Theory of Communicative Action: Key Passages and Debates

“Habermas, Theory of Communicative Action: 'Communicative action can be understood as a circular process in which the actor is two things in one: an initiator, who masters situations through actions for which he is accountable, and a product, of the traditions in which he stands, of the groups whose cohesion is maintained through norms and values, and of processes of socialization and individuation through which he is formed. [...] The lifeworld, so to speak, stores the interpretive work of preceding generations.' [...] On validity claims: 'Anyone acting communicatively must, in performing any speech action, raise universal validity claims and suppose that they can be vindicated (or redeemed). Insofar as he raises claims to propositional truth, normative rightness, and sincerity, he is relying on the potential of giving grounds.' [...] On colonization: 'The lifeworld is the transcendent site where speaker and hearer meet... Communicative action becomes the instrument by which the lifeworld is reproduced. The colonization of the lifeworld is a pathology of modernity in which system imperatives from money and power overwhelm those communicative structures.' — Habermas, Theory of Communicative Action (1981); IEP 'Jürgen Habermas'; SEP 'Jürgen Habermas'”