Abstract

The thesis of my dissertation is that any rational inquiry will reflect certain particular interests at the expense of others which are equally entitled to consideration in the arena of genuinely participatory rational discourse. This challenges both critical social theory and ethical philosophy which idealize the model of a scientific research community and the epistemology of American pragmatism, my intent being to advance ideology critique from a feminist perspective. ;The power of free discourse to disclose generalizeable interests is cherished by a range of liberal theories. Juergen Habermas' latest work in discourse ethics incorporates this principle in a program for realizing democratic participation in post-modern, welfare- capitalist society. Examination of this program from a feminist perspective suggests that as a method of ideology critique, Habermasian dialogue may be limited to identifying only non-critical concrete interests. Since women's social roles typically exclude them from the means of communication and interpretations needed for communicative competence, the conditions of free discourse do not necessarily result in their voices being heard. Applying Habermas's model to the abortion question shows that a real communications community will, however unintentionally, repress concerns and interests that are central to the feminine experience but relatively novel to the masculine. ;Like Habermas, I regard the concepts of reason, domination, and of the autonomous subject as essential tools for ideology critique. But Niklas Luhmann's replacement of the social subject with the social system results in more empirically useful hypotheses of how state and market imperatives distort all public discussion. Luhmann's important argument is that the ideal of accomplishing consensus in discourse may represent a retrogressive normative demand that is untenable in complex modern society. I argue that we may hope to achieve rational political discourse about difficult social issues like abortion only by deconstructing the reified notion of autonomous social subjects along Luhmannian lines and taking concrete steps to universalize practices which are currently gender sub-texted