New Frankfurt School

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"Critique" Immanent in "Practice": New Frankfurt School and American Pragmatism

Author(s): Shijun TongReviewed work(s):Source: Frontiers of Philosophy in China, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Jun., 2006), pp. 295-316Published by:Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30209971.Accessed: 26/09/2012 14:39

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Tong ShijunCritiquemmanentn practice :ewFrankfurtchoolndAmericanpragmatism

a HigherEducation ressandSpringer-Verlag006

Abstract As a result of a new understandingof the relation between theory andpractice, the New Frankfurt School, with Jiirgen Habermas as its majorrepresentative, ighly values the philosophicaltraditionof Americanpragmatism,ncontrast o the firstgenerationCriticalTheoristsrepresentedby Max Horkheimer. nHabermas, he ideaof critique is, both substantiallyandmethodologically, closelyconnected with the idea of praxis n the following senses: communicativeaction,rationalargumentation,public discussion and political culture. Critique s thusfound to be immanent n praxis ; r,a la Horkheimer,pragmatism urns out to be acriticalphilosophical analysis without falling back upon objective reason andmythology.Keywords New Frankfurt School, American pragmatism, critique, practice,communicativeaction,rationalargumentation, ublic discussion,politicalcultureHilaryPutnam,one of the leadingAmericanphilosophersof our time, once said inan interview: Infact, it is interesting o compare he developments n whatI call theNew Frankfurt chool with the Americanpragmatismof William James and CharlesPeirce ([1], p.61).What is called by Putnamhere as the New FrankfurtSchool has as its leadingtheoristsJiirgenHabermasand Karl-OttoApel. In the broadersense, however, thisSchool includes German scholars such as Alfred Schmidt,AlbrechtWellmer,AxelHonnethand American scholarsMartinJay, Thomas McCarthy, Seyla Benhabib,andmanyothers([2], p. xv; [3], p. 409).The affinitybetween the New Frankfurt chool and AmericanPragmatismhasTranslatedromHuadongShifanDaxueXuebao $a # (Journal f HuadongNormalUniversity),001 5),withminormodificationsTong hijun0)Departmentf Philosophy,EastChinaNormalUniversity,Shanghai 00062,ChinaE-mail:[email protected]


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296been noticed by many students of the contemporaryWestern intellectual world.1This affminitys not only a matter of interestamongthose who inherit more directlythe traditionof the FrankfurtSchool in the philosophical movement of Americanpragmatism,but also a matter of interestamongthose who inheritmore directlythetraditionof American pragmatismin the tradition of Critical Theory. There is,actually,a mutualinfluence between the two living traditions.Thisphenomenoncanbe explainednot only froma philosophicalperspective,but also from a sociologicalperspective.The CriticalTheory,to a large degree, was formedby membersof theInstitute for Social Researchin Frankfurtwhen they were exiles in Americain the1930s and 1940s. After the Second World War, the USA heavily influenced thesocial and cultural development of the BRD, and communication betweenphilosophersacross the Atlantic was greatly strengthened.As a result of the studentmovement in the 1960s, Americanacademiccircles started o become interested nthe CriticalTheory,which was one of the spiritualbackgroundsof the movement,and those who were actively involved in the movement at that time have nowenteredintellectualmainstream. n order to market tself againstthis background,CriticalTheoryneeds to make use of the local resources n the new continent.Andthe task of cultivatinga democraticpolitical culture in a nation that had sufferedgreatsetbacksin this aspectrequires hat one pay moreattention o the philosophicalroots of the experienceof the nation that has been most successful in this regard.Allthese aspects need to be considered in our discussion of the relationbetween theNew FrankfurtSchool andAmericanPragmatism.The focus of this paper,however,is on why the New FrankfurtSchool cameto be interested n Americanpragmatism,that is, on the theoreticalmotive behind this interest.The paperis composed of thefollowing sections. In the first section we will have a review of the attitude of thefirstgenerationof the FrankfurtSchool, with Max Horkheimeras its representative,towardsAmericanpragmatism,in order to provide a system of reference for ourdiscussionof the attitudeof its successors. In the second section,we will discuss theideas of JuergenHabermas, he leading philosopherof the New Frankfurt chool, onthe relationbetween theory and practice, since it is this problemthat is behind theattitudes of the thinkers of the two generationsof the School towards AmericanPragmatism. n the third section we will discuss in moredetail the appropriation ythe New FrankfurtSchool of the tradition of Americanpragmatism,focusing ondifferent evels of the relationbetweentheoryandpractice,or, in the terminologyofCriticalTheory, the relation between the ideas of critique and praxis. In theconcludingsection we will make a short reference to the difference between Deweyand James so that the idea of a criticalphilosophicalanalysis without falling backupon objective reasonandmythology is relatedto the idea of transcendenceromSSome books on the historyof the FrankfurtSchool, such as MartinJay's The Dialectical Imagination,David Held's Introduction o Critical Theory:Horkheimer o Habermas(Universityof CaliforniaPress,Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1980) and Rolf Wiggershaus'sTheFrankfuirt chool: Its History, Theories,and Political Significance (Translatedby Michael Robertson,MIT Press, 1995), all touch this problem.Among other works on the issue we may mention Ross Posnock's paper Bourne, Dewey, Adorno:Reconciling Pragmatismand the FrankfurtSchool (The University of Wiscosin-Milwaukee,Center forTwentieth Century Studies, Working Paper No. 4, Fall-Winter 1989-1990) and Habermas andPragmatism editedby Mitchell Aboulafia,MyraBookman and CatherineKemp,Routledge,LondonandNew York,2002).


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297within sharedespecially by Habermason the one hand,and Peirce and Dewey onthe other.

IThe natural startingpoint for an inquiry into the relation between the FrankfurtSchool and Americanpragmatism s September1934, when the majormembers ofthe Institute of Social Research in Frankfurtsuccessively arriving in Americanestablishedthe International nstitute of Social Research at ColumbiaUniversityinNew York City. The most famous philosopherat Columbiawas nobody but theEmeritus Professor John Dewey, retiring in 1929, who was the most importantthinkerof the Americanpragmatistmovement.There is no evidence, however, showing that Horkheimer and his Germancolleagues had any substantialcontacts with Dewey. Moreover, there is also noevidence showingthey had any importantdialogues and cooperationwith Dewey'spupil, Sydney Hook, who tried to blend Marxism with pragmatism,or any otherimportanteft-wing American ntellectuals. Just as MartinJay, the first scholar whosystematicallystudied the history of the School, said, Continuing o write almostexclusively in German, confining their teaching to the occasional course in theColumbia extension program, only rarely opening the pages of their journal toAmerican authors, they managed to keep the local academic world at arm'sdistance.... Virtuallyno sympatheticconnectionsappear o have been made with thephilosophers in New York. ...In short, relatively secure behind the walls of thebuilding at 429 West 117th Street,provided by Columbia,the Instituteremained ahidden enclave of Weimar culture in exile and not in any meaningful way a partofAmericanacademic ife ([4], p.18).

