Feminist Reflections On Habermas

European Journal
of Social Theory
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Feminist Reflections on Habermas's Communicative Action : The Need for

an Inclusive Political Theory
Mojca Pajnik
European Journal of Social Theory 2006 9: 385
DOI: 10.1177/1368431006065719
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European Journal of Social Theory 9(3): 385404

Copyright 2006 Sage Publications: London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi
Feminist Reflections on Habermass

Communicative Action
The Need for an Inclusive Political
Theory
Mojca Pajnik
T H E PE AC E I N S T I T U T E , I N S T I T U T E F O R C O N T E M P O R A RY S O C I A L A N D P O L I T I C A L
S T U D I E S , L J U B L J A N A , S LOV E N I A
Abstract
This article explores critiques and reformulations of Habermass concept of
communicative action as presented by feminist authors. Numerous articles
considering communicative action as developed by Habermas from a feminist
perspective have been published, but no systematic analysis of these
arguments exists. This article aims to fill the gap by providing an examination
of various readings of communicative action from a feminist standpoint. If,
on one hand, the article collects the dispersed feminist critique of communicative action and offers insight into feminist argumentation, its aim is, on the
other hand, to reflect the critique itself. Therefore, attention is devoted both
to feminist readings of communicative action, as well as to the potential
shortcomings of these readings that are detected by a closer examination of
Habermass own works. The articles aim is also to show how feminist critics,
in their interpretations and reformulations of communicative action, focus on
an explication of the inclusive elements of communicative action.
Key words
communicative action experience feminist critique Habermas
inclusion
Jrgen Habermas devoted a number of works to the topic of communicative

action. His theory was widely applied, and yet at the same time it is still in the
process of being both developed and critically reflected upon. Habermass theory
of communicative action appears as an unfinalized, open project (Burger, 1988:
viii) that the author continues to explore in his later works (see Habermas, 1996,
1998, 2001). Emergence, in the sense of the incompleteness of a theory, is essential for an understanding of communicative action, to which the author was
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DOI: 10.1177/1368431006065719
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European Journal of Social Theory 9(3)

particularly attentive especially in the first volume of his widely cited book
Theorie des Kommmunikativen Handelns of 1981, which appeared in English as
The Theory of Communicative Action in 1984.
Like Habermass theory itself, critiques and reformulations of communicative
action as presented by feminist authors, which will be examined in this article,
represent a valuable contribution to the critique of modern society. Numerous
articles considering Habermass communicative concept of action from a
feminist perspective have been published since the early 1990s. What is missing
in contemporary readings of a theory is an analysis combined with critical reflection on the various readings of the concept from a feminist standpoint. Because
both Habermass opus and feminist critiques of his works date from different
periods and are at the same time highly dispersed, in this text I will focus on an
examination of feminist critiques of one of the authors concepts, i.e. communicative action. This article will attempt a synthesis, and examination of the
feminist critique of communicative action and at the same time offer an elaborate reflection on the critique itself. Therefore, I devote my attention to feminist
readings of communicative action, as well as to the potential shortcomings of
these readings that are detected by a closer examination of Habermass own
works. In general, however, I show that feminist critics, in their interpretations
and reformulations of Habermasian communicative action, do focus primarily
on an explanation of the inclusive elements of Habermass theory.
In considering the ramifications of Habermass opus and the various forces
that motivated his writing during different periods, it is important, in interpreting his work, to proceed by rising above the dichotomy of objectivism and relativism, or rather, to actively confront the gap which has always existed and still
exists today, namely, the gap between the idea of a critical theory of society and
its practical realization (Bernstein, 1983: 172; 1976: 225). According to the
theory/practice or relativism/objectivism dichotomy, interpretations that treat
communicative action as an actual, empirical activity, are separate from those
according to which communicative action is an ideal mechanism for social coordination. Although Habermas does not argue for the necessity of such a separation, but develops the theory without taking up a position at either pole, and
by mutually interweaving them, he is often criticized by feminist authors for
grounding communicative action on too abstract a basis. In examining the
feminist critique of communicative action I proceed from the thesis that
interpretations of Habermass theory must take into account the broader context
in which the theory arose. Critiques from a feminist perspective are also more
credible when this context is considered, as I will show in the sections below.
Habermas began to develop the communicative approach towards a theory of
the public sphere in the 1970s as a response to the determinism of existentialist
philosophy, which reinforced the image of passive citizens, led by the dark forces
of nationalism and National Socialism after the Second World War. His theory
is a response to the justification of totalitarianism by the argument of manipulation (the example of Eichmann), to the ambivalent stance of the post-war
generation, and to the amnesia and ideology of manipulated memory. The theory
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Pajnik Feminist Reflections on Habermass Communicative Action

