Towards a phenomenological contribution for social criticism: a critique of the normative conceptions of the lifeworld in Habermas

Abstract

This article will attempt to show how Habermas turns away from a critical-phenomenological perspective and towards an analytic and pragmatic understanding of language and society. I want to point out that there is minimal phenomenology in Habermas’ appropriation of the concept of Lebenswelt. I concede that Habermas provides us with a fascinating re-assessment of some classical elements in the philosophy of Edmund Husserl, but in his “Critique of Functionalist Reason,” he seems to abandon most of the methodological elements that would allow us to call his own method “phenomenological.”