Going Beyond Occidental Theory: Critical Theory and Ambedkar’s Anti-Caste Praxis

Introduction: Critical Theory’s Situation

“The issue, however, is not simply the theory of emancipation; it is the practice of it as well.” (Max Horkheimer, “Traditional and Critical Theory”) ¹

Kritik or critique/criticism in philosophical theory forms the cornerstone of both Marx’s work and the work of those at the Institut für Sozialforschung/Institute for Social Research. The latter group came to be known as the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. ² The institute was set up in 1923, more than a few years before Hitler’s ascent to chancellorship. What made this group unique was their composition and intent: in Max Horkheimer’s words, they were all interested in social theory and came from a variety of different disciplines in order to develop the “negative” at this moment of transition in culture and to offer a critical perspective on the society they were embedded in. ³ There was no urgency, in either Marx (as per his letter to Ruge in 1843) or the critical theorists of the Frankfurt School, to create positive structures of what the future ought to look like or to impose such inventions upon the world. ⁴ Instead, their focus was and remains on finding this elusive future through critical engagement with their current world(s). Famously, Marx posed this critique of the philosophers of his time, charging them with merely describing their world(s), when there existed the possibility of actually changing it. ⁵

This kind of critique would not set up its own dogmas; it should be “ruthless” in nature, afraid neither of its own discoveries along the way nor of upsetting the status quo. ⁶ Critical theory of this specific kind emerged from the 20th-century response to the strengthening of fascism in Germany, the growth of capitalism’s stranglehold upon the public, and its rapid transition to the (ab)use of culture and the technologies thereof to maintain hegemonic control over all. This paper will first take up Horkheimer’s essay “Traditional and Critical Theory” to establish the principles around this new theoretical engagement with the world. It will then describe Habermas’ attempts to provide a similar analysis of ideology, and his conception of communicative reason as described in his lecture “Communicative versus Subject-Centered Reason.” This engagement with society and its foundations is also seen in Habermas’ interview with Eduardo Mendieta, titled “A Conversation About God and the World,” as well as in his engagement with then-Cardinal Ratzinger, titled “Dialectics of Secularization.” I will focus on points in the lecture and the interview where Habermas has revealed a specific Eurocentric and Christian bias and attempt to provide him ways out of the same through other admissions within those very same texts. I will then sketch out the parallel case of a contemporary of the Frankfurt School, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar from the Indian context, who takes up the spirit of critical theory—by Horkheimer’s standards—and Deweyan pragmatism to argue for a secular yet religious basis for democracy in his particular geopolitical context. I hope to show that Habermas would be sympathetic to such an endeavor, and that his own work has room for pragmatic solutions towards multicultural democracies.

Horkheimer’s Critical Theory

The Frankfurt School, especially under Horkheimer’s directorship, focused on the critique of ideology that sustained oppressive regimes, instead of on purely economic considerations of capitalism: why do people do what they do? The critical theorists worked within the Marxist tradition to clarify and evaluate its progress. In his essay “Traditional and Critical Theory” in 1937, Horkheimer gives an account of the traditional theorist in terms of their role in serving hegemonic capitalist interests while experiencing increasing alienation from society and from their work. Traditional theory has the goal of a universal systematic science that expands across disciplines in an amoebic fashion, requiring the least resistance to this intertwining. This sort of approach to theory is emulated by the social sciences as well, which focuses on data-gathering, pattern-seeking, a fetish for exactitude in the mathematical mode, and the reliance on logical calculation in working with conditional propositions—Horkheimer diagnoses this as perfectly in line with industrialized society. ⁷ Horkheimer goes on to critique such a reified mode of doing theory, exposing its reliance on social processes, rather than (as it likes to describe itself) on detached, logical ones. The decision to ask a question in traditional theory does not, in fact, rest on the boldness of the individual researcher, but on the paradigm of techno-bureaucratic authority they work under. For example, there has been exponential progress in the understanding (and thus control) of womb-bearing persons’ reproductive capacities due to the attention given to the subject through recent scientific history. There has, however, been comparatively little progress on the subject of “male” contraception or in understanding the intricacies of PCOS, or “polycystic-ovarian syndrome.” Some questions have an army and a navy behind them, which affords them the opportunity to be asked. Thus, Horkheimer adds that traditional theory is grounded in the division of labor along the stages of scientific activity; the scholar labors in isolation from society but is incorporated into its machinations, preserving the status quo. ⁸ These limitations of traditional theory are examined, and Horkheimer concludes that a “radical reconsideration” is required “…of the knowing individual as such.” ⁹ People are the product of their histories, and the problem is that they individually see themselves as passive in the world, while taking society to be “blind and concrete.” ¹⁰