of communicative action was Habermass response to the conventional understanding of politics which he criticized in Theorie und Praxis; it is a response to
conditions in which politics is reduced to poiesis. In this critique Habermas is
close to the example of Hannah Arendt when he opposes the idea of politics as
a necessity in the sense of a Machiavellian prince, a Hobbesian physics of societalization (Physik der Vergesellschaftung) (Habermas, [1963] 1972: 76) or a
Leviathan-like absolutist sanctioning of politics and Schmittian egoism of the
private subject.
Habermass theory is also a response to Parsonian social theory and its insistence on reducing social life to the idea of function or to the growing hegemony
of administrative research, criticized by Hanno Hardt in the field of communications during the post-war period in the United States. It implies a critique of a
situation in which communication is defined in the sense of the effectiveness and
the ability to process information, when research is conducted in a utilitarian and
even evolutionist atmosphere (Hardt, 1992: 6, 16, 17). Habermass communicative transformation of critical theory (Matustk, 2001: 153) implies taking
collective responsibility for being-in-the-world. Communicative action is based
on a polyphony of voices, on narrative and experience in this lies the potential
of a theory which does not just reflect a certain historical period, but is also
relevant for an understanding of contemporary social and political developments.
A Critique of Communicative Action as a Pure Sphere
Habermass communicative action (kommunikatives Handeln) first arose as a
response to strategic, instrumental action (zweckrationales, prozedurales Handeln).
He began to conceptualize the difference between the two forms of action in the
1960s, in the works Theorie und Praxis ([1963] 1972) and Technik und
Wissenschaft als Ideologie (1968). Later, he built on the theory by drawing in
particular on a critique of Webers rationality in the first and second book of
Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns (Habermas, 1981a, 1981b). Although
Habermas acknowledges that communicative action is not a final form of human
interaction, some critiques of his theory recognize tendencies towards purification and finalization in the Weberian sense.
The critique of the dichotomy between communicative and strategic action
as formulated by Mary Dietz (1996) is oriented towards the philosophical
conceptualization of language or rather towards a critique of Habermass understanding of validity claims (Geltungsanspruchen) in discourse theory, which have
a theological connotation, i.e. they demand either salvation or purification. The
author is critical of the sharp distinction that Habermas makes between pure
communicative action and impure strategic action. Dietz argues that such positioning does not capture the reality of interactions in everyday life or, as Susan
Bickford (1996: 18) believes, the rejection of strategic action obscures the
complexity of actual political interactions and encourages the understanding of
politics and citizenship as a Romantic ideal.
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Dietz recognizes the political connotations in Habermass theory at the point
of interpretation of action, while the argumentation within discourse theory, in
her view, implies the awakening of chivalrous codes of honour of the late Middle
Ages and the establishment of an abstract definition of communicative interactions. While the Machiavellian prince learns the strategic politics of how not
to be open to the argumentative changing of validity claims, Habermas defines
communicative action or rather communicative politics in contradistinction to
strategic, instrumental action. Argumentation with an insistence on the opposition of both positions is placed in the domain of puritanism. Dietz argues for
the impurity of political action and an understanding of communicative action
on the basis of the interweaving and complementarity of strategic and communicative action (1996: 22, 23, 26, 27). A similar position is taken by Fred Dallmayr
(1991: 149), who characterizes Habermass division as dubious, and by Carol
Gould (1996: 173), for whom the analytical division is materialized in the separation of different spheres of action.
While critics of Habermass theory of communicative action note the creation
of too sharp a distinction between communicative and Weberian, strategic or
instrumental action, this distinction, when interpreted in the context in which
Habermas developed the communicative conception of rationality, does not
appear flawed. Critics focus on a conceptualization of communicative action that
is based on interaction and includes active listening, and that is not necessarily
distinct from strategic action. This does not contradict Habermass theory,
especially if we take into account his later works, from the 1980s onwards:
Habermas did not advocate communicative action as something cleansed of all
interests. On the contrary, he explicitly stressed that discourse is never entirely
pure (Habermas, 1988: 303).
Habermass distinction is not so much about an a priori insistence on the
dichotomy of positions as it is about his critique of the dominant social and social
science empiricism. He does not deny the presence of interests in communicative
action, and states that between the two forms of action there exists an analytically
explicable connection (Habermas, 1982: 267). In his treatment of the understanding of power in Hannah Arendt, he also writes that the elements of strategic action
cannot be excluded from the political (Habermas, 1977: 18). Moreover, he stresses
the need for an active understanding of interests that would avoid the Weberian
insistence on strategic rationality, according to which (all) other forms of action
are perceived as specific deviations (spezifische Abweichungen) (Habermas, 1981a:
6). Deciding between the two actions is therefore abstract, since communicative
action in the life-world is not just a matter of choice but a communicative, interactive disposition in the world, which is different from isolation in strategic
action (Habermas, 2001: 102; 1982, 227).
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The Theory of Communicative Thinking: An Alternative to
Habermass Rationality
Although Habermas broke with the monologic tradition, a frequent criticism
among feminist authors is that his theory is too Kantian. According to this
criticism, Habermas persisted in the conception of a moral individual who is
disembodied and self-centred in contrast to a relational and embodied female
or male individual. Criticisms of the monologic stance of communicative action
are frequent, although a closer reading of Habermass theory shows that
Habermass individual is not tied to a deeper inner contemplation. Habermass
individual is not liberated from communication with others, but is realized
through interaction with others (Baynes, 1994: 319).
Jane Braaten (1995) notes that Habermas, with his theory of communicative
action, distances himself, on the one hand, from the Cartesian philosophy of the
subject, but, on the other, reproduces it with the concept of communicative
rationality. In explaining communicative rationality, Habermas becomes overly
trapped in the patriarchy of traditional epistemology, which tries to defend the
