The Foundations of

Social Research
Michael Crotty
Chapter 7
Critical Inquiry Continued

Presenters

Sadaf Rasool
Hamid Khan
Saleem Khan

The Foundations of Social

Research

Habermas claims that Adorno, in rejecting

identity logic, surrendered to an
uninhibited scepticism concerning reason.
Adorno, according to Habermas replaced
reason with impulse, its opposite.
Adorno disagrees claiming that his project
is one that actually seeks to increase
rationality by increasing sensitivity

The Foundations of Social

Research

The issue of reason, so central to

negative dialectics lies also at the heart of
Habermas relationship to the tradition of
the Frankfurt school he joined in 1956

The Foundations of Social

Research

Adorno and Horkheimer (Marcuse as well) depict

Western society as a social and political
economy, at once capitalist and bureaucratic,
which reduces all social relations to the level of
objectified and commodified administered
systems.
As they see it, the development of this form of
society springs from the Enlightenments
understanding of reason as instrumental
rationality

The Foundations of Social

Research

This is an understanding that decisively

splits subject from object and looks, above
all else, to gain control over nature and
render it predictable. On the basis of this
understanding, Horkheimer and
particularly Adorno make refutation and
rejection of identity thinking pivotal to
their critique of capitalist society.

The Foundations of Social

Research

Habermas had never shared the radically

anti-capitalist stance of Horkheimer and
Adorno. Nor does he want to reject
reason as wholeheartedly as he believes
Adorno has done.
Seeking a praxis-oriented philosophy of
history, beyond Marxist historical
framework

The Foundations of Social

Research

He wants a normative basis for critical

theory
Positive concept of reason (as opposed to
negative concept)

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Research

Habermas posits a distinction between labor as

instrumental action and social interaction as
communicative action. These two forms of
action constitute the basis for a three-fold
typology of human knowledge.
Central epistemological tenet: Human beings
constitute their reality and organize their
experience in terms of cognitive (or knowledgeguiding) interests.

The Foundations of Social

Research

Habermas Three-Fold Typology of Human

Action

Empirical Sciences led by a technical interest in

predicting and controlling objectified processes-This is
the realm of instrumental action
The historico-hermeneutic sciences (social sciences)
are guided by a practical interest in achieving
intersubjective understanding
In the critical sciences (psychoanalysis, philosophy?),
which are governed by the intent to bring about
emancipation from the relations of dependence that
ideology in particular has set in place and that come
to appear to us as natural.

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Three-Fold Typology in a nutshell:

The specific viewpoints from which we can

apprehend reality as such in any way
whatsoever are an orientation toward:
Technical control
Mutual understanding
emancipation

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Habermas and the linguistic turn

Language and epistemology very intertwined

Today the problem of language has taken the
place of the traditional problem of
consciousness
What raises us out of nature is the only thing
whose nature we can know: language.

Hamid Khan

The Foundations of Social

Research

Habermas
Language-epistemologypragmatics/praxis-rationality
Systematically distorted communication
Theory of communicative competence
Ideal speech situation

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Research

Ideal Speech Situation: one that is free from

systematic distortion, allows unimpaired selfpresentation by participants, and is
characterised by mutuality of expectations rather
than one-sided norms.
Discourse is unrestrained and universal and
enables an unconstrained consensus to emerge
whereby the idea of truth can be analyzed.

The Foundations of Social

Research

Habermas: Theory of Discourse/Consensus

theory of truth
Discourse is distinguished from communicative
action:

Communicative action is the interaction that takes

place in everyday life and in it claims to validity are
more or less naively accepted.
Discourse, on the other hand, constitutes an unusual
form of communication in which the participants
subject themselves to the force of the better
argument, with a view of coming to an agreement
about the validity or invalidity of problematic claims

The Foundations of Social

Research

Habermas: In critical inquiry, it is discourse with

which we should be concerned
In discourse, the beliefs, norms and values that
are taken for granted in everyday interaction are
expressly thematized and subject to critique
Discourses become institutionalized for certain
domains: that of practical questions and political
decisions (practico-politico discourse)

The Foundations of Social

Research

Universal Pragmatics and communicative ethics

in Habermas thought.

