Benhabib, etc.

[Peters, Mike [HSC]]

Valerie's problems are absolutely crucial and have wide implications. I too 
am intrigued by the similarities between MacIntyre and H/A (in some 
respects), and in the restaging of Kant/Hegel in modern guise.  I'm coming 
slowly to a suspicion that the so-called 'postmodern position' is actually a 
whole set of radically different positions: e.g. feminisms, Foucault, 
Derrida, Lyotard (not to mention Baudrillard) etc. ... and some of them are 
'red herrings' (?).

I want to back-track and have the 'critique' of  the 'universal' restated. I 
think there's some misunderstandings, and possibly errors in the hasty 
rejection of 'universalism' (or should that be 'universalismS?) for quite 
DIFFERENT reasons.... My reading of Hegel just doesn't square with what 
people like Laclau say on this matter at all.

Similarly the issue of 'anti-foundationalism' seems confused too. I think we 
slip into rhetorical rather than logical argumentation here.

Please could someone 'enlighten' me on WHY anti-fundationalism and fear of 
'THE' universal seem to have become dogmatic recently? No doubt analogous 
points could be made in relation to notions like 'essence' and 'totality' - 
potentially 'innocent' [Aristotelian] categories whose critique seems (in 
some cases) to involve downright reification and self-contradiction (e.g. 
accusing discourses of 'essentialism' can (strictly) depend on positing that 
certain words/phrases 'ARE' (sic)  essentialist).

Mike
 ----------
From: owner-frankfurt-school
To: frankfurt-school
Subject: Benhabib, etc.
Date: 14 April 1997 23:33


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 by 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.