This thesis explores Jurgen Habermas's dualist, system and action methodology of the social sciences as a continuation of Frankfurt School critical theory. It also interprets it as a reworking of this tradition. First, it lays out the criteria and models Habermas uses for a theory of rational modern progress, and relates these ideals to his empirical political theory of practice in the public sphere (Chapter One). Then, it looks for positivisms and objectivisms in the project that threaten its critical function (Chapter Two). Finally, it illustrates these positivisms at work in Habermas's dualist theory of new social movements (Chapter Three). Habermas's dialogue with new social movement theory illuminates some hidden instrumentalisms in his critical theory of society.

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This thesis maintains that Jürgen Habermas‘s moral and political theories rely on a modified version of Kant‘s notion of normativity. Taking this as a starting point, it examines this component in light of criticisms inspired by Hegel‘s critique of Kant. The thesis shows that Habermas can answer most of the criticisms that could arise from Hegel‘s critique. That said, Hegel‘s criticism of the will as a tester of maxims does apply to Habermas. This criticism states that Kant cannot connect the universal will of morality and the particular will of the empirical subject because he rules out particular contents as susceptible of being universalized. And it can apply to Habermas because he set strict limits to what can count as a content which may bleed into the justification of moral norms and, following Kenneth Baynes – in his interpretation of Habermas‘s theory –, of legal and political norms. To be justifiable, – according to Habermas – these norms need to embody generalizable interests and they cannot be based on particular interests. However, Habermas infers from this that norms can only be justified with impartial, that is agent-neutral reasons, and cannot be justified with agent-relative reasons. From this, emerges the question whether and to what extent a theory of this sort can successfully include particular contents (for example a particular agents‘ real interests, inclinations and needs). The strict version of the generalizability of norms seems to occlude this possibility. Nonetheless, it is possible to rebut this criticism by slackening the strong version of normative justification that Habermas has built into the theory. By means of an analysis of two elements that he incorporates into his reconstruction of the normative point of view, namely, the concept of ideal role taking and the notion of mutual recognition, it is possible to argue that the loosening of the strict notion of generalizability is a modification that does not contradict and actually coheres with Habermas‘s Kantian concept of moral reason, and this operation fortifies the theory in the face of the Hegelian criticism of the will as a tester of maxims. To develop these issues, this work is divided in two parts with two chapters each part. Part I is an analysis of Habermas‘s notion of moral reason and autonomy and it reconstructs its normative Kantianism. After that, it discusses Hegelian criticisms of Habermas‘s moral theory. Part II focuses on Habermas‘s political Kantianism in Between Facts and Norms and in the debate with Rawls and it examines Hegelian criticisms of that Kantianism.

This thesis examines the “postsecular turn” taken by the philosophy of Jürgen Habermas since 2001, with a particular focus on his political theory. It argues that the postsecular turn was motivated primarily by the limitations of Habermas' philosophical paradigm of postmetaphysical thinking. It then analyses his model of postsecular deliberative democracy, and argues that the model should be rejected due to its reliance on an unworkable procedure of sacred-to-secular translation. The thesis is divided into three parts. Part 1 is an analysis of the place of religion in Habermas' writings on social theory from the 1970s and 1980s. It outlines his original account of religious language, and of the “linguistification of the sacred” which accompanies the transition from traditional to modern societies. Part 2 focuses on Habermas' paradigm of postmetaphysical thinking, and shows that the paradigm creates the conditions for postmetaphysical thinkers to appropriate religious concepts. It also argues that Habermas' inability to address the “anthropic problem” in postmetaphysical terms led to his turn to postsecularism. Part 3 examines the model of postsecular deliberative democracy which Habermas has argued for since 2001. Drawing on the accounts of religious language from Part 1 and of appropriation from Part 2, it concludes that the procedure of sacred-to-secular translation on which the model relies is unworkable.

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Dès l'apparition de la Théorie de l'agir communicationnel, les philosophes critiquent le modèle système/monde vécu. Cette théorie de la société repose sur la nouvelle théorie habermassienne de la pragmatique universelle et de son appropriation à la théorie des systèmes de Talcott Parsons. La plupart de ces critiques doutent de la viabilité théorique de d'un modèle binaire de la société. Toutefois, dans cette thèse, je constate l'impossibilité de réconcilier cette nouvelle conception de la société avec les positions politiques antérieures d'Habermas. Il est improbable qu'Habermas aurait pu participer à ces débats tout en défendant sa théorie binaire de la société. Finalement, je constate l'impossibilité de réconcilier ce nouveau modèle théorique avec la théorie du droit développée dans Droit et démocratie. J'arrive à la conclusion suivante : le modèle système/monde vécu doit être modifié ou abandonné.

