David Ashley, Jürgen Habermas and the Rationalization of Communicative Interaction

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Jürgen Habermas and the Rationalization of Communicative InteractionAuthor(s): David AshleySource: Symbolic Interaction, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Spring 1982), pp. 79-96Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Society for the Study of Symbolic InteractionStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/si.1982.5.1.79 .Accessed: 23/08/2011 00:05

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J U R C E N H AB E R M AS A N DTHE R AT I O N A L I ZAT I O NOF

C OMM U N CATlVE I NTE RA C TlON*

David AshleyUniversi ty of Louisvi l le

This paper analyzes J. Habermas’s theory of “universal pragmatics” and examines the extent towhich Haberm as’s ideal speech community is predicted upon a specific type of relationship be-tween the individual and society. The ability of the theory of universal pragmatics to overcomethe form of domination institutionalized by modern societies is questioned, and the argument ismade that Habermas’s radical program of emancipation is vitiated(1 ) by Habermas’s conflationof “transcendental” and “situationally engaged” enlightenment and( 2 ) by Habermas‘s in-ability to reintegrate pra cticak ma ncipa tory and technical form s of reason. Haberm as’s ideaof“comm unicative com petence” replicates, rathe r than displaces, the “modern” solutionto th e

problem of the relationship between th e individual and society.

THE CRITICAL THEORY OF J URGEN HABERMAS

In the last decade, Jurgen Habermas has been one of the West’s leading and mostinfluential social theorists. As a Marxist, and as a second-generation member ofthe Frankfurt School, Habermas has written some penetrating analyses of “crisistendencies” in advanced capitalist social formations. As a scholar who is entrenchedin the German philosophical tradition, and w h o also is knowledgeable about thecritique of language provided by the British analytical school of philosophy, Haber-mas has attempted to show how forms of domination in advanced capitalist societycan be overcome by the development of “ideal speech” patterns among interactingsubjects.

The ideal speech community (ISC) is understood by Habermas as a community ofspeech participants who institutionalize a form of dialogue that is reflectively ori-ented toward the ideals of truth, justice and freedom. I n his decription of the neces-sary conditions for the ISC, Habermas attempts to locate in the domain of humanpraxis the equivalent to Kant’s categorical imperative for the more restricteddomain of moral choice. According to Habermas, both duty and communicativecompetence are ultimately justifiable by the application of reason in pursuit of gen-

*Direct all communications to: Dr. David Ashley, Department of Sociology, Universityof Louisville,Louisville, Kentucky 40292.

I gratefully acknowledge the assistance I received from Richard R. Weiner in revising an earlier draft o fthis paper. Of course, I alon e am responsible for residual om issions an d errors.

Symb olic Interaction, Volum e 5, Number 1, pages 79-96Cop yr ig ht 0 1 9 8 2 b y J A I Press Inc.A l l rights of reproduction in any form reserved.IS SN : 0195-6086



80 SYMBOLIC I N T E R A C T I O NVo l . 5/No. 1/1982

eralizable interests. And both duty and communicative competence can be ex-plained by reference to universalistically binding rules of interaction for relationsamong individuals.

Praxis, or action that is performed by individuals for its own sake, may be dis-tinguished from purposive-rational action. The latter is action that is concernedwith the instrumental utilization of means that are directly or indirectly linked tocertain ends. According to Habermas, the technical cognitive interest, which is al-ways behind purposive-rational action, permits, in the universal medium of work,self-realization through labor. Work involves operations upon what our senses findto be an inflexible, external and objectified nature. Marxist explanations of thehistory of the human subject in nature have always stressed the way in which hu-mankind not only transforms its natural environment through work but also is,itself, reciprocally and concomitantly shaped by this process. In principle, there isno reason w hy homo f a be r should not calculate monologically the most appropriateway in which to manipulate or transform some part of his environment.

For Marx, the act of labor was always seen as social. In concrete terms, thehistorian will typically see the act of labor as simultaneously an act of communica-tive intercourse among individuals. For purely analytical reasons, Habermas, how-ever, chooses to make a distinction between praxis and purposive-rational action.Habermas (1970c:92) points out that praxis (unlike purposive-rational action)necessarily entails communicative interaction: it “is governed by binding consensualnorms, which define reciprocal expectations about behavior and which must beunderstood and recognized by at least two acting subjects.” I According to Haber-mas, the practical cognitive interest, which is always behind praxis, leads to com-

municative interaction that is intrinsically worthwhile to participants; praxis per-mits, in the universal medium of language, self-realization through such communica-tive interaction. With purposive-rational action, the limits to our understanding ofthe world are set by our ability to exercise control; with praxis, or communicativeinteraction, the limits to our understanding of the world are given by the bounds ofpossible intersubjective communication that we set for ourselves. As Habermas(1973a:8) puts it:

In the functional sphere of instrumental action we encounter objects of the type of moving bodies;here we experience things, events and conditions which are, in principle, capable of being manipu-lated. In interactions (or at the level of possible intersubjective communication) we encounter

objects of the type of speaking and acting subjects; here we experience persons, utterances, andconditions which in principle ar e structured and to be understood symbolically (emphasis sup-plied).

