The Lab's Quarterly Il Trimestrale del Laboratorio

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1 The Lab's Quarterly Il Trimestrale del Laboratorio 2009 / n. 1 / gennaio-marzo Laboratorio di Ricerca Sociale Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche e Sociali, Università di Pisa

2 Direttore: Massimo Ampola Comitato scientifico: Roberto Faenza Paolo Bagnoli Mauro Grassi Antonio Thiery Franco Martorana Comitato di Redazione: Stefania Milella Luca Lischi Alfredo Givigliano Marco Chiuppesi Segretario di Redazione: Luca Corchia ISSN Laboratorio di Ricerca Sociale Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche e Sociali, Università di Pisa

3 The Lab's Quarterly Il Trimestrale del Laboratorio 2009 / n. 1 / gennaio-marzo COMPLEXITY, VAGUENESS, FRACTALS AND FUZZY LOGIC: NEW PATHS FOR THE SOCIAL SEARCH Massimo Ampola Complexity,vagueness, fractals and fuzzy logic 5 Marco Chiuppesi Indexes, Scales and Ideal Types a Fuzzy Approach 17 Paolo Pasquinelli Talita Pistelli Mc Clelland Luca Corchia Chiara Ferretti Some Aspect of the Quality in a Living Complex System. A Preliminary Approach: The Lichen Symbiosis 35 Vague tendences: a review of fuzzy set theory comparative studies 46 Explicative models of complexity. The reconstructions of social evolution for Jürgen Habermas 54 Paths Towards Addiction: a Fuzzy Model of Causal Relations 84 RECENSIONI Elisabetta Buonasorte Essere e non essere. Soggettività virtuali tra unione e divisione (Annalisa Buccieri, Milano, FrancoAngeli, 2009) 94 Laboratorio di Ricerca Sociale Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche e Sociali, Università di Pisa

4 Si è tenuta a Napoli dal 1 al 5 Settembre 2008 la VII International Conference on Social Scienze Methodology nell ambito di RC33 - Logic and Methodology in Sociology. Pubblichiamo le relazioni tenute da studiosi impegnati nel Laboratorio di Ricerca Sociale del Dipartimento di Scienze Sociali, ora, confluito nel Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche e Sociali. Section Complexity, vagueness, fractals and fuzzy logic: new paths for the social search

5 EXPLICATIVE MODELS OF COMPLEXITY. THE RECONSTRUCTIONS OF SOCIAL EVOLUTION FOR JÜRGEN HABERMAS Luca Corchia Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche e Sociali Università di Pisa luca.corchia@dss.unipi.it Abstract Habermas introduces the concept of reconstructive science with a double purpose: to place the general theory of society between philosophy and social science and reestablish the rift between the great theorization and the empirical research. The model of rational reconstructions represents the main thread of the surveys about the structures of the life-world ( culture, society and personality ) and their respective functions (cultural reproductions, social integrations and socialization). For this propose, the dialectics between symbolic representation of the structures subordinated to all worlds of life ( internal relationships ) and the material reproduction of the social systems in their complex ( external relationships between social systems and environment) has to be considered. This model finds an application, above all, in the theory of the social evolution, starting from the reconstruction of the necessary conditions for a phylogeny of the socio-cultural-life forms (the hominization ) until an analysis of the development of social formations, which Habermas subdivides into primitive, traditional, modern and contemporary formations. This paper is an attempt, primarily, to formalize the model of reconstruction of the logic of development of social formations summed up by Habermas through the differentiation between vital world and social systems (and, within them, through the rationalization of the life-world and the growth in complexity of the social systems ). Secondly, it tries to offer some methodological clarifications about the explanation of the dynamics of historical processes and, in particular, about the theoretical meaning of the evolutional theory s propositions. Even if the German sociologist considers that the ex-post rational reconstructions and the models system/environment cannot have a complete historiographical application, these certainly act as a general premise in the argumentative structure of the historical explanation. Keywords: new model, complexity, social evolution Index Introduction The Lesson of the Classics: the General Theory of Society The Theory of Social Evolution Social Science and Historiography 71 Basic Bibliography 80

6 The Lab s Quarterly 55 Introduction THE LESSON OF THE CLASSICS: THE GENERAL THEORY OF SOCIETY Jürgen Habermas has devoted more than thirty years of his studies to social science, in order to define, through the reconstruction of its traditions of thought, a theorical framework which serves as orientation for programs of historicalsocial programs. As well as the classics of the sociological thought, he has faced the problems of society as a whole, explaining the propositions, methods and aims as indispensable pre-requisites for a research which widens the disciplinary borders of the philosophical reflection on one side, and of the historical research on the other side. Within the long itinerary of his formation, this program represents a sort of main thread in the analysis of cultural systems, social systems, personality systems and, above all, in the theory of the social evolution, from the reconstruction of the necessary conditions for the anthropological genesis of the socio-cultural living forms the hominization until the examination of the logic and dynamics of the development of the social formations, that Habermas subdivides in primitive, traditional, modern and contemporary formations. Considering these as the cognitive basis, it is unavoidable to question whether Habermas really achieves, in his itineraries through the history of ideas, the logical coherence and the depth of research which are necessary to systematize the researches in social science into a unitary theorical framework. Within the general reconstruction of Habermas work, the present paper focuses on the propositions of the explicative model of the theory of social evolution and on the particular relationships between sociology and historiography. But primarily, we also have to point out more precisely the object of interest of his writings, considering that, according to Habermas, the debates within the social science deal with the cognitive statute, but first of all with the objectual sphere and at least they concern the choice of methodologies and techniques of research in order to approach data, describe them, advance hypotheses, develop analyses and control their results in relation to the scientific community. In his opinion, the objectual sphere is then at the highest level of abstraction: namely a theory of society which reconstructs the constitutive components of the social formations and the processes-mechanisms of their reproduction, namely statics and dynamics of the social phenomena.

