Sociocultural Evolution or the Social Evolution of Practical Reason? - Eder's Critique of Habermas
Sociocultural Evolution or the Social Evolution of Practical Reason? - Eder's Critique of Habermas

Summary/Abstract: While Habermas originally developed his theory of social evolution in the form of a "reconstruction" of historical materialism, Giddens proposes a "deconstruction" instead, since he is of the opinion that it is not possible "to repair the shortcomings of either evolutionary theory in general or historical materialism in particular". This conviction leads him to advocate, like Touraine before him, a radical break with evolutionary theory. Eder, by contrast, sees the failure of classical theories of social evolution and their consequent discrediting of the idea of social evolution itself as an opportunity to embark on "a renewed attempt to reformulate the theory of social evolution." This requires a critical exchange with Habermas's theory of social evolution rather than a wholesale rejection of it, and at the same time a retention of certain essential features of the Marxian approach. His intuition is that Touraine and Giddens are able to discard evolution only because they take the claims of the representative authors at face value rather than analyzing and criticizing the confusions and erroneous assumptions undermining the classical formulations of the theory.

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