A K Giri & S Varghese (eds.) Towards a New Dharma of Peace Building: Conflict Transformation and Alternative Planetary Futures. Singapore: Springer Nature. , 2024
Given the overarching theme of conflict resolution and peace building, this chapter presents a mo... more Given the overarching theme of conflict resolution and peace building, this chapter presents a model of a communicatively mediated process of mutual learning whereby the necessary conditions for such an eventuality can be established step-by-step. To render the model as transparent as possible, it is located in the framework of the social world conceived as a multidimensional set of relations. Within its historical-constructive and evolutionary structure-stabilizing parameters, the focus is on substantive ethical life, or ethos, as the core of social life that harbors ambivalent potentials. On the one hand, it is the paradigmatic source of the generation of conflict as reflected in in-group/outgroup relations, but, on the other, it holds the key to conflict resolution and, by extension, the building of an order of peace across groups. The aim of the argument is to unravel the ambivalence of ethos by analyzing its relations to the concrete ethical ideal followed immanently in everyday life and to the moral principles that transcend any social context in so far as they universally define human beings. The basic question is whether an ethos faced with the unavoidable ethical and moral exigencies either tends toward particularistic closure or toward universal openness without emptying or abandoning itself.
The aim of this article is a sociology of the future. The mega-threats society faces underscore t... more The aim of this article is a sociology of the future. The mega-threats society faces underscore the urgency of this task, but the inadequacy of sociological positions demonstrates its necessity. The standard practice of extrapolating from the favoured everyday semantics of the future and the timeconsciousness of modernity must be rethought. Understanding the future in terms of possibility, this practice overlooks or ignores the societally significant structures that are necessary in the first place for an orientation to the future to be established and maintained. Effectively, structure gets reduced to action. In response, an integrated cognitive sociological perspective allied to critical theory is introduced to frame the argument. Capable of mediating the sociocultural and naturalistic approaches, this perspective makes visible an essential dimension of social life which is either largely taken for granted, misunderstood or ignored. It identifies the different levels of cognitive structures organizing the minds of actors, institutions and culture, and follows their role and impact in the dynamic mediation of the micro, meso, macro and meta-levels of society. For this purpose, a drastic shift from the conventional concept of time to the alternative of space-time is made to incorporate also the material dimension of society and its embedding nature. With space-time in place, modal analysis of the key present-past-future sequence illuminates the relation between the spatially situated temporal moments and the distinct sets of natural and sociocultural cognitive structures. Of particular interest is the distinct modal status of the future compared to those of the present and past. Modally, emphasis is laid on the necessity of the formal generic cultural model of the future before considering the future in terms of the possibilities made available for future-oriented action. The resulting cognitive sociological account offers a novel theoretical understanding of the future which could facilitate thorough sociological and critical theoretical analyses in the societal space-time field.
These reflections are devoted to a critical comparison of three distinct interpretations of Haber... more These reflections are devoted to a critical comparison of three distinct interpretations of Habermas's theory of truth. The first, which is presented as the more adequate interpretation, takes Habermas's theory as having a three-moment structure, whereas the two remaining interpretations are both based on his two-moment conception of "Janus-faced truth". Whereas Steven Levine stresses the nonepistemic lifeworld pole of the twosided concept and Alex Seemann the opposite epistemic discursive pole, the three-moment interpretation counters with a synthetic conception which emphasises the role of the context-transcendent universalistic concept of truth. This overarching interpretation is inspired by a cognitive perspective concerned with the full circle of the sociocultural embodiment and realisation of reason.
Responding to a call for systematic contributions on the theory of society, the principle aim of ... more Responding to a call for systematic contributions on the theory of society, the principle aim of this article is to recover and reconstruct the Young-Hegelian core of critical theory's theory of the dialectical development of society and, on that basis, to project its creative research-based continuation by analysing its largely neglected key concept of possibility. The acknowledgement of the critical theory lineage's naturalist, realist and especially idealist features leads this reconstruction to ascribe a central role to certain pivotal concepts that deserve special attention-including nature, the construction of society, evolution, immanent-transcendence and the conceptual conditions or cognitive order of society. A side-effect of this theoretical exposition is the exposure in the course of the argument of certain weaknesses often visible in the contemporary articulation of the theory of society in both critical theory and general social theory. Conceptual solutions to those deficiencies are simultaneously presented in a form appropriate to critical theory's modal-based negative explanatory and positive disclosing critique.
Routledge International Handbook of Contemporary Social & Political Theory, edited by G. Delanty & S. P. Turrner. Second Edition, 2022
The central concern of contemporary social and political theory is closely related to the nature ... more The central concern of contemporary social and political theory is closely related to the nature of modern society as a functionally differentiated class society which involves normative claims pointing far beyond its systemic and stratified organization. This chapter brings a relatively new departure, the cognitive approach, to bear on social and political theory and its potential for coming to grips with the problems confronting contemporary society. After some preliminary remarks about cognitive social science, the argument is opened with a brief consideration of the nature of modern society in order to pinpoint the problems stimulating social and political theory. This is followed by a cognitively inspired analysis in terms of the dialectical processes of the constitution and organization of society. It provides the opportunity to introduce some central cognitive theoretical concepts and to indicate both their meaningfulness and usefulness. Finally, this account allows a restatement of the task of contemporary social and political theory and the identification of the core practical aspect of the contemporary problematic situation: the formation of a subject appropriate to the emerging world society.
Ananta Kumar Giri (ed.) Cross-Fertilizing Roots and Routes: Identities, Social Creativity, Cultural Regeneration and Planetary Realizations, Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021
As a variation on Ananta Kumar Giri's proposed theme of "roots and routes", this chapter explores... more As a variation on Ananta Kumar Giri's proposed theme of "roots and routes", this chapter explores the conceptual couple of first and second nature. Here first nature refers to the natural historical and evolutionary origin of the current version of the human species, Homo sapiens sapiens, and second nature to the characteristically human sociocultural world. The argument is unfolded in three parts. In the first, the phylogeny of the human species is traced back to its microbiological and cognitive forms. The point is that all contemporary humans not only share the same arch-mother biologically known as "Mitochondrial Eve", but have in common also the same cognitively fluid mind characterized by a uniquely human meta-representational or reflexive capacity-both features that allow them in principle to transcend their many and varied ethnic, communal and sociocultural differences. Employing the concept of weak naturalism, the second part explores the enabling yet fraught relation between nature and the sociocultural world, the focus being particularly on the inherent ambivalence of the sociocultural world due to being caught between natural determination and sociocultural creativity. The point of the argument is to underscore the need for learning that is constantly and urgently required to overcome imposed natural limits so as to open up emancipatory sociocultural potentials and realizable possibilities. Against the background of the foregoing, the final part engages with Ananta Kumar Giri's poser by reflecting on his assumptions and central concepts. Noting that his account remains confined to the sociocultural context to the neglect of its rootedness in nature, the reflections are aimed at critically disambiguating his use of the concepts of religion and togetherness to suggest ways of mitigating and overcoming typical problems plaguing the contemporary sociocultural world.
This is a review of Jürgen Habermas, Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie, vol. 1: Die okzidental... more This is a review of Jürgen Habermas, Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie, vol. 1: Die okzidentale Konstellation von Glauben und Wissen; vol. 2: Vernünftige Freiheit. Spuren des Diskurses über Glauben und Wissen. [Also a History of Philosophy, vol. 1: The Occidental Constellation of Faith and Knowledge; vol. 2: Freedom based on Reason: Traces of the Discourse about Faith and Knowledge.] Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag, 11.11.2019. ISBN 978-3-518-58734-8 (hbk), €98.00; 978-3-518-58736-2 (pbk), €58.00. 1752 pages.
Topologik, Special Issue No. 26: Karl-Otto Apel – Vita e Pensiero/Leben und Denken, vol. 2, December-January, pp. 163-82. , 2019
In this contribution, I briefly reconstruct the shift from Karl-Otto Apel's transcendental pragma... more In this contribution, I briefly reconstruct the shift from Karl-Otto Apel's transcendental pragmatics to the version of cognitive sociology I have been promoting for a number of years. Overall, the account takes the form of a juxtaposition of two distinct yet intimately interrelated architectonic conceptions which is pursued through retracing the selective appropriation over decades of Apel's ideas from the viewpoint of a possible new social scientific departure. The main body of the chapter is in three parts, the first of which presents a selection of Apel's key ideas that informed the conceptualization and construction of cognitive sociology. The second part sketches how these key ideas were critically appropriated, transformed and developed so as to arrive at a philosophically informed approach that theoretically and methodologically dovetails with critical theory. The final part offers indications of the resultant cognitive-sociological architectonic conception from which the deep relation to, as well as contrast with, Apel's architectonic becomes apparent.
Ananta Kumar Giri (ed.) Transformative Harmony, Delhi: Studera Press, November 2019, Chapter 4, pp. 63-77, 2019
This article offers a theoretical assessment of the idea of harmony as a potential focus imaginar... more This article offers a theoretical assessment of the idea of harmony as a potential focus imaginarius for the construction and organisation of the emerging global society as well for the social scientific study of this process. The assessment is couched in cognitive social-theoretical terms. While the limits of the idea of harmony are highlighted by drawing on aesthetic theory, it is nevertheless retained as an essential formal presupposition possessing both ontological and epistemological significance. Social-scientifically, however, the idea is located on the meta-level, counterfactual, cognitive order of society as only one among a wide range of different cognitive rules which get selectively and variably combined and used as structuring elements when distinct actor-agents in concrete social life competitively engage in the pursuit of their own particular visions of a harmonious society. The task today is to study this process in order to identify learning processes and potentials pointing toward a harmonious society that could be social-scientifically enhanced and supported.
Axel Honneth regards the Critical Theory tradition from Horkheimer and Adorno to Habermas as suff... more Axel Honneth regards the Critical Theory tradition from Horkheimer and Adorno to Habermas as suffering from a debilitating sociological deficit which can be overcome only by a recovery of the neglected or even suppressed social domain. This article focuses on Honneth’s project which runs like a golden threat from his early to his current work. It reviews his diagnosis of the deficit in Horkheimer, Adorno and Habermas, then analyzes his proposals for the recovery of the social and the elimination of the deficit with reference to key statements from his theoretically relevant texts, and against that background finally offers a critical evaluation of his claim to have succeeded. The verdict is that the sociological deficit persists in contemporary Critical Theory. Although Honneth’s key concepts of ‘mechanisms of mutual recognition’, ‘social mediation’ and the ‘process of moral learning and societal development’ do point in the right direction, they are neither sufficiently theoretically elaborated nor sociologically substantiated. Both the critical assessment and the suggested corrective measures are presented from a cognitive sociological perspective which suggests the possibility of a new theoretical version of Critical Theory.