Critical theory, in contrast to traditional theory, is theory of society as is given to us, one that is “dominated at every turn by a concern for reasonable conditions of life,” and takes society itself as its object. ¹¹ Horkheimer cautions his readers that critical theory is not aimed at any singular malady of society, but sees such ills as connected to how that society is structured. Thus, critical theory is not a mere betterment program for an ailing arm of the society in question, but takes up the question of such valuation in the first place: what does it mean to be “productive,” “appropriate,” “useful,” etc.? The framework of society as given and its rules are in question with critical theory, which relativizes the limits society places upon its individual members. ¹² Critical theorizing means working in tension between extremes, between reifications, and between impositions, while simultaneously acknowledging that the theorist cannot transcend their givenness in the society with which they are engaging. ¹³ Definitively, Horkheimer proposes critical theory to have as its subject “a definite individual in [their] relation to other individuals and groups, in [their] conflict with a particular class, and, finally, in the resultant web of relationships with the social totality and with nature.” ¹⁴ The attempt is to see the individual not as abstract, but as actively involved in the formation of their present society. Theorists are thus expected to see themselves as historically situated, non-neutral, and motivated in their activity to better the world(s) they inhabit. Horkheimer also characterizes forms of judgment across western history as prebourgeois (where “nothing can be done about the way things are”), bourgeois (hypothetically and disjunctively calculated activity in the form of “if this, then that”), and finally the future moment of critical theory (where there is no necessity for something to be the case, that change is possible through individual action, and that it can happen now). ¹⁵ Bringing in a call to practical action, Horkheimer reminds readers that the future of critical theory will not be a straightforward one in terms of success or transmission: “critical theory has no specific influence on its side, except concern for the abolition of social injustice.” ¹⁶ In the postscript to the essay, Horkheimer affirms critical theory’s goal is emancipatory. ¹⁷ It is this emancipatory mandate of critical theory that is taken up next in Habermas’ work Knowledge and Human Interests a few decades later.

Habermas’ Project(s) and Problems

The members of the Frankfurt School are inheritors of the Enlightenment: their grappling with the passing away of the “modern” period (characterized by Enlightenment principles) and the ushering in of the “contemporary” period is notable. In 1968, Habermas wrote Knowledge and Human Interests, which seems to follow Horkheimer’s analysis of theory, outlined in the previous section, in how it takes up the problem of ideology underlying activity in society. Two moments from Habermas’ text are important for this paper: (a) his acknowledgment of the relationship between religion and philosophy, which is carried forward through his work, and which he seems to be returning to in his later years, and (b) emancipatory interest as the motivating force for critical theory, tying in well with Horkheimer’s mandate for the discipline. In the opening section of the appendix, “Knowledge and Human Interests: A General Perspective,” Habermas asserts that only knowledge which acquires a proper attitude can properly orient action. ¹⁸ We see Habermas bring in religion and its (in)tense relationship with philosophy here, and he will continue to do so in future writings. In this case, “theory” as a word has its origins in religious contexts, and when taken up philosophically, it retains some of its past character while transforming in its new context. Habermas acknowledges Horkheimer’s previous distinction of traditional and critical theory and uses Husserl’s notion of “crisis as science” to elaborate his own classification. The empirical-analytical sciences are in line with traditional philosophy in their shared activity of describing the universe theoretically. The historical-hermeneutic sciences take their cue from the “hard” sciences as such by attempting to force symbolic meanings all together onto the same plane—“[historicism] has become the positivism of the cultural and social sciences.” Even the more practical social sciences take up positivistic presuppositions about maxims of action. Theory no longer has much to do with the cultivation of the human person. ¹⁹ Habermas, however, suspects that traditional theory, or the sciences, have not completely embraced this divorce of knowledge from interests. For him, a critical philosophy of science must demonstrate the various types of interest associated with the categories of knowledge-making described previously, viz.: empirical-analytic sciences with a technical cognitive interest, historical-hermeneutic sciences with a practical interest, and finally critically oriented sciences with an emancipatory cognitive interest. ²⁰ Focusing on the last, that is, emancipatory interest, Habermas holds that critical sciences are not concerned with the production of “nomological” knowledge, but with extending into the methodological sphere of investigating the limits of and influences on such processes. Critical theory is thus connected with self-reflection, which is determined through this third interest. In philosophy, self-reflection enables the escape from objectivist concealment of the relation of one’s responsibility and autonomy from one’s activity. Scaling up to society, Habermas notes that what at the individual level is called “rationalization” can be called “ideology” at the societal level. ²¹ Towards the close of the essay, he states in his final thesis that philosophy must dialectically move through moments of uncovering violence that aims to block dialogue and reconstruct what has been lost. ²²

