A Critique of Habermas' Theory of Practical Rationality

DISCUSSION

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As to the theory of rationality, however, the most relevant method- ological issue is to be found in Habermas' notion of critique. Critique is an attempt at self-reflection and self-consciousness by the subject.~ It aims at emancipation from the bondage of the unconscious and the irrational. Critique is a program of depth-hermeneutics, a discovery of unconscious meanings in a situation of distorted and dominated communication. In other words, critique attempts to destroy alienation and reification.17 Critique is best characterized by a unique relation between knowledge and interest. Reason is always an interested reason. But while in the natural sciences reason is interested in control and domination, in critical knowledge reason is interested in reason itself. Critique is defined as the unity of reason and interest} 8 Habermas' notion of practical rationality is the ultimate realization of critique. Reason's search for rationality is realized in democracy and conscious construction of social reality by human subjects. (3) The third systematic argument for Habermas' theory of ration- ality can be found in his theory of language and communication. The emphasis on symbol and sign as the model of social action and social reality is common to both structuralists and hermeneutic-historicists. But while structuralists emphasize the unconscious structures of language] 9 historicists, on the other hand, insist upon the reflexive and intentional aspects of speech acts.z° Habermasian theory of the "universal prag- matic" is a theory of the formal a priori structures of speech acts. According to Habermas, the universal pragmatic as a reconstructive knowledge is different from linguistics. The formal and universal presuppositions of an utterance are different from the universal presup- positions of sentence structures. Habermas maintains that a sentence is placed in relation to: (1) the external reality of what is supposed to be an existing state of affairs: (2) the internal reality of what a speaker would like to express before an audience of his/her intention, and; (3) the normative reality of what is intersubjectively recognized as a legitimate interpersonal relationship. It is thereby placed under validity claims that it need not and cannot fulfill as a non-situated sentence, as a purely grammatical formation. In addition to comprehensibility, Habermas notes, a successful utterance must satisfy three more validity claims: it must count as true for the participants insofar as it repre- sents something in the world; it must count as truthful insofar as it