possibility of action in the period of the new historicism of late modernity. Braaten
tries to understand Habermass theory through the perspective of feminist reasoning and feminist epistemology, on which she bases her alternative to communicative rationality. She calls it communicative thinking, which is based on two
principles: the principle of solidarity and the principle of intersubjectivity.
As an alternative to the technical image of rationality, grounded in Western,
Anglo-American theoretical traditions, according to which rational action, to use
Platos terminology, is reserved for the enlightened, Braaten advocates a rational
feminist discourse which is based on the principle of solidarity and linked to the
issues of discrimination against women. By defending different forms of rational
action, she attempts to transcend the bounds of a technical explanation of the
success and effectiveness of action, which Habermas also problematized, particularly with the critique of strategic, instrumental action (see Habermas, [1963]
1972, 1968). The difference between communicative rationality and communicative thinking is also explained by the author by drawing on the principle of
intersubjectivity: in Habermass communicative rationality, this is too narrowly
tied to the linguistic process of accepting and rejecting arguments, or is at least,
as pointed out by Dallmayr (1984: 236), not clearly formulated.
Communicative thinking is a concept which reflects the complexity of
everyday life, and the multiple means of action and which takes into account the
diversity of contexts of action. Braaten understands it as wider than communicative rationality this she understands in a somewhat narrow sense as (merely)
spoken agreement, achieved by the domination of the superior argument.
Consensus, which in Habermas arises from a commonly defined objectivity,
assumes ideal, abstract individuals, while communicative thinking considers life
contexts and memories. Communicative thinking includes imagination and
flexibility (Braaten, 1995: 156) and relies on forms of action which try to aerate
the stability of social structures. From the standpoint of the organization of
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society, communicative thinking does not mean a rejection or abandonment of
communicative rationality, but rather an extension of rationality in the direction
of conceptualization, which Darij Zadnikar recognizes in Habermas and calls a
multi-dimensional (soft) theory of rationality (Zadnikar, 1995: 9).
Braaten, whose explanation of communicative thinking explicitly draws on a
personal, even physical, feminist perspective, identifies several meanings for this
concept. Communicative thinking foremost means respecting differences in
everyday life with the inclusion of possibilities for the transformation of conventional politics, with the aim of meeting specific needs, for instance, those of
women. It advocates the rethinking of the position of different groups of citizens
to respect the specificities of life contexts and opportunities. By providing an
alternative to one-dimensionality and the systematic, unified arrangement of
structures, it stimulates the multi-dimensionality of expression (Braaten, 1995:
156, 157).
Communicative thinking is a response to a technically defined rationality which,
in the view of some critics, is still present in Habermass theory; it assumes the
Kantian action of autonomous, rational subjects: we can speak of the success of
speech acts, according to Habermas, when rational subjects act in order to achieve
a rational consensus. In this, they are acting according to communicative norms,
the rules of universal pragmatics, which assume a communicative competence
for grammatical expression. This rigidly defined communicative rationality
implies, as expressed in Benjamin Barbers categories, too thin an understanding
of communicative action and in this framework communicative thinking as an
alternative is of interest.
At the same time, the question arises as to whether, or to what extent, intersubjectivity and solidarity in the communicative sense are also integral to
Habermass communicative rationality. In the Foreword to the second edition of
The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, Habermas (1992: 445) defends
an intersubjectivist formulation of the concept of solidarity which (also in the
abstract) must not suggest the false model of a formation of will la Rousseau,
according to which it is necessary to first define the conditions under which the
individual can change into the common good. Braaten (1995: 158) also draws
attention to the fact that the concept of communicative thinking is not a rejection of Habermass communicative rationality and also asks (but does not offer
a response) whether communicative thinking can be found within Habermass
discourse.
Feminist Discourse of the Ethics of Care
From the perspective of the feminist critique, Habermass discourse theory that
results in an achieved consensus is grounded purely in external limits and rules.
According to Habermass theory, anyone can enter into discourse; each person
has the right to speak and be heard. As emphasized by the feminist critique, rules
which at the declarative level imply the opportunity for all to participate still do
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not guarantee the active participation and inclusion of all the different actors.
Communicative action cannot be based only on institutionalized procedures and
rules of communication. At the same time it relies on the willingness of individuals to act, in the absence of which the institutionalized discourse rules cannot
be realized. In this context, the ethics of justice for which Habermas argues
remain on an insufficiently declarative level.
Discourse action, according to the feminist perspective, is based on the
concept of the ethics of care, which assumes intersubjective action with others.
The ethics of care arises from internal impulses, a desire for action and taking
responsibility for action in the process of discourse formation. Habermass rule
that no one is excluded from the discussion is extended by Simone Chambers by
a demand for the motivation of individuals for inclusion. Communicative action
as presented by the feminist critique transcends the formalism and proceduralism of Habermass discourse ethics based on language, or rather on the prevailing of the better argument, because it assumes that actors are motivated to take
action and are open to learning about different experiences. Communicative
action, according to this reformulation, also includes, in addition to negative
demands that enable individuals to speak, a positive demand that they be listened
to (Chambers, 1996: 1679).
Susan Bickford extends Habermass speech action with the concept of political listening as an activity that does not require self-abnegation or a radical
suspension of individuals own perspective. Rather, in listening, a person must
actively be with others:
Listening is not passive, nor does it require the assumption of substantive shared
interests or the suspension of strategic motives. Rather, it involves an active willingness to construct certain relations of attention, to form an auditory Gestalt in which
neither of us, as parts of the whole structure, has meaning without the other.
(Bickford, 1996: 23, 24)
Listening in communicative action implies interdependence, in which the

