1.6 - Unknown - David Ingram's 'Habermas and the Dialectic of Reason' (en)

7/30/2019 1.6 - Unknown - David Ingram's 'Habermas and the Dialectic of Reason' (en)

1/9

The following ad supports maintaining our C.E.E.O.L. service

David Ingram's "Habermas and the Dialectic of Reason"

David Ingram's "Habermas and the Dialectic of Reason"

by NO AUTHOR SPECIFIED

Source:

PRAXIS International (PRAXIS International), issue: 1 / 1988, pages: 91-98, on www.ceeol.com.
http://www.ceeol.com/http://www.ceeol.com/


2/9

HABERMAS, ART AND AESTHETIC REFLECTIONINGRAM'S "HABERMAS AND THEDIALECTIC OF REASON"

Georgia WarnkeDavid Ingram's Habermas and the Dialectic of Reason,l has two aims: itseeks both to elucidate Habermas's Theory of Communicative Action2 and toindicate the way in which later essays develop and revise its view. Ingramargues that The Theory of Communicative Action begins to articulate aconception of rationality that is no longer simply communicative but aestheticas well. Moreover, he claims that this conception cannot be adequately

articulated by a "formal notion of procedural justice'; since it implies instead"an intuitive integration and dialectical harmonizing of substantive values".3While The Theory ofCommunicative Action distinguishes the logic of aestheticcriticism from that of other types of analysis, more recent essays including"Modernity versus Postrnodernity"4 and "Questions and Counterquestions"Ssuggest an aesthetic form of rationality that cuts acras such rigorous divisons.In addition, Habermas now allows for an "aesthetic restructuring of socialreality"6 and thereby closes the gap he originally opened up between reflectionand lived experience.7 Indeed, Ingram argues that the aesthetic domainachieves a "unity of reason": It shows "what no form of ideal speech possiblycould show - namely, complete realization of a life of freedom and happinessat the level of individual and collective life.,,8 In this review, I would like toraise some questions both about Habermas's views on art and aestheticreflection and about Ingram's own analysis. I shall begin by exploringHabermas's account of aesthetic criticism.The Theory ofCommunicative Action begins by distinguishing four forms ofargumentation; theoretical d i s c o u r ~ e , practical discourse, aesthetic criticismand therapeutic critique. The thread uniting these four structures of argumentis a concern with rational justification. Habermas contends that the concept ofrationality must be conceived of widely enough to include not only the abilityto defend descriptive statements and not only the ability to act in instrumentally effective ways with regard to states of affairs. It must also encompassthe ability to defend actions or norms of action, to show the sincerity of one'spersonal expressions and to indicate the intelligibility of one's evaluativeinterpretations. The common feature of theoretical and practical discourse,therapeutic critique and aesthetic criticism is thus that each is involved in thejustification of criticizable validity claims. We are concerned either with thetruth of descriptive statements, the rightness of actions and norms of action,the truthfulness of expressions of feeling and desire, or the adequacy ofvalues. As Habermas concludes:

. . . actions regulated by norms, expressive self-presentations and also evaluative expressions supplement constative speech acts in constituting a communica-PraxisInternational 8: 1April 1988 0260-8448$2.00


3/9

92 Praxis Internationaltive practice which, against the background of a life world, is oriented toachieving, sustaining, and renewing consensus - and indeed a consensus thatrests on the intersubjective recognition of criticizable validity claims. Therationality inherent in this practice is seen in the fact that a communicativelyachieved agreement must be based in the end on reasons. And the rationality ofthose who participate in this communicative practice is determined by whether,if necessary they could, under suitable circumstances, provide reasons for theirexpressions. 9Despite this common appeal to argumentation as the means of decidingcontroversial claims, Habermas is careful to distinguish the various structureshe differentiates not only in terms of the particular validity claim at issue, but

