HABERMAS AND THE CRITIQUE OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT 65 exchange information, do not direct or carry out action, nor do they have or communicate experiences; instead they search for arguments or offer justifications. Discourse therefore requires the virtualizaton of constraints on action. This is intended to render inoperative all motives except solely that of a cooperative readiness to arrive at an understanding . . . Solely the structure of this peculiarly unreal form of communication guarantees the possibility of attaining a consensus discursively which can gain recognition a rational.* (Habermas, Theory and Practice, Boston 1973, 18-19]. Habermas' concept of praxis is dependent therefore on an 'apriori categorical distinction' between . work and interaction [Richard Bernstein: The Restructuring of Social and Political Theory. Philadelphia 1978, p. 223; quoted in: Wolf Heydebrand and Beverly Burris: The Limits of Praxis in Critical Theory; in: Judith Marcus and Zoltan Tar (eds): Foundations of the Frankfurt School of Social Research. New Brunswick, New Jessey 1984, 401-417]. According to Bernstein, Habermas's 'typical strategy in criticizing previous thinkers is to show that they confuse categorically distinct levels of action . . . the validity of these criticisms is itself dependent on the acceptance of habermas's categorical distinctions. The tables can be turned on Habermas by arguing that he seeks to introduce hard and fast distinctions where there is only continuity.' [ibid., pp. 220-21] 10. Habermas, op.dt., pp. 346-366. 11. Ibid., p. 367. 12. Ibid., p. 409. 13. Richard Wolin, 'Critical Theory and the Dialectic of Rationalism'. New German Critique 41,1987, 23-52. 14. Seyla Benhabib, Critique, Norm and Utopia, a Study of the Foundations of Critical Theory. New York 1986, pp. 330-331. 15. Ibid., p. 407. 16. Jochen Schulte-Sasse, Modernity and Modernism, Postmodernity and Postmodernism: Framing the issue'. 'Cultural Critique', 5, 1986-^7, p. 11. 17. Karl Marx, The German Ideology, Moscow 1976. 18. Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge, New York, 1972, pp. 11-12. 19. Ibid., p. 8. 20. Ibid., pp. 12-13. 21. See Richard Rorty, 'Habermas and Lyotard on postmodernity', in 'Praxis International', 4, April 1984, 32-44. See also Willem van Reijen, 'Miss Marx, Terminals und Grand Recits oder: Kratzt Habermas, wo es nicht juckt?' Op.cit. 22. See Nancy Fraser, What's Critical about Critical Theory? The Case of Habermas and Gender, in Seyla Benhabib and Drudlla Comell (eds). Feminism as Critiaue, Minneapolis, Minn., 1987, pp. 31-36; and Seyla Benhabib, The Generalized and the Concrete Other', in ibid., p. 76-95. 23. Habermas, Bewufttmachende oder rettende Kritik—Die Aktualitat Walter Benjamins, in: Habermas, Kultur und Kritik, Frankfurt 1973, pp. 302-344. 24. 'For the first time in world history, mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual. To an even greater degree the work of art reproduced becomes the work of art designed for reprodudbility. From a photographic negative, for example, one can make any number of prints; to ask for the authentic' print makes no sense. But the instant the criterion of authentidty ceases to be applicable to artistic production, the total function of art is reversed. Instead of being based on ritual, it begins to be based on another practice- politics.' Walter Benjamin; The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction', in Illuminations, New York 1969, p. 224 25. Habermas, 'Bewufttmachende oder rettende Kritik—Die Aktualitat Walter Benjamins', op. dt., p. 332 26. '. . . in der ubiquitat des Schuldzusammenhangs tauchcn unerkennbar jene Evolutionen unter, die, bei all ihrer fragwurdigen Partialitat, nicht nur in der