speaker and the listener are different-but-equal. It is a practice of citizenship,
which is based on attention to the perceptions of others and at the same time on
the redirection of attention from the subject to the world.
Feminist authors attempt to define discourse as the ethics of care in contrast
to Habermass abstract rationalist discourse of the ethics of justice. Habermass
discourse theories are frequently criticized because of their universalistic tendencies, which are reflected in the privileging of the all-encompassing consensual
ideal. The dangers of collectivization of consensus can be found in the paternalistic implications that imply the abandonment of heterogeneity and difference,
and appear when attempts are made to universalize Habermass theory to all of
society, something for which the author himself did not explicitly argue. The
ineffectiveness of transferring discourse action from individual groups to society
as a whole does not mean the impossibility of realizing discourse action in
practice (Habermass critics often use the argument that his theory is not transferable to practice), but shows the necessity of understanding discourse as an
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open, multiple concept. Habermas does not deny that discourse requires an
interest in mutual understanding, but he never deals fully with the possibility
that citizens might generally lack such an interest [for common action] or not
possess the competencies to pursue such an interest (Chambers, 1995: 176). Or,
as Carol Gould notes, although Habermas asserts that everyone is free to enter
into the discourse of the public sphere and to be heard, there are voices that are
mute in this discussion (1996: 175).
The reasons for the lack of interest in or capacity for interactive communicative action which, according to the feminist critique, require particular attention can be found in the dominant forms of instrumental, strategic bargaining,
which today is the most frequently used method for achieving consensus in the
public space, and which is also reflected in the dominant speech customs. Individuals can also be put off by fear, past experience, and another reason for lack
of participation can also be found in the restriction of communicative action to
rational verbal expression (Chambers, 1995: 176; Gould, 1996: 176).
The concept of the ethics of care offers interesting emphases which are based
on the treatment of communicative action as an inclusive concept. Despite this,
it seems that the shift from an ethics of justice, on which Habermas bases his
discourse theory, to an ethics of care is based more on a critique of the modern
practice of public debate, which is becoming a synonym for the trading of ideas
among elites with the aim of achieving the dominance of a specific idea, as criticized by Habermas, than on a critique of Habermass theory. It is in this context
that Chambers (1995: 176, 177), who argued for public debate as a democratized forum in which understanding proceeds through the theorization of difference, the opening of possibilities for action, the inclusion of excluded voices, the
politicization of the depoliticized, the decentralization of decision-making, and so
on, should be understood. The implementation of this kind of political discourse
requires discursive action, which is less a matter of institutionalized rules in the
Habermasian sense than of political culture, which implies active engagement in
public debate, cooperativeness and a willingness to take responsibility.
Inclusive Political Communication: Three Moments of
Political Narrative
Inclusion is a criterion of political legitimacy that implies the ability to transcend
individual interests not by negating those interests but through interacting with,
listening to, and responding to others. Inclusive political communication is
developed by Iris Marion Young (2000) as an attempt to extend the Habermasian
concept of communicative action to a theorization of responsibility of the individual towards others and an openness in the sense of publicity. The theorization of inclusion requires an expansion of communicative action from rational
argumentation towards other forms of expression and articulation. The
component of the inclusive in communicative action relates to the inclusion of
embodied forms of expression: emotion, metaphor, expressiveness etc., i.e.
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expression that contains, using Arendts terminology, the ability to discover truth
(Arendt, [1961] 1985: 54).
The viewpoints expressed, the opinions and demands of individuals and
groups, and especially of minority/marginalized groups, are often unheard or
considered unimportant. At the same time, formal rules according to which
minority groups have public relevance, and according to which their opinions
should be actively heard, do not produce the necessary actual (empirical) publicly
and politically acknowledged relevance of these groups. Inclusiveness thus is not
based so much on a liberal ideal of an all-inclusive democratic potential, but
connotes a more inclusive communicative action.
Gender, racial, or cultural differences, or differences that arise from the different needs of various groups of individuals are often marginalized. The result of
Habermass normative assumption of the equal value of the use of the speech act
for all remains at the level of the ideal and can have exclusionary consequences
in practice. Habermass discourse, which assumes the freedom and equality of
individuals in public debate and includes the principle of reciprocity of perspectives in the public sphere, is, as Carol Gould (1996: 172) notes, attractive but
problematic. The difficulties appear especially in the treatment of difference:
generalized interest as the result of Habermass discourse deliberations does not
sufficiently take into account differences between individuals and groups that are
publicly active. In Habermass theory, difference is recognized merely as the
presence of the different and no more than this (Gould, 1996: 177; see also
1990: 18). At this level there is a discrepancy between the normative discourse
model of the public sphere, which is based on universalistic principles (openness
and equality of access, participation, etc.), and attempts to theorize differences
related to the recognition of difference, the protection of particularity, and so on.
Gould argues for a redefinition of Habermass communicative action that
would validate differences. She places differences as a point of departure from
which she wishes to go beyond Habermass theorization of differences as a
commodity of discussion or as expressions on which the status of the private is
necessarily imposed. According to this interpretation, Habermass theory treats
differences only as material that can be manipulated, or as a marginal privacy
that does not appear in the public sphere as potentially redefining public action
(Gould, 1996: 172, 173).
The stability of what appears to be unquestionable norms of rational, argumentative articulation on which communicative action, according to Habermas,
is based, tends towards the exclusion of emotive expression. This being the case,
Young proposes an expansion of communicative action to include three modes
of action: (1) greeting and public acknowledgement; (2) affirmative rhetoric; and
(3) narrative and situated knowledge.