7 The Lab s Quarterly 56 The reference to the constitutive aspects of society is confirmed in the Interview with Hans Peter Krüger (1989). Habermas replies to the request of outlining a geographical map of his theory and affirms: «Every theory of society must have ambition to explain how a society works, and through what it is reproduced» 1. In this way, he goes back to the research about the classics in the sociological thought that - starting from A. Comte, H. Spencer and K. Marx until P. Sorokin and T. Parsons, through F. Tönnies, E. Durkheim, M. Weber has maintained the idea of building models in order to describe the structural elements of social formations and the logics of development of human evolution, re-organizing the material of historical researches from a synchronic (or structural) and a diachronic (or genetic) point of view. The reference to the classics brings about the attention to the logics of research and to the interdisciplinary horizon opened by their perspective on social phenomena, in opposition to the reductionistic attempts to bring back social science to specialist spheres, such as economic sciences for production, exchange and use of wealth, political science for constitution and maintaining processes, crises of power and public opinion, sociology for social integration and anomic crisis in groups and institutions, psychology for the individuation and socialization of generations, cultural science for the genesis and the transmission of the canonical forms of knowledge and for heresies. Habermas faces the definition of conceptual framework of the theory of society, starting from the reflection on an unclear relationship between the theory of action and the systemic action. In other words, starting from the preliminary question on how conceptual strategies are orientated, social science can integrate in a unitary model, redefining the theory of action in terms of theory of communicative action and assuming, even if a reduced dimension, the neo-functionalist positions of the systemic theory 2. This approach, redefined on the model of rational reconstructions represents the thread of the reflections about the structures of the life-world, cultural reproduction, social integration and socialization, also considering the connections between the structures subjected to all worlds of life and their symbolic reproduction and material reproduction 3. 1 J. Habermas, it. transl. Intervista con Hans Peter Krüger, in Id., NR, cit., p J. Habermas, it. transl. Seconda considerazione intermedia: sistema e mondo vitale, in Id., TKH, cit., p J. Habermas, it. transl. Seconda considerazione intermedia: sistema e mondo vitale, in Id., TKH, cit., p. 739.

8 The Lab s Quarterly The Theory of Social Evolution The processes of social reproduction had been reconstructed in a specialist way by E. Husserl s phenomenology and Gadamer s philosophical hermeneutics, referring to the actualization of cultural traditions, Mead s symbolic interactionism and Weber s comprehensive sociology with respect to the coordination of social actions, and at least S. Freud s psychoanalysis and J. Piaget s, L. Kolberg s, and R. Selman s cognitive psychology, the social psychology in relation to the processes of socialization. Without omitting the original contributions given by A. Schütz, T. Lückmann s and P. Berger s social phenomenology, A. Cicourel s ethno-methodology and I. Goffman s dramaturgy 4. The theory of communicative acting aims at making a synthesis of all these different traditions. The structures of the life-world regenerate in the processes of cultural reproduction, social integration and socialization, but social systems also have to produce material resources, rule the internal functioning and control the environment and its boundaries; Marx defined this process as metabolism between society and nature 5. Through the concept of society on two levels, Habermas goes back to T. Parsons 6 and N. Luhmann s 7 works. In the propositions of the social evolution, he specifies the integration of both e xplicative models in the analysis of the systemic crises of social formations provoked by environmental challenges and/or internal contradictions which fall upon the reproduction of the structures of the life-world and whose resolution 4 J. Habermas, it. transl. Scienze sociale ricostruttive e scienze sociali comprendenti, in Id., MB, cit., pp J. Habermas, it. transl. Azioni, atti linguistici, interazioni mediate linguisticamente e mondo vitale, in Id., Il pensiero post-metafisico (NMD), Bari-Roma, Laterza, 1991, p J. Habermas, Talcott Parsons Konstruktionsprobleme der Theoriekonstruktion, in J. Matthes, Lebenswelt und soziale Probleme. Frankfurt a.m. New York, Campus, pp ; Id., it. transl. Talcott Parsons: problemi di costruzione della teoria della società, in Id., TKH, cit., pp J. Habermas, it. transl. Teoria della società o tecnologia sociale?, in Id., Teoria della società o tecnologia sociale (TGS), Etas Kompass Libri, Milano 1973, pp ; Id., it. transl. Un concetto sociologico di crisi, in Id., La crisi di razionalità nel capitalismo maturo (LPS), Bari, Laterza, 1975, pp. 5-9; Id., it. transl. Confronto di teorie in sociologia, in Id., LSW2, cit., pp ; Id., J. Habermas, it. transl. Storia ed Evoluzione, in Id., Per la ricostruzione del materialismo storico (ZRHM ), Milano, Etas Libri, 1979, pp , ; Id., it. transl. Excursus sulla appropriazione dell eredità della filosofia del soggetto da parte della teoria dei sistemi di Luhmann, in Id., Il discorso filosofico della modernità. Dodici lezioni (PDM ), Bari-Roma, Laterza, 1987, pp ; Id., it. transl. Sulla logica dei problemi di legittimazione, in Id., LPS, cit., pp , ; Id., Diritto e morale. Lezione seconda. L idea dello Stato di diritto, in Id., Morale, diritto, politica (MDP), Torino, Einaudi, 1986, pp , Id., it. transl. Sociologie del diritto e filosofie della giustizia, in Id., Fatti e norme. Contributi a una teoria discorsiva del diritto e della democrazia (FG), Milano, Guerini e Associati, 1996, pp

