Is Jrgen Habermas's Reconstructive Science Really Science?

Author(s): C. Fred Alford

Source: Theory and Society, Vol. 14, No. 3 (May, 1985), pp. 321-340
Published by: Springer
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/657118
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 321

IS JtIRGEN HABERMAS'S RECONSTRUCTIVE SCIENCE

REALLY SCIENCE?

C. FRED ALFORD

While Jurgen Habermas'stheory of social evolution has been the subjectof a

good deal of criticalattention, its methodology - reconstructivescience - has
receivedfar less scrutiny.Thereappearto be severalreasonsfor this. Perhaps
the most significant is that Habermas himself has not stressed the
methodological issues involved. Not only does he frequently note the
continuity between ordinaryand reconstructivescience, but he also writes of
reconstructive science in the language of ordinary science. In addition,
Habermas has readily modified some of his most contentious claims
regardingreconstructivescience when these came undercriticism.The result
of these and other factors seems to be that reconstructivescience, while not
escapingcriticism,has not been widely regardedas a new categoryof science,
but ratheras virtually an extension of Habermas'searliercognitive interest
theory. As such, reconstructivescience is treated much as cognitive interest
theory has been treated by its most perspicacious critics: as a set of quite
vulnerableempiricalclaims. The systematicmethodological context of these
claims, which actually constitutes reconstructivescience, has been given less
attention. It deserves more. Reconstructive science is more than a metho-
dology, though it is that too. Reconstructivescience is an ambitious attempt
to create a special category of science that combines immunity from
falsification by ordinary science with special access to the empirical
foundations of morality.

This article focuses upon the relationship between ordinaryand reconstruc-

tive science. Reconstructive science cannot be understood except as a
reaction to the limits of ordinaryscience as Habermasunderstandsthem. In
the next section, the course of Habermas'sanalysis of science over the last
twenty years is briefly summarized. In the section following that, the
development of Habermas's critique of ordinary science, from cognitive
interest theory to Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns, is examined.

Department of Government, Universityof Maryland.

322

Habermas, it will be shown, defines ordinary science in a more restrictive

fashion than need be. This restricteddefinition of science itself helps create
the need for reconstructivescience. In the subsequent section, Habermas's
reconstructive science is examined. A guiding theme there is whether
Habermas's often fine distinctions between ordinary and reconstructive
science are tenable. It is argued that in many cases they are not. In the
conclusion, the question of why Habermasdeveloped reconstructivescience
is addressed. Part of the answer is that doing so allows him to avoid what
would otherwise be the ironic charge of "scientism"that could be leveled
against aspects of his theory of social evolution. Another part of the answeris
that reconstructivescience is part of an attempted epistemological solution
by Habermasto what is actually an empiricalquestion:whetherthere are, in
fact, universalstructuresof reason implicit in all communication.

Changing Patterns in Habermas'sAnalysis of Science: 1963-1983

Some of Habermas'searliestprogrammaticstatements on science are found

in his contributions to the "Positivist Dispute in German Sociology"
(1963-1964), a debate in which the major figures were Habermas and
Theodor Adorno, on the one hand, and KarlPopper and Hans Albert on the
other.' It is here that Habermas leveled the charge of what he came to call
"scientism"against the contemporaryphilosophy of science. "Scientism"is
defined by Habermas as science's belief in itself as the only valid form of
knowledge. However, the term has several additional connotations for
Habermas. If science believes it is the only valid form of knowledge, then it
will be epistemologically imperialistic; i.e., it will seek to explain all it
possibly can, including meaningful human action. The term "scientism"is
also employed by Habermasto suggestthat science is insufficientlyreflective
of its social origins, and conditions of existence (i.e., its transcendental
preconditions).2

From the perspective of twenty years, the irony of the positivist dispute is
that it was dated even as it was taking place. For both sides the dispute
proceeded as if Popper's The Logic of Scientific Discovery (originally
published in 1934)was the last word on the philosophy of science. However,
in 1962 Thomas Kuhn published The Structureof Scientific Revolutions, a
work that would make the blanket charge of scientism inapt. In fact,
Habermas soon recognized as much. In "A Postscript to Knowledge and
Human Interests," 1973, Habermas states that the new philosophy of
science, which he closely associates with the work of Kuhn and calls the
"confrontation of science theory with the history of science,"has rendered
the critique of scientism obsolete.3 With the publication of Theorie des
 323

kommunikativen Handelns, there can no longer be any doubt that

Habermas understandsand appreciatesthat the new philosophy of science
has changed the terms of the debate over scientism fundamentally. Indeed,
Habermassuggeststhat the new philosophy of science properlyunderstands
itself as a humane discipline, insofar as it no longer denies the subjective,
reflective, and interpretive elements that constitute it as an intellectual
enterprise.4However, Habermas'spositive assessmentof the new philosophy
of science of Kuhn, Mary Hesse, and others does not lead him to embrace it
as an adequate account of science. Never rejecting the new philosophy of
science, Habermas nonetheless retains key aspects of his earlier account.

In Theoriedes kommunikativenHandelns, Habermas'saccount of scientism

seems to find its proper place. The direction Habermas is heading has been
apparent for some time. In his debate with Niklas Luhmann, Habermas
arguesthat it is neitherscience, nor scientism, but functional thinking(which
reduces every issue to that of system maintenance) that is the real villain.5
Theorie develops this argument. Habermas argues that under advanced
capitalism the communicatively structured lifeworld is intruded upon by
formally organizedsubsystemsof purposive-rationalaction. The "unleashed
functionalist reason of system maintenance disregardsthe claim of reason
inherentin communicativesocialization."6In a word, Max Weber'sanalysis
of rationalization remains valid. Recall that for Weber, "rationalization"
signifies not merely that objectivitiesof all kinds have been demystified, so
that there is no longer any source of transcendent meaning; rationalization
for Weberalso signifiesthat means have become ends in themselves. Science
and bureaucracy, intended to make human action more effective in a
complex and recalcitrantworld, become ultimate values in themselves. As
Habermas puts it: "the rationalizedlifeworld enables the rise and growth of
subsystems whose autonomous imperativesself-destructivelystrike back at
it."7

In Theorie,the imperialismof science is attributednot so much to its belief in

itself as the only valid form of knowledge, but rather to the role it is called
upon to play in the cultural drama of rationalization. In other words,
Habermas no longer attributes to an epistemological doctrine - scientism -
the power and influence of what he now regards as a social evolutionary
force, rationalization. The result is that the validity of science is accepted
within its own domain. The tendency of science to intrude upon "communi-
catively structured"aspects of the social world is attributedless to doctrines
internal to the philosophy of science than to the exploitation of science by
"expertcultures."
324

Habermas'sanalysis of science currentlyproceeds on two levels. His major

focus is upon rationalization: the social and cultural consequences of
modernity, in which ordinary science - but no longer scientism - plays a
major role. However, at another level Habermas seeks from a special
category of reconstructive science what he would surely have previously
labeled a scientistic misunderstanding:that it help justify the emancipatory
commitment of critical theory by characterizing its grounds in universal
patternsof development. It will be argued that the division of science in this
effort, in which ordinaryscience is renderedunableto challengethe universal
claims of reconstructive science, fails to do justice to the richness of
Habermas'sown analysis of rationalizationin Theorie.

