Seminar in Continental Philosophy:
                            Discourse Ethics in the Public Sphere

 Habermas's account of rationality offers a universalism which, though rejecting postmodernist relativism, is sensitive to cultural variety and historical change.  His political and social theory challenges the liberal tradition for its inadequate response to issues of power and inequality while maintaining liberal concerns about procedure and legality against totalitarian thought and practice.  In both his sources and influences, Habermas bridges the gap between European and Anglo-American philosophy in a way that is unique among contemporary thinkers.  His work has proven useful both as a resource and a target for thinkers in number of fields and for movements concerned with substantive social change.  We will focus on two aspects of his work and their implications for democratic reflection:  his account of the politics of the public sphere and his reconstruction of the discursive rationality that makes it possible.  In doing so we will touch on a number of social and historical issues as well as basic problems in moral and political theory.  We will also discuss attempts to apply the ideas of the public sphere and discourse ethics to contemporary issues.  For this purpose we will draw from Habermas's own recent work and from feminist and African American authors.

Texts

 Habermas, Jurgen, Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (STPS)
 Habermas, Jurgen, Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action (MCCA)
 Benhabib and Dallmayr, eds., The Communicative Ethics Controversy (CEC)
 Meehan, Johanna, Feminists Read Habermas (FRH)
 The Black Public Sphere Collective, ed., The Black Public Sphere (BPS)
 Rawls and Habermas, Journal of Philosophy, vol. XCII, no. 3.
 Calhoun, Craig, Habermas and the Public Sphere (HPS)
 Course Pack
 

Course Outline

August 28 Course introduction;  background debates in moral and political theory and social ontology;  a communications approach to philosophy and a differentiated account of action;  the issue of the public sphere today

Sept. 4  The idea of the public sphere, politics and philosophy, and conceptions of practical reason

  Class report:  Kant's conception of practical reason

   Readings:  Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, pp. 1-140;  Benhabib, "Models of Public Space: Hannah Arendt, the Liberal Tradition, and Jurgen Habermas,  Hohendahl, "The Public Sphere: Models and Boundaries" HPS

Sept. 11 Public sphere, past and present;  assessments of the argument

  Class report:  contrasting Hobbes and Rousseau's accounts of practical reason

 Readings:  Habermas, STPS, pp. 141-250;  McCarthy, "Practical Discourse: On the Relation of Morality to Politics;   Fraser, "Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy";  Schudson, "Was There Ever a Public Sphere? If So, When?  Reflections on the American Case";  Postone, "Political Theory and Historical Analysis" HPS

Sept. 18 Debates over the idea of the public sphere and public rationality

  Class report:  a challenge to Habermas's conceptual framework

 Readings:  Nancy Fraser, "What's Critical About Critical Theory?";  Jean Cohen, "Critical Social Theory and Feminist Critiques: The Debate with Jurgen Habermas";  Joan Landes, "The Public and the Private Sphere: A Feminist Reconsideration";  Marie Flemming, "Women and the 'Public Use of Reason'" FRH  Iris Marion Young, "Impartiality and the Civic Public:  Some Implications of Feminist Critiques of Moral and Political Theory"  (course pack);   Keith Michael Baker, "Defining the Public Sphere in 18th Century France:  Variations on a Theme by Habermas";  Mary P. Ryan, "Gender and Public Access: Women's Politics in 19th Century America" HPS

Sept. 25 The public sphere reconsidered;  a communications approach to rationality

  Class report:  Habermas's reply to one or more of his critics

 Readings:  Habermas, "Further Reflections on the Public Sphere," and "Concluding Remarks" HPS, pp. 421-480; Nicholas Garnham, "The Media and the Public Sphere" HPS
 Karl-Otto Apel, "Is the Ethics of the Ideal Communication a Utopia? On the Relationship between Ethics, Utopia, and the Critique of Utopia" CEC;   Benhabib, "Communicative Ethics and Contemporary Controversies in Practical Philosophy," pp. 330-370, CEC

Oct. 2  Reconstructing moral and political rationality:  the theory of the  discourse ethic

  Class report:  restating the idea of a discourse ethic

 Readings:  Habermas, "Discourse Ethics: Notes on a Program of Philosophical Justification," pp. 43-115 MCCA; Dietrich Bohler, "Transcendental Pragmatics and Critical Morality:  On the Possibility and Moral Significance of a Self-Enlightenment of Reason";  Robert Alexy, "A Theory of Practical Discourse" CEC

