Art and democracy in Habermas
Within the framework of Habermas’s theory of communicative action, art represents one of the three spheres of cultural modernity, beside science and morality. According to this framework, art belongs to the sphere of the aesthetic-expressive whose criterion is authenticity. Yet how adequate is such a criterion for art? The question is all the more legitimate that, with the publication of his Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, Habermas is led to give up his project of developing a philosophical aesthetics, leaving the task of interpretation to art criticism. This giving up is due according to me to the interference produced by authenticity as a criterion stemming from the theory of communication. For example, how are we to trace with such a criterion the inner logic of the artwork? In this regard Adorno’s approach seems more adequate.
Habermas Adorno Art Communicative rationality Modernity Aesthetics