Habermas'sAnalysis of OrdinaryScience

BeforeaddressingHabermas'sreconstructivescience,it is importantto recall

his interpretationof ordinaryscience. Habermas'sreconstructivescience can
only be understood as a counterpart to the limits of ordinary science, as
Habermasdefines them. Though Habermas'sassessment of the philosophy
of science has changed over the years, his assessment of the basic
epistemological characteristicsof science itself has changed very little, as his
recent (1982) "A Reply to My Critics"demonstrates. There he claims that
science still remainsirrevocablytied to the "technicalcognitive interest."8As
an instanceof the technicalcognitive interest,scienceis defined by Habermas
in terms of its instrumental orientation towards nature as an object of
manipulation and control. However, in Habermas'sscheme terms such as
"manipulation"and "control"must be interpreted broadly. Manipulation
and control include prediction for the purposes of corroborating deductive
explanations, even those made simply to satisfy the scientist'scuriosity. The
instrumental orientation of natural science has to do with the structure of
scientific propositions, not the scientist'smotives.9

A recent exchange between Habermas and Mary Hesse helps to explain

Habermas'sconcept of science more fully, particularlyas he revised it in "A
Postscript to Knowledge and Human Interests."Hesse focuses upon what
she regards as a "somewhat opaque paragraph"in "A Postscript," which
concludes that "Itis thereforemore plausibleto assume that the objectivityof
experience guaranteesnot the truth of the correspondingstatement, but the
identity of experience in the various statements interpretingthe experien-
ce."'0Hesse unpacks Habermas'sclaim by parsingit into five assertions. (1)
Becauseeven the most basic observationstatementsare expressedin termsof
one theory or another, and since these theories change over time, what it
would mean to say that these statements correspond to reality is entirely
 325

unclear(the "basissentence"problem).(2) Theories and their languagesthus

cannot be said to describe the world; rather, they interpret it more or less
adequately. (3) Adequacy may be measured by experiment, but given the
fundamental role of interpretation, the experiment can never be separated
from argument about its relevance. (It is this elevation of the role of
argument that characterizes Habermas's discussion of science in "A
Postscript,")(4) Indeed, if adequacy were measuredby empiricalverification
alone, we could neverperformwhat KarlPopper calls "crucialtests"between
theories, for each theory would define the relevant phenomena in different
ways, accordingto its uniqueassumptions(the "meaningvariance"problem).
(5) Therefore, a common reservoir of shared interpretationsis needed, lest
there be no common experience against which to test theories. This common
experienceis provided by the "technicalcognitive interest,"which guarantees
that each member of the species confronts nature from within the same
framework. In his response, Habermas agrees with Hesse's interpreta-
tion. 12

The elements of Habermas'sinterpretationof ordinaryscienceare apparent.

His interpretationof science is incompatible with scientific realism(point 1).
Indeed, Habermas argues that realism makes no sense under his scheme.
How could scientific laws and theories describe reality if the history of
science is the replacementof one theory by another that claims to explain the
same phenomenon? This would put us in the absurd position, says
Habermas, of assertingthat the laws of naturehave themselveschanged.13In
defense of realism, one might argue that what was once regarded as
warranted belief about a law of nature comes, in the situation Habermas
describes,to be seen as unwarrantedbelief, to be replaced by a new scientific
law that is currentlyregardedas warranted. A statement of a law of nature
can be false without rendering the idea of independently existing and
potentially discoverable laws of nature nonsensical. In any case, while
Habermasrejectsthe realisticview of scientifictheories, a more fundamental
realismcan be seen as characterizinghis scheme. All scientists,indeed all men
and women, apprehend nature under similar constraints, those of the
technical cognitive interest. The constraints generated by this interest are
broad and flexible. Nevertheless,the outer limits of these constraintscan be
described, and known, in a realistic manner. For the constraints of the
technical cognitive interestare the conditions of human physical survival on
this planet.

Harbermasalso rejectsthe instrumentalinterpretationof scientificlaws and

theories.'4 This is so even though Habermas believes that from a trans-
cendental (knowledge constitutive) perspective scientific knowledge ex-
emplifies an instrumental approach to reality. Habermas rejects the
326

instrumental interpretation of scientific theories on the basis of two

considerations. First, scientists do not directly confront nature (point 3).
They do so from the perspective of a detached discourse, in which other
considerations are relevant.15For instance, scientists may seek to falsify a
theory that predicts perfectly well (i.e., is a perfectly good instrument)
because they are interestedin other values, such as truth or elegance. At this
level, Habermas accepts the arguments against instrumentalismraised by
Popper and others.'6 There is, however, a more fundamental reason that
theories are not seen as mere instrumentsby Habermas. The fact that some
theories work, whereas others (e.g., "perpetual motion theory") do not,
reflectsfor Habermasthe fact that there is an objectiverealitywith which our
theories are in contact.'7 Indeed, it is the point of Habermas'sdistinction
between the objectivity of science and its validity to allow him to uphold this
claim, while denying that science tells us about nature itself. For Habermas,
scientific theories may not describe nature in itself, but they are not mere
"inferencetickets"either. This is demonstrated by Habermas'sresponse to
Niklas Luhmann, a systems theorist who defends what is basically an
instrumental view of science. Habermas responds that nomological state-
ments (i.e., law-like generalizations) "have a function for the context of
instrumental action because they are true; they are not true because they
could have such a function."'8

Given the centrality of the technical cognitive interest to Habermas's

interpretation of science, it is clear why he would reject realism. But, why
would he argue so strenuously against instrumentalism? After all, the
instrumental interpretation of science would seem to be especially com-
patible with Habermas'sgoal, which is to show that science can neverescape
the framework of the technical cognitive interest. A little speculation is
perhaps in order. A strictly instrumentalinterpretationof scientific theory,
Habermasseems to believe, would no longer see itself bound by the technical
cognitive interesteither, but would seek to make predictionsabout language,
and other human phenomena. If scientific theories are mere instruments,
then there is no obvious limit to their proper use. Claiming to be no more
than an instrument, science might also approach human action in a strictly
instrumental fashion. The ultimate result of such an approach to human
action, Habermas suggests, would be "self-objectivation."

