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Section 6. Philosophy
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.20534/AJH-16-9.10-49-53
Batrakina Elyzaveta Evgenievna, V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University (Kharkiv, Ukraine), postgraduate student E-mail: elizaveta.batr@gmail.com
Conceptualization of the public sphere: H. Arendt, R. Koselleck, J. Habermas
Abstract. The Article is dedicated to the peculiarities of formation and development of the public sphere. We consider the three most progressive approaches to the origin and transformation of the public space — H. Arendt, R. Koselleck and J. Habermas. The comparative analysis of these concepts is being made.
Keywords: public sphere, bourgeoisie, community, public opinion, society.
The public sphere is an essential part of the social people. A necessary condition for the existence and
space, and it acts as a conductor of social problems in the sphere of the private in the institutionalized political system. As the area of free discussion of publicly significant issues, the public has sensitivity in relation to social issues, which are first expressed in the private sphere. It is in this discussion space the atomized arguments are fused into a single stream of public opinion. The concept of the public sphere is subject from time to time to constant revision, because the permanent change of the social reality leads to its structural transformation. In our view, we can find the most progressive research of transformations of the public space in the works of H. Arendt, R. Koselleck and J. Habermas.
H. Arendt identifies three types of the human activity necessary for human existence: labor (work), creation (production) and action (act). Labor and creation are types of activities, unfolding through the matter, where the labor is stipulated by the need to maintain the biological processes of a living organism, and the creation appears as the production environment of a human environment — "second nature", the world of things. The action which in its turn consists of speaking and action is the only indispensable type of activity, deployed directly among
action of speaking is a common place for all- publicity space. The basis of the concept of "public space" is what Arendt talks about speech and action attitude, in which the differences are expressed and human uniqueness is manifested: «Talking and acting, people actively distinguish themselves from each other instead of just being different; they are modes in which humanity itself is revealed» [1, 229]. This space is not tied to any soil, and formed each time at the time of human action and of speaking, when there is an interaction with others, expression and detection of the position in relation to the total world, presentation and expression of their humanity. Public space provides an opportunity to disclose the human abilities as a basic condition for manifestation of individual essence. It is here, in the space that is relevant to different time periods, there is a reproduction of the world and history. We are entering into this community from birth and are there for all life, not only with our contemporaries, but also with the past and future generations. Arendt believes that the immortality of this space is outside of us and acts as a response to the challenge of the death of the times. The public space as a network of multiple connections is not managed by the actor to
the end, because nobody has managed yet to implement the original goals of the permanent antagonism and struggle with countless third-party intentions. But it is manageable and partially under control in the sense of the individual participation in the course of the history.
Arendt refers the emergence of the public sphere to the ancient Greek polis. In Antiquity the creation was referred to the lower types of activity, unlike the action and speech that are outstanding abilities required for the approval of its identity in a bitter dispute in the agonal space between free and equal citizens of the Greek city. Following Aristotle, Arendt argues that the only way to develop fair policy decisions are communication processes between people, where the semantic context of the policy are common concerns, and knowledge is possible only because of the interaction, the human condition to achieve practical wisdom. Only in the period of the ancient agora there was a possibility of true democracy and quality discus. Polis is the highest welfare, and there was no place for consumer interests inherent in the economic environment, which in the ancient city belonged to the sphere of the household with the prevailing relations of inequality. Later, with the release of the economy beyond the scope of the private, there appeared the public sphere or the society, and economic activities have become a collective concern, which contributed to the destruction of public and private boundaries. Arendt focuses on the dichotomy of public/private and the necessity of a harmonious balance between them, the lack of which in the society, leading to deformation of human life. In antiquity the relation to the private sphere was characterized by distrust of the possibility of bringing their personal interests and inherent inequality in the public sphere. Expansion of the public sphere also aroused fears, as a result of which the private interests could be affected, «blinding light of publicity destroys the secrecy, in which the life of mortal like the animals need it for the sake of its maintenance» [1, 215]. Liberalism put the private sphere on the top, and not the public, as it was in antiquity. As a result thereof the social sphere received a push to the development,
which, according to Arendt, is a devastating the interpenetration of the public and private. The ideal of the common good has been gradually replaced by the ideal of individual goods.
Unlike Arendt, uniting the decline of the public sphere with the establishment of the modern state, J. Habermas, on the other hand, considers the rapid development of economic activities, which went beyond the household, as a new stage in the rise of a stimulant of the public sphere.
According to Habermas, «by the public sphere we mean first of all a realm of our social life in which something approaching public opinion can be formed. Access is guaranteed to all citizens. A portion of the public sphere comes into being in every conversation in which private individuals assemble to form a public body» [6, 49]. If the ideal of the Greek agora played the fundamental role for Arendt, where the eye contact was an integral part of the communication, J. Habermas pays more attention not only to the immediate perception of each other in the process of formation of the public discourse, but also to the use of non-verbal opportunities — publications, media, etc. Habermas, unlike Arendt, considers the public sphere, not as a direct interaction of people with a common system of values, as well as the non-personal phenomenon, as a space ofunlimited communication. For Habermas, this is not «the city and its walls», but rather a virtual community, a united effort to develop a common interpretation of the situation. Although, as S. Benhabib notes, Arendt herself did not give a clear answer on whether the publicity really has only the spatial characteristics.