Wayne H Brekhus & Gabe Ignatow (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019
This chapter presents in outline the theoretical framework of an integral cognitive sociology tha... more This chapter presents in outline the theoretical framework of an integral cognitive sociology that, aside from making sense in itself and on its own, has been intentionally designed to complement Critical Theory by potentially enhancing its analytical and defining critical capacity. It is an integral version in so far as it seeks to interrelate in a cognitive theoretical sense both the sociocultural and naturalistic dimensions. Starting from the metatheoretical concept of immanent transcendence, the sociocultural dimension is explicated through the key concept of the metacultural cognitive order of society and a complementary theory of cultural structures and dynamics. This complex is then embedded in nature by means of the concept of weak naturalism that, despite tying it down ontologically, allows the sociocultural domain to come into its own. Theoretically and methodologically, the ambivalent tension-laden position of the sociocultural world between first and second nature is of special interest in that it is crucial to Critical Theory's critical reconstructive and explanatory mode of procedure. Rather than just outlining the theoretical framework, which is given in the core second part of the chapter, however, indications are first offered of the origination of this integral version of cognitive sociology. Instead of a general historical overview of whatever smatterings of the cognitive are to be found in Critical Theory, this is done from an intellectual autobiographical perspective. Both the emergence of this cognitive sociology from the intellectual constellation of the 1960s and 70s in which Karl-Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas took Critical Theory in a new direction is pinpointed and its subsequent unfolding in by no means uncritical correlation with the further development of Critical Theory in the context of international debates, including the cognitive revolution, is traced. Introduction To honour my brief of having to write on the theme of Critical Theory and cognitive sociology requires taking up an autobiographical perspective, both my own and my generation's, in order to briefly retrace the trajectory of this relation from the viewpoint of my current understanding of cognitive sociology. The integral version of cognitive sociology presented here is closely associated with Critical Theory. It originally emerged against the background of the intellectual constellation of the late-1960s and early-1970s in which Critical Theory occupied a central position, and it gradually unfolded in parallel with the development of the latter in a context partially shaped by the cognitive revolution.
The metaproblematic of this article is the cognitive structure of morality. In the context of an ... more The metaproblematic of this article is the cognitive structure of morality. In the context of an investigation into Habermas's theory of validity which respects his strong cognitivism and emphasis on moral knowledge, the focus is on his proposal to treat rightness as 'justification-immanent' rather than as 'justification-transcendent,' as in the case of truth. The imputation of asymmetrical validity bases to rightness and truth is probed in terms of the distinction between achievement and validity concepts which is informed by the mathematical-philosophical conceptual pair of finite and infinite ideal limit concepts. The thrust of the argument is spearheaded by the question whether the process of the discursive construction and justification of rightness is not of necessity required, as in the case of truth, to have recourse to a transcendent – albeit immanently rooted – cognitive property beyond formal-pragmatically backed procedural presuppositions to secure its validity. A final brief coda collates suggestions made in the course of the argumentation toward a cognitive-sociological approach that links up with Habermas's central concepts and could complement his inspiring vision of the 'cultural embodiment of reason'. Introduction Habermas originally presented his view of the difference between truth and rightness in his early writings and, since then, it has become apparent that his particular interpretation of rightness in contrast to truth actually represents a characteristic feature of his thought. In his late work, however, this distinction is treated with greater precision, although not wholly differently, due to a significant extent to his revision in the late 1990s of his long-held discursive or consensus concept of truth. The revision did not entail a complete surrendering of this concept, to be sure, but it did require compensation of its limitations by the adoption of a complementary pragmatic concept of truth. The effect of this move was the strengthening of the discursive concept's practical roots and procedural implications by pragmatism – but a pragmatism simultaneously interpreted somewhat more strongly in Kantian terms than many an American pragmatist would be willing to countenance. Habermas accomplished this feat by recognizing that pragmatism retained the transcendental framing inherited from Kant, yet managed to mitigate the tension between the empirical and transcendental moments. This recognition was consolidated by the introduction of the crucial concept of 'immanent-transcendence'. It marks the displacement of the dualistic metaphysics of Kant's transcendental idealism by a processual conception showing Hegel's fingermarks according to which transcendental conditions in the form of strong idealizations instead of Kantian ideas of reason are understood as being rooted in the world and in their transcending thrust beyond return to the anchorage in the world. This notion compelled the transgression of the conception of the discursive justification of truth claims as a purely immanent process, leading to truth being characterized as a 'justification-transcendent' concept. But what is striking in Habermas's late writings is his insistence that rightness, in contrast to truth, is a 'justification-immanent' concept instead.
This article pursues the question of the origin of the left-Hegelian concept of immanent transcen... more This article pursues the question of the origin of the left-Hegelian concept of immanent transcendence that emerged in the 19 th-century. Whereas some contemporary critical theorists apparently understand the concept as deriving from a religious origin, evolutionary and historical considerations would seem to indicate that more might be involved. Evolutionarily, the origin of the concept can be traced to the civilisation-founding cognitive achievement that marks the emergence of the current version of the human species and the concomitant cultural explosion during the Palaeolithic period. In this context, the cultural consolidation of the newly acquired metarepresentational capacity by language and visual symbolisation or art preceded religion by a considerable elapse of time. As one among a number of sociocultural practices, it could only have made a partial contribution to the conditions for the emergence of the concept. Historically, the thought of the key 19 th-century left-Hegelians Marx and Peirce was fundamentally shaped, not by religion, but rather by the core modern innovation of the 17 th and 18 th century – the new mathematical-scientific-philosophical understanding of infinity as real – which gained primacy by significantly impacting on relevant late 18th-and 19th-century intellectual developments, including laying down the parameters of classical social thought in general and left-Hegelianism in particular. Since the competing religious understanding of infinity, despite having left traces on modern validity concepts such as truth, justice and truthfulness, remained shrouded in indefinite incomprehensibility, it could at best continue to play only the role of an identity-securing, identity-cultivating and motivational source for some, not all. As such, it did not contribute to the 19 th-century left-Hegelian concept. Introduction An important outcome of certain contributions by Jürgen Habermas (1992, 1999a, 2002) and Axel Honneth (2007) in the late 1980s and 1990s was the insight that immanent transcendence is the key meta-theoretical concept of the left-Hegelian tradition. 1 This understanding was reinforced by the debate between Nancy Fraser and Honneth (2003) in the early years of the 21st century. A major step in grasping the key status of the concept is the appreciation that it stands for the metaproblematic of left-Hegelianism insofar as it provides the overall framework for its principle of practically available accumulated rational potential. Relevant in the present context is that the concept in general reflects the basic conceptual parameters that shaped the context in which classical sociology emerged. In a nutshell, it refers to a process with two moments in which historical-constructive activities and their products are given form by structures that had been generated previously by such activities and have become stabilised for the time being, leaving open the possibility of tension and conflict between the two moments which need to be practically worked through. Despite the fact that the relation between immanent transcendence and left-Hegelianism was discussed at some length in the course of the Fraser-Honneth debate, however, much remains to be clarified if this concept and its significance are to be adequately understood.
in A. K. Giri (ed.) Social Theory and Asian Dialogues: Cultivating Planetary Conversations. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan., 2018
The Afterword reflects on the main theme of this anthology, that is, the problem of the relations... more The Afterword reflects on the main theme of this anthology, that is, the problem of the relations between Eastern and Western ideas. While including difference, tension, competition and conflict, these relations also point in the direction of convergence and invoke the possibility of consilience. Taking cues from the use in the chapters of such notions as conversation, dialogue and debate, these reflections propose a multilevel model of communication that could assist the reader in analytically and critically coming to terms with both the individual chapters and the volume as a whole. The criteria identified could also be of assistance to an author who seeks to make a considered contribution to the process of consilience between these different worlds of ideas.
Beyond Sociology: Trans-Civilizational Dialogues and Planetary Conversations. A. K. Giri (ed.). Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan , 2018
In this paper, I take as my starting point Norman Fairclough's treatment of critical social analy... more In this paper, I take as my starting point Norman Fairclough's treatment of critical social analysis as a form of dialectical reasoning. While generally concurring with this equivalency despite a host of smaller disagreements on which I do not dwell, I venture to fill in a largely blank space in his argument by focusing on the internal workings of dialectical reasoning. The reference point for the core of my argument is the fact that Fairclough regards critical social analysis as based on epistemological dialectics which forms part of a larger set of relations, yet passes over the explication of the place and role of this basic form of dialectics in this constellation in favour of focusing on its practical dialectical nature. The point is, however, that an adequate grasp of practical dialectics requires the simultaneous consideration of the principal operative features of epistemological dialectics, not just in critical social analysis but more basically still also in social life itself. My proposal is that this could be done by introducing the inferential stance in order to consider what I call the dialectics of inference or inferential dialectics. This perspective forms part of a broader cognitive sociological approach that focuses on the cognitive processes – of which discourse is but one – on which the construction and structuring of society depend and which pervade the latter's every fibre.
For the purposes of obtaining a critical social-theoretical grasp of cosmopolitanism approaching ... more For the purposes of obtaining a critical social-theoretical grasp of cosmopolitanism approaching adequacy, this chapter conceives it in the context of the cognitive order of modernity and the conflictual social practices reproducing it. The first step is to reconstruct the modern cognitive order in order to locate the idea of cosmopolitanism in its proper place. This reconstruction provides the opportunity, second, to clarify the necessary theoretical basis for the social-scientific analysis of cosmopolitanism which presupposes a clear distinction between the cognitive and normative dimensions. The analysis itself, thirdly, requires consideration of the relations among the competing, contested and even conflicting uses made of the cognitive meta-rule of cosmopolitanism in the process of divergent attempts to realise its socio-practically relevant rational potential. This approach allows identification of the most important collective actors operative in the cosmopolitan field today and their respective cognitive cosmopolitan frames or models of world openness which generate, regulate and guide their efforts toward realising their competing images of an open or cosmopolitan society. Once this stage is reached, a critical social-theoretical evaluation – more precisely, a socio-cognitive critique – of contemporary manifestations of cosmopolitanism becomes possible, since the interrelation of the different positions through conflict, discourse and learning provides a reference to possible practically rooted cosmopolitan relations.
Following the death of the famous German philosopher, Karl-Otto Apel, on 15 May 2017, this obitua... more Following the death of the famous German philosopher, Karl-Otto Apel, on 15 May 2017, this obituary gives an overview of his academic and intellectual biography from the perspective of someone who knew him personally.
