Faculdade de Direito

Universidade de Braslia
Brasilia, Junho 2014.

Concept of Lifeworld of Juergen Habermas

Estudante: Vanja Grujic

Matria: tica e direito
Professor: Miroslav Milovic

Abstract: In this short essay, I shall reflect upon the concept of the liveworld (Lebenswelt) develop
in the writing of the Juergen Habermas, more specifically in the Volume two of his book The
Theory of the Communicative Action where he develops this notion. The essay will start with the
short introduction where main background ideas and concept about theory of communicative action
will be presented in order to maintain better understanding of the context in which Habermas
developed his thinking upon lifewolrd. Later, the main characteristics of the Lebenswelt will be
shown through two main points, that will be followed with the part where the concept of the two-
level social integration (social and systematic) shall be examined. On the way to the conclusion,
uncoupling of these levels of social reality will be shown as a part of modernity and process of
modernization.
Introduction from the Theory of the Communicative Action

In his book "Theory of Communicative Action" Habermas will give ground points to his
philosophical claims and approach to the modern world. In the second Volume of the book he will
write about concept of the 'lifeworld', about two level social reality where lifeword becomes
uncoupled from the system world. Before reviling the main characteristics of the notion lifeworld,
main points from Habermas' theory of the Communicative Action shall be presented. He has
adopted three-world concept and according to them three validity claims that give rational
framework which is assumed by the actors in their social interactions.

(1) Objective world where something is obtain or can be brought and statement is true. It expresses
what is the case in the world, and a directive is successful in bringing about a desired state of
affairs.

(2) Social world where something is obligatory and statement is right. With respect to existing
norms and the existing norms are legitimate with respect to values.

(3) Subjective world that is internal to the subject and "as the totality of subjective experiences
to which the actor has privileged access." (Habermas, 1984, p.100). In this world subjected
experiences, desires and feelings are truthfully expressed.

Habermas is not the first author thinking about the lifeworld, therefore in his writings he will
review and criticize the social theories of Durkheim, Mead and Husler, among the others. That is
why before two main arguments on his lifeworld concept shall be presented, the social theory of
Emile Durkheim will be presented in the points that are connective to the social thinking of
Habermas. Shortly and very simply put, based on his book "The division of labour" that refers to
the structural differentiation of the social systems. First point about Durkheim's book Habermas will
notice, is the formula 'state as the central organ' where the division of the labour is not a social-
cultural manifestation, but a 'phenomenon of general biology whose conditions must be sought in
the essential properties of organized matter' (Habermas, 1987, 114). What he calls 'norm-free
sociality' can be liveworld in the Habermas' thinking. Second important point to our argument, is
how Durkheim explains transition from archaic societies to the modern societies. His stand point
will be in solidarity, prefer how mechanical solidarity (in segmentally differentiated societies)
transfers to the organic solidarity (in the functionally differentiated societies). Collective
consciousness is constitutive for archaic societies, while in modern societies the life-context is
constituted by the division of labour (Habermas, 1987, 114/115). Connected to this 'transition' is a
development of the 'social partner' to the development of the labour division. Durkheim will write
that even the organic form of social solidarity has to be secured by values and norms; like
mechanical social societies is the expression of a collective consciousness, however altered in its
structure (Habermas, 1987, 116). Beside the later paradox, Habermas will agree and later use in his
social thinkings, that there must be a causal connection between the growing differentiation of the
social system and the development of independent morality effective for the integration.

The lifeworld

After short introduction has been presented, I will reflect on the Habermas' concept of the
lifeworld using the two levels of the analyses in the work of Ivkovic, Habermas Concept of
Systemic Colonization of Lifeworld.

(1) understanding that the social integration of modern societies is made by communicative action

On this level, the lifeworld is related to the three worlds we explained at the beginning of the
text. That mean that the subjects in the lifeworld orient their acting to the mutual understanding
based on their common definitions of situations. Seen like this, the notion of lifeworld is as a
macrostucture, as a totality of social reality in which the three worlds (objective, normative and
subjective) are connected and reinterpreted by communication and culture stocks. In the book,
Habermas will show this virtue of the lifeworld on the example of the communicative action
between two workers on the constructing site, where the older one will give an order to the younger
worker. In that communicative relation, Habermas will say, we can see the spatio-temporal
dimension, also as we can notice a normative framework in a given situation, which means that in
this example, like in every other, the communicative action in the lifeworld is always connected to
the three worlds and the common definitions that actors are bringing from those worlds.

