of life. Keywords cognitive sociology, critical theory, Habermas, sociology, weak ... Between Facts and Norms, particularly Chapter 1 which Jürgen Habermas ...
Uncorrected version; Published in Philosophy & Social Criticism 41(3), 2015, pp. 273-91. DOI.10.1177/0191453714563877
The latent cognitive sociology in Habermas: Extrapolated from Between Facts and Norms Piet Strydom School of Sociology and Philosophy University College Cork Ireland
Abstract The aim of this article is twofold: to display some of the fruitful starting points in the later Habermas’ principal monograph for the development of a new kind of cognitive sociology; and to indicate the form of such a sociology by critically extrapolating its major parameters from Habermas’ assumptions regarding immanent transcendence, formal pragmatics and reconstructive sociology. The intended cognitive sociology is conceived as a refinement of a hitherto largely implicit dimension of Critical Theory. Its promise is far-reaching: to sharpen considerably the latter’s analytical repertoire and penetration; to draw attention to the need to recognize that the foundations of critique are not to be sought directly in normativity but rather in the cognitively structured normative dimension; and to stimulate consideration of the materialist implications of the rootedness of the human cognitive endowment in natural evolution and phylogenesis and the role of the resultant cognitive structures in the construction and elaboration of sociocultural forms of life. Keywords cognitive sociology, critical theory, Habermas, sociology, weak naturalism
Between Facts and Norms, particularly Chapter 1 which Jürgen Habermas (1996) devotes to communicative reason or rationality as a substitute for traditional practical reason in the sense of a strategy of mediating the tension between facticity and validity, provides a number of fruitful starting points for a new kind of cognitive sociology.i The extrapolation of such a novel departure from this source requires, however, dealing with and decisively resolving some ambiguities, tensions and lapses in Habermas’ account. The argument is presented in four steps. First, the basic foothold for a cognitive departure in the text is pinpointed by identifying a core statement by Habermas which unmistakably indicates a certain weakening – albeit not admitted – of his adherence to the normative paradigm in favour of allowing a role for the cognitive paradigm. It provides the opportunity to introduce the crucial cognitive sociological concept of the cognitive order of society. With reference to his treatment of the problem of coordination and integration, the second section demonstrates the pervasive presence of the cognitive dimension in the text, yet also its simultaneous marginalization due to a persistent tendency toward the normative over-emphasis of interaction-based mutual understanding and, hence, a failure to incorporate higher-level mechanisms of integration which can accommodate also conflict and dissent. In this case, the parameters of cognitive sociology begin to emerge. Thirdly, the importance for a cognitive sociological departure of Habermas’ distinction between the generality of meaning and the universality of validity is acknowledged, but issue is taken with his conceptualization of the latter strictly in terms of pragmatics to the detriment of the cognitive structure of validity. Here the need for a cognitive complement to his pragmatic approach becomes apparent. Lastly, Habermas’ playing of his own reconstructive sociology off against interpretative 1
Uncorrected version; Published in Philosophy & Social Criticism 41(3), 2015, pp. 273-91. DOI.10.1177/0191453714563877 sociology is critically extended by showing that reconstruction by necessity implies a cognitive component. At this stage, it is possible to briefly state the parameters of the proposed cognitive sociology as they emerge into the light of day from the interstitial discoveries made in Between Facts and Norms. The cognitive foothold Assuming the achievements of the linguistic turn and its implications for the traditional concept of reason originally derived from Platonism, Habermas makes the following statement: ‘But a concept of reason transposed into the linguistic medium and unburdened of the exclusive relationship to moral issues plays a different role in theory construction; it can serve the descriptive purposes of a rational reconstruction of competences and structures of consciousness hitherto operative in history. The work of reconstruction can then link up with functional approaches and empirical explanations…..At the same time, such a reconstruction would provide a critical standard, against which actual practices could be evaluated’ (BFN: 3, 5).ii This pregnant statement contains an unmistakable foothold for cognitive sociology. The object of the reconstruction Habermas advocates embraces ‘competences and structures of consciousness’ which are no longer approached in normative terms, at least not directly, but rather in such a way that a dimension comes into play which both allows linkages to other approaches and makes evaluation, comparison and critique possible – something distinct from and enabling a normative position. Habermas gestures toward this dimension when he presents communicative reason as being suspended in ‘the linguistic medium through which interactions are woven together and forms of life are structured’ (BFN: 3-4). The question is, however, what exactly in the linguistic medium, what property borne by this medium, is it that is able to or has the requisite nature to integrate and structure interactions and forms of life. An oblique hint is contained in the reference to competences and structures of consciousness. Both of these are cognitive phenomena, the former at the micro-level rooted in the human brain-mind and the latter manifested in sociocultural forms at the meso- and macro-level. As regards the property in question, Habermas understands that it can no longer take the form of an immediate source of prescriptions, as in the classical form of practical reason – that is, it cannot be a matter of a prescriptive ‘rule of action’ (BFN: 4) or what in philosophy and sociology is called a norm. Rather, it is a matter of ‘an ensemble of conditions that both enable and limit’ that is available to participants in the form of ‘presuppositions’ which they accept or commit to in the performative attitude. He describes the dimension in question, in carefully crafted opposition to norms and meaning or semantics, as ‘aspects of validity’ (BFN: 4). This validity dimension contains a certain kind of structural property that both serves to ‘undergird speech’ and is ‘imparted to forms of life reproduced through communicative action’ (BFN: 4). As a dimension implicated in forms of life, he submits revealingly that ‘communicative rationality is expressed in a decentred complex of pervasive, transcendentally enabling structural conditions, but it is not a subjective capacity that would tell actors what they ought to do’ (BFN: 4, my emphasis). It is beyond dispute that Habermas is here shifting from a hot vocabulary to a cooler one, from a normative vocabulary to a cognitive one.iii This is confirmed by his insistence that the communicative reason contained in this transcendental structure is not an immediate source of prescriptions, but rather ‘has a normative content only insofar as the communicatively acting individuals must commit themselves to pragmatic presuppositions of a counterfactual sort’ (BFN: 4). He thus distances himself still further from the normative paradigm, yet without indicating that he understands this crucial shift in these terms. Instead of the strong normative force of prescriptive rules of action, communicatively acting subjects are ‘subject to the “must” of a weak transcendental necessity’ (BFN: 4). Communicative reason does not itself provide any substantive orientation or motivation, 2
