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University Microfilms International 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 USA St. John’s Road, Tyler's Green High Wycombe, Bucks, England HP10 8HR 77-31,856 I DIXON, George John, 1944- J AN APPLICATION OF CRITICAL THEORY TO THE FOUNDATIONS OF EDUCATIONAL THOUGHT: \ AN EXAMINATION OF THE IDEAS OF jtiRGEN | HABERMAS. The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1977 Education, philosophy University Microfilms International,Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 © Copyright by George John Dixon 1977 fc<iMw«nMXtW!jaufa o m !mRa,'y&Bw.fcgTajj*>ns«n«m«^njwuui*jn AN APPLICATION OF CRITICAL THEORY TO THE FOUNDATIONS OF EDUCATIONAL THOUGHTS AN EXAMINATION OF THE IDEAS OF JURGEN HABERMAS i DISSERTATION Presented in Partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By George John Dixon, B. A . , M. A. ***** The Ohio State University 1977 Reading Committee: Approved By Donald Bateman Paul Klohr Philip. Smith Adviser Department of Humanities Education For my parents. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank the members of my committee, Professors Donald R. Bateman, Paul R. Klohr and Philip L. Smith, for their help and encouragement. VITA . April 20, 19*14. Born - Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 1962-1966 ........ Saint Vincent College, Latrobe, Pennsylvania B.A. in English 1966-1967 ....... The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan M.A. in English 1975-1977 ...... The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio Ph.D. in Humanities Education-English PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 1967-1975 ...... Instructor, Assistant Professor, Department of English, Saint Vincent College 1976-1977 .......... Teaching Associate, Department of. English,. The Ohio State University PUBLICATIONS "George S. Counts and the Imposition Controversy" in the ■1976 Journal of the Midwest History of Education Society. FIELDS OF STUDY .Major Fields: English Education Curriculum Theory Studies in Curriculum Theory. ProfesSor Paul R. Klohr Studies in the History of Education. Professor Philip L. Smith Studies in Educational Communications. Professor John Belland iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page DEDICATION ........... ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................. iii VITA ......... ......................... iv LIST OF CHARTS .............. .. vi Chapter I. .INTRODUCTION . ................ 1 II. HABERMAS’ THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE ..... 10 III. HABERMAS-' CRITIQUE OF H E G E L ........... 23 IV. THE STATUS OF ETHICAL UNIVERSALS .... 34 V. SOCIOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO INTERACTION . 48 VI. HABERMAS' CRITIQUE OF.KOHLBERG ..... 63 VII. SITUATED FREEDOM AND MORAL. EDUCATION . 84 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................ 103 v LIST OF CHARTS Chart I . ....... .:............ .p. Chart II. .. .......... p. CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION This study examines the work of Jurgen Habermas as it bears on a number of educational issues, especially on the cognitive-developmental approach to moral education pro posed by Lawrence Kohlberg. Habermas is a German social theorist, born in 1929» and presently associated with .the Max Planck Institute in Starn- berg, West Germany. As a student of Horkheimer, Adorno and Marcuse, Habermas continues in many ways the work in Critical Theory begun by the Frankfurt Institute of Social Research, a group whose history in Germany and the United States has been examined recently by Martin Jay in The Dialectical Imag ination. ^ . In this country, Habermas is probably best known for Knowledge and Human Interests. a work that grew out of his 1965 inaugural address at the University of Frankfurt. Three other volumes of his writing have also been translated into English: Toward a Rational Society (1970), Theory and Prac tice (1973) and Legitimation Crisis (1975)*2 The few appli-. cations.of his work to education have for the most part fo cused on the distinctions elaborated in Knowledge and Human 1 Interests, that is, on the technical, practical and emanci patory interests that Habermas sees as guiding human percep- : tion.-^ Habermas believes it is important to distinguish these three interests so that we might resist the modern tendency to view knowing as motivated solely by the desire to control the world around us. This motive provides the basis for scientific knowledge in its applied as well as io ''pure” research, insofar as in both cases the investigator relies on manipulation and prediction of his subject's behavior. But not all knowing is bashed on this instrumental relation ship. Habermas—would have us recognize two additional bases for knowing* a practical interest that has its foundation in the interactive processes that exist among mutually-recognized subjects, and an emancipatory interest that seeks to esta blish human autonomy by moving beyond the "given" world of technical and interactive knowledge. As a reconstruction of "the prehistory o.f modern posi- k tivism," Knowledge and Human Interests tries to broaden our criteria for certainty beyond the narrow standards of tech nical or instrumental knowing. For while instrumental pro cesses are appropriate for work in the empirical sciences, other, criteria are needed when our focus shifts to human interaction and the norms and institutions that grow.out of such interchange. Thus much of Habermas' work is dedicated to renovating the practical and emancipatory interests and restoring them to philosophical legitimacy. But Habermas' work involves more than a critique of the dominance of instrumental criteria in technically-advanced societies. In fact, he sees that dominance as just the clearest instance of an imbalance that occurs in one episte- mological position after another, not just in those which openly imitate the "hard" sciences. What is more fundamental to Habermas' position is that balance must be restored to our conception of how men encounter and come to know the world. And mUch of Habermas' writing focuses on the practical or interactive interest because it is the least understood of the categories of knowing. So while an explication of this interactive category is important, that explication is pre liminary to restoring a balance among the technical, practi cal and emancipatory interests.-* The Problem to be Investigated . It is this latter idea of methodological balance that .becomes central to this study. For most of our complex edu cational problems demand a balanced a comprehensive methodo logy that continues to elude us. Time and again our efforts seem hampered by an analytical one-sidedness or by a propen sity to reduce complex effects to single causes. In addi tion, in our educational theorizing we all too often follow the tendency of the social sciences to imitate the methods of the natural sciences.^ Thus, in something of a second hand fashion, we tend to conceive our analyses solely in instrumental terms, and thereby lose touch with the practi cal contexts and emancipatory possibilities of the education al process. A more specific way to describe this problem is in terms of the relationship between the manifest functions and the latent functions of our schools. Our educational system is filled with elaborate and well-conceived curricula, with many available in sophisticated media formats. The manifest content of these curricula are usually beyond question; they promise an enlightening and liberating experience for the student. And yet a good number of studies reveal less de sirable and often contradictory results from such efforts, as the latent or "hidden" curriculum works to reinforce tradi tional authority patterns and less-than-liberating inter- 7 action among students, teachers and administrators. In confronting this discrepancy, we need not reject automatically