This thesis investigates Habermas's attempt to establish a credible form of universalism in moral and political philosophy by means of the theoretical approach which he terms "discourse ethics." The central question motivating this study is whether Habermas succeeds in this ambition. Discourse ethics specifies a procedure which purports to enable all agents involved in a conflict of interest in which issues of justice are at stake to come to a rational and cooperative resolution. It proposes a position unique among contemporary approaches to justice in the strength and character of its anti-relativist stance: the plurality of human cultures and the situated character of human understanding do not, according to this theory, bar the way to arriving at a minimal form of moral universalism. Although the procedure specified in communicative ethics elucidates only a narrow range of concerns--those pertaining to justice in the strict sense--it aims to do so in a way valid across all human cultures. / Habermas's strategy for the defence of a species-wide moral universalism is, I argue, both the key feature of his position, and the least well understood. Discussion of discourse ethics to date has focussed almost exclusively on the question of its appropriateness to the context of modern, Western pluralism. An important reason for this focus has been the intricacy of Habermas's argumentative strategy, which links the recent work on discourse ethics to his longstanding project of developing a theory of communicative action. / The principle aim of this thesis is to clarify Habermas's position by explicating his programme of justification. In so doing, I draw attention to several problems in his approach as a mechanism for cross-cultural conflict adjudication, and endeavour to provide a more perspicuous account of the relation of Habermas's theory to its main philosophical competitors, especially Rawlsian deontology, and contextualism.

Habermas rejects a class-specific approach to social analysis and political practice and, in renewing the social theory of Marx, he turns primarily to a reconstruction of the work of Max Weber. The conceptualization of society is approached from the interrelated themes of rationalization, bureaucratization and reification. But Habermas seeks to overcome the instrumentalist implications of Weber's one-sided view of rationalization and related rejection of a cognitivist ethics by an expanded framework of rationality that introduces the concept of communicative action and, with it, the promise of clarifying the normative foundations of a critical theory of society. / Against contrary views of Habermas' overriding purpose this thesis shows the major strands of his theoretical programme to have their unifying interconnections within an enduring commitment to a rational morally guided practice. Critically vulnerable aspects of this programme, however, suggest that the unity of theory and practice will prove to be as elusive for him as it was for his Marxist predecessors.

Dissertação (mestrado)-Universidade de Brasília, Faculdade de Comunicação, Programa de pós-graduação em Comunicação, 2010. / Submitted by Jaqueline Ferreira de Souza (jaquefs.braz@gmail.com) on 2011-05-09T00:44:19Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2010_RejaneMariadeMedeiros.pdf: 1389860 bytes, checksum: 98cbe178d6af08e62412ee01d56eb511 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Jaqueline Ferreira de Souza(jaquefs.braz@gmail.com) on 2011-05-09T00:45:01Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 2010_RejaneMariadeMedeiros.pdf: 1389860 bytes, checksum: 98cbe178d6af08e62412ee01d56eb511 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2011-05-09T00:45:01Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2010_RejaneMariadeMedeiros.pdf: 1389860 bytes, checksum: 98cbe178d6af08e62412ee01d56eb511 (MD5) / Esta pesquisa parte do pressuposto que a mídia é uma importante arena de deliberação e de construção de sentidos, sendo um dos principais espaços públicos da sociedade moderna. A partir dessa premissa, analisa, num primeiro momento, se as matérias sobre tributos divulgadas pelo Jornal Nacional no período estudado atendem a requisitos que garantam uma deliberação mediada sobre o tema justiça fiscal. Num segundo momento são enumerados os valores-notícia presentes nas matérias. O objetivo deste estudo é averiguar se a mídia contribui para o "intercâmbio de argumentos em público" nos debates sobre as questões tributárias, mesmo considerando os constrangimentos organizacionais e os critérios de noticiabilidade. A partir de um estudo das principais obras de Habermas, de um panorama da evolução da imprensa desde a revolução industrial até os dias atuais, de um histórico das clivagens nos modelos tributários existentes e de um aprofundamento acerca dos valores-notícia, foi possível concluir que as matérias veiculadas pelo telejornal de maior audiência no país, mesmo aquelas ideologicamente afinadas com a posição dos donos da emissora, atendem a determinados valores-notícia. Quando o "acontecimento" possui poucos critérios substantivos, são acionados os valores-notícia de construção para dar maior atratividade à matéria. Essa obediência do telejornal aos valores-notícia é boa para a sociedade civil, pois a partir do domínio desses valores ela pode buscar o contra-agendamento de temas comumente não presentes na mídia, como o da justiça fiscal, contribuindo, assim, para a busca de novos consensos. _________________________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACT / The starting point of this research is the presupposition that the media is an important arena for deliberation and construction of meaning, being one of the main public spaces in modern society. Based on this premise, it firstly analyses if the news reports on taxes broadcasted by Jornal Nacional during a given period meet requirements that assure a mediated deliberation on the issue of fiscal justice. In a second moment, the news values in the news reports are listed. This study aims at verifying if the media contributes to the “interchange of arguments in public†in debates on tax issues, even considering organizational constraints and noticiability criteria. Based on a study of the main works of Habermas, on a panorama of the evolution of the press since the industrial revolution until the present, on the history of cleavages in existing tax models and on a deep study of news values, it was possible to conclude that news reports broadcasted by the most watched news program in the country, even those ideologically aligned with the owners of the television network, respond to certain news values. When the event has few substantive criteria, construction news values are used to make news reports more attractive. The news program‟s obedience to news values is good for civil society, which can, based on the control of these values, pursue the social setting of issues that are not usually present in the media, such as fiscal justice, thus contributing to the search of new consensus.

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