1. Habermas defender of the ideals of modernism / Enlightenment
but critical of de facto modernity
in order to show pathology of modernity, has to
extend idea of reason
rationally ground normative principles

2. Habermas’ approach critical social science / immanent critique
widely read
German philosophy
American pragmatism
analytical philosophy
developmental psychology
social theory

3. Frankfurt School emancipatory power of reason - Marx
scepticism in Frankfurt School
history
Max Weber
Zweckrationalität (means-ends rationality)
Iron cage of bureaucracy
Adorno and Horkheimer’s Dialectic of Enlightenment

4. Knowledge and Human Interests
critique of positivism
technical knowledge not the only form of knowledge
knowledge determined by “quasi-transcendental cognitive interests”

5. Knowledge and Human Interests
empirical-analytical sciences - technical cognitive interest
historical-hermeneutic sciences - practical cognitive interest
critically oriented sciences - emancipatory cognitive interest
weakness - reliance on “philosophy of subject” - need for “linguistic turn”

6. Communicative Action
Communication and the Evolution of Society (CES), published 1976
Theory of Communicative Action (TCA, 2 vols), published 1981

7. CES Chapter 1 - Universal Pragmatics
reconstruct universal rules underlying communicative competence
Wants to distinguish:
strategic action (oriented to success, purposive-rational)
communicative action (oriented to reaching understanding

8. CES Chapter 1 - Universal Pragmatics
Model of communication that embeds utterances in three different pragmatic relations to reality:
representing facts (“the” world of external nature)
establishing legitimate interpersonal relations (“our” world of society)
expressing one’s own subjectivity (“my” world of internal nature)

9. CES Chapter 1 - Universal Pragmatics
These make corresponding validity claims:
truth
rightness
truthfulness

10. CES Chapter 1 - Universal Pragmatics
Other forms of rationality as lesser
strategic action suspends validity claim of truthfulness
symbolic action suspends validity claim of truth
So it gives him his immanent principles for critique - distorted communication

11. CES Chapter 2 - Moral Development
preconventional level, reward and punishment
stage 1 (punishment/obedience)
stage 2 (instrumental hedonism)
conventional level, social recognition, shame
stage 3 (good boy orientation)
stage 4 (law and order orientation)
post-conventional level, impersonal moral principles, conscience, guilt
stage 5 (social-contractual legalism)
stage 6 (ethical-principled orientation)

12. CES Chapter 3 - Societal Development
rationalisation in instrumental rationality (economy, technology)
rationalisation in communicative rationality (reason, law, morality)
links ontogenesis (personal development) with social development

13. System and lifeworld (TCA)
system - impersonal institutions of bureaucracy and markets - coordinated through strategic rationality
lifeworld - world of shared human meanings, - coordinated through communicative rationality
system colonises lifeworld and threatens communicative action

14. Social movements
Social movements as defence of lifeworld and communicative rationality
Distinguishes
emancipatory movements (e.g. women's movement)
resistance movements
defending interests (e.g. NIMBY)
resistance to commercial and bureaucratic power (e.g. green mvts)

15. Discourse ethics Kantian ethics formal / procedural, universal
made social - dialogical, not monological
made historical - social evolution

16. Discourse ethics oriented towards understanding and consensus
possibility of unforced consensus and coordination of actions
not negotiation of private interests but deliberation about public good
ideal speech situation

17. Fonte: