Communication, Modernity, and Democracy in Habermas and Dewey PDF

Communication, Modernity, and Democracy in Habermas and Dewey
Author(s): Robert J. Antonio and Douglas Kellner

Source: Symbolic Interaction, Vol. 15, No. 3 (Fall 1992), pp. 277-297
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction
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Communication, Modernity,
and Democracy in
Habermas and Dewey
The political culture of the Federal Republic [of Cermany] would be worse today if it had not adopted impulses from American political culture during the first
postwar decades. The Federal Republic opened itself for
the first time to the West without reservations: we
adopted the political theory of the Enlightenment, we
grasped the pluralism which, first carried by religious
sects, molded the political mentality, and we became
acquainted with the radical democratic spirit of the
American pragmatism of Peirce, Mead, and Dewey.
(Jurgen Habermas 1985a, p. 93)
Robert J. Antonio*
University of Kansas
Douglas Kellner
University of Texas
Alone among Frankfurt School theorists, Habermas has critically appropriated

pragmatist motifs. 1 Earlier theorists in this school equated Dewey with crude
instrumentalism, positivism, and one-dimensional American life.2 Because the
Habermas-Dewey connection has been neglected, we explore the significant
similarities and differences in their work. Most importantly, both theorists
share the view, with Aristotle, Mead, Gadamer, and other dialogical thinkers,
that human beings are primarily speaking and socially interacting creatures.
Dewey asserted that society exists b y . . . [and] in communication, praising
it as the most wonderful of all activities by the side of which transubstantiation pales (Dewey [ 19161 1985b, p. 7;[ 19251 1988b, pp. 132- 133). For
Habermas, too, communication is a central life activity. Treating it as the
fulcrum of his critical theory, h e argues that: The utopian perspective of
reconciliation and freedom is ingrained in the conditions for communicative
sociation of individuals . . . (Habermas 1984, p. 398).
Both theorists attack positivism, technocracy, bureaucratic domination, and
other cultural and social conditions that thwart the democratic potentialities
of modern society. They also criticize the modern philosophic tradition, es*Direct all correspondence to Robert J. Antonio, Department of Sociology. University of Kansas,
Lawrence, KS 66045.
Symbolic Interaction, I5(3):277-297
ISSN 0 195-6080
Copyright (c), I992 by JAl Press, Inc.

All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
Symbolic Interaction Volume 15 / Number 3 / 1992
278
pecially the idealist philosophy of consciousness and its subject/object dualism. Both call for a reconstruction of philosophy and social theory, offering
intersubjective alternatives based o n their respective theories of communication. In addition, they call for a unification of theory and practice, and provide
systematic critiques of conservative ideologies and of speculative, quietistic,
and conformist patterns of thought.
Following in the footsteps of Dewey, Habermas stresses the importance of
uncoerced communication for strengthening the progressive features of liberal social and political institutions. His effort to provide an alternative to
extreme postmodernist arguments about the exhaustion of democracy, rationality, social theory, and the entire Enlightenment tradition have made him,
perhaps, todays most widely discussed interdisciplinary social theorist. The
recent, intense debates about modernity and postmodernity and the prospects for democracy have stimulated a Dewey revival as well. In this article,
we intend to initiate a critical engagement of Habermas and Dewey in order
to demonstrate the significance of communication and symbolic interaction
for critical theory and for the interdisciplinary dialogue over claims that the
social and cultural resources for producing a freer and more just society are in
eclipse.
HABERMASIAN CRITICAL THEORY

