The critics of Karl-Otto Apel concerning Jürgen Habermas`s foundation of Critical Theory

LEANDRO PAOLICCHI

Frankfurt am Main - Institut für Philosophie J. W. Goethe Universität

Conferencia; I Graduate Conference The Future(s) of Critical Theory; 2009

Institut für Philosophie J. W. Goethe Universität - Institut für Sozialforschung IFS

As it is known, Jürgen Habermas has proposed in Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns (1981) a new foundation of the Critical Theory in terms of communicative action. The program of the first Critical Theory has failed, according to Habermas, because Horkheimer and Adorno had developed this program in the frame of the philosophical paradigm of conscience, which has shown itself finished. The Theory of Communicative Action - presented by Habermas in the frame of the new philosophical paradigm of language - is the theory that can achieve the original goals of that first program of the Frankfurt School. On the other hand, Karl-Otto Apel has pointed out that Habermas`s development of a universal / formal pragmatics, which is the conceptual core of the theory of communicative action, is inconsistent with the project of a foundation of a critical theory of society qua reconstructive science that provides standards for the critique of irrational / unjust forms of social life. Apel has offered instead his project of a transcendental pragmatic as a true basis for a foundation of a critical theory of society that can provide those standards. This paper examines Apels arguments trying to prove that a serious consideration of his main lines of thought can represent the possibility of continuing the first Critical Theory s program. Finally, this paper mentions a few succinct arguments concerning the relation between the philosophical discourse and the social sciences, which was crucial to Habermas`s entire project, in order to make a necessary distinction between those two different dimensions.