Fultner, Barbara. "The Politics of Vulnerability: On the Role of Idealization in Butler and Habermas." Philosophy Today 42 (1998).

“The particular theory of meaning that Judith Butler espouses has a certain political cash value.’ This presents an interesting parallel with Jurgen Habermas, who developed a universal pragmatic account of language in order to ground rational discourse. Butler’s recent work suggests that she, like Habermas, is looking for something like a formal framework for political agency. However, they address the problem of meaning and the problem of agency at different levels and in different ways. Unlike Habermas, who is interested in how to attain rational (uncoerced) consensus, Butler is more interested in how to change the status quo, how to break out of what she takes to be a coerced consensus.3 This gives rise to different models of agency. Butler can be seen to supplement the Habermasian categories of communicative and strategic action with what we might call disruptive or “diremptive” action. Although Butler in Excitable Speech presents a critical reading of Habermas, I want to explore the possibility that their positions are complementary. Perhaps a successful political theory needs to find a way to reconcile the two approaches without viewing either as ontologically primary.4 For while Butler promises (or seems to promise) emancipation without idealization,5 Habermas offers a much needed notion of context-transcendence and normativity for Butler’s critical project.”

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