AND COMMUNICAT10N
Habermas has written that:
. . . I have for a long time identified myself with that radical democratic mentality
which is present in the best American traditions and articulated in American
pragmatism. This mentality takes seriously what appears to so-called radical
thinkers as so much reformist naivete. Deweys attempt to make concrete
concerns with the daily problems of ones community expresses both a practice
and an attitude. It is a maxim of action about which it is in fact superfluous to
philosophize ( I 98513, p. 198).
Even though Habermas has noted his affinity for Dewey and has completed
detailed analyses of Peirce and Mead, h e has never undertaken a systematic
interrogation of Deweys worlc
In his early writings, Habermas ( 1 970, p. 69) acltnowledged Dewey as a
critic of technocracy. H e contended, however, that Deweyean pragmatism,
applied today, overlooks the structural change in the bourgeois public realm
and that scientization and manipulation of public opinion have depoliticized the populace, blunting the critical edge of democratic norms and
values. Habermas suggested that Dewey assumed an unproblematic relation
between scientific practices and public interests and value orientations, exag-
279
gerating the ease of communication between science and politics and between technical questions and public opinion. Because of sharply increased
erosion and fragmentation of the public sphere, Habermas argued, the translation of scientific and technical matters into issues for public discussion and
democratic policy formation has become far more complicated than Dewey
imagined.3
In another early work, Habermas pointed out that Dewey understood the
entwinement of knowing and evaluating and that h e defended a critical concept of Enlightenment rationality. But h e also stated that pragmatism reduces
reason to a n instrument of pragmatic control of behavior in which interest
and inclination are banished from the court of knowledge as subjective factors (Habermas 1973, pp. 262, 272). More importantly, in the same text,
after stating that Marxian dialectics can n o longer provide a normative basis
for [critical]social theory, Habermas outlined the beginnings of a conception
of communication intended to reconnect theory and practice. H e held that
intuitive knowledge of a telos, stressing general and voluntary consensus, is inherent in all competent language use, providing materials for a
new universalistic foundation for critical theory (Habermas 1973, pp. 16- 19).
Regardless of Habermas sincere praise for the radical democratic thrust of
Deweyean theory, his views about the limits of pragmatism, decline of the
public sphere, and communication diverged sharply from Deweys historicism
and instrumentalism. Instead of fully engaging Dewey, Habermas borrowed
selected pieces from the broader pragmatist tradition, which h e weaved into
his own unique theory.
Heeding Deweys call for a reconstruction of philosophy, Habermas attacks
the excessively totalizing, reductive, and idealist strains of modern thought. At
the same time, h e contends that the critical and emancipatory moments of
Western reason and modernity are sacrificed by postmodern polemics.4 H e
argues, however, that the critical standpoint h e perceives in the counterfactual features of everyday communicative practices provides a possible escape route from the contradictions of both the modern and postmodern
positions. Communicative acts, in his view, are governed by norms that facilitate reachingan understanding-establishing agreement or consensus.
Indeed, Habermas ( 1984, p. 287) refers to this process as the inherent telos
of human speech. Accordingly, h e believes that the substructure of symbolic
interaction provides normative resources (absent in the degraded spheres of
modern culture and public life) that can be utilized to guide both theoretical
critique and struggles for more extensive democratization.
Distinguishing sharply between labor and interaction, Habermas emphasizes the fundamental difference between social action governed by technical norms and coercion and that based o n consensual processes and communication (Habermas 1970; 1 9 7 1; 1973). Competent or undistorted
linguistic acts are based on mutual understanding of the difference between
280
true and false statements, which, in turn, presumes that discourse is uncoerced. communicative action, ultimately, operates in accord with the implicit norms of freedom and equality inherent in the ideal speech situation.
Here, all participants must have free and equal access to each other, attempt
to understand the issues and arguments, yield to the force of the better
argument, and accept the resulting consensus (Habermas 1979, pp. 1-5,
26-34, 50-68). But Habermas also argues that societal differentiation and
rationalization sharpen the segmentation between labor and interaction and
transform the theoretical, practical, and aesthetic spheres into increasingly
determinate socio-cultural domains that operate according to their own
semi-autonomous and distinct logics. The consequent clarity about the differences between instrumental, ethical, and aesthetic judgments greatly increases the potentiality for malting the intuitive and counterfactual properties
of speech the topic of explicit Itnowledge and overt social consensus.
By contending that everyday communication contains an implicit normative
basis for distinguishing distorted from competent or uncoerced communication, Habermas attempts to anchor critical theory in a pragmatic testing and
validating of norms and knowledge claims in concrete situations. Yet this
pragmatism is partial and contradictory, because of his nonhistorical standard
of communicative rationality. By comparison, Dewey shed his youthful
Hegelian historicism for the radical historicism of William James: his pragmatism entailed an ardent antifoundationalist opposition to transhistorical
grounds and progressive evolution. Habermas (1971; 1973, p. 8).in turn,
initially sought grounds in an admittedly quasi-transcendental notion of
ltnowledge-constitutive interests. Later h e turned to the ideal speech situation and to cognitive, moral, and linguistic species competencies emerging
in progressive stages. Extending Piaget and Kohlbergs theories of individual
moral development, h e hypothesized that the evolution of societal normative structures produces higher, postconventional capacities for consensual resolution of disputes over values and Itnowledge claims. Habermas
contended that the spheres of interaction, in modernity, are governed increasingly by universalistic norms of communicative action as reflected in