The aim of discussing three modes of communication is in the addition of
dimensions that extend political communication, or rather, do not limit it to the
achievement of consensus on the basis of spoken, rational argumentation.
Moreover, the three modes of communication are not realized in the public
sphere through the negation of argument as a form of communication, but
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contribute to enriching both a descriptive and normative account of public
discussion and deliberation (Young, 2000: 57). They also imply a critical
response to a mistrustful attitude towards the expressive, which, at least since the
time of Descartes, has meant equating the expressive and the subjective generally with a lack of clarity and an absence of reality:
(1) Among communicative expressions, greeting implies a recognition of individuals in their particularity. Greeting is a communicative moment, a public
acknowledgement, which is not based on Levinass ontological ethics or on
Taylors politics of recognition. These belong, in Zolos terminology, in the
sphere of Christian ethics and humanistic culture. This produces a standardized rationality that is actualized through the privileging of certain
forms of action and the exclusion of other forms (Zolo, 1992: 31, 37).
Acknowledgement is a political moment, which in Habermass speech
practice adds the expression of speech, its manifestation. Greeting is an
expression of acknowledgement of discourse or communicative equality,
which implies the possibility of establishing interactions on the basis of trust
and listening. Communicative political gestures (Young, 2000: 61) represent the recognition of others via discursive inclusion that is neither merely
pro forma nor an end goal of communicative action, but rather the initial
moment of political interaction. This moment indicates that communicative
action comprises more than merely that which is expressed with arguments
and which relies on articulation and coherent linguistic formulation, but
also other discursive signs.
(2) Affirmative rhetoric is another form in the typology that implies a widening
of the concept of communicative action. Young argues for changing the
understanding of rhetoric, or rather for transcending Platonic interpretations that arise from the difference between rational speech and action.
According to these interpretations, rational speech is based on universalistic, unemotional/non-expressive and neutral argumentation, while rhetoric
is based on strategically directed communication, meaning the achievement
of a goal by using strategies of manipulation. Leon Mayhew (1997: 37) states
that Habermass rhetoric is an indirect force, and that Habermas assimilates rhetoric with force. The separation of the rational from the irrational
in Habermas pushes aside emotion, imagination, and playful forms of
action, which are regarded as not worthy of attention. Rhetoric in communicative action, in contrast, includes three aspects of communication: (1) the
emotional tone of the discourse (its content is uttered with fear, joy, anger
or other expressions of passion); (2) the use in the discourse of figures of
speech (such as metaphor, puns, along with humorous, ironic, etc. styles);
and (3) forms of making a point that do not only mean speech, such as visual
media, signs, banners, street demonstrations, and guerrilla theatre (Young,
2000: 65).
The reformulation of rhetoric in communicative action implies a recognition and rethinking of conflict, in which certain groups of citizens can be
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excluded, owing to non-standard modes of expression. Rhetoric relates to
reflexiveness in the sense of active listening to various speakers. It brings inclusiveness into communicative action since it is based on the active recognition
of the specificity of context and the positioning of political actors. An understanding of rhetoric by means of inclusion in communicative action means
that rhetoric becomes a feature of political expression to which we ought to
attend in our engagement with one another, rather than an aspect of
expression we try to bracket in order to be truly rational (Young, 2000: 64).
(3) Narrative and situated forms of knowledge represent the third way to expand
the conceptualization in the direction of inclusiveness. This form implies an
active response to conditions when the experience and the values of the
majority influence minority discourse by means of domination, repression,
devaluation or demanding change in the sense of a necessary compatibility
with the dominant paradigm. Narration and storytelling mean illuminating
veiled perspectives and empowering the excluded to speak. They also
represent a challenge to the supposedly neutral, unbiased, and standardized
principles of valid legal norms. These forms of narrative show, explain and
describe experience that has been silenced; they bring expression of exclusion,
discrimination and injustice, in which, as Hannah Arendt would say, there is
a public action as a performative action, for appearance and discovery, for
Selbstdarstellung as active presence, and not for action which has some final
product (Arendt, [1961] 1985: 153; 1978: 29). Story-telling is an important
strategy for the uncovering of injustice and systemic mistakes whose victims
are marginalized groups, for example, migrants in situations where
exclusion cannot be explained through universal argumentation.
An exhaustive critique of Habermass communicative action such as that
provided by Young contributes to the explication of the inclusive in communicative action. In attempting to reflect on this critique, the question arises as to
whether inclusiveness is really the blind spot of Habermass theory. Or rather, if
we turn the question around, which elements of his theory could be treated as
elements of inclusiveness? The criticism set forth by Young and many other
critics is that Habermass communicative action excludes interests, desires, and
so on. The authors rejection of the monologic categorical imperative and acceptance of intersubjective forms of the principle of universality indicate that
Habermass theory can nevertheless also be interpreted in the sense of inclusiveness; it shows that perhaps we are not dealing so much with the exclusion of the
expressive but rather with the emphasis on the capacity for communicative
expression/action also of the expressive.
Habermas also explicitly argued that communicative action is always intermingled with specific features of the life-world and that these features in the
plural make up the world as a whole. While feminist critiques take Habermas to
task because communicative action does not include particularisms, Habermas
also explicitly states that it is these particularisms without which the world
cannot be conceived of as a whole, in the sense of communicative action
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(Habermas, 1988, 305, 306). In his response to critics, he argues that the validation of individual specificities does not contradict collective action as suggested
by these critics.
The Theory of Communicative Experience
Another reformulation of Habermass communicative action from a feminist
standpoint is presented by Lenore Langsdorf (2002), who proposes a reconstruction of communicative action based on Deweys concept of aesthetic experience.1