in terms of the scope of the justification. It is crucial to the force of reasonsgiven in justifying claims to truth and normative rightness that such reasonsare reasons for everyone. Implicit in the defense of the truth of a proposition isthe idea that were everyone to suspend all motives other than the cooperativesearch for truth, the proposition would gain universal assent. Similarly,reasons that justify norms of action are supposed to be reasons acceptable toall affected in practical discourse. As Ingram puts this claim: "It would beirrational for me to believe that I ought to perform some act while notbelieving, ceteris paribus, that anyone ,else in a similar situation ought toperform it also."10 Neither therapeutic critique nor aesthetic criticism possesses the some universal scope. Defending one's sincerity has more to do withthe way one acts than with any discursive grounding and is therefore restrictedto the specificity of what one claims about oneself and how one behaves.Cultural values are similarly specific and, as Habermas writes "can be madeplausible only in the context of a particular form of life. Il We can justify orshow the intelligibility of a person's desire for a saucer of mud by finding areason for it - in this case, by connecting it to the enjoyment of a "rich riversmell". 12 But, despite its plausibility to us, we can ascribe no universality toit. The task of aesthetic criticism, like that of theoretical and practicaldiscourse, is to clarify grounds. What has to be grounded, here, however, aretastes and attitudes and they can be made intelligible only by showing howthey can be made sense of in light of culturally established standards of value.The standards of value that allow us to appreciate these tastes and attitudescannot move us to attribute any universal status to them.But cultural values have a peculiar status in Habermas's scheme. If, on theone hand, they cannot be unimperialistically universalized, on the other, theyseem to determine cultural critera of evaluative rationality. Habermas writes;"Anyone who is so privatistic in his attitudes and evaluations that they cannotbe explained and rendered plausible by appeal to standards of evaluation is notbehaving rationally."13 This claim seems dubious. Why should someonewhose tastes are not those of his or her culture, or cannot be made plausiblewithin a form of life be, for that reason, evaluatively irrational? Habermaswrites that "Someone who explains his libidinous reaction to rotten apples byreferring to the "infatuating," "unfathomable," "vertiginous" smell ... willscarcely meet with understanding in the everyday contexts ofmost cultures"14

but, examples aside, why should the ability to meet with understanding in

AccessviaCEEOL NL Germany


4/9

Praxis International 93everyday contexts be any test of rationality? It may be that the notion ofirrationality can be legitimately extended from theoretical contradiction topractical contradiction and insincerity; but it is not clear that it can alsoinclude a failure to comply with cultural values. The very consideration thatthey are cultural values would seem to confirm their non-obligatory characterand therefore to imply that one who denies their force is not, on these groundsalone, irrational.Habermas admits that private evaluations which are distinguished by their

"authentic expression" may have "an innovative character" and points toworks of art as an example. The point here is that works of art can encourage aculture to adopt new standards of value by teaching it to appreciate what atfirst appear as idiosyncratic tastes and attitudes. Since aesthetic criticism is theform of argumentation that teaches us to appreciate works of art, it wouldseem that it , too, can encourage the acceptance of initially unintelligibleattitudes or ostensibly irrational tastes. According to this dimension ofHabermas's analysis, then, the function of aesthetic criticism goes beyond thatimplied above, of simply finding the culturally established standards underwhich tastes and attitiudes become intelligible. The function of aestheticcriticism is also to aid in the cultural adoption of new tastes and attitudes bycasting a new light on what first appears as representatives of idiosyncraticideas. Habermas argues that "in aesthetic criticism grounds or reasons serve toguide perception and to make the authenticity of a work so evident that thisaesthetic experience can become a rational motive for accepting the coresponding standards of value."lS Aesthetic criticism thus brings us to an aestheticexperience through which we can recognize the value of a work of art and, inrecognizing its value, accept the standards of value it represents. This impliesthat we can learn to accept the rationality of values that are not yet culturallyrecognized.It appears, then, that Habermas has two different notions of aestheticcriticism. According to one idea, it is an entirely localized form of reflection. Itappeals to what Habermas refers to as a community's preunderstanding - inother words, to values that already are either explicitly recognized orimplicitly appreciated within a culture; and shows how and which contoversialvalues, tastes, att itudes can be comprehended by it. Habermas goes so far asto insist that this cultural preunderstanding is not at the "disposal" ofparticipants in an argument. Thus, whereas practical discourse allow participants to examine their ethical presuppositions and to criticize norms,aesthetic critique rests on cultural presuppositions it cannot explore. According to Habermas's second idea of aesthetic criticism, however, the reflection itencourages has greater force. In coming to appreciate a work of art, we cometo understand its aesthetic value. But this means both that we come to see thework of art in a new way and that we change our cultural standards of value toaccommodate our new perception. Art is or can be innovative and aestheticcriticism is the reflective medium that allows us to change standards of valuethat are not sufficiently broad. On this reading, the difference betweenpractical discourse and aesthetic critique is not that the latter is restricted toculturally established standards of value. It is rather that aesthetic arguments


