Abstract

As the result of a “distorted communication process,” Telos neglected to print the following charts which should have accompanied Jürgen Habermas' article, “Moral Development and Ego Identity” (Telos 24, pp. 41-55). The article-originally delivered at ceremonies marking the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research—began by situating his problem vis-à-vis the approach of the older Critical Theory. The latter had pointed to the relation between the social processes and the formation of ego identity. However, it was asserted that the socialization of capitalist society has gone so far that the notion of an individual ego no longer makes sense. To this degree, the revisionist psychoanalysts' sociologization of Freud is an adequate reflection of social reality, for the ego as such no longer exists.