Critical theory and social evolution (i): on the origin and relevance of the concept of social learning in Habermas' work in the 1970

Abstract

The main purpose of this article is to present the origin and theoretical relevance of the concept of social learning for the Habermasian model of Critical Theory, initially based on the work Legitimationsprobleme im Spätkapitalismus (1973), assumed as an articulating category of the link between theory of social evolution and the theory of society developed by the author in the work Rekonstruktion des Historischen Materialismus (1976). Starting from the introduction of the social-scientific concept of crisis, Habermas outlines the assumptions of the theory of social evolution anchored in social learning, which articulates the concepts of logic of development and dynamics of development to explain the emergence of  social organizational principles that, in turn, determine the limits of a society's learning capacity, especially from the point of view of the emergence of new normative structures, representing a decisive moment of post-conventional social integration. Fundamentally, I discuss the problem of the institutionalization of learning processes in late capitalist societies, where the systemic imperatives of bureaucracy and economics that regulate the complexity of the social system prevail, the consequence of which is the difficulty of conceiving the public sphere as the place of social learning guided by the discursive procedure of normative reasoning translating generalizable interests. In Legitimationsprobleme im Spätkapitalismus, Habermas not only articulates the concepts of system and lifeworld for the first time, but also begins the criticism of the fundamental thesis and the central argument linked to the reconstruction of historical materialism as theory of social evolution in Rekonstruktion des Historischen Materialismus.