Oct. 9      Justifying the discourse ethic

  Class report:  reconstructing an aspect of Habermas's argument

 Readings:  Habermas, "Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action," pp. 116-194 MCCA;
 Karl-Otto Apel, "Normatively Grounding 'Critical Theory' through Recourse to the Lifeworld?  A Transcendental-Pragmatic Attempt to Think with Habermas against Habermas";  Martin Jay, "The Debate over Performative Contradiction:  Habermas versus the Poststructuralists" (course pack)
 Otfied Hoffe, "Kantian Skepticism toward Transcendental Ethics of Communication";  Karl-Heinz Ilting, "The Basis of the Validity of Moral Norms";  Hermann Lubbe, "Are Norms Methodically Justifiable? A Reconstruction of Max Weber's Reply";  Herbert Schnadelbach, "Remarks about Rationality and Language";  Albrecht Wellmer, "Practical Philosophy and the Theory of Society: On the Problem of the Normative Foundations of a Critical Social Science" CEC

Oct. 16 One-sidedness of the discourse ethic?

  Class report:  summary of a critic's argument

 Readings:  Seyla Benhabib, "The Generalized and the Concrete Other:  The Kohlberg-Gilligan Controversy and Feminist Theory" (course pack);  Jane Braaten, "From Communicative Rationality to Communicative Thinking: A Basis for Feminist Theory and Practice";  Simone Chambers, "Feminist Discourse/Practical Discourse";  Seyla Benhabib, "The Debate over Women and Moral Theory Revisited";  Jodi Dean, "Discourse in Different Voices";  Johanna Meehan, "Autonomy, Recognition, and Respect: Habermas, Benjamin, and Honneth";  Georgia Warnke, "Discourse Ethics and Feminist Dilemmas of Difference";  Allison Weir, "Toward a Model of Self-Identity: Habermas and Kristeva"  FRH

Oct. 23 Habermas and recent liberalism:  the debate with Rawls

  Class report:  Rawls's Kantianism

 Readings:  Habermas, "Reconciliation through the Public Use of Reason: Remarks on John Rawls's Political Liberalism"; John Rawls, "Reply to Habermas" (both in The Journal of Philosophy, vol. XCII, no. 3, March 1995);
 Thomas McCarthy, "Kantian Constructivism and Reconstructivism: Rawls and Habermas in Dialogue" (course pack)

Oct. 30 Discourse ethics and communitarian debate

  Class report:  a communitarian critic of individualism

 Readings:  Gerald Doppelt, "Beyond Liberalism and Communitarianism:  Towards a Critical Theory of Social Justice"; Kenneth Baynes, "The Liberal/Communitarian Controversy and Communicative Ethics";   Michael Sandel, "The Procedural Republic and the Unencumbered Self"; Charles Taylor, "Atomism";  Alasdair MacIntyre, "Justice as a Virtue: Changing Conceptions"; David Miller, "Community and Citizenship";  Marilyn Friedman, "Feminism and Modern Friendship: Dislocating the Community";  Ronald Dworkin, "Liberal Community"
 Albrecht Wellmer, "Models of Freedom in the Modern World" (all in course pack)

Nov. 6   The intersection of moral and political reasoning;  alternative uses of Kant

  Class report:  Wellmer's alternative Kantianism

 Readings:  Habermas, "Does Hegel's Critique of Kant Apply to Discourse Ethics?" from MCCA;
 Albrecht Wellmer, "Ethics and Dialogue: Elements of Moral Judgement in Kant and Discourse Ethics"  Klaus Gunther, "Impartial Application of Moral and Legal Norms: A Contribution to Discourse Ethics";   Habermas, "On the Pragmatic, the Ethical, and the Moral Employments of Practical Reason";  Jean Cohen, "Discourse Ethics and Civil Society";  Thomas F. Murphy, "Discourse Ethics: Moral Theory or Political Ethic";  Jean Cohen, "Jean Cohen Responds" (course pack)

Nov. 13   Strategies for differentiating morality and politics

 Readings:  selections from Habermas, Between Facts and Norms

Nov. 20   Politics and culture:  the idea of a black public sphere;  issues about the public reality of race and the force of race in public action;  the role of black intellectuals;  mass culture;  a democratic plurality of publics?

