Philosophy & Social Criticism

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How Critical Is Critical Theory?: Reflections on Jurgen

Habermas
Rolf Ahlers
Philosophy Social Criticism 1975; 3; 119
DOI: 10.1177/019145377500300202

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 HOW CRITICAL IS CRITICAL THEORY?

Reflections on Jurgen Habermas

I. THE AFFIRMATION OF MARX

Habermas hopes to develop the thought of Marx which he affirms as basically

legitimate. In this intention, he first of all shares Marx critique of Hegel.
Hegel assumes &dquo;the knowledge of the absolute as given, the possibilities of
which are still in need of proof by the criteria of a radicalized epistemology&dquo;.11
Precisely this Hegelian knowledge of the absolute was contested by Marx,
when for him &dquo;nature is the absolutely first over against the spirit; nature
cannot be conceived as the other of spirit, which is in its other at the same
time with itself .2 Habermas has been profoundly influenced by Marx
naturalism, and the value of Marx insights lie for Habermas in the fact that
&dquo;labor is as a process of nature more than a mere process of nature; it
regulates the metabolism (of mans interaction with nature) and constitutes
a world&dquo;.3 &dquo;In materialism labor has thus the quality of a synthesis&dquo;.4 But

this synthesizing activity of man must, according to Habermas, be differen-

tiated into the categories of labor (Arbeit) and interaction. This differen-
tiation is necessary, if the mysticisms of the metabolism of economic and
societal world-constitution is to be avoided, a mysticism to which not only
the young Marx succumbed, but likewise Walter Benjamin, Ernst Bloch,
Herbert Marcuse and Theodor Adorno.6 In order to carry out this differen-
tiation, Habermas recurs to Aristotles differentiation between production,
poiesis or techne, and action, praxis. The Aristotelian concept of poiesis
gains in Habermas interpretation the quality of labor or of instrumental
action, that action which hopes to technologically dominate reality; and the
Aristotelian concept praxis is interpreted as interaction or as communictaive
activity. This latter concept, the basis of all political activity of man, is for
Habermas the Aristotelian model on the basis of which, together with the
technological rationalization of productive processes, repressive and dogma-
tic elements in society are to be eliminated .7
The point of Habermas Marxistic critique of Hegel in view of the political
practicability of Hegels philosophy becomes clear when in his valuable essay
on Hegels Kritik der Franzsischen Revolution8 he charges Hegel with

delegating philosophically the action of revolutionary subjects to the world-

119-1

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120

spirit (Weltgeist).9 Practical, that is, realistic or political elimination of

stifling or repressive elements in society becomes impossible in Hegels philos-
ophy : &dquo;In order not to sacrifice philosophy to the challenges of revolution,
Hegel elevated revolution to the principle of his philosophy&dquo;,1 the central
thesis of Habermas essay on Hegel. &dquo;Hegel celebrates revolution because he
fears it; Hegel elevates revolution to the principle of philosophy for the sake
of a philosophy which as such overcomes revolution. Hegels philosophy of
revolution is his philosophy as its (i.e. revolutions) critique,&dquo;. 11
Revolution, as a practical critique of society, in Marxs terms the only
real critique, becomes impossible in a philosophy in which revolution is
philosophically aufgehoben.12 &dquo;Hegel elevates revolution to the principle
of his philosophy for the sake of a philosophy which overcomes revolution
as such ...
Hegel does not master without scars the complex of his critique
of the French Revolution&dquo;. 3 &dquo;World-spirit (Weltgeist) must not be recog-
nizeable as revolutionary consciousness. The world-spirit is fictitiously
invented in order to be able to identify by name the cunning of reason; but
only after the cunning is executed can there be a world-spirit who can in the
first place have cunning thoughts. Hegels ambivalent relation to the French
Revolution is once more summed up in the world-spirit as the revolutionary
who may not be the revolutionary: Hegel wants the revolution without
revolutionaries. World-spirit has accomplished the revolution already, reason
has already become practical before the absolute spirit, and most of all
philosophy, recognizes reality in its reasonableness. The hypothesis of the
world-spirit proposes the paradox of an objective spirit who has borrowed
its knowledge from the absolute. On it alone is projected what the old Hegel
has forbidden to politicians as well as to philosophers: to simultaneously
act and to know&dquo;. I 4
Revolutionary or realistic change of alienating reality becomes impossible
in a philosophy which elevates revolutionary and practical change into the
speculative philosophy which is the self-awareness of the absolute spirit
which manifests itself in the process of history. This essentially Marxian
critique is possible only on the basis of a profound misunderstanding of
Hegels absolute. ~ ~ S Michael Theunissen has made a valuable contribution
toward a clarification of the issue when he notes that the thesis of
delegation, found in orthodox Marxism as well as in Neo-Marxistic thought,
can arise only on the basis of an undialectical and abstract juxtaposition ...

