Abstract

In this dissertation, I argue that the development of individual identity should be understood in terms of the intersubjective acquisition of diverse forms of interactive competence, that such a conception can allay concerns about the historical, ethical, and institutional specificity of the structures of personal identity, and that such a conception plays an important role in critical social theory's project of a substantive diagnosis and assessment of social pathologies in complex, pluralistic societies. ;I begin by clarifying the intersubjectivist conception of individual development put forward by Jurgen Habermas in terms of the progressive acquisition of various interactive competences. On this largely neo-Kantian model, autonomy is defined as an agent's capacity for rational accountability: an autonomous person is prepared to defend, at ever higher levels of abstraction and reflexivity if need be, the meaningfulness and validity of her or his speech and actions as based upon defensible reasons rather than contingently given or taken for granted meanings, truths, conventions, values, etc. I argue that ontogenesis should be understood, at a formal and structural level, as a process of developing the different forms of competence required for communicative interaction. ;I then reconstruct Charles Taylor's arguments for the importance of ethical ideals and evaluative modes of judgment in the formation of individual identity, and counterpose his hermeneutic conception to the more rationalist model put forward by Habermas. Treating issues of strong evaluation, ethical motivation, constitutive goods, narrative self-understanding, and authenticity, I argue that many of the concerns that Taylor raises should be understood as enrichments to, rather than contextualist criticisms of, Habermas's model of interactive competence. I also argue, however, that Taylor's positions concerning authenticity and the scope of ethical reasoning need to be modified. ;Finally, I turn to a consideration of whether Taylor's theses concerning the diversity of forms of ethical identity available in modern society pose insurmountable challenges to Habermas's diagnosis and evaluation of social pathologies. I argue that, although underdeveloped, the latter has sufficient theoretical resources with which to account for the contextual aspects of the self while maintaining a robust program for normative social critique.