On the Failure of Habermas's Hermeneutic Objectivism

Abstract

In this article, the author first argues that Habermas's distinction between the two modes of language use that, he alleges, are central to the two starkly different modes of human cognitive activities, that is, analytical-empirical sciences and hermeneutics, is untenable and should be eventually abandoned. For, contrary to Habermas's argument, the analytical-empirical sciences, if they are to be properly understood, must also be conceptualized as involving the performative mode of language use that Habermas thinks is characteristic of hermeneutics only. Second, by using historical examples, the author proceeds to demonstrate why Habermas's hermeneutic objectivism that is based on the methodology of rational reconstruction is doomed to remain wedded to the epistemological foundationalism that he wants to displace by introducing his methodology of rational reconstruction.