In his opinion, the public sphere has been realized in XVII-XVIII century, and had been finally formed by the end of XIX. And with the rise of the modern state Habermas not only links the decline of publicity, but the emergence and development of a new form thereof. Publicity has started to be an association of individuals, where the private sphere is presented in the form of the institution of property. Habermas does not pay as much attention to the dichotomy of public-private for the definition of the public sphere as Arendt. First of all, he explores the possibilities and ways of its organization. Separation of work and action as the defining characteristics
of the private and public spheres, respectively, in Habermas' model is losing its relevance, because one of the main functions of publicity in the bourgeois state, which was the catalyst for its development, was to protect the market from government intervention.
In medieval period, «public» does not imply references to the real public, and has been associated only with a specific carrier of power authorities — feudal lord. Due to the gradual elimination of the religious bases of the norms and rules the released critical potential of public reason started to be used for the reconstruction of destroyed bases of consensus with respect to the surrounding world. Now unlimited public communication network organized the substance of power, instead of the king.
In the description of the appearance and nature of the «bourgeois public sphere» Habermas is based on a study by R. Koselleck. For a more in-depth analysis of the phenomenon of the modern publicity we should apply to his work «Critique and Crisis: Enlightenment and the Pathogenesis of the Modern Society». It was there that clearly shows how bourgeois society was the bearer of a new socio-political power — public opinion, which further served as the basis for the formation of a new type of the civil society.
According to Koselleck, absolutist state has created a favorable basis for the formation of a critical counterweight to political power — bourgeois society. As a result of long wars of religion, morality was separated from politics and private interests were not to be subordinated to those of the state any more. The State of Enlightenment did not regard an egalitarian society as a possible competitor. As the society of that era expressed moral interests rather than political, and was not associated with the main enemies of the absolutist state — Church and the aristocracy. Gradually, in the society based on the principles of morality, an especially critical attitude to politics was formed. Morals are increasingly opposed to the immoral power that later resulted in the massive doubt about the sovereignty of the absolutist state and «protection by the state was replaced by protection from the state» [8, 73]. The neutrality of moral judgments in relation to
the political system in the early stages helped the community quickly and without any obstacles develop into a significant political force, under the pressure of which the deformation of the state system started. This social phenomenon took place in several stages: alienation from politics, criticism, condemnation and implementation of this conviction. Permanent conviction and denial of the legitimacy of immoral power strengthened social cohesion, and, at the same time, due to the lack of explicit political context of the available objections, the state was deprived of the opportunity to use the traditional methods of suppressing the growing threat. Koselleck emphasizes unconscious hypocritical nature of the public criticism and the desire to limit the impact of the system, but the author does not give the answer to whether it was a hidden will to the power of the critical reason. The moral innocence and the opportunity to avoid responsibility are expressed in the moral analysis, which allows using a moral category. It is with the help of morality there was a massive politiciza-tion [8, 114]. Later, entering this confrontation, the monarchy finally lost the aura of sanctity. Koselleck offers qualitatively different understanding of the Enlightenment, not only as a historical struggle for class interests, but also the emergence of completely new types of communication, intertwining the different layers of the society. The term «opinion» as a personal judgment, the only possible counterweight to religious truth, is gradually being replaced by its definition as a rationally grounded judgment — counterweight unreasoned preference. Thus, there is the development of the «public opinion», where an infinite number of partial judgments are transformed into a single stream of critical rationality. Social stratification is overcome by using a new type of power — moral power, the versatility of which overcomes the intersubjective differences.
New types of salons and clubs associate the private and public spheres, subjectivity restrictions disappear, as well as binding to the status. Here only rational expression has the effect.
Unlike Koselleck, Habermas considers the situation not as a search for ways of replacement of the
old regime, and as a substitute for the principles of its functioning as a whole. It is a new type of relations between the state and the society in which the state power can be controlled by the critical mind of the public sphere. That is, the criticism of Habermas perceived not only as a means of achieving power, but an end in itself, as the trend of institutionalization. Whatever it was, a new procedure was indeed based on the other high-quality principles that have allowed the public to join in the political process, and stimulated the growth of non-governmental organizations, committees, clubs, etc. Print is the ability to save the public transparency and the development of new forms of communication, which as a rule is executed only in private. Due to the new form in the literary sphere — novel, there is an opportunity to think about the social processes on paper. The author as an antique orator can be heard without the need for physical presence. This public discourse in print led to a full-fledged formation of the public sphere. This is the beginning of the birth of the modern society, its identity, which only that opinion is deemed to be rational, which has passed the test of public debate. Social processes cannot be driven in any frame any more, in the public sphere everything is developed very spontaneously, and the fixed procedure can no longer limit the flexible communication flows. Now, the public sphere is an interweaving of "subcultural publics" with non-boundaries [4, 307].