This does not mean, however, that Horkheimerand his colleagues were totallyignorantof or uninterested n the American intellectual circles and the mainstreamamong them, pragmatism.In a letter written in 1946, Horkheimer said to LeoLowenthal,another memberof the Institute, You can see from my quotes that Ihave read not a few of these native productsand I have now the feeling to be anexpert in it. The whole think belongs definitely into the period before the FirstWorld War and is somehow on the line of empiricocriticism,but much lesscultivatedthanour old Cornelius [2], p. 83).The works in which Horkheimermade the most citations of and comments onAmericanpragmatistphilosophersarethe paper On the Problem of Truth n 1935and the book Eclipse of Reason in 1947.In On the Problem of Truth, Horkheimerdiscussedpragmatismas partof thegeneral situation of bourgeois philosophy, regarding it as one of the latter'smanifestations.His commentsinclude the following aspects.On the one hand,thereare two seemingly opposing but actually complementaryphilosophicalmovementsin contemporaryphilosophy,that is, dogmatismas well as relativism,or positivismas well as irrationalism.This kind of conflict exists not only in society at large,butalso in the thinkingof one andthe samephilosopher,such as WilliamJames.James,thoughproclaiminga version of positivism, turnedto mysticism,even mediumism,


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298thinkingthat there is a kind of intuition in the transcendentalworld, which mightappear in the form of telepathic experiences as soon as the brain's activity isabnormally educed. On the other hand, as far as the doctrine of pragmatism,James and Dewey are its major advocators for their detailed discussion on theproblemof truth.Horkheimer'scriticism of pragmatisms focused on its conceptionof truth,which includes the following aspects:Firstly, the pragmatist conception of truth is closely related to positivism inFrance [5], p. 425); it would have been anunconditionalaffirmationof andtrustinthe existingworld if it were not supplementedby any contradictorymetaphysics(asin the case of HenriBergson)n it: Ifthegoodnessof every dea s giventime andopportunity o come to light, if the success of the truth--even if after struggleandresistance-is in the long run certain, if the idea of a dangerous, explosive truthcannot come into the field of vision, then the presentsocial structure s consecratedand-to the extent that it warns of harm-capable of unlimited development ([5],P.425). In Horkheimer'smind, even if a pragmatistphilosophercan be struckby theprevailing injustice in society as an individual, his demand for societalreconstructioncan only be personalcommitments and utopian supplements,with amerelyexternalconnectionto his philosophy.Secondly, pragmatismblurs the distinctionbetween two conceptsof proof': Anopinion can be completely validated because the objective relationships whoseexistence it asserts are confirmedon the basis of experience and observation withunobjectionableinstruments and logical conclusions; and it can moreover be ofpracticaluse to its holder or otherpeople ([5], p. 426). Strictlyspeaking,a typicalpositivist would lay stress on proof in the first sense, while a typical pragmatistwould lay stress on proof in the second sense. But Horkheimer ailed to notice thisdifference,regardingpragmatismas merelya version of positivism.Thirdly, as far as the concept of proof' in the second sense is concerned,pragmatismclaims that truth s to advance life andhappiness,but overlooks the factthat the same theorycanbe an annihilating orce for other interests n the degreetowhich it heightensthe activityof theprogressiveforces and makes it more effective([5], p.426). In the concrete situation of history, the process in which a particularsocial orderturns froman advancingforce for creative culture to an impedingforce,is also a process of the growing contradictionbetween the verifiedtruth, or truththeoreticallyproved (proved in the first sense of the term proof'), and the socialinterests associated with the social order. The chance that the truth is successfullyrealized is thus reduced rather than increased: According to pragmatism, theverification of ideas and their truthmerge. According to materialism,verificationforms the evidence that ideas and objective reality correspond, itself a historicaloccurrence hat can be obstructedandinterrupted[5], p.429). Historicalmaterialismis thus indispensable to understandingthe problem of truth: The concept ofverification as the criterionof truthmust not be interpreted o simply.The truth s animpetus to correctpractice. But whoever identifies it directly with success passesover history and makes himself an apologist for the reality dominant at any giventime ([5], p.429).Fourthly,Horkheimerdiscusses moregenerallythe relationbetween the theoryofknowledge and truth and the theory of history and society. Since verification is


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299itselfa historicaloccurrence hatcan be obstructedand interrupted, he discussionof the problemof verification or truth should become part of a social theory thatstudiesthis historicaloccurrence: Separatedrom a particularheoryof society as awhole, every theory of cognition remains formalistic and abstract. Not onlyexpressionslike life and promotion,but also terms seemingly specific to cognitivetheory such as verification, confirmation,proof, etc., remainvague and indefinitedespite the most scrupulous definition and transference to a language ofmathematical ormulae,if they do not stand in relationto real history and receivetheir definitionby being part of a comprehensivetheoreticalunity. The dialecticalproposition hatevery concept possesses realvalidity only as a partof the theoreticalwhole and arrives at its real significance only when, by its interconnectionwithotherconcepts, a theoreticalunity has been reached and its role in this is known, isvalid here too ([5], p. 427).Running through the above ideas is Horkheimer's position on the relation

between theory and practice. In his mind there is no pre-establishedharmonybetween them:they connect with each otherin actualprocessesof history,in whichwhat is seen as theoretically correct is not therefore simultaneously realized.Humanactivityis no unambiguous unction of insight,but rathera processwhich atevery moment is likewise determinedby other factors and resistances [5], p.427).To the phenomenahe stressedhere-what is theoreticallycorrect s often practicallyunrealized--Horkheimer gave various explanations. In addition to theabove-mentioned act that the dominant orces in society are too strong,Horkheimerreferredmainly to the following two factors: On the one hand,a historicaltendencypredictedby a certaintheorycan in turn be influencedby the social activities of thesocial forces convincedby this theory,and thus even thoughthis tendencydoes notdisplay itself clearly, this cannot be regardedas a negation of the theory that haspredicted t. Take as exampleMarx's view of what is happening nside the capitalistsociety: those tendencies that have been predictedby Marx's view of history aretendencies which could be preventedfrom leading to a relapse into barbarismbythe effort of people guided by this theory. This theory,confirmedby the course ofhistory,was thoughtof not only as theorybut as an impetusto a liberatingpractice,bound up with the whole impatienceof threatenedhumanity.The testing of theunswervingfaithinvolved in this struggle s closely connected with the confirmationof the predicted endencies which has alreadytakenplace, butthe two aspectsof theverificationare not identical; rather,they are mediatedby the actual struggle,thesolution of concrete historical problems based on the theory reinforced byexperience ([5], p. 428). On the otherhand,what are responsiblefor setbacks andfrustrations reusually partialmistakesin a theory,and these setbacks can thus notbe regardedas evidences for the falsehood of the theoryas a whole: Whileit is thedutyof everyonewho acts responsiblyto learn from setbacksin practices,these cannevertheless not destroythe provenbasic structureof the theory, in terms of whichthey areto be understoodonly as setbacks [5], p. 429).In Eclipse of Reason, though still understanding pragmatism as a truemanifestationof positivismbased on the reasonthatthey both assimilatephilosophyinto science, Horkheimerpaid moreattention o theirdifferences,regarding hem astwo versions of the change from objectivereason to subjectivereason. With


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300Max Weber as his starting point, Horkheimerunderstoodthe so-called objectivereason n two terms. On the one hand, it admits that there is a structure nherent nthe reality,which by itself demands that in each case there is a particularmode ofbehavior, no matter if it is a practicalor theoretical attitude. On the other hand,objective reason can also refer to men's efforts to reach this structureand theirabilityto reflect uponthis objectiveorder,or their efforts of dialecticalthinkingandthe abilityof Eros. In moderntimes, said Horkheimer, here occurreda tendencyofreplacing objective reason with subjective reason. If objectivereason is reasonwith substantive content and reason as an end in itself, then subjective reason ischaracterized,correspondingly,by depriving reason of its substantivecontent, sothat reason is formalized while subjectivized, denying that somethingcan be anend in itself at all. Horkheimer hus summarized he relation between pragmatismand the subjective conceptionof reason in his mind in the following way: Havinggiven up autonomy,reason has become an instrument.In the formalisticaspect ofsubjectivereason,stressedby positivism, its being unrelatedto objective content isemphasized; in its instrumentalaspect, stressed by pragmatism,its surrender toheteronymouscontents is emphasized.Reasonhas become completelyharnessed tothe social process. Its operationalvalue, its role in the dominationof men andnature,has been made the sole criterion... It is as if thinkingitself had been reducedto thelevel of industrialprocesses, subjectedto a close schedule-in short,madepartandparcelof production [6], p. 21).Comparedwith his paper On the Problemof Truth, Horkheimer'scriticism ofpragmatismn this book has the following new contents:Firstly, pragmatism is wrong not only in reducing truth to satisfying humaninterests, but also in stressing that these interests are ours -for this reasonpragmatisms a kind of subjectivism: thesubjectivismof the school lies in the rolethat 'our' practices,actions, and interestsplay in its theoryof knowledge, not in itsacceptanceof a phenomenalisticdoctrine [6], p. 45).Secondly, whatpragmatistsregardas our nterests cannot become the basis fordemocracy, even if they are the people's interests : Deprived of its rationalfoundation, the democratic principle becomes exclusively dependent upon theso-calledinterestsof the people, and these are functions of blind or all too consciouseconomic forces. The do not offer any guaranteeagainst tyranny.In the periodof thefreemarketsystem, for instance,institutionsbased on the idea of humanrightswereacceptedby many people as a good instrument or controllingthe governmentandmaintainingpeace. But if the situationchanges, if powerful economic groupsfind ituseful to set up a dictatorshipand abolish majorityrule, no objection founded onreason can be opposed to their action... Once the philosophical foundation ofdemocracyhas collapsed, the statementthat dictatorship s bad is rationallyvalidonly forthose who are not itsbeneficiaries,and there is no theoreticalobstacleto thetransformationof this statement into its opposite ([6], pp.28-29). Interestingly,Horkheimerhere resorted to the political ideas of the FoundingFathers of theUSA to criticize the pragmatist conception of reason. Though advocating themajorityrule, they in his mind did not substitute the verdicts of the majorityforthose of reason.They incorporated aningenious system of checks and balances nthe structureof governmentbecause they were worried by the possibility that a


