Structural differentiation of the lifeworld in the theory of communicative action

• Grant number: 17/05801-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: April 01, 2017
• End date: March 31, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy
• Principal Investigator: Marcos Severino Nobre
• Grantee: Rafael Augusto Palazi
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 14/11611-3 - Public sphere and reconstruction: on the constitution of a reconstructive paradigm within Critical Theory, AP.TEM

Abstract

The aim of this research is to investigate the process of structural differentiation of the life-world, as thematized by Jürgen Habermas in Theory of Communicative Action, in order to understand the relation between mutual understanding and the symbolic obstacles of the modern life-world. For the author, the understanding of modern society necessitates a concept of the transformable life-world which changes its structuring aspects. Thereby, the concept of structural differentiation is the way which we can identify the direction that the life-world takes. This differentiation is the autonomization, one in relation to the other, of structural components: culture, personality and society. The concrete effect results in the constant possibility of thematization and questioning of the everyday actions in each of these scopes. Habermas brings to light what elements make possible to observe the concrete conditions for the emancipation of society, while at the same time analyzing the obstacles for this realization internally to the life-world: even without losing sight of the diagnosis of present time bonded to the colonization of the system on the life-world whose structures differ. Thus, the theme of structural differentiation is, according to our hypothesis of reading, fundamental for the formulation of the question if the world of modern life would be carrier of obstacles, which would not only be induced by the systemic mechanisms but internally constituted in the modern life-world. (AU)