Abstract

RONDEROS, Sebastián. Between Democracy and the Democratic: Critique of Formal Reason. Pap.polit. [online]. 2017, vol.22, n.1, pp.9-33. ISSN 0122-4409.  https://doi.org/10.11144/javeriana.papo22-1.eddc.

The present work is oriented towards the problematization of essential concepts in critical theory, in a concern about reconfiguring the processes of deliberation in the public-political sphere, the institutionalization of the wills that emerge from that space, and to generate a dialogue between possible perspectives in the transformation of political structures. The fundamental concepts in Jürgen Habermas’ theory are analyzed in both the reconstruction of Historical Materialism and the consolidation of the Theory of Communicative Action, thus rebuilding his understanding of the political. The role of neutrality and consensus in this understanding is debated, in turn questioning the predominance of formal frameworks in the reconfiguration of “Democracy”. Finally, we transfer the democratic exercise outside a determined institutional scaffolding, providing it with a critical, dialectical and community characters, which don’t deny conflictivity neither in communicative acts nor in normative processes.

Keywords : theory of communicative action; social evolution; systems theory; crisis; deliberative democracy; hermeneutics; critical theory.

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