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Habermas: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

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I have been reading Habermas and books about Habermas on and off since 2000. Habermas' writings are clearly difficult, and so do most introductions to Habermas. Most introductions to Habermas follow the chronology of Habermas' work, usually starting with the work on Public Sphere through to the tome on legal theory (Between Facts and Norms). Those introductions usually succeed in portraying Habermas as a dazzling thinker of enormous breadth, and does serve the purpose of encouraging their readers to pursue serious reading of Habermas' difficult works.

Not this Introduction - this one is much better. The format of Very Short Introductions does not allow the traditional approach, and the author does an outstanding job in putting Habermas' theory and its various pieces in context. As the other reviewer mentioned, the author describes Habermas' five "research programmes" which forms an integrated whole. In one sentence, Habermas uses the pragmatic theory of meaning to develop a theory of communicative actions which forms the basis of three aspects - ethical, social and political - of his "practical" (practical as in "Critique of Practical Reasons") theories which tries to describe both the realities and normative ideals for modern (Western) societies in the late 20th centures. After summarizing the research programmes which put Habermas' huge corpus in context, the author proceeds to describe each of the programme in its highlights - in this the author successfully condenses Habermas' work into simple themes and conceptual distinctions. Given the short length of the exposition, I was very positively surprised by the author's ability to include at the end of most chapters summaries of critical views regarding Habermas' theories (e.g. the Habermas vs. Rawls debate) - and the author clearly holds a sympathetic yet objective stand in describing both sides of the arguments.

So in summary, this book is superior to most other Introductions in that:

1. The language is simpler and clearer - not burdened by Habermas' difficult writings

2. Covers Habermas' programmes in logical rather than strict chronological order - which puts different aspects of Habermas' works in context (also coverage is up to Truth and Justification, which is nearly one decade beyond the time of Between Facts and Norms)

3. Describes Habermas' breadth but also identifies the unifying concerns of Habermas as a "practical theorist"

4. Presents both the structure and key critiques to Habermas' theories - thereby allowing readers to prioritize which of Habermas' works to read after this Introduction. (Realistically, who would have time to read everything Habermas wrote?)

Bravo to the author and Oxford in publishing this good work!

Curious about Habermas, I picked up this book and am well satisfied, given that the book does not purport to be more than an introduction, really just an orientation. Finlayson writes well (much more clearly than Habermas!) and seems very knowledgeable about his subject. Of course, in 156 pages he can't get very far into Habermas's philosophy. What he does present is interesting. For example, the standard picture of society in Anglo-American economics and political philosophy is "an aggregate of lone individual reasoners, each calculating the best way of pursuing their own ends." Habermas contests this view and the related view that "human beings are essentially self-interested ..." Habermas claims that "such approaches neglect the crucial role of communication and discourse in forming social bonds between agents, and consequently have an inadequate conception of human association." He apparently works out this approach in great depth, starting from fundamental principles. And this "programme," which seeks to supplant the whole worldview we inherit from Hobbes, Locke and Adam Smith, is only one of Habermas's five "research programmes."

An attempt to introduce readers in America to the ethical and political philosophy of Jürgen Habermas, I mean. In my recent review of the book "Reading Obama", I wrote that I noted some similarities between Habermas's optimistic conception of societal discourse -- as an antidote to the double oppression of ideology and institutions -- and Barack Obama's commitment to "deliberative democracy." However, Habermas's own writings are formidably abstruse and prolix, in the original German or in English translation, so I've been scouting around for a "pony" that would clarify some of his significant ideas to people, myself included, who have not formally studied contemporary social philosophy. This "Very Short Introduction" by the British scholar James Gordon Finlayson lives up to its title; it's a pocket-sized book of a mere 150 pages, and it's very close to comprehensible even for people without much patience for academic prose. Still, it would be unrealistic to recommend Finlayson's introduction as 'recreational' reading. It takes close attention and a strong commitment to thinking for thinking's sake. The most forthright way to review it, I've decided, is to quote Finlayson's own words, in random passages that I 'starred' during my own labor-of-love reading:

* "The basic question of Habermas's social theory is: How is social order possible? Habermas's answer is that in modern, secular societies social order rests chiefly on the basis of communicative action ... and discourse, which together help establish and maintain social integrity."

