Habermasian Thought

Jürgen Habermas (1929–) dedicated his energies to reestablishing reason as the driving force behind both democracy and communication. In Knowledge and Human Interests, appearing in the United States in 1971, Habermas claimed that all knowledge is constituted in human interests, and he named three such interests: control, interpretation, and emancipation. The interest in control, he said, is dominated by positivism and governs science and technology. The interest in interpretation governs hermeneutics and human interaction, and interest in emancipation, Habermas said, would govern a psychological and social science dedicated to promoting the liberty of individuals in particular and society in general. Habermasian thought provided a theoretical base for North American curriculum theorists to critique the organizational structures of education and to analyze and then develop alternative conceptions to lessen the hegemonic control of public knowledge and educational programming.

Habermas's scheme was highly evocative and moved James Macdonald, one of the leading curriculum theorists of the 1970s and a founding figure in the reconceptualist movement, to recognize three models of curriculum development: the linear expert model, the circular consensus model, and the dialogical model. The linear expert model is a highly centralized and positivistic curriculum development model based on the authority of subject matter specialists. The circular consensus model, on the other hand, is highly localized and depends upon the notion that curriculum functions best when the teachers are the main curriculum makers, consulting from time to time with curriculum experts. For the dialogical model, Macdonald referred to the work of Paulo Freire, whose literacy campaigns were grounded in the political interests of the learners as they engaged in dialogue with each other and the literacy workers. Macdonald's work has had significant influence on some members of the reconceptualists.

Habermas was born in Düsseldorf, Germany, in 1929, and became one of the most important philosophers and social theorists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Growing up in Nazi Germany, and coming into adulthood in the postwar period, Habermas, a member of the Frankfurt School, became committed to a philosophical and social-theoretic understanding of deliberative democracy and communicative rationality, both of which had been denied him growing up under national socialism.

One of the problems with Habermas's theory is that he assumes all science is positivistic and primarily interested in control, an assumption that is true of some science, but not all. For example, when Jane Goodall lived among chimpanzees and observed them naturalistically, her inquiry was not so tightly controlled. Further, one is hard put to discern precisely what specific kinds of knowledge are constituted by the interest in emancipation. Yet the force of Habermas's insight in Knowledge and Human Interests remains relevant to curriculum studies, for it clearly points to the problematic domination of [Page 424]the positivistic linear expert model in curriculum practice. Moreover, it demonstrates a way to resist such domination by affirming the value of knowledge generated by interpretation, conversation, and commonsense practical knowledge.

The domination that Habermas opposes is neither capitalism nor communism; it is the contemporary positivistic mind-set that the only knowledge of value is scientific-technological. For this reason, Habermas, in the 1970s, turned to the study of the practical language of everyday life. In conversations, he noted, people sometimes act strategically, pursuing their own private interests. At other times they act communicatively, pursuing understanding or consensus. This kind of conversation gets raised in Habermas's terminology to discourse when partners in a conversation provide reasons for claims they make. These reasons are not limited to representations of facts, but may be based upon the rightness of reasoning among partners or on moral correctness, aesthetic value, personal sincerity, or on other considerations. In this sense, Habermas's discourse theory can be compared to the work of informal logicians, such as Stephen Toulmin, who find reasonableness, as distinct from logical rationality, a significant source of practical knowledge.

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