9 The Lab s Quarterly 58 requires innovative answers 8. As we shall mention, Habermas connects the «functionalist analysis of changes in structure and function, clarifying genetic questions» 9. The theory of social systems worked out by neo-functionalism is not able to explain, within the process of functional differentiation which characterizes social evolution, the genesis of organization principles which solve out the systemic challenges, because it precludes the reconstruction of learning process arising from the life-world. This problem had already been raised by the old master of functionalism, S. N. Eisenstadt 10. The connection between the theory of action Habermas approach to indicate the reconstructions of formal pragmatics in the sphere of social theory and the theory of systems represents the most important problem for a theoretical construction of social components in the theories of cultural reproduction, of social interaction and socialization 11. A conceptual and not banal connection between both paradigms is, above all, at the bottom of the study on social changing 12. Indeed, even if the problem that dominates the researches is the reconstruction of structures and changing of the life-world, he considers that this study receives its right place online within a history of the system, only accessible for a functionalistic analysis» 13. In the perspective of the comparison with the systemic theory, he interprets Marx. During the Seventies, Habermas tried to make coincide the research program about social evolution with a reconstruction of historical materialism 14, addressing more attention to the results of the sciences consigned to the oblivion of middle-class knowledge 15. During the Fifties, he had already taken into account the heritage of history of philosophy of occidental Marxism of the Second International and the Soviet canon, the Diamat, according to the news studies opened with the discover of the young Marx 16. On the other hand, in 8 J. Habermas, it. transl. Un concetto sociologico di crisi, in Id., LPS, cit., p J. Habermas, it. transl. Per la ricostruzione del materialismo storico, in Id., ZRHM, cit., p J. Habermas, it. transl. Storia ed evoluzione, in Id., ZRHM, cit., p J. Habermas, it. transl. Talcott Parsons: problemi di costruzione della teoria della società, in TKH, cit, p J. Habermas, it. transl. Storia ed evoluzione, in ZRHM, cit., p J. Habermas, it. transl. Il mutamento di paradigma in Mead e Durkheim, in TKH, cit, p J. Habermas, it. transl. Tesi per la ricostruzione del materialismo storico, in Id., Dialettica della Razionalizzazione (DR2), Milano, Unicopli, 19942, p J. Habermas, it. transl. Dialettica della razionalizzazione, in DR2, cit., p J. Habermas, Marx in Perspektiven, in «Merkur», IX, 1955, pp ; Id., it. transl. Sulla discussione filosofica intorno a Marx e al marxismo, in, DR2, cit., pp ; it. transl. Tra filosofia e scienza: il marxismo come critica, in Id., Prassi politica e teoria critica della società (TP), Bologna, Il Mulino, 1973, pp ; Metacritica di Marx a Hegel: la sintesi mediante il lavoro sociale, in Id., Conoscenza e interesse (EI2), Roma-Bari, Laterza, 19832, pp

