A New Critical Theory? Habermas and the Search for the Normative Foundations

In this paper, i analyze habermas’s reconstruction of critical theory ofsociety and the need for a theory of communicative action. here, three majorthemes have guided my approach. first, i have tried to define a structurewithin which habermas’s project to reconstruct a normative groundwork fora critical theory of society can be evaluated. second, i show that habermasconstructs an apparent difference between “action oriented to reachingunderstanding” and “action oriented to success” in order to develop hisnext argument, which places communicative actions as the original system ofintegration for the modern social order. third, i evaluated habermas’sconception of critical theory in relation to its own criteria: that is, practice.here, three major points has been taken into account simultaneously. thefirst point is habermas’s intention. for habermas, the relation betweentheory and practice is not artificial, since theory only has a mediated accessto practice by contributing to practical discourse and reflection. this is whyhabermas speaks of “the idea of a theory of society conceived with apractical intention.”the second point is habermas’s theoretical approach tothe problem of practice. habermas argues that a critical theory, instead oftrying to direct political action, should offer knowledge from whichparticipants in a discourse can draw to help them reaching anunderstanding about their common situation. the third point is the sociohistoricalbackground of habermas’s critical theory, or what habermasdescribes as his “psychology of research,” that is to bring back confidenceto the emancipatory potential of occidental rationalism.