This turn towards practical activity had real consequences with Habermas: as a public intellectual, he engages with issues far and wide even today. This paper will not go into the details of Habermas’ expansive theories of truth, rationality, or meaning, but will focus on Habermas’ attention to society, ethics, and democratic theory. Habermas’ theory of societal responsibility within democracies comes from a Kantian reading of political formation. In defending the unfinished project of modernity from its detractors, he argues for the turn away from instrumental reason towards communicative rationality, which is a “paradigm of mutual understanding between subjects capable of speech and action,” as opposed to the “paradigm of the knowledge of objects.” ²³ His analytically-inspired speech-act theory and turn towards performative action are useful to explicate in this context. Within his speech-act framework are the locutionary, perlocutionary, illocutionary, and expressive acts, each associated with a set of pronouns as we have them classified by person. This framework, Habermas says in his lecture titled “Communicative Versus Subject-Centered Reason,” does away with the subject-object system of communication and brings in a mutual, community-oriented understanding of the same. There can be no speech for speech’s sake, nor can there be solipsistic activity in a complete speech act, which is always intentional, recognition-producing, and self-regarding. ²⁴ What is integral to this paradigm is the performative attitude of those individuals who surround the interaction, either by directly participating or by being audience to it; these individuals coordinate their action together “by coming to an understanding about something in the world.” ²⁵ Engaging in such an interpersonal relationship involves the reciprocal sharing of each other’s perspectives, which is possible through, according to Habermas, their ability to move between the aforementioned pronoun-ed perspectives described in speech-act theory: participants are thus able to recapitulate—in the sense of “complete,” instead of merely “repeat”—their performances from another’s point of view. This activity occurs in and through the shared lifeworld that participants have. The lifeworld is an interesting concept for Habermas, as it forms the non-totalizable background from which participants can draw resources for interpretation in a consensual manner. The lifeworld is not singular; there are many, and these are holistic, intuitively known, and unavailable for analysis. It is also composed of the relations between groups, their specific values, and their cultural assumptions, and is propagated socially as cultural traditions are passed on and new members of society are acculturated. ²⁶ Communicative reason is flexible and situation-specific, a far cry from pure reason: it is immediately embedded in social life and takes over the activity of coordinating individuals’ actions. ²⁷ Towards the end of the lecture, Habermas asserts that such a theory could reconstruct the ethical context for life, as taken from Hegel. ²⁸ Habermas characterizes society as practices that have reason embodied in them: it is activity that is historically situated, and which mediates between the internal needs and external objectification of labor within an appropriate horizon. This other of reason—rejected by Kant and the philosophy of the subject—is concretely mediated with its other through this social practice. It is the social bond characterized by “unalienated cooperation and living together” that judges the health of the mediation. ²⁹

From theorizing about communicative communities, Habermas moves on to thinking about the concreteness of political communities and what holds them together. The question raised in Dialectics of Secularization is about the “pre-political foundations of the democratic constitutional state”—whether the state is reliant on local ethical traditions that precede its democratic foundation. Habermas is concerned with the issue of individual motivation which must be addressed, given the outside threats to solidarity that include isolation, loss of solidarity, and capitalism’s creep. Initially, Habermas states that religion is not necessary in this situation; towards the end of his essay, he urges both secular and religiously inclined citizens to learn from one another in order to ensure thriving democratic states as a pragmatic move to ensure better conversations and debates in the public sphere. ³⁰ It is in the interest of the state to prudently manage the “cultural sources that nourish its citizens’ consciousness of norms and their solidarity,” reflected in “post-secular” society. ³¹ In the essay, as well as in the interview I take up next, Habermas makes the claim that liberal values have distinctively Christian origins: religion does indeed (in)form the foundations of modern democracy.

