A Utopian Road To Liberation: Research On Habermas' Communicative Theory

As the representative of Frankfurt School in its second stage and the leader of currently western academia, Jürgen Habermas constructs a high-level system of social critical theory which aims at liberation. In such a theory, there is a constant theme, that is, the theory of communicative action and communicative rationality. And the inner logic of the theory is Harbermas'assiduous pursuit of human liberation. In this paper, I do a research on the skeleton of Habermas'whole-life thought in the background of contemporary globalization, hoping to find its inner aim at liberation, and to compare Habermas'theory on liberating utopia and Marx's theory of emancipation. My ultimate aim is to get a new way in understanding human liberation in time of post-utopia. This paper entails three sections.In the preface, I introduce the background in which Habermas proposed his theory and his research method. I also recapitulate the research status on this topic in both domestic and foreign academia.There are four chapters in the main section of this paper, in which I focus on Habermas'analysis on the new change of later capitalism and his diagnosis on the crisis that caused by capitalism. In Habermas'idea, there are two characters in later capitalism, which are enhancing of state participation and ideologizing of scientific technology. It is the paradoxical development of the aforementioned characters that caused the legitimate crisis of later capitalism and the augmentation of human alienation. It also caused Marx's theory of class struggle and surplus value being out of time and historical materialism being necessary to be reconstructed.Why did such crisis happen? Habermas believes that it is a necessary result of instrumental reason, technological reason and development of scientific technology. It is also the logical necessity that happened when end rationality which should have played its role in systems entered the domain of life world. In order to get rid of such irrational phenomena, we need to use the theory of inter-subjectivity in the world of life, and construct the life world into a world being filled with inter-subjectivity and communicative rationality. Scholars of the Frankfurt School in its first stage also think that the modern crisis was caused by the dominant position of instrumental reason in society. However, Habermas insists that critique of these scholars still stays in the level of conscious philosophy, and that reason in their idea is still priori reason. That is, Habermas thinks that there scholars do not grasp the real significance of reason. That is why they can not get a way to solve the problem except to have recourse to instrumental reason. Therefore, in order to escape from their pessimism and theoretic plight, Habermas tried to reconstruct a theory, which is theory of communicative reason. In a deeper sense, he hopes to explore the significance of communicative reason to human liberation in modern time, and to show the inner potential of currently social development.Relying on the theory of communicative reason, Habermas analyzes the symptoms of later capitalist society. In his eyes, the pathogeny of capitalist society lies in the problem happened in the two social structures between systems and life world. Systems which have been out of life world come back and dominate both private domain and public domain with money and power. This causes the distortion of communicative activities and colonization of life world. The original aims of communicative action such as inter-understanding, inter-admitting and freedom are changed into functional means for successful ends, value rationality into instrumental reason, and harmonious human relation into an alienated, meaningless world less of freedom and cultural elements. In order to heal the disease of capitalist society, we need to begin with the rationalization of life world, and to harmonize the relation of systems and life world again. In such an endeavor, language is the necessary media. Actually, the most important thing is discourse on the basis of lingual communication. Hence, Habermas appeals to the change from conscious paradigm to paradigm of language philosophy. The theory of communicative action is just the embodiment of such a change.In Habermas'opinion, communication is language communication and discourse. There are at least two or more subjects who have ability of discoursing and acting reach an agreement in action and inter-understanding via the media of language. The main function of language is to make human beings understand each other and to unite the social members together. In this sense, there is inner communicative reason in discourse. Human liberation can come into reality by discourse between subjects. Therefore, there must be an analysis and reconstruction on pragmatics in the theory of communicative action. This is what Habermas calls general pragmatics. However, what he cares is not lingual capability but communicative capability. He proposes that a successful lingual action concerns not only fluent sentences, but also the agreement that subjects reach, the harmonious communication under the ideal conditions and the fair relation between subjects. It is for sure that we need to recognize and permit on the existence of the others and obey the common social norms in a rational communication. Hence, Habermas'theory is enlarged into the domain of moral philosophy and discourse ethics is built up.The proposition of discourse ethics is a necessary step in development of communicative theory. Habermas believes that in order to reunite the rational structure of life world and to get a stable basis of democratic institution in western society, we have to reconstruct communicative reason. Moreover, we need to rely on the force of discourse to make communication play its role in social development. Discourse is based on the sincerity and justness of lingual actions in inter-communication and it also need to be enhanced into a level of social ethics, which should be obeyed by each social member. In this course, each participant has an equal right and freedom. Thus, Habermas gets a way of escaping from colonization of life world and human alienation by discourse in the guiding of communicative theory and its discourse principle (D) and moral principle (U). We need to build up a fair and democratic discourse order in order to ensure that there is no illegal power being abused and the aforementioned road is feasible. Then, discourse ethics is transited into discourse theory of law and politics.Discourse democracy and negotiating politic is the necessary step in institution which ensures a fain and just discourse. Although Habermas believes that the modern crisis is caused by system's intrusion in life world, he does not exclude system from the rational structure of society. What discourse ethics builds up is the rationalization of life world by discoursing, and the rationalization of system relies on the same means. In the procedure of fair discourse, people can express their willing and ideas to social problem by just negotiation and free talking, and then reach universal consensus and collective identity. Certainly, if we are applying to the theory of discoursing democracy in reality, legal protection is indispensable. Consequently, there is also legal element in Habermas'political theory. That is to say, Habermas asserts that social rationalization is achievable with the help of discourse ethics and democracy.However, the aforementioned is not the ultimate end of Habermas. He applauds to Marx's ideal of human emancipation, though he does not totally agree Marx's materialist conception of history and even wants to reconstruct it. Habermas'whole-life object is to find a new road to social and human liberation. The proposal of cosmopolitan society is just the embodiment of his endeavor.The cosmopolitan society is an ideal society in which human freedom and liberation can be achieved. In such a society, people live justly, democratically and harmoniously. There is no violent collision. People can solve the problems by discoursing when they have different ideas. In a word, Habermas builds up a utopia of human liberation with his communicative theory.In the last section, I propose that there is a need of utopia for the future of human beings in the position of a Marxist, but that Habermas'road to liberation is less of realistic basis. Hence, only Marx's communist theory is a real way to real emancipation.The methodology of this paper is united usage of history and logic. I make a dialectic research and critique on Harbermas'communicative theory in the position of a Marxist. And I also make a comparison on Marx and Habermas. It is a research on its way to maturity and I will focus on it in the future.