Between Reason and History

David S. Owen is Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Hamline University.

• Acknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction 1. The Idea of Progress and Critical Social Theory Critical Social TheoryCritical HermeneuticsSummary 2. Habermas's Conception of Critical Social Theory Formal Pragmatics Communicative ActionSociocultural LifeworldCommunicative Rationality The Developmental Theory of Social Evolution Habermas's Reconstruction of Historical MaterialismOverview of the Mature Theory The Theory of ModernitySummary 3. The Development Theory of Social Evolution General Considerations Conceptual and Theoretical DistinctionsEpistemological Assumptions Principal Elements The Dimenions of DevelopmentRationalizationThe Dynamic between Interaction and LaborDevelopment Logic and Empirical MechanismsSocial Evolution as a Learning Process 4. The Idea of a Development Logic of History The Concept of Developmental Logic The Psychological-Theoretic ConceptionFormal PropertiesThe Social-Theoretic Conception The Developmental Logic Thesis The Homological ArgumentsThe Formal-Pragmatic ArgumentFurther Questions 5. Progress and Social Evolution Habermas's Conception of ProgressThe Dialectic of ProgressA Differentiated Conception of ProgressSummary and Conclusions Notes Bibliography Index

"The first full-length study in English of this important aspect of Habermas's thought, this is a clearly written, very well researched, and cogently argued book." — Thomas McCarthy, author of The Critical Theory of Jurgen Habermas"This book is a real gem. Among scholarly works on Habermas, it is rare to find a book that so deftly combines scholarship, analytic precision and clarity, and highly readable prose. It is the only book devoted to treating in critical detail what is arguably the most important feature of Habermas's theory of social evolution." — David Ingram, author of Habermas and the Dialectic of Reason"It is an area of Habermasian studies that scholars have all too often neglected for the last twenty years. But the author not only deals very well with the material, but also reveals why this area is central to Habermas's critical project." — James C. Swindal, author of Reflection Revisited: Jurgen Habermas's Discursive Theory of Truth