10 The Lab s Quarterly 59 the essays contained in For reconstruction of Historical Materialism (1976), Habermas takes seriously Marx and Engels theoretic attempt, defining the first thesis of his research program: «Thesis I: Historical materialism should not be considered as a heuristics, neither as history, neither as an objective of history, neither as an objectivistic theory of history, neither as a retrospective glance at an analysis of capitalism done more than a hundred years ago, but as an alternative solution to take into account in relation to the statement nowadays dominating about a theory of social evolution» 17. This reconstruction leads Habermas to re-define the propositions of historical materialism relating to the concept of social work, the theorem structure/superstructure, the dialectics between productive forces and reproduction relationships and the definition of social formation. In his Theory of communicative acting (1981), Habermas repeats argumentations that he had already exposed in his collection of writings For the reconstruction of historical materialism (1976), without qualifying the theory of development with the expression formulated materialistically. Now he takes about a partial overlapping among parallel theorical strategies 18. In each case, the attempt considering the meaning of the word reconstruction in Habermas proceedings, was then criticized in English-speaking and Latin countries, even if his studies founded their collocation in a continuity with the critical theory, in particular with the problem of modernity in M. Weber s interpretation of Hegel-Marxism. It is meaningful that Weber s consideration towards Habermas Theory, then at the end of ten-year researches carried out at Max Planck Institut in Starnberg, does not find a confirmation in previous writings. Only at the end of the Seventies, Habermas presents, in classical sociology, Erfurt sociologist s works as the most important attempt to formulate a model of stages of development of the socio-cultural evolution intended as a logically reconstructed process. This displacement can be explain through the fact that exactly in those years the studies of S. Kalberg, W. Schluchter, F. H. Te nbruck, R. N. Bellah e R. Döbert, K. Eder and others were published. Here the dominating perspective of the philosophical debates in the Twenties about Weber s Sociology of Religion goes back to investigate the theory of rationalization, after being shelved for long time by a deeper investigation in Economy and society J. Habermas, it. transl. Tesi per la ricostruzione del materialismo storico, in Id., DR2, cit., pp J. Habermas, it. transl. Sistema e mondo vitale, in Id., TKH, cit, p J. Habermas, it. transl. La teoria della razionalizzazione di Max Weber, in Id., TKH, cit., pp ,

11 The Lab s Quarterly 60 If Marx interpretation is influenced by Habermas critics to neo-functionalism and the comparison with the production paradigm of philosophy of praxis 20, the new interpretation of Weber s analysis of occidental rationalization must be re-conducted to the model of reconstructive science employed by psychology to explain the ontogenetic development. He presented the idea of an homology, relatively tight between filogenesis and ontogenesis 21, which could find a confirmation in Mead s inter-actionism, in the Ego-psychoanalysis and psychology and above all in genetic structuralism by Piaget, Kohlberg, Selman, Flavell and others a group of studies which represents the last of four traditions of thought, from which Habermas draws enduring conceptual themes, next to Parson s and Luhmann s systemic neo-functionalist theory, the historical materialism of lay versions which avoid fideisms of scientism and philosophy of history and Weberian sociology in the more carefully universalistic interpretation suggested in the Seventies. The concepts and hypotheses of the psychology of development represent, indeed, a model for the redefinition of social science from a reconstructive perspective. In his anthropological reflections, Habermas maintains that social science must prepare a theoretical frame which permits not only to reconstruct the socio-cultural evolutional mechanisms, but also to define properly what is meant with the expression principle in the history of genre 22 a proposition that our author finds confirmed in Parson s Systems of societies (1966) 23. We must anticipate that, following Lévy-Strauss and many other anthropologists studies, Habermas finds that the gap between man and other animal species must be found in the familiarization of man the evolutive innovation which makes the genesis of the social primitive formation possible, around the parental structures. If on a sub-human level, the biological reproduction represents a conditional center of the genesis of the nexus of solidarity among the members of a species, as E. Durkheim 24 and S. Freud 25 supposed, the unity of relationship is the factor for the diffusion of social solidarity. Family skips the hierarchical one-dimensional order, according to which every animal is assigned transitively only one status, 20 J. Habermas, it. transl. Excursus sull obsolescenza del paradigma della produzione, in Id., PDM, cit., pp J. Habermas, it. transl. Introduzione: il materialismo storico e lo sviluppo di, in Id., ZRHM, p J. Habermas, it. transl. Introduzione: approcci alla problematica della razionalità, in Id., TKH, cit., p J. Habermas, it. transl. Sviluppo della morale e identità dell io, in Id., ZRHM, cit., pp J. Habermas, it. transl. Il mutamento di paradigma in Mead e Durkheim, in Id., TKH, p J. Habermas, it. transl. Psicoanalisi e teoria della società. Nietzsche e la in Id., EI2, cit., pp