A K Giri & S Varghese (eds.) Towards a New Dharma of Peace Building: Conflict Transformation and Alternative Planetary Futures. Singapore: Springer Nature. , 2024
Given the overarching theme of conflict resolution and peace building, this chapter presents a mo... more Given the overarching theme of conflict resolution and peace building, this chapter presents a model of a communicatively mediated process of mutual learning whereby the necessary conditions for such an eventuality can be established step-by-step. To render the model as transparent as possible, it is located in the framework of the social world conceived as a multidimensional set of relations. Within its historical-constructive and evolutionary structure-stabilizing parameters, the focus is on substantive ethical life, or ethos, as the core of social life that harbors ambivalent potentials. On the one hand, it is the paradigmatic source of the generation of conflict as reflected in in-group/outgroup relations, but, on the other, it holds the key to conflict resolution and, by extension, the building of an order of peace across groups. The aim of the argument is to unravel the ambivalence of ethos by analyzing its relations to the concrete ethical ideal followed immanently in everyday life and to the moral principles that transcend any social context in so far as they universally define human beings. The basic question is whether an ethos faced with the unavoidable ethical and moral exigencies either tends toward particularistic closure or toward universal openness without emptying or abandoning itself.
The aim of this article is a sociology of the future. The mega-threats society faces underscore t... more The aim of this article is a sociology of the future. The mega-threats society faces underscore the urgency of this task, but the inadequacy of sociological positions demonstrates its necessity. The standard practice of extrapolating from the favoured everyday semantics of the future and the timeconsciousness of modernity must be rethought. Understanding the future in terms of possibility, this practice overlooks or ignores the societally significant structures that are necessary in the first place for an orientation to the future to be established and maintained. Effectively, structure gets reduced to action. In response, an integrated cognitive sociological perspective allied to critical theory is introduced to frame the argument. Capable of mediating the sociocultural and naturalistic approaches, this perspective makes visible an essential dimension of social life which is either largely taken for granted, misunderstood or ignored. It identifies the different levels of cognitive structures organizing the minds of actors, institutions and culture, and follows their role and impact in the dynamic mediation of the micro, meso, macro and meta-levels of society. For this purpose, a drastic shift from the conventional concept of time to the alternative of space-time is made to incorporate also the material dimension of society and its embedding nature. With space-time in place, modal analysis of the key present-past-future sequence illuminates the relation between the spatially situated temporal moments and the distinct sets of natural and sociocultural cognitive structures. Of particular interest is the distinct modal status of the future compared to those of the present and past. Modally, emphasis is laid on the necessity of the formal generic cultural model of the future before considering the future in terms of the possibilities made available for future-oriented action. The resulting cognitive sociological account offers a novel theoretical understanding of the future which could facilitate thorough sociological and critical theoretical analyses in the societal space-time field.
These reflections are devoted to a critical comparison of three distinct interpretations of Haber... more These reflections are devoted to a critical comparison of three distinct interpretations of Habermas's theory of truth. The first, which is presented as the more adequate interpretation, takes Habermas's theory as having a three-moment structure, whereas the two remaining interpretations are both based on his two-moment conception of "Janus-faced truth". Whereas Steven Levine stresses the nonepistemic lifeworld pole of the twosided concept and Alex Seemann the opposite epistemic discursive pole, the three-moment interpretation counters with a synthetic conception which emphasises the role of the context-transcendent universalistic concept of truth. This overarching interpretation is inspired by a cognitive perspective concerned with the full circle of the sociocultural embodiment and realisation of reason.
Responding to a call for systematic contributions on the theory of society, the principle aim of ... more Responding to a call for systematic contributions on the theory of society, the principle aim of this article is to recover and reconstruct the Young-Hegelian core of critical theory's theory of the dialectical development of society and, on that basis, to project its creative research-based continuation by analysing its largely neglected key concept of possibility. The acknowledgement of the critical theory lineage's naturalist, realist and especially idealist features leads this reconstruction to ascribe a central role to certain pivotal concepts that deserve special attention-including nature, the construction of society, evolution, immanent-transcendence and the conceptual conditions or cognitive order of society. A side-effect of this theoretical exposition is the exposure in the course of the argument of certain weaknesses often visible in the contemporary articulation of the theory of society in both critical theory and general social theory. Conceptual solutions to those deficiencies are simultaneously presented in a form appropriate to critical theory's modal-based negative explanatory and positive disclosing critique.
Routledge International Handbook of Contemporary Social & Political Theory, edited by G. Delanty & S. P. Turrner. Second Edition, 2022
The central concern of contemporary social and political theory is closely related to the nature ... more The central concern of contemporary social and political theory is closely related to the nature of modern society as a functionally differentiated class society which involves normative claims pointing far beyond its systemic and stratified organization. This chapter brings a relatively new departure, the cognitive approach, to bear on social and political theory and its potential for coming to grips with the problems confronting contemporary society. After some preliminary remarks about cognitive social science, the argument is opened with a brief consideration of the nature of modern society in order to pinpoint the problems stimulating social and political theory. This is followed by a cognitively inspired analysis in terms of the dialectical processes of the constitution and organization of society. It provides the opportunity to introduce some central cognitive theoretical concepts and to indicate both their meaningfulness and usefulness. Finally, this account allows a restatement of the task of contemporary social and political theory and the identification of the core practical aspect of the contemporary problematic situation: the formation of a subject appropriate to the emerging world society.
Ananta Kumar Giri (ed.) Cross-Fertilizing Roots and Routes: Identities, Social Creativity, Cultural Regeneration and Planetary Realizations, Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021
As a variation on Ananta Kumar Giri's proposed theme of "roots and routes", this chapter explores... more As a variation on Ananta Kumar Giri's proposed theme of "roots and routes", this chapter explores the conceptual couple of first and second nature. Here first nature refers to the natural historical and evolutionary origin of the current version of the human species, Homo sapiens sapiens, and second nature to the characteristically human sociocultural world. The argument is unfolded in three parts. In the first, the phylogeny of the human species is traced back to its microbiological and cognitive forms. The point is that all contemporary humans not only share the same arch-mother biologically known as "Mitochondrial Eve", but have in common also the same cognitively fluid mind characterized by a uniquely human meta-representational or reflexive capacity-both features that allow them in principle to transcend their many and varied ethnic, communal and sociocultural differences. Employing the concept of weak naturalism, the second part explores the enabling yet fraught relation between nature and the sociocultural world, the focus being particularly on the inherent ambivalence of the sociocultural world due to being caught between natural determination and sociocultural creativity. The point of the argument is to underscore the need for learning that is constantly and urgently required to overcome imposed natural limits so as to open up emancipatory sociocultural potentials and realizable possibilities. Against the background of the foregoing, the final part engages with Ananta Kumar Giri's poser by reflecting on his assumptions and central concepts. Noting that his account remains confined to the sociocultural context to the neglect of its rootedness in nature, the reflections are aimed at critically disambiguating his use of the concepts of religion and togetherness to suggest ways of mitigating and overcoming typical problems plaguing the contemporary sociocultural world.
This is a review of Jürgen Habermas, Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie, vol. 1: Die okzidental... more This is a review of Jürgen Habermas, Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie, vol. 1: Die okzidentale Konstellation von Glauben und Wissen; vol. 2: Vernünftige Freiheit. Spuren des Diskurses über Glauben und Wissen. [Also a History of Philosophy, vol. 1: The Occidental Constellation of Faith and Knowledge; vol. 2: Freedom based on Reason: Traces of the Discourse about Faith and Knowledge.] Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag, 11.11.2019. ISBN 978-3-518-58734-8 (hbk), €98.00; 978-3-518-58736-2 (pbk), €58.00. 1752 pages.
Topologik, Special Issue No. 26: Karl-Otto Apel – Vita e Pensiero/Leben und Denken, vol. 2, December-January, pp. 163-82. , 2019
In this contribution, I briefly reconstruct the shift from Karl-Otto Apel's transcendental pragma... more In this contribution, I briefly reconstruct the shift from Karl-Otto Apel's transcendental pragmatics to the version of cognitive sociology I have been promoting for a number of years. Overall, the account takes the form of a juxtaposition of two distinct yet intimately interrelated architectonic conceptions which is pursued through retracing the selective appropriation over decades of Apel's ideas from the viewpoint of a possible new social scientific departure. The main body of the chapter is in three parts, the first of which presents a selection of Apel's key ideas that informed the conceptualization and construction of cognitive sociology. The second part sketches how these key ideas were critically appropriated, transformed and developed so as to arrive at a philosophically informed approach that theoretically and methodologically dovetails with critical theory. The final part offers indications of the resultant cognitive-sociological architectonic conception from which the deep relation to, as well as contrast with, Apel's architectonic becomes apparent.
Ananta Kumar Giri (ed.) Transformative Harmony, Delhi: Studera Press, November 2019, Chapter 4, pp. 63-77, 2019
This article offers a theoretical assessment of the idea of harmony as a potential focus imaginar... more This article offers a theoretical assessment of the idea of harmony as a potential focus imaginarius for the construction and organisation of the emerging global society as well for the social scientific study of this process. The assessment is couched in cognitive social-theoretical terms. While the limits of the idea of harmony are highlighted by drawing on aesthetic theory, it is nevertheless retained as an essential formal presupposition possessing both ontological and epistemological significance. Social-scientifically, however, the idea is located on the meta-level, counterfactual, cognitive order of society as only one among a wide range of different cognitive rules which get selectively and variably combined and used as structuring elements when distinct actor-agents in concrete social life competitively engage in the pursuit of their own particular visions of a harmonious society. The task today is to study this process in order to identify learning processes and potentials pointing toward a harmonious society that could be social-scientifically enhanced and supported.
Axel Honneth regards the Critical Theory tradition from Horkheimer and Adorno to Habermas as suff... more Axel Honneth regards the Critical Theory tradition from Horkheimer and Adorno to Habermas as suffering from a debilitating sociological deficit which can be overcome only by a recovery of the neglected or even suppressed social domain. This article focuses on Honneth’s project which runs like a golden threat from his early to his current work. It reviews his diagnosis of the deficit in Horkheimer, Adorno and Habermas, then analyzes his proposals for the recovery of the social and the elimination of the deficit with reference to key statements from his theoretically relevant texts, and against that background finally offers a critical evaluation of his claim to have succeeded. The verdict is that the sociological deficit persists in contemporary Critical Theory. Although Honneth’s key concepts of ‘mechanisms of mutual recognition’, ‘social mediation’ and the ‘process of moral learning and societal development’ do point in the right direction, they are neither sufficiently theoretically elaborated nor sociologically substantiated. Both the critical assessment and the suggested corrective measures are presented from a cognitive sociological perspective which suggests the possibility of a new theoretical version of Critical Theory.