Experience which is accompanied by knowing implies communicative engagement. Action in the Deweyan sense differs from Habermass communicative
action as the representation of objects that we name based on abstraction from
contextual appearance. According to this comparatively sharp interpretation,
Habermass theory is relatively narrow and traditionalist, representing a rigid
epistemology that demands reconstruction. At the centre of reconstruction,
whose aim is to contribute to a more insightful theory of communicative action
(Langsdorf, 2002: 157), the author calls for a different conception of knowing,
which is wider than that of validity claims expressed through language, and is
based on knowing as inquiry.
Langsdorf distinguishes Deweys praxeological understanding of knowing and
experience from Habermass epistemic understanding. She uses reconstruction to
try to go beyond Habermass adoption of traditional forms of argumentation,
with the aim of looking for alternative forms of expression that are inclusive.
Inclusiveness is possible through the realization of difference and through the
transcendence of recognizing winning arguments as opposed to the condition
of those who, as a result of being pressured into consensus, are not able to assert
themselves.
Habermass communicative action as linguistic expression overlooks nonverbal and body language; his theory thus reconstructs a model according to
which knowing is a stable object. Dewey does not conceptualize knowing in the
traditional sense of recognizing an external object and the linguistic abstract
representation of this externality. His conception of communicative action is
transformative and not representative in the sense of Habermass theory of
language. Communicative experience transforms, not represents, and it encourages
us also towards a practical, non-argumentative experience and non-linguistic
forms of action. For Dewey, art as experience is based on shifting, movement and
change. His experience is not separated from communicative action, nor is it
independent in the sense of ideas, as Locke and Hume theorize; experience is
communicative action.
The realization of experience does not bring about a Habermasian consensus;
Deweys concept of experience, therefore, enables thinking that is not trapped in
the exclusioninclusion dichotomy in action. As Dewey ([1934] 1958: 40) says,
there are no genuine initiations and concludings. Experience shifts and changes,
resulting in changes, but not necessarily in the sense of progress and building on
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that which was previously known. Deweys experience is emotional and in
contrast to language (the use of words) in the Habermasian sense, which can be
used to manipulate; it is based on intelligence2 not in the sense of intellectual
thought, but communicative action (see Dewey, [1934] 1958: 41, 42, 46).
Langsdorf interprets Deweyan pragmatism as being concerned primarily with
how any process aids in melioration, rather than with what may be demonstrated
about the nature of its components. The subject-matter of pragmatic aesthetics
differs from that of traditional, analytic aesthetics: it concerns the work of art,
rather than the art object; the dynamic experience that is artistic creation, rather
than the static product of that activity (Langsdorf, 2002: 152).
Reconstruction as conceived of by Langsdorf is based on an extension of
Habermass cognitive-instrumental and moral-practical rationality with the treatment of Deweys experience. It appears that practical disposition in the concept
of communicative experience represents an original addition to rather than a
reconstruction of Habermass communicative action. Reconstruction, as Langsdorf promises, seems too ambitious a formulation for the sharpening of
communicative action at the point of expanding linguistic action to communicative experience. Habermass language is not based on rationality in the sense
of non-recognition of expressive action, a finding which the author herself arrives
at. Habermas also explicitly advocated linking together of cognitive, the moral
and the expressive in mutual action (Habermas, 1982: 262).
Habermas would also be hard to categorize as a traditional epistemologist or
as an advocate of knowing as imaginary ideas. If he is, then it is worth considering Dallmayrs characterization of Habermas as a communicative epistemologist,
who is also interested in knowing in relation to experience and whose theory has
made an important contribution to the discovery of the connections between
knowing and experience (Dallmayr, 1991: 133; 1972: 79). Habermass rationality
is thus not merely linguistic rationality, but is closely connected with knowing
(Wissen, epistem). In connection with knowledge, Habermass Rationalitt as he
himself puts it, has less to do with the possession of knowledge than with how
speaking and acting subjects acquire and use knowledge (1981a: 8). In response
to his critics Habermas has himself explained that his understanding of reason
or rationality is not as removed from the world as the critics claim. In this
context, he talks of rationality as employing knowledge rather than of the rational
as a predicate for the use of knowledge (Habermas, 1982: 234).
A Corrective to Rationality as Linguistic Action: Symbolic
Expression
Habermass rationality introduces a critical shift from the contemplative rationality of consciousness, from the concept of the Enlightenment which reduces
praxis to techne. Rationality implies not only self-actualization, it also connotes
communicative/discursive action. In the words of Bernstein (1983: 172), it is a
shift from the theory of instant rationality, which is based on the illusion that
in principle we can always know in advance how we should behave, and that this
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behaviour will be in accordance with certain generally accepted (fixed) norms.
Communicative action is based not only on the achievement of agreement
(Verstndigung), but even more on understanding (Verstehen) as a process. Instead
of inter-consciousness as an individual project of self-actualization, Habermas
establishes intersubjectivity as a project for the realization of plurality. If within
the paradigm of consciousness, plurality exists as the context which enables selfactualization, then plurality in communicative action is realized and revealed.
Habermass theory connotes embodied communicative action and not interpretative indeterminacy, which, according to Benhabib, is not just an ontological
shortcoming but a constitutive element of the alienated paradigm of consciousness (1986: 243).
Habermass model of dialogical rationality is based on practising and realizing rationality in spoken practice, in which Habermass speech (Sprache) is
discourse, which is understood more broadly than merely articulated validity
claims as linguistic expression. Rationality is not limited to relationships towards
the external objective world, but operates as an analogical transference (Dallmayr,
1991: 137) to other forms of knowing, which are not based solely on rational
validity claims.
Among the many critics who attempt to show the limitation of Habermass
communicative action to speech as linguistic expression, and who thus interpret
Habermass Sprache literally, Johanna Meehan (2000: 42, 43) critically reflects on
