Bodily felt integrity

The anarchic core of communication in Jürgen Habermas’s democratic thought

Bibliographic Data

ID7094460
AuthorsOdin Lysaker (0000-0002-1030-3625, University of Agder, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume22
Issue3
Pages277-298
Publication date2021-09-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueDistinktion Journal of Social Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1600-910X • E-ISSN: 2159-9149
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/1600910x.2021.2014629
OpenAlexW4200000634
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited31

Today, deep divisions run through many societies and their political discourses on contested issues such as populism, nationalism, immigration, and integration. Such divisions strengthen already existing polarizations created by various dynamics between reason and affect. In this article, I, therefore, introduce the term anarchic core of communication. In doing so, I contribute an alternative reading of Jürgen Habermas's democratic thought. Here, I show the significance of both disagreements and feelings in his works. I depart, then, from those Habermasians and non-Habermasians claiming that Habermas appeals only to consensus and rationality. Within this Habermasian framework, therefore, I reconstruct what I conceptualize as the moral ideal of bodily felt integrity. This is a threshold above which not even the anarchic core should be morally accepted to misrecognize individuals' embodied dignity. In result, I propose that my idea of bodily felt integrity is relevant to judge how much anarchic communication societies can recognize and remain democracies

Aesthetics · Democracy · Dignity · Embodied cognition · Epistemology · Ideal (ethics · Political science · Politics · Populism · Rationality · Sociology · Critical Theory and Philosophy · Hannah Arendt's Political Philosophy · Law · Philosophy · Philosophy, Ethics, and Existentialism

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