5/9

94 Praxis Internationalcan never require us to change our view; they can only encourage us to seethings in a different way and hope that we will thereby form differentconclusions.This second reading of The Theory ofCommunicative Action may come closerto Habermas's more considered view of the point of reflection on evaluativeclaims; nonetheless, the distinction he establishes between practical discourseand aesthetic criticism remains somewhat undeveloped in another respect aswell. As Ingram reads him, Habermas seems to accept the claim that a reasonmorally justifying my action is a moral reason for anyone to act in the sameway under similar circumstances. But surely if I am a pregnant, unmarriedfourteen year-old who decides to have an abortion, I am not irrational inbelieving that another unmarried, pregnant fourteen year-old could rationallydecide to act differently. Even if we assume similar circumstances in terms offinances, family situation and so on, the decision to have or not to have anabortion is not one we seem to want to legislate universally. It might be arguedthat Ingram has simply misunderstood Habermas here since the level at whichhe talks about universalization involves practical discourse over more generalnorms. To use the example above, a concern of the discourse might bewhether the question of abortion ought to be legislated universally or whether,instead, it might be seen as a question of legitimate differences in culturalvalues. In this second case, however, Habermas's analysis of culture valuesand evaluative claims would seem to introduce an alternative he does notthoroughly explore. The Kantian claim about universalization in ethics is thatuniversalizing action maxims serves as a test of their moral validity. ButHabermas interposes a third option: non-universalizable maxims may indicatenot the immorality of the proposed action but rather its entanglement withcultural values. Despite his differentation of forms of argumentation in theTheory ofCommunicative Action, Habermas does not pursue this analysis. Forhis part, Ingram seems to accept a Kantian view of the universalism implicit inpractical argumentation, as indicated in the statement cited earlier. Preciselyfor this reason, he understands the importance of Habermas's more recentwork in terms of the way it suggests new, aesthetically based options foradjudicating normative claims. Still, it is not clear to me either that this workdoes support Ingram's claims about aesthetic reflection or that the connectionhe suggests between aesthetic au.d moral reflection can be defended.Habermas's more recent work clearly goes beyond The Theory of Commu-nicative Action's ambivalence as to whether aesthetic experience and thecriticism that encourages it can offer insight into standards of value. He nowargues straightforwardly that art can affect not only values but "our cognitiveinterpretations", "our normative expectations" and "the manner in which allthese moments refer to one another". This statement is from "Modernityversus Postmodernity"lO but Habermas makes the same point in his responseto Martin Jay in "Questions and Counterquestions" and draws on importantconsequences from it. If aesthetic experience changes the way in whichdescription, action and evaluation are related to one another, then The Theoryof Communicative Action may have been mistaken in identifying the "truth-


6/9

Praxis International 95The one to one relationship which exists between the prescriptive validity of anorm and the normative validity claim raised in regulative speech acts is not aproper model for the relation between the potential for truth ofworks of art andthe transformed relations between self and world stimulated by aestheticexperience. 17In other words, whereas the adjudication of normative claims affects only thequestion of their prescriptive validity and hence can alter only the way inwhich individuals relate to moral obligations, the adjudication of aestheticclaims, by encouraging a certain aesthetic experience affects the way in whichindividuals relate to cognitive, moral and aesthetic worlds. Hence, the claimof a work of art must itself be seen as a complicated one: In it, truth,truthfulness and normative correctness are "metaphorically interlaced" in a