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301Congress controlledby the majoritywould violate the rights of the minority. ToHorkheimer'sview, this possibility has, in a sense, alreadybeen actualized: Themajority principle, in the form of popular verdicts on each and every matter,implementedby all kinds of polls and modern techniquesof communication,hasbecome the sovereignforce to which thoughtmust cater. It is a new god, not in thesense in which the heralds of the greatrevolutionsconceived it, namely,as a powerof resistanceto existing injustice,but as a power of resistanceto anythingthatdoesnot conform [6], p. 30).In the last analysis, therefore, the major problem Horkheimer found inpragmatismis that there is no dimension in it critical of the existing society.Horkheimerquoted the following remark by Dewey: Faith in the power ofintelligenceto imaginea futurewhich is the projectionof the desirable n thepresent,andto invent the instrumentalities f its realization, s our salvation.And it is a faithwhich must be nurturedand made articulate; urely a sufficientlylarge task for ourphilosophy ([6], p.53). Here, Horkheimer commented, Dewey mistook thesatisfactionof the existing desires of the people for the highest pursuitof mankind.As to theprojectionof the desirable n thepresent, of course,Horkheimer aid thattwo possible explanationscould be given. Accordingto one explanation, t referstothe desires as they really are, and since these desires are conditionedby the wholesocial system under which people live, one has reason to doubt whether theyactuallyarepeople's desires at all: Ifthese desires areacceptedin an uncriticalway,not transcending heirimmediate,subjectiverange,marketresearchandGallup pollswould be a moreadequatemeans forascertaining hemthanphilosophy [6], p. 54).As an alternativeexplanationof the projection of the desirable in the present,Dewey somehow accepted that a distinction could be made between subjectivedesire and objective desirability. Such an admission, Horkheimersaid, wouldmarkjust the beginning of critical philosophical analysis-unless pragmatismiswilling, as soon as it faces this crisis, to surrenderand to fall back upon backobjectivereason andmythology ([6], p. 54).To the New FrankfurtSchool, as we will see below, pragmatism s not merely abeginning of critical philosophical analysis, but contains plenty of criticalresources.Therefore t does not need to surrender tself, not to speak of fallingback upon objective reason and mythology -as long as, of course, the criticaltheory(originated n Germany) s blended with pragmatism originated n America),or, the ideaof critique s blended with the idea of practice.

IIThe theoreticalprepositionfor the combinationbetween critique nd practice sa new understandingof the relationbetween theory and practice. The theoreticalcondition for integrating critique with practice s a new understandingof therelationbetweentheoryandpractice.Criticaltheory, in Habermas'swords, is a theory of society conceived with a


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302practical intention 2([7], p.1). From this expression, we can see clearly howimportanthe relationbetweentheoryandpractice s to the self-understanding f thecritical theory. It is no accident that the first philosophical book written byHabermas,a criticaltheorist,is Theoryand Praxis (1963). But this book is basicallya collection of papers on the history of philosophy; Habermas's theoreticalexplicationof the relation between theory andpracticewas systematicallymade inhis long introduction o this book ten years later.Criticaltheory, in Habermas'smind, is a developmentof the theoretical raditionof historical materialism,and historical materialism contains in itself the relationbetweentheoryandpracticein two senses. On the one hand, it studies the historicalcondition outside the theory; on the other hand, it studies the action situation inwhich the theorycanpossibly interfere.A theoryof society in this sense, or a criticaltheoryof society, is differentboth fromscientific andphilosophicaltheories. Unlikescience, it does not hold an objectivistattitude owards its object;unlikephilosophy,it does not regard ts own originas somethingranscendent,r somethingwithontological superiority.While arguingforunderstanding theory s critique, Habermas nsists to makea distinction between praxis and techne. The idea that serves as the connectingthread of the discussion in Theory and Practice, according to him, is theAristoteliandistinction betweenpraxis and techne ([7], p.1). Habermasexplicatesthe distinctionin his own terms: Technicalquestionsareposed with a view to therationally goal-directed organization of means and the rational selection ofinstrumentalalternatives,once the goals (values and maxims) are given. Practicalquestion,on the otherhand,areposed with a view to the acceptanceor rejectionofnorms,especiallynorms for action,the claims to validityof which we can supportoroppose with reasons [7], p. 3).As far as this paper's theme is concerned,the most importantconsequence ofHabermas'snew understanding f theory and practice utlinedabove, is thatheboth expandsand modifies Horkheimer'sconceptionof verificationpresupposed nthe latter's criticism of pragmatism.Firstly, Habermasargues that any type of knowledge is inherentlyrelated topractice. We mentioned above that Habermas differentiated the concept ofpractice n a general sense into praxis and techne n particularsenses. Afterthis differentiation, practice n general is still a useful concept in anothersense: itrefers to humanactivities in everydaylife or in a generalsense, and these activitiesarealways connectedwith human nterestsandaspirations. t is in this sense thatwesay that Habermasargues for inherent connections between practice and humanknowledge. In his mind, every type of scientific theoryhas behind itself a type ofhumaninterest,either the subject's interestin technical control of the object, or thecommunication between subjects. These cognitive interests function not as themotives of researchersn the psychological sense, nor as the backgroundof researchin the sense of sociology of knowledge, nor as the genetic structureof a humanbeing in the biological sense. Rather, they result from the imperatives of asociocultural life-form dependenton labor and language ([7], p. 9). This kind of2 Italics mine.


