II. Fred Dallmayr's Critique of Habermas

Abstract

FRED DALLMAYR IS A POLITICAL THEORIST with a remarkable ability to engage in critical dialogue with a range of thinkers spanning what are all too frequently taken to be incompatible and even incommensurable traditions. There is scarcely a major thinker of the twentieth century that he has not encountered-always probing and interrogating them with sensitivity and judiciousness, seeking to bring forth new insights that pertain to politics. He is a master of hermeneutical skills. In Gadamer's sense, he seeks to understand, interpret, and appropriate. Some of his critics have complained that his mode of presentation-developing his own views through the sympathetic interpretations of others-muffles his own distinctive voice. But ever since the publication of The Twilight of Subjectivity,' a careful reader can discern the contours of the postsubjectivist, postindividualist, postmodernist theory of politics and democracy that he is on the way to developing. Considering his hermeneutical sensitivity, his most recent critical discussion of Habermas comes as a bit of a shock. For although he makes use of extensive citations to create the impression that the author is speaking for himself, the result is a distortion of Habermas's views. This is especially surprising because Dallmayr has written extensively and sympathetically about Habermas. He was one of the first American political theorists to highlight Habermas's contributions to social and political theory. In this paper, when Dallmayr states his own views against Habermas, he even sounds very Habermasian. My primary intention is not simply to defend Habermas against Dallmayr's criticisms. On other occasions I have developed my own criticisms of Habermas's project.2 Rather, I want to develop the critical discussion of issues raised by Dallmayr. I will proceed by highlighting themes in Habermas that Dallmayr misrepresents and then turn more directly to Dallmayr's own concerns to question and challenge what he says.