What is The Public Sphere? | Jürgen Habermas | Keyword

[@VTLille]

I'm no expert but I think Habermas wrote about this back in the early sixties in "Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit - Untersuchungen zu einer Kategorie der bürgelichen Gesellschaft." It's more of an historical examination of the development of a bourgeois "public sphere" and its relationship to the state, society and the private sphere in Western civilization.

[@TheoryPhilosophy]

It absolutely is!

[@squidsalsa9078]

Thank you so much! This really helped simplify the writing so it's much more understandable :)

[@GhostID]

this video actually helped me in my assignment in my degree, the social begging you need to do in the end after you have the prove of value of your content.

[@patiencemaneya5056]

I am here 2024 , preparing for an exam this is veryy helpful and straight to the point

[@BaileyNisse]

5:03 oh, er.. yes! I'm spicing up my paper with some deeper understanding, and with some luck my teacher might turn a blind eye to my chaotic writing. Thank you! I will just have to hope that my sudden realization of a connection between Walter Cronkite's quote on "freedom of press being democracy" and Habermas isn't too far fetched.

[@whereisawesomeness]

Seems like this is an embodiment of enlightenment liberalism. There’s the belief that everyone should have an equal voice, that government is going to listen to the public will and represent the people, certainly, but the critiques also exemplify critiques of liberalism. You mentioned, for instance, the view that such an idea would have to ignore certain historical factors, and the question of who is allowed to speak, how they can speak, and what they’re allowed to say. I would also raise the question of who is even allowed into the discussion. If we imagine this as a physical building, there are questions of accessibility, both to the physically disabled and those with social deficits. If we picture it as taking place over the internet then we need a way to authenticate the identities of the people involved (at the very least to prevent bots from taking over the discussion), which then implies a denial of the space to undocumented migrants and anyone who doesn’t have the access or ability required to use the internet. No matter how we picture it there’ll be people, disproportionately people of colour, who are impoverished to the point of needing to work while these discussions are happening, which means the working class perspective will be underrepresented. Habermas seems to take the idea (which is qualitatively quite similar to that of the vote) and abstract it from its material context. At least, those are the critiques I have of the idea, coming from a postmodernist, anarcho-communist perspective (I assume they’ve been raised before, given Habermas’ popularity)

[@elifgenc9001]

it was all okay until you say postmodernist anarcho-communist my friend 🥲

[@PonyHutchen-ej9eh]

I really enjoy all of your videos (starting from the more recent ones as I only now discovered your channel). What I find interesting here is that specifically many North Americans/English-speaking folks criticise the concept of the public sphere. I wonder if that is some explanation failure in translation in a frequently used version as some critiques of the Öffentlichkeit, a word and concept existing way before Habermas and quite obviously referred to by Arendt with the public realm, quite frankly seem unfitting. It appears to me that many understand the public sphere in English as primarily a room for formalised discussions when the concept in German implies basically any action, including the bare existence, outside of the private or secluded realm, traditionally involving the media and just general social talk about communal topics - and as this is implied in the term, people usually do not explicitly refer to that part of the Öffentlichkeit as well. And because it is a regular part of the vocabulary, it is open to change its meaning with societal progression.

[@eivind1032]

Your videos gives me new perspectives on everything my professor teach us. Thank you!

[@kimfreeborn]

I don't remember Habermas talking about establishing a public sphere. It was more about the Bourgeois public sphere that developed in 17th century through pamphleteering. As an ideal it would have been first promoted by Milton as the "free marketplace of ideas." The issue of censorship and public opinion obviously come to bear on the public sphere. I think we can pretty much assume that we have a public sphere. I see most people picking up the adea regarding the forces at play and how they influence and shape public opinion. Are certain voices suppressed and is there a dominant discourse.

[@R.Devontae]

But is it not “X” a good platform for that purpose? Like I’m genuinely asking, I want answers please!

[@bernardoamaro9931]

Thanks for the help in my university paper!! Already subscribed. (Sorry if i wrote something wrong, i'm from Brazil)

[@pinwheel8723]

so nice to have someone explain a theory without blasting background music. its so distracting. thank you for your clear explanation sub from me

[@jordanbell7132]

Hey man, really enjoying the vids. Is there any possibility that we get a difference and repetition series down the line ?? Its an absolute mammoth of a read and it would be sick to hear it in your words

[@michaelfrank2664]

I second the request for Difference and Repetition.

[@TheoryPhilosophy]

Yes, absolutely.