Wayne H Brekhus & Gabe Ignatow (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019
This chapter presents in outline the theoretical framework of an integral cognitive sociology tha... more This chapter presents in outline the theoretical framework of an integral cognitive sociology that, aside from making sense in itself and on its own, has been intentionally designed to complement Critical Theory by potentially enhancing its analytical and defining critical capacity. It is an integral version in so far as it seeks to interrelate in a cognitive theoretical sense both the sociocultural and naturalistic dimensions. Starting from the metatheoretical concept of immanent transcendence, the sociocultural dimension is explicated through the key concept of the metacultural cognitive order of society and a complementary theory of cultural structures and dynamics. This complex is then embedded in nature by means of the concept of weak naturalism that, despite tying it down ontologically, allows the sociocultural domain to come into its own. Theoretically and methodologically, the ambivalent tension-laden position of the sociocultural world between first and second nature is of special interest in that it is crucial to Critical Theory's critical reconstructive and explanatory mode of procedure. Rather than just outlining the theoretical framework, which is given in the core second part of the chapter, however, indications are first offered of the origination of this integral version of cognitive sociology. Instead of a general historical overview of whatever smatterings of the cognitive are to be found in Critical Theory, this is done from an intellectual autobiographical perspective. Both the emergence of this cognitive sociology from the intellectual constellation of the 1960s and 70s in which Karl-Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas took Critical Theory in a new direction is pinpointed and its subsequent unfolding in by no means uncritical correlation with the further development of Critical Theory in the context of international debates, including the cognitive revolution, is traced. Introduction To honour my brief of having to write on the theme of Critical Theory and cognitive sociology requires taking up an autobiographical perspective, both my own and my generation's, in order to briefly retrace the trajectory of this relation from the viewpoint of my current understanding of cognitive sociology. The integral version of cognitive sociology presented here is closely associated with Critical Theory. It originally emerged against the background of the intellectual constellation of the late-1960s and early-1970s in which Critical Theory occupied a central position, and it gradually unfolded in parallel with the development of the latter in a context partially shaped by the cognitive revolution.
The metaproblematic of this article is the cognitive structure of morality. In the context of an ... more The metaproblematic of this article is the cognitive structure of morality. In the context of an investigation into Habermas's theory of validity which respects his strong cognitivism and emphasis on moral knowledge, the focus is on his proposal to treat rightness as 'justification-immanent' rather than as 'justification-transcendent,' as in the case of truth. The imputation of asymmetrical validity bases to rightness and truth is probed in terms of the distinction between achievement and validity concepts which is informed by the mathematical-philosophical conceptual pair of finite and infinite ideal limit concepts. The thrust of the argument is spearheaded by the question whether the process of the discursive construction and justification of rightness is not of necessity required, as in the case of truth, to have recourse to a transcendent – albeit immanently rooted – cognitive property beyond formal-pragmatically backed procedural presuppositions to secure its validity. A final brief coda collates suggestions made in the course of the argumentation toward a cognitive-sociological approach that links up with Habermas's central concepts and could complement his inspiring vision of the 'cultural embodiment of reason'. Introduction Habermas originally presented his view of the difference between truth and rightness in his early writings and, since then, it has become apparent that his particular interpretation of rightness in contrast to truth actually represents a characteristic feature of his thought. In his late work, however, this distinction is treated with greater precision, although not wholly differently, due to a significant extent to his revision in the late 1990s of his long-held discursive or consensus concept of truth. The revision did not entail a complete surrendering of this concept, to be sure, but it did require compensation of its limitations by the adoption of a complementary pragmatic concept of truth. The effect of this move was the strengthening of the discursive concept's practical roots and procedural implications by pragmatism – but a pragmatism simultaneously interpreted somewhat more strongly in Kantian terms than many an American pragmatist would be willing to countenance. Habermas accomplished this feat by recognizing that pragmatism retained the transcendental framing inherited from Kant, yet managed to mitigate the tension between the empirical and transcendental moments. This recognition was consolidated by the introduction of the crucial concept of 'immanent-transcendence'. It marks the displacement of the dualistic metaphysics of Kant's transcendental idealism by a processual conception showing Hegel's fingermarks according to which transcendental conditions in the form of strong idealizations instead of Kantian ideas of reason are understood as being rooted in the world and in their transcending thrust beyond return to the anchorage in the world. This notion compelled the transgression of the conception of the discursive justification of truth claims as a purely immanent process, leading to truth being characterized as a 'justification-transcendent' concept. But what is striking in Habermas's late writings is his insistence that rightness, in contrast to truth, is a 'justification-immanent' concept instead.
This article pursues the question of the origin of the left-Hegelian concept of immanent transcen... more This article pursues the question of the origin of the left-Hegelian concept of immanent transcendence that emerged in the 19 th-century. Whereas some contemporary critical theorists apparently understand the concept as deriving from a religious origin, evolutionary and historical considerations would seem to indicate that more might be involved. Evolutionarily, the origin of the concept can be traced to the civilisation-founding cognitive achievement that marks the emergence of the current version of the human species and the concomitant cultural explosion during the Palaeolithic period. In this context, the cultural consolidation of the newly acquired metarepresentational capacity by language and visual symbolisation or art preceded religion by a considerable elapse of time. As one among a number of sociocultural practices, it could only have made a partial contribution to the conditions for the emergence of the concept. Historically, the thought of the key 19 th-century left-Hegelians Marx and Peirce was fundamentally shaped, not by religion, but rather by the core modern innovation of the 17 th and 18 th century – the new mathematical-scientific-philosophical understanding of infinity as real – which gained primacy by significantly impacting on relevant late 18th-and 19th-century intellectual developments, including laying down the parameters of classical social thought in general and left-Hegelianism in particular. Since the competing religious understanding of infinity, despite having left traces on modern validity concepts such as truth, justice and truthfulness, remained shrouded in indefinite incomprehensibility, it could at best continue to play only the role of an identity-securing, identity-cultivating and motivational source for some, not all. As such, it did not contribute to the 19 th-century left-Hegelian concept. Introduction An important outcome of certain contributions by Jürgen Habermas (1992, 1999a, 2002) and Axel Honneth (2007) in the late 1980s and 1990s was the insight that immanent transcendence is the key meta-theoretical concept of the left-Hegelian tradition. 1 This understanding was reinforced by the debate between Nancy Fraser and Honneth (2003) in the early years of the 21st century. A major step in grasping the key status of the concept is the appreciation that it stands for the metaproblematic of left-Hegelianism insofar as it provides the overall framework for its principle of practically available accumulated rational potential. Relevant in the present context is that the concept in general reflects the basic conceptual parameters that shaped the context in which classical sociology emerged. In a nutshell, it refers to a process with two moments in which historical-constructive activities and their products are given form by structures that had been generated previously by such activities and have become stabilised for the time being, leaving open the possibility of tension and conflict between the two moments which need to be practically worked through. Despite the fact that the relation between immanent transcendence and left-Hegelianism was discussed at some length in the course of the Fraser-Honneth debate, however, much remains to be clarified if this concept and its significance are to be adequately understood.
in A. K. Giri (ed.) Social Theory and Asian Dialogues: Cultivating Planetary Conversations. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan., 2018
The Afterword reflects on the main theme of this anthology, that is, the problem of the relations... more The Afterword reflects on the main theme of this anthology, that is, the problem of the relations between Eastern and Western ideas. While including difference, tension, competition and conflict, these relations also point in the direction of convergence and invoke the possibility of consilience. Taking cues from the use in the chapters of such notions as conversation, dialogue and debate, these reflections propose a multilevel model of communication that could assist the reader in analytically and critically coming to terms with both the individual chapters and the volume as a whole. The criteria identified could also be of assistance to an author who seeks to make a considered contribution to the process of consilience between these different worlds of ideas.
Beyond Sociology: Trans-Civilizational Dialogues and Planetary Conversations. A. K. Giri (ed.). Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan , 2018
In this paper, I take as my starting point Norman Fairclough's treatment of critical social analy... more In this paper, I take as my starting point Norman Fairclough's treatment of critical social analysis as a form of dialectical reasoning. While generally concurring with this equivalency despite a host of smaller disagreements on which I do not dwell, I venture to fill in a largely blank space in his argument by focusing on the internal workings of dialectical reasoning. The reference point for the core of my argument is the fact that Fairclough regards critical social analysis as based on epistemological dialectics which forms part of a larger set of relations, yet passes over the explication of the place and role of this basic form of dialectics in this constellation in favour of focusing on its practical dialectical nature. The point is, however, that an adequate grasp of practical dialectics requires the simultaneous consideration of the principal operative features of epistemological dialectics, not just in critical social analysis but more basically still also in social life itself. My proposal is that this could be done by introducing the inferential stance in order to consider what I call the dialectics of inference or inferential dialectics. This perspective forms part of a broader cognitive sociological approach that focuses on the cognitive processes – of which discourse is but one – on which the construction and structuring of society depend and which pervade the latter's every fibre.
For the purposes of obtaining a critical social-theoretical grasp of cosmopolitanism approaching ... more For the purposes of obtaining a critical social-theoretical grasp of cosmopolitanism approaching adequacy, this chapter conceives it in the context of the cognitive order of modernity and the conflictual social practices reproducing it. The first step is to reconstruct the modern cognitive order in order to locate the idea of cosmopolitanism in its proper place. This reconstruction provides the opportunity, second, to clarify the necessary theoretical basis for the social-scientific analysis of cosmopolitanism which presupposes a clear distinction between the cognitive and normative dimensions. The analysis itself, thirdly, requires consideration of the relations among the competing, contested and even conflicting uses made of the cognitive meta-rule of cosmopolitanism in the process of divergent attempts to realise its socio-practically relevant rational potential. This approach allows identification of the most important collective actors operative in the cosmopolitan field today and their respective cognitive cosmopolitan frames or models of world openness which generate, regulate and guide their efforts toward realising their competing images of an open or cosmopolitan society. Once this stage is reached, a critical social-theoretical evaluation – more precisely, a socio-cognitive critique – of contemporary manifestations of cosmopolitanism becomes possible, since the interrelation of the different positions through conflict, discourse and learning provides a reference to possible practically rooted cosmopolitan relations.
Following the death of the famous German philosopher, Karl-Otto Apel, on 15 May 2017, this obitua... more Following the death of the famous German philosopher, Karl-Otto Apel, on 15 May 2017, this obituary gives an overview of his academic and intellectual biography from the perspective of someone who knew him personally.
This document served as the basis for a presentation at a workshop on epistemological and methodo... more This document served as the basis for a presentation at a workshop on epistemological and methodological issues in the philosophy of social science which was held on 9-10 November at the Trident Hotel in Kinsale, County Cork, Ireland. The presentation was my response to a request to clarify the difference between hermeneutics and critical theory as well as critical theory in particular and its methodology. The request was made by Ingunn Stray and Ilmi Willbergh on behalf of a Norwegian research group from the University of Agder, Kristiansand, led by the latter. The group was hosted by Piet Strydom who was supported by two further members of University College Cork, Patrick O’Mahony and Tracey Skillington. The actual presentation covered the above-mentioned topics by PowerPoint under the title of ‘The Antinomic Field of Hermeneutics and Critical Theory: Interpretation/Understanding versus Critique’. The current document is identical to the original PowerPoint file but transposed into a different format.
