Michael Maidan
Also a History of Philosophy, Volume 1: The Project of a Genealogy of Postmetaphysical Thinking
Polity Press
2023
Paperback
448
Reviewed by: Michael Maidan
Also a History of Philosophy (hereafter abbreviated AHPh), originally published in German in 2018 in two volumes, is presented in English translation in a three-volume edition. The first volume, corresponding to about half of the German first one, will be followed next year by a second. A third and final volume will be published in 2025. Habermas —or his translator— provides a justification for the tripartite division (AHPh, p. 83). While the editorial decision to divide the original work into three volumes is understandable considering its length, it means that the English-language reader will have to wait another two years to become familiar with and evaluate the work in its entirety.
The editorial decision to release the book in three volumes also demanded some small adjustments to the text. Whereas volume One carries the subtitle: “The Project of a Genealogy of Postmetaphysical Thinking”, the German original is “Die okzidentale Konstellation von Glauben und Wissen”. Ciaran Cronin, who translated the book and is a veteran translator of Habermas, chose to substitute the original subtitle with the title of the first part of volume One (“Zur Frage einer Genealogie nachmetaphysischen Denkens”). There are advantages and disadvantages to this move. It can be argued, on the one hand, that Cronin’s choice depicts better the whole project than the original subtitle. Indeed, Cronin’s decision directs us to read the Occidental constellation as a particular subset in the development of postmetaphysical thought. But, as a matter of fact, the Western way is the only subset dealt with substantively. From this point of view, the new title promises more than what it can deliver. The translator promises to include a disclosure of the translation and editorial decisions in the third and final volume (AHPh, x). Readers interested in having an outline of the complete work can refer to pages 396-405 for an overview.
As Habermas makes it clear in the Preface, the genealogy to which we are invited in this work is the genealogy of philosophy, or, more precisely, of a form of philosophy that evolved from, and left behind its metaphysical impedimenta. That philosophy is understood here broadly, is possibly hinted at in the title, which refers to this genealogy as being “also” a history of philosophy. But, why does Habermas make this recourse to philosophy? What can still count as an appropriate understanding of the task of philosophy in our times? (AHPh, xvii). While the term “philosophy” appears in many of Habermas’ writings, most notably in his The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity (German 1985/English 1987), it has seldom been thematized. In a 1981 essay, “Philosophy as Stand-In and as Interpreter,” Habermas proposes a redefinition of philosophy’s role in a culture that carved out the traditional understanding of reason into three orientations or research traditions: (a) modern natural science, (b) positive law and morals, and (c) autonomous art and art criticism (Habermas, 1981: 17). As each of these research traditions becomes more and more compartmentalized and specialized, they face the problem of how to mediate between the “experts’ culture” and the general one. Philosophy can be conceived, according to Habermas, as the repository of a will to unity, a will that nevertheless acknowledges that individual matters can only be developed and argued in each one of the differentiated cultural spheres. This is what Habermas characterizes as the post-metaphysical philosophy, which is opposed to the old understanding of philosophy as a kind of usher that oversees the proper sitting arrangements for each of the sciences.
In AHPh, Habermas may have returned to a more traditional understanding of philosophy. Habermas writes that philosophy cannot and should not renounce its holistic ambitions. To do so, even if Habermas acknowledges that those ambitions are unreasonable, would signal a betrayal of its identity, (AHPh, xx). The question is, “What can still count as an appropriate understanding of the tasks of philosophy today?” (AHPh, xvii).
Habermas starts from the observation that, based on his participation in contemporary discussions, there seem to be two different philosophical camps. One takes individual subjects, their ideas, intentions, behavior, and dispositions. The other starts with shared systems of symbols, rules, languages, practices, and forms of life. What Habermas proposes is a reconstruction of both camps because “only an understanding of the reasons that have compelled the philosophy of the subject since the Reformation to undertake an anthropocentric shift in perspective, and above all to embrace the postmetaphysical rejection of belief in a restitutive or ‘redemptive’ justice, will open our eyes to the degree of willingness to cooperate that communicatively socialized subjects must demand of the use of their rational freedom” (AHPh, xxi).