The philosophical foundation of the possibility of "self-objectivation,"

accordingto Habermas,is the assertionby Paul Feyerabend,WilfridSellers,
Richard Rorty, and J. J. C. Smart, among others, that the reflexivelanguage
of everyday life could be replaced by theoretical languages.
 327

This would make possible the progressiveself-objectivationof speaking and acting subjects
so that one day even the objectivistic self-interpretationamongst members of the scientific
community would become a possibility (displacement hypothesis).'9

Habermas'sis a puzzlingclaim. He seems to equate the scientificexplanation

of human action with the replacement of the categories of everyday life by
scientificcategories. The programof Rorty hardlyfits this interpretation.As
Richard Bernsteinpointed out severalyears ago, Rorty simply assertsthat it
is possible that in some areas of life a constructed language might be more
useful than a natural one.20One might be inclined to explain Habermas's
surprisinginclusion of Rorty hereas simply a matterof a younger Habermas
interpretingan earlier Rorty as strictly an analytic philosopher.21However,
Habermas's recent claim that Rorty, in Philosophy and the Mirror of
Nature, seeks "to render the endangered humanity of the historical world
compatible with the dehumanisedrealityof the objectivatingsciences, which
have been robbed of all human meaning"suggests that this is not the whole
story.22The outlines of this larger story have become more apparent in a
recent exchange between Habermas and Rorty in Praxis International,
which will be considered in the conclusion. For now the key point is that
Habermas'sis a surprisinglytendentious interpretation of Rorty's project,
especially in light of the fact that Rorty explicitly claims to be doing precisely
the opposite of what Habermasaccuses him. Rorty, as is well known, argues
against the reductionof a pluralityof narrativesto one "metanarrative,"be it
scientific,religious, or political. "Theresultingfreezingover of culturewould
be, in the eyes of the edifying philosophers, the dehumanization of human
beings. The edifying philosophers are thus agreeing with Lessing'schoice of
the infinite strivingfor truth over 'all of Truth'."23This is simply not the
viewpoint of one who seeks to objectify the historical world.

Habermas'sinterpretationof Feyerabend is even more surprising.Though

the terms "self-objectivation"and "displacement hypothesis" suggest per-
haps that he does, Feyerabend does not pursue the classic reductionist
program (a "reductive"explanation, in this context, is one that seeks to
explain human action in terms of the laws and theories of an ostensibly more
fundamental science, such as biology or chemistry24).Quite the contrary:
Feyerabend came to prominence with his assertion, in "Against Method,"
1970, that due to the difficulty of establishing meaning invariance across
theories, the possibility of ever fully explaining one theory in terms of
another ostensibly more fundamentaltheory is in doubt.25Because facts are
constituted by theories, theories have an opportunityto determinewhat facts
shall count against them. The facts of theory "x"are likely neitherto confirm
nor deny theory "y,"but simply be incommensurablewith it. Given this, the
328

approach most conducive to knowledge, Feyerabend concludes, is to let a

thousand theories bloom. Knowledge, in this view, is characterizedby the
proliferationof theories and explanations. Knowledge is "anever increasing
ocean of mutually incompatible (and perhaps even incommensurable)
alternatives... all of them contributing,via the process of competition, to the
developmentof consciousness."26This is the position of theoreticalpluralism.
What Rorty calls "edifying philosophy," which seeks "to keep the conver-
sation going, rather than to find objective truth," is similar in many
respects.27

Why would Habermasinterpretthese authors in such a remarkablefashion?

The answer appears to be that it is Habermas who wishes to make sure that
science remains bound to the technical cognitive interest. The technical
cognitive interest is the framework of humanity's common experience of
nature. If such a common experience is available to be called upon in
scientific discourse, the problem of incommensurabilitycan be contained
(point 5, Hesse's interpretation).Rorty and Feyerabend in effect challenge
this strategy. If entirely new languages referringto casually invented entities
can be freely constructed, on what grounds can it be claimed that the
technical cognitive interest circumscribes the proper domain of science?
Habermas'sassertion that natural science should generally restrict itself to
the explanation of "bodies in motion" and the like would have to be seen as
an ethical assertion, or preference, rather than as an epistemological
argument. He could no longer base his argument upon certain trans-
cendentallimits to the scientificexperience of nature,as defined by cognitive
interest theory. Theoretical pluralism challenges the foundation of Haber-
mas's attempt to limit the proper domain of science: the claim that the
technical cognitive interest is the common denominator of humanity's
scientific encounter with nature.

In light of these considerations, why Habermas would be ambivalent

towards the new philosophy of science is also apparent. While he admiresits
epistemological modesty, it is not modest in quite the way that Habermas
would have it be modest. The new philosophy of science, at least as
representedby Kuhn, Feyerabend,and Rorty, is modest insofaras it believes
that reality is sufficientlymanifold and ephemeralsuch that no single theory
can definitively account for any aspect of it. However, the modesty that
Habermasseeks is somewhat different:that science be modest about what it
may properlyexplain; i.e., its domain of validity. It is the failure of the new
philosophy of scienceto be modest in this regardthat helps to explain the fact
that while Habermas praises the new philosophy of science, he does not
adopt its pluralisticaccount of science. Habermasratherretainshis original
 329

account, in which science is a much more stolid and unimaginative

enterprise,concerned with generating useful feedback from nature.28

Habermas'sReconstructive Science

In The DialecticalImagination, MartinJay arguesthat the FrankfurtSchool

possessed an inadequatelydeveloped concept of reason and truth.29Whether
this is an accurateassessmentor not, the course of Habermas'sprojectcan be
read as an attempt to address aspects of this deficit. Habermashas sought to
justify, or ground, the emancipatorycommitment of criticaltheory in several
ways: first in the emancipatorycognitive interest,then in the "telos of truth"
inherent in every speech act (universal pragmatics), and currently in the
theory of individual development and social evolution. Habermas'scurrent
strategy has been subject to especially rigorous criticism, even by such
sympatheticcritics as Thomas McCarthy. Most of this criticismargues that
Habermas risks committing the "naturalisticfallacy";i.e., the derivation of
"ought"from "is."This aspect of reconstructivescience was referredto in the
introduction as part of Habermas's attempt to find empirical sources of
ethical guidance.

