the philosophical discourse of modernity

 

 

The philosophical discourse of modernity.

Writer: Jürgen Habermas. Field: philosophy Composition: twelve studies.

Main theme: modernity.

Secondary themes: reason, emancipation, communication, criticism, the State, philosophy and sociology.

Historical context: In the mid-1980s, the Soviet world was still in existence and the world of the liberal state in the West was, as usual, in crisis: a theoretical crisis and an economic crisis marked the life of this kind of state, while the communist states were living out their final years. Habermas poses the question of modernity in relation to the thought of Hegel, which he considers to be tendentious: "That the sphere of social morality, which embraces as a whole the family, society, the formation of a political will, the apparatus of the state, should find its unity - that is to say, its realisation - only in the state, and, strictly speaking, in the government and its monarchical elite, is something that, to say the least, is not self-evident". This Hegelian position, upheld in the early nineteenth century and still held by many states today, is debated throughout the book. The distinction between society and the state, and the idea that reason is centred on the subject and self-referential in nature, are other themes that were still relevant in the mid-1980s and probably still are today.

Why is this text of interest to us today? 

As a relatively young text, it has been little discussed in France despite its obvious relevance to contemporary political debate. The text is made up of twelve studies. Most of them relate to what is known as the history of philosophy illuminated in relation to the general question of the book: that of modernity, i.e. the self-foundation of reason which gravitates around subjectivity. This position attributed to Hegel has naturally been the subject of much criticism from the various authors analysed, including the Hegelians of the left and right, Nietzsche, Horkheimer and Adorno, Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, Georges Bataille, Michel Foucault, Georg Lukacs, Walter Benjamin, Cornelius Castoriadis and Niklas Luhmann. The whole question revolves around the possibility of using reason to found something like life in society. It will not have escaped anyone's notice that some of the authors discussed here may not exactly belong to the rationalist tradition. All of the authors cited are doubtful of reason, or even more generally suspicious of it. There is always a certain desire to demystify reason in all cases. But this demystification does not always take place in the same way. Nietzsche's position appears to be a central one, because he claims to unmask reason by showing it to be subject to a concealed effort at domination and self-preservation. This position is presented as coherent, but insufficient because it cannot be resolved by an aesthetic that cannot, in the final analysis, provide a stable foundation for society. This leaves us with the temptation to scepticism of Horkheimer and Adorno, a temptation that Habermas respects (he was an assistant to the professors in question), but to which he wants to find a way out: "They indulged in unbridled scepticism about reason, instead of examining the reasons that make it possible to doubt this scepticism itself". If we are to carry out a systematic critique - and Habermas's work is eminently critical - it must involve a refusal of a simply negative dialectic that is incapable of founding anything. So where do we go from here? Habermas's work should certainly be read as a work of questioning rather than of dogmatic answers. The way out of scepticism is not to be found in Derrida or Heidegger, who are accused of pompous verbiage and of taking refuge in the unreality of literature (Heidegger is also accused of having links with Nazism), which disqualifies them. Michel Foucault's theory of power and Georges Bataille's theory of transgression are analysed in greater depth. The value of the book lies less in the arguments given than in the constitution of what is called a discourse: discourse here does not mean coherent unity, but rather a plurality of theses that seek to trace what reason can be in our time, which is not obvious.