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The Critique of Power: Reflective Stages in a Critical Social Theory. By Axel Honneth; tr. by Kenneth Baynes. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1991. 340 pages.

This book began its life as a dissertation, but has been significantly expanded through the addition of three chapters on Habermas, whereas the original dissertation focussed more specifically on Horkheimer, Adorno, the Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947), and the relationship of Foucault's thought to his predecessors. One of the strengths of Honneth's work in its book form is his juxtaposition of Foucault and Habermas and the emphasis he places on their very different interpretations of a dialectic enlightenment. To summarize the differences in the author's own words: "it is shown, first, that Adorno must have failed in the task of an analysis of society, since throughout his life he remained imprisoned to a totalized model of the domination of nature and was thus unable to comprehend the 'social' in societies" (xii). It is precisely this domain of the social that Foucault and Habermas open up in their interpretations, but from extremes that stand in opposition to one another. For Foucault this results in the "action-theoretic paradigm of struggle" whereas for Habermas the paradigm centers on "mutual understanding."

Honneth was motivated to make this comparison "by the consideration that from the viewpoint of the history of theory Foucault's work presents an alternative to Habermas to the extent that it seems implicitly to realize a negative radicalization of the Dialectic of Enlightenment rather than its positive sublation in a theory of communication" (xv). As evidenced in this passage and numerous others, the translator has remained faithful to the extended-construction sentences of the original German, but on the whole the text is quite readable. Often in reading works of comparative scholarship, one has the feeling that while the writer has in-depth command of one author, work, or area of specialization, knowledge of the corresponding field that has been brought in for purposes of comparison may be more superficial, particularly when reading texts in the original language is involved. Although Honneth is dealing with the theories of three different people, one of whom writes in a native language other than his own, he seems equally well-grounded in the writings and philosophies of all three.

As a result of Honneth's particular agenda, the first third of the book provides a critique of Adorno and Horkheimer's theories of society, while the remaining two-thirds are devoted to a comparative investigation of, first, Foucault's historical analysis of discourse, his theory of power, and his theory of society, and then Habermas' theory of knowledge-constitutive interests, his view of understanding as the paradigm of the social, and his theory of communication. The only critique that one might raise about this well-argued and insightful work has already been anticipated by the author. Although the book was published in Germany in 1985, it was actually written a number of years earlier and submitted as a dissertation in philosophy to the Free University of Berlin in 1983. By consequence, on might well contend that in light of the recent plethora of research and publications on Foucault and Habermas, Honneth's analysis might be dated. However, in a comprehensive "Afterword to the Second German Edition" (1988; published as a foreword to the American edition), Honneth directly addresses this problem and argues that "the original goal of [his] investigation can still be theoretically upheld even in light of the new research" (xiii). In a characteristically thorough manner, Honneth proceeds to discuss and evaluate all of the major interpretations that have emerged since the first appearance of his book.

This book will prove equally useful to scholars interested in the Frankfurt School and Adorno, in Foucault and in Habermas. By reading the latter two theorists in terms of the earlier tradition, Honneth provides a context for comparison that will make Habermas in particular more broadly accessible than has been the case to date in the United States.

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Dr. Elaine Martin, emartin@woodsquad.as.ua.edu