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303sociocultural life-form is, of course, an empiricalfact, but the cognitive interestsproduced thereby enjoy the position which Kant gives to his a prior form ofknowledge : condition without which no experience is possible, or conditionwithoutwhich no objectivity is possible. By relatingknowledge to humaninterestsin such a close way, Habermas'scritical theory moves towardspragmatismat themeta-theoretical evel. According to him, just like to pragmatists, knowledgeforthe sake of knowledge is in principle impossible. In the Horkheimer erminologymentionedabove, this position of Habermascan also be regardedas a result of thetransition rom objectivereason o subjectivereason.Secondly, in Habermas'smind, criticaltheory,as a theoryof society conceivedwith a practical intention, is meant to address practical questions instead oftechnical questions : it is concerned with the communicative relation betweensubjects,but not the knowing and interferingrelation between subjectand object;the major way of its study of social relations and social agents is intersubjectiveunderstanding,but not the subject'sobservationof the object. Furthermore, riticaltheory is not only different from the natural science and the social scienceembodying human interest in technical control, but also different from thehuman-historical sciences in the ordinary sense which are supposed to be theembodiment of the human interest in subjective communication. Thesehuman-historical sciences presuppose the cognitive interest in intersubjectivecommunication,while critical theory not only presupposes this interest,but alsoself-consciouslyreflectsupon this interest,and makesefforts to expose and criticizeobstacles to communication.Thus, critical theory is not only characterizedby thefact that cognitive interestsare admittedin its methodological self-understanding,but also by the fact that it has a cognitive interestin the new sense: it has itself aninterest n humanemancipation.Thirdly, critical theory with the emancipatoryinterest in the above sense issignificantlydifferentboth from classical Marxism and the first generationof theFrankfurt chool not only in terms of a theory'snormativebasis,but also in terms ofa theory's practicaleffect.In terms of a theory's normativebasis, classical Marxism bases the hope forhuman emancipation on the development of the productive forces and theobjectively lawful historical process of fundamental contradictions of societyproduced thereby. Facing the fact that the expected success of the projects ofpracticeon the basis of this theorywas delayed againandagain,membersof the firstgenerationof the FrankfurtSchool criticizedpragmatism or its thesis of testing atheory's truth by its success in practice, on the one hand, and more and moreresorted to a conception of reason that is neither based on the objective law ofhistory nor reduced to subjectivereason. But on the whole this conception ofreason is more a negative one (criticismof reality)thana positive one (imaginationof alternatives).The so-called dialectical ogic referred o in Horkheimer'sEclipseof Reason and Marcuse's One Dimensional Man is, in the last analysis,nothingbutAdorno's Negative Dialectics. Consideringthis, therefore,Habermassays that thenormativebasis of a theoryof society with practical ntention s not dialogical logic,but the logic of undistorted anguage communication : Competentorators knowthat every consensus attained can in fact be deceptive;but they must always have


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304been in possession of the prior concept of the rational consensus underlying theconcept of a deceptive (or merely compulsory) consensus. Reaching anunderstandings a normativeconcept; everyone who speaks a natural anguagehasintuitiveknowledgeof it and is therefore onfident f beingable,in principle,odistinguisha true consensus from a false one ([7], p. 17). In orderto ascertainthenormative basis of critical theory, accordingto Habermas,we should clarifythenormative mplicationsthat lie in the concept of possible understandingwith whichevery speaker andhearer) s naively familiar [7], p. 17).In terms of a theory's practical effect, Habermassays that we should make adistinctionbetween three functions of a social theory, or three criteriaby which atheory's function is tested: formingtheoreticalunderstanding,organizingpracticalenlightenmentand being engaged in actual struggle.He writes: The mediation oftheory and praxis can only be clarified if to begin with we distinguish threefunctions, which are measured in terms of different criteria:the formation andextension of critical theorems, which can stand up to scientific discourse; theorganizationof processes of enlightenment, n which such theorems are appliedandcan be tested in a uniquemannerby the initiation of processes of reflection carriedon within certaingroupstoward which these processes have been directed;and theselection of appropriate trategies, he solution of tacticalquestions,and the conductof the political struggle [7], p. 32). In fulfillingthese three functionsa theoryaimsat, respectively, three things: true statements, authentic insights, and prudentdecisions. In the history of the Europeanworking-classmovement, all three taskswere traditionallyassignedto the party organizationat the same time. But Habermasargues that these functions could not be fulfilled according to one and the sameprinciple: a theory can only be formulated under the precondition that thoseengaged in scientific work have the freedom to conduct theoretical discourse;processesof enlightenment if they areto avoid exploitationanddeception)can onlybe organizedunder the preconditionthat those who carry out the active work ofenlightenmentcommitthemselveswholly to theproperprecautionsand assurescopefor communications on the model of therapeutic'discourses'; finally, a politicalstrugglecan only be legitimatelyconductedunderthe precondition hat all decisionsof consequencewill dependon the practicaldiscourse of the participants--heretoo,and especially here, there is no privilegedaccess to truth [7], p. 34). If all of thethree functions were to be fulfilled at the same time, we could either achieve successin none of these aspects,orachieve success in one aspect only at the cost of others.The above analysis is mainly meant to answer the questionof the verificationofcriticaltheoryitself; as we have seen, Horkheimercriticizedpragmatism irst of allbecause thepragmatistconceptionof truthas success in practice posed a greatthreatto the validity of critical theory. Briefly speaking, Habermas's answer to thisquestionis this: the validity(truth)of criticaltheorymustbe testedat variouslevels,and the aspect that Horkheimerclaimed to be the emphasis of pragmatism,theaspect of the instrumental-strategicction, is, in a sense, the least important n theverification of critical theory. Habermaswrites: The first step of corroboration sscientific discourse;there the claim to truth of theoreticallyderived hypotheses issupportedorrefuted n the usual form of scientificargumentation.Naturallya theorywhich does not survive discursive examinationmust be rejected,and, of course, the


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305claim to validity of reflexive theoriescan only be confirmedtentatively.But it canonly be realized n the successfulprocessesof enlightenment, hich lead to theacceptanceby those concerned, ree of any compulsion,of the theoreticallyderivable nterpretations.o be sure, processesof enlightenment,oo, merelysupport he theory'sclaim to truth,withoutvalidating t, as long as all thosepotentiallynvolved, o whom he theoreticalnterpretationasreference, ave nothad the chanceof acceptingor rejecting he interpretationfferedundersuitablecircumstances. romthis resultsa reservationwith respect o the application freflexive heoriesunder heconditions f a politicalstruggle [7], pp. 37-38). Inotherwords, the test of criticaltheory,which can also be called the practical estof critical theory, containsmainly two levels: the level of scientific discourse, andthe level of public enlightenment.Actualpolitical struggleis, of course,relevant tocritical theory, but Habermasargues that it is relevant only indirectly. The directpracticalconsequenceof criticaltheory,as a critical self-reflection,is the change ofattitudebroughtforthby the insightinto the causalitiesin thepast, while the goal ofpolitical struggle,which Habermasplaces in the categoryof strategicaction insteadof public enlightenment n the category of communicativeaction, is to bring forthchanges of social reality in thefuture. That is to say, criticaltheory reflecting uponthe past does not provide plans for action in the future,andneither can this kind ofactionprovideverification for the theory. Participants n a political struggleshouldbe actors who have undergone enlightenment, and their practical discoursesconcerning strategiesand goals of the political strugglealso belong to the logic ofundistorted anguagecommunication. Since one of the tasks of criticaltheory is towork on this logic, political struggle is also relevant to critical theory. Moreover,Habermas hinks that under the condition of strategicaction, criticaltheory can beapplied in the following sense: it can be used to interpret he presentin retrospectfrom the perspectiveof the future.Although strategicaction can be explicated bymeansof this interpretation, owever,the latter cannotbe verifiedby this action. InHabermas'sview, critical theory's claim to validity can be verified only in thesuccessful process of enlightenment: n the practicaldiscourse of those concerned([7], p. 2).Whenhe was writingthe introduction o Theoryand Practice discussedabove, hemore or less identified critical theory to self-reflection both at the level of theindividual and the level of the species, and in this self-reflection were included twoforms: reflection on the false consciousness produced by the ego (Freudianpsychoanalysisand the critiqueof ideology on this model) and reflection on thenormal competence of everyday communication. Habermas later admits that topresupposea parallelbetweenthe individualand the species is to comparea microsubject o a macrosubject, andthus to commit the mistake of the philosophyofconsciousness or the paradigmof subjectivity. He also comes to make cleardistinctionsbetween the two forms of self-reflection,andto a large degree focus hisattention on the second form of self-reflection, i.e., self-reflection on the normalcompetenceof everydaycommunication. Self-reflection in this sense requiresthatthe emphasis of critical theory be transferred rom the critiqueof oppressive anddeceiving forces to the reconstruction f the normative foundationof criticaltheoryitself, and to turn its attention from the theory of knowledge to the theory of