the tendency towards linguistic socialization, i.e. a formalistic rigidity and limitation of non-verbal forms of action. From this standpoint she argues for an extension beyond linguistic expression with the inclusion of non-linguistic forms of
interaction. Benhabib, in contrast, attempts to interpret Sprache more broadly,
and looks for non-linguistic action within Habermass theory and not outside it.
Habermass communicative action as speech and linguistic action is realized
through linguistic mediation, which connotes interaction as variable action, and
linguistic formulation as action which can be undermined or changed and understanding as a process which is open to revision and reinterpretation. She interprets communicative action as an interactive process as well, not reduced to speech
in the sense of linguistic utterance, but including body language, mime, sound
and other forms of non-linguistic or linguistically articulable modes of communication (Benhabib, 1997: 58). Communicative action can include different groups
of people, for example, children or the handicapped, by means of the complementarity of rational, spoken argumentation with other forms of speech.
Habermas himself explicitly says that, in contrast to what he is often accused
of, communicative action is not based solely on rationality in the sense of speech
acts, but also on symbolic expressions (symbolische uerungen) (Habermas,
1981a: 8). Habermass rationality is not tied only to the speech act, which can
be correct or mistaken, effective or ineffective. Habermas also stresses that I do
not identify either action, social action or communicative action with speechacts (1982: 264). He attributes great importance to discourse formation
discourses are islands in the sea of practice (1982: 235) but communicative
action is not limited to discourses as linguistic expression. Simone Chambers, for
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example, recognizes a wider understanding of Habermass speech when she says,
Speech is more than a verbal naming of things; speech is action (1996: 6).
Argumentative speech (argumentative Rede) as a key component of Habermass
rationality as well as a wider theory of communicative action is based more on
lexis than on praxis, although Habermas at the same time stresses that it is not
based exclusively on a speech situation as a verbal expression. In this context he
also acknowledges that his theory of argumentation is in the initial phase of
development, and, by saying this, informs us that it does not offer final answers
and that his purpose is not to exclude expressive action from speech action, but
on the contrary, to define communicative action in such a way that it will include
both, by assimilating action to speech, and interaction to conversation (see
Habermas, 1981a: 96), but by means of supplementation (not exclusion). In this
framework argumentation is defined more broadly, as a reflexive continuation
towards the understanding of directed action. Within discourse theory, argumentation is conceived of as a reflexive form of communicative action, which assumes
reciprocity in everyday life and which can be thought of outside the privileged/
non-privileged dichotomy only in the context of communicative action (see
Habermas, 1981a: 25; 2001; 140, 141).
Argumentation also does not imply, as critics assert, the prevailing of the
better argument, which has the effect of force and silences the action of others.
As Chambers stresses, Habermass argumentation rules as part of his wider
theory of communicative action, are not logical necessities; nor are they based
on transcendental ultimate ground, but on hypothetical ultimate ground to
include fallibility (1996: 112, 113). Habermas understands argumentation not
only as joint action, but also as the enabling of action. He stresses an understanding of argumentation that would prevent the dominant imposition of a
certain action or the assertion of a given argument by force. Argumentation is
designed to prevent some from suggesting or prescribing to others what is good
for them. It is designed to make possible the autonomy of will formation
(Habermas, 2001: 71).
Habermass communicative rationality (kommunikative Rationalitt), in
contrast to cognitive-instrumental rationality (kognitiv-instrumentelle Rationalitt), is thus not tied exclusively to the demand for argumentation in a speech
situation as a linguistic expression. Habermas stresses the meaning of other forms
of action, among which, for example, he cites desire, feeling, and mood. Rationality, and indeed communicative action in general, are defined more broadly than
just speech acts, as the disposition of speaking and acting subjects or as interaction, interpersonal verbal or extra-verbal action (Habermas, 1981a: 22, 86).
While he is criticized for preferring verbal to non-verbal action, and although the
bulk of his theory of communicative action is devoted to a treatment of the speech
act as lexis, Habermas, a decade before he began the systematic development of
the theory of communicative action, wrote that linguistic expression, expression
in various forms of action, and embodied gestures are not opposed to but are
rather complementary forms of action (Habermas, 1970: 210), or rather nonverbal forms of action that suit the use of language (Habermas, 1982: 234).
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The Ideal Speech Situation as a Thought Experiment
A number of critics (Thompson, 1984; Zolo, 1992; Alejandro, 1993; Dietz,
1996; Gould, 1996) have criticized Habermas for an idealized projection of
society. They see idealization in particular in the ideal speech situation, according to which equal participation in the public sphere remains at the level of an
ideal projection. In his written responses to these critics, Habermas has explained
that the theory of communicative action is not a plan for an ideal society of the
good life. Interpretations that take him to task for this kind of idealization have
been characterized by Bernstein (1983: 192) as a misunderstanding of Habermass
ideas. Responding to critics, Habermas has reacted sharply to the frequent accusations which appear in the most peculiar contexts and asserted that his theory
of communicative action where it is focused on validity claims implies a
rationalist utopian society: I do not regard the fully transparent society as an
ideal, nor do I wish to suggest any other ideal (Habermas, 1982: 235; emphasis
in original). On the contrary, Habermas conceived of the theory of communicative action as a response to metaphysical or epistemological attempts to
produce the ultimate foundationalism or to reconstruct the normative foundations of critical theory (Zadnikar, 1995: 32).
Habermas uses the ideal speech situation for the re-thinking of communicative action, and so the concept appears of much greater value than if compared
to the interpretations that see it as a mechanism for the projection of the ideal
society. It is true that, despite the rejection of action in practice from the ideal
speech situation, it also appears as an anticipation of communicative action:
The ideal speech situation is neither an empirical phenomenon nor a pure construct
it is a reciprocally manufactured . . . assumption in discourse. It can be different
from the actual state of things, but it is nevertheless a fiction which is operative . . .
in the process of communication. (Zadnikar, 1995: 34)
Habermass communicative action is not a projection of an ideal speech situation

