Benhabib, etc.

[Valerie Scatamburlo]

As a recent subscriber to this list I am somewhat reluctant to throw out a
question, however, I've decided to do so given that there has been some
brief mention of Benhabib on this list recently.  I should point out
however that my interest in some of Benhabib's arguments are different
than those posed recently--in fact they are best situated within the
broader context/framework which informs Benhabib's "Situating The Self" in
so far as she attempts to deal with both the postmodern and the
communitarian critiques of Enlightenment thought while at the same time
attempting to navigate a space between them vis-a-vis Habermas (at this
point I am not interested in her discussions of Habermas). While
Benhabib concerns herself, for the most part, with defending a form of
communicative ethics, I am more interested in the broader choices which
APPEAR to be presented to us in social theory--that is the
neo-Aristotleanism proferred by communitarian thinkers like Alasdair
MacIntyre (who incidentally places Marxism in the same camp as
liberalism and Kantianism for that matter), the Enlightenment legacy which
relies on certain Kantian formulations and appeals to universal
principles/ideals AND the all-out Nietzscheanism of postmodern prophets.
In making this very broad distinction, I am in no way suggesting that the
"categories" as such are mutually exclusive--rather I am trying to outline
the parameters of the debate. . . Okay, that said I'll move on to the
dilemma which I currently face with the hope that some kind-hearted, more
enlightened person might be able to point me in the right direction.
Recently--in my attempt to grasp the philosophical underpinnings of
communitarianism and neo-Aristotleanism, I've spent some time reading
Alasdair MacIntyre (of course, I've read other like-minded communitarians
but MacIntyre seems to be the one, aside from Charles Taylor, who tries to
ground his arguments in philosophy)--first "After Virtue" and then "Whose
Justice? Which Rationality?" among other things.  Frankly, I have a
number of problems with MacIntyre, but I won't get into those now!!!  My
question to fellow Frankfurt'ers(??) is this.  In "Whose Justice? Which
Rationality?" MacIntyre makes it clear that he is not willing to jettison
altogether the idea of rationality and reason and attempts to develop a theory of
rationality which lies somewhere between the epistemological
"foundationalism" of the Enlightenment and the relativism championed by
the scions of postmodernism.  He does do by appealing to a notion of
rationality, a conception of rational inquiry as embodied within
tradition--for anyone that has read MacIntyre, it will come as no surprise
that most of his arguments are circular and convoluted--but that is
besides the point for MacIntyre's call for a form of rational inquiry
based on tradition (i.e. one which does not appeal to "universal"
criteria) on the one hand sounds like the "consensus-based" rhetoric of
people like Rorty and Fish.  However, on the other hand, it appears as
though--at some dimension--MacIntyre's approach to practical rationality
is a variation of "immanent critique" the kind of which was practiced by
the FS especially Adorno and Horkheimer.  Now I know that the FS differs
in fundamental ways from pomos who have buried any notion of
ideology-critique in the dustbin of history and replaced it with
discourse.  And I am aware of the fact that in their day, A & H looked to
describe the discrepancies between what was held to be "true" in
bourgeois ideology and what was actually going on in concrete terms.  In
this regard, immanent critique as practiced by A & H (and I'm referring
here specifically to Dialectic of Enlightenment and not any of the later
works) challenges a particular principle not be comparing it to a set of
external standards or some universalist criteria, but rather by proceeding
>from "within" (if I'm off on this, I'd appreciate someone telling me).
Herein is where my confusion lies--if there is no appeal to "universal"
criteria (by the way, I do think that the "universal" as a political
category is something which we cannot junk as several recent observers
including Hobsbawn, Eagleton, Norris and even Laclau have noted) how does
FS practice of immanent critique differ from Rorty's "consensus" talk and
MacIntyre's advocacy of rational inquiry derived from "tradition." I
realize this is a rather big question but any insights (publically or
privately) into this would be greatly appreciated.  Also let me apologize
in advance for the length of this post, but given the questions
involved--it was almost unavoidable.                
Thanks in advance, Valerie.