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306communication,the result of which is his book The Theory of CommunicativeAction,published n the early 1980s. In an articlepublishedin 1999, Habermas akeshis own theory of communicativeaction as an example in discussing the relationbetween theory and practice.Here Habermas's focus of attention is no longer therelationbetween critical theoryandpractice,but the relation betweenphilosophicaltheory and practice; but in some sense his discussion of the relation betweenphilosophyand practiceis just his discussion of the relation between criticaltheoryand practice: he seems to hold that in our times it would be better for everyphilosopher o be a criticaltheorist,though critical n a much less radical sense tomany people's mind.In our post-metaphysical eriod, according o Habermas, hebestjob a philosophercan do is not to solve technicalproblemsas an expert,nor toconvey the meaning of life as a spiritual teacher, but to take part in publicdiscussions as intellectuals of modern society. Compared with other types ofintellectuals (such as writers,professionals and scientists), philosophersare morecompetent in dealing with some types of questions. The first type of questionsHabermas takes as example are questions of totality, such as the question of theself-understandingof modern society as its self-diagnosis: from the eighteenthcenturyon, discourseof modernityis first of all made in philosophical form, or inthe form of reason's self-critique. The second type of questions Habermasmentioned are those across different spheres:because of its connection with thetotality and its multilingual nature, it can play an importantrole in mutualcommunication and interpretationbetween different spheres and disciplines.Philosophy's role of mediation between science and common sense, betweenprofessionallanguage and everyday language,for example, may help criticize andovercome the phenomenaof the so-called colonizationof the lifeworld. The thirdtype of questionsHabermasmentionedarethose of normativenature:philosophy isspecially equippedto deal with normativequestions, especially basic questions ofthe common life of just politics. Philosophy and democracy not only shared acommon situation of origin in theirhistories,but also dependon each otherin theirstructures.The public influence of philosophical thinking requiresthe institutionalsupportof freedom of thought and communication,and the democratic discoursesthat are constantly under threat in turn depend on philosophy's warning andinterferenceas a public guardianof democracy.Habermassays: In the history ofmodern Europe, from Rousseau through Hegel and Marx to John StuartMill andJohn Dewey, political philosophyhas exerted considerablepublic influences ([8],p.331).The fact thatHabermashere mentionedDewey, and mentionedDewey's politicalphilosophyrather hanhis theoryof knowledge, is no accident,but shows Habermas,as the majorthinkerof the second generaionof the FrankfurtSchool, has a new andquite positive view of Americanpragmatismas a whole. On the new interpretationof the relation between theory and practiceand the relation between critiqueandpractice, pragmatism's nstrumentalist onceptionof truth hat hadbeen regardedasthe majorthreat o the validityof criticaltheory,is now no longerconsidered to be athreat;some of its ideas that hadbeen regardedas less importantare now raisedupto muchhigherpositions;the critical dimension that had been seen only as merelyapossibility in it is now valued as its most importantcontribution: critique s


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307thoughtto be capableof integrationwith practice because practice proves to becritical n the firstplace.IIIIn Habermas'scriticaltheory,the conceptof practice an basicallybe understoodat the following four levels, from the more abstractones to the more concrete ones:communicative action, rational argumentation, public discussion and politicalculture. At all these levels, Habermas found importantintellectual resources inpragmatistphilosophers.(1) CommunicativeactionHabermas,as we said above, laid emphasison the distinctionbetween practiceand technicalactivity (or instrumental ction and strategicaction ), and thisdistinction lies in the fact that while technical activity is concerned with thesubject-object relation, practical acvitity is concerned with the intersubjectiverelation. Rules for technical activities arebased on objective laws, and thus cannotbe violated,while rules forpracticalactivities are based on people's acceptance,andthus can possibly be violated. The so-calledpracticalactivities,therefore,are thoseby which people regulatetheir interactionsaccordingto rules they all accept,or, ona higherandreflexive level, those activitiesby whichthey readjustandmodify theserules.Ultimately,therefore,practice s just communicativeaction,andcriticaltheorywithpractical ntent should be based on a theoryof communicativeaction.As we have seen from the above discussion on Horkheimer, Americanpragmatism n his mind is not only a philosophy stressingthe importanceof actionto knowledge, but also a philosophystressingthe importanceof technical action toknowledge. In Habermas'mind, however, or from the perspectiveof his theory ofcommunicativeaction, other aspects in the work done by American pragmatistscome to the fore: it turnsout that they not only stress the importanceof technicalaction,but also stress the importanceof communicativeaction;they not only stressthe importanceof action to knowledge, but also stress the importanceof action topersonal developmentand social integration.CharlesPeirce's semiotics and HerbertMead's theory of symbolic interaction, respectively, provide Habermas withtheoreticalresources n these two dimensions.

Habermasdivides human actions into four basic types: teleological action ,normativelyregulatedaction and dramaturgical ction have, respectively, theobjectiveworld, the social world and the subjectiveworld as their main systems ofreference,while communicativeaction, or the interactionof at least two subjectscapable of speech and action who establish interpersonalrelations (whether byverbal or by extra-verbalmeans) ([9], p.86), refers simultaneouslyto these threeworlds. The process of interaction n this sense is the process in which differentsubjects reach understandingamong themselves on their situations of action andtheirplansof action,andin order o reach this kindunderstanding, gentsmust havealready mastered the language in which they can understand each other, thecompetencewith which they can defend by reasons their speeches before possiblecriticism, and this in turn presupposesthat they have already got the concept of


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308reason, he concept of validity defended by reasons, and the concepts of the

above-mentionedthree worlds respectively connected with the three concepts ofvalidity ( truth, normativerightness and authenticity ).These competents,theconcepts inherent n the applicationof these competents,and the relations betweenthese concepts, Habermascalled the general presuppositionsfor communicativeaction, and his universalpragmatics aims to studythese generalpresuppositions([10], p.21).It should be noted that when Habermas was systematically explicating hisuniversal pragmatics, he did not start with Peirce's theory. But his universalpragmatics is indirectly related to Peirce's work. Firstly, although the termpragmatics was coinedby AmericanphilosopherCharlesWilliam Morris at a laterstage of its development, although pragmatics as a branch of linguistics andphilosophy.of language was developed mainly under the influence of the laterWittgenstein,Peirce was neverthelessregardedas having laid the foundation stonefor pragmatics throughhis continuingof and debatingwith Kant's transcendentalphilosophy ([11], p.1). Secondly, Habermas's efforts in developing his universalpragmatics are closely connected to Apel's similar work ( transcendentalpragmatics ),and Apel's work, from its very beginning, is based on his systematicstudy of Peirce, especially on the superiority of the latter's three-dimensionalsemiotics (including pragmatics as well as syntax and semantics) over thetwo-dimensional semiotics (stressing only syntax and semantics) advocated bylogical positivists ([12], p.192). Thirdly, Habermas not only made frequentreferences to Peirce in his discussion of universal pragmaticsand his theory ofcommunicativeactionin general,but wrotepapers focusing on Peirce's work in thisfield. In his paper Peirce and Communication, or example, Habermas,whilecriticisingPeirce in his later works understoodprocesses of communication n tooabstract erms so thatthe intersubjective elationbetween the speakerand the heareris overlooked, speaks highly of Peirce's criticism of the philosophy ofconsiousness or the philosophyof subjectivity, his emphasison researchactivityas a process of communication,and his attention o the fact that a sign both standsfor somethingand stands o somebody([13], p. 90). Just as an American scholarpointsout, in the developmentof his theoryof communicativeaction,Habermas nfact has always given pragmatism,especially the Peircian version of it, a centralmeaning [14].If Habermas's heoryof communicativeaction is related to Peirceonly indirectly,then it is related to Mead's work rather directly. In his The Theory ofCommunicativeAction, Habermas discusses Mead's social psychology in greatdetail. Though Mead calls his theory social behaviorism, Habermas thinks histheoryis actuallydifferent from behaviorism n two aspects:what he emphasizesinbehavior s not the behavior of an individualorganismas a reactionto stimulusfromthe environment,but the process of interaction n which at least two organismsreactto each other;and the behaviors he discusses are not limitedto observable behaviorreactions,but actions oriented to symbols, and it is thus possible to reconstruct hegeneral structureof the linguistically-mediated nteractions. Mead is important oHabermas for more reasons. Both Peirce's semiotics and Habermas's generalpragmaticsare interestedonly in the kernel of the communicativeaction -speech