postconventional types of consensual standards, social integration, and legitimate domination (Habermas 1979).
In the early l980s, Habermas ( 1 98 1 ; 1984; 1987a) executed a sweeping
reconstruction of critical theory, arguing that the dominant metaphilosophical
perspective of modernity (e.g., as articulated by Descartes, Kant, and
Hegel)-the subjectivist philosophy of consciousness-employs purposive rationality to guide the selection of efficient means for realizing specified
goals without reflecting o n the rationality or justice of the goals themselves.
The lack of procedures for rationally evaluating the purposes of social action
traps modern theory in the obsessive effort to dominate nature and to insure
self-preservation. Habermas held that Marx and the earlier generation of crit-
28 1
ical theorists, failed to distinguish between communicative action and purposive action and consequently never elaborated the requirements of reaching an understanding. They too remained trapped within the philosophy of
consciousness and its deadly instrumentalism. Habermas attempts to escape
this predicament by rejecting the metaphilosophical grounding of truth in
subjective intuition or certainty and by instituting a paradigm shift to a
linguistically and intersubjectively-centered philosophy of communication.
According to the Habermasian self-other model, interacting subjects aim
ultimately at mutual understanding and uncoerced consensus rather than at
deception and domination. Frege and Wittgenstein began the shift to this
new linguistic model, but their approaches were overly subjective and did not
escape entirely from the philosophy of consciousness. Even George Herbert
Mead did not go far enough: his communicative theory of the social self
allegedly stopped short of elaborating the conditions under which mutual
understanding and consensus are reached. And Webers tentative steps toward a broader [communicative] societal rationality,in his theory of cultural
rationalization, were truncated by his instrumentalism. In Habermas opinion,
none of these thinkers were able to make the decisive break with the philosophy of consciousness. Only by elaborating the conditions of communicative
action, can the democratic resources of speech and modernity (overlooked
by the great modern theorists) be brought to light and the needed normative
standpoint for evaluating goals and attacking coercion, domination, hierarchy,
and injustice be secured.
Habermas, himself, critically engages and borrows from Webers arguments
about instrumental rationalization. But h e also contends that Lultacs,
Horltheimer, Adorno, and other Western Marxists were all unduly influenced
by Webers pessimistic arguments about the fragmentation of meaning, iron
cage of bureaucratic domination, and decline of freedom, refashioning them
into one-sided perspectives that fused rationality with instrumentalism and
domination. A similar position is expressed currently in extreme postmodernist arguments which equate rationalization with overpowering cultural homogenization, seamless domination, and the erasure of autonomous individuality (see Best and Kellner 1991). These gloomy visions, Habermas
believes, arise from positions that remain oblivious to communicative action
and that consequently ignore modernitys increased potentialities for uncoerced understanding and cooperation. In opposition to the instrumental
rationality of Marx, Weber, and critical theory and to the radical perspectivism
and relativism of the postmodernists, Habermas claims that pathologies of
the life-world can be diagnosed (e.g., blocltages to communicative action)
and that cures can be suggested (e.g.,uncoerced discourse about norms).
By elaborating the ultimate normative and social basis of democratization (i.e.,
undistorted communication), the theory of communicative action provides a
standpoint for social critique and reconstruction.
282
Habermas warns, however, that the advances of progressive communicative rationalization are threatened by a countervailing and equally modern
rationalization of purposive action (i.e., capitalist development and bureaucratization), which promises to foreclose emergent democratic possibilities.
The efficiency and power o f fiscal and organizational mechanisms permit
them to penetrate deeply into social and cultural spheres formally governed
by communicative action. When existing domains of interaction are colonized by labor, instrumental agendas are substituted for consensual processes. Excessive opposition to purposive rationality, however, also threatens
democracy by dedifferentiating complex and interdependent systems o f social action and culture and by eroding overall systemic rationality. Habermas is
strongly critical o f antimodern arguments that ignore the material and organizational prerequisites of existing liberal institutions and of future democratization. Thus, he criticizes those on the left who he fears push the ethos o f
participatory democracy too far. Similarly, Habermas attacks postmodernists
for treating rationality as a monolithic, totalitarian force ( 1981; 1987a; 1987b).
In his view, preservation and extension of democracy depends on maintaining the boundaries between modernitys clearly differentiated and highly rationalized organizational and cultural spheres.
According to Habermas, the cynical nature o f bourgeois consciousness
and retirement o f bourgeois ideals leave no norms and values to which
an immanent critique might appeal. Today, extreme and unprecedented
forms of cultural fragmentation and reification demand that critical theory
adopt entirely new methods appropriate to current historical conditions
(Habermas 1979, p. 97; 1987a). Habermas argues that the theory of communicative action (contrary to Marxism and previous critical theory) must proceed reconstructively, that is unhistorically rather than start with concrete
ideals immanent in traditional forms of life ( 1 987a, p. 383). Seeking an
Archimedean point from which to attack the threats to rationality, pluralism,
and democracy, he attempts to ground his approach in universally talten-forgranted features o f symbolic interaction and progressive socio-cultural evolution. Because the resulting theory of communicative action does not escape
entirely from foundationalism and Hegelian-like developmentalism, it suffers
from a pervasive dualism. In sharp contrast to Habermas strategy, Dewey
holds that only a decisive move to radical historicism will advance the cause
of democracy and escape the pitfalls of foundationalism, formalism, and nihilism.
COMMUNICATIVE DEMOCRACY AND