Michael Schmid points out that in "History and Evolution" Habermas

suggests that the theory of social evolution may be employed in discourse
where competing definitions of the good life are at stake.30Discourse, it will
be recalled, is designed to achieve rational consensus over such issues.
However, without standardsany such consensus risks being mereconsensus;
i.e., arbitrary.The theory of social evolution appears to provide a standard,
insofar as it says, in effect, that some solutions or policies are better than
others, because they tap the achieved level of morality better than others.
Because every stage of social development has a particular repertoire of
moral responsesassociated with it, this level can serveas a standardby which
to rationally reject responses characteristicof lower levels. However, says
Schmid, while Habermas talks in terms of the "evolution,""development,"
or "progress" of societies from pre- to post-conventional principles of
organization, he has no grounds to use any of these terms or their cognates.
All that may justifiably be said about different principles of organization
from an empirical perspective is that they are different. The claimed
"homologous"relationshipbetween individualand social evolution is in fact
part of a sub rosa attempt to derive "ought" from "is."31

McCarthy'scriticismis similar. Developmental models of morality tend, he

suggests, to conflate issues of "is"and "ought." For example, whether the
transitionfrom "contractarianismand utilitarianismto 'justiceas fairness'"is
330

an advance to a higher stage of development (and not regression, or mere

change) is, says McCarthy, a question for meta-ethical argument, not
empirical study.32Habermas'stheory of social evolution per se will not be
considered further here. It is familiar, and has been criticized quite
thoroughly. The focus here is upon the methodology of the theory of social
evolution: reconstructivescience.

"Reconstruction" is a term Habermas introduced in "A Postscript to

Knowledge and Human Interests," in order to distinguish between psy-
choanalytic reflection upon individual experience, and the more general
philosophical reflectionby which one reconstructsthe cognitive interests,for
example. In "A Postscript,"Habermasagrees that it is misleadingto referto
both types of knowledge as originating from reflection. Hence, the term
"reconstruction"emergedto characterizephilosophical reflectionupon such
transcendentalquestions as what cognitive abilitiesare necessaryfor science,
or morality,to exist. Unlike psychoanalyticreflection,in which (accordingto
Habermas) the analysand is rightly the final judge of the accuracy of an
interpretation, Habermas emphasized that reconstructions can only be
validated in discourse, in which alternativeexplanations may compete.33

In spite of his elaboration, Habermas's critics continued to argue that

reconstructionsremain too closely modeled after psychoanalytic reflection.
In particular, Habermas takes insufficient account of the possibility that a
reconstruction might be systematically mistaken in such a way that it could
not be adequately criticized in discourse, as all would suffer from a similar
misapprehension.Concomitant with the development of his theory of social
evolution over the last several years, Habermas has elaborated the category
of reconstructive science. However, in important respects Habermas's
concept of reconstructivescience continues to reflect its origin in the model
of psychoanalytic reflection. For example, until quite recently Habermas
insisted that reconstructions could only be tested by a maieutic testing
procedure, more akin to the validation of an analyst's interpretationby the
analysandthan the testing of a scientifichypothesis.34His currentposition on
how reconstructivescience differs from ordinaryscience is, it will be shown,
puzzling.

Habermas considers Noam Chomsky's concept of linguistic competence to

be paradigmaticof a reconstructivescience. Other paradigmsare the genetic
epistemology of Jean Piaget, and Lawrence Kohlberg'sexplication of the
stages of moral development. Linguisticcompetence, says Habermas,is not
an abstract theoretical concept, but a "know-how"that expresses an actual
underlying structure in language that can be reconstructed by eliciting the
 331

speakers'intuitions. The relationshipbetweenlinguistictheory and linguistic

data thus differs from the relationship between theory and data in ordinary
science. This is because ordinary language is definitive for linguistic theory.
That is, linguistic theory, understood as a reconstructivescience, is nothing
but the explication of the rules of ordinary language us. Reconstructions,
says Habermas,"makean essentialistclaim .... [I]f they are true, they have
to correspondpreciselyto the rulesthat are operativelyeffectivein the object
domain - that is, to the rules that actually determine the production of
surface structures."35

Reconstructions,in this view, are templates. They are descriptivelyaccurate

accounts of cognitive processes. It is the cognitive processes described that
are themselves nomological and universal,in the sense that they act to make
the world appear to us in this fashion. Unlike ordinaryscience, reconstruc-
tive science does not impose a theoretical structure. Rather, reconstructive
science describes actual entities, such as the rules of ordinary-languageuse.
The theories of a reconstructivescienceare realistic.They capturethe essence
of actual entities: complex learning processes.36

Reconstructive science is concerned with the same areas of experience as

Habermas'searlier cognitive interest theory: the technical interest finds its
parallel in Piaget's studies of the development of operational thought; the
practical interest finds its parallel in Habermas's reinterpretationof Kohl-
berg'sstages of moral development in terms of universalpragmatics;and the
emancipatory interest, itself derived from the practical interest, finds its
parallelin Habermas'sderivationof a universalethic of speech(Sprachethik)
from universal pragmatics.37Indeed, it would not be misleading to see
reconstructive science as a more empirical version of cognitive interest
theory, designedto overcome what is perhapsthe most trenchantcriticismof
Habermas's interest theory: that it rests too heavily upon one person's
reflections upon how reality must be constituted. In this article I am
primarily concerned with the epistemic status of reconstructive science.
However, this background illuminates an important point. Reconstructive
science reflects a view of the world in which rational factors (i.e., learned
cognitive skills) predominate. However, if Freud, for instance, should be
closer to the mark than Piaget or Kohlberg regardingthe forces that impel
individual and social evolution, then the relevanceof reconstructivescience
becomes less clear. One might respond that if this were the case, one could
simply apply the principles of reconstructive science to psychoanalysis.
Reconstructive science is a method, a set of epistemological claims, not a
substantive theory. As such, it should be widely applicable.
332