In an interview with Eduardo Mendieta (titled “A Conversation About God and the World”), Habermas makes the claim that the specific history of the western world—involving Christianity, the development of the church, the politics involved throughout—are what have singularly given rise to “modern forms of consciousness.” ³² Moreover, he asserts that this progress would not have been possible (he says “could never have developed”) without specific theological development. The transcendent position of the divine judging subject, when passed forward into modernity, is taken by the knowing subject in a manner that can allow reason to enter the concrete world—nature is objectified through cognitive rationalization, and morally regulated relationships are totalized through social-cognitive rationalization. ³³ After acknowledging the potential that Buddhism had to be a similar force towards cultural development, Habermas goes on to make a generalizing statement about Eastern religions as a whole, which I find to be uncharitable on his part as a scholar. ³⁴ It is Habermas’ bias towards the Western or Occidental world that this paper wishes to raise, and pose a challenge to, given our multicultural world today. In further stating that modernization (whether cultural or social) has not come about in regions where Buddhism is practiced, I feel that Habermas misses the application of critical theory to development (or the stunting thereof by colonial activity) in the non-Western world. He embeds Christianity in the substance, as such, of modernity, asserting that cherished liberal values of liberty, equality, and fraternity (I am paraphrasing) that lead to the political constructs of democracy and the ethical constructs of individual morality directly emerge from “the Judaic ethic of justice and the Christian ethic of love.” ³⁵ Even though these traditions face scrutiny and undergo transformation, their impact persists, and “up to this very day there is no alternative to it.” ³⁶ Habermas neatly ends his paragraph noting that one must draw upon these wellsprings of culture to face the challenges of the contemporary, globalized world. Later in the interview, he says that “(we) no longer confront other cultures as alien since their structures still remind us of previous phases of our own social development,” ³⁷ which betrays a view of the world more associated with supremacists belonging to a particular culture.

Another place where Habermas narrowly misses making a good point about the limits of Eurocentrism is in his lecture “Communicative Versus Subject-Centered Reason,” taken up earlier in this paper. In the midst of such a rich development of communicative reason and the concept of lifeworlds, Habermas speaks of how “logos” has been systematically taken apart over the course of Western philosophical history. He goes so far as to state that “[as] long as Occidental self-understanding views human beings as distinguished in their relationship to the world by their monopoly on encountering entities, knowing and dealing with objects, making true statements, and implementing plans, reason remains confined ontologically, epistemologically, or in terms of linguistic analysis to only one of its dimensions.” ³⁸ This is an incisive perspective on the limits of Eurocentric philosophy, philosophical categories, and philosophical methodology. It is his use of the term “Occidental” in this paragraph that piqued my interest in interrogating Habermas’ bias and whether there were ways to see critical theory escape its clutches safely into the contemporary, multicultural world today. This bias—illustrated here by (a) his remarks in the interview “A Conversation About God and the World” about Eastern religions and by (b) his not reaching beyond the limitation he describes in The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity—does not serve critical theory, let alone potential neighbors and future citizens of the West or non-West who will have to share community and democratic space together. I endeavor to show how, in these very same texts, Habermas has the elements needed to rework his theory of pragmatic, communicative reason to suit the contemporary world. I will first illustrate an example of such critical theory in the non-Western world through a contemporary of the Frankfurt School—Dr. B. R. Ambedkar.