of human freedom and divine transcendence.I6

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 121

II. HABERMAS MARXISTIC REVISIONISM

But Habermas sees himself constrained to revise Marx; this is in itself an

interesting phenomenon not only in view of the question of how Marx is to
be interpreted today, but also in view of the light which the specifically
Neo-Marxistic interpretation of Marx throws on that school of thought. The
basic problem with which we are confronted in this need to revise Marx is
this: Marx has, according to the Frankfurt School, made the decisive break-
through in his critique of Hegel in the postulation of not the absolute, but
rather of human labor as the only natural world-constituting subject; this
break-through was decisive in philosophy, because only on the basis of this
postulate could alienation of nature from spirit, producer from his product
and the claims of the present from the heteronomizing claims of dogmatic
and orthodox tradition be overcome. But we have to ask: if Marx has
achieved this decisive break-through, why must he be abandoned? Or stated
differently: If Marx theory so obviously does not suffice as the practicable
means for effective social critique, why hold on to him?
A critique of Marx is necessary, because Marx &dquo;did not actually duplicate
the interconnection between interaction and labor, but rather reduces the
one to the other under the unspecific title of societal praxis&dquo;; Marx there-
with &dquo;traces back communicative to instrumental action&dquo;. 1 The &dquo;instru-
mental action becomes the paradigma for the explanation of all categories;
everything dissolves into the self-movement of production&dquo;.1 The basic
intention of this critique of Marx is to salvage Marx emancipation of nature
out of Hegels objective and dialectical movement of history. Nature has to
be salvaged out of history! For what is right in Marx in his understanding of
the natural man producing in labor not only himself, but also his world.
But the natural man- and world-constitution which in Marx can come about
only on the basis of a new conscience-creating revolutionary action of the
industrial proletariat is alienated from its real purpose if the distinction
between labor and interaction is not made. &dquo;Only that reason which is
conscious of the interest in progress of reflection towards responsible
maturity, an interest which is a basic component in any reasonable discussion
-

only this interest will gain the power of consciousness to transcend its
materialistic ties&dquo;.19 To become conscious of these materialistic ties means
that one is emancipated from them at the same time. Because Marx did not
differentiate between labor and interaction, everything dissolves in his
thought &dquo;into the self-movement of production. For this reason also the
ingenious insight into the dialectical relation of means of production and

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122

conditions of production (Produktionskrfte and Productionsverhltnisse)

could soon be misinterpreted mechanistically&dquo;.29
Because Marx had shown that the emancipative and revolutionary activity
of the proletariat for the first time creates the totally free man who in the
production of self and world at the same time elevates the consciousness of
repressive circumstances prior to the revolutionary act, his basic insight is
correct and must be saved at all costs. But because he did not differentiate
between labor as the productive force and the real freedom gained in free
and mature communicative dialogue, the positivistic domination of our
modern &dquo;industrial society which integrates science as a productive force&dquo;211
could protect the potentially free revolutionary subject from critical
insight into these circumstances of domination.2 The category interaction
realizes in our modern industrial society the emancipatory intentions of Marx
for only it can create that sphere of free and unrepressive dialogue, in which
in genuine communication repressive elements of a technologically limited
rationality can be eliminated. Interaction as communication is in the final
analysis for Habermas the free and unrepressive dialogue among scientists,
Aristotles praxis. Here lies the remnant of Habermas phenomenological
background. &dquo;The model of political praxis emerges in Habermas out of
the appropriation of the tradition of hermeneutics from Dilthey to Gadamer.
It operates on the postulate that politics must be concerned with the revival
of an unrepressive sphere of discussion, in which everyone accepts everyone
else and achieves understanding with him on the basis of freedom and
equality&dquo;.23
The real significance of the historical-hermeneutical sciences is found in
their applicability in a sphere free from technical or technological mastery. 24
The sphere of technological mastery has become in our modern industrialized
societies that sphere in which man as the producer of all wealth has become
universally the servant and slave of the means of production. If Marx
insight into the need for revolutionary emancipation out of this servitude is
to have any significance today, the hermeneutical model of free dialogue in
a sphere of unrepressive political praxis acts as the surrogate for Marx sub-

ject of revolution, which can in modern industrialized societies no longer be

identified. The proletariat no longer exists, as Marcuse, and not only he,
has amply made clear. The lack of the differentiation between labor and
interaction, as we find it still in Marx, implies that the sphere of technol-
ogical mastery is becoming universally prevalent, eliminating any dialectical
differentiation within the whole; the whole of the technological universe
has become totally repressive. Habermas retrieves Marx proper insight into

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 123

the need for the elevation of revolutionary consciousness by means of the

model of hermeneutical dialogue, which is totally free, that is, it has no
purpose other than the free political dialogue of scientists. This ability cri-
tically to communicate about repressive aspects of the technologically
structured society is indicated by Habermas with the category of self-
reflection (Selbstreflecion).25 &dquo;Self-reflections frees the subject out of
dependence from hypostasized powers. Self-reflection is determined by an
emancipatory interest of insight&dquo;.26 &dquo;In self-reflection a knowledge for the
sake of knowledge becomes unified with the interest for maturity. The
emancipatory interest for knowledge aims at the accomplishment of reflec-
tion as such In the power of self-reflection knowledge and interest are
...

one&dquo;. 27
This independence of a hermeneutically operating repression-free dialogue
is the aim of all of Critical Theory, including that of Adorno, Horkheimer,
Marcuse and Habermas. Its intention is to destroy ideology as the rationa-
lization of irrational collective behavior.2 We would like to propose two
theses about the intention of Critical Theory:
1. This very independence of Critical Theory, which has undialectically
emancipated itself out fo its own historical context - which it hopes to
criticize - this independence thwarts all critique. The fruitfulness of its
freedom, however promising its prospects may be, is bought at the
expense of the sterility of its endeavor. This sterility is the result of the
revival of Aristotles understanding of theoria, the unhistorical contemplation
of the natural cosmos of ancient Greeces nobility which is free from the
daily pressures of earning a living.
2. Insofar as Habermas. qualifies this critical power of self-reflection as
&dquo;having its basis in the natural history of the human species&dquo;2 he reduces
its emancipatory aim to the aseity of nature as such, abandoning therewith
Marx dialectical understanding of the progress of history as the revolutionary
elimination of repression by the rising of the proletariat, an elimination
made possible by the progress of repressive history as such.
In view of the second point, one can show well, how subjectively con-
ceived, how wilful and undialectical Habermas revisionistic Marxism must
appear. To bring forth this appearance we shall quote from Marx and then
analyze Habermas reaction to it: Marx writes about the dialectical process of
history: &dquo;Because the abstraction from all humanity, in fact from the
appearance of humanity is practically completed in the developed proletariat,
because in the condition of life of the proletariat are expressed the condition
of life of modern society in their most inhuman excessiveness, because