However, an examination of what this reapplication of reconstructive

science would involve suggests that this distinction between substantive
theory and method is somewhat opaque in the case of reconstructivescience.
Though even irrational(e.g., unconscious) processes may well be character-
ized by rules, would it really be plausible to claim that the reconstructionsof
psychoanalysisgrasp the essence of unconscious, even instinctualprocesses?
Intuitively,at least, one has the sense that a "Freudianreconstruction"would
involve much more interpretation, "theorizing,"and generalization than
does the reconstruction of the rules characterizing communicative com-
petence, if for no other reason than that the data of psychoanalysis do not
present themselves in straightforwardlinguistic or operational form in the
first place. The significance of a slip of the tongue, for example, is not
obvious in the absence of a particular theory of repression. These consi-
derations suggest that what makes reconstructivescience special is actually
not its unique epistemological status, but simply what it is about: rational
processes, understood as learned cognitive skills.

While Habermas would not disagree that reconstructive science can be

characterizedin terms of its object of study - his frequent use of the term
"rational reconstruction"is intended as much to designate the topic as the
method38- he has continued to emphasize the essentialism of reconstruc-
tions. Indeed, it is upon this claim that the unique epistemological status of
reconstructive science rests: that it overcomes the conventional origins of
concepts. While social theory, including critical theory, cannot help but
reflect the historical circumstances within which it arises, reconstructive
science, says Habermas, goes behind these circumstances to capture their
conceptual ground. Reconstructive science overcomes the situational rela-
tivity of knowledge claims.39Its reconstructions are interest free, because
they are prior to and a condition of cognitive interests, as well as more
transient social, economic, and political interests. Reconstructions are
empirical descriptions of core cognitive learning processes. However,
because of their essentialist status they can hardly be shown false by an
alternative empirical hypothesis, because reconstructions are about the
cognitive prerequisites(language, and the proto-scientificcognitive abilities,
such as those studiedby Piaget, which apprehendnatureunderthe categories
ot space, time, and substance) of any such hypothesis and its evaluation.
Reconstructions are scientific, but not falsifiable by ordinary scientific
evidence.

Such a claim raises a number of questions, as does the entire category of

reconstructive science. If the work of Piaget and Kohlberg epitomizes a
reconstructivescience, and yet their work is terriblysusceptibleto the charge
 333

that it is culturally biased - as McCarthy and Susan Buck-Morss, among

others, point out that it is40- then the claim that reconstructivescience is so
fundamental that it bypasses cultural influences and the like is obviously
vulnerable. At a more general level, Hesse notes that scientific and
philosophical reconstructions of concepts such as human freedom and
responsibilityhave had a profound effect upon the interpretationsput upon
ordinarydiscourseabout guilt, punishment,deviance,and sickness.One has,
she notes, only to think of changes in attitudes towards sexual "deviation,"
juvenile delinquency, and "diminishedresponsibility"in general.41It is thus
hard to see how Habermascould claim that reconstructionsare so basic that
they define, but (unlike more abstract ordinarytheories) do not feed back to
alter,fundamentalconcepts of ordinarydiscourse. Habermascould respond,
of course, that the reconstructions he has in mind are about more
fundamentaland universalprocessesthan those referredto by Hesse. It is not
clear, however, what standardsHabermaswould apply to supportthis claim.
In any case, presumablythe standardsby which Habermaswould arguethat
the reconstructionsof Piaget are more fundamentalthan those of Freud, for
instance (whose reconstructions have certainly influenced ordinary dis-
course), would themselves be hypothetical standards and thus open to
criticism.

There is much that is puzzling about the status of reconstructivescience. If

the explanations of ordinary science are bound to the framework of the
technical cognitive interest, this would seem to give these interpretationsa
certain stability. This seemed to be Habermas's point in upholding the
embeddedness of science in the technical cognitive interest against the
incommensurability asserted by theoretical pluralism. Why it is that
reconstructivescience, which is not bound to the frameworkof the technical
cognitive interest(reconstructionstap actual cognitive processesthemselves,
not merely that aspect subject to technical control), would be more stable
than ordinaryscience is not obvious. Apparantly, Habermas believes in the
possibility of puredescriptions.However, even Habermashas suggestedthat
Chomsky is mistaken if he thinks universalistic theories of linguistic
competence can be ideologically neutral.42

Perhaps the best way to resolve some of these difficulties is simply to note
that Habermas has backed away from some of the most ambitious claims he
made for the special status of reconstructivescience. I quote his response in
full to Hesse'scriticismof the claimed specialstatus of reconstructivescience.

If I understand her correctly, Hesse's critique of my distinction between nomological and

reconstructivesciences is directedagainst assertionsthat I did not put forwardin the sense in
334

question. The essentialism which, in my view, attaches to reconstructionsof pretheoretical

knowledge of competently knowing, speaking and acting subjectsis not meant to deny that
we are dealing herewith fallible hypotheses,just as in the objectivatingsciences. However,in
the attempt to transform implicit abilities into explicit knowledge, the terminus a quo is
connected with the terminusad quem internallyand thus in a differentway than an existing
state of affairs is connected with its theoretical description when the latter is based on a
nomological theory.43

Leaving aside the issue of the accuracy of Hesse's critique, it is difficult to

know what to make of this response. Habermas seems to agree that
reconstructionsare fallible hypotheses,"justas in the objectivatingsciences."
However, what does it mean to say that the endfrom which (i.e., point of
origin) is connected with the end toward which (i.e., conclusion) differently
in the case of reconstructivescience than in ordinaryscience?Presumablyit
means that reconstructive science describes pre-theoretical know-how,
whereasordinaryscience explains it under a theoreticalstructure.However,
this is precisely the issue in question. In admitting that reconstructionsare
"falliblehypotheses,just as in the empiricalsciences,"Habermaswould seem
to have abandoned any basis from which to claim that reconstructivescience
is more descriptivethan the theories of ordinary science.

Here we see what is really a patternin Habermas'swork, a pattern that is at

once admirable and troublesome. (1) Habermas formulates special cate-
gories of knowledge, such as cognitive interest theory, or reconstructive
science. (2) He is extraordinarily responsive to criticism, revising and
modifying his original categories, often extensively. The introduction of
discourse is a prime example. (3) However, he continues to make claims or
draw conclusions - now frequentlyin a highly qualified or implicit fashion -
which are supported only by the original distinctions, which Habermas has
abandoned under criticism. In the immediate case, once it is agreed that
reconstructionsare falsifiablegeneralizationsabout cognitive processes,it is
difficult to see how they differ from ordinary scientific hypotheses in any
relevant or important respect.