This paper, completed on 7 July 2023, served as background for a presentation I was requested to ... more This paper, completed on 7 July 2023, served as background for a presentation I was requested to make on the difference between hermeneutics and critical theory as well as on critical theory in particular and its methodology. The request was made by Ingunn Stray and Ilmi Willbergh on behalf of a Norwegian research group from the University of Agder, Kristiansand, led by the latter. The group visited Ireland in 2023 for a workshop on epistemological and methodological issues in the philosophy of social science which was held on 9-10 November at the Trident Hotel in Kinsale, County Cork. The actual presentation was by PowerPoint under the title of ‘The Antinomic Field of Hermeneutics and Critical Theory: Interpretation/Understanding versus Critique’.
This PDF is a collation of five interconnected documents related to a workshop organized by Wolfg... more This PDF is a collation of five interconnected documents related to a workshop organized by Wolfgang Knöbl, director of the Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung, and José Maurício Domingues, IESP-UERJ, Brazil, at the HIS on 27-28 February 2020 in connection with the latter's Humboldt Foundation prize (Annelise Maier Forschung Preis). The theme was historical-evolutionary issues at the core at critical theory, social and sociological theory, particularly 'trend concepts', the reach of general concepts, and normativity and evolution. In the main document, my workshop paper, I tackle these issues head-on in terms of my version of cognitive sociology which is conceived as complementary to critical theory. It is then follow by a first addendum providing a theoretical specification of the trend concept, and a second addendum illustrating the theoretically informed analysis of a trend or tendency (the erosion of the authority of science). The fourth document provides brief answers to three post-workshop questions Domingues posed on the relation of concept and reality, the concepts of process and trend, and on critique. The final one is a brief reflection on the problem of how normativity figures in cognitive sociology and critical theory.
Introduction These seminar theses seek to make a contribution to cognitive sociology by shedding ... more Introduction These seminar theses seek to make a contribution to cognitive sociology by shedding light on the nature of what I call 'the cognitive order of the human sociocultural form of life' by highlighting the often neglected intersubjective reflexive dimension that complements the standard objective dimension. Cues are taken principally from Karl-Otto Apel, particularly his notion of 'reflexive performative action knowledge' of those involved in social life who, while thinking and acting, unavoidably engage in inferential activities and processes, such as adopting a perspective, making sense of reality by means of language and dealing with objects, and thereby commit to certain presuppositions. The argument is that the basic presuppositions serving as the conceptual conditions of the sociocultural form of life which are activated and mobilized by inferences are of a virtual and cognitive nature. It is concluded that, given this configuration of relations, the concept of the cognitive order qua the set of meta-cultural transcendental conceptual conditions should be understood in conjunction with the activating and mobilizing inferential processes. To forestall an interpretation or criticism of the concept of the cognitive order as purely idealist, an excursion was added to locate the intended cognitive sociology in its proper weak naturalistic framework.
Critical Theory and Cognitive Sociology Seminar', Harbour View, Kilbrittain, Ireland, 2018
In this contribution to the latest round of the 'Critical Theory and Cognitive Sociology Seminar'... more In this contribution to the latest round of the 'Critical Theory and Cognitive Sociology Seminar', I consider selected aspects of Peirce and Habermas's thought that I regard as significant for the development of an integrated cognitive sociology-i.e., one that mediates between the naturalist and sociocultural perspectives. Here these aspects are presented in the form of two sets of diagrams. In the first part, Peirce's ideas of the conceptual dependency hierarchy, the law of mind, and modes of inference are developed for the purposes of articulating the sociocultural dimension of cognitive sociology. In the second part, Habermas's idea of weak naturalism is both positively and critically probed in order to clarify the appropriate way in which naturalism could be brought to bear on cognitive sociology while nevertheless retaining the sociocultural dimension. A post-seminar afterword is added in which further reflections in particular on the concept of recursion discussed in the seminar are presented. This necessitated consideration of the concept of incursion in relation the cognitive order of society. A selection of supporting literature is also appended.
This paper formed the basis of the contribution made to a seminar on the concept of 'noncitizensh... more This paper formed the basis of the contribution made to a seminar on the concept of 'noncitizenship' which was presented by Tendayi Bloom. Beyond the attempt to develop the concept by problematizing the liberal theory of citizenship, it proposes the conceptualisation of noncitizenship as part of the broader problem of belonging/inclusion and offers a perspective that focuses on exclusion and the broad category of the excluded. The thrust of the argument is that the excluded is adequately understandable only if it is seen through a negative dialectical lens that locates it as a latent potentiality in the negative domain unavoidably presupposed yet ignored by the positive thinking of liberal theory.
This paper, forming the basis for a presentation given at a seminar on ‘Critical Theory and Cogni... more This paper, forming the basis for a presentation given at a seminar on ‘Critical Theory and Cognitive Sociology’, seeks to isolate some of the primary features of the negative or subtractive dimension of Critical Theory’s ontology. While grasping this dimension is necessary for an adequate understanding of the unique critical-theoretical epistemology it complements, the analysis presented is intended to clear the way for incorporating an appropriate version of cognitive sociology into Critical Theory. It opens with an historical overview of the conceptual background of the subtractive dimension briefly covering ancient Eastern and Western, medieval, Arabic and both early modern and modern thought up to Critical Theory, particularly Hegel and Adorno. Circumscriptions following a detailed diagrammatic presentation are offered of nine major aspects of this ontology. The bibliographic details of relevant sources are specified in support of the analysis.
The focal concern of this lecture is the construction of the concept of Europe. With Europe as th... more The focal concern of this lecture is the construction of the concept of Europe. With Europe as the principal theme, it first recalls the indispensable role social movements have played and still play in the production of modern society at certain historically important crisis points from the 18 th to the late 20 th century, and then turns the attention to the construction of the concept of Europe. This process is rendered intelligible by locating it in the context of the current crisis, the relations among the modernizing elite and the dialectically interrelating dominant and alternative branches of the new social movements, and finally the cultural structures implicated. The most important and innovative aspect of this account concerns these cultural structures: the presupposed cognitive (theoretical-technical-instrumental), normative (moral) and aesthetic (endeutic-conative) cultural foundations making the construction possible and the cultural model in the guise of the concept of Europe that is in the process of being symbolically constructed. Given the current crisis situation which once again brings out the historically long-standing ambivalence in European culture due to opposing interpretations and uses of the available foundational cultural structures, uncertainty prevails regarding precisely what concept of Europe can be expected to emerge from the constructive process. While the lecture is largely couched in sociological or social theoretical terms, it raises points that might also be of philosophical interest. Introduction It is in response to a suggestion of Mihály Vajda on our previous visit to Hungary that I propose to develop some reflections on the concept of Europe. The focus is on the construction of the concept of Europe and the role both social movements and culture play in this process. Absolutely vital to this account is the nature of the cultural structures implicated in the process of construction. The bulk of these reflections are of a sociological or social theoretical nature, but they are developed in a way that might also be of at least some philosophical interest.
This lecture is concerned with the shift in the legitimation foundations of rights, with special ... more This lecture is concerned with the shift in the legitimation foundations of rights, with special emphasis on freedom of speech. In order to make intelligible the latest shift that started in the late 20th century borne by the ‘expressive revolution’, it builds up a background by first tracing the shifts that took place in the course of the change from feudalism to early modernity in the 16th-17th century – that is, the shift to an anthropological grounding of rights – and from early modernity to the rise of modernity in the 18th century – that is, the shift from the anthropological to a social grounding of rights. Since the most influential version of the social grounding is Jürgen Habermas’s ‘discourse ethics’, and since the late 20th-century shift is associated with the ‘expressive revolution’ (a revolution that also played a central role in the ‘European Revolution of 1989’ involving the East-Central European countries), the lecture considers next the different critiques of discourse ethics that are inspired by the expressive revolution. Included are not only the voluntaristic or neoliberal and the postmodern critiques, but also critiques of Habermas by some his own followers. The analysis of these critiques leads to the conclusion that the majority of the critics, although assuming the expressive revolution and critiquing the social grounding, fail to make the shift to a new legitimation foundation for rights, particularly freedom of speech which is intrinsically connected with the expressive revolution. Taking cues from the feminist and the ecology movements as manifestations of the expressive revolution, only a very few of the critics from Habermas’s own camp appreciate that, beyond the social grounding, nature – both internal and external nature – has emerged as a new legitimation foundation of rights, particularly freedom of speech. In our own time, nature has acquired a voice and a right to the freedom of speech that contemporary society can ignore only at its own expense.
The lecture starts from the ‘de-Europeanization’ of East-Central Europe by the Soviet Union and t... more The lecture starts from the ‘de-Europeanization’ of East-Central Europe by the Soviet Union and the ‘European Revolution of 1989’ in order first to review the diverse interpretations of these countries’ ‘return to Europe’. Taking cues from authors like Ralf Dahrendorf and Jürgen Habermas, the review covers the Stalinist, the Leninist, the reform-Communist, the postmodern, the anti-communist, the Liberal and the radical democratic interpretations. The more convincing of these interpretations in one way or another presuppose the significance of the European cultural heritage of autonomy, freedom and association as having made the revolution possible, and thus suggest that the concept of ‘civil society’ shared by Europe and the East-Central European countries would play a key role in bringing the two together. Second, the lecture considers the critical literature of authors like Claus Offe and Johannes Berger that drew attention to the prospect that the unified Europe would not only continue to face its old ‘first order problem of integration’ caused by differentiation, but would also be challenged by the serious ‘second order problem of incompatibility’ given rise to by modern society’s erosion and destruction of its own sociocultural fabric and ecological foundations. The problem common to Europe and the East-Central European countries in the wake of the latter’s return to the former thus turns out to far outstrip the hope pinned on the unifying potential of civil society. Not only would ‘the really existing democracy of the West’ have to be transformed, but a new way for society to relate to nature would also have to be found. Herein lies the unique opportunity of the East-Central European countries upon their return to Europe.
This PowerPoint printout reconstructs what representation could mean in Critical Theory. Starting... more This PowerPoint printout reconstructs what representation could mean in Critical Theory. Starting from Descartes, Locke and Berkeley, it takes Kant’s complex transformation of epistemology, particularly his differentiated conception of representation as well as of schematism, as a foil against which to profile the Left-Hegelian radicalization of traditional epistemology as represented by Hegel and in particular Marx and Peirce. The emphasis is on the shift from the two-place mentalistic (psychological) model to three-place semiotic (sign-mediated) model, the latter of which is then used to provide the parameters for the explication of Critical Theory’s position.