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309acts oriented to mutualunderstanding,but not communicativeaction itself, becausecommunicativeaction is not only a processof using symbols,but rathera processofdeveloping interpersonalrelations and coordinating actions by making use ofsymbols. Mead's social psychology is just focused on the second side: Hiscommunicationtheory is not restricted to acts of reaching understanding;t dealswith communicationaction. Linguistic symbols and language-like symbols interesthim only insofar as they mediate interactions,modes of behavior, and actions ofmore than one individual. In communicative action, beyond the function ofachieving understanding, anguage plays the role of coordinatingthe goal-directedactivities of differentsubjects,as well as the role of a mediumin the socializationofthese very subjects [15], p.5). Thoughhe thinksthata communication heorythatalmost exclusively focuses on these two aspects needs to be supplemented bysemantics and speech-act theory, Habermas is more interested in seeing thecoincidencebetween Mead's communication heoryand the theories of languageofanalytic philosophy: the presuppositions of the process of human individuals'individuationthroughsocialization discussed by Mead, arejust those general andindispensablepresuppositionsof the actionoriented o mutualunderstanding[13], p.191).(2) RationalargumentationIn Habermas,communicative action and rationalargumentationhave an internalrelation to each other. On the one hand, everyday communicative action is thepotentialformof rationalargumentation ndtheirrelation s similar to thatbetweenhuman anatomy and monkey anatomy mentioned by Marx. The generalpresuppositionsof communicative action referred o above are made in everydaycommunicationonly tacitly and unconsciously, and only throughresearch nto theprocess of rational argumentationcan we have full understanding of thesepresuppositions.On the otherhand,rationalargumentations the specialisedform ofcommunicativeaction.In everydaycommunicativeaction, eachagent's actionplansare presupposedand need to be coordinated with each other through speech actsorientedto understanding.When this effort of coordinationfails, however, if thealternativeof strategicaction (such as bargainingandthreatening) s to be avoided,one has to resortto the choice of argumentation r discourse. In argumentation rdiscourse,the focus of attention s no longeron each agent's teleological action,buton the negation or affirmationof the validity claims raised in these speech acts.These considerationsareclosely related to Habermas'sview of the relationbetweentheory and practice. On the one hand, argumentative activity is also a type ofpractical activity: it is the practiceof research ([16], p.367), different from thepracticeof life. In epistemology and the philosophy of science, when discussingthe relation between theory and practice, one usually regards theory as a staticsystem of abstractconcepts, and regardspracticeas actions searchingfor concreteaims. When he regardsargumentativeaction, the typical case of which is scientificresearch, as a type of practical action, he accepts some importantideas in thephilosophyof science influenced not only by the laterWittgenstein,QuineandKuhn,but also by Americanpragmatism.On the otherhand,however,though being a typeof practice,argumentativeactivity is not meant to bring forthparticularchanges inthe three worlds (theobjectiveworld,the social worldandthe subjectiveworld),but


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310somehow brackets he aim of bringingforth this kind of change.Orin Habermas'swords, discourserequiresvirtualizingvarious restrictionsof action ([7], p. 18). Totest a theory by practice,therefore,does not meannecessarilyto make it the basis ofa planof actionin the worlds, and thus to show its theoreticalvalidity through tsvalidity in actual action. A practical est of a theorycan now also be understood nthis way: to place it in a situation of rationalargumentation,and to scrutinize itsvalidity claim by intersubjectivediscussion and criticism. As far as Habermas'scritical theory is concerned, the importanceof rationalargumentationhas anothertwo special aspects. On the one hand, in terms of its substantive contents,Habermas's theory of modernity, his theory of discourse ethics, his politicalphilosophy,and his philosophyof law, are all developedon the basis of his theoryofargumentation.On the otherhand,in terms of the way of justificationof this theory,Habermas, like Apel, often uses the argument of performativecontradictionagainst oppositions from post-structuralism nd post-modernism: hose who argueagainstthe contemporary orm of rationalismwith communicativerationalityas itskernel are opposing what they have already presupposedfrom the moment whenthey started heirargumentation [17], pp.80-81).The fact that scientific research is a type of intersubjectivecommunicationbetween members of the scientific community has been noticed by Americanpragmatistsas early as Peirce. In his Knowledgeand Human Interestspublishedinthe late 1960s, Habermasmentioned Peirce's work in this aspect,but did not give ithigh regard.There Habermasdiscurssed Peirce in great detail, regardinghim as anexample of self-reflection of naturalscience, but he thoughtthat Peirce took noticeonly of the transcendental onnection between knowledge and instrumentalaction(this idea of Peirce,by the way, was absorbed nto Habermas'sconceptionof humancognitive interests as one of its major dimensions), but did not move furtherbymaking serious reflection upon the intersubjective communication within thecommunityof researchers.Severalyears later,Habermasadmitted hat when he waswriting that book, he had not made a clear distinction between everydaycommunication and scientific argumentation.In his consensus theory of truthdeveloped systematically in the early 1970s, one can see a clear affinity withPeirce's conception of truth.In the paper Peirce and Communication, Habermas,while criticizing Peirce for basing symbolic processes on a cosmopologist theoryrather than an intersubjectiveframework, affirmed his view that no empiricalobjectivityis possible without intersubjectivitynvolved in the process of reachingunderstanding.Habermas's reconstruction f Peirce's ideas in this aspect includesthe following points: there is an internalconnection between private experienceandpublic communication;public communication must take the form of rationalargumentation;he consensus reachedin this argumentations the supremecourt ofappeal n knowledge;this consensus is neverthelessnot to be identified with whathappensto be agreed upon within a certainparticular roup,but refers to the finalopinion reachedunder dealconditions: Peircemakes the rationalacceptability f anassertion,and thus its truthas well, dependentuponanagreementhatcould be reachedunder communicative onditions for a communityof investigatorshat is extended toideal limits in social space and historicaltime ([13], p. 103). In his book BetweenFacts and Norms published in the early 1990s, Habermasspeaks more highly of


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.,11

Peirce'swork nthisaspect, egardingt as one of the most mportantffortsmadebyphilosophers eforehimin explicating he tensionbetween the so-called facticity ndvalidity nherent n everyday inguisticcommunication nd scientificargumentation,which, in Habermas'smind,is the ultimaterootof the similar ensions inherent n themodern egal systemandeven constitutional emocracies n the West in general [18],pp.29-32).(3) Public discussionRational argumentation differentiates itself from everyday communicativeactivities, on the one hand, and differentiates tself into differentspheresof expertculture (cognitive discourse of science, normative discourse of law and morality,evaluative discourse of art criticism and aesthetics), on the other. In additiontocommunicativeactions at these levels and in these spheres,Habermasstresses theimportanceof public discussion, or free discussion andpublicuse of reasonamongpeople as private persons gathering in the public sphere (especially the politicalpublic sphere)on issues of public interest. On the one hand,taking place in a spherebetween everyday life and expert culturalspheres, this kind of discussion neitheraims to make particularaction plans, nor limits itself in circles of experts andbrackets hepressuresof actionaltogether.Onthe otherhand,this kindof discussioncan play a role in mediatingbetween differentexpertculturalspheres:same issues,such as Germanunification and humancloning, are discussedby experts n differentspheres in non-professionaland everyday language that are understandablebothamong themselves and to the general public. Modern society, according toHabermas, is both a society whose politically dominant order can only belegitimized by the consent of those underit, and a society with highly differentiatedand complex functional systems. Under this condition, systems (economy andadministration, with money and power as their respective steering media)differentiated rom the lifeworld the location of meaning, solidarityand identityand with communicationas the steeringmedium)can neitherbe reducedback to thelifeworld, since this would mean the negationof the complexityof modernsociety,and thus the negationof many achievements of social evolution,nor be allowed tocontrol or even swallow the lifeworld, since this would lead to the exhaustion ofmeaning, loss of freedom and crisis of identity. Public discussions in the publicspherecan thusplay the role of a soundingboard sensitive to social problemsandcrises, and a place where public opinions and public wills, which are to betransferred o the functionalsystems throughdemocratic egislation,are formed.Public discussion in the above sense is important o Habermas'scriticaltheoryinthreeaspects. Firstly, it is an importantpartof the normativecontent of this theory:if this contentcan be called socialism, t is opposed neitherto individualism,norto capitalism,but to economism and statism, since its kernel is a societyunderstoodas the lifeworld, ncludingfirst of all the public sphere in the abovesense. Secondly, a theory advocatingthese ideas has to address the problemof theunity between practiceand theory in a particularsense: theoretically stressing theimportance of public discussion, Critical Theory needs to keep a so-calledperformative onsistency in practice, that is to say, critical theorists themselvesshould become active participantsn free discussions in the public sphere.This kindof performative consistency can be clearly seen in Habermas, as a public