Thomas McCarthy states that Habermas's reconstructions of moral and

communicative development represent "the scientific counterparts"to the
transcendentaland developmental perspectivesin classical German philo-
sophy.44Putting it this way helps to clarify Habermas'sintent. Reconstruc-
tive science takes over some of the justificatory functions of the "trans-
cendental and developmental perspectives," insofar as it bypasses the
historicallycontingent aspects of realitythat lead ordinaryexplanations into
error. That reconstructive science is primarily concerned with rational
processes,as discussedpreviously,is perhapsanotherlegacy of these classical
 335

German perspectives.Ordinaryscience, on the other hand, is interpretedby

Habermas in such a way as to be unable to challenge the conclusions of
reconstructivescience. However, one is forced to ask whethersuch a strategy
makes sense once reconstructionsare admitted to be falsifiable hypotheses.
Habermas seems to want to continue to claim that reconstructive science
possess a unique status, but the grounds of such a claim have become
obscure.

Conclusion: Why Reconstructive Science?

Why is Habermasdrawingdistinctionsbetweentypes of scientificknowledge

in a way that seems strained?It was stated above that Habermas'srecent
interpretationof the problem of scientismin terms of the historicalprocess of
rationalization rectifies several difficulties in his analysis, particularly his
attributionof excessive social and culturalsignificanceto an epistemological
problem. However, Habermas has done more than turn his attention from
scientism. He has sought to employ scientificevidence, especiallythe studies
of Piaget and Kohlberg, to justify (in the sense discussed by Schmid and
McCarthy,above) the substantivevalues and emancipatorycommitment of
criticaltheory. In a sense, Habermas is doing what he has warnedagainst all
along, particularly in his critique of "self-objectivation."He is explaining
such fundamental aspects of meaningful human action as moral choice in
terms of the operation of natural processes that can be scientifically
studied.45In order to renderthis a consistent undertaking Habermas could
reject his earlier understanding of science entirely. He does not do so for
several reasons, the most important of which is apparentlythat he does not
want to open the door to any scientific explanation of human action. If the
scientific explanations of Piaget and Kohlberg cannot be systematically
distinguished from those scientific explanations that treat human beings as
things ("self-objectivation"),then the theory of social evolution would itself
seem to be an instance of scientism.

The primary way in which Habermas seeks to perform this gate-keeping

function is to argue that the work of Piaget and Kohlberg exemplifies a
special category of science that is more descriptive than ordinary science.
Their reconstructivescience does not impose a theoretical structure upon
human action that is alien to human experience. Rather, Piaget and
Kohlbergsystematizeconcepts that have a basis in everydayexperience(e.g.,
individuals'moral beliefs frequentlybecome more abstractas they mature).
An explanation of human action in terms of genetics, or biochemistry,on the
other hand, would employ terms and categories that have no basis in normal
human experience. However, Habermas's distinction (while an accurate
336

characterization of how scientific explanations that refer to unfamiliar

entities are frequently experienced) lacks any basis in the epistemic
characteristicsthat distinguish ordinaryfrom reconstructivescience. This is
especially the case once it is recognizedthat the "displacementhypothesis"is
a phantom; i.e., it is not a question of a neuro-physiologicalexplanation, for
example, replacing an explanation that employs more familiar categories.
Eachmaybe employedto explaindifferentaspectsof the"same"phenomenon.

Habermas seeks to translate his preferencefor explanations that are based

upon familiar concepts - a preferencethat may have a valid basis in criteria
such as the degree of subjective satisfaction that such explanations afford -
into epistemological categories. It may be that concepts such as familiarity
and subjectivesatisfaction could be worked up into useful epistemic criteria.
However, the distinction between ordinary and reconstructive science
provides few hints as to how this may be accomplished. It may also be that
valid ethical and moral objections against explanations that invoke totally
unfamiliar scientific categories can be raised; e.g., such explanations treat
people as morally equivalent to things, rather than as infinitely valuable
ends-in-themselves. However, once more the distinction between ordinary
and reconstructivescience provides little leverageover this issue. One reason
this is so is that Habermas'sdistinction between ordinaryand reconstructive
science is at base a distinction between descriptionand explanation. Such a
distinction, even were it to have a valid basis, does not seem to be a fruitful
way to distinguish those scientific approaches that objectify human action
and those which do not. Many explanations that are morally objectionable
because they objectifypeople employ quite familiarcategories. Aristotle, for
example, compared some people with tools found in the household and
workshop in order to justify slavery (Politics, Book 1, chapter 4). What
Habermasseems to want to say is that Piaget and Kohlbergcapturethe right
aspects of human nature;i.e., those that are truly operativeand relevantfor a
theory of social evolution. He may be correct. However, this is a contingent
empirical claim, and should be treated as such. To grant this claim a special
epistemological and methodological status in order to protect it, or
distinguish it form ordinary scientific studies, is jejune.

In Theorie, Habermas states that "If one is still willing today to venture to
expound the universality of the concept of communicative rationality,
without falling back upon the guaranteesof the greatphilosophicaltradition,
basicallythree ways presentthemselves."46 A considerationof these ways will
help conclude our study of reconstructivescience. The first way of exploring
communicative rationality, says Habermas, would be to construct hy-
potheses about which patterns of communicative rationality are in fact
 337

universal, and to check these against the actual intuitions and practices of
speakersin a wide variety of societies and cultures.The second way would be
to employ the theory of communicativerationality(i.e., universalpragmatics)
as a practical technique, for example in the diagnosis of pathological
communication, in order to check its empirical effectiveness and relevance.
The third way, says Habermas, is to employ the theory of communicative
rationality to interpret and reconstruct the tradition of social theory that
runs from Weber to Parsons. Habermas, of course, takes the third way. He
characterizes it as "somewhat less demanding," but surely he is being
modest.47Nevertheless,it might have been advantageous were Habermasto
have paid more attention to the first way of validating his claims about the
universality of certain patterns of communicative rationality. Though the
empirical evidence gained from cross-cultural studies and the like would
almost surely be inconclusive at this point, such an approach might have
helped remove the issue of testing reconstructionsfrom the stratosphereof
debates over fine epistemologicaldistinctions. A more empiricalapproachto
communicativerationalitymight have given the discussion of the status of its
methodology - reconstructivescience - a more concrete tone. The debate
that followed would then have presumably also been about the validity of
apparent exceptions to Habermas's hypotheses and so forth, rather than
being about what can only be called transcendental distinctions between
different types of scientific knowledge.

