Social Pathology and ‘Postmetaphysical Thinking’

Robert Farrow6th International Critical Theory Conference, The John Felice Rome Center of Loyola University Chicago in Rome

Main claims of this presentation• The notion of ‘social pathology’ is undertheorised in the Frankfurt

tradition• We must either be realists about social pathologies or critical theory is

not methodologically distinct• To be realists about social pathologies we require a social teleology• Such a teleology cannot be provided within the remit of

‘postmetaphysical thinking’ without making room for a particular kind of philosophical judgement

Structure• I. The role of social pathology in contemporary critical theory• II. Analysis of the concept• III. Postmetaphysical Teleology• IV. Judgements about the Teleological/Pathological

I. Social Pathology in Critical Theory• Methodological construct used by Frankfurt School• NB. Phrase rarely (if ever) used by first generation• Distinct from ethical, social, political criticism• Draws together sociological and philosophical aspects

Habermas (1984:333)

Typology of Social Pathologies  Culture Society Person  

Cultural Reproduction

Loss of Meaning

Withdrawal of Legitimation

Crisis in Orientation and

Education

Rationality of Knowledge

Social Integration

Unsettling of Collective Identity

Anomie AlienationSolidarity of

Members

SocializationRupture of Tradition

Withdrawal of Motivation

Psychopathologies

Personal Responsibility

Habermas (1987:143)

Mode of recognition emotional support cognitive respect social esteem

Dimension of Personality needs and emotions moral responsibility traits and abilities

Forms of recognitionprimary relationships (love, friendship)

legal relations (rights)community of values (solidarity)

Developmental potential -generalization, de-formalization

individualization, equalization

Practical relation-to-self basic self confidence self-respect self-esteem

Forms of disrespect abuse and rape denial of rights, exclusion denigration, insult

Threatened component of personality

physical integrity social integrity ‘honour’, dignity

The structure of relations of recognition (Honneth, 1996:129)

“Capitalism is to be understood as a pathology, and not merely social injustice”

Honneth (2007:14)

“The historical past should be understood as a process of development whose pathological deformation by capitalism may be overcome”

Honneth (1996:337)

II. Analysis of the concept• Social pathology as metaphor

– C19th Sociology– Historically rooted in ‘body politic’ (C. 14-15th)– An (incredibly) brief historical survey

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Avis aus roys. France, probably Paris, 1347-1350.

The Open University's Institute of Educational TechnologyHobbes, Leviathan (1651)

“For if Government is, so to speak, the outward SKIN of the Body Politic, holding the whole together and protecting it; and all your Craft-Guilds, and Associations for Industry, of hand or of head, are the Fleshly Clothes, the muscular and osseous Tissues (lying under such SKIN), hereby Society stands and works;--then is Religion the inmost Pericardial and Nervous Tissue, which ministers Life and warm Circulation to the whole. Without which Pericardial Tissue the Bones and Muscles (of Industry) were inert, or animated only by a Galvanic vitality; the SKIN would become a shrivelled pelt, or fast-rotting rawhide; and Society itself a dead carcass,--deserving to be buried.”

Thomas Carlyle (1836) Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh, Bk. 3, Ch.2.

Sociologists who refer to ‘social pathologies’

Bird (1862); Smith (1911); Queen (1925); Day (1934); Schuman (1936); Wooton (1963); Rosenberg et al. (1964); Pietrowski (2006); and Henry (2008).

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Things to note about medical analogy

1. Pathologists are realists about pathologies

2. Teleology is an essential part of the process

3. Collapse of fact/value distinction

II. Analysis of the concept• Medical analogy

– Realism about pathology– Teleology as essential feature

• Realism about social pathologies means that they are not simply theoretical tools or metaphors

Either…

1.‘Social pathology’ is a useful fiction but as a result critical theory is not distinct from other forms of social critique

or

2.Critical theorists are obliged to be realists about social pathologies

III. Postmetaphysical Teleology

• Aristotle: metaphysical biology• Objections• Scepticism of neo-Aristotelians

“[MacIntyre] gets into problems with his recourse to the Aristotelian concept of praxis as soon as he attempts to extract a universal core from the unavoidable pluralism of equally legitimate forms of life which is typical of modernity. Where does he derive [the] metaphysical pre-eminence of the polis as the model form of life, where human beings [can] realize the telos of the good life? [In] modernity, the plurality of individual life-projects and collective life forms cannot be prejudged philosophically...”

Habermas (interview) in Dews (ed.) (1992:348)[my emphasis]

III. Postmetaphysical Teleology

• Postmetaphysical paradigm (Habermas)– Communicative rationality– Fallibilism– Historicization, situatedness– Pragmatism– Proceduralism

Habermas: ‘Species Ethics’

“Where we lack compelling moral reasons we have to let ourselves be guided by the signposts set up by the ethics of the species.” (Habermas, 2003:71)

•Subversion of procedural/communicative rationality

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Honneth: Recognition & Ethical Life

• Three forms of recognition / misrecognition• Love / Abuse• Respect / Denial of Rights• Esteem / Denigration

• The ‘Neo-Nazi’ objection

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IV. (Philosophical) Judgements about the good

• Habermas (1982) says of judgments of natural purpose: “such attempts would have to lead back to metaphysics, and this behind the levels of learning reached in the modern age into a reenchanted world.”