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312intellectualactively involved in variouspublicdiscussions on many important ssuesin the last half of the century. Thirdly,as we said above, Habermasarguesthatthemajor practicaleffect of CriticalTheory is not the result of a plan of instrumentalaction on its basis, but the result of a processof public enlightenmenton its basis.From the importanceHabermasattaches to the idea of public discussion we canmore easibly understandwhy he is so interested in Dewey, compared to otherAmerican pragmatist philosophers. Dewey did so much work on scientificmethologyor what he called the logic of inquirymainlybecause he wanted to applyit in the fields of formation of personality (education) and formation of publicopinions and public wills (the public sphere), or to unite Mr. Science with Mr.Democracy,as Chinese intellectualswould say during he May FourthMovementinthe early twentiethcentury. In his book Towards a Rational Society published in1968, Habermasdiscusses three models of the scientization f politics representedby Dewey, and says that onlyone of them,the pragmatistic,s necessarilyrelated odemocracy [19], p.67). This view has two reasons.Accordingto this model, on theone hand, the developmentof new techniquesis governed by a horizon of needsandhistoricallydetermined nterpretations f these needs, in otherwords, of valuessystems ;on the otherhand, these social interests,as reflected in the value systems,are regulated by being tested with regardto the technicalpossibilities and strategicmeans for their gratification ([19],p.67). Although in Habmeras'smind Dewey didnot make clear distinctions between the roles in the public sphere played by naturalscience, by social science on the model of natural science, and by the humantiesbeyond the model of natural science ([19], p.72), although Dewey's view of thesocial significance of science can also be understood as one case of scientificexpertocracy ([20],p.564), Habermas hinks that after Kant it was above all JohnStuartMill and JohnDewey who analyzedthe principleof publicityand the role aninformedpublic opinion should have in feeding and monitoringparliament, andsays that their view is indispensable to a proper understandingof the idea ofpopular sovereignty ([21], p. 171). That is why in one of the most influentialbiographiesof Dewey published in recentyears, John Dewey and the High TideofAmerican Liberalism, the author regards Habermas as the most Deweyan ofcontemporary ocial theorists([20], p.357). The authorthen goes on to say, Thereare many connections between Habermas's ideas about emancipatoryforms ofsocial theory and Dewey's conception of philosophy as social criticism;there is aclear affinity between the way Dewey's Democracy and Education links humancommunicationand democracy and the way Habermasdevelops an account ofdemocracy in communicative terms in his enormous Theory of CommunicativeAction. From what is provided in this biography,Dewey as a public intellectualtook an active role in discussions in the public sphereand this is also clearly similarto Habermas. What is more importantis that these activities and opinions are,contrary o Horkheimer's dea, not irrelevant o his pragmatistphilosophy.(4) Political culturePractice refers not only to particularactivities, but also to patterns in theseactivities or that which the laterWittgensteincalls forms of life. If we understandpolitical cultureas a kind of practicein this sense, then practicein this sense is alsohighly relevantto Habermas's criticaltheory. Firstly, one of the salient features of


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313Habermas'sriticalheorys theemphasis n internalriticism f Westernociety,or criticism of it according o the unfulfilledpromise of this society itself, andthispromise s embodied not only in constitutionaldocumentsresulting from majorbourgeoisrevolutions,but also in the political culture formed in Westernsociety inmodern times. Political culture, in Habermas'smind, is political not only in thesense that it is concernedwith political issues, activities and institutions,but also inthe sense that it is formedthrough political processes: it is thus different not onlyfrom apoliticalculture, but also from pre-politicalculture. It is political, sothat it can serve as a basis for the collective identityof an increasinglymulticulturalnational society; it is a culture, so that it can relate to people's motives andattitudes,and thuscreate thesupportivespiritof a consonantbackgroundof legallynoncoerciblemotives and attitudesof a citizenryoriented oward he commongood([21], p. 499). On the one hand,political culturein this sense should distance itselffrom the mainstreamculturaltradition,so that it can treat as many subculturesaspossible. On the otherhand,it should have a sufficient force of integration, o that amulticulturalpolitical community can be held together. Developing a politicalculture n this sense is, in Habermas'smind,one of the majortasks of contemporaryCriticalTheory,and to see whether this task has been successfully accomplishedisan importantway of testingCriticalTheoryin practice.The political culture in postwar Germany was developed on the basis of thepolitical education under the tautology of the occupying allied forces led by theUSA andthe Grundrechte hat embodies the principlesof constitutionaldemocracyin the West. This process can also be regardedas one of Westernization, venAmericanization, f the Germannationthathad traditionally houghthighly of itsparticulargeopolitical position and cultural dentity. Generallyspeaking,Habermasgives consent to thisprocessbecause he thinksthat in Americancultureone can findsomething important that is lacking in the German nation; constitutionalpatriotism, he political culture that the BRD as a democracyis in urgentneed of,has the USA as its model. When he was criticizingnew conservatives in Germany,he comparedit to those in America, noting that the American new conservativesrelativelyhad raised more significant questions,and made more creative theoreticalanalyses. This difference,Habermas hought,resulted from the difference betweenthe political cultures of the two countries. Thereforehe said: Thepolitical cultureof the FederalRepublicwould be in worse conditiontoday if it had not adoptedandassimilated ideas from Americanpolitical cultureduringthe first decades afterthewar. For the firsttime, the FederalRepublicopened itself withoutreservation o theWest;at thattime we adoptedthe politicaltheoryof the Enlightenment,we came tounderstand the power of a pluralism borne initially by religious sects to shapeattitudes, and we came to know the radical democratic spirit of Americanpragmatism, rom Peirce to Mead and Dewey ([23], p.45). In an interview aroundthe same time, Habermas aid: LikeRorty,I have for a long time identifiedmyselfwith that radical democratic mentality which is present in the best Americantraditions and articulated in American pragmatism ([24], p.198). The latestevidence on the common ground between Habermas,Rorty as well as classicalpragmatism ame with Habermas'sresort o Americanpragmatism.Though sharing the radical democratic mentality articulated by American


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314pragmatistphilosophers,Habermasand Rorty have opposite views on the relationbetween democracyand pragmatismas philosophy.While claiming time and againthat philosophy cannot justify democracy, Rorty frequentlyrefers to remarksbyDewey and otherclassicalpragmatistson democracy,and criticizes those who claimto be leftists but neglect the tradition of pragmatism,saying that these people areabandoning for no reason the American nation's proudest achievements. Theseseemingly conflicting views are rooted in Rorty's understandingof Americanpragmatism: his philosophy, in his view, does not give theoretical ustificationfordemocracy on universalistic grounds, but provides stories or narratives hatappeal to one's feelings and imagination,and have to a large degree formed theminds and self-images of the American nation. In an article titled Truthwithoutcorrespondenceto reality, Rorty arguedthat philosophy has nothing to do withpolitics and the same philosophy can have differentpolitical uses, and then said:For all that, Dewey was not entirely wrong when he called pragmatism thephilosophy of democracy. What he had in mind is that both pragmatismandAmerica are expressions of a hopeful, melioristic, experimentalframe of mind. Ithink the most one can do by way of linking up pragmatismwith America is to saythatboth the countryand its most distinguishedphilosophersuggest thatwe can, inpolitics, substitutehope for the sort of knowledge which philosophershave usuallytriedto attain([25], p.24).But Habermasdoes not agree with this view. In his mind, this political culture,this radicaldemocraticmentalitywhich is present in the best Americantraditionsand articulated in American pragmatism, is not something monopolized by aparticular nation or culture, but has in it a transcendent dimension and auniversalistickernel, and can thus be justified philosophically. Habermas's ownwork,his thoeryof communicativeaction,his discussions on rationalargumentationand public sphere, in the last analysis, are all efforts to excavate and justify thisuniversalistickernel.