RADICAL HISTORICISM IN DEWEY
Similar to Habermas, Dewey believed that modernity provides yet unfulfilled
possibilities for wider communication and stronger democracy. In his view,
283
pluralistic associations, specialized roles, and diverse standpoints constitute

an interdependent social web, which provides unparalleled resources for individuation while it links more people than ever before in cooperative activities
and common universes o f discourse. Although dogmatic moralism and semiconscious customary behavior still abound, social complexity and pluralism
give rise to a reflective type of morality favoring ethical discussion and
evaluation rather than stereotyped judgments and blind obedience. In the
interest of developing more autonomous individualities and uncoerced cooperation, Dewey, like Habermas, sought a method to secure and better utilize
the normative resources and communicative potentialities of modernity
(Dewey and Tufts [ 19321 1985, pp. 163-2 13, 275-284).
Anticipating the Frankfurt School and Habermas again, Dewey pointed to a
dark side o f modernity that threatens its emergent communicative capacities
and democratic possibilities. Rampant commodification, hyperspecialization,
and demagoguery produce mass bewilderment, manipulation, and silence.
Local communities and individuals suffer from entirely new types of problems
in the form of multifacted and often indecipherable consequences generated
by the machinations of huge private and public organizations (e.g., Dewey
[ 1929/ 19301 19889. In addition, the cultivated irrationality of the public
opinion industry, media intrusions, shocks, and sensations, and the
overall surplus of divergent information contribute to new forms of cultural
fragmentation that reduce political life to a simulation of democracy (Dewey [ 19 181 1988e; [ 19271 1988c, pp. 304-324,347-348). Moreover, Dewey argued that specialized science in the new corporate order puts an end
to the Enlightenments simple faith about free institutions arising automatically from scientific progress and disenchantment ([ 19391 198913, p.
102). But, despite growing economic insecurities, increasing threats to civil
liberties, and mounting totalitarian forces, Deweys support for the Enlightenment project of extending freedom, justice, and rationality never wavered.
Like Habermas, Dewey contended that the potentialities for wider and freer
communication still could be activated and channelled into new forms of
mutual understanding and uncoerced social bonds (Dewey [ 19351 1987a;
[ 19371 1987b; [ 19221 1988h).
By ignoring communication, Dewey argued, Western philosophy creates a
factitious and gratuitous split between existence and essence ([ 1 9251
1988b, p. 1 33). In his view, language unifies theory and practice in everyday
life. Consequently, communication provides a natural bridge to nondualistic
thought. Here, Dewey, like Habermas, stated what he believed to be universal
features of communication. But he did not attempt to generate from this
argument a universal normative standpoint or an evolutionary perspective to
guide his social criticism. Rather he simply elaborated assumptions of his
theory o f communication and stinging attack on modern epistemology. More
importantly, contrary to Habermas, Dewey held that a single type of intel-
284
ligence (his substitute for reason) operates in technical as well as communicative affairs; it develops from capacities, inherent in all human communication, for formulating plans of action, foreseeing possible outcomes, altering
courses of events, and adjusting to outcomes.
Dewey concurred with his close friend George H. Meads argument that
intelligence arises out o f role-taking skills learned with the acquisition of
language (Mead [ 19341 1967; Dewey [ 19251 1988b, pp. 132- 16 1 ). Meaning springs neither from copying external objects nor from intuitions, but,
instead, develops from people using symbols to point to possible outcomes of actions (e.g., the uses of different types o f objects) and from their
mutual adjusting to the actual consequences of communicative acts. Dewey considered speech itself to have an instrumental quality. In contrast to
Habermas sharp division between labor and interaction, Dewey treated
technical and communicative activities as continuous, entwined spheres.
By stressing the interdependence of the social and physical environments
and the need to consider the consequences of human action and for nature
as well as the obverse, Dewey initiated a naturalistic break with strict homocentrism. He spoke o f nature as a source of aesthetic and erotic enjoyment
and not merely as an object of material manipulation (Dewey [ 19341 1989a).
Critics have argued that the absence of nature constitutes an important deficit
of Habermasian theory and that its dualistic rationalism underplays the role of
emotion, expressiveness, and pleasure in social interaction (e.g., Whiteboolt
1 979). On the contrary, communication was, for Dewey, a multidimensional
process; bodily senses, emotion, empathy, fantasy, ecstasy, and other aesthetic sensibilities and feelings contribute to intelligence, symbolic interaction,
and all cooperative activities. As with labor and interaction, Dewey saw the
ethical, instrumental, and aesthetic spheres to be complexly entwined, interpenetrating processes. Moreover, while Dewey tended to privilege consensual solutions to problems, he did not consider agreement to be a telos of
communication. In fact, he considered conflicting viewpoints to be a matrix o f
reflective morality. Overall, he suggested a broader and more naturalistic
approach to communication and social relationships than is presented in
Habermas theory o f communicative action.
Following the Darwinian naturalism of James and Mead, Dewey viewed
knowledge to be a product of the purely historical relationship of organism
and environment.5 The ecological emphasis on the interactive and interdependent relationship between individual organisms and their environments is radically opposed to the self-enclosed ego of the philosophy of
consciousness and points directly to communication as the distinctive form of
human connectedness or axis of social life. Contrary to Habermas, Deweys
antidualistic naturalism opposes any effort to set off communication from
other forms o f understanding. Language, itself, arises from the interaction of
205
organism and environment and especially from the capacity to make instrumental adjustments to the consequences of actions. Dewey believed that
even sciences most advanced experimental procedures were rooted in the
simplest types of communication action, meaning that they derive ultimately
From peoples efforts to forge intelligent relationships with their different
environments by rudimentary empirical inquiries (Dewey [ 19291 1988a, pp.
60-86; [ 19381 1986, pp. 105- 122).
Dewey claimed that the desire to provide an indubitable foundation for
knowledge underlies the dualisms between subject and object, mind and
body, reason and emotion, fact and value, art and science, and public and
private. All these splits, h e held, culminate in modernitys central and crippling
divide between theory and practice. T h e quest for certainty results in a
spectator theory of knowledge that deflects the powers of intelligence by
turning its attention to contrived problems that cannot possibly be solved.
The spectator metaphor refers to sight as conventionally understood-the
eye copies images gathered from light refracted by an external object
totally unaffected by the process of seeing. Viewing knowledge as a passive
reception of impressions rather than as an active experimental interaction
between theory and practice, spectator theory treats acting, malting, and
valuing as external to the process of Itnowing and as the source of distortions
inherent in all appearances.
Spectator theory, however, creates a comforting feeling of certainty by
positing a fixed reality beyond the instrumental realm of appearances. Because of the obvious existential uncertainty, instability, and complete dependence of the social world o n highly divergent human practices, spectator
theorists often treat social phenomena as inferior objects of knowledge (reflective of opinions not truths) or as completely outside the reach of systematic inquiry. In either case, abdication of the capacities for understanding and
intelligent intervention leaves society to existing powers and unmastered
forces. Sounding like Marx, Dewey held that spectator theory originated in
the distinction between physical and mental labor and that it contributes to
the reproduction of the underlying class split between rulers and producers
(Dewey [ 19291 1988~1,
pp. 17-20,26,32-33, 156-1 77; [ 19251 1988b, pp.
233-234).
As indicated by the dichotomies between real and ideal speech, labor and
interaction, and purposive and communicative action, Habermasian theory is
still trapped within dualistic epistemology. Conversely, Deweys radical historicism requires that social criticism be based o n determinate possibilitiesappeals to shared symbols, felt needs and suffering, and concrete conditions
of historical and contemporary culture and social structure. Like Habermas,
Dewey held that pluralistic features of highly differentiated societies provide
opportunities for wider and more effective communication. But Dewey at-
286
Symbolic Interaction Volume 15 I Number 3 I 1992
tempted to anchor his communicative ideal in more specific historical resources. For example, h e treated the appearance of Renaissance science and
the consequent struggles over reason and authority to be decisive events
initiating the formation of a relatively autonomous sphere of discourse opposing the ancien regime. And h e attached special significance to the rise of
an ideal of experimental knowledge being produced by a community of
workers who share common standards, take each other into account, and
submit willingly to the stronger argument. Dewey contended that this ideal
contained a new vision of community where everything is open to question,
discussion, and rearrangement ([ 1929/ 19301 1 988f, p. 1 1 5).
Moreover, Dewey contended that Darwin, Einstein, Heisenberg, and other
post-Newtonian thinkers expressed a new active, plural, and uncertain participatory way of knowing that overthrows spectator theory (Dewey [ 19291
1988a, pp. 156-177). H e argued that this new approach to knowledge
combined with the older scientific ideals of free communication and systematic inquiry could be broadened, radicalized, and turned critically against
the current social context (i.e.,specialized science and technocracy). Deweys
call for the entry of science into morals, politics, and other spheres was
primarily an appeal to extend the scope of uncoerced communication and
participatory knowing into wider society and to overcome the divide between theory and practice and between technical activity and public life.
While Deweys conception of science was broad and communicative, his
points o n this topic sound somewhat optimistic and naive today. The main
point, however, is that Dewey attempted to anchor his version of the communicative ideal in what h e believed to be specific, historically rooted or
emergent socio-cultural resources.
In like fashion, Dewey attempted to provide a historical basis for his critique
of American life. H e argued that the original American ideal of democracy
arose from precapitalist communities bearing neither the imprint of feudalism
nor the market. Dewey gave special emphasis to the heritage of Jefferson,
which h e contended has left strong cultural and institutional residues in the
United States. Most importantly, however, Dewey believed that Jefferson expressed a unique conception of democracy that demanded much more than
extensions of suffrage and representation. Jefferson called forth, Dewey held,
an entirely new form of radical democracy that values the pursuit of happiness over property and empire, that treats democracy as an ongoing
experimental process rather than a fu<ed structure, and that insists on free
interaction, self-cultivation, and participation in private spheres as well as in
public life. In contrast to the narrow and restricted circle of scientists and to
the formalism of mass plebiscitary politics, Dewey held that Jefferson envisioned a communication community animated by shared emotion, ideas,
and participation (Dewey [ 19391 1989b, pp. 1 19- 134).
Dewey understood that historical resources employed in social criticism d o
287
not come ready-made; critical ideals, themselves, must be subject to inquiries

