he inverts the Marxian myth of origins, why language becomes the condition
of emergence of labour and hence society: language as understood by Habermas
is not strictly individual, but inter-individual (in this respect, his theory of
interlocution is derived from Anglo-American pragmatics, which is resolutely
individualist), and the social is an effect of this divided individual.
The Habermas conjuncture
Thinking with Habermas and, at the same time, thinking against him – i.e.
regarding him as a major philosopher – subjects him to the same fate as Marx
inflicted on Hegel or as he himself inflicts on Marx: standing him back on
his feet. And to do this is literally to operate an inversion on his philosophy:
to consider it not as a first philosophy, bearer of a myth of origins, but as a
last philosophy, expression of an eschatological hope. For Habermas’s ethics
of discussion can be criticised for betraying the facts, but the eminently
desirable character of its realisation cannot be denied. Construed not as an
origin but as a programme, it elicits our enthusiasm, not only because we are
people of good will and prefer agreement to squabbling, but because we are
communists and our objective is a classless society – that is, the end of
exploitation and the class struggle it incites. In short, what Habermas proposes
to us is linguistic communism: not the fundamental structure of interlocution,
but an idea of reason (this was how the late Lyotard characterised communism),
necessary for our survival even if its realisation is uncertain and endlessly
deferred. Doing a pastiche of Marx, I shall reformulate Habermas’s basic
thesis in eschatological terms: ‘from each according to her reasons discursively
expounded via validity claims, to each according to her rational discursive
reactions embodying her disposition to understand the other and reach an
agreement with him’. To transform a myth of origins into eschatology in this
way has the advantage that we are no longer obliged to exclude or ignore a
large number of real phenomena (the idea of reason is maintained even if
it is contradicted by the facts, which obviously presents a considerable
philosophical advantage); and it avoids transforming a human aspiration
(which, it might be claimed, helps to make us human beings) into a natural
phenomenon. Linguistic activity can now include phenomena of agonas well
as those of agreement. They can even be regarded as dominant in the
conjuncture or primary, like man’s exploitation of man (and for the same
Critique of the Philosophy of Language • 57