To proceed with this genealogy, Habermas takes a few unconventional steps. He first declares that philosophy, in its origins, is but one of the several metaphysical and religious worldviews of the axial age (AHPh, xxi). Then, he points out that Western philosophy’s origins trace back to an “osmotic process” between Greek philosophy and early Christianity, a process in which religious concepts were assimilated by Philosophy, and at the same time, religious traditions and concerns were transformed into justifiable knowledge, i.e., one that can be argued about conceptually. This process did not end in late antiquity or the Middle Ages but continued well into the modern period, and its traces can still be found in the themes of rational freedom and in basic concepts of practical philosophy.
It may be objected, though, that traces of Judeo-Christian heritage are to be found only in one of the contemporary branches of postmetaphysical philosophy, whereas the empiricist and naturalist branch succeeded in making a complete break with their religious and metaphysical heritage. Habermas rejects this conclusion. The Kantian-Hegelian branch, with its own criticism of religion and metaphysics, preserved an interest in detecting “the traces of reason in history and, in general, an understanding of their philosophical work as oriented to fostering rational conditions of life” (AHPh, xxi).
In an important paper, written after completing the manuscript and before the release of the book, Habermas provides several useful comments to AHPh. In his paper, Habermas qualifies his foreword to AHPh as a grandiose declaration that he now prefers to downplay a few notches. First, he rejects the idea that philosophy can become a “normal” science, i.e., a discipline with a delimited subject matter and a commonly agreed methodology. That would amount to the disappearance of philosophy, a loss in Habermas’ eyes. He elaborates: “The cultural self-understanding of modern societies—and thus the present mode of social life itself—could not remain unaffected by the disappearance of this form of reflection” (Habermas, 2021: 5). Habermas also explains that his account rests on basic concepts and assumptions of social theory on the “emergence, function and progressive desocialization of world views” (Habermas, 2021, 5). From this point of view, the history of philosophy, traditionally centered in discussions between rival schools, is presented by Habermas as a societal process which he summarizes in the formula: “from world views to the lifeworld” (Habermas, 2021, 5).
Habermas’ history of philosophy is not a philosophy of history. But neither is Habermas’ reconstruction of the history and development of philosophy a sociology of philosophy, as practiced by Randal Collins or Pierre Bourdieu and his school, but the reconstruction of an evolutionary process which should suffice to embed the history of philosophy into social theory.
Habermas introduces his project in section I (“On the Question of a Genealogy of Postmetaphysical Thinking”). This is followed by a second section, which introduces the notion of “axial age,” a hypothesis first formulated by the philosopher Karl Jaspers, according to which we can identify a number of more or less simultaneous and similar breakthroughs in several civilizations in antiquity (China, India, Iran, Israel, and Greece). The third and last section of volume One compares the different approaches and insights of each one of the axial age civilizations. The volume ends with the “First Intermediate Reflection”, in which Habermas takes stock of the work accomplished up to this point and points to the way to be pursued in the remaining two volumes.