This PowerPoint printout gives an overview of the methodology of contemporary Critical Theory wit... more This PowerPoint printout gives an overview of the methodology of contemporary Critical Theory with special attention to it defining characteristic of a concern with the counterfactual imagination. The latter is presented as presupposing (1) its meta-theoretical framework of ‘immanent transcendence’ inherited from left-Hegelianism; (2) Critical Theory’s unique differentiated methodological model of ‘critique’ which took shape in the context of the international debate of the past number of decades; and (3) the sign-mediated, semiotic or medium quo epistemology made available by Left-Hegelianism, particularly as represented by Charles S Peirce and foregrounded by Karl-Otto Apel. This overview draws on my book, ‘Contemporary Critical Theory and Methodology’ (Routledge 2011).
'The words justice and truth, amid a world that habitually neglects these things and utterly deri... more 'The words justice and truth, amid a world that habitually neglects these things and utterly derides these words, are nevertheless among the very greatest powers the world contains' – Charles S. Peirce First, I wish to thank Saji Varghese for inviting me to make a contribution to the seminar on 'Conflict transformation and dharma of peace building: Contemporary relevance in northeast India'. In this paper, I take the purport of the Indian idea of dharma to be captured by the philosophical-social scientific idea of the cognitive order of society, which includes such concepts as justice and truth, as representing the infinite ideal limit of social life. 1 The following theses on conflict and conflict resolution assume the normative nature of these phenomena with a view to reflecting on their respective moral and ethical limits or parameters. Since such phenomena occur exclusively in the human social world, an adequate understanding of the latter is imperative from the very start if their relevant limits were to be identified in a way that illuminates them philosophically and social-scientifically as well as practically. It should be kept in mind, however, that since the normative social world additionally also has both an objective and subjective dimension, conflict and conflict resolution are more than merely normative phenomena. Conflict is a complex phenomenon that can assume either a negative or positive character. Seeing that this seminar takes the northeast Indian conflict situation as it empirical reference, the focus in this contribution is on the nature of negative conflict and its possible resolution, but it is of necessity simultaneously embedded in a broader set of reflections that take both the negative and positive types into account. After all, the possibility of conflict resolution and peace building implies that a conflict might turn out to have harboured positive potentials insofar as it contributed to transformation and change. A caveat applies, however. I cannot claim to be an expert on Indian affairs, but from recent reports by, among others, both Indian (Apoorvanand 2017) and Pakistani (Waheed 2017) writers I get the distinct sense that the conflict in different parts of northern India involving Hindu-Muslim and Indian-Pakistani relations has an overwhelming negative profile. The theoretical task is not just to develop an adequate understanding of such conflict, but simultaneously also to clarify the conditions for conflict resolution and thus peace building. 1 The multidimensional social world Beyond the one-dimensional positivist or empiricist conception obsessed with observational experience alone, it is typical in the phenomenological, hermeneutical and pragmatist approaches stressing in addition the experience of sign-borne meaning to understand the world of interpersonal and social relations as two-dimensional instead. The currently popular historicist and culturalist approaches likewise proceed from the same basic assumption. Stretching back to Hegel, many a philosopher and social scientist has offered an account of the social world as symbolically structured, where ordinary everyday orientations, actions, practices and social institutions and organizations are lent structure by a variety of symbolic structures or complexes. If, by contrast, a broader cognitively rather than simply symbolically structured view of the social world is adopted, one that takes into account the conditions of all experience whatsoever, as is done
This paper argues from the assumption that both Pragmatism and Critical Theory belong to the Kant... more This paper argues from the assumption that both Pragmatism and Critical Theory belong to the Kantian/left-Hegelian tradition, with the former the narrower interpretation of the two. Starting from the metaproblematic of pragmatism (and Critical Theory), namely the concern with human activities and their form, it surveys the classical, neo-classical and contemporary debate about Pragmatism and finds that the question of form rather than the question of human activities is at its centre. Form is then linked to spirit-mind (Geist) and, while a metaphysical interpretation as is suggested by the English word ‘spirit’ is avoided, argued to be a sociocultural phenomenon that is rooted in the human organic endowment in order to eliminate the dangers of sociologism and culturalism by including a weak naturalistic stance. Recalling sociocultural thinking’s historical philosophical and mathematical background, the argument is that spirit/mind-based form can be understood as limit concepts that punctuate the infinite objective, sociocultural and subjective processes constituting the human world. From a social scientific viewpoint, such limit concepts can be conceptualized as context-transcendent cognitive order principles, such as truth, right, and authenticity, and a great variety of context-immanent cultural models. Assuming that the relation of limit concepts to the infinite processes they punctuate has important implications, finally, the cognitive order’s linguistic, logical, mathematical and informational nature is probed in order to reveal the vast presupposed expanse of inexhaustible potentialities. From this it is concluded that the realization of the form-giving force of the human spirit/mind in, for example, contributions to problem-solving and especially to transformative world-creation, depends on our ability to work on the presupposed limit concepts of our time so as to disclose their potentials and to reinterpret and reconfigure them.
This collection of over sixty extracts from some of the classic works on the philosophy of social... more This collection of over sixty extracts from some of the classic works on the philosophy of social science provides an essential textbook and a landmark reference in the field. It highlights the work of some of the most influential authors who have shaped social science, including: The reading have been selected with a view to being representative of the major schools of thought, including American and European trends in particular, as well as approaches that are often excluded from the mainstream traditions. From a teaching and learning perspective, the volume is strengthened by the extensive introductions to each of the six sections, as well as a general inrtroduction to the reader as a whole. The introductions contextualize the readings and offer succinct summaries of them.
This book offers an original interpretation of the rise of sociology from a contemporary point of... more This book offers an original interpretation of the rise of sociology from a contemporary point of view that is both theoretically and historically informed. Rather than assuming the ‘dual revolution’ as watershed, it goes back behind the French Revolution and the industrial revolution in order to start from the more pervasive communication revolution. The central theme of the book is the currently topical one of the role played by discourse in the construction of knowledge. It is substantively developed through an investigation of a neglected period in the history of sociology. By closely analysing the contributions of such theorists as More, Hobbes, Vico, Montesquieu, Ferguson and Millar to the emergence of sociology in its original form, the argument follows the discursive construction of sociology in the context of the society-wide early modern practical discourse about violence and rights – what is here called the rights discourse. Parallels with the nineteenth- and twentieth-century discourse about poverty and justice and the contemporary discourse about risk and responsibility allow the author to reflect not only on the generation of knowledge through discourse, but also on the role that sociology itself plays in this process. The argument draws on the latest epistemological, theoretical and methodological advances. Constructivism is explored, Habermas and Foucault are creatively synthesised to arrive at a new formulation of the theory of discourse, and a finely elaborated frame and discourse analysis is applied – thus making a substantial contribution to the currently emerging cognitive sociology. The contemporary relevance of the analysis lies in its linking of early sociology’s critique of modern society to the need under current conditions of an open history, contingency and uncertainty for cultivating a culture of contradictions and a participatory politics of conflict, contestation and compromise.
New Horizons of Critical Theory is unique in tracing a central process of immanent criticism and ... more New Horizons of Critical Theory is unique in tracing a central process of immanent criticism and rethinking of critical theory over the past two decades. Although starting from Jürgen Habermas' communicative turn in critical theory, it follows an alternative interpretation which is made possible by the introduction of a more specific social scientific rather than philosophical mode of reasoning. Its contribution lies in articulating the concepts of collective learning and triple contingency (the threefold structure of communication) and bringing them to bear on a range of concerns relevant to the late 20 th and 21 st centuries. The contemporary critical theory approach to social movements, collective identity, public communication or discourse, the role of the public in communication societies, the construction of society, and evolution is clarified and also applied to the South African liberation movement, the discourse about environmental responsibility, world creation through risk communication, and the cosmopolitanism models guiding the learning processes generating the emerging global society. In a series of tightly argued essays, Piet Strydom demonstrates central shifts in horizon which inform contemporary critical theory, in part by engaging critically with the work of scholars such as
Risk, Environment and Society is an innovative book offering a fresh approach to the risk society... more Risk, Environment and Society is an innovative book offering a fresh approach to the risk society. It proceeds from an accessible reconstruction of the public debates about risk since the 1950s and 60s as well as of the concurrent social scientific theories. On that basis, it presents a penetrating analysis of the semantics, classification, societal production and discursive construction of risks, pursuing it to the point where the contours of the nascent twenty-first century society become visible. An analysis of currently emerging cultural, social and political forms highlights the basic option faced by society today in its further development. An important thread concerns the function of the social sciences in the risk discourse and thus in shaping the nascent society. For these purposes, Strydom puts forward a new synthetic cognitive sociology that presupposes a combination of realism and constructivism and continuity between natural history and socio-cultural forms of life. Focusing on the variable cognitive structures and cultural models informing practices, it provides a basis for a concept of critique that answers to sociology's role in public communication.
Contemporary Critical Theory's methodology is currently taking shape under the impact both of tra... more Contemporary Critical Theory's methodology is currently taking shape under the impact both of transformative internal developments in Critical Theory itself and of external pressures and incentives emanating from a series of international debates. Internally, the revitalization of the left-Hegelian tradition which led to the recovery of the concept of 'immanent transcendence' and the connection with American pragmatism made available a new framework for Critical Theory. Externally, the renaissance of pragmatism reinforced the connection between these two left-Hegelian strands, while the international debate about social criticism provided stimuli for the enhancement of Critical Theory's concept of critique. Covering the international literature up to the latest publications, this book presents a penetrating assessment and elaboration of these developments. The reconstruction of the left-Hegelian tradition, the relation between Critical Theory and pragmatism and the associated metatheoretical implications provides the basis for Piet Strydom's groundbreaking treatment of Critical Theory's methodology. He critically assesses extant positions, presents a detailed yet comprehensive restatement and development of Critical Theory's methodology, critically compares it with a wide range of current concepts of social criticism and critique, and analyses leading critical theorists' exemplary applications of it. Besides immanent transcendence and the sign-mediated epistemology common to the left-Hegelian tradition, special attention is given to the abductive imagination, reconstruction, normative and causal explanation, explanatory mechanisms and the communicative framework which enables Critical Theory to link up with its addressees and the public.
The central concern of this brief text is an epochal shift in point of view that had a pervasive ... more The central concern of this brief text is an epochal shift in point of view that had a pervasive impact on the formation of the social sciences, yet all along has gone unnoticed by social scientists. It is the shift from a quantitative to a qualitative point of view that has ancient roots and occurred between the Renaissance and the 19th century, but stretches right up to the twenty-first century. The historical source from which the impetus behind this revolution derives – namely, geometry mediated through philosophy, art, architecture and science – might well come as a surprise to many a social scientist, but its significant cognitive role can no longer be ignored. Accordingly, the argument in the following paragraphs is aimed at drawing attention to an important yet generally neglected qualitative aspect of the historical background of the social sciences, including phenomenology, hermeneutics, pragmatism and critical theory as well as the version of critical cognitive sociology I have been advocating for more than two decades. Rather than a general discussion of the social sciences, however, reference is made here more specifically to the cognitive-sociological model of society or the human sociocultural world. This model is graphically represented by a diagram in the text.
