POLITIKOS: Journal of Social and Political Philosophy

The Fading of Habermasʹs Understanding of Communicative Action in an Informatized World: The Problem of the Dissolution of the Other

Muammer AKTAY — 2023-12-27

Habermas argues that Enlightenment thought, which considers reason as strategic, instrumental and technical, colonizes the world of life. He claims that these forms of reason negatively affect the subjectʹs self‐construction and the possibilities of consensus. Against these understandings, he tries to reveal the subjectʹs search for communicative action through common sense, freedom and diversity. In this way, he wants to dethrone the narrow‐minded populism that has taken over the world of life by revealing the potential for influence in the public sphere. His main aim here is to position the world of life outside the ʺsystemʺ through communication. In this way, the relationship between self and other can be designed in the form of a common consensus, outside of manipulation and force. The fact that Habermas lived in a period when the means of communication were limited enabled him to defend the possibility of consensus on a common ground of agreement through the intrinsic rationality of the other. However, the problem at this point is, is it possible to establish the communicative act with the other in our post‐industrial age, where the digital network is decisive and at the forefront? In our age, in echo chambers and filter bubbles, it is getting harder to listen to the other, to hear the voice of the other, and the need to reach the other is disappearing. However, in the digitalization period, it is very difficult to have a certain inherent rationalization chance and find a common ground for discussion. The basis of this loss of ground is the problem of producing more information than the communicative action can capture. According to Hart and Negri, sovereignty has been created through communication with the informatization created by the post‐industrial economy, according to Stiegler, the colonizing effect of communicative action has occurred through the proletarianization of life knowledge, and finally, according to Chul Han, the meaning of the concept of communication has disappeared with the blurring of the other in this information bombardment. In other words, if identity, character and communicative action have disappeared or distorted without the other, the society of spectacle with spectators becomes meaningful.

Our goal in this article is primarily to focus on explaining how the relentless needles of routine and the passivity of the vast information network destroy communicative action in the absence of the other. Then, it is to discuss the consequences of subjects consuming themselves to death as others are blurred in the information epidemic. Finally, it is to consider whether the search for a common world will disappear as technical, psychological information tools replace discursive rationality and construct subjects that are far from factuality.

The Warpedness of Uncharitable Justice in Levinas’s Thought

Cevriye DEMİR GÜNEŞ — 2023-12-27

Levinas asserts that the violence, evil and injustice prevalent in the Western philosophical tradition are substantiated by the resources of ontological thinking that accord no right to live to the Other through its postulates of identity and totality characterised as instruments of dominance. In Levinas’s thought, the argument that ontology and ethics necessarily contravene, and that ethics is the first philosophy lies at the heart of all discussions regarding ontology, ethics, and politics. Along the same line, the discussion of justice arises from this dichotomy between ontology and ethics. The demand of justice comes in sight first in the ethical implications of the face in the relationship between the self and the Other, and then in the symmetrical demand of right of the third persons in the social life which suspends the face to face ethical relationship. Commonly considered alongside the concept of justice, freedom is cast out of the Levinasian asymmetrical ethical relationship due to the destructive power of the postulate of identity over the Other and never features as a condition of ethical relationship. The ethical self, who adopts the principles of face‐to‐face interaction, indifference to its own ontological expedience and being‐for‐the‐Other, is confronted by the third person who disrupts the face‐to‐face relationship and the asymmetry characterising the ethical relationship and demands
symmetry in social relationships. From that moment on, justice determined by love, charity, and forgiveness begins diverging from its sense in ethics of sainthood, becoming warped and acquiring a political outlook. The political justice in the mode of an analogous relationship in Levinas’s understanding restricts the infinite responsibility of the ethical self towards the Other
and prioritises the norms of ontology in political life in the name of protecting the right and freedom of the third person. Formed around the concept of the Other and the Holocaust as an event, Levinas’s theories of politics and justice manifest themselves in terms of the assertions that norms of the political field cannot be left to their own devices, that these norms should be
informed by such ethical concepts as infinite love, compassion, charity, and sacrifice, and thus that ethical justice should reconstruct interpersonal norms. In view of Levinas’s statement that “charity is impossible without justice, and […] justice is warped without charity”, this article first elucidates the twofold outlook of justice in the fields of ethics and politics and then discusses whether Levinas’s call for ethical justice embodied by ethics and politics is functional in analysing
social and political problems and creating solutions to them.