Uncorrected version; Published in Philosophy & Social Criticism 41(3), 2015, pp. 273-91. DOI.10.1177/0191453714563877 but ‘makes an orientation to validity claims possible’ (BFN: 5). In this case, however, it does not involve only an orientation to claims to propositional truth, as traditionally accepted, but significantly covers ‘the entire spectrum of validity claims’ – thus also claims to ‘personal sincerity’ and ‘normative rightness’ (BFN: 5). It is apparent, then, that the transcendental structure in question, which implicitly yet unmistakably emerges as being of a cognitive nature, is wide-ranging in the sense of embracing three major domains. The latter are what Habermas (1984: 51) in his formal pragmatics refers to as three worlds: the objective, social and subjective worlds. The scope of the both enabling and limiting transcendental structure, which has a shaping impact on action, interaction, practices and more generally on forms of life, is thus clear. Similarly, as a structuring force, it is obvious that this transcendental complex is an order-structure representing a meta-level relation of relations or an order-relation.iv According to Habermas, this transcendental dimension is an ensemble of structural conditions in the form of ‘a set of unavoidable idealizations’ which, as such, ‘forms the counterfactual basis of an actual practice of reaching understanding’ (BFN: 4). Due to the counterfactual reference of such a practice, it possesses the possibility of ‘critically turn[ing] against its own results and thus transcend[ing] itself’ (BFN: 4). This implies that the tension between idea and reality, between validity and facticity, breaks into and becomes virulent in the very facticity of linguistically structured forms of life. This is where the basic meta-theoretical concept of ‘innerworldly transcendence’ enters Between Facts and Norms for the first time: ‘Everyday communicative practice overtaxes itself with its idealizing presuppositions, but only in the light of this innerworldly transcendence can learning processes take place at all’ (BFN: 4-5).v It is apparent that the transcendental structure qua idealizing presuppositions, through its enabling and limiting impact, is constitutive of the social world with its objective, social and subjective dimensions. Beyond its structural nature, however, the incursive and recursive structuring force of this transcendental dimension requires to be mobilized for those purposes, which is possible only through ‘operations’, to invoke Jean Piaget (1973: 222), or ‘transcendental operators’, to invoke Alain Badiou (2013: 239). What Habermas calls ‘validity claims’, as will become clear below, are the operations or transcendental operators in question. Through them, the validity aspects – that is, the presuppositions, idealizations or counterfactuals belonging to the transcendental structure – are brought to bear on the various components of social reality, thus structuring and regulating them. In a bid to shed light on the nature of the structuring properties of the linguistic medium, Habermas specifies the active ingredients, as it were, of validity claims as being ‘insights – […] criticizable utterances that are accessible in principle to argumentative clarification’ (BFN: 5). While this circumscription accords with a cognitive interpretation, he does not take any further steps toward specifying the particular nature of these criticizable insights. It is of course possible to object that it need not be just ‘utterances’, since actions and expressions of various kinds could also be bearers of accessible and criticizable properties. For instance, elsewhere he himself (Habermas 2003: 242) admits that feelings or emotions could take on the role of reasons in practical discourses.vi Be that as it may, as transferable through statements from the transcendental structure to argumentative discourse where they become criticizable, these insights cannot be of any other kind than of a cognitive nature.vii The confinement to utterances might well be indicative of a tension in Habermas’ attempt to relativize the normative paradigm by admitting, albeit not explicitly, the relevance of the cognitive paradigm. This indeed seems to be the case in so far as he retains the narrower focus on mutual understanding. He writes that: ‘This rationality [communicative reason – PS] is inscribed in the linguistic telos of mutual understanding’ (BFN: 4), but what he thus assumes is a normatively tapered set of enabling and limiting conditions rather than the full range. He tends to remain captive to the normative point of view, despite insisting that communicative reason is unburdened of the weight of 3
Uncorrected version; Published in Philosophy & Social Criticism 41(3), 2015, pp. 273-91. DOI.10.1177/0191453714563877 the moral, as quoted earlier. His focus is principally fixed on the social sector of the ensemble of conditions, involving social subjects encountering one another and coming to mutual understanding and agreement. If communication in the media society involves also a third point of view and brings the whole spectrum of idealizations, reflexive expectations or the transcendental structural conditions into play in a discursive form, then what is at issue cannot be confined to the telos of mutual understanding. It remains standing on the level of interaction and, therefore, does not allow for the more abstract level of communicative processes. At this latter level, it is a matter of the actualization of a combined or composed selection from the whole spectrum of principles counterfactually preserved in the transcendental structure – and, indeed, in a way that permits plurality and difference. Below I return to this issue from a different perspective. To grasp what is at stake in going beyond the linguistic telos of mutual understanding to the full ensemble or set of unavoidable counterfactual idealizations making up the transcendental structure of conditions, it is necessary to be more specific about this structure itself. What is required, to be exact, is the sociological transposition of this structural complex in the cognitive terms implied in its construction. This leads to treating the presupposed transcendental structure as what I have proposed to call ‘the cognitive order of society’.viii The shift to the cognitive paradigm thus has to be taken explicitly a step further than Habermas does in his hesitant and not clearly presented attempt. Rather than simply mutual understanding, therefore, it is the more complex matter of the telos of a rational society capable of dynamically sustaining a balanced synthesis of a range of evaluatively selected and combined or composed counterfactual cognitive order principles. Whereas Habermas considers only mutual understanding, this expanded view allows also for the possibility of rational dissentix within the framework of an arrangement or world which, in turn, is enabled by transcendental structural conditions. Taking cues from recent publications (Strydom 2013b, 2013d), the cognitive order of society can for current purposes be characterized as in Table 1 below. It depicts different cognitive order principles of our age that emerged over a number of centuries and, once evolutionarily stabilized, became associated with the names of classical figures. The counterfactual presuppositions of truth, rightness and truthfulness stressed by Habermas are only three among a whole range of others, all of which are amenable to being sorted into his three formal-pragmatic worlds. Sociologically specified, the transcendental structure that is constitutive of society is the cognitive order that embraces the ‘design principles’ of society (Adam 1990: 158) or the ‘blueprints for constructing a possible world’ (Giesen 1991: 173) – here the presupposed principles of modernity as listed in Table 1. Rather than merely mutual understanding, it is a matter of the creation and organization of society by way of a value- and norm-laden yet judicious selection and balanced combination or composition of the differently emphasized counterfactual design principles or blueprints – so as to construct variable cognitive-semantic/symbolic forms such as actor and collective identities, cultural models, sociocultural forms, social systems and so forth. The telos, then, is the creation of a world in the sense of sustainably bringing about a rational society. Higherlevel mechanisms of world creation to which cognitive structures are central become visible here. The problem of integration Since the emphasis on the role of validity claims implies a mode of sociation and reproduction of society that is characterized by a by no means negligible degree of instability, Habermas appreciates the challenge that the problem of integration poses. While presupposing the centrality of the ‘tension between facticity and validity’ and, hence, the phenomenon of ‘transcendence from within’ (BFN: 16-17), he stresses the requirement that ‘the lifeworld, naturally emergent institutions, and law must offset the instabilities…’ (BFN: 8). For the purposes of accounting for integration via the mediation of validity claims, Habermas takes pains to draw a crucial distinction. 4
