honneth, language and recognition.

Marx’s economico/political anthropology gives up arbeit, or labour as the essence of humanity. I’ve argued elsewhere that this seems too narrow, and am in agreement with Honneth that a weaker formal anthropology would be more appropriate. Habermas, replaces this concept with ‘communication’ in turn, Honneth feels that ‘recognition’ is more appropriate.  I’m not sure that this is the right manoeuvre.

Honneth would argue that human beings do not become fully ’socialised’ just through language but through mutual recognition; the acknowledgement of an other’s self-worth, the generation of self-respect and so on. As an aside, the similarities to Kant’s moral philosophy are quite striking, particularly with respect to the various iterations of the categorical imperative. Moving on, Honneth argues that it is wrong to equate the the (chief) medium through which the activation of social agency occurs, with logic contained in that medium.  Now, I don’t agree with this argument. Firstly, I should point out that I also disagree with Habermas- the when the ’system’ imposes itself on the life-world, it is meant to disrupt social communication, imposing its non-linguistic edicts on social relations.  I don’t believe this to be true. Systems do have a language/communicative aspect- the stock market can interact in a symbolic/linguistic way with people, so too can governments and bureaucracies.  Reification, in the Marxist/Lukácian sense, seems to be the more fundamental problem- abstract entities being granted  human autonomy. I should also point out that I have a very broad notion of communication, drawn from both contintental semiotics and analytic philosophy of language.  Anything that can be thougt about the world can be expressed through a language of sorts, even if a thoughts  initial utterances, though symbols, speech or writing etc. are unclear- they are always open to the possibility of further refinement and clarification.  I think perhaps that I would go as far to say that reason is itself language, or at least, can only be expressed through language- in the most fundamental sense, language represents the ability to recognise relationships between persons and things, and to communicate this recognition to others thus incorporating both the core Habermasian and Honnethian ideas.

However, can language (in the above sense) be separated from recognition?  I’m pretty certain that it can’t- the way in which we interact with others must be able to be described or represented in some form for it to have any meaning and be acknowledged by others, in the same way that the ability or desire to communciate at all represents an act of recognition.  Indeed, the concept of recognition can itself, only be expressed through language, and vice versa.  Recognition and communication are fundamentally inseparable concepts, neither should be given ontological priority over the other- neither can exist without the other, and like the relationship between the individual and the society, their relationship is dialectical.

Habermas and the Rehabilitiation of Reason

The common thread running through the works of Lukács, Adorno and Horkheimer is a fierce criticism of reason and rationality.  I don’t think their respective positions are tenable.  Firstly, their critiques come from a rational perspective; even if one doesn’t agree with the conclusions they make, one has to at least respect their method- an irrational critique is, by definition, a poor critique.  Secondly, give the way in which reification, social pathologies and so on, permeate every aspect of society, what gives these philosophers any special insight into social problems? Their differentiation from the bulk of society becomes particularly problematic when one realises that: each of them came from a middle class background, i.e. they are  products of the bourgeoisie, and, that they were all academics, an occupation that is at open to accusations of ivory tower syndrome.  Thirdly, Marx’s  criticism of rationality as expressed through objectification and instrumentality seems to be limited to the way in which reason manifests itself in capitalist modes of production and social relations.  Now barring an endorsement of irrationality, the work of each man seems to contain an occult call for either a new type of rationality, or, a way of differentiating rationality into various modes or types.

The simple fact is that rationality is not a bad thing.  In a Marxist sense, rationality could be interpreted as the way in which labour is able to be freely expressed, i.e. the way in which man is differentiated from animal or natural world. Habermas acknowledges the necessity and utility of reason by making a distinction between communicative reason and instrumental reason, the former aspect seeming to be the most fundamental iteration of rationality.  Communicative reason seem to be the kind of holistic reason, hinted at negatively by Lukács: a form of thinking which according to Honneth, binds relations between the physical world of objects, the world of social interaction and the intra-personal world.  In this sense, communicative reason gives license to other forms of rationality.  Thus the way in which a person is acts instrumentally on or towards a person, social structure or object is mediated by a form of consideration which attempts, as far as is possible, to take into account the way in which each of these spheres interact.  Its easy to see the way in which this type of rationality might work.  Say I want to do something like build a factory and start a business (although this example might be a little to capitalist for some).  Then I would need to consider things like: the way in which I treat my workers (the inter-personal or social), the way in which the environment might be affected (the material or objective world), and my own personal desires and inclinations (the intra-personal).  This example is not exhaustive, nor are each of the categories necessarily clearly defined, but I think it points to the holistic nature of Habermas’ approach