From Reification to Critical Theory - 3

From Reification to Critical Theory - 3

Jiirgen Habermas (1984, 1987) has undertaken

the heroic task of saving critical theory from

degenerating into nihilism by reuniting it with

sociology and historical materialism. On the one

hand he extended the Marxian analysis of reification

from the economic system to the political

system, while on the other hand he drew on

Durkheim and Mead to constitute potentially

autonomous realms of communicative action. that

is self-determining public and private institutions

where domination is limited. The struggle between

system and lifeworld rather than the

struggle between classes supplies the dynamic of

modem society. However, Habermas's rescue of

critical theory comes at the expense of the

emancipatory vision of P7: The best we can hope

for is to control the system-world and to prevent

it from colonizing the lifeworld.

However illuminating and fecund critical theory

was, its systematic critique of "positivism"

restricted the development of sufficiently specific

theories that would stand up to Lakatos's criteria

of scientific growth. Habermas's brilliant synthesis

remains. like that of Talcott Parsons, at the

level of meta-theory, of an orienting framework,

rather than scientific theory. Only Gramsci was

able to both reconstruct the Marxist framework

and also deliver the rudiments of a scientific

theory of superstructures.