Uncorrected version; Published in Philosophy & Social Criticism 41(3), 2015, pp. 273-91. DOI.10.1177/0191453714563877
Table 1: The Cognitive Order of Modernity CENTURY 12th 15th 16th 16-17th 17th
18th
19th 19th
REPRESENTATIVE Capellanus Brunelleschi Machiavelli Bodin Galileo Bacon Descartes Newton Hobbes Locke Bayle Smith Montesquieu Rousseau Sieyès Payne Kant
Rousseau Kierkegaard Marx
DOMAIN intimacy technology power state nature knowledge cogito science coercive law civil society conscience economy civil society civil society civil society rights culture: pure reason practical reason judgement education the self society
COGNITIVE ORDER love effectiveness control sovereignty formalization instrumentality self-reflection mastery legality negative freedom critique/reflexive freedom efficiency constitutionalism solidarity/social freedom legitimacy equality truth rightness/justice truthfulness/appropriateness learning authenticity/aesthetic freedom association
He writes: ‘in explicating the meaning of linguistic expressions and the validity of statements, we touch on idealizations that are connected with the medium of language. Specifically, the ideal character of conceptual and semantic generality is accessible to a semantic analysis of language, whereas the idealization connected with validity claims is accessible to a pragmatic analysis of the use of language oriented to reaching understanding’ (BFN: 17). The distinction between meaning and validity is not only important to Habermas’ project, but it is also vital for the development of the kind of cognitive sociology envisaged here. The corresponding distinction between semantic and pragmatic analysis is also important, but whether it is sufficient for advancing cognitive sociology, as is the previous distinction, is a question. Especially the linking of pragmatics in an undifferentiated way to validity is rather limiting, as will become evident below. As regards the problem of integration, in Habermas’ understanding, two dimensions are of particular importance. First there are idealizations – that is, the ones relating to validity – that assume the form of ‘counterfactual presuppositions’ (BFN: 17) acquired by actors as members of society and thus structuring their orientations and actions in a general way. These idealizations, carried as they are in the medium of language, are not static but rather assume ‘an action-theoretic meaning’ (BFN: 17)x once actors draw on or appeal to these idealizations or counterfactual presuppositions by raising and articulating validity claims – that is, as soon as ‘the illocutionary binding forces of speech acts are enlisted for the coordination of the action plans of different actors’ (BFN: 17). If one regards the idealizations or counterfactual presuppositions as the transcendental structure, then ‘validity claims’ – and this is the second important dimension – are what render the transcendental structure 5
Uncorrected version; Published in Philosophy & Social Criticism 41(3), 2015, pp. 273-91. DOI.10.1177/0191453714563877 effective in the process of ‘the construction and preservation of social orders’ (BFN: 17). In other words, validity claims activate the action-orienting meaning of the idealizations or counterfactual presuppositions – which means that the validity claims are the relevant operations or transcendental operators.xi Against the background of the distinction between facticity and validity borne in language, then, the relation between transcendental structure and transcendental operation is rendered clear through the dynamics of the coordination of action and the integration of the actors as they confront and work through the tension. Although Habermas keeps to rather narrow limits, which are considered below in more detail, what he presents at least vaguely begins to hint at the parameters of the cognitive sociology to be identified later. The coordination and integration brought about within the facticity-validity framework built into the medium of language communication is achieved on the basis of directing and guiding transcendent idealizations which are activated in the situation by a validity claim. It occurs in a way that mobilizes situated actors, draws them in, and secures their orientations toward validity and their selective combination of different aspects of validity appropriate to situational exigencies. What transpire here are essentially intertwined cognitive processes in which properties in the form of cognitive structures of different levels and scales – from macro-level meta-culture, through cultural models and sociocultural complexes, to micro-level competences and expectations rooted in the brain-mind – are mediated in a manner significant to the construction and organization of social reality. The integration achieved here presupposes, according to Habermas, ‘the recognition of normative validity claims’ (BFN: 17). But the question is what precisely the scope or range of this normativity is. As indicated earlier, he tends to confine it to the social sector of the transcendental structure, whereas it must be articulated widely enough to cover also the normativities, even if lesser ones, in the objective and subjective sectors as well.xii Even if broadened, such an analytical move cannot confine itself to truth, rightness and sincerity alone, as Habermas at best suggests, since the transcendental structure is internally much more diverse. This is confirmed by the sociological presentation of the cognitive order of society in Table 1 containing a long yet by no means exhaustive list – which is impossible anyway – of idealizations or counterfactual presuppositions. Secondly, there is still the extremely important question regarding the cognitive structuring of normativity. It concerns the fact that integration presupposes the activation of the transcendental structure, from which follows that normativity is made possible by cognitive structures, that normativity is based on the cognitive order supporting all lower levels. From the above points it is obvious that, for the purposes of the analysis of a particular case, Habermas’ emphasis on the recognition of normative validity claims is in need of cognitive embedding and observance of the structural diversity it entails. The introduction of the triple contingency viewxiii over and above the double contingency one Habermas operates with adds to this assessment. Consider, for example, his emphasis on ‘the integration of communicatively socialized individuals’ and on ‘the action plans of different actors’.xiv It is indeed remarkable that in a quite lengthy circumscription of communicative action he proceeds not merely in terms of ‘mutual understanding’, but explicitly also from the assumption of the ‘doubly contingent decisions of the participants’ who ‘negotiate interpretations of the situation’ and arrive at the ‘intersubjective recognition [of] criticizable validity claims’ (BFN: 18). But this is clearly an interaction-based sequence of communication, not a higher-level type of communicative process which generates a corresponding discursive kind of intersubjectivity appropriate to more complex, internally differentiated social relations, including rational dissent mentioned earlier.xv It turns out, then, that Habermas’ key concept of ‘communicative action’ is in danger of falling into the trap of the rather limited double contingency conceptual form.