12 The Lab s Quarterly 61 allowing the male adult member of the group to connect, assuming the paternal role (the structural family unit ), the status within the system of women and children of the reproduction of social ties to the status in the male system of economy based on hunting and war 26. Habermas presents this anthropological hypothesis as the Second Thesis for the reconstruction of historical materialism : «The specifically human living way can be sufficiently characterized if hunting economy in the organization conditions of the family is taken into account. Production and socialization as equally important for human genre. The family structure of society which reigns as the appropriation of external natural as the integration of internal nature is fundamental 27. Habermas does not specify any possible external or sociological conditions which, in the socio-cognitive process of co-generation of the social world and subjective world, determined the passage from the biological entity of family to parental structures. He is interested in the necessary assumptions the logic of development so that the abstracted cognitive competences, the rules of social acting and s ubjective identity (necessary conditions for the reproduction of every social formation) arise from the interactions based on an instinctual ground and symbolically mediated of groups of hominids. Habermas follows Mead s and Durkheim s 28 perspective about the transformation of the linguistic medium in its relationships with the cognition and interaction structures. Indeed, the new cognitive and relational competences allow, through communicative acts, the production of a knowledge culturally accumulated (cultural transmission), the satisfaction of generalized expectations of behaviour, conveniently to the context (social integration) and the constitution of steady personality structures (socialization). The critical literature neglects the fact that the theory of communicative acting is not a moral doctrine, but a reconstruction of the ontogenesis and filogenesis of competences 29. Once reconstructed the necessary conditions to the constitution of human societies, Habermas works out a rational model which comprehends both evolutional challenges and the logics of development of the possible innovative solution. As we have already explained before, integrating the systemic theory and the action theory, he presumes that the social 26 J. Habermas, it. transl. Tesi per la ricostruzione del materialismo storico, in Id., DR2, cit., pp J. Habermas, it. transl. Tesi per la ricostruzione del materialismo storico, in DR2, cit., p J. Habermas, it. transl. Il mutamento di paradigma in Mead e Durkheim, in Id., TKH, cit, pp J. Habermas, it. transl. Coscienza morale e agire comunicativo, in Id., MB, cit., pp

13 The Lab s Quarterly 62 evolution follows a double differentiation which produces, on the one side, the differentiation between life-world and the social sub-systems, and, on the other side, the formation of two different logics of development the growth of complexity of social systems and the rationalization of the life-world : I understand social evolution as a second grade differentiation process: system and life-world differ from one another, as the first s complexity and the second s rationality grow more and more, not only respectively as system and as lifeworld at the same time they get different from one another» 30. Within the theory of social evolution, Habermas assumes some hypotheses of theory of systems following Marx, Spencer, Durkheim, Parsons and at least Luhmann. The beginning of the functionalistic analysis deals with the adaptive problems that a social system must solve within the sphere of material reproduction, where some evolutive challenges arise which generate impulses to differentiation. The evolutive logic can be described, above all, as a growth of social complexity 31. Habermas remembers that since Durkheim s Division of Labour (1893), functionalism has focused on the concept of differentiation, whose explicative importance is not to be re-conducted to mere socio-economical criteria. This differentiation is, above all, a segmented and/or functional differentiation of social structures to which forms of social integration in relationship to the type of social solidarity (mechanical/organic) and different forms of personal identities (collective/individual) are correlated. What is here interesting is the centrality dedicated to labour as development engine in the material reproduction of genre which characterizes the evolutive theory since Marx praxis philosophy until Spencer s organicism 32 and contemporary functionalism 33. In this tradition the possibility in favour of the analysis of the capacities of direction and control of systems consists of reelaborating the internal complexity towards environmental challenges with the differentiation and re-unification of partial systems functionally specified 34. In this reconstruction it results that from a first evolutive level primitive societies where only the repetition of similar and homogeneous segments is present familiar structures following the social development, a system of different organs, each of them having got a specific task, has generated, and these organs are built up themselves by different parts, which are reciprocally 30 J. Habermas, it. transl. Sistema e mondo vitale, in Id., TKH, cit., p J. Habermas, it. transl. Sistema e mondo vitale, in Id., TKH, cit, p J. Habermas, it. transl. Sistema e mondo vitale, in Id., TKH, cit, pp J. Habermas, it. transl. Per la ricostruzione del materialismo storico, in Id., ZRHM, cit., p J. Habermas, it. transl. Confronto di teorie in sociologia, in Id., LSW2, cit., pp

14 The Lab s Quarterly 63 coordinated and subordinated around the same central organ the State which depends on them and exerts a moderating action on the rest of the organism 35. If, passing from primitive societies to traditional societies, a different relationship among the structures of material reproduction segmented vs. functional emerges, modern societies must face a differentiation between no more centralized but decentralized social structures, which find their balance point in the complementary relationship between the State administration, regulated and legitimated by a rational-legal power and the capitalistic trade economy 36. In this introduction it is not possible to sum up the scheme about the mechanisms of systemic differentiation and the medium of regulation, nor to explain in detail the long reflections about the single social formations: SOCIAL FORMATIONS DIFFERENTIATION AND INTEGRATION OF SYSTEMIC MECHANISMS Primitive Equalitarian Similar unities. Not economic exchange societies Stratified Structural differentiation Not political power Traditional societies Not similar unities. Political power Modern societies Functional differentiation Economic exchange and political power Tab. 1. Mechanisms of systemic differentiation Habermas joins the theorical convention, common in the sociology of changing, of distinguishing between primitive equalitary and stratified societies, traditional and modern societies based on mechanisms which raise the levels of possible increases of complexity 37. On the other side, the criteria of systemic differentiation applied also by Habermas in the reconstruction of the theory of social evolution does not suits, as from a functionalistic point a view, it must be made a distinction between grades of complexity, but not between evolutive levels 38. Functionalism is able to describe the process of functional differentiation which determines the formation of new social structures, but cannot explain the genesis mechanism has no value of explanatio 39. Besides, the differentiation processes can be clues of an evolutive process, but also 35 J. Habermas, it. transl. Introduzione: approcci alla problematica della razionalità, in Id., TKH, cit., p J. Habermas, it. transl. Sistema e mondo vitale, in Id., TKH, cit, pp J. Habermas, it. transl. Sistema e mondo vitale, in Id., TKH, cit., pp J. Habermas, it. transl. Per la ricostruzione del materialismo storico, in Id., ZRHM, cit., pp J. Habermas, it. transl. Storia ed evoluzione, in Id., ZRHM, cit., pp

