Tönnies and Habermas

The Telos of Community, Public Opinion, and the Public Sphere

Perry H. Howard

pp. 419-438

in: Lars Clausen, Carsten Schlüter (eds), Hundert Jahre "Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft", Wiesbaden, Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 1991

Abstract

The theoretical (and potentially political) projects of both Ferdinand Tönnies and Jürgen Habermas include important emphasis on "publicness' (Offentlichkeit). In this presentation three things are attempted. First, to develop a comparison or homology between the two men by briefly looking at their like quest for community by focusing upon language acquisition through community and community formation through communication. Both represent German thought over the last 100 years or so with regards to prospect for emancipation from modernity's alienating tendencies. Second, to take a look at key terms or concepts which might be comparable; in particular Tönnies' "affirmative will" and Habermas' "communicative action". Public opinion and the public sphere are seen as their keys to analyses of a political sociology common to both men. Third, to begin to develop a political conclusion; to take recent critiques of both and look at what might be some ele-ments of a socialist theory of public life (after John Keane, Werner Cahnman, Eduard Georg Jacoby, and Rudolf Heberle). Tönnies calls for "cooperative movements' and Habermas calls for "communicative rationality" in redemption of the "lifeworld". In a final political note, social movements and welfare futures are discussed — possible "emancipatory" or "liberative potentials' that could result from "expanded pub-licness' — the idea that both Tönnies and Habermas profoundly share.

Cited authors

Habermas Jürgen

Tönnies Ferdinand