According to Habermas, Christian Europe had engaged in repeated bouts of self-examination, which exhibited as a recurring pattern a reflection on Graeco-Roman antiquity. This pattern was disrupted in the 17th century with the emergence of a new type of modernity, which distanced itself from Christianity, and not only from antiquity, as in previous ones. This movement was driven by a reflection on the mathematical natural sciences and by the influence of the Reformation, which questioned the concept of a universal Church. Christianity, and religion in general, become an object of interest for philosophy. But it was only with the Age of Enlightenment that the reflection on the Christian faith takes on the form of a foreign element whose contemporaneity, or to use Habermas’ expression, “whose contemporary configuration of spirit”, becomes problematic. This secularized philosophy bifurcates into a positive and a negative concept. “I am interested” writes Habermas, “in this caesura because the Age of Enlightenment ushered in by philosophy represents a parting of ways for secularized philosophy at which postmetaphysical thinking itself bifurcates.” (AHPh, 5). However, this bifurcation does not correspond to the common one between continental and analytical philosophies (AHPh, 7). Habermas prefers to speak of two different heritages, one tracing back to Hume and the other which continues the tradition of the young-Hegelians. He then offers an interpretation of those heritages based on 4 criteria: (1) attitude to religion and theology (2) a cognitive versus a non-cognitive (or communicative) concept of practical reason; (3) their respective evaluation of the philosophical relevance of the human sciences; (4) their respective positions on the historical location of philosophical thinking (AHPh, 8). In the philosophies of Herder, Schleiermacher, Humboldt, and Hegel, Habermas notes a categorial shift from a paradigm of the subject to a paradigm of language: “With its detranscendentalization of the mind, post-Hegelian thought, in contrast to empiricism, learned simultaneously to reconstruct the activity of a meanwhile situated reason from the participant perspective and to describe it from the observer perspective in the historical context in which it is embedded.” (AHPh, 12). Habermas presents this turn as a “detranscendentalization of the mind”, which learns to simultaneously reconstruct the activity of reason from the perspective of the participant and to describe it from the perspective of the observer. This “dual perspective” is what makes it necessary for philosophy to be humble and to learn from the human sciences (AHPh, 13).
Volume One is divided into three parts. Part I introduces the question of a genealogy of post-metaphysical thought and its legitimacy. The rest of the book is a historical and reconstructructive analysis played on two levels, sometimes parallel and sometimes divergent, of Western philosophy and of the alternative but complementary system of thought elaborated in the Orient. Part II presents the hypothesis of an “axial transformation”, which frames the development of Western philosophy in the broader scheme of the breakthrough that took place around 500 BC in different civilizations. Part III presents a somewhat detailed comparison between the different worldviews that emerged from the axial breakthrough. Volume One ends with a provisional summing up of Habermas’ argument.
Habermas presents the problem of postmetaphysical thinking from three points of view. The first consists of an analysis of the criticism of modernity and of a presumed withering away of the political that was elaborated by a number of German philosophers —e.g., Carl Schmitt, Leo Strauss, Karl Löwith, and Martin Heidegger— in the first half of the 20th century. Habermas contests this melancholic approach and emphasizes instead Hans Blumenberg’s re-evaluation of modernity. According to Habermas’ interpretation, Blumenberg answers to the declinist understanding of modernity with a theory of philosophy as a learning process, because of which, some reasons no longer “count” (AHPh, 35). But this answer demands clarification. How is it that we came to accept only postmetaphysical patterns of explanation as plausible? We cannot answer this question in a direct way, without making a detour through history, understood as a series of learning processes. And Habermas reaffirms his position that patterns of argumentation that emerge from learning processes that we understand in a rational way are the only ones that do not require additional justification (AHPh, 36).
The second point of view regards the relationship between philosophy and religion, and finally, the third involves the suspicion that Western philosophy does not have any claims to universality, and that is, first and foremost, a narrow European perspective.
Why call this interpretation of philosophy conceived as the reconstruction of societal and cultural learning processes with the value-laden name of “genealogy”? The obvious reference is Nietzsche’s thought (AHPh, 36-37). Habermas claims to follow a suggestion made by Amy Allen to differentiate between “subversive,” “problematizing,” and “vindicatory” genealogies. “Vindicatory” genealogy is one that not only refers to the contingency of the context in which one’s ideas originated, something it has in common with other forms of genealogy, but also considers the distance from a naivety of understanding of the world that disappears once we become aware that its structure is the results of a learning process. Briefly, while the first form of genealogy appears to correspond to its use in Nietzsche, and the second to Foucault, the third would be the one chosen by Habermas, and is not only negative like the former forms, but has a positivity that results from its reinscription as results of learning processes (AHPh, 37).
