On Habermas's Thought Of The Public Sphere

The "public sphere" is the core character of the modern society. The thought of the public sphere plays a very important role in Habermas's thought. However, the study of the thought of Habermas's public sphere in Chinese Intellectual circle is restricted to the work of Habermas's early book the Transformation of the Public Sphere. They lack the point of view taking the investigation as a whole, especially lacking the point of view from the public sphere as such. This dissertation divides Habermas's public sphere into three parts, that is, the thoughts of the public sphere in Habermas's early study, in the theory of his moral philosophy and in the political philosophy respectively.The thought of the public sphere of Habermas's early study focuses on the elaboration of "the bourgeois public sphere". However, the "bourgeois public sphere" faces the dilemma theoretically. With the society statelized and the state socialized, the public sphere "re-feudalized". From the point of view of the Intellectual history, the transformation of the core of the western thought from the "nature" into "will" results in an issue of how the "individual will" form the "general will".Based on the theory of the communicative action, Habermas justifies the thought of the public sphere from the point of view of the universalism. On the criticism of Weber's "instrumental reason", Habermas advocates the notion of "communicative reason", which underpins his thought of the public sphere. He also points out the standard of reason of the public sphere proceeding from his "discourse theory". However, His thought of the public sphere characteristic of the universalism faces the strong criticism of scholars who prefer the pluralism: MacCarthy represents the criticism from the point of view of the plural values. He contends that Habermas overlooks the problem of the pluralism and the "general will" he reconstructs from Rousseau separates the relationship of the morality and the ethics; Frazer doubts the character of universalism of Habermas's thought of the public sphere, which does not notice the problem of "participatory parity"; Benhabib insists that Habermas' thought of the public sphere imply the distinction of the public sphere and the private sphere, which result in the indifference of the group of women's interests. In a word, the tension of the pluralism and universalism persists in Habermas' thought of the public sphere.As to how to realize the "general will" in reality in the plural society, in the political philosophy Habermas increasingly stresses on the importance of the law on which all sorts of different voices are converged and he finally claims that "deliberative democracy" transcends the thought of the public sphere of the liberalism and republicanism. Based on the communicative theory, he is increasingly confident of the public sphere. He even shows that we should transcend the restriction of the nation states and build up the global public sphere, which fulfill the transformation from "the public sphere" into "the cosmopolitism civil society".This dissertation takes an approach of the history of thought, which locates Habermas's theory of public sphere in the whole of his own theory and the dialogues with the contemporary thinkers such as Rawls, Taylor, Arendt and his Critics, which shows the whole theory of Habermas's public sphere. This dissertation takes the pluralism as a point of view. The thought of the public sphere characteristic with universalism which Habermas elaborates inevitably faces the challenge of pluralism, which ranges from the plural values, minority groups to special nation states. So to speak, Habermas's theory of the public sphere includes the contradiction of the universalism and the pluralism which Habermas own self has been realized, however, he would not like to abandon the elements of the universalism of his thought of the public sphere, for he wants to underpin the society in the plural society.