Jurgen Habermas on Communicative Freedom
Jürgen Habermas on Communicative Freedom
Lorenzo Ruga, SMITH
Hence, it is not in the least superstitious. It is
even a counsel of realism, to look for the
unforeseeable and unpredictable, to be
prepared for and to expect “miracles” in the
political realm.
Hannah Arendt
Introduction
S A PHILOSOPHER of real history, Foucault had been despairing on the faculty of the
human will.1 The (human will) will never change. It will continue to be a power, a faculty
to perpetuate domination among fellowmen. It will always be used to enslave and to
coerce. We have not learned from history. This will to power does not hesitate to resurrect. Perhaps
there has never before been a more dangerous ideology than this will to good (Friedrich Nietzsche).
When we look back to history, the human being even those who have good will did not change the
world. Very few does and still very plural are those darkened by bad will. But the question lies on,
“Why have we been putting our gaze on the past as our guiding principle? Can we not see that
there is a vast present and the future? Hope then for the best, hope for the miracle that will happen
to reason. Well, is not a thousand years not enough to make a verdict? We have been patient of
extending this concept of miracle would happen but in fact, they are still phantoms. If it did not
happen, therefore it will never happen. This cyclical corruption in the will must be ended to which
he told us of the care of the self. Not through others but only through the self. Foucault is tied in
the horror of history and the horror of existing unreason. Habermas in an optimistic side do not
disregard historical lessons as nonsensical. However, he suggests a continues renewal from the
dissolution of the exemplary past to unbounded future.
A
Objecting to this is that consensus as a plural will is not a possible source of good reason. We are
again trapped in the subjective element in Kant. Can anything good can come out from reason?
Can the human reform itself? Yes. The human being is a performer of miracles. Hannah Arendt
says,
The decisive difference between the “infinite
improbabilities” on which the reality of our earthly life
rests and the miraculous character in those events which
establish historical reality is that, in the realm of human
affairs, we know the author of the “miracles.” It is men
who perform them – men who because they have
received the twofold gift of freedom and action can
establish a reality of their own. 2
1
Bent Flyvbjerg, Ideal Theory, Real Rationality: Habermas Versus Foucault and Nietzsche, 1. Accessed
May 4, 2015.
2
Glen T. Martin, Ascent to Freedom, 27. Accessed May 4, 2015.
The Critical Theory
Originated and deviated from Adorno’s and Horkheimer’s negative dialectic in the critical theory
tradition, Habermas is not despairing from the possible renewal of societies from the slumber of
selfishness. He also do not despair from the possibility of arriving at correct reason that will emerge
from Enlightenment. We here remember Hegel of the absolute spirit. We have to be critical but
we don’t end up to critique. We ought to communicate. This is to amplify the power of language
in which human beings have a common ground. He envisioned that the only possible thing that we
can do is to communicate to others in order to voice out what we needed and what we want to
happen. And in turn, in the name of the human content dwelling from the oppressed, they are heard
and addressed. Freedom is realized widening the doors of communication and charity. This is his
philosophy of communicative rationality. He believes that the current society is a sick society due
to lack of understanding or distorted communication. To be fully human needs a constant selfreflection of the words we say and the actions we do. We communicate so that problems are
addressed and as addressed, ends to freedom. There is no freedom, or freedom and happiness is
not enjoyed by all because only the rich have access to these sources. This communication search
for correct reasons, new reasons, practical reasons and these reasons addressees the common good.
These reasons brought by consensus settles the matter in dispute. Only through this kind of ideal
speech rationality which is based on truth, truthfulness, normative rightness, and intelligibility can
correct the sick condition of our present sick rationality, a rationality that dominates others, a
rationality that is still characterized by exclusion.
The greatness of philosophy is its royal path to self-reflection. “Know thyself,” says Socrates.
Science does not sit down to reflect on the consequences. Progress is always in the context of a
good life. And this good life is not for the few but for all. Domination of meaningless mechanisms
creates the experience of meaninglessness. Societies cannot remain in this instrumental rationality
of methods. It must be a We-Rationality that is recreated always for the good of everyone. This is
done through a procedure by communication in the public sphere. This public sphere is not a
rationality of rebellious people but a communion of voices coming from the heart. Proceeding
from Aristotle’s concept of the good life, Kant argues that we should determine the good life not
in terms of its contents, namely as a form of life to be realized. It is no longer the instrumental that
dictates what is good for the people but it is the people that voiced out what is good for them.
Rather, we determine what is correct on the basis of the procedure we adopt to decide what we
should do. It is this procedure which is supposedly rational.
Critical theory is not to produce societies via description, but to understand societies and change
it. The goal of communication is emancipation of the non-state actors. Linklater contends that
knowledge of society, its practices and institutions is of necessary incomplete if it lacks
emancipatory purpose. Beginning from understanding and expressed in language, by surrendering
ourselves to good will and to the common good, can turn the world into a polis,3 a polis of a good
and just life. Only by this surrender to the good that freedom can be achieved. This surrender is
3
Ibid, 20.
founded from a sharp understanding of the ethics of the same species4 as Habermas puts is. It is to
sharply understand and respect the human content in all humans. Why the common good? Because
we are not without the community. Albert Einstein says,
Without creative, independently thinking and judging personalities
the upward development of society is unthinkable as the
development of the individual personality without the nourishing
soil of community.
