Postmetaphysical Thinking —— Between Metaphysics and the Critique of Reason

The post-metaphysical thinking is thought provoking work. Not an easy read and requires additional reading in order to get to the point but it is worthwhile.

Jürgen Habermas (born 1929) is a German philosopher and sociologist who is one of the leading figures of the Frankfurt School. He wrote many books, such as The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume 1: Reason and the Rationalization of Society , The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume 2: Lifeworld and System: A Critique of Functionalist Reason , The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere , Truth and Justification , The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity , Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action , etc. The translator wrote in his Introduction to this 1988 collection, “The essays collected in this volume take up and expand upon a line of argument begun by the author in ‘The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity.’ Like most contemporary thinkers, Habermas is critical of the Western metaphysical tradition and its exaggerated conception of reason. At the same time, however, he cautions against relinquishing that conception altogether… he argues that the wholesale rejection of the metaphysical tradition inevitably undercuts the possibility of radical critique itself. He thus defends the view that genuinely postmetaphysical thinking can remain critical only if it preserves the idea of reason derived from the tradition while stripping it of its metaphysical trappings.” In the essay ‘Metaphysics After Kant,’ Habermas says, “Frankly, analytic materialism never impressed me very much---precisely because it is a metaphysical position, whereby I mean one that sticks to what is universal when the real issue is carrying through an abstractly posed program with scientific means. Such abstract attempts to establish an objectivistic self-understanding of the human being with one blow, as it were, thrive upon the scientistic background assumption that the natural sciences … do in general furnish the model and the ultimate authority for all knowledge that is still acceptable.” (Pg. 21) He explains, “Communicative or strategic action is required when an actor can only carry out his plans of action interactively, i.e., with the help of the actions of another actor (or their omission). Beyond that, communicative action must satisfy certain conditions of cooperation and mutual understanding: * The participating actors must conduct themselves cooperatively and attempt to reach an agreement about their plans… on the basis of common (or sufficiently overlapping) situation interpretations. * The participating actors must be prepared to achieve the intermediate goals of a common situation definition and of action coordination in the roles of speakers and hearers by way of processes of reaching understanding, i.e., by means of the unreserved and sincere pursuit of illocutionary aims.” (Pg. 79-80) He observes, “Transcendental thinking once concerned itself with a stable stock of forms for which there were no recognizable alternatives. Today, in contrast, the experience of contingency is a whirlpool into which everything is pulled: everything could also be otherwise, the categories of the understanding, the principles of socialization and of morals, the constitution of subjectivity, the foundation of rationality itself. There are good reasons for this. Communicative reason, too, treats almost everything as contingent, even the conditions for the emergence of its own linguistic medium. But for everything that claims validity WITHIN linguistically structured forms of life, the structures of possible mutual understanding in language constitute something that cannot be gotten around.” (Pg. 139-140) He points out, “The later Heidegger still distinguishes between thinkers and poets. But he treats texts by Anaximander and Aristotle no differently than texts by Hölderlin and Trakl. Paul de Man reads Rousseau no differently than Proust and Rilke. Derrida works on Husserl and Saussure no differently than on Artaud. Is it not an illusion to believe that texts by Freud and texts by Joyce can be sorted according to characteristics that definitively identify them as theory on the one hand and as fiction on the other.” (Pg. 206) This book will be of key interest to those studying Habermas, and the development of his thought.

Jürgen Habermas (born 1929) is a German philosopher and sociologist who is one of the leading figures of the Frankfurt School. He wrote many books, such as , , , , , , etc. The translator wrote in his Introduction to this 1988 collection, “The essays collected in this volume take up and expand upon a line of argument begun by the author in ‘The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity.’ Like most contemporary thinkers, Habermas is critical of the Western metaphysical tradition and its exaggerated conception of reason. At the same time, however, he cautions against relinquishing that conception altogether… he argues that the wholesale rejection of the metaphysical tradition inevitably undercuts the possibility of radical critique itself. He thus defends the view that genuinely postmetaphysical thinking can remain critical only if it preserves the idea of reason derived from the tradition while stripping it of its metaphysical trappings.” In the essay ‘Metaphysics After Kant,’ Habermas says, “Frankly, analytic materialism never impressed me very much---precisely because it is a metaphysical position, whereby I mean one that sticks to what is universal when the real issue is carrying through an abstractly posed program with scientific means. Such abstract attempts to establish an objectivistic self-understanding of the human being with one blow, as it were, thrive upon the scientistic background assumption that the natural sciences … do in general furnish the model and the ultimate authority for all knowledge that is still acceptable.” (Pg. 21) He explains, “Communicative or strategic action is required when an actor can only carry out his plans of action interactively, i.e., with the help of the actions of another actor (or their omission). Beyond that, communicative action must satisfy certain conditions of cooperation and mutual understanding: * The participating actors must conduct themselves cooperatively and attempt to reach an agreement about their plans… on the basis of common (or sufficiently overlapping) situation interpretations. * The participating actors must be prepared to achieve the intermediate goals of a common situation definition and of action coordination in the roles of speakers and hearers by way of processes of reaching understanding, i.e., by means of the unreserved and sincere pursuit of illocutionary aims.” (Pg. 79-80) He observes, “Transcendental thinking once concerned itself with a stable stock of forms for which there were no recognizable alternatives. Today, in contrast, the experience of contingency is a whirlpool into which everything is pulled: everything could also be otherwise, the categories of the understanding, the principles of socialization and of morals, the constitution of subjectivity, the foundation of rationality itself. There are good reasons for this. Communicative reason, too, treats almost everything as contingent, even the conditions for the emergence of its own linguistic medium. But for everything that claims validity WITHIN linguistically structured forms of life, the structures of possible mutual understanding in language constitute something that cannot be gotten around.” (Pg. 139-140) He points out, “The later Heidegger still distinguishes between thinkers and poets. But he treats texts by Anaximander and Aristotle no differently than texts by Hölderlin and Trakl. Paul de Man reads Rousseau no differently than Proust and Rilke. Derrida works on Husserl and Saussure no differently than on Artaud. Is it not an illusion to believe that texts by Freud and texts by Joyce can be sorted according to characteristics that definitively identify them as theory on the one hand and as fiction on the other.” (Pg. 206) This book will be of key interest to those studying Habermas, and the development of his thought.