A critical evaluation of Kantian themes in Habermas's critical theory
This dissertation provides a critical evaluation of Kantian themes in the work of Jurgen Habermas. This is done by drawing largely on the thought of Hegel and Adorno. The basis for the critique is the conviction that Kant does not provide the best model for critical theory and that Kant's thought is limited in its critical potential. Conversely, Hegel and Adorno provide a much better guide. Prior to Habermas, the critical theory of the Frankfurt School was largely Hegelian in inspiration and form. This was most evident in the commitments to dialectics and to historicity. Habermas transformed critical theory in such a manner as to take it further away from its roots in Hegel and closer to Kant. He reads Hegel in a particular way, associating dialectics with absolutist tendencies, or in the case of Adorno, with aporia and fatalism. These ~misreadings~ lead him to reject dialectical logic and to jettison a thicker conception of critique opened up by Hegel's critique of Kantian formalism, and Adorno's continuation of it. As a result, Habermas retreats into formalism and reduces the utopian potential of critical theory to a proceduralist account of justice. This account not only loses the perspective provided by
O'Hanlon, Philip Anthony
A critical evaluation of Kantian themes in Habermas's critical theory. This dissertation provides a critical evaluation of Kantian themes in the work of Jurgen Habermas. This is done by drawing largely on the thought of Hegel and Adorno. The basis for the critique is the conviction that Kant does not provide the best model for critical theory and that Kant's thought is limited in its critical potential. Conversely, Hegel and Adorno provide a much better guide. Prior to Habermas, the critical theory of the Frankfurt School was largely Hegelian in inspiration and form. This was most evident in the commitments to dialectics and to historicity. Habermas transformed critical theory in such a manner as to take it further away from its roots in Hegel and closer to Kant. He reads Hegel in a particular way, associating dialectics with absolutist tendencies, or in the case of Adorno, with aporia and fatalism. These ~misreadings~ lead him to reject dialectical logic and to jettison a thicker conception of critique opened up by Hegel's critique of Kantian formalism, and Adorno's continuation of it. As a result, Habermas retreats into formalism and reduces the utopian potential of critical theory to a proceduralist account of justice. This account not only loses the perspective provided by
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