emancipatory Interest, and Ideal Communication Conclusion 145 Notes 149 Selected Bibliography 207 Acknowledgements 3 Preface George F. McLean Philosophy, along with modern humanity as a whole, stands at a critical juncture. As the sense of the person emerges ever more strongly in contemporary consciousness, rationalist ideologies inherited from the last century appear increasingly to be not only insufficient, but destructive. Fascism was defeated militarily; communism has collapsed under the weight of the deadening inertia it imposed from the center. Correspondingly, the movement of freedom has spread on all levels, first internationally as nations were emancipated from colonialism, then nationally as prejudices against minorities were transformed into a new pluralism, and now at the center of the family as equality and participation are ever more valued. Throughout this recent trajectory of human history philosophers have been at work. Some have looked historically to the past simply to discover resources of the human mind without relating them to the struggles of contemporary life. Others have simply reworked old rationalisms in incremental attempts to make them more rigorous or inclusive in the vain hope that they might work after all; defeated by recent events these philosophers are now in a state of considerable disarray. Others, however, have attempted to learn creatively from past weaknesses and to open new paths for the progress of peoples. It is to these pioneers of the human spirit that others look in order to understand better the dynamics of the breadth of the human experience, to identify its dynamics and to interpret its direction. In recent decades, Paul Ricoeur and Jürgen Habermas have served richly in this role. Their works have reflected upon the various components of the contemporary intellectual scene from psychology and social theory to language and symbols. To follow the dynamics of their thought is to follow the search of contemporary society for new personal and communitary awareness. The present work by Robert Badillo brings impressive new resources to this search for human emancipation and opens metaphysical dimensions which deepen and vastly enrich the human project of our times. By choosing Jürgen Habermas as his point of departure, the author enters swiftly and surely into the juncture between the social sciences and philosophical reflection. First, he situates the work of Habermas within the context of the contemporary effort to establish a mode of understanding which avoids both objectivism and relativism. The following three chapters analyze basic themes in the thought of Jürgen Habermas: first, the theory of interests in order to situate the search for emancipation as the dynamic center of the thrust toward human fulfillment; second, the theory of universal pragmatics as the foundational framework of Habermas' theory of communicative action in order to establish a methodology for emancipation in terms of the con- temporary focus upon human interaction and communication; and finally, the theory of discourse ethics in its attempt to provide a framework for adjudicating proposed norms with a view toward uncovering latent hypostatizations. Together, these chapters state with unique clarity and force the present state of the anthropological search for personal and communitary realization in the dynamic interchange of contemporary life. What is truly exceptional about this work, however, is that Dr. Badillo does not leave the issue there; his concerns are deeper still and their ramifications are all embracing. Where others would be satisfied to speak simply of communication and open discourse, this work does not stop at the form or structure of communication but asks about the goal toward which human life is directed. Beyond techniques of communication as something one does, he looks for the basis of 5 communication in what one is and how one is related to others. Fundamentally, this is the question of being, understood as personal identity, intercommunication with others and mutual concern. To understand this the work takes the extra step of adding to the structure of communication issues of meaning and truth, and to the social process of emancipation issues of the nature of community and goodness. This has been the work of metaphysics in its long and recurring trajecto- ry beginning with the ancient Greek tradition; the central concern of the present work is to show how this can develop in our day. Dr. Badillo approaches these issues with care and competency. He investigates the work of Habermas in order to identify the precise points at which it comes to--without entering upon-- metaphysical reflection, and how such deepening of thought would not be inimicable, but an important contribution, to the project Habermas has undertaken. The author then turns to the development of an appropriate metaphysical methodology for the task at hand. The study identifies the rich metaphysical resources which can contribute to a search for human communication that will be truly emancipative of the person in community. One is the classical tradition as it evolves from Dr. Badillo's earlier work on Parmenides, through the classical Platonic and Aristotelian traditions. Another resource is a rich sensibility to the Christian context of subsequent thought, with specific regard to its Trinitarian conception of divine life. Seen as the source and goal of human life, and hence as the key to its deepest nature, this has encouraged people to think spontaneously in terms of being as open, creative and communicative; of truth in terms of justice; and of life as the fruit, not of conflict and violence, but of communion and benevolence. Without recusing the demands of rigorous philosophical discourse, by taking hermeneutic account of the Christian horizon, Dr. Badillo directs attention to the distinctive insights which characterize that philosophical tradition with its eminently realist, metaphysical, and communicative dimensions. In the rationalist Eurocentric context of modern philosophy such hermeneutic sensibility to cultural contexts had long been passed over, and with it the awareness of the proper contributions to be made to and by philosophy in the various cultural regions East and West, North and South. This author's work is among the first to explore seriously and systemically the significance of this Christian context for the development of metaphysics. It would be equally mistaken, however, to suppose that this metaphysical insight--or its theological derivative--could be worked out independently of the search for human fulfillment, i.e., for emancipation. It is here that Dr. Badillo takes his most dramatic step. To contribute to the development of metaphysics in our day, he positions himself equally between, on the one hand, Habermas’ analysis of the present generalized thrust of humanity toward the dissolution of disequilibria through communication and emancipation and, on the other hand, the implication of a Christian culture for a sense of unity constituted in communication and concern. Like a tuning fork vibrating between these two powerful forces, the one human and the other divine, Dr. Badillo gives new voice to the deep meaning of being as emancipative and communicative. Focusing upon the transcendental properties of being, he illustrates the progress which can be made in metaphysics when goodness is seen as proclaimed in the irrepressible human thrust for emancipation in a way that
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