A Study Of Habermas's Theory Of Discourse Democracy

Democracy is an important value of modern society. Correspondingly, the reflection of democracy has become beautiful scenery in philosophy's garden, in which Habermas'theory of discourse democracy rightly is a prominent flower. And his"discourse democracy"is realized through"the public sphere". In other words, for Habermas, democracy is the discourse democracy with the public sphere. So, regarding the public sphere as the perspective, this dissertation attempts to study his theory of discourse democracy.It is through the diagnosis of theory and practice of modern democracy that Habermas brings out his question of discourse democracy. He examines the thought course of modern social philosophy's replacing of classical politics, and the process that science and technology has been becoming"ideology"in capitalist society. Then he draws out the following conclusion: modern democratic politics which has been losing practical discourse can't take on the role of guardian of modern society any more, it has been degenerating into the form of rule of technological autarchy; The legitimacy of public power doesn't originate from the sphere of life any more, instead from the system itself which is controlled by tool-aim reason, the life world can only provide the formal popular loyalty for it. That is just the capitalistic crisis of legitimacy. To save the democratic politics from this crisis, the only way is to renew the public sphere, fully bring the potential of it into play.The idea of"the public sphere"is not the invention of Habermas, because it has a long history. Viewing from the history of thought, there had been the following ideas: the public sphere as political action, the public sphere as social opinion, the public sphere as economic action, and the public sphere as ideology. From the point of view of democracy, Habermas synthesizes these ideas of the public sphere and emphatically expounds political public sphere. He regards it as an absolutely necessary ideal category of capitalistic democratic politics, and thinks that it contains the mechanism and purport of democracy. This kind of the public sphere is full of the tension between the private and the public, and is the unity of practical discourse of ethic, moral and politics. It's democratic mechanism manifests itself as following: through communicative action, the public which are independent and autonomic posit the topics for discussion into the public sphere, and freely discuss, defend, criticize them. Then they manage to general agreement, which is the public opinion. However, Habermas's discourse democracy is not only the discourse communication in the public sphere, and manifests itself as the reciprocity between the public sphere and the system of power, thus a kind of model of procedural democracy whose basis is the practice democracy is constituted.Habermas's theory of discourse democracy with the public sphere has exercised indelible influences. In a certain extent, it answers the question put forward by post-modernism, that is whether the modern democracy is possible, as well as Rawls's question that how the modern democracy in plural society is possible. Furthermore, his theory has also profoundly inflected the theory and practice of deliberative democracy. As a kind of western Marxist theory of democracy, the theory of discourse democracy with public sphere is consistent with Marxist theory of democracy in some aspects, but it also deviates from the Marxism in some extent.