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Uncorrected version; Published in Philosophy & Social Criticism 41(3), 2015, pp. 273-91. DOI.10.1177/0191453714563877 When considering the forceful entry of the tension between facticity and validity into the facticity of the lifeworld through the mediation of a validity claim, to be fair, Habermas does effectively touch on the triple contingency structure of the relations involved. With Charles S. Peirce and Karl-Otto Apel, he invokes ‘the ideally expanded audience of the unlimited interpretation community’ (BFN: 19), yet he does so without further reflection and without acknowledging the complementary immanent side of the audience – namely, the public monitoring the actors on the virtual stage.xvi He stresses that the idealizations activated by the actors are all ‘brought down from the transcendental heaven to the earth of the lifeworld’ (BFN: 19), but he does not appreciate that this holds also in the case of the ideal audience. It too is brought down to the ground level, indeed by the monitoring public. Proceeding on the basis of the fundamental ‘immanent-transcendence’ framework, he clearly sees that actors in the situation reach toward idealizations beyond the situation and, correspondingly, that ‘validity claims are Janus-faced’ (BFN: 21) in the sense of being raised here and now yet overshooting or transcending the context. Similarly, it is necessary to take seriously the distinction and relation between the public in the situation monitoring the actors on the virtual stage and the ideal audience beyond the situation. The ideal transcendent audience, without which the authority of reason or the logic of justification remains incomplete, is immanently rooted in the situated public who represents the destiny of the formative process of society due to its embodiment of the resonance of the idealizations. Generality and universality: the semantic, the pragmatic and the cognitive Coming back to his earlier distinction between meaning and validity, Habermas dwells in more detail on the different kinds of idealizations relevant to social integration or, rather, to world creation. While meaning is a conceptual/semantic generality which can be clarified in terms of the rules of language, validity concerns universality which requires recourse to the use of language or pragmatics for its clarification. Although he does not mention universality in connection with validity, he is nevertheless entirely explicit in endorsing it when he submits that this level of idealization ‘determines the constitution of social reality’ (BFN: 20). Without the transcendental structure, in other words, there simply is no world for those belonging to it.xvii Corresponding to meaning and validity, Habermas further distinguishes two levels of idealization playing a role in the construction and preservation of social orders. The first is idealization related to semantic generality which finds expression in the presupposition of ‘identical meanings’ (BFN: 19). Here he mentions the necessity of a common or, at least, a translatable language, but one could also imagine other semantic-symbolic structures fulfilling a similar function. The second level of idealization related to validity refers to ‘the demanding counterfactual presuppositions…that are supposed to secure an unconditional character for validity claims’ (BFN: 20). This level is equivalent to the ‘transcendental heaven’ which contains all ‘potential reasons’ (BFN: 19) and is thus the ‘ideal moment of unconditionality’ (BFN: 20). But it is of course not unreachably transcendent, since it is immanently built into ‘the factual processes of communication’ (BFN: 20-1). Elsewhere, Habermas is emphatic in this regard: ‘there are no indicators accessible to social-theoretical analysis for a transcendence that is independent of the communicative practice of human beings…’ (1987: 256). Now, Habermas insists that this level of what he calls ‘counterfactual presuppositions’ (BFN: 21) must be conceived as ‘unavoidable pragmatic presuppositions’ (BFN: 19). It must be objected, however, that more is involved than pragmatic presuppositions. By way of pragmatics, Habermas articulates only the use of idealizations, idealizations in their operative sense in other words, which makes sense only in relation to the transcendental structure operationally rendered effective in the situation. Sociologically, this structure is the cognitive order of society from which is to be distinguished the practices through which it is called upon and brought down to earth, thus making it effective in structuring and regulating of social life. Habermas is fully aware of this level of unconditional idealizations, this reservoir of potentialities, but rather than addressing it as such he brings it into play only through pragmatics. There may well be good reasons for this. Descartes, for 7
Uncorrected version; Published in Philosophy & Social Criticism 41(3), 2015, pp. 273-91. DOI.10.1177/0191453714563877 one, submitted: ‘There is such a great number of truths that it would not be easy to draw up a list of all of them; but it is also unnecessary, since we cannot fail to know them when the occasion for thinking about them arises’.xviii And Loet Leydesdorff (2008) adds a warning against making a grandiose meta-theory out of this level of idealizations. Like the latter, Habermas avoids such a meta-theory, and like the former he puts his trust in the occasion-bound practices that bring the idealizations to awareness and attention. Yet I would insist that if one were to refine Habermas’ analytical programme and make it fruitful for the social sciences, then it needs to be transformed by the development of a cognitive sociology. The latter cannot proceed without a justifiable, meaningful and practically useful articulation of precisely that level. This is what the introduction of the idea of the cognitive order of society, especially of modernity, is about.xix Habermas regards the lifeworld, spontaneously emergent institutions and law as compensating the instabilities accompanying the modern mode of sociation through communication and the assertion of validity claims. What interests me in particular is his account of the lifeworld. Two perspectives can be taken on it: first, the performative perspective of the participant which he – rather strangely, it should be said – circumscribes as ‘the formal-pragmatic perspective of the participant’ (BFN: 23);xx and, second, the objectivating perspective of the observer. From the former perspective, the lifeworld is the diffuse background providing both the horizon of action and the source of interpretations. This background encompasses pre-predicative and pre-categorial knowledge, which is actually a deficient form of knowledge since it is neither fallible nor known to be such. It is allpenetrating, yet latent and unnoticed, a sprawling deep-seated level of always familiar and unshakable assumptions, loyalties and skills. As such, it entails the fusion or ‘leveling of the tension between facticity and validity’ (BFN: 23). From the observer’s perspective, on the other hand, the lifeworld appears as ‘a complex of interpenetrating cultural traditions, social orders, and personal identities’ (BFN: 23).xxi Here in Between Facts and Norms, as elsewhere, Habermas does not break down the background knowledge of the lifeworld in detail. In The Theory of Communicative Action (1987), where he discusses the problematization of some aspects of the background that consequently appear as facts, norms or experiences, he begins to approach this, but it is not pursued. Here he in parallel fashion indeed speaks of converting background knowledge ‘from a resource into a topic’ (BFN: 23), but again without development. Were he to undertake this, he would have to elaborate the lifeworld component he refers to as ‘cultural traditions’ into its distinct immanent and transcendent dimensions – that is, over and above culturally specified values, norms, cultural models and symbolic constructions, there is the meta-dimension of counterfactual presuppositions or the transcendental structure, which in sociological terms amounts to the cognitive order of society. Whatever counts as knowledge or a norm in the semantic dimension of culture rest on transcendentally enabling structural conditions at a deeper or higher level. What is required here, therefore, is the introduction and observance of a distinction between knowledge or norm and its cognitive structure and structuration. This cognitive dimension is indeed not completely missing from Habermas’ thinking, yet it is not reflected upon, goes undesignated and undeveloped, and is at best treated only by implication. The closest he comes to it is through his three formal-pragmatic world-concepts. As I have shown elsewhere (Strydom 2013d), however, he has not pursued the ontological radicalization that eventuated in formal pragmatics to its final conclusion – which would have culminated in the formulation of something equivalent to the concept of the cognitive order of society. Sociology: interpretative, reconstructive and cognitive As regards sociology, Habermas is indeed explicit in Between Facts and Norms. Besides a number of other references in the book, it is discussed twice in Chapter 1 in terms of the distinction, mentioned earlier, between meaning and validity and the distinct kinds of idealization associated with them.
