History 1323 German Social Thought

Prof. Peter E. Gordon

Paper 3, Topics

Please write a nine-page essay (not to exceed ten pages) on one of the following
topics. Make sure that your argument is thesis-driven and analytical rather than
merely expository or descriptive, and make sure that you regularly cite textual
evidence derived from a range of the assigned readings in support of your
claims. In choosing a comparative topic, make sure to give roughly equal
weight to each of the thinkers compared. Please also include citations; these can
be abbreviated in parenthesis. e.g., for The Theory of Communicative Action,
Vol. 1, you can cite thus, (TCA, I, 35), and for Habermas, Faith and
Knowledge, you can cite thus, (Habermas, FM, 6).
Important Note: We would ask that you please select a topic which differs in
subject matter from that of your last paper. In other words, if you wrote on the
Frankfurt School and Weber, we would prefer that you pick any topic but #2;
if you wrote on the Frankfurt School on religion, we would prefer that you pick
any topic but #4. . And so forth. If you have any questions about this policy,
please contact Charles or Prof. Gordon.
1. Compare and contrast Habermas and the first generation of the Frankfurt
School on the status of reason. Following Horkheimer and Adorno, it was not
clear that any trace of rationality could survive the dialectic of enlightenments
regression into unreflective, instrumental reason. How does Habermas try to
maintain (or resurrect) a communicative rationality that is distinct from
instrumental reason, even, while he is cognizant of the many ways that
communicative reason is compromised by the colonization of the lifeworld by
the system? How are these theories similar and how are they different? How
does Habermas analyze, build on, and dispute his former teachers? Does
Habermas reconstruction succeed in saving reason?

2. How does Habermas borrow from but also contest the Weberian model of
social rationalization? Does Habermas subscribe to Webers idea of a
disenchantment of the world and its concomitant rationalization? Does
Habermas accept, reject, or qualify Webers narrative of instrumental reason?

What is at stake in this acceptance, rejection, or qualification?

3.Compare and contrast assessments of the public sphere or publicity by
Habermas and one of the other thinkers we have considered in this course:
Nietzsche, Weber, Heidegger, and/or Adorno & Horkheimer. What are the
potential promises and pitfalls of public life? For what reasons do some thinkers
find it necessary and others find it execrable? Does Habermas defend the
public sphere and, if so, does this defense meet the objections of those who
have condemned it? (In other words, you should compare Habermas to only one
other thinker amongst the ones mentioned here, and not to several.)

4. Compare the first generation Frankfurt School theorists (Adorno,

Horkheimer, Benjamin) and Habermas on the question of religion. Both sets of
thinkers ask whether religion remains of relevance to modern and criticalemancipatory social theory, but they come to remarkably different conclusions.
How are these accounts similar and how do they differ? In what ways do they
share in common certain basic premises as to what religion is, and what role it
can playor what role it cannot playin the modern world?
When answering, consider how Habermas has followed his forerunners: how
has he reconstructed, used, and disputed their arguments, theories, and claims
to make his own? (NB: if you wrote your second paper on Benjamin, your
discussion of the first generation Frankfurt School must address primarily
Adorno and Horkheimer, rather than Benjamin.)

5. Compare and contrast Habermas and Heidegger regarding the relation

between social experience and rationality. Habermas takes his concept of the
lifeworld from the phenomenological tradition (Husserl, Heidegger, Schutz),
but clearly modifies it in certain key respects. Trace this process of
differentiation with respect to Habermas larger theory of communicative
reason and historical rationalization as described in The Theory of
Communicative Action (especially volume II.). How does Habermas distinguish
himself from Heidegger on the question of social experience? Do their
differences point to their divergence of political commitments? How does this
critique coincide with or diverge from Habermas critique of Heidegger in The
Philosophical Discourse of Modernity?

6. In The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, Habermas develops an

understanding of modernity as defined by a specific time-consciousness and
occupied with the task of normative self-justification. Consider how this
definition of modernity might be similar to or different from those who
preceded Habermas: Nietzsche, Heidegger, Horkheimer, and Adorno. Is
Habermas more or less pessimistic than his predecessors? How does Habermas
use this understanding to perform an immanent critique of these figures? Does
the theory of communicative reason Habermas develops seem to satisfy the
problems a) the problems inherent in modernity and b) the gaps left by
preceding social theory? When answering this question, please make sure to
refer to both Philosophical Discourse and Theory of Communicative Action.
7. In consultation with Charles or Professor Gordon, develop your own
question topic that relates a certain problematic in Habermass social theory to
a theme or problem we have encountered one of the other authors assigned this
past semester in History 1323. Such a must be comparative (linking at least two
authors from the course), retrospective (it should connect to the courses major
questions), and focused (it should specify one question or set of problems rather
than offer a general approach). Remember, we are looking for papers that show
critical reading and lucid reconstruction, but are, above all, argumentative.