PREFACE
Philosophy, along with modern humanity as a whole, stands at a critical
juncture. As the sense of the person emerges ever more strongly in contemporary
consciousness, rationalist ideologies inherited from the last century appear
increasingly to be not only insufficient, but destructive. Fascism was
defeated militarily; communism has collapsed under the weight of the deadening
inertia it imposed from the center. Correspondingly, the movement of freedom
has spread on all levels, first internationally as nations were emancipated from
colonialism, then nationally as prejudices against minorities were transformed
into a new pluralism, and now at the center of the family as equality and
participation are ever more valued.
Throughout this recent trajectory of human history philosophers have
been at work. Some have looked historically to the past simply to discover
resources of the human mind without relating them to the struggles of
contemporary life. Others have simply reworked old rationalisms in incremental
attempts to make them more rigorous or inclusive in the vain hope that they
might work after all; defeated by recent events these philosophers are now in a
state of considerable disarray.
Others, however, have attempted to learn creatively from past weaknesses
and to open new paths for the progress of peoples. It is to these pioneers of
the human spirit that others look in order to understand better the dynamics of
the breadth of the human experience, to identify its dynamics and to interpret
its direction. In recent decades, Paul Ricoeur and Jürgen Habermas have served
richly in this role. Their works have reflected upon the various components of
the contemporary intellectual scene from psychology and social theory to
language and symbols. To follow the dynamics of their thought is to follow the
search of contemporary society for new personal and communitary awareness.
The present work by Robert Badillo brings impressive new resources to
this search for human emancipation and opens metaphysical dimensions which
deepen and vastly enrich the human project of our times. By choosing Jürgen
Habermas as his point of departure, the author enters swiftly and surely into
the juncture between the social sciences and philosophical reflection. First, he
situates the work of Habermas within the context of the contemporary effort to
establish a mode of understanding which avoids both objectivism and relativism.
The following three chapters analyze basic themes in the thought of Jürgen
Habermas: first, the theory of interests in order to situate the search for
emancipation as the dynamic center of the thrust toward human fulfillment;
second, the theory of universal pragmatics as the foundational framework of
Habermas's theory of communicative action in order to establish a methodology
for emancipation in terms of the contemporary focus upon human interaction and
communication; and finally, the theory of discourse ethics in its attempt to
provide a framework for adjudicating proposed norms with a view toward
uncovering latent hypostatizations. Together, these chapters state with unique
clarity and force the present state of the anthropological search for personal
and communitary realization in the dynamic interchange of contemporary life.
What is truly exceptional about this work, however, is that Dr. Badillo
does not leave the issue there; his concerns are deeper still and their
ramifications are all embracing. Where others would be satisfied to speak simply
of communication and open discourse, this work does not stop at the form or
structure of communication but asks about the goal toward which human life is
directed. Beyond techniques of communication as something one does, he looks
for the basis of communication in what one is and how one is related to others.
Fundamentally, this is the question of being, understood as personal identity,
intercommunication with others and mutual concern.
To understand this the work takes the extra step of adding to the
structure of communication issues of meaning and truth, and to the social
process of emancipation issues of the nature of community and goodness. This has
been the work of metaphysics in its long and recurring trajectory beginning
with the ancient Greek tradition; the central concern of the present work is to
show how this can develop in our day.
Dr. Badillo approaches these issues with care and competency. He
investigates the work of Habermas in order to identify the precise points at
which it comes to--without entering upon--metaphysical reflection, and
how such deepening of thought would not be inimicable, but an important
contribution, to the project Habermas has undertaken.
The author then turns to the development of an appropriate metaphysical
methodology for the task at hand. The study identifies the rich metaphysical
resources which can contribute to a search for human communication that will
be truly emancipative of the person in community. One is the classical tradition
as it evolves from Dr. Badillo's earlier work on Parmenides, through the
classical Platonic and Aristotelian traditions.
Another resource is a rich sensibility to the Christian context of
subsequent thought, with specific regard to its Trinitarian conception of divine
life. Seen as the source and goal of human life, and hence as the key to its
deepest nature, this has encouraged people to think spontaneously in terms of
being as open, creative and communicative; of truth in terms of justice; and of
life as the fruit, not of conflict and violence, but of communion and
benevolence. Without recusing the demands of rigorous philosophical discourse,
by taking hermeneutic account of the Christian horizon, Dr. Badillo directs
attention to the distinctive insights which characterize that philosophical
tradition with its eminently realist, metaphysical, and communicative
dimensions. In the rationalist Eurocentric context of modern philosophy such
hermeneutic sensibility to cultural contexts had long been passed over, and with
it the awareness of the proper contributions to be made to and by philosophy in
the various cultural regions East and West, North and South. This author's work
is among the first to explore seriously and systemically the significance of
this Christian context for the development of metaphysics.
It would be equally mistaken, however, to suppose that this metaphysical
insight--or its theological derivative--could be worked out independently of the
search for human fulfillment, i.e., for emancipation. It is here that Dr.
Badillo takes his most dramatic step. To contribute to the development of
metaphysics in our day, he positions himself equally between, on the one hand,
Habermas's analysis of the present generalized thrust of humanity toward the
dissolution of disequilibria through communication and emancipation and, on
the other hand, the implication of a Christian culture for a sense of unity
constituted in communication and concern. Like a tuning fork vibrating between
these two powerful forces, the one human and the other divine, Dr. Badillo
gives new voice to the deep meaning of being as emancipative and communicative.
Focusing upon the transcendental properties of being, he illustrates
the progress which can be made in metaphysics when goodness is seen as
proclaimed in the irrepressible human thrust for emancipation in a way that
moves beyond a purely "enlightened" sense of self-interested justice
to a creative and life-giving love and concern; when truth is seen as reflected
in the human search for just and equal communication which echoes the ideal
Trinitarian speech situation and is applied in practical questions through a
nonformalist conception of ethical discourse; and when unity is seen as active
in the human search to build community after the dialogical-communitary image of
the Trinity rather than the monological, solitary intelligence "the solus
ipse" of traditional metaphysics. Such a metaphysics is not limited
to the model of the conservation of material energy and is without the
impediment of self-seeking interest; it echoes instead a cultural tradition
marked by self-sacrifice in empathetic service to others.
In doing this Robert Badillo has opened the way for an emancipation
theory enriched by an awareness of the origin and goal, and hence the deepest
nature, of human life. In so doing he shows how metaphysics can progress in
our day.
It is no exaggeration then to say that this work marks a new beginning
for philosophy. It integrates at once both what has been learned and passed down
from the past (tradition or tradita) and the ongoing search for
emancipation, both social theory and metaphysics, both the human and the divine.
It is an example of what metaphysics can be when it transforms Aristotle's
"life divine" into creative love and learns in its human image from
the universal contemporary search for authentic emancipation.