Sensus Communis and Thinking
It can no longer be the benefit of the few and the capable. The horror of existing unreason must be
ended. By communicative rationality, a fundamental reconfiguration of authority and sovereignty
must be understood in the right way. A view of rearranging the world must be done on the basis
of truth and correctness through self-reflection. Without communication and self-reflection,
freedom from error can never be achieved. Not anymore in the boundaries generated by Cartesian
coordinates. We must surrender our reason on the basis of the universal reason to which identified
as sensus communis (sense of the community). Sensus communis according to Shaftesbury is the
virtue of the heart more than the head.5 It is to have conscious decisions sensitive to the Other. In
Kant, the greatest realization of freedom is the abolition of war among states.
The redefinition of what (thinking is) is trending to Hannah Arendt and must be the rule. Every
selfish thinking is not thinking. Anything that is unjust and not moral is not thinking. Anything
that is hegemonic and coercive is not thinking, is not valid and lacks legitimacy and binding
powers. Despite the fact that rational freedom is “a precarious achievement of finite beings,” and
despite the fact that our freedom arises only through social interaction with others, our freedom is
“not at our disposal.” It is something that transcends the individuality of each of us and gives us
the dignity attendant on being moral beings who formulate moral and legal principles through
mutual interaction. “We experience our own freedom with reference to something which, by its
very nature, is not at our disposal. The person, irrespective of her finiteness, knows herself to be
the irreducible origin of her own actions and aspirations”.
In Hannah Arendt’s sense,” Habermas philosophy “unleash the generative force of communicative
freedom”.6 In this world whose societies are still governed closed doors, we are reminded of Kant’s
categorical formula of ends. The “formula of ends” of the categorical imperative expresses the
claim that every person is to be regarded “always at the same time as an end in himself” and
“never” to be treated “simply as a means. “Act in such a way that you always treat humanity,
whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at
the same time as an end.” The concept of humanity obliges us to take up the “we” perspective from
which we perceive one another as members of an inclusive community no person is excluded
from.7
4
Ibid, 8.
Hans Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method (London: Continuum, 1975), 22.
6
Ibid, 31.
7
Ibid, 10.
5
Lorenzo Ruga, SMITH
Hence, it is not in the least superstitious. It is
even a counsel of realism, to look for the
unforeseeable and unpredictable, to be
prepared for and to expect “miracles” in the
political realm.
Hannah Arendt
Introduction
S A PHILOSOPHER of real history, Foucault had been despairing on the faculty of the
human will.1 The (human will) will never change. It will continue to be a power, a faculty
to perpetuate domination among fellowmen. It will always be used to enslave and to
coerce. We have not learned from history. This will to power does not hesitate to resurrect. Perhaps
there has never before been a more dangerous ideology than this will to good (Friedrich Nietzsche).
When we look back to history, the human being even those who have good will did not change the
world. Very few does and still very plural are those darkened by bad will. But the question lies on,
“Why have we been putting our gaze on the past as our guiding principle? Can we not see that
there is a vast present and the future? Hope then for the best, hope for the miracle that will happen
to reason. Well, is not a thousand years not enough to make a verdict? We have been patient of
extending this concept of miracle would happen but in fact, they are still phantoms. If it did not
happen, therefore it will never happen. This cyclical corruption in the will must be ended to which
he told us of the care of the self. Not through others but only through the self. Foucault is tied in
the horror of history and the horror of existing unreason. Habermas in an optimistic side do not
disregard historical lessons as nonsensical. However, he suggests a continues renewal from the
dissolution of the exemplary past to unbounded future.
A
Objecting to this is that consensus as a plural will is not a possible source of good reason. We are
again trapped in the subjective element in Kant. Can anything good can come out from reason?
Can the human reform itself? Yes. The human being is a performer of miracles. Hannah Arendt
says,
The decisive difference between the “infinite
improbabilities” on which the reality of our earthly life
rests and the miraculous character in those events which
establish historical reality is that, in the realm of human
affairs, we know the author of the “miracles.” It is men
who perform them – men who because they have
received the twofold gift of freedom and action can
establish a reality of their own. 2
1
Bent Flyvbjerg, Ideal Theory, Real Rationality: Habermas Versus Foucault and Nietzsche, 1. Accessed
May 4, 2015.
2
Glen T. Martin, Ascent to Freedom, 27. Accessed May 4, 2015.
