The phenomenology of
civic involvement:
Arendt and Habermas
Introduction
• Two concepts of civic involvement:
– Based on cognitive conviction
– Based on pre-intentional affections
• Two concepts of civic socialization:
– Cognitive learning process
– Series of decisive experiences that made
permanent impact on the subject
Phenomenological concept of
socialization
• Socialization = acquisition of meanings
and the competence of meaning formation
• Substantive civic socialization =
acquisition of meanings relevant in civic
action situations
• Formal civic socialization = acquisition of a
way of interactive meaning formation, the
competence of participating in the
processes of general will formation
Traditions of phenomenological
sociology
• Weberian tradition: focus on the cognitiveintentional level of social actions, treats
socialization mainly as a cognitive process,
as the rational acceptance of meanings and
ways of action
• Durkheimian tradition: focus on the preintentional level of social actions, treats
socialization as a chain of rituals, as
incorporation of the social meanings and
practices
The aim of the presentation
• The general theoretical linking of the two
traditions is missing, thus intentional and
pre-intentional empirical results can not be
connected
• My aim is to introduce a way of combining
the two theoretical perspectives –
intentional and pre-intentional – a propos
of the mechanism of civic socialization
An intentional model of civic
socialization: Habermas (1)
• Every meaning, is formed and maintained by
communicative actions
• Communicative action is the linguistic
coordination mechanism of social actions,
constituted of speech acts
• If the speech acts follow the model of the pure
argumentative debate, then it is an undistorted
discourse.
• If not then it is a willingly or unwillingly distorted
process
An intentional model of civic
socialization: Habermas (2)
• A society that is integrated via undistorted
communicative processes or via laws, which are
legitimated by such acts, counts as democratic
• Civic socialization can be defined on a
substantive level as the understanding of the
forms and institutions of general will formation
• On a formal level as the acquisition of moral
meanings implying an attitude of undistorted
debate, and the acquisition of competences to
follow such a discourse
An intentional model of civic
socialization: Habermas (3)
• These substantive and formal moral skills can be
acquired in a cognitive learning process introduced
by Piaget and Kohlberg
• Therefore, according to the Habermasian theory
cognitive moral development is the fundamental
presupposition of democratic socialization, and
democratic societies as well
• Requirements of moral development:
– one needs to face many time that her moral concept is
unjust from other’s perspective.
– one needs to access debates wherein rational reasons are
introduced, which support a moral concept that is more just
then the original
The paradox of pure cognitive
moral development theory
• The question: how could someone motivate the other
rationally to give up her concept of justice?
• If a person of postconventional morality tries to
convince a person of conventional morality about the
limitation of her concept of justice, then she has to
follow a conventional argumentation
• She has to argue that the partner should accept
postconventional morality because it comes from the
norms
• This is contradiction, as the essence of
postconventional morality is that not particular norms
but universal values are the principles of justification
Way out of the paradox: Arendt
• In order to avoid this paradox we need to
find an alternative source of meaning
formation, which is
– not based on the model of rational
argumentation
– capable of overwriting the conventional set of
norms
• Such a mechanism may be introduced with
the help of Arendt’s political
phenomenology
Political phenomenology of Arendt
(1)
• Labor: the maintenance of life, the cycle of
consumption and production, determined
by necessities
• Work: the creation of the artificial world
around us, determined by necessities
• Action: motivated by the unique features of
human existence, the desire for freedom,
uniqueness and immortality
Political phenomenology of Arendt
(2)
• The requirement of fulfilling these desires
may be introduced through the example of
ancient Greek polis.
• Oikos: the household, it was organized by
the rule of the head of the house, and its
purpose was the satisfaction of necessities
• Agora: the public sphere, it was constituted
of equal man, and its purpose was the
satisfaction of their existential desires
Political phenomenology of Arendt
(3)
• Those who entered the public sphere were
independent from each other and the necessities.
• The community of independent and equal man
constituted a space where free action became
possible
• The only criterion to start any actions was the
agreement of the citizens.
• This resulted that the main activity of a Greek
citizen became the debate itself.
• Standing in front of the community and stating
one’s own ideas with the intention of convincing the
others became the moment of freedom, of
expression of the identity and the chance to
become memorable
Public sphere today and its
relevance
• In a modern society opportunities for creating
free public spheres:
–
–
–
–
revolution, civil disobedience (Arendt)
bourgeois public sphere (Habermas)
civil sphere (Arato and Cohen)
every small local community, circle of friends, which
has relative independence
• In public sphere experiences may born, which
are pre-intentional and in the same time capable
of suspending any conventional morality
• They are the key to our paradox
Conclusions
• The cognitive and pre-cognitive phases of civic
socialization complement each other
• Nobody who has never experienced freedom in a
public sphere may be convinced that universal
human rights are more just than local norms.
• And nobody will reach postconventional morality
who has only experienced freedom but has not
been cognitively processed it as well.
• That is why these two components are
indispensable in the process of civic socialization.
• That is why researches should focus both of them
Thank you!
Email: sikdom@gmail.com
Web: https://sites.google.com/site/sikdomonkos/