Research On Habermas’s Thought Of The Political Public Sphere

Using Habermas’s particular investigation method which combines facts and norms,this article reviews the historical evolution of his theory of political public sphere anddelineates its normal foundations, radical concepts and historical reflections, in the orderof norms-facts and norms-facts. Among them his theory of communicative action,developed on the basis of intersubjectivity, underlays the rational, linguistic and ethicalfoundation for his theory of political public sphere. When these transcendental theorieswere applied to realistic political public activities, numerous conflictions and argumentsemerge. These conflictions and arguments also determine that his concept of politicalpublic sphere continuously evolves and is tension-charged. Habermas insists that theseconflictions and arguments shall be resolved only through rational communications inorder to realize democratic functionalities of political public sphere. He portrayed thepoblic sphere ideological schemata also restore its historical mirror. In this article,Habermas’s rational-critical approach is applied to scrutinize Habermas himself and hisphilosophy to distinguish the disparity and consistency from Karl Marx’s perspective ofview. The outcome may benefit the contemplation of an ideal political public life.The concept of political public sphere is no doubt an outcome of modernized society,the speculation on political public life has begun a long time ago among thinkers.Through the dialectics from “multiple” to “single” and from “special” to “universal”,ancient metaphysical thinkers formed the concepts of political public sphere whichcombined classical political state and civil society. This is consistent with theirunderstanding of “Reason” and “phenomenon”. Ancient people considered communalcity-state (polis) as the final and perfect institution and treated private realms as inferiorbodies. Aristotle’s “man is by nature a political animal” and Marcus Tullius Cicero’sdescription of “a Republic is the property of the public” are two typical examples amongothers. With the increased reflections on subjectivity in modern epistemologicalphilosophy, more scholars started to restate the distinctions between “public” and“private” and between “others” and “self”. Accepting private realms, they began tospeculate how to agglomerate atomized individuals into a united and harmonic society.The debates between John Locke and Rousseau, the inheritance and rejection ofthe philosophies among Kant, Hegel and Marx, and the contradictory concepts ofpolitical public sphere between John Stuart Mill’s and Alexis Tocqueville’s weresomehow symbols of this type of transformation and evolution in modern political publiclife. When excessive expressions of selfhood (owness) eventually turned against thephilosophy of subjectivity, many thinkers started to transcend subjectivity in differentapproaches and from different perspectives. All of these efforts led to intersubjectivitywhich embraces equality and tolerance. Rational critics and communication are requiredto allow intersubjectivity in political public life. Different perspectives of political publicsphere, such as Hannah Arendt’s three realms of public domain (i.e., between people,between associations and between publics), the “legal” political life model of John Rawlsand Bruce Ackerman, and Charles Taylor’s “metatopical space”, are variousrepresentations of intersubjectively constructed realms. Facing the reality of atomizedindividuals and diversified existences, pluralists argued if modern political public sphereexisted and if common political consensus could be reached through rationaldiscourse.Among these contemplations emerged Habermas’s ideology of political publicsphere.Habermas’s particular speculation method combines transcendentalism andempiricism, which inherently implies that his theory of communicative action is acoherent unification of norms and facts. Resting on intersubjectivity, the theory ofcommunicative action underlies the normative cornerstone for his theory of politicalpublic sphere. In the framework of intersubjectivity the political public life naturallyallows the existence of diversity. Through rational-critical debates and equal dialogues,intersubjective communications will lead to a common judgment and consensus, andtherefore achieve the harmony and unification of a society. Equality, freedom andtolerance shall thus be inherent components of modern political public life. In theframework of communicative action, Habermas laid the normative foundation of politicalpublic sphere from rational, linguistic and ethical aspects. Theoretically rational-criticaldebates and arguments will eventually lead to a common judgment, consensus andunification in this idealized political public sphere rooted with the theory ofcommunicative action, discourse theory and discourse ethics. However, due to the co-existence of diversity and differentiation in a modern heterogenized society, politicalpublic life is full of conflicts and contradictions, far from the idealized transcendentalrealm. Due to these conflicts and contradictions, Habermas has been continuouslytransforming and developing his concept of political public sphere along the historicalcourse of "institutions of civil society-civil society-global civil society". The tensionbetween facts and norms consequently exposed the characteristics of duality rooted inpolitical public sphere, such as conflicts between "monism" and "pluralism",contradictions of "equality" and "inequality" and debates between "public" and "private".Clearly realizing these theoretical and practical barriers, Habermas proposed to solvethese contradictions and conflicts through rational communications. For this purpose, hedeveloped discourse theory and discourse ethics, and established a set of idealizedsettings for the communication. The application of discourse theory in political publiclife is ensured by institutionalization. Institutionalized communications withininstitutionalized deliberative bodies and non-institutionalized communications withinnon-institutionalized public spheres are two discourse approaches designed by Habermas.Institutionalized deliberative bodies are regulated by formal legal procedures andmechanisms while non-institutionalized public spheres provide topics of commonconcerns and empower legal rights to the institutionalized deliberative bodies. This leadsto the two-track model of deliberative democracy. Emphasizing the unity of theory andpractice in his studies, Habermas’s work covered both theoretical contemplations andhistorical facts. He had made impressive achievements in revitalizing historical pathwaysof political public life (i.e., emergence of classical Polis political public sphere-transformation of representative public sphere-formation of liberal capitalism politicalpublic sphere-decomposition of later capitalistic political public life).Habermas’s theory of political public sphere, weavened with normative foundation,radical ideology and historical reflection, greatly impacted the academic societies andreal life. Its inherent controversies, such as those between facts and norms, transcendentaland practical, and theory and practice, inevitably caused numerous questionings andcriticisms. In this article, both strength and weakness of Habermas’s ideology arescrutinized from Mark’s perspective on public domain. The value of Habermas’sideology of political public sphere is recognized as that it inherited Marx’s critical theory of society, broke through the dichotomy of civil society and political state, and furtherdeveloped Marx’s theory of society. Unfortunately, Habermas, from his capitalisticperspective, replaced the labor theory of value with the relatively idealized theory ofcommunicative action. Neglecting materialistic power in reality, his idealistic picture ofpolitical public sphere tends to be Utopian and his amendments toward perfect politicalpublic lifeworld different from the revolutionary way which Mark advocated.