Habermas’ example is meaningful. We see the secular premises of postmetaphysical thinking in a different light when we discover that these are not only the result of a return to premises of Greek thought, Christianized and forgotten during the Middle Ages, but from a protracted theological discourse on faith and knowledge. The kind of genealogy that Habermas has in mind preserves, at the logical-semantical level, the validity of its propositions (AHPh, 37). But characterized in those terms, Habermas genealogy is also a crypto-dialectic. Indeed, echoes from Hegel’s philosophy are much present in this work. What Habermas hopes to find in a genealogy is, in addition to a cognitive function, also a social cohesive one (AHPh, 38). Early on, in the societies of the Axial Age, the aspect of social integration took the form of a political theory legitimizing the imperial kingdoms. In the Christian West, because of the division of labor with philosophy, religion took over this role. Later, with the secularization of the state, philosophy took on the role of providing justification for constitutional norms. Ultimately, philosophy could not satisfy itself with the normative perspective and had to incorporate findings acquired from an observer perspective, i.e., from the social sciences. Habermas claims that philosophy was able to do so only after the scientization of the knowledge of culture and society. The observer’s perspective and knowledge are either integrated into the existing “interpretative framework” or lead to its restructuring. Also, in the case of the normative realm, changes in the form of social integration translate into an expansion of modes of cooperation and the development of normative ideas. Habermas also adds that worldviews can store problem-solving potentials that remain latent until they can be fully utilized (AHPh, 39-40)
Section 2 deals with the question —that occupies Habermas in his more recent work— on the status of religion in modern society. There are two interpretations of Habermas’ belated interest in religion. The first interpretation stresses the continuity of Habermas’ interest in religion, starting with his earliest writings. The second restricts his interest in religion to a late stage, necessitated by the evidence of a re-emergence of religion in Western Europe and the USA, and the renewal of political theologies worldwide. Both camps can find elements in Habermas’ late work that sustain their interpretation. In what respects to volume One of AHPh, Habermas clearly subordinates the question of religion to the acknowledgment of the important role that the relationship between faith and knowledge had in the development of Western philosophy. But he also considers the effects of the decoupling of philosophy from religion. Accordingly, he introduces a distinction between secularization at the level of our understanding of self and the world, and the process of secularization of state power and society. The latter is a matter of functional differentiation between the state and a church that has been relieved of the task of legitimizing political rule.
Section 3 confronts the question of postmetaphysical thought’s universality claims.
Habermas acknowledges the skeptical argument against the claim to universality. This is why we must consider Western philosophy as one of many voices in the concert of axial worldviews (AHPh, 66). This would also apply to postmetaphysical thinking, which can be defended only in an intercultural discourse among equal participants. To that effect, Habermas proposes what he denominates a “thought experiment” that would explain the legitimate role that postmetaphysical thinking can assume in discourses that are polyphonic and intercultural (AHPh, 73-82). This experiment corresponds to a translation of the vague aspirations of post-metaphysical thinking to the concrete experience of the development of international and interregional organizations based ultimately on disparate nation-states having different histories, cultures, and religions. The question that Habermas presents is whether “reaching an intercultural understanding on principles of political justice can be conceived as possible in a multicultural world society at all, even though the parties who encounter each other there are shaped by the cultural legacies of competing world religions.” (AHPh,75). In other words, “how an international community could reach an agreement on interculturally recognized principles of political justice at all.” (AHPh, 75). Habermas adds that the experiment that he is proposing has as an objective to identify the level of reflection on which the claim to universality could be clarified (AHPh, 76). Here, Habermas restricts the discussion to the domain of religions, disregarding the influence of economic, social, and other interests, as if only consideration of salvation and morality are operative in this situation.
The analysis is conducted in two parts. In the first, Habermas considers the viability of dialogue between religious and secular thought in which both parties accept the same principles of political justice for the same reasons. The second version of the argument requires that the religious party accepts that secular thought is sufficient for a self-supporting “rational justification”. (AHPh, 79). Habermas agrees that this is a unilateral challenge to the religious side (AHPh, 81). He proposes two ways of resolving this contradiction. One asserts that the development of the worldviews of the different civilizations is broadly similar. Second, that those differences that cannot be reconciled by recourse to the previous observation “would have to be dealt with in intercultural discourse.” (AHPh, 82; 117).