Habermas’s model of communicative competence, which applies of course to thedomain of pruxis, is similar in some respects to Noam Chomsky’s model of a gen-erative grammar. In fact, in describing communicative competence, Habermas(1970b) takes Chomsky’s model of language as his starting point. Chomsky arguesthat for the speaker of a language to produce a proper and grammatical sentence in,say, the English language, certain abstract rules have to be grasped. Communica-tion, o r the understanding of another’s utterances, is possible for ego because bothego and alter are equipped with the same program. Communicative competence fo r



Habermas a n d C o m m u n i c a t i v e R a t i o n al i za t io n 81

Table 7. Habermas’s Frame of Analysis*~~ ~

Interest Act ion Medium of Rules thatS e l f A wareness Structure the

Relationship oJ

Subject to Objector Self ro Ofher

Technical Cognitive Purposive-R ational Work Monological(Instrumental)

Practical Praxis Language Dialogical(Communicative Interaction)

No te: *T he above table can serve to specify the main points of the basic analytical distinctions thatHahermas wishes to draw.

Habermas however, as one might expect, is not the monological application of aprogram, nor is it an “innate” skill (although such competence might well involvethe application of “innate” skills). Habermas’s (1970b:369) position is that com-munication among individuals does not merely involve the use of a program overwhich the individual has no control. For example, communication involves, in part,the self-conscious application of certain “dialogue-constitutive universals” tha t arecreated through communicative interaction.

Habermas (1970b:363) points out that Chomsky’s theory of linguistic competencepresupposes a “thesis of elementarism.” “[Ilt assumes. . . that the semantic con-tent of all possible natural languages consists of combinations of a finite number ofmeaning components.” According to Chomsky, these “meaning components” aregenerated by an innate structure that is consequently wholly object-like, or nature-like, for the individual speaker. As Habermas notes, if the model of linguistic com-petence were entirely adequate for the explanation of all possible interpretations ofnature and society, the theses of monologism and elementarism would be vindicated.However, as John Searle (1972) has pointed out, although Chomsky’s model oflinguistic competence adequately models syntactical competence it cannot accountfor semant ic content; hence, Chomsky’s model of speech cannot adequately or fully

explain why speech performances are meaningful to communicants.In opposition to Chomsky, Habermas (1970b:364) argues that the dialogue-constitutive universals, including the use of “personal pronouns, interrogative,imperative, and assertive formators, modal formators and the like,” a re not rigid o rfixed rules of speech which must be applied by ego in order to communicate ef-fectively with alter. Communicative competence, among other things, requires thespeaker to acknowledge, reflectively and completely, the significance of what aspeech-act communicatively entails. As speech-acts are grounded in pragmaticrelations among individuals, the competent speaker needs to achieve a reflectivegrasp of the meaning for others of the semantic tokens in use. And, of course, egoexternalizes and understands itself in the same manner as that by which fellowspeakers are understood. A speech-act, then, is “the production , . . of a sentence



82 SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONVol. 5/No. 1/1982

token under certain conditions.” The correct understanding of words and othersymbols is predicated upon the acknowledgement by speakers of pragmatic rela-tions among them. It is of course quite impossible to list, or at any point in time

even to categorize the possible elements in the set of such relationships.Habermas draws upon some of the conclusions made by philosophers from the

analytic school (e.g., J. L. Austin) to argue that sentences, for instance, have botha superficial grammatical order or meaning and an “illocutionary force.” I f aspeaker utters the sentence: “ I promise to meet you at three o’clock tomorrow,” themeaning of this sentence cannot properly be understood merely in terms of linguisticor grammatical competence. What a speaker is doing by uttering such a string ofsounds in the presence of another must be grasped as contingent upon the meaningof a meta-language that is itself understandable as the means by which pragmaticcommunication among actors becomes possible. A comprehensive theory of lan-guage should not merely examine the means by which syntactical order is produced;it should consider in addition the types of relationships among speakers that arethemselves posited by the meta-language. For example, when ego promises some-thing to alter, the meaning of this speech-act cannot properly be understood unlessboth parties comprehend that a future relationship of ego to alter will be one ofobligation. In this instance, if ego does not comprehend that he is obligating him-self, not only is an incompetent speech-performance taking place but also meaning-ful communication between ego and alter has broken down almost completely.

The following is a serious issue for Habermas: With simple language games, en-tailing quite elementary speech-performances, communicative incompetence resultsin a breakdown in communication. In other words, the fact that a mistake has been

made becomes transparently obvious. The example given in the previous paragraphof the incompetent speech-performer illustrates a condition under which such abreakdown might occur. Enforced acknowledgement of the total collapse of mean-ingful communication between ego and alter is much more likely to occur as the re-sult of purposive-rational action than with praxis . With complex language gameshowever, and especially with those that are praxis-oriented, communicative incom-petence does not invariably lead to the dissolution of communicative discourse. It ispossible for an individual to participate in a complex language game and to accepthighly abstract consensual - nd rei’ed- norms without acknowledging completelythe way in which the meaning of such norms is based upon fixed, o r frozen, rela-

tionships among subjects. Thus, the individual can be socialized in such a way thatconsensual norms, o r rules of speech, are persistently employed that could never bejustified in terms of generalizable interests. According to Habermas, when thishappens, communication is “distorted.”