The Critical Theory
Originated and deviated from Adorno’s and Horkheimer’s negative dialectic in the critical theory
tradition, Habermas is not despairing from the possible renewal of societies from the slumber of
selfishness. He also do not despair from the possibility of arriving at correct reason that will emerge
from Enlightenment. We here remember Hegel of the absolute spirit. We have to be critical but
we don’t end up to critique. We ought to communicate. This is to amplify the power of language
in which human beings have a common ground. He envisioned that the only possible thing that we
can do is to communicate to others in order to voice out what we needed and what we want to
happen. And in turn, in the name of the human content dwelling from the oppressed, they are heard
and addressed. Freedom is realized widening the doors of communication and charity. This is his
philosophy of communicative rationality. He believes that the current society is a sick society due
to lack of understanding or distorted communication. To be fully human needs a constant selfreflection of the words we say and the actions we do. We communicate so that problems are
addressed and as addressed, ends to freedom. There is no freedom, or freedom and happiness is
not enjoyed by all because only the rich have access to these sources. This communication search
for correct reasons, new reasons, practical reasons and these reasons addressees the common good.
These reasons brought by consensus settles the matter in dispute. Only through this kind of ideal
speech rationality which is based on truth, truthfulness, normative rightness, and intelligibility can
correct the sick condition of our present sick rationality, a rationality that dominates others, a
rationality that is still characterized by exclusion.
The greatness of philosophy is its royal path to self-reflection. “Know thyself,” says Socrates.
Science does not sit down to reflect on the consequences. Progress is always in the context of a
good life. And this good life is not for the few but for all. Domination of meaningless mechanisms
creates the experience of meaninglessness. Societies cannot remain in this instrumental rationality
of methods. It must be a We-Rationality that is recreated always for the good of everyone. This is
done through a procedure by communication in the public sphere. This public sphere is not a
rationality of rebellious people but a communion of voices coming from the heart. Proceeding
from Aristotle’s concept of the good life, Kant argues that we should determine the good life not
in terms of its contents, namely as a form of life to be realized. It is no longer the instrumental that
dictates what is good for the people but it is the people that voiced out what is good for them.
Rather, we determine what is correct on the basis of the procedure we adopt to decide what we
should do. It is this procedure which is supposedly rational.
Critical theory is not to produce societies via description, but to understand societies and change
it. The goal of communication is emancipation of the non-state actors. Linklater contends that
knowledge of society, its practices and institutions is of necessary incomplete if it lacks
emancipatory purpose. Beginning from understanding and expressed in language, by surrendering
ourselves to good will and to the common good, can turn the world into a polis,3 a polis of a good
and just life. Only by this surrender to the good that freedom can be achieved. This surrender is
3
Ibid, 20.
founded from a sharp understanding of the ethics of the same species4 as Habermas puts is. It is to
sharply understand and respect the human content in all humans. Why the common good? Because
we are not without the community. Albert Einstein says,
Without creative, independently thinking and judging personalities
the upward development of society is unthinkable as the
development of the individual personality without the nourishing
soil of community.
Sensus Communis and Thinking
It can no longer be the benefit of the few and the capable. The horror of existing unreason must be
ended. By communicative rationality, a fundamental reconfiguration of authority and sovereignty
must be understood in the right way. A view of rearranging the world must be done on the basis
of truth and correctness through self-reflection. Without communication and self-reflection,
freedom from error can never be achieved. Not anymore in the boundaries generated by Cartesian
coordinates. We must surrender our reason on the basis of the universal reason to which identified
as sensus communis (sense of the community). Sensus communis according to Shaftesbury is the
virtue of the heart more than the head.5 It is to have conscious decisions sensitive to the Other. In
Kant, the greatest realization of freedom is the abolition of war among states.
The redefinition of what (thinking is) is trending to Hannah Arendt and must be the rule. Every
selfish thinking is not thinking. Anything that is unjust and not moral is not thinking. Anything
that is hegemonic and coercive is not thinking, is not valid and lacks legitimacy and binding
powers. Despite the fact that rational freedom is “a precarious achievement of finite beings,” and
despite the fact that our freedom arises only through social interaction with others, our freedom is
“not at our disposal.” It is something that transcends the individuality of each of us and gives us
the dignity attendant on being moral beings who formulate moral and legal principles through
mutual interaction. “We experience our own freedom with reference to something which, by its
very nature, is not at our disposal. The person, irrespective of her finiteness, knows herself to be
the irreducible origin of her own actions and aspirations”.
In Hannah Arendt’s sense,” Habermas philosophy “unleash the generative force of communicative
freedom”.6 In this world whose societies are still governed closed doors, we are reminded of Kant’s
categorical formula of ends. The “formula of ends” of the categorical imperative expresses the
claim that every person is to be regarded “always at the same time as an end in himself” and
“never” to be treated “simply as a means. “Act in such a way that you always treat humanity,
whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at
the same time as an end.” The concept of humanity obliges us to take up the “we” perspective from
which we perceive one another as members of an inclusive community no person is excluded
from.7
4
Ibid, 8.
Hans Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method (London: Continuum, 1975), 22.
6
Ibid, 31.
7
Ibid, 10.
5