Habermas' theory and philosophical contributions

¶ … Communicative Action

Social protests and movements in Jurgen Habermas' theory of communicative action

Among the sociological paradigms, it is critical theory that thoroughly looks into power relations that occur in everyday human interactions. Through this paradigm, social conflict is uncovered and discovered to be a result of a continued tradition of oppression by the dominant class to the marginalized or oppressed class. The 20th century had been the venue for this paradigm to fully develop and be applied in the real-life context, and Jurgen Habermas was one of the social scientists who used the critical theory as the foundation of his general social theory, specifically identified through the theory of communicative action.

Habermas' general social theory centered on the issue of rationality and its presence and development in 20th century society. He posited that rationality was not only the human propensity to think logically and analytically, but was also determined through people's interaction with each other -- that is, the accomplishment of communicative action. This theory of rationality reflected the new dimension looked into by most social scientists during this period, which are interaction and communication. Though critical in its theoretical foundations, Habermas' theory of communicative action had integrated symbolic interactionism's principle, which is to consider human interaction as an important factor in understanding social phenomena.

In his analysis of humanity's development of the rationalist thinking, Habermas had this to say in discussing his theory of communicative action:

This concept of communicative rationality carries with it connotations-based ultimately on the central experience of the unconstrained, unifying, concensus-bringing force of argumentative speech, in which different participants overcome their merely subjective views and, owing to the mutuality of rationally motivated conviction, assure themselves of both the unity of the objective world and the intersubjectivity of their lifeworld.

From this passage, Habermas brought into fore the importance of interaction in order to create a society that is not only "unconstrained" in expressing their views in the public sphere, but is also a well- and rightfully-informed society. For the social scientist, this is the key towards humanity's achievement of a truly rationalized and emancipated society -- a society that can assert and be granted their rights without any form of coercion or control.