The Unhappy Marriage of Hermeneutics and Functionalism

In: Praxis international: a philosophical journal, Band 8, Heft 1, S. 34-51

Abstract

Jurgen Habermas's Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns ([Theory of Communicative Action] 2 vols, Frankfurt: 1981 [for abstract of English translations, see IRPS No. 41/88c00922 & 88c00923]), is critically examined, challenging especially the claim that it is a self-contained & internally consistent unified whole. Specifically, the idea that the theory of communicative action automatically leads to the dualism between life-world & system is called into question. Habermas's stress on rationalization processes is said to originate in the same pressures as fundamentalism's attention to the same. In Collective Action vs. Functionalism?: Some Remarks concerning Hans Joas's Critique, Thomas Saretzki defends Habermas's work as an attempt to clarify the foundations of social theory rather than the metatheoretical work criticized by Joas. An alternative reading of Habermas's two-level concept of society is contrasted with Joas's interpretation. A. Waters