The Non-Western Example: Dr. B. R. Ambedkar

Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956) was a philosopher, jurist, economist, and anti-caste scholar, active during India’s independence movement against the British. ³⁹ His accomplishments are significant given Ambedkar’s social position in Indian society: he was born a Dalit (a group referred to as the “Untouchables” at the time), the lowest position in a caste system that determines one’s social position and range of economic opportunities by birth. ⁴⁰ For Ambedkar to escape this predetermined fate speaks to his tenacity and forms the grounds from which he authoritatively spoke and wrote truth to power in his lifetime. Ambedkar wrote prolifically from the 1920s through the 1950s until his death in December 1956. His education abroad at Columbia University (1913–1916), the London School of Economics, and the University of London (1916–1923) contributed to his exposure to a variety of theoretical frameworks and universes of discourse. The dominant influences in his writing include (a) a commitment to Enlightenment ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity; (b) an admiration of John Dewey’s work on democracy, society, and education; (c) a critical engagement with Marxist theory and his socialist leanings; and (d) a theoretical engagement with morality and religion. These influences merge practically in Ambedkar’s subsequent insistence on a radical morality as the basis for rational religion to undergird society, that is, a democracy. Ambedkar’s stated goals include the emancipation of the Untouchable and the realization of an ideal modern society in the subcontinent. ⁴¹ He was deeply influenced by the Enlightenment values of liberty, equality, and fraternity. It remained important to him that all members of a given society be free and equal citizens in community with one another. This striving for equality formed the basis of his proposed political reservation policy (so as to put citizens on equal footing), while the focus on fraternity led to his turn to Buddhism in his later years to establish a rational, secular moral ground for the (re)public.

Ambedkar’s most prominent influence remains American pragmatist John Dewey, under whom he studied briefly while at Columbia University. ⁴² For Dewey, education is a necessary mechanism that functions as the means of transmission between members of society across generations, linking the past to the present to maintain cultural functioning, and in this way constantly reworking and remaking the culture itself: society persists in transmission and communication. ⁴³ Further, this transmission occurs both in formal—schools, universities, training centers—and informal—homes, playgrounds, public squares—spaces. The importance of these community spaces was not lost on Ambedkar, who was active in setting up social centers, arguing for access to temples, to water, and to a (literal) seat at the (dining) table for all, including and especially the Untouchables. Education is critical and active in optimizing or purifying the past in keeping with the needs and requirements of the present. The tools and techniques of the past were applied to the problems of that particular present. Thus, the standards for operation developed in the present do not have to pay homage to the standards of operation that held in the past. ⁴⁴ Ambedkar wielded this insight against traditionalists within Hindu society claiming their Vedic heritage (and its privileges for them) as morally superior by virtue of its history. Ambedkar’s biggest takeaway from Dewey was the concept of social endosmosis, articulated previously also by the likes of philosophers Henri Bergson and William James. Ambedkar employed the concept to critique the pervasive caste system in the subcontinent, observing that there is no freedom of movement or co-mingling of people across different castes that stratify society. ⁴⁵ Democracy, ideally, is “primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience.” ⁴⁶ This is further only possible through the individual’s deliberate working through of collective cultural experience as a state of mind: it becomes a notional change. ⁴⁷ Dewey’s lesson regarding associated living ties in well with the aforementioned liberal value of “fraternity” to develop a unique understanding of community, and this is reflected as the motivating principle in Ambedkar’s demands for social change in the subcontinent.

Ambedkar was not a Marxist, but he engaged with Indian communists and socialists advocating for economic reform to better Indian society. He pushed back against them, saying they attempted to “apply the economic interpretation of history [from Europe] to the facts of India,” and argued instead for social reform to precede economic reform. ⁴⁸ He agreed with Ferdinand Lassalle that communities strive for more than economic ends: they also strive for spiritual ones (such as community, equality, and liberty). ⁴⁹ For Ambedkar, the mere adoption of principles from a different cultural context without critical application is untenable: the prejudices that plague the concerned society now will continue to exist after “the revolution” and will continue to thwart social progress. Neither economic nor political reform is possible until the “monster” of caste is gone. ⁵⁰ In his presentation, titled “Buddha or Karl Marx” (1956), he historically situated Marxist theory to subject it to scrutiny, having recently seen the violence in Soviet Russia. He was critical of its principles and predictions, including the primacy of economic factors, the unchangeable and inscrutable laws of history, and the acceptance of violence for social change. He appreciated the recognition of class conflict, including the political primacy of the class which controls the means of production and the need to abolish private property; he also appreciated the oft-quoted (yet oft-ignored) advice that the function of philosophy is to reconstruct the world. ⁵¹ He identified deficiencies in Marxist theory, which include violence, the rise of dictatorship, totalizing activity, lack of critique of authority, and a lack of vision. Crucially, what happens after the predicted dictatorship? Ambedkar sorted through inadequate responses to the question before observing that society would need something specific to bind it together once dictatorial force is withdrawn. A different conception of religion than available in the Western context might serve this purpose, particularly in the subcontinent: Ambedkar suggests a reworking of Buddhism towards this end. ⁵² He opined that it would be more amenable to the ends of Marxism than Christianity, given that it neither alienated people from their reality or labor via promises of an afterlife nor promoted the controlling virtue of poverty. ⁵³ Ambedkar argued that Buddhism—conceived without the distorting insertions of Brahminical interests—could provide the values needed to build an ideal society in the subcontinent. ⁵⁴ Two questions arise: Why appeal to religion? Further, why Buddhism, and not Hinduism?

