Recovering Ethical Life

by J.M. Bernstein

Reading across the whole range of Habermas' work, this book traces the development of the theory of communicative reason from its inception to its defence against postmodernism. Bernstein's analyses are always problem centred and thematic rather than textual, making this a major contribution to the critical literature on Habermas.

264 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

J.M. Bernstein is the University Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research. He previously taught at the University of Essex and at Vanderbilt University. He works primarily in the areas of ethics, critical theory, aesthetics and the philosophy of art, and German Idealism. His books include: The Philosophy of the Novel (Minneapolis, 1984); The Fate of Art: Aesthetic Alienation from Kant to Derrida and Adorno (Oxford, 1992); Adorno: Disenchantment and Ethics (New York, 2001); Against Voluptuous Bodies: Late Modernism and the Meaning of Painting (Stanford, 2006). He also edited and wrote the introduction for Classic and Romantic German Aesthetics (New York, 2003).

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a bit of a challenge for me because I am not well versed in Habermas' critical theory, so my ability to assess Professor Bernstein's critical assessment of communicative pragmatics and the ideal speech situation is certainly lacking. That said, I suspect this book is not only valuable to a person like myself who has some baseline knowledge of Habermas' project, but it is also a valuable read for those more immersed in Habermas scholarship. Bernstein is a clear writer who engages the reader in a series of arguments, each building on the other, that are well articulated, well thought out and deeply insightful.

The basic premise of the book is that Habermas' ideal speech situation which addresses the limitations of the philosophy of the subject by shifting de-ontological moral reasoning from consciousness to communication theory does not overcome the weaknesses of de-ontology that critics from Hegel to Amartya Sen have leveled against idealism. Bernstein walks the reader through each element of Habermas' theory and its critical limitations, chapter by chapter starting with the linguistic reinterpretation of Hegelian theory of recognition, moving through communicative action and ending with the limitations of Habermas' theory of moral rationality as based upon the consensus rather than disclosure. Drawing from Rousseau, Seyla Benhabib, Aristotle and Castoriadis, Bernstein develops a critical alternative to Habermas that places emphasis on the historical bonds and intimate relations of ethical life that inform decision-making and assessment of ethical action.

Bernstein is an important critic of Habermas both because he respectfully reconstructs Habermas' theory, acknowledging the cogency and the historical importance of the theory of communicative action and universal pragmatics and because he is able to evaluate its limits. In this, Bernstein achieves what he describes good philosophy as achieving: a disclosure of the world through insights with an imaginary core that theory alone cannot capture.