Habermas's "Theory of Communicative Action" and Siebren Miedema, Part Two: An Ideology Critique of Intellectual Appropriation

This essay is the second part of a two part analysis that focuses on the significance of Habermas's Theory of Communicative Action for education. It questions the logic of Siebren Miedema's application of Habermas's theory to critical pedagogy and action research and provides a critique of Miedema's reformulation within the framework of continental hermeneutics and Kantian categories. The author argues that Miedema's conception of a separate mode of action, called "pedagogical action," inadequately applies the modes of action distinguished by Habermas. Although the author sympathizes with Miedema's call to apply Habermas's insights to the pedagogical realm, he concludes that Miedema's approach would drastically limit the theory's critical potential. The essay concludes that pedagogical elaborations should be consistent with Habermas's critical theory and method.