way that Habermas explains by quoting AlbrechWellmer: "The work of art asa symbolic formation with an aesthetic validity claim is at the same time anobject of the life world experience in which the three validity domains areunmetaphorically intermeshed. "18This explanation mayor may not be helpful. My concern, however, iswhether it reflects the "unity of reason" that Ingram claims for aestheticreflection. The Theory ofCommunicative Action follows Weber in conceiving ofthe process of modernization in the West in terms of the growth of theautonomous "value-spheres" of science, art and morality according to thedifferentiation of cognitive, expressive, and normative elements of culture.For Weber, this process culminates in the hegemony of a purposive-rationalsystem of action and the consequent subjectivization of substantive worldviews. Impersonal economic and bureaucratic forces incarcerate the individual and no totalizing rational conception exists that could aid in theretrieval of meaning. But Habermas explicitly denies that the attempt toreestablish a unity of reason can go back behind the level reached by thisprocess. Rather it must be "secured at the formal level of the argumentativeredemption of validity claims" and what is needed, therefore, is a "pragmaticlogic of argumentation that satisfactorily captures internal connectionsbetween forms of speech-acts". 19 However, given Habermas's admission that"arguments play different roles with different degrees of discursively bindingforce", Ingram denies that this recommendation carries much weight.20 In hisview, later essays and, particularly, the claim about art's intermeshing ofvalidity claims signal a more convincing concept of rational harmony.But I am not sure I see the development to which Ingram points here.Habermas responds to questions Martin Jay raises about his account ofaesthetics by admitting the way in which the aesthetic criticism ofworks ofartcan affect the adjudication of cognitive and normative as well as expressiveand evaluative claims. But from this argument it does not seem to follow thathe considers aesthetic criticism the only necessary form of adjudication. Evenif our aesthetic experiences reach into our cognitive interpretations andnormative expectations, theoretical and practical discourse do not necessarilyreduce to aesthetic discussion. If the way we respond to a work of art changesthe way we relate to cognitive interpretations and normative expectations, it


7/9

96 Praxis Internationalmay still be rationally incumbent upon us to justify our new cognitive andmoral claims and to do so, as Habermas contends, through discursivejustification. From this perspective, Ingram's emphasis on the aesthetic seemsto conflate the experiental level at which we act and understand with thereflective level at which we try to justify action and interpretation.Of course, much of Ingram's book is devoted to questioning just thisseparation of reflection and experience. Indeed, in his view, this is the value ofinsight into an aesthetic form of rationality since aesthetic experience alreadyincludes reflection. We saw that the function of aesthetic criticism is to bringus to see a work of art in a certain way and thus to accept its standards ofvalue. But this ability finally to see something in the way the criticism suggestshas the same force, if not the same scope, that discursive justification has intheoretical and practical spheres. When we understand a work of art preciselywhat this means is that we experience it and what it represents in a certainway. Understanding and experience are therefore identical, But if understanding and seeing, reflection and experience coincide in the encounter withworks of art, what implications does this have for practical and theoreticalreflection? Ingram's argument seems to be the following: Habermas admitsthat aesthetic experience can have consequences for our theoretical andpractical views. He also contends that aesthetic criticism is more an attempt tofoster a certain experience than to formulate the soundest position. Thereflective level of aesthetic criticism is thus directly related to experience andthe experience, in turn, directly related to theoretical and practical reflection.Still, the question remains as to whether this is all there is to theoretical andpractical reflection, whether we can justify our "cognitive interpretations" and"normative expectations" simply by insisting on the way we see or experiencethe issues.The two problems I have briefly explored in this paper are (a) whether themaxims for all moral actions are universalizable and (b) whether, even if theyare not, moral justificiation can be assimilated to aesthetic criticism. Ingram'sconcern is the opposite: namely, whether practical reflection can be assimilated to normative argumentation. In his view, the importance of emphasizingaesthetics is to show the extent to which it cannot be and he faults Habermasfor failing to complete his own insights on this issue. As he sees it, Habermas'serror here is connected to his assumption that no rationalizable aestheticattitude toward social reality is possible. This is a problem with The Theory ofCommunicative Action that Thomas McCarthy has also noted. 21 Habermasargues that the development of a decentered consciousness in the modern agepermits different basic attitudes - objectivating, norm-conformative andexpressive - toward different formally conceived worlds, namely, theobjective, the social and the subjective. If the three basic attitudes areconnected to the three formal world concepts, nine "formal-pragmaticrelations" result between agents and these worlds. Habermas contends thatonly six of the relations allow for the accumulation of knowledge and aretherefore rationalizable. These he organizes into three complexes of rationality. A cognitive-instrumental complex results from the objectivating attitudedirected at objective and social worlds and issues in the social action system of


