Research On Habermas’s Reconstruction Of Historical Materialism

Reconstruction of historical materialism is an theory attemp that Habermas try to stimulate the liberation potential of historical materialism.It is also his theoretical assumption to seek normative basis for the realization of the social integration in late capitalism.It is of theoretical and practical significance to study Habermas’reconstruction of historical materialism.On the one hand,it is helpful to further grasp the essential connotation of historical materialism,and on the other hand,it is helpful to provide reference for the process of promoting the construction of socialist modern powerful country.Starting from the theoretical framework of the system and the life world,Habermas pointed out that historical materialism is limited to the analysis of the development of the system.It examines the development of the social system from an external observer’s perspective,lacks sufficient attention to the dimension of the life world,pays less attention to the communication and the structure of social norms.The root cause is that historical materialism is still confined to the perspective of the relationship between subject and object and fails to get rid of the predicament of philosophy of consciousness.Habermas criticized historical materialism from four aspects:Firstly,it limits the basis of social evolution to labor,which is an instrumental action,and does not pay enough attention to communication action.Secondly,the fundamental driving force of social evolution is limited to the field of productivity,and insufficient attention has been paid to the role of social normative structure.Thirdly,the mode of production is used as the standard for dividing social forms,and there is insufficient attention to the role of institutional factors.Fourthly,only the system crisis,that is,the economic crisis,is used to analyze society Crisis,insufficient attention to identity crisis.He emphasized that the structure of social norms has its inherent independent development logic and cannot be restored to the dimension of productivity.The dimension of productivity and social norms together constitute the foundation and driving force of social development.Therefore,Habermas advocates re-examining the interactions between people from the perspective of participants and from the intersubjectivity perspective,reconstructing historical materialism,and highlighting the important role of social norms in social evolution and social integration.According to the genetic approach of individual norm consciousness,Habermas constructed the development logic of social norm structure from the same origin,and then reconstructed the process of social evolution based on the analysis paradigm of social norm structure,highlighting the role of social norm structure in social evolution.He believes that the process of social evolution is also the process of social rationalization,and the process of rationalization occurs not only in the dimension of productivity,but also in the dimension of social norms.These two dimensions have different rational foundations:the productivity dimension involves tool rationality,while the dimension of the social norm structure involves the rationality of communication.Therefore,he advocated that the communicative action in the social norm structure and social labor should be regarded as the basis of social evolution,and the learning process of the social norm structure and the learning process in the field of productivity should be regarded as the driving force of social evolution.And the core of the social norm structure,the principle of social organization,replaces the mode of production as the standard for dividing social forms.On this basis,Habermas proposes a social integration plan that rationalizes the structure of social norms.He believes that the most important social integration crisis in late capitalism is the crisis of identity,that is,the crisis of legalization.The crisis of legalization is directly caused by the state’s comprehensive intervention in economic life,rooted in the system’s invasion of the world of life.As a result,the structure of social norms cannot provide sufficient legitimization support for the political field.Therefore,he proposed the rationalization of the structure of social norms,that is,through the negotiation process centered on the rationality of communication,the formation of a social norm structure with ethics and legal norms as the core is both factual and normative,so as to realize social integration.Habermas’ reconstruction of historical materialism has innovated the paradigm of modernity criticism,expanded the scope of contemporary capitalist social criticism,and highlighted the analysis paradigm of the participants’ perspectives and the structure of social norms that examine social evolution and social integration.However,Habermas abandoned Marx’s basic standpoint of investigating the relationship between people from material production practices.He also abandoned the theoretical vision of exploring social development and human development from economic roots.In the process of reconstructing social evolution,he overemphasized the role of social norm structure,avoided the complexity of the relationship between individual learning ability and social learning level,and ignored material practice as the prerequisite and basis for communication.His hope of realizing social integration rests on the rationalization of the social norm structure,that is,the legalization of the principle of negotiation based on the rationality of communication,which is obviously too idealistic.In real life,people are always constrained by factors such as self-interest and power interference,especially the fundamental opposition between class interests.Therefore,without changing the existing economic relationship,really free and equal dialogue and exchanges are difficult to achieve.So this kind of social integration plan that transcends class is unavoidable in the end.From the basic standpoints,viewpoints and methods of historical materialism,it can be found that Habermas’s criticism of historical materialism is unfair.He failed to fully realize that historical materialism is the unity of scientific and normative.This is because,on the one hand,his empirical understanding of historical materialism Was deeply influenced by the Second International.On the other hand,he eternalized alienated labor,and he failed to grasp the revolutionary significance of Marx’s understanding of the entire history from the reality of people and their practices.In fact,Marx has never neglected the interaction activities between people and the structure of social norms and their important role in social development.Marx went deep into the field of material production practice,regarded labor and communication as two inseparable categories.Marx more profoundly revealed the material roots behind people’s communication activities and the structure of social norms.