and critiques that lift them out o f their complex, contradictory, and ambiguous social and cultural matrixes. Jeffersonian ideals must be reconstructed
without the racism and sexism o f the earlier era and with modern forms of
organization, media, and cultural fragmentation directly in mind. Dewey believed, however, that Jeffersons emphases on radically democratizing the
availability o f cultural resources for self-cultivation and on extending communication, participation, and experimentation throughout society still contain an
animate and critical ideal of radical democratization. H e argued that this spirit
could be reclaimed and refashioned in practical efforts to radically democratize families, gender relations, neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, and other
local domains. These struggles and the consequent rise of new social relationships, Dewey hoped, would forge more autonomous, liberated, and participatory individualities capable of creating a larger vision of democracy and
of reconstructing the broader society and its central institutions accordingly
(Dewey [ 19391 1989b; [ 19401 1988d).
In contrast to Habermas, Dewey argued that resources for democratization
still exist withinour institutions and attitudes, providing determinate bases
for resisting encroachments by capitalism and the state (Dewey [ 19391
1989b, p. 133; [ 19371 1987b, p. 297). H e held steadfastly to this position in
the face o f threats posed by fascism, Stalinism, and mounting antidemocratic
forces at home. Even a casual reading of Deweys work demonstrates that his
radical historicism did not reflect a naive optimism about these unhappy
times, but arose, instead, from his own activism and from his view that the
search for transhistorical resources ends in spectator theory, formalism, and
the dualistic divide between theory and practice. Periods o f repression and
fear demand especially disciplined efforts to detect and recover historical
resources that call out alternative possibilities. But this process contains no
certainties or guarantees. Dewey treated his own claims about reappropriating and reconstructing Jeffersonian ideals not as cognitive certitudes, but as
possibilities to be tried out in practice and reconsidered according to the
consequences. H e viewed social criticism and democracy to be active and
continuous processes o f cooperative, experimental inquiry.
Deweys arguments about particular theory and spectator theory bear at
least superficial resemblance to Habermas ideas about communicative action
and the philosophy of consciousness, but the two theorists diverge rather
substantially with regard to history and philosophic dualism. Dewey held that
symbols are enlivened by their capacity to point to consequences and that
the fate of democratic struggles rides on activating concrete possibilities
rooted in living communities of memory and social bonds. Like other historical inquiries, efforts to locate such resources must contend with ambiguities,
unintended consequences, and possibilities of failure. Deweys views of
human nature and modern social life led him to believe that historical re-
288
sourcesare always available, although in variable forms and amounts. Yet

even if they were unavailable, foundationalist substitutes could not conjure up
consensus or stem coercion and would only deepen mystification. Their upward gaze, moreover, easily overlooks real possibilities for change.
According to Dewey, theories of evolutionary o r moral progress still rely on
implicit, unfalsifiable claims about transcendent normative principles and consequently are merely pseudohistorical substitutes for classical spectator theory. Even sophisticated approaches of this type contain an underlying idea of a
self-developing, collective subjectivity, which obscures the historical and instrumental bases of norms. Dewey ([ 19091 1983)viewed Darwinian theory as
a fundamental break with the old type of progressive evolutionism: by emphasizing local and particular conditions in interdependent relationship, the
new concepts of variation, adaptation, and selection imply an alternative to
spectator theory which could open the social world to genuine inquiry. From
a Deweyean perspective, Habermas carries o n the earlier evolutionary tradition, albeit in a highly nuanced and formally falliblistic manner. Habermass
claims about progressive communicative rationalization still contain taints of
the earlier foundationalist quest for transcendent norms. H e begins a break
with spectator theory and move toward Deweyean pragmatism, but his evolutionary arguments and quasifoundationalist claims about the ideal speech
situation prevent him from completing the process (see Benhabib 1986;
Roderick 1986; Antonio 1989; Fraser 1989; and Rassmussen 1990).
In the pragmatist framework, human interdependence is distinctive because language use provides unique abilities to share common responses, to
forge highly flexible, deep, rich, and variable types of relationships, and, above
all, to develop highly complex forms of cooperation. As Mead ([ 19341 1967)
argued, distinctly human communication depends on the individualscapacity
to identify sympathetically with others-to share attitudes or take the role
of the other. Patterned interaction arises from a highly complex process in
which individuals imagine themselves to be in the place of others, to orient
their gestures accordingly, and to mutually adjust to the consequences of the
ongoing flow of gestures and actions. While Dewey did not provide detailed
commentary about Meads social psychology, h e agreed with its consequentialist approach to interaction and with its main thrust that mind, self, and
society were moments in a communicatively mediated and cooperative social process. The important point is that neither theorist spoke about communication, social relationships, or social order as arising from internalizing, sharing, and acting in accord with norms.
Although Dewey considered communication to be the animating factor in
social relationships, h e envisioned them to be much more than linguistic
connections. H e stated that communication is consummatory as well as
instrumental, involving participation by one in anothers joy, sorrows, senti-
289
ments, and purposes . . . . And h e viewed the self neither as a container for
norms nor as the embodiment of normative constraint. Rather h e was attempting to escape this dualistic conception. In this regard, h e considered
Durltheimsargument about collective consciousness to be a spectator theory
of mind (Dewey [ 19251 1988b. 132- 16 1; [ 19 161 1985b). Dewey understood that conforming to rules was a major factor in social life, but h e implied
that it is customary behavior, not communicatively mediated action in the full
and rich sense of the term. By contrast, h e contended that reflective morality does not constrain or command action; it merely provides standpoints or tools for cooperative activity. When norms and values are understood and acted upon from this nonconventionalist perspective, the rightness
or wrongness of acts depends on the conditions of concrete situations rather
than o n the application of rules per se (Dewey and Tufts [ 19321 1985, pp.
27 5-284).
While aiming at a posttraditional normative perspective, Habermas