After this extended introduction, Habermas presents in sections II and III the hypothesis of an axial breakthrough, taking place independently at approximately the same time in five ancient Asian civilizations. He deals first with the general characteristics of the axial turn and goes later into a specific comparison of the major traits of each of the axial civilizations. According to Habermas “The term ‘Axial Age’ stems from Karl Jaspers’ conception of the year 500 BC as an ‘axis’ around which the rotation of world history accelerated, as it were. This development was prompted by similar revolutions in the mentalities of the elites in the early Eurasian advanced cultures that occurred independently during a comparatively short period. Out of these revolutions emerged “strong” religious teachings and metaphysical worldviews that remain influential to the present day.” (AHPh, 115). This approach, which Habermas borrows from Jaspers, has some problems. Out of the monotheistic religions, both Islam and Christianity are missing, and is difficult to see how they could be integrated into the axial approach. Egypt is missing, even though Greek philosophers thought of Egypt as the origin of at least some of their wisdom. Regarding monotheism, Habermas polemicizes with the Egyptologist Jan Assmann, who advocates a different interpretation and evaluation of the development and consequences of monotheism. To make room for everybody would require an expanded notion of axial breakthrough, which means not just the five breakthroughs that Jaspers identified, but also their offshoots. But Habermas is more interested in addressing a different problem: how these evolutionary events continue to influence contemporary societies. For this purpose, we need to discard a one-sided, intellectualistic interpretation of religion and metaphysical worldviews. Religions are not just worldviews; they connect interpretation with ritual and remain connected to an archaic experience. This realization leads Habermas into a lengthy exploration of ritual, language, social integration, and political rule. Ultimately, this provides an interpretation of the inner dynamics that lead to the axial turn, and also explains the persistence of religion in the contemporary world.
Habermas dedicates an important excursus to the question of the origins of language, referring to the research conducted by the developmental and comparative psychologist and linguist Michael Tomasello. He uses Tomasello’s reconstruction of language acquisition to ground his insight that “cultural transmission, which replaces genetically controlled natural evolution, depends on an intersubjective relationship between speaker and addressee and their ability to share intentions aimed at something perceived in the objective world. And it is precisely this elementary interlocking of a horizontal relationship between persons with a vertical relationship to states of affairs proceeding from this shared basis that is made possible by the interposition of a public gesture perceived and understood by both sides as a symbol.” (AHPh, 155). Habermas reconstruction of the communicative situation puts into play five elements whose presence are required for the success of communication: (1) a deliberate gesture; (2) adjustment of perspectives; (3) reference to a state of affairs; (4) that the gesture refers for the speaker and for the addressee to the same state of affairs; and finally, (5) that the addressee interprets based on a shared normative background (AHPh, 154). In the communicative situation, Habermas distinguishes a communicative use of the symbol which refers to an interpersonal relationship, from a representational use of the symbol, which points to the world. Entering into an interpersonal relationship, the participants adopt each other’s perspective and thereby create shared knowledge (AHPh, 156).
In the following section, Habermas extends the model of communication to interpret ritual behavior. Ritual is a more primitive form of communication, than, e.g., myth. Myth presupposes a grammatically developed language. (AHPh, 163). Not so ritual, which builds on the mimetic skills of our ancestors (rhythm, dance, pantomime, sculpture, painting, body painting, found objects, and so forth). What sets ritual apart is its self-referentiality. Ritual does not refer to something in the world (as is the case in linguistic communication) but is self-contained (AHPh,164). Ritual is a kind of “speech before language” (AHPh, 165). Habermas connects this description with a functional one. Ritual is a response to specific disturbances within the social collective, that are related to a vulnerability of the communicative form of socialization. In the following pages, Habermas presents an explanation of the origins and function of ritual as a learning process. With the new level of communication and openness to the world, the individual is exposed to an increased flood of information. What is new must be integrated into familiar contexts. Myth is a response to this cognitive challenge (AHPh, 169-172). But rituals are not discarded; rather, they are combined with mythical narratives to which they provide already symbolically encoded experiences (AHPh, 173). Ritual steps in when the balance between individual self-assertion and the preservation of the collective. “Acute shocks to the social balance bring a practice into play in which individual members assure themselves of their dependence on the powerful collective by means of an aggression-inhibiting ‘submission to the superior’” (AHPh, 179).