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124

man has lost himself in it (the proletariat), but because he has simul-
taneously not only gained the theoretical consciousness of this loss
but also is forced immediately to the protest against this inhumanity
by the no longer avoidable, no longer beautifyable and absolutely
dominating need - the practical expression of the necessity - for
that reason the proletariat can and must free itself. But it cannot free
itself without eliminating its own conditions of life. It cannot eliminate its
own conditions of life without eliminating all inhuman conditions of modern

society, which are subsumed in its (the proletariats) situation&dquo;.3o

Habermas notes correctly that this Marxistic dialectic of history is the
central point of Marx theory.31 But precisely this center has to be destroyed
and with this destruction not only all dialectics are destroyed which are still r

present in Marx, but rather also all hope is eliminated of a Critical Theorys
dialectical emergence out of the manifestly repressive societal conditions.322
Habermas observes in view of the quoted passage by Marx: &dquo;The completion
of the self-consciousness of mankind in the heads of the most subjected,
emanciated and most dull individuals is questionable: Is reason capable of
being translated into slogans and of being realized by slogans? Is it not rather
true that the self-consciousness of the species as a reaction against the
untruth of wealth will be established within a society which is attuned to a
high degree of consciousness anyway, rather than as a reaction against the
untruth of poverty within a class whose bodily exploitation reduces a limine
all exertions of consciousness to a societally accidental state? Should not the
pauperism within the poverty of the wealthy society, rather than the
pauperism within poverty, provide the means to move the mass of the
population to measure that which is by the criteria of that which is
possible&dquo;?33 Marx dialectic history is decreed to be passe. That it is passe
shall here not be contested. The question is only, whether and why Marx
should be revised unmarxistically? For Habermas category of the possible
is the emancipatory interest-guided activity of communicative interaction
of social scientists who are enlightened on the basis of their self-reflection.
But who shall convince the vast majority of established society, including
the workers themselves, that that which could be is better than that which
is? For Marx not only the theoretical consciousness but also the practical
expression of necessity - namely the necessary will to change no longer
bearable circumstances - was a manifest fact. This manifest fact need not
first of all be theoretically established by . a communicating intelligentia.
Who should provide on the basis of such a communicating interaction the
practical conviction necessary by the vast majority to change the situation?

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 125

(In a centrally-directed totalitarian state such change might be possible -

there the will of the Central Committee is the command of the whole
political apparatus, but just such circumstances are rejected by Habermas).
The merit of Marx theory rests in the fact that that conviction, that practical
will need not first of all be established. It is simply present and is a historical
fact in the manifest poverty and emaciated pauperism of the working class.
It has been dialectically produced by history. It is historical. Marx never
had any of Habermas illusions that the thin and toothless discussions and
endless debates of well-groomed scientists (or not so well-groomed
students who would be scientists) could have any meaningful effect
on the course of history. The conviction to have conditions change must
arise out of the course of history itself; it must become a manifest
and theoretically as well as, practically evident truth opposing the
untruth of established conditions. Whereas Marx had materialistically
modified Hegels dialectics, so that none of the proletariats &dquo;senses
exist any more, not only not in their human manner, but rather neither
in an inhuman and therefore not even in an animalistic manner&dquo;, 34
which causes &dquo;the worker to be reduced to an unsensual being with-
out needs in the same way as his activity is reduced to a pure abstrac-
tion of all activity&dquo;,355 so that even the rich element in society is
dehumanized, causing the essential identity of &dquo;squandering saving, luxury
and all want, wealth and poverty&dquo;36 - whereas for Marx therefore the
theoretical awareness of the total abstraction of humanity as well as the
practical will to eliminate it was a manifest fact among the majority of at
least the working population, which fact had been dialectically produced by
the process of the development of wealth itself, Habermas finds himself
constrained by the progress of history, which has eliminated this awareness,
to eliminate this dialectical remnant of an ontological and therefore still
metaphysical element in Marx. Of Marxistic materialism, Habermas says:
&dquo;The problem in its functions and its dialectics is obvious&dquo;. 3 That is, the
dialectics of Mrax philosophy is problematical. This dialectic is an irrational
element in a theory bent on effective critique of repressiveness. Effective
critique must be free from any such ontological and dogmatic presuppo-
sitions : &dquo;The accomplished dialectics is the eliminated dialectics; for when
all that which is created by human hands also enters dominating mastery
(Ver[ligung), only then can the truly unmastered (Unverftigbare) be set free
and be separated from a wrong administration - only an incomplete ratio-
nality erroneously overinterprets the whole&dquo;.38 The &dquo;incomplete rationality&dquo;
is here the Marxistic dialectic of history which is still &dquo;conceived idealisti-

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126

cally as basic to an absolute consciuosness and to all history&dquo;.39 Such an

idealistic dialectic is still irrational, because it is still essentially historical. The

end of such a dialectic of history alone can set rationality free from its
integration in an idealistically conceived dialectics. This idealistic element in
Marx theory, still present in many forms of modern Marxism, becomes
apparent in its problematic at that time when &dquo;the necessity of the
naturalistic perversion, which historical materialism has assumed in the heads
of just that class which is to realize it, can be sociologically, and therefore
consequently and concretely proven&dquo;. 40 Such sociological and concrete
proof, carried out with greater consequence and therefore greater rationality,
is achievable by the communicating analysis of the scientists in Habermas
interaction.

