Order Without Rules: Critical Theory and the Logic of Conversation (SUNY Series in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences) - Softcover

Bogen, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0791440567 ISBN 13: 9780791440568

Publisher: State University of New York Press, 1999

Synopsis

Order Without Rules establishes the basic terms for a critical discourse between the theory of communicative action and the tradition of practice-based inquiries inspired by Wittgenstein and elaborated within the field of ethnomethodology. It argues that such a discourse not only is possible, but that it is essential if critical theory is to move beyond the crisis caused by the decline of the great rationalist social projects of the past two centuries and the simultaneous rise of an array of post-enlightenment and anti-rationalist movements waiting to take their place. Order Without Rules addresses the "problem of rationality" in its most contemporary incarnation: the critical theory of the German philosopher and social critic, Jurgen Habermas. Habermas attempts to resolve the Weberian paradox by identifying the rational "core" of communication with universal processes of interpretive understanding that are present in everyday conversation. Drawing upon the work within the Wittgensteinian and ethnomethodological traditions of linguistic and social analysis, this book questions whether the logic of language underlying Habermas's theory of communicative action is in fact the defining feature of conversational practice.

About this title

About the Author

David Bogen is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Acting Director of Interdisciplinary Studies at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. He is the author, with Michael Lynch, of The Spectacle of History: Speech, Text, and Memory at the Iran-Contra Hearings.

Edition details

• Publisher: State University of New York Press
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0791440567
• ISBN 13: 9780791440568
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 206