Ambedkar was alarmed by the moral degeneration he observed in Hindu society, especially the upholding of caste. His disgust with the meager response of upper caste society—at the apex of which are the spiritually-privileged Brahmin groups—to the existing state of affairs led him to critically evaluate and then turn away from Hinduism entirely. This turning away is outlined most clearly in his “Annihilation of Caste,” a speech that was prevented from being delivered because of its call for the denying of the authority of the religion in question. Why call for a rejection of Brahminical Hinduism? Ambedkar argues in the text of his speech that those who observe caste do not do so because they are amoral or immoral, but because they are deeply religious. Thus, it is the abolition of the authority of the scriptures (the Shastras) that will annihilate caste, since the upholding of caste is sanctioned by them. ⁵⁵ John Dewey and James Tufts’ empirical account of the development of morality, titled Ethics, provided Ambedkar with a notion of reflective reason that understood individual moral development as closely interrelated with that of society—this moral development would be stifled if Brahminical Hinduism, whose texts and authorities sanctioned caste, was not challenged and rejected. ⁵⁶ To supplant this spiritual authority, Ambedkar turns towards an emancipatory form of Buddhism.

14 October 1956 is marked among Ambedkarites as a day of celebration and emancipation: it was the day Ambedkar formally converted to Buddhism and led a multitude of followers to follow him in conversion, with an additional list of 22 oaths they all took together to effectively sever their ties to Brahminism. ⁵⁷ Buddhism shared both history and cultural space with Hinduism in the subcontinent, which made it a better choice for conversion both symbolically and sociologically. ⁵⁸ Buddhism was a perfect fit since its figurehead, the Buddha, (a) never claimed supernatural origin or authority, he was only human; (b) never claimed that his teachings were infallible—reason (inference) and experience (perception) are the judges of all teaching; and (c) adherents were allowed to adapt or reject any offered teachings if they did not apply to them. Further, the principle of “energetic action” drives adherents to social change, and not violence. ⁵⁹ In his public speaking engagements, Ambedkar made concentrated efforts to translate the liberal values of liberty, equality, and fraternity into more locally accessible counterparts from Buddhism, including maitri/goodwill, bandhuta/solidarity, samata/equality, among others. ⁶⁰

Thus, these influences from across philosophical contexts led to the development of Navayana Buddhism. Ambedkar conceptualized it as a religion for the contemporary age, updating Buddhist teachings for today’s world, rather than forcing the contemporary to conform to the ancient. After extensive research, any adulteration by Brahminism was to be eliminated to preserve the Buddha’s message, one with absolute concern for human welfare and a refusal to comment on (metaphysical) matters which were not certain—matters of God or soul were not to be speculated upon. The texts he centered showed Buddhism as an egalitarian religion, where individual agency is respected in one’s quest for salvation and leadership is not a matter of privilege in the sangha (community). Buddhism, in Ambedkar’s interpretation of it, is emphatically rational—in the sense of not being opposed to the modernization of life—and supports secular values. Ambedkar found a metaphysical sweet spot with Buddhism, complete with the call to action through the reformulation of nirvana as a need to change the world for the better, rather than simply to flee from it. ⁶¹ This finally gave Ambedkar the moral basis for an ideal democratic society: a rational, truly social religion not trapped under ancient metaphysical baggage. It is this specific Buddhism that is widely practiced among Ambedkarites to this day.

