Page 118 - Communication and the Evolution of Society

3 Historical Materialism

and the Development

of Normative

Structures

This essay appeared as the introduction to Zur Rekonstruktion des His-
tovischen Materialismus. Remarks referring to or based on the occasion
have been omitted.

I

{In recent years I have made} various attempts to develop a
theoretical program that I understand as a reconstruction of
historical materialism. The word restoration signifies the return
to an initial situation that had meanwhile been corrupted; but
my interest in Marx and Engels is not dogmatic, nor is it histori-
cal-philological. Renazssance signifies the renewal of a tradition
that has been buried for some time; but Marxism is in no need
of this. In the present connection, reconstruction signifies taking
a theory apart and putting it back together again in a new form
in order to attain more fully the goal it has set for itself. This is
the normal way (in my opinion normal for Marxists too) of
dealing with a theory that needs revision in many respects but
whose potential for stimulation has still not been exhausted.
Not by chance [during the same period} I have been working
on a theory of communicative action. Although the theory of
communication is intended to solve problems that are rather of