These considerations suggest that the fundamental problem with recon-

structive science is not so much that it protects certain claims against
criticism(Habermashas indeed modified his stance in this regard),but that it
directs attention away from the factual status of these claims and toward the
less fruitful question of their epistemic status. From this perspective, it is
troublesome that in a recent (1984) exchange with Rorty, Habermas once
again asserts that "Rorty commits an objectivisticfallacy."48Rorty commits
such a fallacy, says Habermas, because he fails to recognizethat one cannot
fully understanda validity claim without at the same timejudging its truth or
rightness.49Though Habermasdoes not, of course, claim that this judgment
is ever necessarily correct, he does argue that it is this linkage of
understandingand judgment that supports his claim that reason makes a
universal claim; it is not merely one narrativeor discourse among many, as
Rorty would have it.
In action oriented to reachingunderstanding,validity claims are 'always already'implicitly
raised.These universalclaims... are set in the generalstructuresof possible communication.
In these validity claims communications theory can locate a gentle but obstinate, a never
silent although seldom redeemed claim to reason, a claim that must be recognized de facto
wheneverand whereverthere is to be consensual action.50
338

Once again it appears that Habermas argues for what is actually an

empiricalclaim - that all communication is characterizedby certain implicit
structures of reason - in the a priori language of epistemology, such as
"objectivisticfallacy."Though the present considerations demonstrate that
this aspect of Habermas's argumentative strategy extends far beyond
reconstructivescience, it should neverthelessincrease our scepticism about
this special category of science, insofar as reconstructive science acts to
reinforcethis epistemological strategy.

NOTES

1. Essays by each of these authors are collected in Theodor Adorno, et al., The Positivist
Dispute in GermanSociology, trans. Glyn Adey and David Frisby (New York: Harper&
Row, 1976).The other majorsource of Habermas'searlystudies of science is his Zur Logik
der Sozialwissenschaften(Frankfurta.M.: Suhrkamp, 1970), esp. 125-138.
2. "A Postscript to Knowledge and Human Interests,"Philosophy of the Social Sciences 3
(1973), 158-161. Hereaftercited as "A PS."
3. Ibid., 159. Mary Hesse notes that there is now a "post-Kuhnand post-Feyerabend"set of
debates within the philosophy of science, primarilyassociated with the work of Davidson,
Kripke, Putnam, and others "who more or less indirectly owe their problem situation to
the work of Quine."This, as Hesse suggests, places Habermas'searly studies at least two
generations behind current debates. "Science and Objectivity," Habermas: Critical
Debates, ed. John B. Thompson and David Held (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press,
1982), 98. Thomas McCarthy, in The Critical Theory of Jurgen Habermas (Cambridge:
MIT Press, 1978),notes that Habermasfails to update his early criticismof the philosophy
of science, 60-61. However, one can consider passages in Theorie des kommunikativen
Handelns as constituting a modest update.
4. Theorie des Kommunikativen Handelns, 2 vols. (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1981), 1:
161-163.
5. Habermas, "Theorieder Gesellschaft oder Sozialtechnologie? Eine Auseinandersetzung
mit Niklas Luhmann." Theorieder Gesellschaftoder Socialtechnologie - Was leistet die
Systemforschung?With Niklas Luhmann (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1971), 266-267.
6. Theorie, 1:533. Translation from Johannes Berger'sreview of Theorie, trans. David J.
Parent, Telos, (1953) 57: 197
7. Max Weber, The ProtestantEthic and the Spirit of Capitalism(London: George Allen &
Unwin, 1976), 182. Theorie,2:277. Translationfrom James Schmidt's"JiirgenHabermas
and the Difficulties of Enlightenment,"Social Research Spring, 1982, 49: 191.
8. Habermas,"A Reply to my Critics,"Habermas: Critical Debates, 243-244.
9. "A PS," 174.
10. Ibid., 180.
11. Hesse, "Scienceand Objectivity,"103-104. I1alter Hesse'slanguage a greatdeal, in orderto
better fit her analysis to the present argument.
12. Habermas,"A Reply," 275.
13. Habermas,"A PS," 180-182.
14. According to ErnestNagel, "Thecentralclaim of the instrumentalistview is that a theory is
neithera summarydescriptionnor a generalizedstatementof relationsbetweenobservable
data. On the contrary, a theory is held to be a rule or principle for analyzing and
symbolically representingcertain materials of gross experience, and at the same time an
instrument in a technique for inferring observation statements from other such
statements.... More generally, a theory functions as a 'leading principle' or 'inference
ticket' in accordance with which conclusions about observablefacts may be drawnfrom
givenfactual premises, not as a premisefrom which such conclusions are obtained," The
Structureof Science (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, Inc. 1961), 129-130.
15. In "A PS," 175, Habermas modifies his earlier assertion that the scientific experiment
"imitates" the feedback from instrumental action. Rather, instrumental action and
scientific experiment are "structurallyanalogous actions pertaining to the realm of life-
praxis and operations pertainingto discourses."
16. Karl Popper, "Three Views Concerning Human Knowledge," Conjecturesand Refuta-
tions (New York: Harperand Row, 1965), 107-114.
 339

