Recently, there have been increasing attempts within the paradigm of critical theory to move away from Habermasian orthodoxy. In keeping with this trend of scholarship, Gregg Daniel Miller attempts to ‘refigure’ critical theory away from strictly procedural accounts of communication in order to provide an answer to ‘the question of meaning and motivation in modernity’ (p. 136). Miller highlights the ‘bonding effect in intersubjectivity’ as a potential source of democratic legitimacy, and prescribes a rethinking of mimesis (imitation) as central to this theoretical endeavour. In order to achieve this, Miller seeks to dissolve the characteristic understanding of reason and mimesis as opposites, advancing the argument that maintaining it in post-metaphysical Habermasian thought inevitably means to ‘remain within the rhetorical argument set out by metaphysical thinking in general’ (p. 35). Tracing the philosophical attitude towards mimesis from Plato through to Habermas, Miller identifies a form of mimetic theory in Habermas’ theory of communicative rationality and points to a way in which this may be utilised to ‘negotiate a passage across the reason–aesthetic divide’ (p. 6).

Miller's analysis raises considerable questions concerning the possibility of Habermasian thought remaining true to its fundamental intentions, most notably a commitment to the Enlightenment and the project of modernity, and more specifically the Kantian notion of autonomy. This reconstruction of Habermas is sure to be met with hostility and will inevitably boil the blood of any card-carrying Habermasian. In critiquing certain foundations of Habermas’ thought and integrating aesthetic theory within the theory of communicative action, Miller will be seen to have walked the theory down a line that is alien and perhaps too far removed from its initial foundations. However, he walks the line with the force of clear intention, and the book is a highly original addition to the growing body of literature that recognises the brilliance of Habermas, yet seeks to move past perceived problems or tensions within aspects of his thought. Well written, though at times (perhaps unavoidably) philosophically dense, Miller successfully maintains the purpose of his argument throughout and argues an intriguing case. This book should enliven debate concerning the future of critical theory, and more specifically its relationship with aesthetic theory.

Miller (Univ. of Washington, Tacoma) argues that Habermas's formulation of a postmetaphysical theory of reason has yielded an unreconciled conflict between communicative action and discourse ethics whose respective conceptions of intersubjective ego and autonomous ego remain in tension. As a result, critical questions regarding what motivates interlocutors in speech acts and whether an autonomous ego can also be intersubjective in its constitution and orientation (and vice versa) are left unanswered. The author does not, however, seek to void entirely Habermas's contribution to reformulating critical theory. Rather he seeks a "fundamental clarification and reconstruction" of it. His strategy is to force Habermas's theory to confront the thing it ignores: its relation to, and the possible contributions of, a mimetic theory that the author argues is at an even deeper level, anterior to the tensions of the two conceptions of individual ego. In short, through a reexamination of Habermas's influences, namely, Plato, Theodor Adorno, George Herbert Mead, and Walter Benjamin, the author hopes to show how two competing conceptions of the motivations of actors--Enlightenment reason and Romanticism's aesthetic affect--can be resolved through a deeper understanding of the problems in Habermas's vision for critical theory. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduate, graduate, and research collections. -- A. B. Commissiong, West Texas A&M University

“Moving beyond the impasse of mimesis versus communicative rationality, an alternative that pitted Adorno against Habermas, Gregg Daniel Miller opens up a new vista in the continuing effort to develop a viable Critical Theory for the twenty-first century. Drawing on the insights of Mead and Benjamin, he imaginatively and persuasively establishes a point d’appui for rational critique that extends well beyond wan proceduralism without regressing to a discredited metaphysics. The result is a remarkable first book, which is less about the past of Critical Theory than its future.” — Martin Jay, Sidney Hellman Ehrman Professor of History, University of California, Berkeley