[@alaen2]

I'd be truly happy to hear about it as well, thank you :)

[@danielnyakora]

I know Habermas is a complex discourse that cannot be exhaustively covered within a 5 mins video - even if we narrowed down to only his work on the public. In this video, however, I do think any of his concept of the public were addressed at all. We incoherently jumped from sentence to sentence without the vaguest wrestle with Havermas’ public. One would be forgiven to think that the presenter has hardly intercoursed with Habermas. Philosophy students will appreciate that they stumbled upon this video but will leave with zero value.

[@teacherrommel7053]

Great discussion. Anyhow the Public Sphere is too difficult to apply not only because of issue of education or cultural barrier, another issue is the coercive nature of man. Given that all are educated and all are aware of the need for mutual understanding some individuals are willing to use language, social beliefs and loopholes of laws to outwit and outsmart other individuals. It is an unsolved problem in philosophical psychopathology to establish that a mere linguistic method of communication has a direct effect to the will of those are engaged in the process of communication. His philosophy is only a sort of slice of the various types of communications, this communicative action is an ideal one, only workable for non-coercive negotiating parties but way too hard to apply in all circumstances.

[@hemlock527]

I dont see how the matter of who gets to be heard is a problem. Firstly, surely any model of open discussion is better than having only tv news and hollywood. Second, why would anyone be excluded? The force of an argument is what matters, and good and bad arguments exist in all walks of life.

[@dystar112]

Thank you. Appreciate it 😊

[@عالمكرةالقدم-ب4ظ]

Thank u so much bro

[@SnivelyTheGlamful]

nice haircut 👍

[@normalwerido]

hes currently 93

[@gator1984atcomcast]

Our representatives do listen to those that donate to their election.

[@25yearsnow]

You spend about 1:15min trying to define the public sphere, then go straight into criticism. Habermas isn't trying to "develop" a public sphere where people can "talk about ideas". His argument is both empirical and normative in that he draws normative ideals from existing practices in a reconstructive way, as opposed to a constructivist method that begins with ideals, then draws practices in accordance with those ideals (Kant). You make it sound like he has this utopian ideal where everyone gets along in this mythical place called a public sphere. For sure, Habermas isn't trying to "develop" a public sphere in the way you suggest. Doing so would be well outside the bounds of what Habermas, and others like me, think theory can do. The public sphere exists empirically, and it is and should be the place where formal institutions of law and democracy receive their inputs (Habermas leaned heavily on systems theory). Yes, the public sphere is flawed and it can be overburdened by other facets of society, as Habermas keenly knows, but for him it is the crux of law and democracy and what he calls the "lifeworld" elsewhere. Prior to Habermas, democratic theorists wrote of a vague notion of the "People" that didn't exist in reality, but was used rhetorically to identify the agents of collective action. As the 20th century appeared, and nations evolved into hyper-complex and fragmented societies, the old idea of a monolithic "people" no longer seemed plausible to uphold democratic institutions. For Habermas, the public sphere was a way to solve this problem because it comprises no single body politic, but rather reflects a complex interactive system that sends and receives feedback, so to speak, from formal institutions. It's the last "free" domain of society that allows for truth claims to be tested and circulated, relatively free in theory from the confines of the instrumental logic of the economic sphere. It is also the place people are socialized in the public school systems, clubs, etc. But, as Habermas laments, since at least the 18th century, the public sphere has been colonized by instrumental logic, a logic that doesn't care about truth or agreement but only utility maximization and competitive advantage. In some ways, the rise of advertisements in the early 20th century, which cared neither about truth not agreement, was the beginning of the end of the idealized public sphere. The rise of bad actors with insincere speech claims began to dominant the landscape. And if you're wondering why the public sphere is a domain of freedom and communication, for Habermas, then you'll need to look at his work on speech act theory in Communicative Action where he talks about the presuppositions of speech and communication themselves. Please don't critique someone's work without explaining it first. The title of this video could easily be called "a vague critique of a term I don't define".

[@TheoryPhilosophy]

Lol

[@bahmansedighi9584]

🙏👏

[@Zing_art]

Does he mean that public sphere enables /facilitates democracy? I

[@TheoryPhilosophy]

I think it's like a new kind of democracy he's trying to configure

[@kevingeorge3423]

👍🏽

[@sangmadewira4726]

So basically, it's just free speech laws?

[@ograro]

He does not understand Habermas at all. Study more, kid before you mislead a lot of people. You’re talking trash!