17. Against Habermas'sposition on instrumentalism,Hesse notes that while those objections

of Habermas that are based on the considerations of Popper and others are sound,
Habermas'sargument "does not exclude the possibility of instrumentalinterpretationof
higher-leveltheoretical postulates that remain underdeterminedby the empirical."These
postulates - even in the care of reconstructive science - may not be immune to cultural
influence, and in this sense at least relative. "Science and Objectivity,"112-115.
18. "Theorieder Gesellschaft,"237, my translation.
19. "A PS," 162. How is this criticism to be reconciled with Habermas'sappreciation of the
new philosophy of science in Theorie,as well as in "A PS"?Part of the answer is perhaps
that for Habermasthe new philosophy of science representsthe "confrontationof science
theory with the history of science"("APS," 159). Kuhn(whom Habermasexcepts from the
charge of "self-objectivation")would thus epitomize the new philosophy of science for
Habermas, whereas Rorty et al. would be seen as representing analytic philosophy.
However,as Mary Hesse suggest in another context, this is a tenuous distinction ("Science
and Objectivity,"100).
20. Bernstein, Praxis and Action (Philadelphia: Universityof PennsylvaniaPress, 1971),284.
21. Habermas seems to suggest this interpretation in a recent response to Rorty, in
"Habermas:Questions and Counter-Questions,"Praxis International(1984),4(3): 230.
22. "A Reply to My Critics,"277.
23. Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1979), 377. See too Rorty's "Habermas and Lyotard on Post-Modernity," Praxis
International(1984) 4(1): 32-44.
24. Reduction "is the explanation of a theory or a set of experimentallaws establishedin one
area of inquiry, by a theory usually though not invariably formulated for some other
domain." (Nagel, The Structure of Science, 338) Nagel goes on to point out that two
somewhat different types of reduction can be distinguished. In the first type, a theory
originallyformulatedto explain quite a restrictedclass of phenomena may be extended to
explain that phenomena even when it is manifested by a more inclusive class of things. In
this type of reduction, substantially the same concepts are employed in formulating the
laws in both domains (338-339). The second type of reduction may occur between what
seem to be entirely different classes of phenomena. The difficulty with this type of
reductionis that the primaryscience (that to which something else is reduced)may seem to
wipe out familiar distinctions and experiences, showing them to be spurious, epipheno-
menal, and the like (340). It is this second type of reduction that Habermas seems to
identify with the "displacementhypothesis."
25. Feyerabend, "Against Method," Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 4,
ed. Herbert Feigl et al. (Minneapolis: Universityof Minnesota Press, 1970), 17-130.
26. Feyerabend, Against Method (London: New Left Books, 1975), 30. Harold Brown, in
"Incommensurability," Inquiry (1983) 26: 3-29, shows clearly that the assertion of
incommensurabilityby Feyerabend and Kuhn is hardly tantamount to the assertion of
relativism.
27. Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, 377.
28. "A Reply to My Critics," 238-250, shows how much of this original view Habermas
maintans.
29. (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1973), 63.
30. Michael Schmid, "Habermas'sTheory of Social Evolution," Critical Debates, 175-180.
"Historyand Evolution,"trans. David Parent, Telos, (1979) 39:43-44, supports Schmid's
claim.
31. Schmid, "Habermas'Theory of Social Evolution," 175-180.
32. McCarthy, "Rationality and Relativism: Habermas' 'Overcoming' of Hermeneutics,"
Critical Debates, 66-72.
33. "A PS," 182-185.
34. McCarthy's position seems to be that while Habermas's claim that psychoanalysis is a
unique science (insofar as how it may be tested is concerned) is perhaps warranted,this
uniqueness does not extend to any other reconstructive science. Cf. 204, 353-354, in
Critical Theory of Habermas. This position is rejected by Adolf Griinbaum, in The
Foundations of Psychoanalysis: A Philosophical Critique (Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1984). Griinbaum amasses a great deal of evidence and
argumenton behalf of the position that psychoanalysisitself possesses no uniqueepistemic
status. In particular, the analysand simply has no "privileged cognitive access to the
validation or discreditation of psychoanalytic hypotheses," (21). Griinbaum's useful
discussion of Habermas's interpretation of psychoanalysis is marred, however, by an
extraordinarilychurlish tone.
35. "What is Universal Pragmatics?,"Communication and the Evolution of Society, trans.
Thomas McCarthy (Boston: Beason Press, 1979), 16.
36. Ibid., 22, 25. McCarthy, Critical Theory of Habermas, 295-298.
37. Habermas, "Moral Development and Ego Identity," Communication and the Evolution
of Society, 90.
340

38. "History and Evolution," 16.

39. McCarthy, Critical Theoryof Habermas, 193.
40. McCarthy, "Rationality and Relativism," 288, fn. 28. Susan Back-Morss, "Socio-
economic Bias in Piaget'sTheory and Its Implicationsfor Cross-culturalStudies,"Human
Development (1975) 18: 35-49. Original sources are Jean Piaget, Genetic Epistemology,
trans. Eleanor Duckworth (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1971); Lawrence
Kohlberg, "From Is to Ought," in Cognitive Development and Epistemology, ed. T.
Mishel (N. Y.: Academic Press, 1971).
41. Hesse, "Scienceand Objectivity,"112.
42. Habermas, "Towarda Theory of Communicative Competence,"Inquiry 13 (1970), 360.
Noted by Hesse, "Science and Objectivity,"113.
43. "A Reply,"277-278.
44. McCarthy, Critical Theoryof Habermas, 353,
45. Habermas cannot, of course, claim that reconstructive science is not concerned with
natural processes, but only linguistic ones (if this distinction were even valid). While this
strategywould avoid the chargeof scientismwithout the need to develop a specialcategory
of science, it is blocked by Habermas's employment of Piaget's studies of operational
thought (which stands in a parallel relationship to the technical cognitive interest, as
mentioned previously in the text) as exemplary of a reconstructivescience.
46. Theorie, 1: 199. Thomas McCarthy'stranslation, The Theoryof CommunicativeAction,
vol. 1 (Boston: Beacon Press, 1984), 138.
47. Theorie, 1: 199-201.
48. Habermas,"Habermas:Questions and Counter-Questions,"Praxis International,231.
49. This claim seems to have become the key to Habermas'sattempt to develop what he calls a
"thirdpath"between objectivismand relativism.See "Habermas:Questions and Counter-
Questions," 232. McCarthy, in "Reflections on Rationalization in the Theory of
Communicative Action," Praxis International (1984), 4(2): 182-186, shows how truly
problematicthis claim is.
50. Habermas, "Historical Materialism and the Development of Normative Structures,"
Communicationand the Evolution of Society, 97. Habermasseems to reassertthis "always
already"claim in "A Reply to My Critics,"221, as RichardBernsteinpoints out in Beyond
Objectivismand Relativism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983), 191.

Acknowledgment

A reader for Theory & Society made a number of helpful comments,

especially regardingHabermas'sdebate with Rorty, and on the rationalism
of reconstructions.

Theoryand Society 14 (1985) 321-340

0304-2421/85/$03.30 ? 1985 ElsevierScience Publishers B.V.