III. EMANCIPATION FROM HISTORY:

CRITICAL THEORY AND THEORIA

Critical Theory has to terminate traditional philosophy if it is to terminate a

history of repression, and it has to emancipate itself out of this history if it
is to accomplish this termination. Philosophy as a whole is, according to
Habermas, a philosophy without consciousness, or at least, philosophy with
a false consciousness.41 Philosophy had traditionally, from Aristotle to
Gadamer, reflected under the &dquo;appearance of pure theory&dquo;.42 That means,
that philosophy, just as the objective sciences, had proceeded &dquo;without
reflection on the knowledge-guiding interest&dquo; towards an enlightened use of
reflection. Since this emancipatory element43 was lacking in traditional
pure theory of philosophy as well as the sciences, they &dquo;succumbed to an
objectivism which concealed the relation between its knowledge (Erkenntnis)
and the interest (Interesse) towards responsible maturity&dquo;.44 &dquo;From the
beginning philosophy has postulated that the maturity which is established
with the structure of language is not only anticipated but rather real .
Here Habermas critically distances himself from his teacher Gadamer as well
as from the whole of traditional philosophy.
But in this very emancipatory tendency, Critical Theory becomes a-his-
torical. Critical Theory suffers from that abstract a-historicality which was
represented by the emancipatory critical philosopliy of the Enlightenment,
foremost by Kant. If Habermas is correct in pointing out46 that Hegel had
effectively pointed to the internal inconsistency and irrationality of the
reasoning subject in Kants epistemology, which subject was the all-powerful
scrutinizing authority itself not subject to any scrutiny, and if Habermas

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 127

has shown that Hegels argument is final 47 in pointing out that Kants
critical and emancipatory interest in an enlightened rationality causes the
rationality of Kants philosophy to lose its legitimacy, then we must observe
in Habermas own critical and emancipative interest in an enlightened
rationality a similar loss of legitimacy. Whereas in Kant that loss was
motivated by purely epistemological reasons, in Habermas this interest is
coupled with a political engagement, for Critical Theory is to fulfill a
politically enlightening function. But precisely this politically emancipative
concern in Habermas, &dquo;this whole doctrine of the change of philosophy into

politics must be, on the grounds of philosophy, tantamount to a self-elimina-

tion of philosophy&dquo; (Gadamer).48 If the Left Hegelianism had always hoped
to revive this Kantian critical subject, modem Critical Theory has to attempt
to revive this revival once more49 after the adherents of this school have
shown that the emancipatory inclinations of the Left Hegelians are histori-
cally no longer practiceable. So
The abstract and a-historical nature of Critical Theory, especially that of
Habermas, emerges when we hear that philosophy from the very beginning
has not anticipated the responsible maturity aimed at in Critical Theory,. 51
All traditional philosophy, foremost in Hegel, is ideological 52 because it
has remained tied to ontology, which made impossible the emancipative
identification of knowledge (Erkenntnis)with its own interest in greater
enlightenment. 53 3 All this traditional philosophy therefore, once reduced
by Habermas to the position of being the mere preparation for a genuinely
critical philosophy, has to be left behind; it succumbs to the critique of
Critical Theory. Critical Theory understands itself thus to be severed from
traditional (unenlightened) history of philosophy. &dquo;The emancipatory inter-
est in knowledge aims at the accomplishment of reflections as such&dquo;.54 Only
&dquo;in the power of self-reflection are knowledge (Erkenntnis) and interest
one&dquo;.55 Self-reflection is to substitute Marx revolutionary proletariat.
insofar as this self-reflection is to provide the criteria by means of which a
critical elimination of repressivity in society alone is possible. But whereas
Marx revolutionary subject was a true product of the dialectical develop-
ment of history, Habermas critical subject can constitute itself only by
undialectically emancipating itself out of and establishing itself over against
history.
In such terms as reflection as such and self-reflection, which purport
to represent the essence of truly engaged and world-immanent Critical
Theory over against the unengaged pure theoryS6 of objectivating and
ontologically structured 57 philosophy, the basic identity of the way Critical

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128

Theory understands itself and the a-historical nature of Greek theoria

becomes apparent. Habermas hoped to develop Max Horkheimers &dquo;distinc-
tion between theory in the sense of this (Greek) tradition and theory in the
sense of critique&dquo;.58 This intention helps only to conceal a profound mis-

understanding. 5 For the qualification of Critical Theory as bringing about

interactive communication on the basis of the principle of general and
unrepressive discussion, 60 the emancipatory qualities of which are defined
to rest altogether in its reflexive or self-reflective nature,61 points to the
basic identity of Critical Theory and Greek theoria. Habermas understands
the nature of Greek theoria thus: It &dquo;relates to the unchanging essence of
things beyond the changing realm of human matters&dquo;,62 and precisely in
this abstracting aim of classic theoria, precisely in this separation from or
emancipation out of the realm of human matters, 63 lay also its practical
nature, for in relating theoretically to the cosmos as a whole, the inherent
and necessary laws of this natural cosmos become apparent to the theoretical
viewer, who then by means of the mimetic approximation of his soul to the
cosmos gains that practical phronesis, that practical wisdom of life which

helps him in the all-encompassing activity of his life. It is our contention that
Habermas in his emphasis that the objectifying and empirical sciences lost
the overall meaningful interconnection, the consciousness of what they
are doing64 and therefore the practical or ethical65 implications of their

work, espouses a definition of Critical Theory which is essentially identical

with the undialectical and unhistorical theoria of Greek antiquity.