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Uncorrected version; Published in Philosophy & Social Criticism 41(3), 2015, pp. 273-91. DOI.10.1177/0191453714563877 This account of his provides an excellent contact point for the definitive clarification of the latent cognitive sociology in his late work. In the case of meaning, first, the corresponding idealization takes the form of ‘conceptual/semantic generality’ which can be traced to ‘the rule structure of language’ (BFN: 19). What is presupposed by participants is that the expressions they employ have ‘identical meanings’ for them, otherwise they would be unable to relate and understand each other. This is an idealization, a semantic idealization taking the form of a counterfactual, which functions as a necessary presupposition of communication. As regards sociology, Habermas writes in this context: ‘Any sociology aware that the route to its object domain lies through the hermeneutic understanding of meaning (Sinnverstehen) must reckon with this tension between facticity and validity’ (BFN: 19). What he is referring to is the fact that the presupposition of identical meaning, although necessary and unavoidable, could turn out in a particular situation not to be defensible. The sociologist must therefore acknowledge the operative sense of the idealization of generality, but nevertheless deal with it under the proviso of validity – that is, it could be false, being neither general nor shared. In the case of validity, second, where the corresponding idealization ‘determines the constitution of social reality’ (BFN: 20) – that is, takes the form of universality – the tension between facticity and validity manifests itself in a much more radical way. Here it is not merely a matter of rules of language, but rather of counterfactual presuppositions of an unconditional kind which secure the unconditional character of validity claims – that is, their propensity to transcend the context within which the claim is raised, the propensity of validity (Gültigkeit) to outstrip social validity or acceptance (soziale Geltung). While sociology in the case of meaning and generality – that is, an immanently confined interpretative-understanding sociology – retains its conventional character by ascribing to participants the competence to manage their communicative disturbances themselves, it is different in the case of validity and universality. Here sociology is compelled to revise its conventional posture in favour of adopting the character of a ‘reconstructive…social science’ (BFN: 21) with a critical intent by way of an immanence-shattering transcendent foray. Reconstruction alone, in Habermas’ view, is capable of dealing with ‘permanently endangered counterfactual presuppositions’ (BFN: 21) – which I interpret as meaning cognitive presuppositions that, for good or ill, are constantly being invoked or appealed to, differently emphasized, selected and combined or composed. Now, what is so remarkable is that Habermas advocates a reconstructive social science with the explicitly stated task of bringing the set of necessary and unavoidable counterfactual presuppositions, the transcendentally enabling and limiting structural conditions, into the sociological field of vision, but then stops short at the threshold where he has to start giving some account of this deep-seated, radical level of idealization. His formal pragmatics, which is not discussed in Between Facts and Norms, may be regarded as an approach to this task, but as I showed elsewhere it too stopped short of the challenge (Strydom 2013d). At this point, therefore, it becomes necessary to offer an indication of the parameters of the cognitive sociology contained in Between Facts and Norms, albeit a latent one independently extrapolated and developed by working through certain ambiguities, tensions and lapses in the text. For this purpose, the central point of my argument should be repeated: Habermas thinks of validity or universalistic idealizations in terms of pragmatics as being ‘pragmatic presuppositions’ (BFN: 19), whereas what should happen is that the ‘universal’ or ‘formal’ aspect of his pragmatics be recognized and thought through first of all in cognitive terms. Such a shift is reflected in the concept of the cognitive order of society. It is noteworthy that Honneth (2007) interprets Habermas’ position exclusively in terms of the rules of language, but, as we have seen, the latter goes beyond them by distinguishing counterfactual presuppositions from such rules and then emphasizing them. Despite accordingly speaking of universal or formal pragmatics, however, he nevertheless develops the shift from linguistic rules to 9
Uncorrected version; Published in Philosophy & Social Criticism 41(3), 2015, pp. 273-91. DOI.10.1177/0191453714563877 counterfactual presuppositions, from meaning to validity, from generality to universality or formalism only in pragmatic terms, while neglecting the important cognitive aspect. But the formalpragmatic complex, it should be pointed out, is in actual fact a cognitive-pragmatic one – a transcendental structure that is cognitively available, that is, only as something virtual in the medium of reflexivity, for pragmatic engagements via corresponding operations or transcendental operators. Some conclusions need to be underscored in the light of Habermas’ distinction between meaning and validity and the implications thereof. First, the corollary that semantic generality needs to be distinguished from pragmatic universality or formalism corresponds to my dogged insistence over many years (e.g. Strydom 1999b, 1999c, 2000, 2013d) that a clear divide should be observed between the semantic/symbolic and the cognitive. Second, Habermas’ characterization of sinnverstehende sociology as confined by a semantic straitjacket is in accord with my understanding of the interpretative-symbolic sociology from which cognitive sociology must be sharply distinguished (e.g. Strydom 2007). His proposed ‘reconstructive social science’ which goes beyond generality in favour of the pragmatic formalism of validity indeed takes the direction of my conception of cognitive sociology, but as indicated it stops short before arriving there. As regards the relevance of the argument put forward here for Critical Theory, it should be pointed out that the implication is that the foundations of critique must be sought not solely in normativity, as has become widely accepted in the wake of Habermas’ monumental intervention, but should be understood in terms of the cognitively structured normative dimension. Third and last, the distinction between conceptual generality and universality or formalism has implications for the conceptualization of the cognitive order of society. In so far as the cognitive order is designated in language – for example by concepts like truth, justice and authenticity – which among many others represent its various counterfactual principles, it is characterized by conceptual generality which opens different domains of meaning. To the extent that it thus does have a semantic connotation, however, this is as far as it goes. Most characteristically and properly, the cognitive order is of a universal or formal nature in that it determines the constitution of social reality, doing so through its operations or transcendental operators which bring it down to the level of actuality and make it semantically and symbolically effective in social life. As such, the cognitive order is the transcendental structure and order-relation of the social world in the sense of housing the design principles of society or the blueprints for the construction of a possible world. The vital point that cannot be over-emphasized, however, is that this universal or formal set of transcendentally enabling and limiting structural conditions is latently or virtually available only cognitively – first at the meta-cultural level and from there right down to the brain-minds of the participants. These reflections provide some grist for presenting a rather compressed outline of only the barest parameters of the cognitive sociology extrapolated from Between Facts and Norms (see Figure 1).