nevertheless conceives of social relationships in terms of normatively regulated action and consequently remains in the tradition of Durltheim and
Parsons (societal consensus theory). By contrast to others in this tradition,
Habermas seeks a communicatively mediated, universal standard and method of normative validation to insure a truly legitimate or uncoerced consensus. H e does not, however, distinguish the fundamental differences between
the pragmatist conception of social order and that of consensus theory. Instead, h e collapses pragmatism into the same tradition, referring to how
Mead contributes to the idea of normatively guided interaction and how
Durltheimsideas about the origins of collective consciousness can be used to
plug the primary gap in Meads theory. Overall, Habermas executes a communicative turn in order to transcend the conventionalist ethics of mainstream sociological theory. Yet h e still treats normative regulation as the
animating factor in social relationships. For this reason, h e follows more closely in the tracks of Durltheim and Parsons than of Dewey. Habermas and
Dewey agree that social order emerges from a combination of coercion and
shared meaning, that social criticism should be anchored in an ideal of free
and open communication, and that norms and values should be evaluated
critically. However, Habermas portrays communication and social relationships more narrowly, cognitively, and rationally than Dewey. By privileging
moral constraint, exerted by shared representations, norms, and values,
Habermas himself fails to make a complete break from the philosophy of
consciousness ( 1984, pp. 85-90, 104- 105, 1987a).
Deweys conception of uncoerced or communicative social integration has
yet to be fleshed out in its entirety. But h e implied the possibility of forging
social bonds based o n mutual receptivity to the consequences of the beliefs,
feelings, emotions, needs, sufferings, and pleasures of the other for the other
290
Symbolic Interaction Volume 15 I Number 3 I 1992
as well as for the self and on responsiveness to gestures aimed at correcting

inevitable misunderstandings about these matters. Heightened openness to
communication, appreciative tolerance of differences, mutual sympathy, sensitivity to interdependencies, and consummatory pleasure from the experience of uncoerced interaction are the bases of his ideal of radical democracy
or communication community. Arising from highly refined capacities for sharing attitudes, this normative standard promises uncoerced communication,
richer individuality, and wider social cooperation. Here Dewey provides a
starting point for a n alternative to aesthetic individualisms equation of social
solidarities with oppression, to the conventionalist and conformist rationalism
of sociological consensus theory, and to the dualism of the theory of communicative action. In accord with radical historicism, however, this ideal exists
only as a potentiality of the current era to be tried out in practice. It is not a
telos or timeless standard with universal validity.
DEMOCRACY AND SOCIAL THEORY

The main differences between Habermas and Dewey derive from their contrasting philosophical and sociological meta-assumptions, theories of communication, assessments of the available resources for democracy, and
conceptions of the nature of social bonds. Dewey rejects Kants bifurcations of
reason and judgment into different spheres and all other philosophical dualisms, while Habermas believes that this type of differentiation constitutes a
progressive heritage of modernity. Dewey develops a more holistic theory
stressing the common instrumental origins of and interpenetration between
theoretical, practical, and aesthetic judgments. Habermas, by contrast, seeks a
ground for social theory in the taken-for-granted attributes of symbolic interaction and in the evolutionary development of communicative capacities.
While they agree o n the importance of unrestricted communication free from
domination and consider it an essential aspect of democracy, Dewey and
Habermas offer sharply different standpoints for social critique.
To avoid formalism, Dewey argued that effective social criticism must appeal to determinate cultural resources and that the potentials for democracy
reside as concrete historical legacies and current possibilities. On the other
hand, Habermas adopts a nonhistorical strategy to escape the later Frankfurt
Schools pessimism and antirationalism. His reasoning for this move, however, suggests a convergence with Horltheimer and Adornos assessment, in
the Dialectic of Enlightenment ([ 19441 1972), that concrete emancipatory
norms and values are lacking. On this point, Habermas also ironically converges with his postmodernist opponents. His critical views about the new
social movements retain a basically skeptical attitude about actual democratic
movements and capacities for resistance. Instead, h e locates the critical di-
29 1
mension in the universalistic features of communicative action and in the

