Fort Valley State University--Department of Languages

ENGLISH 399: Literary Criticism

Critical Theory and Jurgen Habermaas

ENG 399

Critical Theory

The driving force of Critical Theory is "negative thinking-built on the idea of the reflective attitude." This suggests that the world is not the ordered and stable place it appears, but underneath is full of chaos and contradiction.

Negative thinking's power is that it allows the contradictions to be revealed. Critical Theory makes emancipation possible by removing as much distorted communication as possible. To reach a point where their communication works toward emancipation and not as a societal tool of repression. Critical Interpretation is a form of Praxis in that it doesn't accept the status quo; rather it asks for something different.

Knowledge is always linked to interest.

Critical Theory Identifies Three types of theory:

• 1. Technical Interest...(labor) mastering or controlling nature. See Marxism.
• 2. Practical Interest... how we understand each other.
  • Symbolic Interaction
  • Hermeneutic Model
  • Our norms prevent us from seeing "reality."
• 3. Emancipatory Interest...the "critical sciences"...the attempt to eliminate the distortion and manipulation of our norms.

Society is seen as the product of human action structured by norms and values.

Criticism begins by examining the norms and values.

Habermass wants to "prod society towards a universal rationality in which everyone participates equally; and a situation where communication is not distorted systematically or unintentionally. "Universal Rationality."

The Legitimization Crisis of Western Civilization is a crisis of rationality resting on the false belief that we can build an orderly society (democracy) out of conflicting private interests (capital).

The Language Game of Liechtenstein (Habermaas' model of language/society)

• 1. Language works through rules we internalize
• 2. The rules regulate the combining and interpretation of symbols.
• 3. Success presumes that actors follow norms intentionally and that the norms appear as justified.
• 4. Justification arises from FORCE + the RULES.
• 5. During interaction, the inequities between power and force = MANIPULATION (distortion) which leads to agreements which aren't truly consensual (false consensus).
• 6. This leads to reification (treating people as things) and it leads to us thinking of society as a natural object or thing rather than a construction of man.
• 7. We study things by breaking them into parts. Thus we fragment society and develop a different "science" for each piece.
• 8. This further obscures society as a process-rather we see a set of objects in a fixed relation to one another.
• 9. Therefore, because those on the inside are "naturalized" power can only be challenged from the outside...Systems generate rules which prohibit critique and promote false consensus.

Critique begins through Problematizing (calling into question norms, rules).

• 1. Inquire into whether the norms are warranted
• 2. Most knowledge is conveyed via argument and the critic must examine the rationality of the argument.
  • A rational argument is high in participation and low in distortion.
  • Logic is not the only ground for accepting arguments Empirical Coercion refers to arguments that seem to provide the "best" argument.

Ethnomethodology -the study of the people's methods of creating social order.

• Asks: How do we get things done?
• How does society work?
• Examines how a society builds up shared understandings which are "created anew and reaffirmed during the course of each interaction."
• So, we conspire together to create the impression that our unstable interactions are stable.

Ethnomethodology asks how the rules/systems allow us to maintain the illusion of meaning as unproblematic.

• 1. discover the rules and be able to describe them so clearly that a reader can see how/why something happens.
• 2. Problematize the rules (Garfinkeling)

Habermass' goal was Universal Pragmatics. The attempt to uncover the rules governing language.

See J. Habermaas' Towards A Rational Society.

Questions? Email me at Sophist@Bigfoot.Com.