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Uncorrected version; Published in Philosophy & Social Criticism 41(3), 2015, pp. 273-91. DOI.10.1177/0191453714563877 Figure 1: Parameters of Cognitive Sociologyxxii Immanence/ Actuality
Transcendence/ Potentiality
① [micro cognitive structures with generative force]
② [meso/macro cognitive structures with relational & organizational force]
③ MACRO [meta-cultural cognitive structures with incursive & recursive force against the arrow of time]
Plurality of actors: - cognitive endowment - capacities/ competences - presuppositions/ expectations
Sociocultural [cognitive-semantic) fabric: - social relations & - cultural models cultural forms - social systems under construction - social models - learning processes - institutions - action - organizations - interaction - discourse
Meta-level cognitive order: - constitutive-regulative idealizations/counterfactual presuppositions: - truth, etc. - rightness, etc. - sincerity, etc. (see Table 1)
MICRO _______________________process following the arrow of time:_______________________> practical realization of counterfactuals: construction & organization of society/ natural history, phylogenesis, evolution Conclusion My concern with the development of a cognitive sociology is most immediately comprehensible in relation to a paradoxical situation in Critical Theory. While the cognitive dimension has always been crucial to Critical Theory, it has been brought into play only in an episodic way and has therefore remained largely implicit. This state of affairs is particularly visible in the currently leading critical theorists such as Axel Honneth (e.g. 2011) and Rainer Forst (e.g. Forst and Günther 2011).xxiii The task I faced was therefore crystal clear, namely: informed by insights deriving from certain developments in the wake of the cognitive revolution of the late 1950s, to extrapolate the cognitive sociology which is latently available in the Critical Theory sources and, at least in outline, to let it see the light of day. What better source offers itself for such an exercise than the principal monograph of Habermas II? The aim of engaging in the development of this type of cognitive sociology is thus equally clear, namely: to enhance Critical Theory in various ways – for instance, by improving its theory-based analytical capacity and penetration of substantive materials which tend to become increasingly complex; by raising the problem of the foundations of critique; by bringing its underemphasized weak naturalistic ontology to the fore; and thus contributing to Critical Theory’s fitness for the future. That neither the paradoxical situation is an adequate rationale nor the recourse to the cognitive revolution simply the importation of something foreign into Critical Theory, however, is corroborated by the fact that the form assumed by this new departure in cognitive sociology is inextricably bound to the left-Hegelian tradition of which Critical Theory is a late manifestation. Had it not been for the renewal of the core left-Hegelian concept of immanent transcendence (Strydom 2011a) – that is, the concept behind Habermas’ formal pragmatics as well as reconstructive social science and perfectly expressed by the title Between Facts and Norms – the vision informing this departure would have been wanting. Left-Hegelianism has always maintained as its most basic principle the idea that rational potentialities have built up in the course of time which encourage human agents to actualise them with a view to realising them as fully as possible in social life under 11
Uncorrected version; Published in Philosophy & Social Criticism 41(3), 2015, pp. 273-91. DOI.10.1177/0191453714563877 the prevailing conditions. And the remarkable thing is that this very principle of immanent transcendence coincides with what may be called the cognitive metaproblematic: that Homo sapiens sapiens belongs to the world, yet is nevertheless able to transcend the world by distinguishing itself from the world and developing a perspective on and a relation to the world. The significance of this double status of the world,xxiv the capacity to reflect on the world from within the world itself, is far-reaching. It implicates not only the analytical capacity of Critical Theory, but more fundamentally also the foundations or conditions of possibility of critique as well as the ontological underpinnings of the whole enterprise. The cognitive approach extrapolated from Between Facts and Norms makes a unique contribution to this analytical capacity and, by the same token, also draws attention to the need to properly appreciate the nature of the foundations of critique and to reflect on its material dimension. First, to be able at all to have an object of analysis requires, contrary to empiricism, its antecedent formal identification. Only on that basis can the analysis proceed at all. This is the significance of the extrapolated cognitive order of society in the sense that it makes possible the isolation of the relevant sector of the social world and then allows the discrimination of the important differences and variations within that slice of actuality. Reflection on the cognitive order is thus a guiding theoretical element of the methodological procedure of reconstruction. Lacking this dimension of reflection would ultimately impair the vitally important ability to analytically penetrate those complex yet crucial moments when value- and norm-laden selections at micro and meso levels are made among counterfactual presuppositions and the latter are combined or composed into meaningful cognitive-semantic constructions like actor and collective identities, cultural models, sociocultural forms, social systems and much more. By focusing on the very element in which the process transpires, the cognitive approach moreover brings to awareness the necessity of keeping in mind at all times the threefold or triple contingency structure of communication. Rather than simply mutual understanding, rational dissent must also be faced and, even more importantly, the preceding cognitive presuppositions which render both mutual understanding and rational dissent possible in the first instance by their incursive and recursive impact. Second, to be able to avoid the degeneration of critique into quiescent, ineffective or counterproductive moralization requires more than a direct appeal to a normative standard. Once again, this is the significance of the introduction of the concept of the cognitive order. It allows appreciation of the fact that any normative standard whatsoever belongs to and is therefore embedded in a more extensive set of transcendentally enabling and limiting structural conditions (see Table 1). As the analytically central phenomenon of the selective combination or composition of counterfactual presuppositions suggests, a differentiated evaluation and critique appropriate to the multilevel nature of such a phenomenon must be aware of the cognitive structuring of the normative standards invoked as justification for any censure. In keeping with the meaning-validity or semantics-cognitive distinction, the cognitive order was presented in the above as a meta-conventional or meta-cultural dimension located at the macro level from where it structures lower levels. This may give the impression as though the proposed cognitive sociology is a purely cultural social science. As soon as the micro-level actor capacities and competences are brought into the picture and the nature of the implicated cognitive structures is considered, however, this culturalist appearance dissipates. Cultural and sociocultural analysis is inalienably central to cognitive sociology, yet it must be seen in the context of a weak naturalist or materialist ontology.xxv The cognitive endowment of modern humans, Homo sapiens sapiens, was acquired over millions of years of natural historical, phylogenetic and evolutionary developments (e.g. Mithen 1998), which means that there is a basic continuity between nature and sociocultural forms of life that must at all times be kept in mind. The physically rooted cognitive structures 12
