William Rehg

Contemporary critical theorists working in the Frankfurt School tradition have focused considerable attention on theories of deliberative democracy, which in general attempt to show how public argumentation can be both democratic and reasonable. In this context, political questions that involve or depend on science present an acute challenge, inasmuch as deliberation must meet especially demanding epistemic requirements. In this article, the author examines two past responses to the challenge, each of which failed to reconcile reasonableness and democracy: that of the scientists involved in policymaking in the 1940s in the United States, and that of Herbert Marcuse and the New Left in the 1960s. Both the scientists and Marcuse depended on general models of science-in-society that ultimately led them into elitist modes of argumentation. The author concludes by drawing some lessons for an interdisciplinary, argumentation-theoretic approach to science-related public argumentation. /// Pensadores críticos contemporâneos trabalhando dentro da tradição da Escola de Frankfurt prestaram considerável atenção a teorias sobre a democracia deliberativa, as quais em geral procuram mostrar até que ponto a argumentação pública pode ser simultaneamente democrática e razoável. Neste contexto, questões políticas que involvem ou dependem da ciência apresentam um sério desafio, tanto mais que a deliberação deve satisfazer requisitos epistémicos particularmente exigentes. No presente artigo, o autor examina duas respostas que no passado foram dadas a este desafio, cada uma das quais foi incapaz de reconciliar razoabilidade e democracia: a dos cientistas involvidos no desenho de políticas concretas durante os anos 40 nos Estados Unidos, e a de Herbert Marcuse e a Nova Esquerda durante os anos 60. Tanto os cientistas como Marcuse estavam dependentes de modelos genéricos de ciência-nasociedade os quais em última análise os conduziram a modelos elitistas de argumentação. O autor conclui extraindo algumas lições pertinentes para uma abordagem interdisciplinar, argumentativa e teorética à questão da ciência em sua relação com a argumentação pública.

In this dissertation I present Jurgen Habermas's discourse ethics as a theory of practical reasoning that addresses a number of the shortcomings attributed to Kantian moral theory and its descendants. In this context the following objections are most significant: the neo-Aristotelian/neo-Hegelian charge that deontological approaches unduly detach moral deliberation from its anchors in community tradition and conceptions of the good life, and the ethics of care objection that the Kantian focus on universally valid norms neglects the moral significance of caring for particular persons in concrete situations. ;I argue that the discourse-ethical concept of impartiality contains the systematic resources for remedying such deficits in Kantian moral theory. Part One elaborates the key to this reply: a dialogical principle of universalization that links moral insight with real perspective taking and thereby explodes the monological, subject-centered notion of reason predominant in modern moral theory. This forges an intrinsic link between moral insight and solidarity, which allows for a systematically unified response to the above criticisms. ;In Part Two I show how -governed moral discourse takes real needs, interests and conceptions of the good life into consideration without falling behind the Kantian distinction between moral questions and questions of the good life. In response to Charles Taylor's charge that modern moral theories surreptitiously presuppose constitutive goods, I argue that the good of rational cooperation underlying discourse ethics is not one substantive good among others, but a metavalue without viable alternatives in today's world. ;In Part Three I attempt to situate discourse ethics in more concrete contexts. I show, first, how a discourse-ethical account of application builds a care perspective into moral impartiality. Second, I indicate how discourse ethics is actually practiced in contemporary settings; this raises further questions which suggest that only partly captures the moral intuitions governing real discourse. Nevertheless, the discourse-ethical account of intersubjective moral insight points to a multi-level concept of solidarity capable of systematically integrating aspects of morality that deontological approaches too often neglect

In his massive 2019 work on the history of the faith-reason discourse in the West, Habermas replies to Kant’s question of rational hope with the prospect of an eventual intercultural agreement on cosmopolitan principles of justice. To warrant such hope he points to the growth of democratic institutions and human rights across the globe. Habermas’s answer thus relies on political structures that foster transformative social movements—but not on modern moral attitudes, which he regards as too individualistic to generate collective action. I argue that Habermas, following Kant, relies on flawed assumptions about social movements. As a result, his structural approach provides an incomplete basis for hope. In the spirit of ongoing dialogue between religion and secular thought, I translate Aquinas’s treatment of fraternal correction into an ethics of moral leadership that can fill the gaps in Habermas’s project.