Where there is consensus about norms that is free

from constraint and representative of the common
good, Habermas is ready to accord it universality i.e.,
a normative principle of universalization.
The general and unavoidablein this sense
transcendentalconditions of possible understanding
have a normative content
The project of discovering and articulating these
conditions is universal pragmatics

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Research

So Habermas is concerned with

communication competence, social
evolution, systems theory, problem solving
(pragmatics), social learning and
development
Re-envisioning historical materialism

The Foundations of Social

Research

Systems problems occur in any given

society
These create crises and demand a
response
The systems problems co-emerge with
learning processes in response to them,
providing the dynamism of social
development and processes of history

The Foundations of Social

Research

Two dimensions to the processes of learning in

Habermas social evolution theory

Moral-practical knowledge (developments in the

relations of production)
Empirical-analytic knowledge (development in the
forces of knowledge)
Re-envisioning historical materialism:
Theory materialist in that it makes reference to crisisproducing systems problems in the domain of
production and reproduction; and the analysis
remains historically oriented in so far as it has to seek
the causes of evolutionary changes in the whole
range ofcontingent circumstances

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Research

Focus of Habermas on the collision

between economic and political
imperatives and the communicative
structures of the lifeworld
Modernity is about justifying subjectcentered reason
But, philosophy of language repudiates
the subject
How to reconcile this dilemma?

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Can the dilemmas of modernity be

reframed in terms of a philosophy of
language and a theory of communication?
For Habermas, communicative reason is
not the same as subject-centered reason
The structure of communicative discourse
is emancipatory
We can save modernity.

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Research

Paulo Freire
Reflection without action=verbalism
Literacy and politics

The Foundations of Social

Research

Conscientisation

Learn the words that are meaningful to the

people, words that evoke responses in them
i.e., generative words
Portray words in visual form

The Foundations of Social

Research

Freire defines critical thinking as thinking which

discerns an indivisible solidarity between the
world and men.
Critical thinking perceives reality as process and
transformation, rather than as a static entity
It is thinking which does not separate itself
from action.

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Research

Through humans, the world has come to

consciousness.
Freedom is not to realise absolute, abstract
ideals as such, but the freedom to address
themselves to their situation.

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Research

They must emerge from that situation, reflect

upon it, and intervene in it.
As a thinking and free being, the human being is
in the world in a unique way: because they are
thinking, they are historical, creative, free, and
have a unique human presence on the planet.

Saleem Khan

The Foundations of Social

Research

In constantly transforming the

environment, women and men are
shaping the very conditions of their
existence and their life.
Human beings have no nature, what they
have is history
There is no history for men, there is only
history of men, made by men and in turn
making them.

The Foundations of Social

Research

Implications of Freires Epistemology

Intentionality: The intentionality of consciousness

means that consciousness is never a mere reflection
of material reality, but is a reflection upon material
reality
Consciousness is already an active intervention
into reality.
Critical reflection is already action.
Both activism and serious reflection are thus
necessary in true praxis. They must also be
simultaneous. Then they become creative.

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Research
Humanization
The historic task of human beings, and their
central problem as well, is to become more
fully human.
Dehumanization is both a possibility and a
historical reality
Unlike animals, who cannot be deanimalized, humans can be dehumanized.

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Humans can fail to become fully human and can

become less human in fact via exploitation,
oppression, and through all forms of injustice,
marking (and I would say dehumanizing) both
those whose humanity is stolen and those who
have stolen it.
The great humanistic task of the oppressed is
not only to liberate and humanize themselves,
but to liberate and humanize their oppressors as
well.

The Foundations of Social

Research

Conscienticization

Concienticization does not take place in

abstract beings but in real people and in real
social structures.
The pursuit of full humanity cannot be carried
out in isolation or in individualism, but can
only take place in fellowship and in solidarity.

The Foundations of Social

Research

Action/reflection need dialogue in order to

occur
Liberation cannot occur without dialogue
Dialogue cannot exist without critical
thinking
The banking concept of learningvs.
pedagogy of the oppressed

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Research

Who are the oppressed? To Freire?

The masses upon whom, within culturally

alienated societies, a regime of oppression is
imposed by the power elites.
The oppressed belong to the culture of silence

The Foundations of Social

Research

In the culture of silence, the oppressed

are muted. They have no voice. They are
excluded from any active role in the
transformation of their society and are
therefore prohibited from being.
What is worse is that not only do they not
have a voice, they are most likely not
aware that they do not have a voice

The Foundations of Social

Research

There must be dialogue, requiring trust

(but not nave trust) in the oppressed and
their ability to reason

Dialogue engages in problematization

The Foundations of Social

Research

Problematicization requires
demythicization

Black Day
December 16, 2014