Uncorrected version; Published in Philosophy & Social Criticism 41(3), 2015, pp. 273-91. DOI.10.1177/0191453714563877 forming part of the mind and playing a vital role in the construction and elaboration of sociocultural forms of life straddle the nature-culture divide since they consist of both a natural or material and a sociocultural part. The cognitive principles or counterfactual presuppositions of which the cognitive order consists thus are not simply cultural imaginaries, fictions or figments of the extended mind, but have a material footing in nature – an assumption with which Critical Theory’s procedure of reconstruction stands and falls.xxvi This raises the extremely important materialist consideration that cognitive structures are an essential element not only in the construction, organization and reproduction of the social world, but also in the very destiny of society.xxvii Epistemologically, on the other hand, cognitively enhanced Critical Theory is fully in its right to treat the sociocultural form of life for the most part as though it is independent. Since the proviso of being affected or even forcibly reconstituted by interferences from the side of nature applies, however, it always has to be alert to primitive social forms humans share with primatesxxviii as well as to events which have serious sociocultural effects such as, for instance, demographic fluctuations and population movements, ecological crisis and climate change and, still more graphically as is the case today, the conjunction of all of these. The cognitive complement to Critical Theory thus promises to strengthen not just its analytical capacity, tools and analysis of substantive objects, but also the materially rooted force of its critiquebased contribution to the process of the creation of a proper world for Homo sapiens sapiens – or whatever the next evolutionary-phylogenetic variant of the human species will be called. Acknowledgement I owe a debt of gratitude to James Bohman, Alban Bouvier, Marina Calloni, Bernard Conein, Maeve Cooke, Gerard Delanty, Klaus Eder, Robert Fine, Ananta Kumar Giri, Patrick O’Mahony, Paul Roth, Barry Saferstein, Tracey Skillington, Laurent Thévenot and Stephen Turner for discussions over the last number of years of various aspects of the theme of this article. Notes i
For presentations of the cognitive sociology invoked here, see Strydom (2000, 2002, 2007, 2011b, 2011c, 2012, 2012a, 2013b, 2013c, 2013d) as well as Delanty (2013) and O’Mahony (2013). ii Throughout the text references to Between Facts and Norms (1996) appear in the form of (BFN: page number). iii On hot and cold vocabularies, see e.g. DiMaggio and Powell (1991) and DiMaggio (2002). iv Badiou (2013: 159, 196, 259), e.g., discusses the transcendental of any world as an ‘orderstructure’ and ‘order-relation’. v For an extensive coverage of the concept of immanent transcendence, see Strydom (2011a). vi For the latest summary of the cognitive theory of the emotions, see Plutchik (2001). vii The concept of the cognitive employed in this article is not the narrow traditional one confined to the objectivating, purposive-rational orientation and even less the naturalistic reduction of it to the object called mental states. Rather, it follows the broadening of the concept in the wake of the cognitive revolution to include also the normative-evaluative and the aesthetic-emotive domains. Although Habermas remains ambivalent on the matter, there are occasions on which he apparently adopts this more inclusive understanding – e.g. Habermas (1984: 69), on which see Strydom (2013d). viii See, for example, Strydom (1996, 2000, 2011b, 2012, 2013b, 2013d). ix The concept of ‘rational dissent’ is one of the key contributions of Miller (1992). x The formulation ‘action-theoretic meaning’ is obviously misplaced; for the actors it is much rather a matter of action-orienting meaning. xi Piaget (1973: 223) regards the concept of ‘operation’ as relevant in social theory ‘wherever there is a trace of rationality in a societal system’ (my translation). 13
Uncorrected version; Published in Philosophy & Social Criticism 41(3), 2015, pp. 273-91. DOI.10.1177/0191453714563877 xii
For a detailed breakdown of the different normativities made possible by the objective, social and subjective sectors of the cognitive order of modernity, see Strydom (2013a). xiii On triple contingency in relation to Habermas’ position, see Strydom (1999a, 2001, 2006). xiv
Thévenot’s (2011: 3, also 2006) typology of regimes of engagement, which includes ‘engaging in a plan’ as distinct from ‘engagement in qualified justification for the common good’ occupying a higher level, confirms that it is not advisable to restrict the account to action plans. xv Elsewhere (Strydom 2006), I have shown that the model of mutual understanding based on social interaction is too limited; the discursive model going beyond double contingency to the full threefold structure of communication which includes the third point of view must also be considered. xvi In his late work, Habermas (2006: 419, 411) indeed speaks of ‘players on the virtual stage of the public sphere’ and ‘anonymous audiences’, yet he leaves the relation unanalysed – on which see Strydom (2011a: 205-6). And in the course of his response to the criticisms of his international relations colleagues, Habermas (2007: 415, my translation) acknowledges the cogency of the idea of the ‘triadic structure of argumentation’, but then proceeds with a general characterization of ‘the third instance’ that comes into play between proponent and opponent as ‘the authority of reason’, thus making the implied distinction between the immanent public and its transcendent counterpart invisible. xvii Obviously, here it is a matter of a constructed or relative universal. xviii This quotation is from Badiou (2013: 6) who has the unscholarly habit of not supplying references. Thus far, I have been unable to locate it in Descartes myself. xix In Strydom (2013d) I differentiate the concept of the cognitive order from the grandiose metatheory of the so-called ‘Cultural System’ in capital letters proposed by some British critical realists. xx Surely, it is not the participant who assumes the formal-pragmatic perspective, but rather the observer? It should rather be called the participant’s ‘principle-reflexive perspective’. xxi Isn’t it precisely here that the formal-pragmatic perspective should be explicitly included? xxii For a fuller account of this architectonic, see Strydom (2011a: 98 and 2012a), in the latter especially the figure ‘Cultural Model of Cosmopolitanism’ (p. 39). xxiii For critical observations on Honneth and Forst, see Strydom (2013d, 2013e). xxiv Niklas Luhmann (1995) draws the insight regarding the double status of the world from Husserl’s phenomenology and, consequently, conceives it semantically in terms of the necessity for actualized meaning to refer to further or potential meaning. At issue, of course, is less meaning than the cognitive presuppositions determining the constitution of the world. xxv Habermas (1999: 38, 41) introduced the idea of ‘weak naturalism’ (schwachen Naturalismus) which was adopted in Strydom (2002). xxvi Both Habermas (1979: 16) and Outhwaite (2000: 232-3) insist on the essentialist or realist element in reconstruction. xxvii Therefore, there is not just ‘a weak transcendental necessity’ (BFN: 4) or logical pressure toward mutual understanding, as Habermas holds by way of his assertion that normative rightness should be treated as being parallel to propositional truth; there is also material pressure borne by cognitive structure formation toward the attainment of a rational society. xxviii See e.g. Kaufmann and Clément (2007). Bibliography Adam, Barbara (1990) Time and Social Theory. Cambridge: Polity Press. Badiou, Alain (2013) Logics of Worlds. London: Bloomsbury. Delanty, Gerard (2013) Formations of European Modernity. Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan. DiMaggio, Paul (2002) ‘Why Cognitive (and Cultural Sociology) Needs Cognitive Psychology’, in K. A. Cerulo (ed.) Culture in Mind, pp. 275-81. New York: Routledge. 14
