Habermas and the Project of Immanent Critique

According to his own understanding, Jürgen Habermas’ Theory of Communicative Action offersa new account of the normative foundations of critical theory. 1 Habermas’ motivating insight isthat neither a transcendental or metaphysical solution to the problem of normativity, nor a merelyhermeneutic reconstruction of historically given norms, is sufficient to clarify the normativefoundations of critical theory. In response to this insight, Habermas develops a novel account ofnormativity which locates the normative demands upon which critical theory draws within thesocially instituted practice of communicative understanding.Although Habermas has claimed otherwise, this new foundation for critical theory constitutes anovel and innovative form of “immanent critique”. To argue for and to clarify this claim, I offer,in section 1, a formal account of immanent critique and distinguish between two different waysof carrying out such a critique. In section 2, I examine Habermas’ rejection of the first,hermeneutic option. Against this background, I then show, in section 3, that the Theory ofCommunicative Action attempts to formulate an immanent critique of contemporary societiesaccording to a second, “practice-based” model. However, because Habermas, as I will argue insection 4, commits himself to an implausibly narrow view in regard to one central element ofsuch a model – in regard to the social ontology of immanent normativity – his normative critiquecannot develop its full potential (section 5)