8/9

Praxis International 97science and technology. A moral-practical complex results from the normconformative attitude directed at social and subjective worlds and issues in theaction system of law and morality. Finally an aesthetic-practical complexissues from the expressive attitude directed at subjective and objective worldsand issues in the action system of eroticism and art. The implication of thisscheme that worries Ingram is that no rationalizable action system or provincefor the accumulation of knowledge is projected for an expressive attitudetoward the social world.McCarthy's argument is that such an attitude is no more or less rationalizable than the expressive attitude toward our subjective world, an attitude therationalizability of which Habermas explains in terms of an authenticinterpretation of needs. But if an expressive attitude toward subjectivityallows for the accumulation ofknowledge in these terms, why cannot the samebe said for an expressive attitude toward society: namely, that it involves theauthentic interpretation of social needs or, as McCarthy puts it, an understanding of society from the perspective of social ideas of the "good"? Henotes that Habermas seems to recognize this possibility in other contexts,specifically in his essay on WaIter Benjamin in which he endorses Benjamin'semphasis on happiness and self-fulfillment. But whereas McCarthy understands such on expressive view of society from the standpoint of the "good" asa complement to the view of it from the normative standpoint of the "right",Ingram demands that the aesthetic view be made part of practical rationalityitself. As he writes:If the aesthetic attitude in social life is . . . proclaimed to be irrational from apractical standpoint or to be merely a function of subjective expression, theprovince of practical reason would appear to be reduced to that of moralargumentation. If, however, the aesthetic element in practical life is deemed tobe an essential part of practical reason, then the concept of rationality wouldhave to be to be expanded to include an intuitive element of taste.22Ingram does not indicate what form this expansion should take. But thisfailure seems to me to be problematic since it remains unclear what the properrelation is between, on the one hand, the justification of actions and norms ofaction in practical discourse and, on the other, their justification throughtaste. If aesthetic criticism can bring us to see or experience an action in acertain way, does this mean, as it does in the case of art works, that no furtherjustification is necessary? If, to the contrary, we must not only see the actionin a certain way but give reasons in support of it, what is the role of taste? If

actions are to be defended against criticism by bringing interlocutors toexperience them in a certain way, must not both agents and interlocutors beon more or less the right path from the start? Ingram's basic point is theAristotelian one that practical reason involves more than knowing ethicalprecepts or norms of action; it also require judgement: properly understanding concrete situations of action so that one knows how to act. But Aristotlealso insists on the necessity of being brought up in the right culture so that onecan learn to experience situations in the right way. Ingram does not explorethis dimension of an intuitively based practical reason, but the reference toAristotle suggests the necessity of some such parameters for our tastes.


9/9

98 Praxis InternationalIt should also be noted that Habermas does not deny the contextualmoment of practical reason. In answer to McCarthy he argues that althoughthe abstraction of deontological ethics offers a solution to the problem ofjustification, it offers no answer to questions of how justified norms of action

are to be applied to situations of action or internalized as moral motivations.Still, he argues that "this necessary disregard for the complexity of concreteforms of life" is compensated for by the gain effected by "the transformationof questions of the good life into problems of justice". One could argue thatthis statement begs the question since Ingram's view seems to be that a regardfor the complexity of concrete forms of life remains the most crucial part ofpractical reflection. But then one also has to admit that bringing an intuitivemoment of taste to moral argumentation begs the question as well. Habermasargues that something is won in abstracting the questions ofmoral motivationand intuitive insight. Indeed, he suggests that something is won in rigorouslydistinguishing questions of morality from those of culture. Ingram seems toargue that these claims are overplayed. I do not necessarily disagree with himbut I think more has to be said about what aesthetic reflection involves andhow good taste and judgement are to be assessed.NOTES

1. Ingram, David, Habennas and The Dialectic ofReason, (Yale University Press, New Haven, 1986)2. Habermas, Jiirgen, The Theory of Communicative Action vol. 1 Reason and the Rationalization ofSociety, trans. Thomas McCarthy (Beacon Press, Boston 1984)3. HDR p. xii4. Habermas, Jiirgen, "Modernity versus Postmodernity", trans. Seyla Benhabib in New GermanCritique, 22 (1981)5. Habermas, Jiirgen, "Questions and Counterquestions" in Habermas and Modernity ed. RichardBernstein (MIT Press, Cambridge, 1985)6. HDR,p.587. HDR p. xii8. HDR p. 1849. TCA p. 1710. HDR p. 2111. TCA p. 4212. TCA p. 1613. TeA p. 1714. TCA p. 1715. TCA p. 2016. op. cit., p.1217. Questions and Counterquestions, op. cit.p15, p.20318. Ibid, p. 20319. TCA p. 24920. HDRp.5421. See "Reflections on Rationality in The Theory of Communicative Action" in Habermas andModernity, pp. 176-191, esp. 187 ff.22. HDR p. 73

Documents

1.6 - Unknown - David Ingram's 'Habermas and the Dialectic of Reason' (en)