物化与技术解放的可能性——兼论社会批判理论技术观的政治伦理转向

Reification and the Possibility of Technological Emancipation——The Political-Ethical Turn in Social Critical Theory’s View of Technology

肇始于卢卡奇的物化批判将技术批判视作为重要主题,而后被法兰克福学派第一代理论家发展为技术理性批判,并最终陷入悲观主义的工业文明批判。之后,哈贝马斯和霍耐特试图拯救物化批判,从不同角度对物化批判做了主体间性的重构,由此转向技术的政治伦理向度。哈贝马斯主张物化是系统对生活世界的殖民,但并不否认以工具理性为主要特征的系统之社会整合功能。霍耐特将技术简化为公众参与政治或民主化进程的积极因素,进一步弱化了对科学技术本身的批判。芬伯格认为,相比于霍耐特“承认的遗忘”,理性结构对生活的压迫才是更大的社会病理,因此希望借助激进的技术民主化来实现技术变革,以克服物化和实现人的解放。社会批判理论家技术批判的政治伦理转向从根本上放弃了总体革命的主张。

The critique of reification,which began with Lukács,regarded the critique of technology as an important theme,and was later developed into a critique of technical rationality by the first generation of the Frankfurt School theorists,and eventually fell into a pessimistic critique of industrial civilization.Afterwards,Habermas and Honneth tried to rescue the critique of reification by reconstructing it intersubjectively from different perspectives,thus turning to the political-ethical dimension of technology.Habermas argues that reification is the colonization of the living world by the system,but does not deny the social integration function of the system,which is mainly characterized by instrumental rationality.Honneth further weakens the critique of science and technology itself by reducing technology to a positive factor in public participation in political or democratization processes.Feinberg argues that the oppression of life by rational structures is a greater social pathology than Honneth’s“Forgetfulness of Recognition”and therefore hopes to achieve technological change through radical democratization of technology in order to overcome reification and achieve human emancipation.The political-ethical turn of the social-critical theorists’techno-criticism fundamentally abandons the claim of revolution in general.