• McCarthy: defence of judgements about natural good • Kant’s defence of teleology in Critique of Judgement

• A Caveat

Summary• There is a tension between two commitments in contemporary

critical theory • Realism about social pathologies• ‘Postmetaphysical’ thinking

• One could reject the idea that we need such realism• Another way out of the problem is to defend a particular kind of

philosophical judgments about the social good which would require a reinvigorated naturalism

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“Reason cannot become transparent to itself as long as men act as members of an organism which lacks reason. Organism as a naturally developing and declining unity cannot be a sort of model for society, but only a form of deadened existence from which society must emancipate itself.”

Max Horkheimer, “Traditional and Critical Theory”

rob.farrow@open.ac.ukThe Open UniversityWalton HallMilton KeynesMK7 6AA

www.open.ac.uk/iethttp://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/openminded/

philosopher1978

References• Aristotle (1946) Politics. Translated by Ernest Barker. Oxford: Oxford University Press.• Bird, John. Contributions to Social Pathology. London: Ward and Lock, 1862.• Carlyle, T. (1896) Sartor Resartus. Boston, Mass.: Ginn and Company• Day, Herbert Lamson, Social Pathology in China. Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1934.• Dews, P. (ed.) (1994) Habermas: Autonomy and Solidarity. London: Verso• Foot, P. (1978) Virtues and Vices. Berkeley: University of California Press.• Fraser, N., and Honneth, A. (2003) Redistribution or Recognition? A Political-Philosophical

Exchange. Translated by Joel Golb, James Ingram and Christiane Wilke. London and New York: Verso.

• Freundlieb, Dieter (2000). “Rethinking Critical Theory: Weaknesses and New Directions” in Constellations 7, no. 1. 80-99.

• Habermas, J. (1982) “A Reply to My Critics” in Habermas: Critical Debates, edited by J. B. Thomson and D. Held, 218-83. London: Macmillan

• Habermas, J. (1984) The Theory of Communicative Action Vol. 1: Reason and the Rationalization of Society. Cambridge: Polity Press.

References• Habermas, J. (1987) The Theory of Communicative Action Vol. 2: Lifeworld and System: A

Critique of Functionalist Reason. Cambridge: Polity Press.• Habermas, J. (2003) The Future of Human Nature. Oxford: Polity Press• Henry, Sally. Bullying as a Social Pathology: A Peer Group Analysis. Lampeter: Edwin Mellen

Press, 2008• Hobbes, T. (1651) Leviathan. Oxford : Clarendon Press• Honneth, A. (1994) “The Social Dynamics of Disrespect: Situating Critical Theory Today” in

Habermas: A Critical Reader, edited by Peter Dews, pp.320-37. Oxford: Blackwell.• Honneth, A. (1999) “Pathologies of the Social: The Past and Present of Social Philosophy” in The

Handbook of Critical Theory, edited by David Rasmussen, Oxford: Blackwell. 369-398• Honneth, A. (2004) “A Social Pathology of Reason” in The Cambridge Companion to Critical

Theory, edited by Fred Rush. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 336-60• Honneth, A. (2007) Disrespect: The Normative Foundations of Critical Theory. Cambridge: Polity

Press.• Honneth, A. (2009) Pathologies of Reason: On the Legacy of Critical Theory. Translated by James

Ingram et al. New York: Columbia University Press

References• Horkheimer, M. (1936) “Traditional and Critical Theory” in Critical Theory, edited by M. J. O'Connell.

New York: Herder & Herder 188-214• Hurtshouse, R. (1987) Beginning Lives. Oxford: Blackwell.• Kant, I. (1987) Critique of Judgement. Translated by Werner S. Pluhar. Indianapolis & Cambridge:

Hackett Publishing Company.• Kant, I. (1929(Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Norman Kemp Smith. London: Macmillan• MacIntyre, A. (1982) After Virtue. London: Duckworth.• McCarthy, T. (1991) Ideals and Illusions: On Reconstruction and Deconstruction in Contemporary

Critical Theory. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press• Queen, Stuart Alfred. Social Pathology. New York: T. Y. Crowell, 1925.• Rosenberg, Bernard, and et al. Mass Society in Crisis: Social Problems and Social Pathology.

London: Collier-Macmillan, 1964.• Schuman, Frederick L. Hitler and the Nazi Dictatorship: a study of social pathology and the politics

of fascism. s.l. : Robert Hale and Co, 1936.

References• Horkheimer, M. (1936) “Traditional and Critical Theory” in Critical Theory, edited by M. J. O'Connell.

New York: Herder & Herder 188-214• Hurtshouse, R. (1987) Beginning Lives. Oxford: Blackwell.• Kant, I. (1987) Critique of Judgement. Translated by Werner S. Pluhar. Indianapolis & Cambridge:

Hackett Publishing Company.• Kant, I. (1929(Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Norman Kemp Smith. London: Macmillan• MacIntyre, A. (1982) After Virtue. London: Duckworth.• McCarthy, T. (1991) Ideals and Illusions: On Reconstruction and Deconstruction in Contemporary

Critical Theory. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press• Queen, Stuart Alfred. Social Pathology. New York: T. Y. Crowell, 1925.• Rosenberg, Bernard, and et al. Mass Society in Crisis: Social Problems and Social Pathology.

London: Collier-Macmillan, 1964.• Schuman, Frederick L. Hitler and the Nazi Dictatorship: a study of social pathology and the politics

of fascism. s.l. : Robert Hale and Co, 1936.

References• Smith, Samuel George. Social Pathology. New York: Macmillan, 1911.• Wootton, Barbara. Social Science and Social Pathology. s.l.: Allen and Unwin, 1963.• Zurn, C. (2000) “Anthropology and Normativity: A Critique of Axel Honneth’s ‘Formal Conception of

an Ethical Life’” in Philosophy and Social Criticism 26, no. 1 (2000): 115-24.