In part III Habermas discusses in more detail the specific configurations of the worldviews elaborated in the different axial age cultures. The analysis contained in this section of the book is deemed to be provisional, in the sense that Habermas acknowledges his lack of expertise in each of the religions or cultures that he introduces briefly. Starting with a general discussion, Habermas concentrates on the rejection of paganism in ancient Judaism, the teachings and practice of Buddha, Confucianism, and Taoism, concluding with two sections on Greek philosophy, the first on Natural philosophy and the second with Plato’s theory of Ideas.
Habermas finds some interesting similarities between Plato’s theory of ideas and the cosmocentric Asian worldviews of the axial age: (1) Ontologization of the powers of salvation and misfortune into the moral and esthetic of the truly existent; (2) elaboration of the distinction between being and appearance into a theory of level of knowledge and being; (3) inquiry and knowledge are represented as a path to salvation; (4) moralization of the sacred, perfectionistic ethics that prescribe a way of life characterized by wisdom, prudence, courage, and justice; (5) repudiation of idolatry and magic. In the case of Greek philosophy, though, de-coupling of doctrine from cult (AHPh, 316). Habermas also ponders the paradox of the politically advanced conditions of Athenian democracy and their inability to be projected to the whole of the population of the polis.
In the “First intermediate reflection” that concludes the present volume of AHPh, Habermas notes that since the breakthrough of the axial age, the paths of the major civilizations have diverged, and declares himself unable to explore in detail their development. He concentrates instead on the “Western way”. Nevertheless, he offers a few remarks on the commonalities in the development of the different civilizations, as they become visible “from a great distance”. Habermas indeed claims that the different “worldviews” seem to have had similar starting conditions for their emergence and their dynamic development. This is essential for Habermas’ hypothesis. A mere simultaneity, or even similar starting conditions but not similarities, will not satisfy the conditions required for a dialogue between contemporary societies beyond vague claims of either a clash of civilizations or relativism. Habermas lists a number of similarities and emerging conditions (AHPh, 323): (1) a connection of the “sacred complex” with the new bureaucratic structure of the state; (2) a revolution in the intellectual elite which was enabled when written culture reached maturity; (3) a mythical tradition that got a literary expression that provided legitimation through a differentiated pantheon; (4) changes in cultic practices which took the form of state rituals on the one side, and of individual worship, on the other. Habermas also notes that there are some similarities in the geopolitical situations of the nations that played the lead in the axial breakthrough. Those were peripheral regions, removed from the center of power, afflicted by political unrest, foreign domination, or new modes of production. Habermas emphasizes the centrality of a normative turn: “the religious and metaphysical worldviews of the axial age gave rise to generally binding norms that the ruler could no longer embody but could only represent to the extent that he himself was subject to them” (AHPh, 325). The axial breakthrough produces a limited disenchanting of the world. This process was different in the Asian cultures and in Greece, which allowed the emergence of philosophical idealism. But, the “religious and metaphysical worldviews” (except perhaps for Greek philosophy) played an ambivalent role, providing spiritual and intellectual resources for subversion and resistance and to their stabilization (AHPh, 324).
Volumes 2 and 3 —which are forthcoming in English— deal exclusively with Western philosophy, from Christian Platonism to Pierce’s pragmatism. While more in line with traditional histories of philosophy in the array of subjects treated, Habermas’ choices are idiosyncratic. Not a pedagogic work, not a generic history of philosophy, and certainly not a philosophy of history, Also a History of Philosophy is intimately linked to the inner dynamics of Habermas’ project.
Bibliography:
Habermas (1981), “Philosophy as Stand-In and as Interpreter” in, Jurgen Habermas, Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, Cambridge, UK and Maldon, USA, cs1990.
Habermas (2021), “An author’s retrospective view”, Constellations, 2021;28:5–10 (DOI: 10.1111/1467-8675.12570).