Uncorrected version; Published in Philosophy & Social Criticism 41(3), 2015, pp. 273-91. DOI.10.1177/0191453714563877 DiMaggio, Paul and Powell, Walter W. (1991) ‘Introduction’, in W. W. Powell and P. DiMaggio (eds) The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis, pp. 1-38. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Forst, Rainer and Günther, Klaus, eds (2011) Die Herausbildung normativer Ordnungen. Frankfurt: Campus. [The Formation of Normative Orders]] Giesen, Bernd (1991) ‘Code, Process and Situation in Cultural Selection’, Cultural Dynamics 4: 17285. Habermas, Jürgen (1979) Communication and the Evolution of Society. London: Heinemann. Habermas, Jürgen (1999) Wahrheit und Rechtfertigung. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Habermas, Jürgen (1984) The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol. 1. London: Heinemann. Habermas, Jürgen (1987) The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol. 2. Cambridge: Polity Press. Habermas, Jürgen (1996) Between Facts and Norms. Cambridge: Polity Press. Habermas, Jürgen (2003) Truth and Justification. Cambridge: Polity Press. [Truth and Justification] Habermas, Jürgen (2006) ‘Political Communication in the Media Society’, Communication Theory 16: 411-26. Habermas, Jürgen (2007) ‘Kommunikative Rationalität und grenzüberschreitende Politik: eine Replik’, in P. Niesen and B. Herborth (eds) Anarchie der kommunikativen Freiheit, pp. 406-59. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. [‘Communicative rationality and border-transcending politics: A rejoinder’; Anarchy of Communicative Freedom] Honneth, Axel (2007) ‘The Social Dynamics of Disrespect: On the Location of Critical Theory’, in A. Honneth, Disrespect: The Normative Foundations of Critical Theory, pp. 63-79. Cambridge: Polity. Honneth, Axel (2011) Das Recht der Freiheit. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. [The Right to Freedom]] Kaufmann, Laurence and Clément, Fabrice (2007) ‘How Culture Comes to Mind’, Intellecta 46(2): 130. Leydesdorff, Loet (2008) ‘The Communication of Meaning and Knowledge in a Knowledge-Based Economy’, Semiotix 13: 1-23. Luhmann, Niklas (1995) Social Systems. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Miller, Max (1992) ‘Rationaler Dissens: Zur gesellschaftlichen Funktion sozialer Konflikte’, in H.-J. Giegel (ed.) Kommunikation und Konsens in modernen Gesellschaften, pp. 31-58. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. [‘Rational dissent: On the societal function of social conflicts’; Communication and Consensus in Modern Societies] Mithen, Steven (1998) The Prehistory of the Mind. London: Phoenix. O’Mahony, Patrick (2013) The Contemporary Theory of the Public Sphere. Oxford: Peter Lang. Outhwaite, William (2000) ‘Rekonstruktion und methodologischer Dualismus’, in S. Müller-Doohm (ed.) Das Interesse der Vernunft, pp. 218-41. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. [‘Reconstruction and methodological dualism’; The Interest of Reason] Piaget, Jean (1973) Erkenntistheorie der Wissenschaften vom Menschen. Berlin: Ullstein. [Epistemology of the Human Sciences] Plutchik, Robert (2001) ‘The Nature of Emotions’, American Scientist 88: 344-50. Strydom, Piet (1996) ‘The Cognitive Order of Modernity: The “Scaffolding of Modernity” or the Rights Frame?’, Unpublished manuscript, Centre for European Social Research. Strydom, Piet (1999a) ‘Triple Contingency: The Theoretical Problem of the Public in Communication Societies’, Philosophy and Social Criticism 25(2): 1-25. Strydom, Piet (1999b) ‘Hermeneutic Culturalism and Its Double: A Key Problem in the Reflexive Modernization Debate’, European Journal of Social Theory 2(1): 45-69. Strydom, Piet (1999c) ‘The Post-Classical Theory of Culture: Symbolic or Cognitive?’, Unpublished manuscript, University College Cork. Strydom, Piet (2000) Discourse and Knowledge. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Strydom, Piet (2002) Risk, Environment and Society. Buckingham and Philadelphia: Open University Press. 15
Uncorrected version; Published in Philosophy & Social Criticism 41(3), 2015, pp. 273-91. DOI.10.1177/0191453714563877 Strydom, Piet (2001) ‘The Problem of Triple Contingency in Habermas’, Sociological Theory 19(2): 165-86. Strydom, Piet (2006) ‘Intersubjectivity – Interactionist or Discursive? Reflections on Habermas’ Critique of Brandom’, Philosophy and Social Criticism 32(2): 155-72 (also in D. M. Rasmussen and J. Swinda (eds) Habermas II. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 2010). Strydom, Piet (2007) ‘Introduction: A Cartography of Contemporary Cognitive Sociology’, Special Issue ‘Social Theory after the Cognitive Revolution: Types of Contemporary Cognitive Sociology’, European Journal of Social Theory 10(3): 339-56. Strydom, Piet (2011a) Contemporary Critical Theory and Methodology. London: Routledge. Strydom, Piet (2011b) ‘Towards a Cognitive Sociology for Our Time: Habermas and Honneth or Language and Recognition…and Beyond’, Special Issue ‘Key Issues in Contemporary Social Theory’, Irish Journal of Sociology 19(1): 176-98. Strydom, Piet (2011c) ‘The Cognitive and Metacognitive Dimensions of Social and Political Theory’, in G. Delanty and S. Turner (eds) Routledge International Handbook of Social and Political Theory, pp. 328-38. London: Routledge. Strydom, Piet (2012) ‘Modernity and Cosmopolitanism: From a Critical Social Theory Perspective’, in G. Delanty (ed.) Routledge Handbook of Cosmopolitan Studies, pp. 25-37. London: Routledge. Strydom, Piet (2012a) ‘Toward a Global Cosmopolis? On the Formation of a Cosmopolitan Cultural Model’, Irish Journal of Sociology 20(2): 28-50. Strydom, Piet (2013a) ‘Normativity and Transgression: A Brief Conceptual Analysis’, paper presented at the Theory and Philosophy Summer School on ‘Transgression and Normativity’, organized by the School of Sociology and Philosophy, UCC, Blackwater Castle, Castletownroche, Ireland, 29 April-3 May. Strydom, Piet (2013b) ‘Coordination, Cooperation and the Social Bond: On Integration from a Critical Cognitive Social-Theoretical Perspective’, Sociological Bulletin (Indian Sociological Society) 62(1): 115-21. Strydom, Piet (2013c) ‘The Counterfactual Imagination Punctuated by Triple Contingency: On Klaus Eder’s Theory of the New Public Sphere’, in A. Salvatore, O. Schmidtke and H.-J. Trenz (eds) Rethinking the Public Sphere through Transnationalizing Processes, pp. 56-74. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Strydom, Piet (2013d) ‘On the Cognitive Order of Society: Radicalising the Ontological Turn in Critical Theory’, Pragmatics & Cognition, in press. Strydom, Piet (2013e) ‘Review Essay: Honneth’s Sociological Turn’, European Journal of Social Theory 16(4): 509-21. Thévenot, Laurent (2006) L’Action au Pluriel: Sociologie du Regimes d’Engagement. Paris: La Découverte. Thévenot, Laurent (2011) ‘Bounded Justifiability: Making Commonality on the Basis of Binding Engagements’, Paper forming the basis of the Thévenot workshop, University College Cork, 11 June.
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