The Dialectics of Art from ‘Spirit’ to Freedom

Ekin KAYA — 2023-12-27

In the Frankfurt School and its member Adorno, art along with philosophy, is seen as a field of activity that allows freedom in the current historical-social conditions. In this sense, art in Frankfurt School, is defined as an area of resistance to current capitalist system. What makes art a field of resistance is the ‘spirit’ moment that work of art has and is inherent in the work of art. Spirit in a work of art is the element that emerges in spiritualization process of art. Although the spiritualization of art is a process of rationalization as the exclusion of natural beauty from art, it is a process that creates also an opposite spiritualization. The spirit that emerges in the dialectical process of the spiritualization of art, which is the repetition of the dialectics of the Englightenment in art, is a momentary liberation and subject’s experience of freedom from conceptual oppression and therefore from the domination of the holistic society. Because, contrary to the rationalization, subjectivation and freedom process of human being which has resulted in reification, art finds its origin in a natural impulse, behavior, that is mimesis.

The Rule of Law and Civil Disobedience

Mehmet Cafer ŞAKAR — 2023-12-27

In his 1962 speech on disobedience at Marin College in California, Erich Fromm asserted that the beginning of human history was an act of disobedience. In support of this assertion, he offered two facts from the Torah tradition and Greek mythology. Even if the act of disobedience originated in the beginning of human history, it is still relevant today. More precisely, civil disobedience, also known as the right to resistance, has been attempted to be justified politically, morally, and even constitutionally in recent years. This idea has become essential to political theory with the rise of democratic constitutionalism and modern state philosophy. The right to resistance or civil disobedience is defined in most of modern constitutions as a right or even a duty for those who are members of the political community. In order to better understand the relationship between civil disobedience and the rule of law, this study will first examine the relationship between obedience and political.

Habermas's Concept of Post-Secular Society and Current Problems: Debate on the Publicity of Social Media

Ferdi SELİM — 2023-12-27

The main purpose of this article is to focus on the change of religion in the public sphere within the framework of Jürgen Habermas's views and to discuss whether the relevant discourse can still be an important basis for dialogue. In addition, it is desired to investigate and understand the relations between pluralism and the public sphere after secularism within the framework of post-secular thoughts, which point to new dimensions of the appearance of religious discourse in the public sphere. Habermas, especially in his writings of recent years that interest us more, develops a comprehensive critique of secularism that implies a radical break from the dogmatic idea of removing religion from the public sphere. This critique concerns a normative understanding of the post-secular situation and is to show that the boundaries of the public sphere need to be rethought in connection with a relative stalemate centred on pluralism. At this point, criticisms of the institutional translation condition, a controversial assumption of Habermas, are mentioned and evaluations are made around various opposing philosophical arguments such as agonistic views. Finally, this study investigated whether intersubjective public communication can be built around social media and new communication technologies.

Truth To Power: The Influence of Bertrand Russell on Noam Chomsky’s Activism

Yurdagül KILINÇ — 2023-12-27

There are different ways of approaching contemporary governments. One approach is nihilism, which results from suffering and pain caused by political violence and injustice. The other approach is optimism, which suggests seizing available opportunities and affirming the process despite its shortcomings, rather than giving up and waiting for the worst-case scenario to happen. This perspective assumes that despite political disasters, there are ways to improve life. The pursuit of a better life can be achieved through orthodox or oppositional and radical means. This article examines the contemporary philosopher Noam Chomsky, who identifies as an optimist while maintaining a radical and oppositional stance against the violence of power. It also delves into the activism of Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) and his influence on Chomsky.