IV. EMANCIPATORY RECESS INTO NATURE AND THE

END OF DIALECTICS

Habermas, in his to find a Critical Theory which can be truly critical,

hope
so as to return ethical dimension into modern technocratic society, falls
an

into an a-historical model of critique, in which the identity of Erkenntnis

(knowledge) and Interesse (interest) postulates the emancipation from
philosophical rationality to be the eternal law of the human species; Haber-
mas: Critical Theory falls back into undialectical and unhistorical nature in
postulating that abandoning traditional rationality of philosophy66 is
called for today as the revival of the eternal activity of the human species.67
Only if that is done, the energetic attempt is made in industrial nations to
consciously manage the mediation of technical progress with a form of
greater rationatliy.68 That energetic management redirects the powers
of science and technology out of their decisionistic application to a more

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 129

rational use. That re-direction is at the same time identical with the complete
mastery over all human affairs. This complete mastery has other aim than
no
set free that which can never and should never be mastered: supposedly the
free and unrepressed humanum.
The point we have to hold on to is this: Rationality is to be completed.
Not less, but more rationality is necessary. All aspects of human activity have
to be totally managed by enlightening communication and interaction -
in order that the totally unmanageable humanum can emerge. That at the
same time implies the end of illusory and misguided history up to this point

and with it the end of a dialectics which could gain favor only in the con-
text of idealistic thought: &dquo;The completed dialectics is the eliminated dia-
lectics. For only when all that which is produced by human hands also comes
under the control of man - only then can the truly unmanageable be liberated;
only an incomplete rationality fallaciously misinterprets the whole&dquo;.69
The long work of philosophy of two millenniums, during which time the
Greek a-historical contemplation of cosmos and physis was overcome under
the influence of Christian thought, is by Habermas identified with that
Greek philosophy. Only this problematic identification can create the
double misunderstanding that Critical Theory espouses a model of theory
which is essentially different from Greek theoria and that Critical Theory
is in this essential difference directed critically towards present social and
political conditions. Pure theory of Greek antiquity and of occidental
philosophy as a whole, including the philosophy of Hegel, operates, according
to Habermas, under the basic ontological assumption of a structured world
in itself&dquo; 70 which world one would only have mimetically to reproduce in
the process of education to gain the practical wisdom of the virtuous life.
Because the objectivistic appearance 71 of the positive and natural sciences
juxtapose the pure objectivity of the world in itself over against the subject,
and because pure theory of occidental metaphysics, most of all in Hegel,
reflects philosophically the absolute spirit of pure being, both are equally
worldless and uncritical. &dquo;The truth of pure theory is the untruth of
objectivism&dquo;. 72 Habermas hopes together with Horkheimer to develop a
Critical Theory whose critical subject is not separated from its object,
which is therefore turned to history and not to a timeless and abstract
cosmos or eternal truth. But the very objectivism which is criticised by

Critical Theory as assuming falsely an independent object standing over

against the knowing subject turns out to be the identical posture of Critical
Theory itself. For precisely such an independence from the societal whole is
the very aim of Critical Theory, an independence expressed best with the

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130

term self-reflection. Habermas indicates the source of his understanding of

the objectivism of Greek theoria: It is an essay by Georg Picht.~ Picht
point out that from the beginning the differentiation between theoria and
praxis had a theological implication. 74 Pure theory 75 was free from the
practical engagement of those who seek wealth, pleasure and fame; pure
theory, rather, was apparently from the beginning, with Xenophanes and
Anaxagoras, and later in Plato and Aristotle, the knowledge of the one and
unmoved God who is pure nous.~ The theoretician is consequently capable
of realizing in himself the timeless presence of divine laws. God realizes
himself in the theoretical views of the theoretician. &dquo;Theory is the timeless
presence of that which is divine in the human soul; it is the presence of the
soul in the divine spirit and therewith the presence of the soul in itself and by
itself - but not by itself, the human, but rather by itself, the divine nous&dquo;.77
Pure theory is divine contemplation. God views himself in the theoretical
contemplation of the eternal laws of the cosmos. The theoretical contem-
plation of the eternal laws of the cosmos is Gods own contemplation of
these laws; in this contemplation the human contemplator approximates
therefore divinity, for which reason theoretical vision is so much higher and
greater than all practical activity associated with earning a living. Here now
lies the similarity to Critical Theorys self-reflection. Critical Theory also
finds its capacity to be critical in the category of self-reflection: &dquo;The
methodological frame which determines the meaning of the validity of ...

critical statements is measured with the category of self-reflection. Self-

reflection frees the subject out of the dependence from hypostasized
powers. Self-reflection is determined by an emancipatory interest in knowl-
edge&dquo;.~ The very freedom from hypostasized powers which takes place in
the self-reflection of Critical Theory points to the close proximity of Critical
Theory to the pure theory of Greek antiquity, particularly to that of
Aristotle. Only because Habermas eliminates the theological dimension of
the ancient understanding of theory can he slide into the misunderstanding
that (1) Critical Theory can be critical (in distinction to traditional theory)
on the basis of the identity of the criticising subject with the object, and

(2) that traditional philosophical theory, including that of Hegel, parti-

cipates in the ancient appearance of pure theory.~9
The distinction between the objectivism of ancient Greek theoria and
the intentions of Critical Theory is fallacious. For Habermas assumes in the
tradition of ideology-criticism from Feuerbach to Marx to the Neo-Marxistic
revival of a Freud-Marxism - Habermas points specifically to the relation
between psychoanalysis and critique of ideology8 - the basic legimitacy