15 The Lab s Quarterly 64 causes of a movement in evolutive directions without escape 40. The complexity can be explained only examining the mechanisms of learning which develop within the principle of social organization and those which, face the environmental challenges or internal insoluble contradiction allow innovative answers 41. Habermas faces genetic questions bringing up the limitations between old and new sociological functionalism, introducing a comparison between biological and social evolution, and indicating the conditions which make possible to investigate. Here it suffices to underline that the restoration of the evolutionism in social science is due to contemporary biology, whose model of organic changing does not explain exhaustively the logic of development of human beings: «A sociologist who makes coincide the social development with the growth of complexity, acts as a biologist who describes the natural evolution of species in the concepts of morphological differentiation. An explanation of evolution must goes back to the inventories of behaviour of species and mutation mechanisms. Similarly, we should distinguish, on a level of social evolution, between the solution to control problems and the mechanisms of learning» 42. Besides, biologists explain the learning of species through the process of genetic mutation a sort of mistake in the transmission of genetic information which creates the deviant phenotypes, which are selected under the selective spur of the environment, making the stabilizing of a population in the new environmental conditions possible 43. As it is impossible to transpose such model to social changing, a mechanism of equivalent variation must be pointed out: the processes of cultural learning. Three aspects space out the genetic mutation in the human sub-species from learning on a cultural level: a) the evolutive learning process completes not only through the changing of genetic patrimony, but also through the changing of a potential of knowledge; b) on this level the distinction between phenotype and genotype loses any meaning. The inter-subjectively shared and transmitted knowledge is a constitutive part of the social system and is not owned by isolated people; c) who, indeed, constitute themselves as people just by means of socialization. Natural evolution brings among the member of the species a more 40 J. Habermas, it. transl. Confronto di teorie in sociologia, in Id., LSW2, cit., p J. Habermas, it. transl. Per la ricostruzione del materialismo storico, in Id., ZRHM, cit., p J. Habermas, it. transl. Confronto di teorie in sociologia, in Id., LSW2, cit., p J. Habermas, it. transl.per la ricostruzione del materialismo storico, in Id., ZRHM, p. 143.

16 The Lab s Quarterly 65 or less homogeneous repertoire of behaviours, while social learning provokes an accelerated diversification of behaviour» 44. Only reconstructing learning mechanisms and processes, we can explain why some societies even few of them have been able to find solutions to problems of direction and control and why they have developed exactly those solutions, which have made possible a functional differentiation and a new balance in organizational structures. Then a distinction must be made between a whole of (equivalent) solutions of a systemic locatable problem, on the one hand, which must be investigated in functionalistic terms, and the learning processes on the other hand, which can explain why some systems widen their capability of problem solving and others fail face the same problems 45. When learning problems are investigated, it must be clear which forms of knowledge are relevant for the evolution and what is the learning subject. On the cultural level, the life-world represents a handed down and linguistically organized reserve of interpretative, evaluative and expressive models, through which experiences are pragmatically organized in learning schemes and semantically formulated in inter-subjectively common notions and in daily communications and specialist discourses 46. The concept of culture offered by Habermas, that we cannot examine in this work, has the merit of illuminating implicit knowledge, behind processes of comprehension and agreement, showing how the background of linguistic knowledge and common sense takes shape, and how a cultural tradition of experts lies over, retroacting and elaborating visions of the world (mythology, theology and metaphysics) and forms of specialist knowledge (science and techniques, moral and law, aesthetics and arts). Facing systemic challenges, which get into crisis the adaptive and integrative functions of society, the available forms of knowledge are the potentials of solution which allow to imagine and carry out new principles of social organization. On one side, integrative functions of comprehension, legitimation, socialization in symbolic reproduction Habermas expresses this sphere with the concept of life-world; on the other side, adaptive functions of innovation, direction and control of complexity in the material reproduction Habermas summarizes this sphere by the use of the concept social system. Every innovation rises from a new level of learning. 44 J. Habermas, it. transl. Per la ricostruzione del materialismo storico, in Id., ZRHM, p J. Habermas, it. transl. Confronto di teorie in sociologia, in Id., LWS2, cit., p J. Habermas, it. transl. Sistema e Mondo vitale, in Id., TKH, cit., p. 712.