Distorted communication within communicative networks results from the abilityof some speech-performers to fix, o r to demand authoritatively, particularistic self-representations. Such self-representations are not examined in discourse - heyconstitute the grounds of, o r meta-language for, such discourse by establishingtaken-for-granted relationships among individuals. Habermas’s interest in themacro-structures of distorted communication stems from his commitment to theMarxist paradigm of critical inquiry. Thus, it is important for readers of Habermasto understand the distinction between the assumptions made by the analytic school



Habermas a n d C o m m u n i c a t i v e R a ti o n a l iz at i o n 83

of philosophy and those made by the Frankfurt school of neo-Marxists. Habermasaccepts the theory of language that has been developed by analytic philosophy, buthe is not bound by it. He would, for example, agree with Wittgenstein that “con-

ceptual puzzlement” can result from what Wittgenstein called “the bewitchment ofour intelligence by the use of language.” Habermas however, unlike Wittgenstein,sees communicative incompetence as a denial of species-being; as the denial of thehumanity that a competent speech-performance bestows upon the individual. FromMarx, Habermas develops the thesis that the primary historical cause of speechdeformation is class domination. And perhaps the most valuable part of Haber-mas’s sociology has been the attempt to link the ultimate breakdown of forms ofcommunicative incompetence to the development of the “forces of production” (see,in particular, Habermas 1975a).

It is important to note, however, that the domination that can be the cause ofspeech deformations does not necessarily result from the ability of some group orclass to fix o r demand, one-sidedly, certain self-representations. Obviously, thesociologist or historian is most likely to be interested in the macro-structures ofcommunicative incompetence; distorted communication however, as Habermasmakes clear, can result not only from ego’s interaction with an other, but also canstem specifically from the way in which individuals feel constrained to interactwith themselves. Obviously, a distorted speech-performance might be satisfactorilyexplained by reference to socially imposed structures of communicative incom-petence; however, Habermas is prepared to assume that individualized and patholo-gical speech-performances might be the result of an individual breaking away fromsociety’s norms rather than the result of such an individual fulfilling such norms. To

examine individualized speech deformations, Habermas turns to psychoanalytictheory.

According to Habermas, individualized speech deformations are the result ofwhat Freud referred to as “internal foreign territory.” Such internal foreign ter -ritory manifests itself in a subject’s inability to reflect upon the manner in whichcertain words, gestures o r other semantic tokens are used. Invariably, such tokenshave a personal significance for the subject which the subject seeks to repress o rdeny. As we have seen, communicative competence between ego and alter requiresboth parties to acknowledge fully the use to which semantic tokens are put. In asimilar fashion, communicatively competent o r “healthy” individuals should becapable of reflecting upon the meaning of those tokens or symbols used in inter-acting with themselves. I f a particular individual, however, is incapable of acknowl-edging the meaning of those semantic tokens used in interactions with self, a“false self’ is created. This “false self’ is an impenetrable mask which separatesthe individual from self-representations that have a communicative significance andwhich concomitantly creates a barrier between alter and ego, and also creates abarrier within the self between that which can be acknowledged and that whichmust be repressed.

According to Habermas (1970a:207), typical of speech deformations arising fromthe existence of “internal foreign territory” ar e the manifestations of neurosis andhysteria that express an intention “incomprehensible according to the rules of pub-

lic communication, and which as such [have] become private, although in such a



84 S Y M B O L IC I N T E R A C T I O NVo l . 5/No. 1/1982

way that [they remain] inaccessible even to the author to whom [they] must, never-theless, be ascribed.” Habermas argues tha t analysis must be understood as anemancipatory therapy that attempts to transform compulsive (o r fixed), incom-

prehensible but potentially meaningful speech-acts into a public language-perfor-mance that is comprehensible according to discursive (i.e., universalistic) norms.The task of the analyst, accordingly, is to construct an open and free dialogue be-tween analyst and analysand. Habermas suggests, with great insight, that theanalyst tries to cure his patient by linguistic therapy. Such a cure is possible, giventha t speech deformations are always the result, if not the cause, of neurosis.

According to Habermas (1970b:372), solutions to problems that might arise incommunicative interaction must, because of the very nature of such interaction, besoluble for speech-participants. In this matter at least, mankind does not set itselfsuch tasks that are, in themselves, insoluble:

N o matter how the intersubjectivity of mutual und erstanding may be defo rm ed, thedesign ofan ideal speech situation is necessarily implied in the structure of potential speech, since allspeech, even of intentional decep tion, is oriented towards th e ideaof t ru th .

As we have seen, according to Habermas, “[tlhis idea can only be analyzed withregard to a consensus achieved in unrestrained and universal discourse.” N omatter how distorted speech-acts occur, the return to an ideal form of speech ischaracterized by the completeness of individuals’ reflective appraisals about thenature of their symbolic (communicative) productions. The requirement of com-pleteness necessitates “complete symmetry . . . among the partners of communica-

tion.” And (to return to Wittgenstein’s explanation for the existence of “conceptualpuzzlement”): “As long as these symmetries exist, communication will not behindered by constraints arising from its own structure” (1970:37 1).

