I have heard that one of the reasons Habermas is so controversial in
German circles is exactly because his theory of communicative action
attempts to reconcile the structural epistemology of Marxism with Weber's
action theory. Habermas certainly presents his two-volume argument this
way. So I naturally wondered whether these issues hadn't crossed over
into Soviet Marxist theory...where I would expect the political
environment to be even _less_ receptive to Weberian notions of action theory.
I, too, frequently turn to American pragmatism for inspiration on these
issues; it's interesting to note the similarities with Marx, especially
the early writings, based I assume in their roots in Hegel. Habermas
also thinks so, basing a big chunk of his theory on Mead... But I have to
admit that the pragmatists don't have a complete theory of the structural
level.
Keith Sawyer
Department of Psychology
University of California, Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz, CA 95064