This piece is intended as a supplement to my article, 'The Critical Theory of Society: From its Y... more This piece is intended as a supplement to my article, 'The Critical Theory of Society: From its Young-Hegelian Core to its Key Concept of Possibility', European Journal of Social Theory, on-line first 22 October, 2022. Aimed at additional clarification of the theoretical model of society - the IT-CD architectonic - at the core of that article, these reflections bring what Charles S Peirce called 'the Logic of Relations' to bear on that model and draw a number of important conceptual conclusions.
This document consists of fifteen workbook entries collected with the intention to provide furthe... more This document consists of fifteen workbook entries collected with the intention to provide further clarification of the problem of the public and triple contingency that I had introduced originally in a publication in Philosophy and Social Criticism in 1999 which, subsequently, enjoyed quite wide-ranging reception. To reflect the resonance and uptake of this problem complex of the threefold structure of communication in which the public embodies the third point of view, an appendix containing a bibliography of triple contingency selected from the much larger body of available material is included. As to the content, the notion of the public is placed in historical context and the contributions of authors like Kant, Habermas, Honneth, Krasnoff, Brunkhorst, Leydesdorff and others are discussed, while the complementary concept of triple contingency is related to sociocultural evolution and the epigenetic learning and constructive processes underpinning it. The core argument of the document, presented from a cognitive-sociological perspective, is that the historical emergence of the public in the 18th century entailed not simply the appearance of a significant empirical phenomenon, but simultaneously also the establishment of different levels of related cultural structures. Among these are the context-immanent cultural model of the public and, concomitantly, other related cultural models, such as those of the constitution, the constitutional state, civil society and so forth. In line with Kant’s suggestion regarding the orientation of the French Revolution’s spectators toward ‘right’, however, these cultural structures include also a series of cognitively available higher-level context-transcendent concepts and principles. These are crucial for overcoming the tendency in the literature to over-emphasize the multiplicity and fragmentation of the public.
This document consists of 18 entries from my Workbooks of the past two decades which were selecte... more This document consists of 18 entries from my Workbooks of the past two decades which were selected to shed light on the philosophical background and status of the key concept of the version of critical-theoretical cognitive sociology I have been promoting for a number of decades – the concept of the cognitive order. The content is organized in four sections. (i) The opening section on the one hand establishes the concept‘s relation to Kant’s ‘transcendental ideas of reason’, but on the other shows that it owes much to the post-Hegelian detranscendentalization or relativization of Kant’s a priori or transcendentalism, with the implication that it concerns the conditions and emphatically not the foundations of the sociocultural form of life. The detranscendentalization process is considered in some detail, both generally and in relation to cognitive sociology. (ii) The second section explores in more specific terms the contributions of a number of key American and European philosophers to the detranscendentalization process, including Charles S. Peirce, C.I. Lewis, Wilfrid Sellars, Karl-Otto Apel, Jürgen Habermas and Robert Brandom. The interesting insight arising is that the convergence between the European concern with a prioricity and the American concern with analyticity facilitates the characterization and understanding of the concept of the cognitive order. (iii) The third section shows that the transcendental, a priori or formal analytical nature of the cognitive order as a set of concepts and principles functioning as preceding conditions is mind-dependent in the sense of being the outcome of human creative activity and self-understanding. The creation and use of these concepts and principles by subjects or actors in the course of their social-ontological construction of their world is clarified in terms of conceptual realism. This constructive moment is then located in the context of the historical generation and evolutionary stabilization of the cognitive order. (iv) The final concluding section first gives a summary statement on the cognitive sociological concept of the cognitive order and, second, provides a clarification of its place and role in social scientific reasoning.
This is a collection of documents that traces the development of my appreciation of the modal pro... more This is a collection of documents that traces the development of my appreciation of the modal problem and both its significance and potential for sociology and social theory, particularly cognitive sociology and Critical Theory. The modal problem implicates the modal categories and the process of what is called ‘modalization’. The modal categories include contingency, actuality and especially possibility and necessity. Modalization, an integrating and overall compositional process in my specifically social-scientific understanding, refers to the inescapable and all-pervasive yet largely unconscious process of the use of the modal categories to select, prioritize and order relevant cultural, social and material structures in particular contexts such that it contributes in a decisive way to the encompassing process of the construction and organization of the sociocultural form of life.
For publication in a planned collection on objectivity, 2020
The overall thrust of the argument of this piece is that objectivity is a cognitively distributed... more The overall thrust of the argument of this piece is that objectivity is a cognitively distributed structural feature of the human sociocultural world. While taking cues from philosophers like Apel, Habermas, Brandom, Lafont and others, objectivity is approached from a cognitive sociological perspective aimed at an explication in terms of the sociocultural embodiment of reason – not just theoretical reason, as in epistemology, but also practical reason, as in moral and ethical domains. Without denying the relative right of the cognitive psychological and neurophysiological approaches, in this context the cognitive is understood in accordance with a broadened sociologized version of the currently emerging understanding of the structures of the mind, particularly the extended mind, within its multidimensional environment. This angle leads to an emphasis on the idea of the cognitive field in which the notion of objectivity makes sense. This field is presented in the form of an all-embracing framework that encompasses the multilevel human sociocultural world within a set of natural, historical and structural parameters which include also the self-referential subject of that world. The argument is presented in three parts and an excursion. Opening the exposition, a preliminary description is offered of the nature of objectivity as a property of the sociocultural world. This is followed by an outline of the subject-borne cognitive field within which this property is located, supported by a diagram specifying the field’s parameters and content. The third part is devoted to a more detailed explication of the concept of objectivity and its various entailments which follows the different naturally conditioned historical and structural dimensions and components of the sociocultural world encompassed by the cognitive field. For the purposes of ease of presentation and intelligibility, the exposition is focused on objectivity as it figures in multiple ways in scientific, particularly social scientific, discourse. Given the emphasis on social science, certain moral and ethical considerations already enter here, but, to compensate for this unavoidable limitation of focus, a brief excursion on moral and ethical objectivity is added in order to emphasize that objectivity is not merely a matter of theoretical reason, but also of practical reason. Finally, the remaining question of why the concern with objectivity at all is answered in terms of practical reason.
Based on a selection of key media reports, this short article considers the consequences and impl... more Based on a selection of key media reports, this short article considers the consequences and implications of the political use of the scientific concept of 'herd immunity' in the context of the COVID-19 public health emergency from the perspective of critical theory. This political-scientific phenomenon is approached as a manifestation of a typically modern 'mediation problem' (Habermas) involving the fraught relation between an expert culture and everyday culture. The analysis grafts below the surface with the aim of unearthing the largely unconscious selection-cum-composition process involved in both the direct and indirect instances of the political appropriation and application of the scientific concept. On the one hand, the analysis supports the critique of the damage done to the significance of language by the unacceptable political-scientific extension and application of the notion of 'herd' to the human population. On the other, it stresses the virtually imperceptible consequence of this normatively hollowed-out usage. Telling in this respect is the largely tacit assumption exhibited by a sizable proportion of both officialdom and the public that the cost of the pandemic can rightly be shoved onto the vulnerable, disadvantaged, marginal and even the politically inconvenient sections of the population. The piece closes with a brief indication of a new cognitively inspired way of analysing the operation of unconscious processes in social life.
This essay reports on a critical investigation into Habermas' conception of 'weak naturalism' tha... more This essay reports on a critical investigation into Habermas' conception of 'weak naturalism' that is based on the assumption of a continuity between nature and culture, but nevertheless allows culture and the social lifeworld a characteristically human degree of independence captured by the concept of 'formal pragmatics'. The investigation is conducted from a non-reductionist cognitive sociological perspective that seeks to preserve the relation between nature and the sociocultural form of life, while developing a cognitive theory of culture. Two outcomes result, one concerning weak naturalism and the other formal pragmatics. The principal finding it that Habermas' account of weak naturalism is incomplete insofar as he glosses over a number of crucial aspects, including principally a differentiated concept of evolution, the elementary social forms lying below and behind social practices and, finally, the feedback loop whereby sociocultural learning processes in the social lifeworld impact not only on social practices but also at different levels on their limits. The critical reflections are finally completed by considering the significance weak naturalism harbours for formal pragmatics itself. The main problem here is that the formal pragmatic understanding of structure based on the theory of action falls short of the enduring world-defining structures required by the concept of weak naturalism. While formal pragmatics is nevertheless affirmed as far as it goes, a shift is advocated from the linguistic paradigm to the cognitive paradigm to resolve the crucial problem of cultural structure. Introduction For the purposes of developing an integral cognitive sociology, one able to bring together and articulate in a plausible manner both nature and the human sociocultural form of life, the adoption of a weak naturalistic position is crucial. Only then would it be possible to avoid both the problematic alternatives of, on the one hand, a strong naturalistic cognitive sociology that tends to approach the sociocultural world from a strictly scientific neurological or biogenetic point of view and, on the other, a soft culturalist cognitive sociology that dismisses or ignores any and every naturalistic consideration whatsoever. If one searches for suitable assistance on the question of weak naturalism, one can hardly do better than Jürgen Habermas' most helpful contribution on the topic which forms part of his late theoretical philosophy. There he incorporates weak naturalism in his overall framework of formal pragmatics. A close study of his account reveals, however, that critical reflections on his conception of weak naturalism are required as well as corresponding elaboration on various aspects he glosses over. A question arises also about his presentation of the relation between weak naturalism and formal pragmatics, particularly the precise theoretical status of the latter as it bears on the conception of cultural structure. The current intention is to activate a series of critical reflections with a view to filling in the omissions in his account of weak naturalism as well as reaching beyond formal pragmatics in recuperating cultural structure, doing so from the perspective of the significance of these steps for articulating an integral cognitive sociology.
Inspired by cognitive sociocultural theory, these reflections are devoted to a critical compariso... more Inspired by cognitive sociocultural theory, these reflections are devoted to a critical comparison of what is regarded as a more adequate interpretation of Habermas' theory of truth as a three-moment theory with two different interpretations which are both based on his twofold conception of 'Janus-faced truth'.
The most outstanding issue that emerged from the well-known debate between the critical theorists... more The most outstanding issue that emerged from the well-known debate between the critical theorists Nancy Fraser and Axel Honneth about the relation between redistribution and recognition is what may be called the metaproblematic of Critical Theory – that is, the significance and role of ‘immanent transcendence’ as the key concept it inherited from left-Hegelianism. In the present essay, I start from Honneth’s criticism of Fraser’s understanding of immanent transcendence and subject his more expansive alternative account to a quite detailed critical analysis with a view to revealing its limitations and, in the course of doing so, to proposing a more comprehensive understanding of the metaproblematic of Critical Theory. The analysis brings a differentiated understanding of time to bear on the concept of immanent transcendence and teases out the concurrent formation and operation of cognitive structures. Two contrasting diagrams are included, the first a reconstruction of Honneth’s immanent-transcendent architectonic, and the second a more comprehensive presentation of Critical Theory’s metaproblematic which highlights what is absent from Honneth’s account.