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distribution.
 131

of Feuerbachs critique: that man and his creativity are the absolute first,
and that all ideological diversions from history with its real (and unfortunate-
ly often disastrous) problems are man-willed and initiated by no one but man
himself. Man hopes to fool himself. Georg Picht points out - and Habermas
should have taken cognizance of this - that the famous sentence of Prota-
goras &dquo;of all things man is the measure - of the being things that
they are and of the non-being things that they are not&dquo; has all too
often been misunderstood. &dquo;It is meaningless in the whole span
...

of Greek thought which lies between the middle of the 7th and the end
of the 5th century to speak of a view of man. The images which stand above
the Greek life in his time are not images of man but rather of gods&dquo;.~ ~1
Here also lies the basic problem of mentioning in one breath Hegels
philosophy together with Greek pure theory. For in Hegel theoretical
insight has achieved a position which is vastly different from that of ancient
Greek thought. Habermas must be oblivious to the basic identity of Critical
Theorys emancipative inclinations to the ancient Greek devaluation of
history and theorias objectivating contemplation of the eternally identical
natural and divine cosmos, because he shared together with Karl L6with
and the Neo-Marxists the understanding that Western history of philosophy
is motivated essentially by pure theory in which historical reality is negated.
That which is assumed to be negated, however, is, as Feuerbach has
insisted, mans naturalness - nature as such. L6with has pointed in all of
his writings to his suspicion that the history of Western historicistic thought
has buried this naturalness. Habermas shares this same contention with
L6with: Western history of thought is essentially nihilistic in negating the
real and natural man. That the natural man is conceived altogether
unhistorically - namely outside of the context of Western historical thought,
which Habermas identifies with or as pure theory - is never explicitly
mentioned. Habermas only insists that the natural history of the human
species brings forth out of itself the emancipated man: that man emancipated
from the heteronomizing history dominated by pure theory. Of course
also Hegel belongs to this implicitly nihilistic history, according to Habermas.
That for Hegel the objective spirit is not the object of objectivating pure
theory but rather eminently historical, insofar as history itself is its essential
other in which it manifests and realizes itself, must be blocked out of a
philosophy which understands all of Western philosophy to be dominated
by a-historical pure theory. In the speculative insight of philosophy it is,
according to Hegel shown, that &dquo;reason (Vernunft) is the substance of all
natural and spiritual life. Reason is its substance, &dquo;namely that in which

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distribution.
 132

all reality has its being and existence&dquo;. As reason (Vernunft) &dquo;is its own
presupposition, its purpose and its absolute final aim, so it is itself the
activation and production of that purpose out of internality into the appea-
rance not only in the natural, but also in the spiritual universe - in world

history&dquo;.82 In Hegels thought therefore that understanding of pure theory

is overcome. It cannot be subsumed under Habermas category of objec-
tivization. Yes, it cannot be denied that Hegel incorporated much from
Greek thought into his own, and one can interpret even unhistorically as
pure theory this passage: &dquo;The absolute object, the truth, is spirit and
because man is himself spirit, he is present to himself in his object and he
has found in his absolute object the essence and his own essence&dquo;.8 That
sounds very much like the Greek mimetic doctrine, according to which
spiritual man revives in himself the divine order and law of the natural
cosmos.84 And yet the continuation of the just quoted passage of Hegel, as
well as the context in which it appears, must also be quoted: &dquo;But in order
that the objectivity of essence is to be eliminated (aufgehoben) so that spirit
can be with itself, the naturalness of spirit, in which man is specific and

empirical, must be negated in order that the strangeness is to be destroyed

and the reconciliation is to be accomplished&dquo;.85
The hope of Critical Theory to emancipate itself from the tradition of
philosophy, which, even in Marx, held on to the ontology of objectivating
pure theory, is based on the understanding of Western history of thought
and society as a history of progressive regress. But a history of which every-
thing and all human activity leads only to the darkness of repression can only
be totally abandoned. History must be totally abandoned, if it is understood
as a history of increasing subjection of man and nature by man. However
sensitive Critical Theory may have been to the prevailing totalitarianism of
political regimes, and however much Habermas may be sensitive to the
blindness and therefore potentially to totalitarian tendencies of objec-
tivating sciences as well as of the hermeneutcial sciences, his hope totally
to emancipate Critical Theory from a history of philosophy of &dquo;pure theory&dquo;
is based on the interpretation of Western history as a history of increasing
dehumanization.
But in this emancipation, in this freedom of Critical Theory from a

negative history, all history, all creative ties to the reality of history itself
must be surrendered. Only in this emancipative and abstract, ultimately Kan-
tian aim of Critical Theory, can the essential similarity of its self-under-
standing to the a-historical philosophy of ancient Greek thought be found.
Reynolds Professor of Philosophy and Religion,
Russell Sage College, Troy, N. Y.