Following the ideas of Koselleck regarding the transformation of the social order, Habermas, though, as Arendt, considers the family as part of the private sphere, without which the public would have been impossible. He links the social changes with the revaluation of values in the intimate sphere. Patriarchy in the family is replaced by the relative financial independence of its members that has an impact on the social orders. Unlike Hegel, who thinks that the family serves as the sphere, necessary for socialization and subsequent integration in the state, Habermas, without denying the first paragraph, still estimates it as an element, not referred to the sphere of the state and the economy.
Unfortunately, in the work devoted to the formation of the public sphere, Habermas was unable to
go beyond the negative attitudes of other representatives of the Frankfurt school — M. Horkheimer and T. Adorno. In his opinion, since the transformation of the bourgeoisie into the ruling class, no one else was interested in maintaining a critical opinion. But with the development of the new social movements in the late 20th century Habermas had to admit that: «I was too pessimistic about the resisting power and above all the critical potential of a pluralistic, internally much differentiated mass public whose cultural usage have begun to shake off the constraints of class» [5, 438].
The modern understanding of the public sphere would be impossible without research of H. Arendt, R. Koselleck and J. Habermas. J. Habermas uses the ideas of Koselleck regarding the formation of social structures, but at the same time makes a more detailed study of the different national versions of institutionalization of the public sphere and the importance of the press in the expansion of the public discourse. He also exposes the detailed processing of some ideas of H. Arendt, allowing it to implement the Hegelian project of the synthesis of the ancient heritage and modernity more productively. All this gives the opportunity for Habermas to create at present the most profound understanding of the processes taking place in the public space. According to the opinion of Benhabib: «At some level, the ingenuity of Habermas's discussion in The Strusctural Transformation of the Public Sphere was that he subjected the liberal principle of political legitimation, the use by citizens of their private reason to test public matters, to radical-democratic critique» [3, 202].
Many researchers turned to history in search of the ideal integrated public sphere: ancient Agora, bourgeois public sphere, parliamentary debates or public meetings in England XVIII-XIX centuries. But it does not mean that similar regulatory ideals were really embodied in real life, because we can only seek to create a homogeneous discursive space in the pluralistic society. Search for regulatory ideas enables us to a deeper understanding of the structure and processes of the public sphere, as well as help to identify the methods of its effective re-institutionalization for more civilian influence and control over the public processes.
Axiological aspects of the payoff ratio in the Prisoner's Dilemma
References:
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2. Kozellek R. Social'naja istorija i istorija ponjatij//Istoricheskie ponjatija i politicheskie idei v Ros-sii XVI-XX veka. - SPb: Aletejja, - 2006. - Vyp. 5, - S. 33-53.
3. Benhabib S. From the Problem ofJudgment To the Public Sphere: Rethinking Hannah Arendt's Political Theory/S. Benhabib//The reluctant modernism of Hannah Arendt. - Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, - 1996. - P. 172-220.
4. Habermas J. Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy/J. Habermas. - Cambridge: The MIT Press, - 1996. - 675 p.
5. Habermas J. Further Reflections on the Public Sphere/C. Calhoun (eds.)//Habermas and the Public Sphere. - Cambridge, Mass: MIT, - 1992. - P. 421-461.
6. Habermas J. The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedic Article//New German Critique, - 1974. - Vol. 3. - P. 49-55.
7. Habermas J. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere/J. Habermas. - Cambridge: The MIT Press, -1991. - 301 p.
8. Koselleck R. Critique and Crisis: Enlightenment and the Pathogenesis of Modern Society/R. Koselleck. - Cambridge: MIT Press, -1988. - 204 p.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.20534/AJH-16-9.10-53-57
Belogorodov Roman, Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova, PhD student, Sector for Philosophical Studies E-mail: 9377@mail.ru
Axiological aspects of the payoff ratio in the Prisoner's Dilemma
Abstract: This paper describes possible conditions of payoff ratio impact over the behavior of participants in prisoner's dilemma experiments. The conclusion is that in similar circumstances the cooperation is not always the result of irrational behavior of individuals.
Keywords: the prisoner's dilemma, social philosophy, axiology in social relations.
Белогородов Роман, Институт Истории Академии Наук Молдовы, докторант отделения философии E-mail: 9377@mail.ru
Аксиологические аспекты соотношения выплат в дилемме заключенного
Аннотация: В статье показаны возможные обстоятельства влияния соотношения выплат на поведение участников экспериментов, основанных на дилемме заключенного. Делается вывод, что не всегда сотрудничество индивидов в подобных обстоятельствах — результат иррационального поведения.