evolutionary aspects of the cultural and political heritage of modernity. Deweys strong Jeffersonian emphasis o n participation, his active and affirmative
approach to leading progressive movements of his day, and his vision of
democracy as a militant faith set a decidedly different tone than the defensive stance of Habermas.
Although both theorists favor gradual, pluralistic, and peaceful (asopposed
to revolutionary, totalizing, and violent) change, Habermas speaks much
more cautiously about tampering with liberal institutions and more abstractly
about the degree to which democratization should depart from existing institutions. Because both theorists favor uncoerced communicative processes
and cooperation, neither provides a detailed mapping of democratic social
order. Dewey, however, stated expressly that democracy is a radical project
requiring great change in existing social institutions and struggle. . . on as
many fronts as culture has aspects: political, economic, international, educational, scientific and artistic, religious. H e viewed democratization as involving many small steps in diverse local contexts. But h e also considered full
employment, comprehensive social welfare programs, and workers control
an a essential minimum goal, and h e argued that truly radical democracy
calls for a profound transformation of bourgeois concepts of individualism,
interpersonal relations, education, productivist values, and nature (Dewey
[ 19371 1987b, p. 299; [ 19391 19881, pp. 3 12-3 14, 320; [ 19391 1989b.
p. 132).
However, Deweys radical agenda does not entail an antimodernist dismantling of representative political institutions, centralized authority and planning, and rationalized methods of production and exchange. Rather h e
wanted to enliven and rearrange these institutions, organizations, and ideas
through a participatory socialand cultural transformation that challenges
the conventions which restrict democracy to the established tame and narrow
political domains.6 H e considered the limits of democracy to be historically
conditioned and not absolute. In his view, the boundaries of existing institutions must be pushed hard with a willingness to accept the attendant risks and
costs; the potentialities of the era can be discovered only by practical experimentation that imagines new forms of social life, effects changes, assesses
consequences, and makes adjustments accordingly.
By contrast, Habermas puts much stricter limits on these possibilities, conceiving of democracy as basic political decisions in which participants have
already undergone discursive will-formation (i.e., education that enables
them to submit to force of better argument). H e also seems skeptical about
economic democratization, indicating strong doubts about whether self-management is a viable goal (Habermas in Dews 1986,pp. 67-69). It is important
to emphasize, however, that his views about democratization are, at least,
292
partially responses to what h e feels to be antimodern threats from the romantic left and extreme postmodernists. Habermas h a s a strong sensitivity to the
authoritarian possibilities posed by the erosion of the modes of organizational
and cultural rationalization upon which democracy itself depends. Yet his
strong fears about dedifferentiation, his bifurcations of production/communication and instrumental action/communicative action, and his lack of emphasis o n participation constitute, overall, a rather restrictive conception of
democracy emphasizing primarily a formal, proceduralist model focusing o n
limited arenas.
But Deweys position is also problematic. However prescient h e was about
the future, major changes of the past fifty years require that many of his
positions be rethought (e.g., state planning, organized labor, science, and the
media take o n new meanings today). But such revision is consistent with his
own radical historicism. More importantly, Dewey did not adequately confront theorists, such as Marx and Weber, who analyzed the towering political
economic and organizational bases of antagonism, conflict, inequality, and
coercion. While Dewey criticized capitalism, big business, and totalitarian ideologies, h e failed to theorize comprehensively e n o u g h the systematic thwarting of democratic participation by modern social organizations and interorganizational environments. Because of his limited understanding of the
complex connections between liberal democracy and the productive power
of domination within modern organizations, Dewey could not fully come to
terms with the forces that make nonparticipatory institutions so hard to overcome, even when they are not propped up by brute coercion. And although
Dewey sharply criticized the abuses of specialized science, h e did not probe
deeply e n o u g h how domination operates within scientific discourses and
practices. Finally, consequent of his strong privileging of communication and
cooperation, h e did not address the role of confrontational politics or alternative strategies to cope with truly obdurate social problems that seem beyond consensual solutions. For example, Dewey politically supported racial
equality, but h e never addressed how his communicative conception of democracy could contribute to overcoming the nearly complete and violent
oppression of Black Americans during his day.
Yet Habermas also privileges consensus and underplays the role of confrontation and direct action in achieving political change. In addition, his work
has its own sociological deficit arising from the split between labor and interaction and from the consequent weakness in his portrayal of the interplay
between communicative and instrumental action. The appropriations from
Marx and Weber, however, provide him with a more developed conception
of the role of domination and of organizational constraints to democracy. We
believe, however, that Deweys conceptions of communication and the social
bond are better attuned to the historical bases of social solidarity and critique
and make a sharper break with dualistic thought and societal consensus theo-
Communication, Modernity, and Democracy /n Habermas and Dewey
293
ry. Consequently, he provides a better starting point for a communicative or

