Dear Judy,
Yes, Thank you for the thoughts regarding Habermas. During the 1980s
Habermas believed that there could be a totally
rational world if we
were to reinfuse the elements of morality into science in a very real
(not ideal) sense. Lyotard
spoke of "Auschwitz" as the break in human rationality....and Habermas
called it a derivation
from the path of human rationality. For Habermas humanity was supposed
to push
ahead via
technology as a way to solve human problems, but in a more moral sense.
Scientists
were supposed to be guided by morality.
Between
the postmodern
debates of Lyotard (metanarrative) and Habermas (technological
rationality, my words),
something went very wrong in terms of theory/praxis. As well,
Habermas' focus on communicative
competence/universal pragmatics in
the 1970s and 1980 in establishing an "ideal speech
community"
(different from Chomsky's)was never connected to real time...individuals
were supposed to be free to
make use of all speech acts (at all times)
to lead a full and productive life. But, we never once learned
"how" to gain that freedom of speech. Two things happened:
1) Habermas failed to go beyond the "ideal".....he especially failed
when trying to become politically
active after the fall of the wall, where he never really brought his
theory and praxis together. This is just my opinion, nothing else.
2) He also failed by using too much of a reductionist approach in
lumping other theories together, especially Freud and Marx. This is
another reason I want to separate A.N. Leontiev and V. at deeper levels.
Habermas has proven that he is a monolithic thinker, and perhaps the
most erudite
philosopher in the
West today. He tried hard to recapture the philosophy of linguistics and
make philosophy go further than the analytic school and its
followers. However, what does that mean when he did not put theory into
practice? I don't really know, except for the fact that strict Idealism
within
German philosophy frightens me, because of its potential volatile
nature.
*note, I heard Habermas speak many times when I was at the University of
Frankfurt, Germany, and have
always admired him tremendously for many reasons (e.g., his own problems
in actually speaking).
However, after studying Habermas for so long, I
personally feel that his theory/praxis of overall understanding is truly
"disembodied." Perhaps others will reconstruct Habermas a different way
later on. This is a reason for me why so many people are truly
interested
in the theories of Vygotsky/Leontiev, despite the problems.
Best to all,
Dot
P.S. Sorry about connecting Toplov to A.T. in a previous note. He had a
different school of thought from A.T.
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