Abstract

The study consists of a systematic and critical analysis of the concepts of speech and lifeworld in Jurgen Habermas' Theory of Communicative Action, an exploration of the limits to their use as the basis for a critical theory of society and a recommendation for the first steps toward a theory of critical social life that retains Habermas' insights in a revised, pragmatically and phenomenologically chastened, form. Specifically, I develop out of Habermas' theoretical edifice the philosophical ground of a theory that takes up not simply speech and lifeworlds as two facets of a general theory of society, but rather the speech of the lifeworld as the basis for the theory and practice of critical social life. ;At issue is the character of mundane, socially critical, practice. I show that the radical distinction between communicative and strategic action Habermas relies on is untenable at the level of everyday communicative practice and hides the specificity of communicative interactions. Turning to Habermas' concept of the lifeworld, I show that his formulation--unlike that of certain phenomenologists--remains at the level of culture as distinct from social "forms of life." Together, the analyses of speech and lifeworld in Habermas' theory curtail an adequate account of critical social practice. Drawing on Jean-Francois Lyotard's account of the speech-lifeworld relation, I modify the themes of the theory of communicative action in such a way as to keep the analysis focused on the mundane aspects of social criticism. These modifications point in two directions. First, they suggest a "preferential option" for the socially marginal that can be made plausible as a way of discerning critical practice in the social domain. Second, they open the way to a theory of social responsibility that relies on, but is not determined by, lifeworldly structures