The essays in this volume reflect on and expand Frankfurt School critical theory as reformulated after World War II by Karl-Otto Apel, Jürgen Habermas, and others. Frankfurt School critical theory since the pragmatic turn has become a richer source of critical analysis that is at the same time socially and politically more effective. The essays are dedicated to Thomas McCarthy, who has done perhaps more than any other scholar to introduce English-speaking audiences to contemporary German critical theory.The book is organized into three parts. Part one deals with social theory and the rational basis of communication, including basic issues raised by the pragmatic turn. Part two examines conceptions of autonomy and the self. Part three deals with political theory, focusing on problems stemming from sociocultural pluralism. Together, the essays provide an overview of the latest developments in Frankfurt School critical theory as it responds to the challenges of pragmatism and social pluralism

What can rhetoric tell us about good arguments? The answer depends on what we mean by “good argument” and on how we conceive rhetoric. In this article I examine and further develop Jürgen Habermas’s argumentation theory as an answer to the question—or as I explain, an expanded version of that question. Habermas places his theory in the family of normative approaches that recognize (at least) three evaluative perspectives on all argument making: logic, dialectic, and rhetoric, which proponents loosely align with the three dimensions of product, procedure, and process, respectively (cf. Wenzel 1990; Tindale 1999). Habermas wants to integrate these perspectives in a conception of cogent argumentation that dispels ..

These 11 essays by noted philosophers and social theorists take up the philosophical aspects of Jürgen Habermas's unfinished project of reconstructing enlightenment rationality. They range in subject matter from classical problems to contemporary debates, covering historical perspectives, theoretical issues, and post-enlightenment challenges. A companion volume of essays will take up the cultural and political aspects of the work. Together, the two volumes underscore the richness and variety of Habermas's project. Contributors Karl-Otto Apel, Richard J. Bernstein, Peter Bürger, Martin Jay, Thomas McCarthy, Herbert Schnädelbach, Charles Taylor, Michael Theunissen, Ernst Tugendhat, Albrecht Wellmer.

By linking the conceptual and social dynamics of change in science, Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions proved tremendously fruitful for research in science studies. But Kuhn’s idea of incommensurability provoked strong criticism from philosophers of science. In this essay I show how Raimo Tuomela’s Philosophy of Sociality illuminates and strengthens Kuhn’s model of scientific change. After recalling the central features and problems of Kuhn’s model, I introduce Tuomela’s approach. I then show (a) how Tuomela’s conception of group ethos aligns with Kuhn’s notion of paradigms as group commitments, and (b) how Tuomela’s distinction between I-mode and we-mode forms of collective intentionality can capture the shifting paradigmatic commitments in Kuhn’s model of change as a cycle of normal and revolutionary science. But Tuomela’s analysis does not rely on meaning holism, and thus does not involve the problematic notion of incommensurability that burdened Kuhn’s analysis

Science advisory committees exercise complex collaborative expertise. Not only do committee members collaborate, they do so across disciplines, producing expert reports that make synthetic multidisciplinary arguments. When reports are controversial, critics target both report content and committee process. Such controversies call for the assessment of expert arguments, but the multidisciplinary character of the debate outstrips the usual methods developed by informal logicians for assessing appeals to expert authority. This article proposes a multi-dimensional contextualist framework for critical assessment and tests it with a case study of the controversies over reports issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The case study shows (1) how the critical contextualist framework can illuminate the controversy and guide evaluation of the various arguments and counterarguments; (2) how cases of this sort open up avenues for fruitful interdisciplinary collaboration between argumentation theorists and other fields; and (3) where further work is required in argumentation theory