The ISC therefore results from an emancipatory interest in dismantling forms ofdomination (whether they be class- or self-imposed). An interest in emancipationrequires the exercise of communicative competence. And to sum up, ideal speech ispredicated upon the following symmetries among communicants. First, there mustbe “unrestrained discussion,” in which there is no tacit o r explicit understandingthat certain conceptions about the relationships among speech-participants are be-yond a rational recall. Second, there must be “unimpaired self-representation,”i.e., the opportunity for individuals to participate fully in discourse. Third, theremust be “full complementarity of expectations,” in which the requirements made ofone actor must be made of all participants. As Habermas (1970b:372) explains:“These three symmetries represent, incidentally, a linguistic conceptualization ofwhat are traditionally known as the ideas of truth, freedom, and justice.”

At this point i t is necessary to describe the following difficulties that arise out ofHabermas’s work. I shall first list these problems and then discuss them:

1. Habermas divides reason into: “transcendental reflection” and “situationallyengaged enlightenment.”

2. The empirical import of Habermas’s work lies in the contribution he has madeto our understanding of “situationally engaged enlightenment,” but embodied



H abermas a n d Comm unica t ive R a t iona li za tion 85

within his actual description of such enlightment Habermas encapsulates oneof the fundamental presuppositions of positivistic inquiry: viz., that technicaland practical reason must be treated as mutually exclusive.

3. As a result of (2), the imperfect solution to the problem of the relationship be-tween the individual and society contained within advanced capitalistic socialformations is not displaced by but rather replicated in Habermas’s use of theidea of communicative competence.

1. Critique of Knowledge or Critique of ideology?

As Thomas McCarthy (1978:99) has pointed out, Habermas has sometimes beenguilty of conflating “theoretical enlightenment,” which results from a “transcenden-tal reflection on universal conditions,” with “situationally engaged enlightenment,”which results from “critical reflection on a particular formative process.”Habermas (1973b: 182) acknowledges that in his earlier work, particularly inKnowledge and Hum an Interests:

, ,. he traditional use of the term “reflection,” which goes back to Ge rm an Idealism, covers (and

confuses) two things: on the one hand, it denotes reflection upon the conditions of the capacitiesof a knowing, speaking and acting subjectas such; on the other hand. it denotes reflection uponunconsciously produced constraintsto which a determina te subject (or a determina te groupofsubjects. or a determinate species subject) succumbs in its process of self-formation (emphasissupplied).

Rational reconstruction, or “transcendental reflection,” is a critique of knowl-edge per se . I t is not bound by any historically specific system of action or experi-ence. As McCarthy (1978: 101) points out, rational reconstruction represents “the‘purest’ form of theoretical knowledge,” for transcendental reflection does notspring from either the technical cognitive, the practical, nor from an emancipatoryinterest. Rather, reconstructions are “‘first generated within a reflexive attitude;that is, from a concern to render explicit what is always implicitly presupposed.”Practical critique, or “situationally engaged enlightenment,” on the other hand, is acritique of ideology, and a critique of domination as a result of reification.

Practical emancipation, as a historica/ self-reflection. does not aim at the pursuit of universalknowledge or reflection as such. Rather, it aims at thepractical transposition of the situationalknowledge that particular individuals and groups can gain through clarifying their personal lifehistory o r their social situation. Thus, historical self-reflection isnot a m atter of formal-emancipa-tory knowledgefo r the sake of knowing and in general, but of practical-emancipatory knowledgefo r the sake of act ion and in a concrete situation (“Z ur G eltung des emanzipatorischen Interesse,”in Materialien zu Habermas‘ “Erkenntnis und Interesse,” p. 351, trans. & quo. by McCarthy1978:98).

Given that Habermas has chosen to differentiate between two forms of reason:“rational reconstruction” or “transcendental reflection” on one hand, and “situa-tionally engaged enlightenment” on the other, the problem he now faces is as fol-lows. The ISC is defended by Habermas in terms of its capacity for transcendentalreflection. Thus, the ideal speech situation creates necessary and sufficient condi-



86 S Y M B O L I C I N T E R A C T I O NVo l . 5 h o . 1/1982

tions for the production of true claims. But the ideal speech situation also createsnecessary and sufficient conditions for a critique of ideology. The real problem hereis that Habermas equates communicative competence not just with transcendental

reflection upon universal conditions but also with “practical-emancipatory knowl-edge for the sake of action.” Nothing that has been said so far in this paper aboutthe ISC is at odds with either the idea of transcendental reflection o r the idea ofpractical critique. In other words, both transcendental reflection and situationallyengaged enlightenment, according to Habermas, would have to adhere to theprinciples that have been described above as necessary for communicative com-petence. Habermas’s remarks about, and application of, the idea of ideal speechhowever are fundamentally taken up with the issue of practical-emancipatoryknowledge. Indeed, if this were not so it would be difficult to see how Habermascould avoid the charge of idealism-or the accusation that he had severed theory