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 133

NOTES

1
See Jiirgen Habermas, Erkenntnis und Interesse, Habermas inaugural lecture at the
University of Frankfurt, June 1965, 28, reprinted in: Technik und Wissenschaft als
Ideologie. Suhrkamp Verlag, edition suhrkamp number 287, Frankfurt, 1970, 4th ed.
(we quote this volume as TWI, pp. 146-148. See also the further development of the
main thesis of this lecture in the book with the same name as the inaugural lecture of
1965: Erkenntnis und Interesse, Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt, 1968, quoted here as
Eul. The book is translated by Guttrom Florstad and appeared under the tilte Knowl-
edge and Human Interest. Beacon Press, Boston, 1971. Since I am writing this essay in
Germany, this English translation is not readily available to me and I am using the
German original. The quote is from Eul, p. 18.
2
Ibid, (EuI), p. 36.
3
EuI, 39f
4
EuI, 40.
5
EuI, 45.
6
EuI, 45.
7 See Habermas, Die Klassische Lehre von der Politik in ihrem Verhältnis zur Sozial-
philosophie, in: Theorie und Praxis, 2nd edition, 1967, (quoted as TP2), Luchterhand
Verlag, Neuwied und Berlin, pp. 13-51. See for a critical appraisal of Habermas
Arbeit und Interaktion, Michael Theunissen, Gesell-
intentions in his differentiation of
schaft und Geschichte, de Gruyter Verlag, Berlin, 1969, see esp. pp. 20ff. See further-
more Günter Rohrmoser, Das Elend der Kritischen Theorie, 1st and 2nd ed .Rombach
Verlag, Freiburg, 1970 (quoted as E); see in this volume the analysis of Habermas
thought especially pp. 89ff. See also Michael Theunissen, Hegels Lehre vom absoluten
Geist als theologisch-politischer Traktat, de Gruyt er Verlag, Berlin 1970.
8 in:
TP2, pp. 89-107.
9 Habermas does not
distinguish between the absolute spirit and the world spirit,
which leads to the elimination of the theological dinension of his Hegel-interpretation.
For the latter, for Hegel, dte absolute spirit is the divine spirit (Theunissen, Hegels
Lehre, p. 71.) This critique of Hegel has its roots in the Marxian, ultimately Feuer-
bacherian critique of religion: religion estranges man from his real self. The divine
absolute spirit then estranges man from his real self; man is not really the creater of
his history and world, it is God. This dominating absolute spirit is the object of all
Marxian critique. Theunissen observes in regard to this problem: "Precisely the
theological legimitation of the worl-
theological legitimation of the world-spirit (in the absolute spirit) prevents the world-
false claims of domination". (Hegels Lehre, p. 71).
spirits
10TP2, 89.
11
TP2, 98.
12 We respectfully remind of the fact that in the crush of student revolts during 1968
and 1969 Habermas disavowed revolution as an effective medium of social and
university reform. Habermas has noted in a lecture on July 2, 1968 before the left-
leaning student group VDS (Verband Deutscher Studenten) (this lecture is reprinted
in the daily newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau of June 5, 1968; and then it was
reprinted once more in the volume Protestbewegung und Hochschulreform. Suhrkamp
Verlag, Frankfurt, 1969, edition suhrkamp vol. 354.) that he does not believe that
handgranades are the proper tools to effective change. We suggest that Habermas
own recipe tor reform, contained in such concepts as interaction, self-reflection
(see below, Nr. II and III) and in the proposal of free dialogue of scientists among
scientists, is a very similar Aufhebung of the thrust of revolution into the realm of

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distribution.
134

mental speculation - now dignified with the lable dialogue - as Habermas criticises
in Hegel, Habermas wants the revolution without revolutionaries, as he claims Hegel
does. Does perhaps also Habermas "celebrate revolution because he fears it?" (TP2,
89). Does he "elevate revolution to the principle of philosophy for sake of a philosophy
which as such overcomes revolution"? (ibid.), is Habermas "philosophy of revolution
a philosophical critique of revolution"? (ibid). See also TP2, 103.
It seems that the cause of revolution, which understands itself as the practical
change of societal repression, has been truncated from its head, a theory of revolution.
After Marcuse, also Habermas has joined the ranks of the clever and safe intellectuals
who may appear to be rather red in the conservative public press, but who are in
reality very much a part of the "system". Could the separation of a revolutionary praxis
from a theory of revolution be the reason why - at least in Europe - revolutionary
praxis was left without a head and manifested itself from 1971 to 1974 in the
activity of anarchistic groups all over Europe, as in the Baader-Meinhoff group?
13
TP2,103.
14
TP2, 105f.
15
Theuntssen, Hegels Lehre, p. 10.
16
Hegels Lehre, 10.
17
Habermas, TWI, 45; see also p. 92. In 1967 Habermas traced the distinction bet-
ween labor and interaction back to Hegel in his essay Arbeit und Interaktion. Bemer-
kungen zu Hegels Jenenser Philosophie des Geistes, in: H. Braun und Manfred Riedel
(ed.), Natur und Geschichte, Karl Löwith zum 70. Geburtstag, Stuttgart 1967, pp.
132-155. The essay is reprinted in: Technik und Wissenschaft als Ideologie (TWI),
pp. 9-47.
18 TWI, 45.
19
20
Tp2, 256.
TWI, 46.
21
TP2, 256.
22
TP2, 256.
23
Rohrmoser, Elend (quoted as E), p. 96. The complete title of the book is: Das
Elend der Kritischen Theorie. Theodor W. Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Jürgen Habermas.
Rombach Verlag, Freiburg, 1st and 2nd ed. 1970.
24
TWI, 157.
25
TWI, 159
26
TWI, 159.
27
TWI, 164, my emphasis. See also EuI, 224, where the identical words are used.
28
TWI, 159f.
29
TWI, 161; see also EuI, 351.
30
Marx, Die Frühschriften, von 1837 bis zum Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei,
ed. by Siegfried Landshut, 1953, reprint 1958, Alfred Kroner Verlag, Stuttgart. We
quote the work as FS. The quote was taken from p. 318, my emphasis.
31 TP2, 333.
32
Habermas claims that his own version of Critical Theory is the dialectical product
of (repressed) history: "The unity of knowledge and interest proves itself in a
dialectic which reconstructs out of the repressed dialogue that which is repressed".
(TWI, 164). The word dialectic has slipped in because Habermas understands his
Critical Theory to be the dialectical product of history. But we must note carefully
what the sentence says: The unity of knowledge and interest is an unforced
communication (TWI, 164) which can reconstruct the repressed dialogue only because
it is free from the dialectical path of history (ibid). This path of history has always
repressed that dialogue. Only the anticipatory nature of free dialogue and communi-
cation, the emancipated quality, the quality which indicates its lack of contamination