 Readings:  selections from  Between Facts and Norms and The Black Public Sphere

Nov. 27 The black public sphere, cultural politics, the political regulation of agency

 Readings:  from The Black Public Sphere

Dec. 4 Outstanding issues

Course Requirements

 Periodic short writing assignments;  each week at least one seminar member will summarize one of the assigned readings to the group or give a report on work in progress.  Term paper abstract due by Nov. 13.  Term paper due Thus. Dec. 11 by 12 noon.

Office Hours

 Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2:15 to 3:30 and by appointment

512 S.Kedzie Hall                     phone:  353-9378 or 355-4490 (messages).                                        E-mail:  PetrsnRT@pilot.msu.edu
 
 

Texts on Assigned Reading in the Main Library

 Habermas, Jurgen, The Theory of Communicative Action, vols. I and II
 Habermas, Jurgen, Communication and the Evolution of Society
 Habermas, Jurgen, Autonomy and Solidarity: Interviews
 Habermas, Jurgen, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity
 Honneth, A. and Joas, H. eds Communicative Action:  Essays on "The Theory of Communicative Action"
 Wigggerhaus, Rolf, The Frankfurt School
 Jay, Martin, The Dialectical Imagination
 Held, David, Introduction to Critical Theory
 McCarthy, Thomas, The Critical Theory of J. Habermas
 Ingram, David, Habermas and the Dialectic of Reason
 White, Stephen, The Recent Work of J Habermas
 Rasmussen, David, Reading Habermas
  Roderick, Rick, Habermas and the Foundations of Critical Theory
 Thompson, J. and Held, D., eds., Habermas:Critical Debates
 Rockmore, Tom, Habermas on Historical Materialism
 Forester, John, ed., Critical Theory and Public Life
 Rehg, William, Insight and Solidarity: The Discourse Ethics of Jurgen Habermas
 Arato, A. and Cohen J., Civil Society and Critical Theory

 Articles in Course Pack

 from New German Critique

Thomas F. Murphy, "Discourse Ethics: Morla Theory or Political Ethic"
Jean Cohen, "Jean Cohen Responds"
James Sterba, "Benhabib and Rawls's Hypothetical Contractualism"
Iris Marion Young, "Comments on Seyla Benhabib, Situating the Self"
Seyla Benhabib, "In Defense of Universalism--Yet Again!  In Response to Critics of Situating the Self"

 from Philosophy and Social Criticism

Jean Cohen, "Discourse Ethics and Civil Society"
Gerald Doppelt, "Beyond Liberalismand Communitarianism:  Towards a Critical Theory of Social Justice"
Kenneth Baynes, "The Liberal/Communitarian Controversy and Communicative Ethics"
Klaus Gunther, "Impartial Application of Moral and Legal Norms: A Contribution to Discourse Ethics"

 from Ethics

Thomas McCarthy, "Kantian Constructivism and Reconstructivism: Rawls and Habermas in Dialogue"

 from Philosophical Forum

Albrecht Welmmer, "Models of Freedom in the Modern World"

 from Benhabib and Cornell, eds., Feminism as Critique

Iris Marion Young, "Impartiality and the Civic Public:  Some Implications fo Feminst Critiques of Moral and Political Theory"
Seyla Benhabib, "The Generalized and the Concrete Other:  The Kohlberg-Gilligan Controversy and Feminst Theory"

 from Honneth, et. al., eds., Philosophical Interventions in the Unfinished Project of Enlightenment

Karl-Otto Apel, "Normatively Grounding 'Critical Theory' through Recourse to the Lifeworld?  A Transcendental-Pragmatic Attempt to Think with Habermas against Habermas"
Martin Jay, "The Debate over Performative Contradiction:  Habermas versus the Poststructuralists"

 from Habermas, Justification and Application

"On the Pragmatic, the Ethical, and the Moral Employments of Practical Reason"
"Morality, Society, and Ethics: An Interview with Torben Hviid Nielsen"

 from Avineri and de-Shalit, eds., Communitarianism and Individualism

Michael Sandel, "The Procedural Republic and the Unencumbered Self"
Charles Taylor, "Atomism"
Alasdair MacIntyre, "Justice as a Virtue: Changing Conceptions"
David Miller, "Community and Citizenship"
Marilyn Friedman, "Feminism and Modern Friendship: Dislocating the Community"
Ronald Dworkin, "Liberal Community"

 from Wellmer, The Persistence of Modernity

"Ethics and Dialogue: Elements of Moral Judgement in Kant and Discourse Ethics"