from practice.I f Habermas were merely to claim that his description of communicative com-petence was the attempt to locate in the domain of praxis the equivalent of Kant’scategorical imperative, it would be as if the Marxist critique of Hegel had neverexisted. However, i f reason is identified with critical reflection upon particular andhisrorical formative processes, reason’s claim to universality is seriously com-promised. A situationally engaged enlightenment that is detached from transcenden-tal reflection is likely to be captured, at least in part, by that which it strives to dis-solve through reason. A critique of capitalism as a socio-economic system, for in -stance, would have to encapsulate within itself the rules of discourse that definedthat which i t sought to overcome. There is always the danger that such rules would

not themselves be subjected to transcendental reflection. Hence, what is constitutivein that which is being criticized remains constitutive in the critique itself. As I shallargue below, Habermas’s critique of advanced capitalist social formations containswithin itself an unreconstructed form of discourse that replicates, in part, the re-quired relations among communicants in modern societies.

Insofar as Habermas is forced into differentiating between transcendental reflec-tion and situationally engaged enlightenment, it is only by means of some “creativeslippage” in language that the impression is given that he has united theory withpractice. To concentrate upon the practical-emancipatory function of the ISC, asHabermas does, does not resolve the problem, for it makes critique vulnerable to

reason.

2. The Relationship Betw een Technic al and Practical Norms

Habermas’s ( I 97 I :2 14) concentration upon practical-emancipatory reason asinextricably connected with ideal speech is most obvious in his discussion of “theonly tangible example of a science incorporating methodical self-reflection,” i.e.,wi th his discussion of psychoanalysis. Habermas has selected the psychoanalyticmode of inquiry as the exemplification of a scientific method which proceedsi n a critical manner and as one of the few modes of inquiry to acknowledge an in-terest in emancipation, i.e., critique. The therapeutic purpose of analysis is hence

the search for clearer speech, i f not the search for an ideal speech situation.



H ab er m as a n d C o m m u n i c a t i v e R a t i o n a l i z at i o n a7

Thus, an examination of what Habermas sees as the therapeutic and emancipatorydialogue between analyst and analysand is enormously helpful in trying to under-stand what Habermas presents as a concrete, down-to-earth example of the search

for ideal speech.One characteristic of psychoanalysis, which would seem to disqualify it as a sci-

ence that incorporates “methodical self-reflection,” is that it fails to exclude someof the communicative presuppositions of a positivistic objectivism. Psychoanalysis,which supposedly removes speech deformations by the analyst’s adherence tostrategically calculated norms of interaction, also incorporates elements of posi-tivism. This is strange because positivism, which in its purest form is “epistemologywithout a knowing subject,” actively opposes both transcendental reflection and thepossibility of practical-emancipatory knowledge. As Habermas has pointed out,positivistic orientations have a significance for modern societies not so much as

emanations of a philosophy but as the outcome of a mode of inquiry that is pred-icated upon certain relationships among individuals and upon certain self-repre-sentations. Habermas acknowledges that positivism is well-suited to purposive-rational action, but argues that positivistic modes of inquiry must necessarily serveas a form of domination i f they are incorporated, non-reflectively, not as the meansof understanding nature by subjects, but among subjects in systems of communica-tive interaction. In his concrete description of a form of situationally engagedenlightenment (i.e., in his description of psychoanalysis), however, Habermas en-capsulates wi th in his example of communicative competence at least one of themeta-linguistic presuppositions of positivism: a belief in the mutual exclusivity oftechnical and practical norms.

According to Habermas (1970a:208), psychoanalysis involves analyst and analy-sand in a process of constructing a “dictionary for the hidden idiosyncratic mean-ings of. . . symptoms.” The goal of analysis is “the reconstruction, confirmed bythe patient in an act of self-reflection” (ibid.) of a scene supposedly locatable ininfantile experience. This scene, hypothetically, has a strong hold upon the patient,and the meaning of the scene is rigidly and compulsively exhibited in forms ofdistorted communication removed, of course, from reflective appraisal. The analy-sand is dominated not by being forced into relationships with others that denyspecies-being but by the effects of past relationships upon present experience. Thetrue meaning of deformed symbols thus has to be publicly re-evaluated in the con-

text of the analysand’s personal history. Self-representations that cannot beredeemed discursively are “pathologically frozen” in current experience. Thealienating self-representations continue to be object-like and incomprehensible tothe patient so long as the identifications implicit in the infantile scene are notdiscursively re-evaluated.

Habermas (1970a:209) points out that the analyst brings to the encounter be-tween therapist and analysand not merely an understanding of nondistorted com-munication but also a “theoretical” understanding of, among other things, thecrucial significance of infantile experience, “a narrowly circumscribed context ofpossible double meanings,” which will be of assistance in the attempt to achieve“scenic understanding,” and “a general interpretation of early-childhood pat-terns of interaction.” Consequently, as Habermas (ibid.) concedes, “scenic under-



88 SYMBOLIC I N T E R A C T I O NVol . 5 / N o . 1/1982

standing -in contrast to hermeneutic understanding, o r ordinary semantic analysis-cannot be conceived as being a mere application of communicative competence,free from theoretical guidance.” “Theoretical guidance” is of course necessary be-

cause the patient by definition is incapable of nondistorted communication. lt isimportant to note however that the existence of such guidance does not in itself ex-clude the possibility of either critical or transcendental reflection. A s McCarthy(1978:201)has pointed out:

The fact that psychoanalytic constructions are themselves interpretations demonstrates a certainkinship with the hermeneutic method.On the other hand. the fact that these constructions canfunction as explanatory hypotheses with regard to symptoms indicates an affinity with causal-analytic methods. But the “causality” in this case refers to the workingsof repressed motives andsplit-off symbols. Borrowing a phrase from Hegel, Habermas designates this as a “causalityoffate” in contrast to the causality of nature, for the causal connections do not represent an invar-iance of natural laws b u t an invariance of life history that can be dissolved by the power of reflec-tion.