IVGoing back to Putnam's remarkquoted at the beginning of the paper, we maymention an interestingfact to finish this paper.Putnamsuggested that comparisonbe made between the New Frankfiurtchool and the Americanpragmatismof Jamesand Peirce, but to my knowledge Habermasalmost never quoted James in hisphilosophicaldiscussions, althoughhis first encounter with Americanpragmatismwas througha Viennese philosopherwho had been the first German translatorofWilliam James, and he said he was impressed very much by the lines of the laterinscribed in James Hall at Harvard: Thecommunitystagnateswithout the impulseof the individual, the impulse dies away without the sympathy of thecommunity ([26], p.228). Putnam once made a comparisonbetween Dewey andJames, and this comparsionmay help us understandHabermas'sattitudetowardsJames. While regarding Dewey's social philosophy as overwhelmingly right,Putnamsaid that his emphasison science, argumentationand rationality s not sosatisfactory if applied to individual existential choices. Comparatively,Putnam


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315thoughtthat in this kind of cases James'sview thatone shouldsometimes make hisdecision n issuesvital o his life inadvance f the evidence s more uitable([27],pp.190-192).Here the differencebetweenDewey and James could perhapsbecharacterized s one between their attitudes owardswhat Horkheimer alled

objectivereason or mythology. Like Dewey, James no longer accepts objectivereason ;unlike Dewey, James still preserves some room for a certain form ofmythology, or a transcendentgod in which one cannot believe on scientific basis.What is common to most classical American pragmatistsand the New FrankfurtSchool is a criticalphilosophical analysis without fallingback upon objectivereason and mythology, or in a phrase Habermas used not only when he wasdiscussing with theologians ([28], pp.67-94), but also when he was interpretingPeirce's conceptionof truth: transcendencerom within (Transzendenzvon innen)([21], p. 14).Readingboth Americanpragmatismand the New FrankfurtSchool in China,wemay note an interesting act thatmightalso help one understand heChinese interestin the former since the first decades of the last centuryand the Chinese interest inthe latter in the last couple of years:the idea of transcendence rom within or theidea of immanenttranscendence happens to be one that many contemporaryChinese scholars claim to be central n the traditionalChineseculturein generalandin Confucianism n particular3.

References1.GiovannaBorradori. heAmericanPhilosopher:Conversations ithQuine,Davison,Putnam,Nozick,Danto,Rorty,Cavell,Maclntyre, ndKuhn, ranslated y RosannaCrocitto,ChicagoandLondon:TheUniversityof ChicagoPress,19942. Martin ay.Thedialectical magination: historyof theFrankfurt chool andthe Institute fSocial Research1923-1950, Berkeley/LosAngeles/London:Universityof CaliforniaPress,19963.MaxPensky. hirdGenerationritical heory,nSimonCritchleyndWilliamR. Schroeder(eds.), A Companionto Continentalphilosophy, Malden Mass. USA, Oxford, UK:Blackwell ublisherstd,19984. Martinay.Urbanlights:heInstitutef SocialResearchetween rankfurtndNewYork,in his Force Fields: Between IntellectualHistory and Cultural Critique,New York:Routledge,9935. Max Horkheimer. n the Problem f Truth,originally ublishedn ZeitschriftuerSozialforschung,ol.IV, 1935,reprintedn AndrewArato ndEikeGebhardteds.),TheEssentialrankfurtchoolReader, ewYork:Continuum,9956.MaxHorkheimer.clipse freason,NewYork:Oxford niversityress, 9477. Juergen abermas.heoryndpractice,ranslatedyJohnViertel,Boston:BeaconPress,19738. JuergenHabermas.Noch einmal.ZumVerhialtnison TheorieundPraxis, n Wahrheit nd

Rechtfertigung: hilosophischeAufsitze,Suhrkamp,9999. JuergenHabermas.The Theoryof Communicative ction,Vol. I, translatedby ThomasMcCarthy,Cambridge,UK/Oxford: olityPress,UK, 199710. JuergenHabermas.On the Pragmaticsof Communication,MaeveCook(ed.), Cambridge,3 See, for example,ZhongJiadong. Transcendence nd Immanent rans endence :etweenMoZongsan ndKant[29],pp.43-53)


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316Mass.:The MITPress,199811. EdmundArens.TheLogic of PragmaticThinking: romPeirce to Habermas,ranslated yDavidSmith,New Jersey:Humanities ress,199412. Karl-OttoApel. CharlesS. Peirce:FromPragmatismo Pragmaticism,ranslated y JohnMichaelKrois,Amherst:University f Massachusettsress,198113.JuergenHabermas. ostmetaphysical hinking: hilosophicalEssays,translated y WilliamMarkHohengarten,olityPress,199214. CharlesLarmore. Habermas nd derPragmatismus ,n StefanMueller-Doohmed.),DasInteresseder Vernunft: ueckblickeufdas Werk onJuergenHabermas eit ,Frankfurtm Main:Suhrkamp erlag 200015. JuergenHabermas.The Theoryof Communicative ction,Vol. 2, translatedby ThomasMcCarthy, olityPress,199816.JuergenHabermas.Knowledge ndHuman nterests,ranslated y JeremyJ. Shapiro,PolityPress,198717. JuergenHabermas.MoralConsciousnessnd Communicativection, ranslatedy ChristianLenhardtndShierryWeberNicholsen,Cambridge,Mass.:TheMITPress,199018. JuergenHabermas.Faktizitaetund Geltung:Beitraegezur Diskurstheorie es Rechtsunddesdemokratischenechtsstaats, rankfurt m Main:Suhrkamp erlag,199719. JuergenHabermas.Towarda RationalSociety:StudentProtest, Science, and Politics,translated y JeremyJ. Shapiro,Boston:BeaconPress,197020. JuergenHabermas.Werte und Normen:Ein Kommentar u HilaryPutnamskantischemPragmatismus,eutscheZeitschriftifuerhilosophie,Berlin48 (2000),421. JuergenHabermas. etweenFacts andNorms, ranslatedy WilliamRehg, CambridgeMass:TheMITPress,199622. Alan Ryan.John Dewey and the High Tideof AmericanLiberalism,New York/London:W * W * Norton & Company, 199523. JuergenHabermas.New ConservativeCulturalCriticism n the United States and WestGermany,in Juergen Habermas,The New Conservatism:Cultural Criticism and theHistorians'Debate,(ambidge,Mass.:TheMITPress,1989)24. JuergenHabermas.Question and CounterQuestions, in RichardJ. Bernstein (ed.),Habermas ndModernity,Cambridge,Mass.:TheMITPress,198525. RichardRorty.TruthwithoutCorrespondenceo reality, n: Rorty,Philosophyand SocialHope,PenguinBooks, 199926. JuergenHabermas.Reflectionson Pragmatism,n MitchellAboulafia ed.),HabermasandPragmatism,MyraBookmanandCatherineKemp,LondonandNew York:Routledge, 00227. Hilary Putnam.Renewing Philosophy, Cambridge, Mass/London,England: HarvardUniversityPress,199828. JuergenHabermas.Transcendence rom Within,Transcendence n This World, in HisReligion and Rationality:Essays on Reason, God, and Modernity,edited and with anIntroductiony EduardoMendieta,PolityPress,200229. ZhengJiadong. Transcendence nd Immanent ranscendence :etweenMoZongsanandKant inChinese),ZhongguoShehuiKexue ChinaSocialSciences),Vol. 4, 2001

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