critical theory o f democracy. Dewey and Habermas both attempt to reconstruct modern thought in order to unify theory and practice, conceptualizing
social theory as part o f the project of democratic social critique and reconstruction. Today, the works o f the two theorists take on added importance
because democratic struggles are widely celebrated in the mass media
which, at the same time, tend to reduce democracy to individual liberty and
the free play of capitalist markets. A long-overdue confrontation between
Dewey and Habermas is, thus, important for broadening the current discourse
about the meaning and goals of democratization and for reconstructing critical social theory in the interest of wider, deeper, and more just democracy.
During the last decade, interest in interdisciplinary social theory has grown
enormously. A t the center o f the new discussions, cutting across the humanities and sciences, has been the issue o f whether a communicative, discursive, or linguistic turn could provide resources, missing in mainstream
specialized approaches, for coming to terms with todays mounting social
crises and changes. We hope that our treatment of the theories of Dewey and
Habermas, which have been important topics in this dialogue, demonstrates
that interactionist ideas have much to contribute to the new interdisciplinary
discourses and especially to critical theory. By joining these debates, interactionists would return to the normative roots of their own approach which
reside in the pragmatist concern with establishing greater mediation between
scholarly practices and democratic public life.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to Steve Best, Dmitri Shalin, and the editors of Symbolic Interaction for their
helpful criticisms and to Jiirgen Habermas for his informative comments about the
origins and development of his interests in Dewey and pragmatism. This research was
supported by the University of Kansas general research grant allocation #32 16-XX0038.
1 . Habermas told u s that h e recalls reading Deweys major philosophical texts, such
as Quest for Certainty, Reconstruction in Philosophy, Art as Experience, and
Logic: The Theory ofhquiry. H e also said that Deweys progressive philosophy of
education, which stressed the importance of science, democracy, and enlightenment, was very significant for his own education and formation of his world-view
(conversation with Kellner in Frankfurt, Germany, October 1 990). Habermas cited
Dewey for t h e first time in On the Logic ofthe SocialSciences ([ 19671 1988),but
did not engage his work. Also, h e noted that h e began, in the early 1960s. an
intensive involvement with linguistic philosophy and analytical philosophy of
science. Encouraged by my friend Apel, I also studied Peirce, as well as Mead and
294
2.
3.
4.
5.
Dewey. From the outset I viewed American pragmatism as the third productive
reply to Hegel, after Marx and Kierltegaard (Habermas in Dews 1 986, p. I 5 1 ).
Furthermore, Habermas told us that h e first encountered a livingpragmatism in
Lawrence Kohlberg who expressed its central motifs in his experimental openness to experience, non-dogmatic approach to theory stressing the need for
reconceptualization and revision, and receptivity to critical arguments that might
elicit theoretical revision. Finally, h e indicated that it was Richard Bernstein who
convinced him of the importance of pragmatism for contemporary philosophy
and of its closeness to some of his own positions (conversation with Kellner in
Frankfurt, Germany, October 1990).Although Habermas ( 197 1 ; 1987a; 1988)
systematically engaged Charles Morris, Peirce, and Mead, he never comprehensively interrogated Deweys thought.
Habermas affirmative attitude toward Dewey and the pragmatist tradition contrasts sharply with earlier critical theorists who attacked Dewey for idealism and
crude naturalism (e.g.,Marcuse 1939) and for being an apologist for American
empiricism and liberalism (e.g.,Horkheimer [ 19471 1974). Leo Lowenthal was
the only major figure in the Frankfurt School to speak favorably about pragmatism, Richard Bernstein ( 1986,p. 9 1 ) states: It is to Habermass credit that h e
has been one of the few German philosophers . . . to break out of those blinding
prejudices which have been a barrier for Continental philosophers to appreciate
the vitality, esprit and relevance of what is best in the American pragmatic tradition. It is not just that Habermas has creatively drawn o n the work of Peirce and
Mead in developing his own understanding of communicative action, discourse,
and rationality, but the American pragmatist with whom Habermas shares the
deepest affinity is J o h n Dewey . . . But Bernstein does not elaborate their similarities and differences.
Habermas critique may not be fair o n these points, because Dewey was expressly aware of the problems in translating means into ends, facts into values,
and theory into practice. In addition, Dewey was prescient about the distortions
emergent from capitalist commercialization, specialized science, and mass communications. In the wake of the World War I propaganda machines, Dewey
([1918] 1988e; [I9181 1988g) was already warning about the dangers of a
concentrated news media and, in the 19205, about public discourse being undermined by private interests suppressing, withholding, and misrepresenting information (Dewey [ 19271 1988c, p. 347). Habermas oversight o n this matter
may unfold from his focusing primarily on Deweys philosophical works rather
than his social and political writings.
See o u r critique of the postmodern turn in social theory (Antonio and Kellner
1993) and our forthcoming book, Theorizing Modernity ( 1993),where we address the nature, contributions, and limitations of modern social theory.
Deweys position must not be confused with reductive or positivistic naturalism,
which contends that identical mechanistic processes and laws govern all phenomenal domains and that only the mathematical methods of hard science
produce genuine knowledge. Dewey had a pluralistic view of phenomena, methods, and knowledge. H e argued that the social and cultural domains have unique
attributes (i.e., their communicative features), distinguishing them from purely
physical realities and requiring their own distinct methods of inquiry and knowledge. Although Dewey sang praises about the wonders of communication, h e
did not radically partition culture and society from other aspects of reality. Nei-
295
ther did h e suggest the neat boundaries between social and cultural spheres (i.e.,
between purposive and instrumental rationality or between science, art, and
ethics) which characterize Habermasian thought. Rather, h e stressed the interpenetration and interdependence of all domains, including the social. Still, Deweys naturalism does not deny the reality of different phenomenal spheres nor
does it rule out the need for different modes of understanding. In his view,
varying human practices and crafts generate distinct forms of intelligence appropriate to each activity. Like Nietzsche, Dewey spoke emphatically about the value
of widely divergent types of knowledge, modes of judgment. and forms of
experience.
6. The elder Deweys Jeffersonian views had a formative impact o n the SDS leadership in its early (Port Huron) days, and helped shape their participatory democratic creed; SDS leaders came in contact with Deweys ideas directly and
through the influence of C. Wright Mills (see Miller 1987, pp. 16, 69, 78-79.
148- 150, 168- 169, 206-2 1 I ). Although h e might not have agreed with t h e
confrontational aspects of the 1940s and 1970s social movements, the new
public spheres they attempted to forge had a strong Deweyean flavor. By contrast, Habermas criticizes these movements for their antimodern features. Any
comparison of the politics of Dewey and Habermas, however, must be highly
qualified because of their sharply different historical and cultural contexts. For
example, Habermas past conflicts with the German New Left may have helped
shape his views on democracy. The painful, German experience with Nazism is a
watershed that may also contribute to his cautious ideas about radical change
and political experimentation.
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Communication, Modernity, and Democracy in Habermas and Dewey

Author(s): Robert J. Antonio and Douglas Kellner

Alone among Frankfurt School theorists, Habermas has critically appropriated

Copyright (c), I992 by JAl Press, Inc.

Symbolic Interaction Volume 15 / Number 3 / 1992

HABERMASIAN CRITICAL THEORY