Encouraged by the view that Charles S Peirce 'laid the groundwork for a coherent science of man t... more Encouraged by the view that Charles S Peirce 'laid the groundwork for a coherent science of man that is yet to be worked out', this essay mobilises a selection of the great American philosopher's relevant ideas for the purposes of articulating some aspects of the version of cognitive sociology I have been pursuing over the past decade or two. The focus is squarely on the nature of cultural structure and, due to taking time into account, on the concomitant dynamics which is understood as being instigated and urged on by the dialectics of different modes of inference. Five areas are covered: the implications of conceiving cultural structure in terms of a conceptual dependency hierarchy; the nature of ideas or more generally of cultural structure; the negative or subtractive ontological dimension of ideas or cultural structure; the bearing of time and inference on culture; and, finally, the operative relations implicated in cultural dynamics while being fuelled by inferential dialectics. The caveat should be added that, in order to concentrate on its sociocultural side, the account offered here does not cover the weak naturalistic dimension of cognitive sociology.
In this sketch for a subsection to be included in a piece dealing with a cognitive social-scienti... more In this sketch for a subsection to be included in a piece dealing with a cognitive social-scientific conception of cultural structure – for example, the cognitive order of society and cultural models – Parsons’s systems theoretical conceptualization of society is subjected to a brief critical consideration from the perspective of a negative or, better, a subtractive ontology. As regards the latter, in the background are Hegel’s concern with ‘negativity’, Adorno’s ‘negative dialectics’ and his use of the word ‘subtractive’ and Badiou’s notion of a ‘subtractive ontology’, but at its core it is inspired by a few basic ideas regarding ‘infinity’ and related ones drawn from set theory. As Adorno stresses, such an ontology is accessible only to an approach that is properly ‘reflexive’.
This working paper proposes the justification of the concept of the cognitive order as the limit ... more This working paper proposes the justification of the concept of the cognitive order as the limit concept of the sociocultural form of life with reference to the scientific-mathematical-philosophical tradition and its concept of real infinity.
The metaproblematic of this article is the cognitive structure of morality. In the context of an ... more The metaproblematic of this article is the cognitive structure of morality. In the context of an investigation into Habermas's theory of validity which respects his strong cognitivism and emphasis on moral knowledge, the focus is on his proposal to treat rightness as 'justification-immanent' rather than as 'justification-transcendent,' as in the case of truth. The imputation of asymmetrical validity bases to truth and rightness is probed in terms of the distinction between achievement and validity concepts which is informed by the mathematical-philosophical conceptual pair of finite and infinite ideal limit concepts. The thrust of the argument is spearheaded by the question whether the process of the discursive construction of rightness is not of necessity required to have recourse to a transcendent – albeit immanently rooted – property beyond procedural presuppositions to secure its validity. A final brief coda collates suggestions made in the course of the article toward a cognitive-sociological approach that links up with Habermas's central concepts and could complement his inspiring vision of the 'cultural embodiment of reason'. Introduction Habermas originally presented his view of the difference between truth and rightness in his early writings and, since then, it has become apparent that his particular interpretation of rightness in contrast to truth actually represents the characteristic feature of his writings on practical philosophy. In his late work, however, this distinction is treated with greater precision, although not wholly differently, due to a significant extent to his revision in the late 1990s of his long-held discursive or consensus concept of truth. The revision did not entail a complete surrendering of this concept, to be sure, but it did require compensation of its limitations by the adoption of a complementary pragmatic concept of truth. The effect of this move was the strengthening of the discursive concept's procedural implications by pragmatism – but a pragmatism simultaneously interpreted somewhat more strongly in Kantian terms than many an American pragmatist would be willing to countenance. Habermas accomplished this feat by recognizing that pragmatism retained the transcendental framing inherited from Kant, yet managed to mitigate the tension between the empirical and transcendental moments. This recognition was consolidated by the introduction of the crucial concept of 'immanent-transcendence'. It marks the displacement of the dualistic metaphysics of Kant's transcendental idealism by a processual conception showing Hegel's fingermarks according to which transcendental conditions in the form of strong idealizations instead of Kantian ideas of reason are understood as being rooted in the world and in their transcending thrust beyond return to the world. This notion compelled the transgression of the conception of the discursive justification of truth claims as an immanent process, leading to truth being characterized as a 'justification-transcendent' concept. But what is striking in Habermas's late writings is his insistence that rightness, in contrast to truth, is a 'justification-immanent' concept instead.
FRAMING AND COMMUNICATING ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
Final Report to the Commission of the European Com... more FRAMING AND COMMUNICATING ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES Final Report to the Commission of the European Communities CONTRACT NO EV5V-CT92-0152 EC ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH PROGRAMME: RESEARCH AREA III RESEARCH PROJECT NUMBER PL210493 December 1995
This is a set of lectures on technology from a critical theory perspective given in 1990-91. Quit... more This is a set of lectures on technology from a critical theory perspective given in 1990-91. Quite apart from what was explicitly offered and, therefore, went unannounced to the final year student audience, my intention was to determine what could be learned from key pieces of literature on technology for the advancement of my idea of cognitive sociology. The lectures opens with a theoretical clarification of where technology fits in the context of society, and then divides into three parts. First, a reconstruction of the long-term development of technology and science up to their status as leading productive force in late modern society is given. Second, the bulk, indeed, the core of the lectures consists of a review of some leading theoretical perspectives on technology, including Herbert Marcuse, Jürgen Habermas, Peter Weingart, C. A. Van Peursen, Gernot Böhme, Serge Moscovici and Klaus Eder. This part is closed with critical reflections aimed at enhancing the critical sociological theory of technology. The third part is an analysis of the technology debate from the 1950s to the late 1980s in which attempts were undertaken in view of a variety of mounting threats, dangers and risks to clarify the horizons of rationality within which society could regulate its own development and render technology amenable to reform. The lectures are finally brought to a close with reflections on the role of social movements in public debate and the relation of sociology to them. The aim here is to highlight the interrelations of different levels of knowledge, from the everyday through the public to the professional, as well as the collective learning processes which permeate them.
In these lectures, I approach contemporary society as being in transition between its past and fu... more In these lectures, I approach contemporary society as being in transition between its past and future, both placing it against its historical background and exploring its emerging features. The focus is on the role culture has been playing and still plays in structuring human social relations and the organisation of society at large. I have selected three major areas of central importance in contemporary society for the purpose of this analysis: the human relation to nature, art as a vehicle for the development of human subjectivity, and love as the base form of mutual recognition that gets writ large in rights and solidarity. In each of these areas, the lectures essentially deal with the range of cultural models or forms that direct, guide and structure relations, minds and institutions, but are differently interpreted and acted upon by competing, learning as well as cooperating social actors, groups and movements.
The critical questions guiding the explorations in these three areas accordingly include such as the following: What form is the currently emerging world society taking? What is culture and what specific contribution is it making to this nascent phenomenon? What contribution do the contestation and conflict between the available cultural models make to the shaping of the currently emerging society? What are the prospects of achieving an adequate society-nature relation for the emerging world society? What is the contemporary significance of modern art, particularly the avant-garde? Does it, or could it, contribute to appropriate subject formation for the emerging world society? What role does culture in the guise of forms of mutual recognition play in the evolution of love, in the establishment of a constitution for humankind guaranteeing cosmopolitan rights and the attainment of solidarity in the cosmopolitan human community? What contribution is culture in these ways making to the creation and organisation of contemporary society and, even more importantly, to the currently emerging global or world society?
The lectures reflect my longstanding concerns with Critical Theory, modernity, culture in general and with the more specific themes of nature, art and the moral-ethical problematic treated here. In turn, the presentation of these themes also contain references to my equally longstanding concerns with risk, the avant-garde, rights and cosmopolitanism. Simultaneously, the lectures above all hint at my most basic theoretical-methodological concern, namely the development of a new version of cognitive sociology that could, besides its own independent legitimacy, be of service to Critical Theory. The focus on cultural models belongs within this framework, but apart from the introduction of the key concept of ‘the cognitive order of society’ and some variation on it to make it sufficiently comprehensible, this important dimension is left largely undeveloped so as not to overburden the presentation.
This set of lectures was originally presented to students of the Department of Sociology at University College Cork, Ireland, during the 2010-11 academic year. The mode of presentation was free verbal delivery with PowerPoint backup, with ample opportunity allowed for questions and discussion. Each session was accompanied by the provision of the bibliographical details of relevant source materials. These publications and recommended further reading material are listed at the end of this document.
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Final Report to the Commission of the European Communities
CONTRACT NO EV5V-CT92-0152
EC ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH PROGRAMME: RESEARCH AREA III
RESEARCH PROJECT NUMBER PL210493
December 1995
The critical questions guiding the explorations in these three areas accordingly include such as the following: What form is the currently emerging world society taking? What is culture and what specific contribution is it making to this nascent phenomenon? What contribution do the contestation and conflict between the available cultural models make to the shaping of the currently emerging society? What are the prospects of achieving an adequate society-nature relation for the emerging world society? What is the contemporary significance of modern art, particularly the avant-garde? Does it, or could it, contribute to appropriate subject formation for the emerging world society? What role does culture in the guise of forms of mutual recognition play in the evolution of love, in the establishment of a constitution for humankind guaranteeing cosmopolitan rights and the attainment of solidarity in the cosmopolitan human community? What contribution is culture in these ways making to the creation and organisation of contemporary society and, even more importantly, to the currently emerging global or world society?
The lectures reflect my longstanding concerns with Critical Theory, modernity, culture in general and with the more specific themes of nature, art and the moral-ethical problematic treated here. In turn, the presentation of these themes also contain references to my equally longstanding concerns with risk, the avant-garde, rights and cosmopolitanism. Simultaneously, the lectures above all hint at my most basic theoretical-methodological concern, namely the development of a new version of cognitive sociology that could, besides its own independent legitimacy, be of service to Critical Theory. The focus on cultural models belongs within this framework, but apart from the introduction of the key concept of ‘the cognitive order of society’ and some variation on it to make it sufficiently comprehensible, this important dimension is left largely undeveloped so as not to overburden the presentation.
This set of lectures was originally presented to students of the Department of Sociology at University College Cork, Ireland, during the 2010-11 academic year. The mode of presentation was free verbal delivery with PowerPoint backup, with ample opportunity allowed for questions and discussion. Each session was accompanied by the provision of the bibliographical details of relevant source materials. These publications and recommended further reading material are listed at the end of this document.