Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T14:14:25.519Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Bullshit, Social Integration, and Political Legitimation: Habermasian Reflections

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2011

David A. Borman
David A. Borman*
Affiliation:
Nipissing University, North Bay, ON
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This paper proposes a Habermasian analysis of bullshit which diverges from the well-known account offered by Harry Frankfurt. It aims to show that Habermas’s theory of communicative action provides superior conceptual tools for such an analysis, but also that the phenomenon of bullshit ought to be deeply troubling to Habermasians. Bullshit frustrates the transition to discourse, interrupts the binding force of communicative action (the basis of Habermas’s account of social integration) and, if sufficiently widespread as to alter fundamental attitudes toward public speech, bullshit challenges the status of Habermas’s theory of communicative action as a reconstruction of the intuitive knowledge of competent speakers, which status is intended to justify its claim to provide the normative foundations for a critical theory of society in the Frankfurt School sense of an immanent critique.

RÉSUMÉ: Cet article propose une analyse «habermasienne» du fait de dire des conneries qui diffère de l’approche bien connue de Harry Frankfurt. Il y est question de démontrer que la théorie de l’agir communicationnel d’Habermas fournit de meilleurs outils conceptuels pour une telle analyse. Il sera également démontré que les partisans d’Habermas devraient être préoccupés par ce phénomène. Déconner perturbe la transition au discours; elle interrompt la force liante de l’agir communicationnel (qui est à la base de l’explication d’Habermas sur l’intégration sociale) et, suffisamment répandu pour en altérer les attitudes fondamentales à l’égard du discours public, le déconnage met en question le statut de la théorie de l’agir communicationnel d’Habermas comme une reconstruction de la connaissance intuitive des locuteurs compétents.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 50 , Issue 1 , March 2011 , pp. 117 - 140
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allen, Amy 2008 The Politics of Ourselves: Power, Autonomy, and Gender in Contemporary Critical Theory. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Apel, Karl Otto 1999 “Openly Strategic Uses of Language: A Transcendental-Pragmatic Perspective (A second attempt to think with Habermas against Habermas).” In Habermas: A Critical Reader, ed. Dews, Peter, 272–90. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Bohman, James 2000 “Distorted Communication: Formal Pragmatics as a Critical Theory.” In Perspectives on Habermas, ed. Edwin Hahn, Lewis, 3–20. Chicago and LaSalle: Open Court.Google Scholar
Borman, David A. 2011 The Idolatry of the Actual: Habermas, Socialization, and the Possibility of Autonomy. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Cohen, G. A. 2002 “Deeper into Bullshit.” In Contours of Agency: Essays on Themes from Harry Frankfurt, ed. Buss, Sarah and Overton, Lee, 321–39. Cambridge, MA: Bradford Books/MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooke, Maeve 1994 Language and Reason: A Study of Habermas’ Pragmatics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Frankfurt, Harry 1998 The Importance of What We Care About: Philosophical Essays. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Frankfurt, Harry 2002 “Reply to G. A. Cohen.” In Contours of Agency: Essays on Themes from Harry Frankfurt, ed. Buss, Sarah and Overton, Lee, 340–4. Cambridge, MA: Bradford Books/MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen 1975 Legitimation Crisis. Trans. McCarthy, Thomas. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen 1984 Reason and the Rationalization of Society. Volume One of The Theory of Communicative Action. Trans. McCarthy, Thomas. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen 1987 Lifeworld and System: A Critique of Functionalist Reason. Vol. 2 of The Theory of Communicative Action. Trans. McCarthy, Thomas. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen 1990 Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action. Trans. Weber Nicholsen, Shierry. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen 1991 “A Reply.” In Communicative Action: Essays on Jürgen Habermas’ The Theory of Communicative Action, ed. Honneth, Axel and Joas, Hans, 216–64. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen 1998 On the Pragmatics of Communication. Ed. Cooke, Maeve. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen 2001 On the Pragmatics of Social Interaction: Preliminary Studies in the Theory of Communicative Action. Trans. Fultner, Barbara. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Held, David 1982 “Crisis Tendencies, Legitimation, and the State.” In Habermas: Critical Debates, ed. Thompson, John B. and Held, David. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Honneth, Axel 2008 Reification: A New Look at an Old Idea. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horkheimer, Max 1974 Eclipse of Reason. New York: Continuum.Google Scholar
Lear, Jonathan 2005 “Whatever.” The New Republic, 21 March: 23–25.Google Scholar
Lebo, Matthew and Cassino, Daniel 2007 “The Aggregated Consequences of Motivated Reasoning.” Political Psychology 28: 6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lemann, Nicholas 2000 “The World Lab.” The New Yorker, 16 October: 100–17.Google Scholar
McCarthy, Thomas 1978 The Critical Theory of Jürgen Habermas. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
McCarthy, Thomas 1991 “Complexity and Democracy: or the Seducements of Systems Theory.” In Communicative Action: Essays on Jürgen Habermas’ The Theory of Communicative Action, ed. Honneth, Axel and Joas, Hans, 119–39. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Nyhan, Brendan, and Reifler, Jason Forthcoming “When Corrections Fail: The Persistence of Political Misperceptions.” Political Behaviour.Google Scholar
Orwell, George 1950 “Politics and the English Language.” In his Shooting an Elephant and Other Essays, 77-92. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.Google Scholar
The Persuaders (documentary), produced by Frontline. Available at www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/persuaders/view/?utm_campaign=viewpage&utm_medium=grid&utm_source=grid. Originally aired on PBS, 9 November 2004; last accessed 17 November 2009.Google Scholar
Weisman, Jonathan 2009 “Obama Plans to Keep Estate Tax.” Wall Street Journal, 12 January.Google Scholar