The method and meaning of analysis cease to be founded upon the principles ofideal speech at precisely that moment at which the analyst’s constructions becomeauthoritative instead of hypothetical. Clearly, even if some analysts are authorita-tive in this fashion, this fact by itself would not seriously undermine Habermas’sargument that analysis is “the only tangible example of a science incorporatingmethodical self-reflection.” .Some positivistically minded scientists after all havebeen known to fake evidence, but it would be an error to cite this as evidence forthe claim that positivism itself is worthless. In any case, Habermas’s concrete ex-

ample of a mode of inquiry that is founded upon the necessity of communicativecompetence certainly is an example of a critical method that implements many ofthe principles of ideal speech. Furthermore, analysis can emancipate subjects from“hypostasized powers” (or from self-imposed forms of domination and repression).

I t seems to me, however, that it is impossible to defend psychoanalysis as foundedupon a methodology that searches, uncompromisingly, for the ideal speech situa-tion. As we shall see, by making the idea of communicative competence concretelymeaningful (and thus avoiding the charge of idealism), Habermas merely raises andadulterates the idea of situationally engaged enlightenment. In so doing, he failsto transcend the meta-linguistic structures of communication that effectively denythe possibility of transcendental reflection in the modern world. A rational recon-struction of human action that is founded upon a transcendental reflection wouldillustrate the “synthetic achievements of the knowing subject,” by examining thedialectical interplay of consensual and instrumental norms. Habermas describessuch a rational reconstruction as a necessary condition for a critique of knowledge,but, as we have seen, fails to demonstrate that psychoanalysis is illustrative of atranscendental methodology.

The capacity that analysis has of emancipating subjects from “hypostasizedpowers” arises from what Habermas describes as the “metapsychology” of psycho-analysis. This metapsychology interprets behavioral pathology as arising from dis-torted modes of speech. The idea that patients can be cured by speech-act therapy

permits a reconstruction of the analysand’s neurosis by showing the way, as



Habermas an d Comm unica t ive Rat ional iza t ion 89

Wittgenstein put it, that communication is hindered by constraints arising from itsown structure. However, as we have seen, the analyst carries to the therapeutic en-counter theoretical knowledge that may be imposed over the head of the analy-

sand. Clearly, rational reconstruction within analytic discourse does not involvetranscendental reflection about the dialectical relationship between the strategicnorms of interaction that result from the analyst’s theoretical understanding of thepatient and the practical, consensual norms that arise from the construction ofnondistorted modes of speech.

Strategic action is “that type of action that is both social and means-endsoriented” (McCarthy, 197825). Although strategic action is institutionally boundand employs technical reason, it is dialogically and not monologically oriented; inother words, strategy involves gamesmanship and requires effective instrumentalaction to take into consideration the action of others. Thus, strategic action forHabermas (197 1: 217) involves both purposive-rational action and the developmentof binding consensual norms in communicative interaction. Strategy in psycho-analysis “unites linguistic analysis with the psychological investigation of causalconnections,” i.e., the “causality of fate.” The strategy that the analyst adoptsrequires rational calculation (based on the analyst’s theoretical knowledge) and anintersubjectively grounded consensus between analyst and analysand that deter-mines which values and orientations are intrinsically worthwhile (Habermas, 1970c:92).

Given the points made above, I would argue that Habermas subverts the neces-sary conditions fo r situationally engaged enlightenment in his (probably accurate)description of the typical psychoanalytic encounter in the following manner. First ofall, the relationship of “therapist” to “patient” (or, worse still, of “doctor” to“patient”) obviously affects the way in which speech-performances are evaluated.Because of the theoretical sophistication of the professional analyst vis-a-vis the“sick” o r “disturbed” patient, the symmetry of “unrestrained discussion” and the“full complementarity of expectations” are denied. It may well be the case that, forinstance, the significance of infantile scenes for adult behavior is accepted by theanalysand as he or she learns to play a designated role, but it hardly is likely thatthe analyst will concede, after talking with his or her patient, that Freud’s assump-tions about the overriding significance of infantile scenes were misplaced. The“transference” between analyst and analysand, in which the patient is expected tosee the therapist as playing the role of the original conflict-defined primary refer-ence person, permits the analyst to interpret the patient’s treatment of him or heras a repetition of those problematic relationships experienced in infancy. Again,the asymmetrical nature of the roles that “therapist” and “patient” must play isobvious. What accounts for this asymmetry, which inevitably must come into playduring the analytic encounter, is the presence of strategic action in which only theanalyst is permitted to engage.