If juxtaposed sympathetically, Ambedkar and the critical theorists share similarities despite being separated by their geo-socio-political locations. The understanding of critical theory outlined at the start of this paper is applicable to Ambedkar’s own outlook and emancipatory social project. Ambedkar as a philosopher operates with the critical perspective of societal structure in the subcontinent as being organized in exploitative ways, himself being located within this structure and having experienced its brutalizing effects firsthand. (Third-generation critical theorists’ attention to the experience and structures of misrecognition—particularly Axel Honneth’s recognition theory framework—can certainly be brought into conversation with Ambedkar’s attention to the personal and systemic dehumanization that caste practices perpetuate). ⁶² As a scholar, he is critical of the existing networks of Brahminical theorization that use their ontological, epistemological, and moral hegemony to maintain the oppression of caste–disadvantaged classes. ⁶³ He questions what seems “given by nature” and prescribed for centuries as the caste system which keeps people locked in cycles of degenerate, alienated production. ⁶⁴ Ambedkar’s goals were not to reform any one particular aspect of the subcontinent’s society: society as a whole was to be questioned, continually reevaluated, and made anew in keeping with pragmatic ends of its members. Further, Ambedkar does not fall easily under the category of alienated “intelligentsia” that Horkheimer invokes. Due to his caste-location and emancipatory work among the people of the Indian subcontinent, Ambedkar manages to “reduce the tension between his own insight and oppressed humanity in whose service he thinks,” which is evident given his popularity among the Dalit and other socially disadvantaged communities in the country. ⁶⁵

Where Ambedkar and Horkheimer diverge is the latter’s commitment to understanding his geopolitical location as being determined by “an economy based on exchange” which is the Marxist analysis of industrialized Europe. ⁶⁶ Ambedkar does not subscribe to this analysis and postulates the Indian subcontinent, especially around the time of Indian independence, as being primarily determined by religion. The project of modernity is born, in Europe, among other things, in response to the tyranny of religious authority; the Enlightenment allowed for a break away from this way of life. The assumption of modernity is that religion has lost the salience it once had, which Horkheimer affirms in his essay titled “Thoughts on Religion.” ⁶⁷ The Enlightenment ideal in the “West” pushes religion into the private sphere and promotes public secularism. ⁶⁸ This is, importantly, not a universal shift: spiritual authority continues to hold sway the subcontinent and neatly assimilates with colonial and contemporary hegemonic economic and cultural impulses. Ambedkar’s analysis recognizes a category that is locally dominant and oppressive, but his relationship to the Enlightenment model of secularism remains to be explored. ⁶⁹ However, this does not lessen his affinity to the critical theory project in the Horkheimerian spirit, given his commitment to using critical tools at hand to change the world. Ambedkar shows how power accumulates through traditional, spiritually sanctioned, caste-preserving theory and praxis in the subcontinent. His philosophical and sociological critique of the institution of religion itself can be found an undated work titled “Philosophy of Hinduism.” ⁷⁰ Thus it is possible to locate Ambedkar within international discourse of critical theory. He follows Marx’s direction in not visualizing a concrete future sans the scourge of caste, but in engaging with his culture to arrive at such a future together.

There is much to learn from Ambedkar: he serves as a model of what critical engagement across universes of discourse could look like. His praxis draws from both “Western” and “Indian” canons, interpreted and applied carefully to a particular non-Western context (the Indian subcontinent) from within. ⁷¹ Ambedkar’s approach to emancipatory praxis does not escape his lifeworlds but engages with local traditions to develop the pre-political conditions for a secular democracy. This is synoptic with the Habermasian approach described in the previous section.

Ways Forward: Salvaging Habermas’ Theory for Contemporary Times

Habermas’ theory of communicative rationality remains a compelling system for solidarity-based foundations of society. He states in “Communicative Versus Subject-Centered Reason” that “the theory of communicative action joins itself with the pragmatic tradition” in its affinity with the consensus theory of truth and communication theory of society à la Pierce and Mead. ⁷² Drawing from Ambedkar’s application, one can see how a Deweyan approach to pragmatism could further help Habermas’ theory of communicative action strengthen its application to political democracy: associated living is a material demand, involving commonly shared spaces that increase interaction and involve mutual participation in everyday activities.

