Abstract

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