(2) second level is phenomenological and lifeworld here is seen as a framework for the mutual
understanding

Used as a phenomenon, lifeworld can explain those spatio-temporal and social

organizations. On the same example of the older and younger worker, Habermas by making some
changes in the story, adding some new information, shows how lifeworld is a moveable structure
where the change makes a shift in it. Here he will use the word 'horizon' from Husserl. When these
changes occur, the one actor will have to redefine the situation by using a new definitions or
arguments the other actor brought in the relation. This redefinition of the communication situation,
is based on suppositions of commonality in respect to the objective, social and each other's own
subjective world. Still, most important here is a knowledge that is coming from the cultural stocks.
These stocks are making the relation between the actors already pre-interpreted and that is why
when the shift happens we can redefine the situation due to this pre-interpretation. Habermas will
say that we can never find ourselves in a void, even if we go out of the horizon because culture
stock is "always already" familiar. On the way to conclude, the lifeworld is constitutive mutual
understanding, where speaker and hearer come to an understanding from out of their common
lifeworld about something in the objective, social and subjective worlds (Habermas, 1987, 126).

Two-level social reality and its uncoupling

With distinguishing two levels of society (system and lifeworld), Habermas things that there
are two models of the integration - system and social. The system integration for an actor is out of
its spectrum, because it is based upon functional coordination of the actor's activity outcomes. For
social actors, the social dynamics is a product of the social consensual reproduction by
communicative action. Actor is not a part of a symbolic reproduction of societies and that is why a
whole dynamic starts to look as a systematic stabilization, better put functional-rational acting,
where the actor loses the aspects of intersubjectivity and communicative rationality (Ivkociv, 2010,
8). The goal of theory of the communicative action is to make synthesis between these two-level
society inside of the three-world model. Here we can notice influence of Durkheim, because this
two-level development, should be corresponding to each other, one should follow the other, in the
order of balanced integration in the social and functional reality. If we observe everything through
these levels, we can say there are two approaches to the social reality. One that actors share, the
social approach, and second structural-functionalist approach, that is happening through the system.
Simple put, the development of one, needs to correspond to the development in the other, the
differentiation of the system needs to be followed by the corresponding level of the rationalization
in the lifeworld.
When talking about the ideal lifeworld, Habermas will find it in the archaic societies, where
society is formed in the context of a commonly experienced world. A society of this type, which in a
certain sense merges into the dimension of the lifeworld, is omnipresent; to put this another way: it
reproduces itself as a whole in every single interaction.(Habermas, 1987, 157). This is idealistic,
still more system gets developed, more lifeworld becomes more suppress and more provincial. This
is when the uncoupling will start, because the development of the one social level, will become
more independent and separated from the development of the other. In a differentiated social
systems the lifeworld seems to shrink to a subsystem (Habermas, 1987, 173). The model he will
suggest is bringing social idea to the beginnings saying that as the new mechanisms are being
adopted, they suppose to be anchored in the lifeworld via family status, authority of the office etc.
Habermas writes: "this basic institutions form a series of evolutionary inovations that can come
about only if the lifeworld is sufficiently rationalized, above all if law and morality have reached a
corresponding stage of development" (Habermas, 1987, 173). Simply put, the new mechanisms that
are coming from the system differentiation, need to be institutionalized by making the changes in
the moral-legal frame of the institutional domain. That means that the social integration is
connected to the development of law and morality. Habermas will give three stages in this law
development: first, where moral and law are not separated; second, where the separation is starting
by processes of differentiation; and third, when morality is deinstitutionalised to such an extent that
is now anchored only in the personality system as an internal control of behaviour (Habermas,
1987, 174). With such a development, law becomes an external force to such an extent that modern
law becomes an institution detached from the ethical motivations of the legal person and depends
upon abstract obedience of the law. This development is part of the structural differentiation of the
lifeworld (Habermas, 1987, 174). In the modern world, with the processes of the modernization,
uncoupling is becoming stronger with new differentiations of the systems that are not corresponding
to the levels of rationalization in the lifeworlds. The two levels are starting to develop
independently from each other and Habermas will built his modern society critique around this idea
of the social reality.

References

Habermas, Juergen: "The Theory of Communicative Action", Vol.2 - "Lifeworld and

System: Critique of Functionalist Reason", 1987, Beacon Press, Boston.

Habermas, Jirgen: "Problemi dvostepenog koncepta drutva: sistem i svet ivota (odgovor
Mekartiju)", u: Srpska politika misao, br. 1-4 za 1996, Beograd.

Ivkovic, Marjan, Habermas Concept of Systemic Colonization of Lifeworld, 2010, Sociologija Vol.
LII (2010), N 1, Beograd.