Mirror Sites:
CSUDH Habermas UWP

California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created: June 6, 2001
Latest update: October 21, 2001
jeannecurran@habermas.org

Graduate Social Theory Readings
Week of October 22, 2001: Week 9

I'll be adding to this over the next week. Be sure to check. jeanne

• Online Readings:

  • The Habermas-Gadamer Debate on information control and disinformation and how they affect the dominant discourse. Teaching essay included.

  • Semiotics:

    • Semiotic Terms

    • Occam's Razor The Principle of Parsimony.

    • The Red Queen Principle "for an evolutionary system, continuing development is needed just in order to maintain its fitness relative to the systems it is co-evolving with."

      This principle was proposed by the evolutionary biologist L. van Valen (1973), and is based on the observation to Alice by the Red Queen in Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass" that "in this place it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place."

    • Reflection-Correspondence Theory

    • Relation to Other Disciplines Note particularly the relationship to Chaos theory. Then check out TR Young's site on Chaos Theory

• Hardcopy Readings:

  Contemporary Social Theory, ed. by Anthony Elliott.

  • Chapter 12. The Uncoupling of System and Lifeworld. by Juergen Habermas. Pp. 171-183.

• Some Suggested Measures of Learning:

  Comment on one of the following topics, or do something of your own choosing.

  1. How would you phrase the basic issue of the Habermas-Gadamer debate?

  2. What evidence is there that our self is socially constructed?

  3. What evidence is there that we have the option of freedom of self? What do Habermas and Gadamer seem to reflect on the existence/non-existence of freedom to construct our selves?

  4. Consider using poetry, art, storytelling, music, to share your feelings on these issues. How does visual literacy fit into this concern over our control of our selves?