17 The Lab s Quarterly 66 At this point, Habermas redefines Marx dialectics between productive forces and production relationships, questioning that the process of social evolution must be intended in a technical sense, as if technical-scientific knowledge was a bound between both productive forces and forms of social integration : «The fundamental assumption of historical materialism, that the growth of productive forces (and relative increase of productivity of social work) represents the learning mechanism, which helps us to explain the passing to new social formations, is not maintainable empirically» 47. The growth of cognitive potential and its conversion into technologies which develop the material reproduction can explain the birth of certain systemic problems, but it cannot be explained how this arisen problems can be solved. The introduction of new forms of social integration, i.e. the substitution of the relational system with the state of passing from the primitive society to traditional societies, does not require a technologically valuable knowledge, which can be actuated according to the rules of instrumental knowledge (a widening of control on the external nature), but the widening of the practical-moral knowledge, that can embody new interaction structures 48. Only in this sense, according to Habermas, it can be defended the principle that a social system doesn t end and new production relationships does not take over before the material conditions for their existence take shape within the old society. The dialectics between systemic challenge and forms of knowledge is reformulated as the 4 th Thesis for reconstruction of historical materialism: «When systemic problems arise and they cannot be solved through the method of the dominating production anymore, the existing form for social integration is in danger. An endogenous mechanism of learning foresees the accumulation of a cognitive-technical potential, that can be used to solve problems which generate such crisis. But this knowledge can be given form in order to allow the deployment of productive forces only if the evolutional step towards an institutional framework and a new form of social integration has been made. This step can only be explained on the basis of different learning processes, the pratical-moral ones» 49. It is interesting that Habermas neglects here the aesthetical- expressive knowledge, that knowledge which raises the problem of authentic 47 J. Habermas, it. transl. Confronto di teorie in sociologia, in Id., LWS2, cit., p J. Habermas, it. transl. Tesi per la ricostruzione del materialismo storico, in Id., DR2, cit., pp J. Habermas, it. transl. Tesi per la ricostruzione del materialismo storico, in Id., DR2, cit., pp

18 The Lab s Quarterly 67 interpretation of needs on the side of individuals in existential discourses and aesthetical critic. On the other side, in the Theory of Communicative Action, he supports that the selectivity of modern societies towards the complex of aesthetical-practical rationality is due to the scarce effect of art in the formation of social structures 50. As far as the imputed subject, Habermas affirms that learning neither can be ascribed only to individuals nor to society. If it is true that individuals learn the learning mechanisms fall within the exclusive prerogatives of the human organism they acquire the competences within the symbolic relationships of social groups and cultural traditions. Furthermore, he affirms that the learning processes which find their access to the interpretation system of cultural tradition reproduce themselves through the mediation of social movements or in exemplary processes 51. Knowledge acquired in a first time by individuals or marginal groups is then shared at a collective level and changes into a reserve of knowledge, a cognitive potential of adaptation or integration, which is socially usable 52. Introducing the nexus between ideas and interests, he shows the limits of comprehending sociology and of the culturalistic concept of the life-world and he restores materialistically the study of the functions of culture within the social theory. Habermas is convinced that all societies based on classes with a political or economic ground are featured by the problem of legitimation or critics exercised by culture, and, in particular, of the relationship between the reproduction of cultural knowledge and control strategies exercised by power and money. Cultural traditions are not only the expression of ideas, values and needs of social groups they are created by, elaborated and transmitted in the sequence of generations. They also meet the need of cultural legitimation of the material interests of a group rank or class in relation to the interests of other groups, assuring the non-problematical reproduction of social formations which institutionalize the differentiated participation to political power, the unequal distribution of economical wealth, the selective acknowledgement of social prestige and dignity of cultural identities. In such a context of analysis, Habermas reflections about the strategy of manipulation of consensus and about the formation of ideological conceptions of the world have to find their collocation. 50 J. Habermas, it. transl. La teoria della razionalizzazione di Max Weber, in Id., TKH, cit., p J. Habermas, it. transl. La teoria della razionalizzazione di Max Weber, in Id., TKH, cit., p J. Habermas, it. transl. Confronto di teorie in sociologia, in Id., LSW2, cit., p. 350.

19 The Lab s Quarterly 68 In the definition of the concept of social formation, he reconfirms that the deployment of productive forces is important, but it is not the main dimension of a theory of social evolution which intends to periodize the development. If we want to find a definition, the Marxist tradition s solution of identifying the social formation starting from the way of production wouldn t be adequate 53. Habermas prefers, indeed, to connote the social formation on the basis of very abstract regulamentations that he defines principles of organization, whose institutional nucleus builds up the engine of material and symbolical reproduction 54. He summarizes the concept of principle of organization : «With this term I intend those innovations which are produced by steps of learning which can be reconstructed according to an evolutional logics and establish a level of learning always new of society. [ ] they are structural models ordered according to an evolutional logic, which denote new structural conditions of possible learning processes. The principle of organization of a society circumscribes spheres of variation, and in particular it establishes within what structures possible changes of the system of institutions and interpretations are possible; to what extent the capabilities existing in the productive forces can be socially used, and to what extent such productive forces can be stimulated; and then how much the activity of control, and so the systemic complexity of a society can be powered 55». This revisionist perspective expressed in other works in an identical way 56 is the first part of the 5th Thesis for the reconstruction of historical materialism: «A social formation is not to be defined through a determined way of production (or even through the particular economic structure of a society), but through a principle of organization. Every principle of organization establishes a level of learning, i.e. the structural conditions of the possibility of learning technicalcognitive and practical-moral processes» 57. The process of rationalization does not only concern the progress of productive forces in the solution of technical tasks and in the choice of strategies, but also the moral conceptions of cultural traditions and moral consciences of the individuals which are institutionalized in structural nucleus of social integration. 53 J. Habermas, it. transl. Per la ricostruzione del materialismo storico, in Id., ZRHM, cit., pp J. Habermas, it. transl. Storia ed Evoluzione, in Id., ZRHM, cit., pp J. Habermas, it. transl. Tesi per la ricostruzione del materialismo storico, in Id., DR2, cit., pp J. Habermas, it. transl. Confronto di teorie in sociologia, in Id., LWS2, cit., p J. Habermas, it. transl. Tesi per la ricostruzione del materialismo storico, in Id., DR2, cit., pp

