Search results

Jürgen Habermas is one of the most important authors in contemporary philosophy. In this chapter, we analyse his contribution to the philosophical debate on universalism and relativism and consider its implications for organization studies and organizations operating in an intercultural environment. We briefly describe the critique of a universal concept of reason that has been forwarded by sceptical and postmodern philosophers. As a response to this critique, we outline the contribution of discourse ethics and analyse the theories of Jürgen Habermas and his colleague Karl-Otto Apel. We explore the justification of discourse ethics and point out some problems in its argumentative logic. In the light of this critique, we outline some characteristics of an intercultural ethics that is based on constructivist philosophy and point to some encouraging prospects on the consolidation of the debate between relativistic and universalistic philosophers.

Mixed methods research can provide a fruitful line of inquiry for educational leadership, program evaluation, and policy analysis; however, mixed methods research requires a metatheory that allows for mixing what have traditionally been considered incompatible qualitative and quantitative inquiry. The purpose of this paper is to apply Jürgen Habermas’s Theory of Communicative Action as that metatheoretical justification.

After reviewing the traditional quantitative/qualitative divide based on incompatible ontologies, the author argues for a pragmatist stance toward educational leadership inquiry. Such a stance allows for mixing methods because it privileges methodology and epistemology in social inquiry, rather than ontological theories of reality. Using Habermas’s metatheory, the author shows how truth claims are linguistically mediated; how they make reference to objective, subjective, and normative formal worlds; and how they are always fallible and revisable.

The author argues that Habermas’s metatheory allows (and requires) integration of qualitative and quantitative approaches to fully understand social phenomena. Such integration is possible if researchers attempt to make methodological decisions explicit by linking methodology (and thus methodical decisions) to all three formal worlds, and articulating the rationale for doing so. The author also argues that making the entire corpus of claims bound within a line of social inquiry subject to critical examination promotes the validity of inquiry.

This paper contributes to the discussion on mixed methods research by applying a particular strand of pragmatism. This is an advance in the extant literature, which argues for a pragmatist stance on mixed methods research, but has not yet conceptualized a metatheoretical position supporting this stance.

This review of Amy Allen’s book, The End of Progress (2016), first addresses the structure of the book and focuses on specific points made in individual chapters, including the affinity between postcolonial theory and the approaches of Adorno and Foucault in subjecting the notion of historical progress to “withering critique,” and Allen’s alternative approach to decolonization; Habermas’ aim to put critical theory on a secure normative footing; Honneth’s stance that the history of an ethical sphere is an unplanned learning process kept in motion by a struggle for recognition; Forst’s attempt to reconstruct Critical Theory’s normative account through a return to Kant rather than Hegel; and Allen’s claim that her approach is fully in the spirit of Critical Theory and could be seen as continuation of Critical Theory’s first generation, as in Adorno, and how it is a “genealogical” approach that draws on Adorno’s negative dialectics and critique of identity thinking, as well as on Nietzsche’s conception of genealogy, as developed by Foucault. The second part of my response raises three issues: (1) Allen’s partial compromise with the idea of progress; (2) whether critical theory would profit from engagement with other critical theories and theories of ethics, beyond postcolonial theory; and (3) nonwestern theories shed a different light on the question of Allen’s critique, a theme that also draws attention to the gesture of decolonizing, the distinctions between colonialism and empire, and the sociology of knowledge production.

The paper argues for a comprehensive method of sociological deconstruction and reconstruction that includes: (i) de-subjectifying interpretation, (ii) re-subjectifying explanation, (iii) de-objectifying understanding, and (iv) re-objectifying conceptualization.

Both methodological and substantive arguments are guided by the constructive principle of mediating interpenetration of polar opposites.

Status groups and class interests are conceived as major categories of sociological differentiation mediating between the abstractions of individuals and society. Three types of class formation are discovered in Weber’s legacy beyond Marx’s property one. Sorokin’s work in a two-dimensional social stratification and mobility is found to have major significance for developing the concept of social classes and for reconciling divergent ideas of social stratification. The principle of concept formation by mediation of interpenetrating polar opposites is found to be of greater complexity and effectiveness than Hegel’s logical principle of transcendental supersession.

The comprehensive method of sociological deconstruction and reconstruction seamlessly integrates qualitative and quantitative methods in sociology as well as concept formation and research.

To those concerned with challenges and challengers to conventional wisdom, the entirely credible perception of ours as a planet in the midst of a deep environmental crisis offers fruitful grounds for analysis. Crises stimulate those who have, in the existence of the crisis, firm proof that the wisdom which girds the status quo is deficient and/or those who apply it are. This is particularly true when the crisis is perceived to be grave and dread‐laden. Skin cancer due to the depletion of the ozone layer is on the increase. Large, at times devastating, climate changes are loose upon the planet. Whether given quasi‐ scientific names like the “greenhouse effect” or lumped together in a melange of “acid rain”, “toxic waste” and “industrial cancers”, the result is the same. Rational citizens of the everyday‐person‐on‐the‐street sort feel threatened. The threat is given shape and substance by the mass media. The environmental crisis is a credible crisis. One need not list radical political activism as one's vocation to list the environmental crisis as one of one's fears as we enter the 1990's.

Any adequate analysis of the nature and role of the mathematical language in finance necessarily requires fundamental understanding of the worldviews underlying the views expressed with respect to the nature and role of language. This paper starts with the premise that any worldview can be positioned on a continuum formed by four basic paradigms: functionalist, interpretive, radical humanist, and radical structuralist. It looks at the current state of mainstream academic finance and notes that it is founded on the functionalist paradigm. It argues that any view expressed with respect to the nature and role of language is based on one of the worldviews. It discusses four views expressed with respect to the nature and role of language. Each of the views expressed is based on one of the four paradigms mentioned previously. The paper emphasizes that the four views expressed are equally scientific and informative; they look at the nature and role of language from a certain paradigmatic viewpoint.

The purpose of this paper is to claim that Habermas's pragmatic speech act theory helps us to extend our understanding of how management concepts are actually applied. First, the relevant features of management concepts are examined, to indicate how the diffusion of knowledge about management practices and organizational structuring takes place. Subsequently, the paper focuses on the adoption of management concepts in companies, looking at the different ways management concepts are implemented. Some implementation is based on strategic actions, others on communicative action. This issue is further explored in the final section.

Compares Lervik and Lunnar's categorization of management concept implementation to Habermas's epistemology.

Identifies aspects of language as conversation as determinant of new management concept implementation.

Shows how role discourse analysis coupled with Habermas can give an understanding of implementation of new management concepts.

Practical application of Habermasian analysis of communication.

The main purpose of this essay is to reflect on the nature of justification. To this end, the analysis draws on Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot’s De la justification. Les économies de la grandeur ¹ [On Justification: Economies of Worth ² ]. More specifically, the article aims to examine the extent to which Boltanski and Thévenot’s conceptual framework, widely known as ‘the sociology of critical capacity’, ³ permits us to demonstrate that processes of justification ⁴ are vital to the symbolically mediated construction – that is, to both the conceptual and the empirical organization ⁵ – of social life. In order to prove the validity of this contention, the inquiry explores the meaning of ‘justification’ in relation to the following dimensions: (1) existence, (2) ethics, (3) justice, (4) perspective, (5) presuppositions, (6) agreement, (7) common worlds, (8) critique, (9) practice and (10) justification itself. By way of conclusion, the article maintains that processes of justification constitute an essential ingredient of human reality.