* "... the discourse theory of morality ... conceives morality as a collective and dialogical process of reaching consensus."

* in Habermas's view, "critical theory had to say something about what kinds of institutions are needed to protect individuals against the attractions of political extremism, on the one hand, and the depredations of a burgeoning capitalistic economy on the other." "Habermas ... wants to identify the social and institutional conditions that foster autonomy: emancipation means the creation of truly democratic institutions capable of withstanding the corrosive effects of capitalism and the state administration." [NB: Habermas is regarded in Europe as the doyen of 'center-left' political theory, one who has rejected Marxist as well as ultra-capitalist absolutism. When he writes about the threats of 'administration', he is assaulting both STATE domination and the de facto domination of self-perpetuating capitalist/corporate institutions.]

* "Habermas is not hostile to instrumental rationality per se, nor to the institutions that embody its instrumental logic - the state and the market economy. He recognizes that they fulfill important and necessary social functions, and that abolishing them or doing without them is not an option."

* Habermas's philosophy "has concrete moral and social (and as we will later see, political) implications: preventing the recurrence of Auschwitz or anything similar means preserving the lifeworld, creating conditions under which individuals are socialized into post-conventional morality, and establishing social order on the basis of demonstrably valid norms." ['Social order' seems to me to be, in Habermas's thought, a self-inducing ever-evolving never-absolute balancing act between existing institutions and reform of those institutions through deliberative democratic discourse.]

* "... the meaning of actions depends on the truth conditions of the propositional attitudes attributed to lone individuals on the basis of their external behaviour, and the logical deductions performed inside the heads of each of them. the result is a false picture of society as an aggregate of lone individual reasoners, each calculating the best way of pursuing their own ends. This picture squares with a pervasive anthropological view that humans are essentially self-interested, a view that runs from the ancient Greeks through early modern philosophy and right up to the present day. Modern social theory, under the influence of Hobbes or rational choice theory, thinks of society in similar terms. In Haberma's eyes, such approaches neglect the crucial role of communication and discourse in forming social bonds between agents, and consequently have an inadequate conception of human association."

Ooops! That last quotation got 'difficult', didn't it? Habermas's perceptions are hard-earned and often intentionally open to counter-perceptions. I'll take a shot at shortening and oversimplifying Finlayson's analysis: Habermas asserts that we humans are formed by society as meaningfully as society is formed by us as individuals. Language is ineluctably social, and the social bonds created by the shared use of language 'trump' the supposedly rational selfish interest of lone individuals. In effect, individuals CAN'T really act alone.

One more:
"Ideologies are functional false beliefs, which, not least because they are so widespread, serve to shore up certain social institutions and the relations of domination they support."
Aha! Put that sugar in your tea!

For a nation that proclaims its global leadership, the United States have (sic) become disturbingly isolated - insulated - from currents of thought in Europe and the rest of the world. Americans rather smugly assume that their cultural and intellectual influence is as globally pervasive as their economic power. Not much can be expected, they suppose, from "Old Europe." The truth is that America has become culturally anorexic, trapped in a kind of ideological self-starvation.

Jürgen Habermas is essentially a "public intellectual" -- a sub-species not well distributed in the USA. I don't mean to claim that he's a household name in Europe, read and understood by a majority. He's not a media talking-head, a popularizer or best-selling writer, a politician or even an appointed advisor to politicians. He's certainly not a Cassandra -- an unheard prophet -- like Noam Chomsky. What he offers to the public is a cautiously optimistic proposal that democracy doesn't necessarily have to fail, that oppressive statism isn't inevitable in the industrialized world. His 'social theory' is basically an abstract model, an intellectual simulation of what society might become ... if we're lucky.

It's nice of these Oxford University Press dudes to introduce me to a guy like (whatever his first name is) Habermas, because I've never heard of him.