In summary, it cap be noted that there is a significant gap between Habermas’s(1970a:2 17) description of a science tha t incorporates “methodical self-reflection”and his theoretical description of either transcendental reflection or situationallyengaged enlightenment. In concrete terms, the anti-positivistic concession that

Habermas makes to the requirements of the ideal speech situation is merely to



90 S Y M B O L I CINTERACTIONVol . 5 h o . 1/1982

reverse the rank ordering of importance of causal and hermeneutic understandingthat is taken for granted in modern societies. The analyst’s strategy must beratified by the analysand for the former’s theoretical interpretations to be treated asvalid. Thus, the causal explanations of the patient’s action that are imposed uponthe analysand are valid only insofar as the patient agrees that they have helped toclarify and expose previously inaccessible meaning. In short, the practical cognitiveinterest and not the technical cognitive interest is the dominant interest for bothanalysand and analyst. What the psychoanalytic encounter preserves of the outsideworld is the expectation that practical and technical domains be treated as mutuallyexclusive. The relationships among individuals that sustain a belief in “epistemologywithout a knowing subject” (part of the meta-language of positivism) demand thattechnical norms be external and objective for human subjects. And, because thesubjective nature of what are taken to be practical norms cannot be denied, a socie-

ty that institutionalizes positivistic thought must be capable of splitting technicalfrom practical norms.Habermas’s sociology is embedded in the communicative meta-structure of

modern society. Thus it should be of no great surprise that Habermas, as DominickLaCapra (1977:247) has pointed out:

. . . implicitly replicates the separation between [practical and technical domains] in hiso w ncategorical opposition and can conceiveof their relationship not in termsof a more creative inter-action but only in termsof hierarchy or dominat ion of the one by the other.

3. Individualizat ion an d Discursive Will-FormationAccording to Habermas, the reason why intellect and affect, thought and feeling,

are differentiated in modern society is because of the institutionalization of techni-cal norms which govern purposive-rational action toward some public goal, butwhich are not viewed by individuals as ends in themselves. Today such norms areconsidered essential for the resolution of societal “steering problems.” Habermas( I975a) argues that once taken-for-granted, non-generalizable practical norms areacknowledged to be one-sided and particularistic in scope, they are irreversibly dis-solved. Thus traditional norms that play an important role in the integration ofsocial systems are vulnerable to critique - specially the critique offered by the

emerging bourgeois class of the eighteenth century. Habermas justifies the argu-ment of “irreversibility” by reference to the premise, cited earlier in this paper, that“an ideal speech situation is necessarily implied in the structure of [all] potentialspeech.” Technical norms (governing, for example, the way in which individualsmay usefully manipulate their physical environment) can be justified universalistical-ly. Consequently according to Habermas, the displacement of practical norms andthe substitution of technical norms as the means to the integration of social systemsis an intrinsic part of the process of “modernization.” In advanced capitalist socialformations, affect and feeling (indeed praxis itself, which becomes increasinglyprivatized), is differentiated from a calculating generalizable intellect. Such acalculating intellect is never an end in itself but always a means to some higherpurpose.





92 SYMBOLIC INTERACTION Vol . 5 h o . 1/1982

of self-representation cannot be regarded as “rational” unless it can be translatedinto a public language of discourse. The ability to participate in discursive will-formation therefore requires on the part of the individual, first, the ability to dis-

tinguish between private (subjective) and public (objective) orientations and, second,the ability to recognize in principle that the norms of communicative rationality areexclusively public in character. Much the same can be said about the ability of anygiven individual to participate meaningfully in analysis. As we have seen, psycho-analysis deals with problems that result from individualized speech deformations.The analysand is expected to differentiate between private fantasy and public(discursively redeemable) truth. Thus the therapeutic impact of analysis is onlylikely to be experienced by individuals who have already been socialized into asociety that has differentiated affect from intellect.

I t is not surprising therefore that Habermas describes the ISC by formulatingtechnical norms that are presented by the intellect as the means to the ideal society.The norms of communicative competence (requiring truth, reflectivity, symmetry ofrole-expectations, etc.) are technical norms; they may themselves be justifiedmonologically and do not need to be justified communicatively. The ideal speechsituation is strikingly similar to the money form in that in both cases individualiza-tion is conterminous with the differentiation between thought and feeling. Therational calculation of individual culpability with respect to the competence of com-munications illustrates the way in which rationality is objectivistically measured out.Again, the “emancipatory” effect of the ideal speech situation could only beacknowledged by a society that had already split affect and intellect asunder andthat had severed systems of communicative interaction from the form of sociation

institutionalized in the medium of public discourse.The similarities between Habermas’s idea of communicative competence and the

