habermas

I found it interesting that while Habermas studied at the Frankfurt school he refused to use the label of Marxist to describe himself. Much of what his ideas are based around though were the same ideas of Marxism. He describes his philosophical approach as the reconstruction of Marxism. The way Habermas approaches communication is based on the ideas of Marxism. Also important to Habermas’s approach to communication is the ideas that came out of the Enlightenment.
Habermas splits the interests of human activity into three separate parts. The first of these is work, which Habermas says is the way humans control the environment that they live in. Through work, humans can provide for themselves what they need to survive. The second interest is interaction. According to Habermas, humans need to interact with one another in groups to survive. Through language and other ways of communication, are the ways humans can keep the social groups going. The third aspect of life is power. The social groups that the second interest puts humans in always involve a hierarchy of power.
All of the interests discussed by Habermas would not be possible without the use of language. According to Habermas the most fundamental way of communicating through language is speech. Habermas gives three types of speech: constatives, regulatives, and avowals. Habermass gave the example of “The grass is green” to explain what constatives is. The point of constatives is to assert the truth. Regulatives connect the speaker with the audience. Regulatives say what should or should not be done. The third type of speech is avowals. In avowals the speaker expresses what he or she wishes to be done about certain truthfulness. Habermas acknowledges that his theories about the different types of speeches may have some holes in them. He doesn’t mean for everything he says to be taken as concrete.