ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that Julia Kristeva’s theory and a pragmatic philosophy of language converge significantly on salient philosophical issues. The constellation ‘practice, language and history’ forms an affirmative web on which Kristevan and Apelian-Habermasian projects on subjectivity, critique, and pragmatics are woven. Kristeva does not identify the whole of Symbolic order with patriarchy. Thus, Judith Butler’s criticisms against Kristeva’s reluctance to level emancipation and agency with a full-scale refusal of the Symbolic misfire. J. Lacan’s and Kristeva’s assessment of the symbolic is affirmative to the extent that it stresses its being necessary, ineluctable, and ubiquitous. In agreement with Andrea Nye, Nancy Fraser points out that Kristeva’s theory addresses almost exclusively questions about intrasubjective tensions thus forfeiting the ability to account for inter subjective phenomena such as affiliation and struggle. Kristeva does not identify the whole of Symbolic order with patriarchy. Thus, Butler’s criticisms against Kristeva’s reluctance to level emancipation and agency with a full-scale refusal of the Symbolic misfire.