Kantian notion of duty have already been noted above. Both duty and communica-tive competence are ultimately justifiable through the application of reason in pur-suit of generalizable interests. Although Habermas attempts to locate the idealspeech situation in the domain of praxis (as comprising action that is performed byindividuals for its own sake), the norms of communicative competence that he setsare technical in nature, as we have seen. The fixed goal is the construction and dis-covery of a general will. Habermas criticizes what he believes are the “monological”presuppositions of Kantian ethics and argues that the universality of Kantian ethical

principles is established “only through a kind of preestablished synchronization ofthe reflections of all rational beings” (McCarthy, 1978:326). In contrast to thisnotion of “preestablished synchronization,” Habermas argues that the generaliza-bility of a norm must be established dialogically in unrestricted and unconstraineddiscourse. Supposedly it is the ideal speech situation that permits a common orgeneral will to be formed and tested. However, in spite of the fact that Habermasaccuses Kant of conflating moral with strategic action, in his rational reconstructionof Kantian ethics, Habermas likewise implicitly acknowledges the splitting of affectfrom intellect, and takes it for granted that technical norms are the only possiblecontemporary solution to the problem of the relationship between increasinglyabstract individuals and society itself. Such an assumption, as we have seen, makesthe construction of the general will largely a matter of technical calculation.



Habermas and Communicative Rationalization 93

According to Habermas (1973a: 150- 15 ) , Kant expels moral action frommorality:

Th e [K antian] moral laws are abstrac tly universal in the sense that , as theyare valid as universalfo r m e, eo ips0 they must also be consideredas valid for all rational beings. Therefore, undersuch laws, interaction is dissolved into the actions of solitary and self-sufficient subjects, each ofwhich must a ct as though it were thesole existing consciousness;a t the same t ime, each subjectcan still have the certainty that all its actions under moral lawswill necessarily and from theout-set be in harmony with the moral actions of all possible other subjects.

It is difficult to understand, however, w hy Habermas’s claim that morally bindingnorms are grounded by what each individual can will in agreement to be a universalnorm is fundamentally different from the Kantian claim that morally binding normsar e grounded by what each individual can will without contradiction to be a generallaw. In both instances, the displacement of practical norms and the substitution oftechnical norms as the means to the integration of social systems that are viewedobjectivistically is obvious. As McCarthy (1978:326) points out, according toHabermas, “[a] rational will is not something that can be certified privat im”;however, given that morally binding norms are seen by Habermas as the output of acommunicative discourse that compels the individual to use objectivistic norms, itseems entirely specious to claim that while Kantian ethics presuppose monologicalcalculation, communicative competence requires dialogical interaction. Objectivisticnorms confront individuals as fixed means to set goals-they do not need to bejustified communicatively.

In a discussion of the work of the Frankfurt School, Habermas acknowledges that

“an autonomous ego and an emancipated society reciprocally require one another”(Z ur Rekonst rukt ion des His tor ischen Mater ial ismus, trans. & quo. by McCarthy1978:333). What Habermas means here by “an emancipated society,” of course,is a society that has succumbed to situationally engaged enlightenment. In a post-script to Knowledge and Human Interests , Habermas( l973b : 176) makes a startlingadmission:

Compared with the technical and practical interests in knowledge whichare both grounded indeeply-rooted (invariant?) structures of action and exp erience- tha t is in the constitutive elementsof social systems- the ern an c ip a to ry in te res t in knowledge has a derivative status. It guaranteesthe connection between theoretical knowledge and an “object domain” of practical life which

comes into existence as the result ofa systematically distorted communication and thinly legiti-mated repression. The type of action and experience correspondingto this object domain is,therefore, also d erivative.

Habermas’s ideal speech situation is thus just as much as a by-product of moderniza-tion as are positivistic modes of “objectivistic misunderstanding.” Consequently,many of Habermas’s critics (e.g., Ahlers 1975) have been quite wrong in portrayingthe conditions of ideal speech as the replication in contemporary society of theconditions for a disembodied theoria. Habermas might indeed be correct in assert-ing that the idea of rational speech is found in the fundamental structure of linguis-tic action, but the nature of this rationality is entirely contingent upon the meaning



94 SYMBOLIC INTERACTION Vol. 5 / N o . 1/1982

of the meta-language that is comprised by the type of relationship that exists amongspeakers.

The most obvious result of Habermas’s acceptance of the differentiation oftechnical and practical norms - nd of his acknowledgement of the special functionthat the former have as the means to system integration in advanced capitalistsocieties - s his inability to integrate the domains of work and language. Theschism between purposive-rational action and communicative interaction can beobserved not only in capitalist societies, but also in socialist societies. In both theUnited States and the Soviet Union, for example, there is no question but that theproblem of the distribution of scarce resources is not resolved by discursive will-formation. ( N o r is there any reason to believe that such a resolution to such a prob-lem is likely to occur at any foreseeable point in the future.) Habermas’s situational-ly engaged enlightenment, as is evident in Habermas’s discussion of psychoanalytic

methodology, is capable of inverting the priority that is given to work over lan-guage as the predominant means of system integration fo r modern societies. But itis not capable of integrating work and language and uniting what has commonlybecome a differentiated mode of self-realization. Habermas’s emancipatory reasonis indeed derivative of a society that locates its meta-language of discourse in therelationships among individuals who must all learn to calculate, rationalistically, theeffects of those semantic tokens which are used today in what has come to pass forpublic debate.

NOTEI , Unless otherwise indicated. all references ar e to Haberm as’s work

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David Ashley, Jürgen Habermas and the Rationalization of Communicative Interaction

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