Public sphere and reconstruction: on the constitution of a reconstructive paradigm within Critical Theory

Abstract

The project aims to investigate the possible establishment of a "critical reconstructive paradigm" in the field of Critical Theory. The main hypothesis is that Habermas inaugurated a critical model that eventually transformed itself into a critical paradigm within which different critical models dispute, defining and using implicitly or explicitly reconstructive resources. The investigation is divided in two subprojects. The first is dedicated to understanding both the origins - from Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit to Habermas' own writings - as well as the main features of such a reconstructive paradigm, including the analysis of the authors and works that could be put and understood under such a label, including as a decisive moment a certain return of psychoanalysis as one of this possible main features in dispute. The second subproject devotes itself to the specific exam of a decisive political feature of the paradigm, represented by the role of the public sphere. This will be carried out through a balanced composition of categories such as "diagnosis of the time", "orientation to emancipation" and "critique", so that the main critical-normative may emerge in their proper social and political contexts of dispute. (AU)