or the good life in the absolute sense. The ideal speech situation at the same time
is not a priori separate from practical action, as some authors have criticized. For
example, we do not arrive at a valid consensus only in conditions of the ideal
speech situation in the sense of its unpredictability in practical action, since
consensual decisions are an integral part of everyday life (Habermas, 1982: 272).
The theory of communicative action is a result of Habermass efforts to reconcile the tensions between his commitment to an ideal speech situation, and his
awareness of the counterfactual status of everything even approximating ideal
speech (Balbus, 1984: 27). Different forms of action not merely imply effective
speech acts, but are more broadly connected with different forms of expressing
the truth (Wahrheit) or cooperatively seeking the truth (Habermas, 1981a: 19),
which is defined as the understanding of responsibility. Habermass theory
perceives responsible citizens as seekers of truth, in which truth in a process is
not an objective, transcendental aspect of some metaphysical reality.
Validity claims, which some critics interpret as insensible to the validation of
difference, are understood by Habermas in the communicative sense as statements
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about truth, in which truth depends on affairs in the world. Trans-subjective
validity claims (transsubjektive Geltungsansprche) do not have the status, as some
have claimed, of trans-subjectivity as imaginary unworldliness, of a distant ideal,
which in communicative action, as in the ideal speech situation, cannot be
realized. On the contrary, trans-subjectivity for Habermas implies worldliness,
action-in-the-world or from the perspective of the life-world (Habermas, 2001,
25), which has importance not only for the acting individual but also for the
observer.
Conclusion
An attempt to provide a synthesis of combined with a critical reflection on
feminist readings of Habermass communicative action concludes with the observation that feminist authors aim to express communicative action as a more
inclusive concept of citizen activity. Critiques and reconceptualizations from
feminist standpoints provide a useful insight that helps explain communicative
action not just as a theoretical concept, but also as a concept that can be used to
explain the (dis)functioning of the public sphere in contemporary societies. To
synthesize the criticism of communicative action as has been done in this article,
five reproaches provided by feminist critique can be made. According to these,
Habermas has done the following:
(1) purified communicative action from interest, and placed it in the field of
fiction (Gould, 1990; 1996; Dietz, 1996);
(2) provided a monological and technical understanding of rationality (Braaten,
1995);
(3) grounded communicative action in a proceduralist ethics of justice
(Chambers, 1995; Bickford, 1996; Gould, 1996);
(4) promoted speech acts as the only genuine form of communicative action
(Gould, 1990, 1996; Meehan, 2000; Young, 2000);
(5) abstracted communicative action from contextual appearances by grounding it using a narrow epistemological tradition (Langsdorf, 2002).
The ambivalence of feminist critique of Habermass communicative action is
evident, as has been demonstrated in this article, through a combination of
various attempts at reconceptualization combined with the disclosing of the political dimensions of the concept of communicative action itself. Feminist critics who
argue for the changing of communicative action in the direction of greater
openness and inclusivity put forward the following alternative suggestions:
(1) a principle of complementarity of communicative and strategic action;
(2) a theory of communicative thinking together with intersubjectivity as a
corrective;
(3) a feminist discourse of the ethics of care instead of a Habermasian ethics of
justice;
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(4) expressive, political narrative as a supplement to rational expressions;
(5) the theory of communicative experience combined with the corrective of
rationality as a purely linguistic action, and a critique of the ideal speech
situation.
If the majority of critics opt for a need to thematize inclusivity in relation to
communicative action, some authors recognize dimensions of public/political
engagement in Habermass theory itself. Both an exploration of Habermass
theory as well as a closer reading of feminist critiques, as I have shown, point to
the fact that elements of inclusivity can also be found in communicative action
as it was developed by Habermas (see Habermas, 1981a, 1982, 1992, 2001).
Therefore, the most valuable contribution of feminist critiques of Habermass
communicative action lies in the explanation of and emphasis placed on the need
to seriously thematize communicative action as an open and inclusive mode of
public engagement. Despite occasionally providing too sharp an interpretation
of Habermass concept, thus excluding a broader contextual reflection, feminist
critiques remain a valuable contribution to the understanding of communicative
action as a concept that, although frequently used, is still in need of further
exploration.
Notes
1 The starting point for the authors reconstruction is the Habermasian three-world
reference system: (1) the objective world of empirical reality; (2) the social world of
interpersonal relationships; and (3) the subjective world of individual experience. The
author concentrates on the critique of Habermass theory of communicative action as
presented in the 1976 essay, What is universal pragmatics? For more on the critique
of Habermass pragmatism, see Aboulafia et al., Habermas and Pragmatism (2002).
2 For example, see Dewey (1929]1960), where the author equates intellect with action.
His concept is comparable with the intellect in Arendt ([1961] 1985).
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Mojca Pajnik, PhD is a scientific counsellor at the Peace Institute, Institute for
Contemporary Social and Political Studies in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Her current
research interests include the phenomena of the public, the public sphere and
citizenship in their transnational forms. Address: The Peace institute, Institute for
Contemporary Social and Political Studies, Metelkova 6, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
[email: mojca.pajnik@ mirovni-institut.si]

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Feminist Reflections on Habermass

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05 065719 Pajnik (bc-t)

Pajnik Feminist Reflections on Habermass Communicative Action

Downloaded from est.sagepub.com at Sage Publications (UK) on October 30, 2012

05 065719 Pajnik (bc-t)

European Journal of Social Theory 9(3)

Downloaded from est.sagepub.com at Sage Publications (UK) on October 30, 2012

05 065719 Pajnik (bc-t)

Pajnik Feminist Reflections on Habermass Communicative Action

Downloaded from est.sagepub.com at Sage Publications (UK) on October 30, 2012

05 065719 Pajnik (bc-t)

European Journal of Social Theory 9(3)

Habermass communicative action is not a projection of an ideal speech situation

Downloaded from est.sagepub.com at Sage Publications (UK) on October 30, 2012

05 065719 Pajnik (bc-t)

Pajnik Feminist Reflections on Habermass Communicative Action

Downloaded from est.sagepub.com at Sage Publications (UK) on October 30, 2012

05 065719 Pajnik (bc-t)

European Journal of Social Theory 9(3)

Downloaded from est.sagepub.com at Sage Publications (UK) on October 30, 2012

05 065719 Pajnik (bc-t)

Pajnik Feminist Reflections on Habermass Communicative Action