Unstable Position of Beauty in Habermas’s Theories

Although Jürgen Habermas, critical theoretician of the second generation of Frankfurt school, proposes a comprehensive theory of modernity, he does not heed the nature of the future of art as the first generation of theoreticians did. Since in their view instrumental and technological rationality is irreplaceable, the prominent theoreticians of the first generation, such as Adorno and Marcuse, consider aesthetics and art as a way out of the domination of modern rationality. But Habermas (through reforming rationality and foregrounding its communicative aspect as opposed to its instrumental aspect) reconciles rationality with freedom as the essence of critical theory. He posits aesthetics and art next to each other and not as opposite to rationality. Then he distinguishes the position of art and aesthetics from communicative rationality process, and bestows upon it an aspect different from communicative action. In other words, he eliminates the canonical aspect of art and aesthetics from freedom of thought, which has been focused on by theoreticians such as Adorno and Marcuse.