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distribution.
 135

with the remnants of any history which is understood only as a history of repression
-

only this nature of dialogue and communication is capable of reconstructing

repressiveness in this history. The juxtaposition of the criticising subject over against
the criticised history of repression at once characterizes it as a-historical and therefore
as incapable of any effective critique. This very a-historical juxtaposition of subject
and object is the positivistic element in Habermas theory. Despite all his critique of
the positivism of the empirical sciences, he has not only to make decisive consessions
to them in the execution of the intentions (See to this point Rohrmoser, E, 90ff.) of
his critique: the very nature and structure of the Critical Theory itself is in its negating
posture rather similar to the subject of Positivisms critique. Here is another point
where Habermas is rather close to Herbert Marcues. See the article by Lothar Zahn,
Herbert Marcuses Apotheose der Negation, in: Philosophische Rundschau, Dec. 1969,
Heft 4, pp. 164ff. Zahn points here to the implicit Positivism of Marcuses Negative
thought.
33 TP 333.
34
FS, 256.
35
FS, 257.
36
FS, 259.
37
TP2, 333.
38
TP2, 320, my emphasis.
39 Ibid.
40
TP2, 332, my emphasis.
41
TWI, 165.
42 Ibid: see also ibid, p. 154, 156, 164. The term appearance of pure theory appears,
to my knowledge for the first time in the Habermasian opus in his famous essay Zur
philosophischen Diskussion um Marx und den Marxismus, first published in: Philoso-
phische Rundschau, J.C.B. Mohr, Tübingen, vol. 5, number 3/4, pp. 165ff., reprinted
in: Theorie und Praxis, 2nd ed., pp. 216-355. There Habermas speaks about the
appearance of philosophys autonomy (TP2, 196). The appearance of autonomy
reemerges later as appearance of pure theory and is the term applied by Habermas in
the shadow of Marx to philosophy from the beginning: all philosophy up to Marx
made the claim of such autonomy. Marx had understood the primacy of the
practical interest of philosophy: "Where the primacy of the practical interest
is recognized, where its concern for the realisation of this interest is recognized
as the only dependable condition of knowledge, philosophy loses her heretofore
unquestioned autonomy: does she not have to be eliminated herself for the purpose of
the elimination of alienations if and insofar as she is an expression of that alienation".
(ibid, 276). World and history are ontologically not, according to Marx, the invariant
constitution within which alone man can understand himself. Marx interpretation
of world as man-constituted rather eliminates this ontological base and any philosophy
which claimed to be that base, as for example Hegels: "philosophy is disposed towards
such an ontological fixation of a historical condition only so long as she remains tied
up in the appearance of her autonomy and, as she rejects the thought that she is herself
as well as the motivation for her transcendental procedure the historically conditioned

expression of a wrong reality which could be changed together with the transcendental
structure of objectivity". (ibid, 227, my emphasis). When philosophy therefore becomes
in Marx aware of the fact that she is an expression of alienated reality, she becomes
aware that she is herself anlieated from her real nature in assuming that she was
autonomous. In Marx this autonomy became apparent as mere appearance. Later
Habermas traces back this false self-understanding of philosophy to the world-removed
theory of the ancient Greeks, so that the total history of philosophy up to Marx is

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distribution.
136

labelled as the appearance of pure theory, which, once it is recognized, is already

eliminated, so that this history is eliminated also.
43
44
TWI, p. 155, 159, 164.
TWI, 159.
45
TWI, 164.
46
EuI, 14ff.
47
48
EuI, 16.
Wahrheit und Methode, 2nd edition (quoted as WM2), Tübingen, 1965, p. 327.
49
Theunissen, Gesellschaft und Geschichte, p. 14.
50 For the necessity to revise Marx, see e.g. TWI, 92; see also p. 45. Many other
could be quoted.
passages
51
TWI, 164, see also p. 147.
52
TWI, 164.
53
TWI, 159.
54
TWI, 164.
55 Ibid.
56
TWI, 165, 164.
57
Ibid, see also 156, 159.
58
TWI, 147.
59
Theunissen, Gesellschaft und Geschichte, 8.
60
TWI, 119.
61
TWI, 119, 158, 160, 163, 164.
62
TWI, 109; see also p. 146f.
63
TWI, 146 f.
64
TWI, 165.
65
TWI, 137.
66 TWI 167.

67
TWI, 161.
68
TWI, 118.
69
TP2, 320. See to this point Rohrmoser, Stillstand der Dialektik, in: Marxismusstu-
dien, Vol. V, pp. 14ff, see here p. 16.
70
TWI, 154.
71
TWI, 152.
72
Theunissen, Gesellschaft u. Geschichte, 5.
73 Sinn der Unterscheidung von Theorie und Praxis in der griechischen Philoso-
Der
phie, in: Evangelische Ethik, Vol. 8, 164, pp. 321-342. Habermas refers to this source
in TWI, 146, note 2.
74
Ibid, p. 323, 325.
75
Ibid, 323.
76 Ibid.
77
Ibid, 342.
78
TWI, 159.
79
80
TWI, 159
TWI, 158.
81
TWI, 327.
82
Philosophie der Geschichte, Theorie Werkausgabe, Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt,
1970, Vol. 12, pp. 20f.
83
Ibid, 386.
84
Picht, ibid, 331.
85
Ibid, 386. See to this passage Rohrmoser, Subjektivitat und Verdinglichung,
Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, Gottingen, 1961, p. 68.

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distribution.