20 The Lab s Quarterly 69 Habermas declares to follow Max Weber s studies, where the process of rationalization can be intended as a historical-universal process which proceeds on two levels: the cultural level of the differentiation of new forms of knowledge (and of levels of learning ) and the social level of the translation of cultural knowledge into a process of modernization which institutionalizes conducts of personal life and forms of associated forms of life (the vital dispositions and social subsystems): «This theory is based on the assumption that the processes of onthogenetical learning anticipate the push of social evolution in some way, so that social systems can, as soon as their structurally limited control capability gets over-stimulated by non-avoidable problems, they can, in some cases, resort to superabundant capabilities of individual learning, available also collectively through images of the world, and then use them for the institutionalization of new levels of learning» 58. Once the sociological model focuses on the abstract concept as the principles of organization, the theorem structure-superstructure is no more intended in a reductionistic sense. Habermas affirms indeed that at each evolutional stage, the relationships of production crystallize around a different institutional nucleus, defining specific forms of social integration. The function of regulating the access to production means and then the distribution of social wealth is assumed by parental systems in primitive societies and by State institutions in the great ancient civilizations 59. Only with capitalistic-liberal societies, economy becomes a central element of the entire society as the capital acquires the function, through the medium of private law, of defining the class relationships, and not only the function of internal regulation within the market. Also in this case «the basic assimilation to economic structure is misleading, because not even in capitalistic societies the basic sphere coincides with the economic system» 60. Habermas marks out a reasonable series of social formations, each of them is featured by a different principle of organization made possible by the institutionalization of higher levels of technical and practical learning, which present a own logic of irreversible and necessary development higher and higher structural stages of development while their development dynamics the historical way of achieving such stages remain contingent and conditioned according to the different events of the social systems. SOCIAL FORMATIONS PRINCIPLES OF ORGANIZ ATION 58 J. Habermas, it. transl.confronto di teorie in sociologia, in Id., LWS2, cit., p J. Habermas, it. transl. Tesi per la ricostruzione del materialismo storico, in Id., DR2, cit., p J. Habermas, it. transl. Sistema e mondo vitale, in Id., TKH, cit, p. 769.

21 The Lab s Quarterly Primitive societies Equalitarian Stratified Ancient reigns 2. Traditional societies Great empires Feudalism Mercantilism 3. Modern societies Liberal capitalism Organized capitalism Parental structure State organization Complementary relationship State/Market Table 2. Development of the organization principles of social formations Habermas summarizes the reflections about waves of evolution of social development as the 3rd Thesis for the reconstruction of historical materialism: The different ways of production joined in a complex build up the economical structure of a society. This society crystallizes each time around an institutional nucleus (family relationships, state, market, etc.) and fixes the form of social integration. The theorem structure-superstructure must explain the waves of social evolution. This affirms that a) the systemic problems which, in determined circumstances require evolutional innovations, appear in the basic sphere of society and can be analyzed as disturbs of social reproduction; and that b) an evolutional innovation to which it is given raise always consists of a modification of the economical structure and of the relative form of social integration 61. In this critical phase of trespassing to a new level the theorem of the superstructure is valid, according to which productive forces and production relationships acquire a direction role and constitute the basis which determine the whole society 62. The problem deals with the nexus between the increase of systemic complexity of societies in relation to the problems of material reproduction and the adequacy of rationalization processes in the socialization of the new generations, in the coordination of social institutions and the formation of cultural traditions. When systemic problems arise in a society, and these problems transcend the capabilities of integration of the organization principle in force (familiar, political or economical), the social system must develop new production relationships in order to solve out the difficulties of reproduction in an evolutionally effective way, and these relationships imply the recourse to a practical-moral knowledge, endowed with a own logic of development, and previously accumulated (although socially still unused). Its institutionalization makes possible and furthers the development of a new technical-organizative 61 J. Habermas, it. transl. Tesi per la ricostruzione del materialismo storico, in Id., DR2, cit., p J. Habermas, it. transl. Per la ricostruzione del materialismo storico, in Id., ZRHM, cit., p. 118.