In “A Conversation About God and the World,” while giving his understanding of Christianity’s role in the development of modernity in the west, Habermas briefly stops to point out that, among the “Eastern” religions, Buddhism comes closest to having achieved the level of abstraction required to be able to produce the kind of historically developing dialectic that Christianity has. When stating “in fact” that modernization has not achieved completion in geopolitical areas where Buddhism is practiced, Habermas perhaps forgets that these regions have experienced centuries of cultural invasion and cultural suppression from the ostensible “West,” often in the form of colonial activity to boot. ⁷³ In the specific case of the Indian subcontinent, there is also the internal clash between critical Buddhism which rejects the authority of the Vedas and the Veda-affirming Brahminical philosophical systems, which may not be information Habermas has access to. Today, the term “Hindu” in Indian personal law covers those practicing Buddhism (or other “Indian” religions), although their roots remain distinct. I have taken up Dr. B. R. Ambedkar’s attempts to purge Buddhism of this historical blight so as to provide a new vehicle—literally the name he gives to the sect, “Navayana”—to undergird democracy in the subcontinent. ⁷⁴ I believe Habermas might approve of this heretical Buddhism from his understanding that it was such formation of sects and offshoots of major religions that allowed radical thought to emerge. ⁷⁵ In the very same interview, however, Habermas does hold that “[the] West must abstain from any non-discursive means, must be only one voice among many, in the hermeneutical conversation between cultures. In a word: overcoming Eurocentrism demands that the West make proper use of its own cognitive resources,” which is the very remedy this paper would have liked to offer, had it not been provided by Habermas himself so succinctly. ⁷⁶ (It is also interesting to note that an early Buddhist text from the sixth or seventh century, titled Nyayabindu or “Drop of Reasoning,” has at its crux the thesis “All successful human action is preceded by right knowledge. Therefore this [knowledge will be here] investigated,” which is quite similar to Habermas’ statement in Knowledge and Human Interests, mentioned earlier in this paper. ⁷⁷ ) Further, in answering the very next question posed by Mendieta regarding the modernization of religion, Habermas describes the “modernization of faith itself” across cultures and the need for each faith system to work together with each other and with their common competitors—the claims of science and common sense. ⁷⁸ This is similar to Ambedkar’s activity with Navayana Buddhism and is a fruitful offering on Habermas’ part to contemporary society. Habermas’ perspective on the role of religion facilitating the communication of basic ideas to the general public—whether religious or not—is useful here and is similar to Ambedkar’s understanding that there must be a social force holding a people together in community that is conducive to democracy. ⁷⁹

If pressed to answer if Habermas should be “canceled” or considered irrelevant because of his biases, I would respond (a) that there is much to be gained from his work, as described above, and (b) that we must begin to see philosophy as less centered around Europe and its interests. As a living philosopher, he still seems to have new philosophical insights to offer (his most recent work was published in 2019, titled Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie, recently translated). ⁸⁰ If pressed upon the point of Ambedkar’s being too locked into a particular culture to be relevant to the world, I would reply on the contrary, since his work is the perfect example of how one might work between universes of discourse fruitfully and authentically in order to continue the fight to abolish social injustice. They both have constructive and critical theory to offer us, although their initial impulses towards universalizing their respective theories might be resisted. ⁸¹ A multicultural society must be able to hold together diverse perspectives and values, that may or may not have the opportunity to interact with each other, and yet persist together under a common lifeworld—to this effect, Habermas states that the “tension [between world religions today] needs to be stabilized, not resolved, if the net of intercultural discourse is not to be torn.” ⁸²

Our societies have only become more diverse in the 21st century, with increased globalization and the machinations of capitalism at this global scale. Many states are grappling with issues of immigration and responsibility as the result of their own historical mischief, which leaves publics everywhere wondering how best one might “integrate” or be welcome to another lifeworld. The pragmatic reality is that these lifeworlds do have material bases and thus must interact and be shared in order to operate in the same space, minimally. The acknowledging of multiplicity, diversity, and fragmented limitedness seems to be a prominent feature of the contemporary world, as we move away from pure objectivity and subject-centered ways of operating. Critical theory persists still, in all its relevance—neither capitalism nor casteism have been overcome, even though they exist in more specific forms in some places than in others. In fact, they have traveled further into the world: capitalism complicates caste in the Indian subcontinent, and casteism has been shipped abroad wholesale with the immigration of upper caste folk who maintain their privileged and oppressive ways of living. Their respective and combined destructive hegemonies do have to be countered via practical philosophy and critical theory.