This great topic demonstrates the instrumental role Philosophy should have in everyday life(reality)...but nobody seems to care about weighing in!(answerable metaphysical ideas sound more appealing for some reason).
Living in Greece during a pre election period I can only agree with "Habermas" theses. Look at the evolution of Morality and its obvious powerful establishments have being carving its ever changing profile through ages. From Religious establishments to current economical systems those in power have always been using their tools to redefine our moral standards of evaluation according to their narrative.

Thanks for the feedback @Nickolasgaspar. Like you, I'm motivated to try to find application of philosophical concepts where they can be of most benefit. If "publicity" has contributed to the rapid advancement to and of modernity then we should certainly be leery of the manipulation of the public sphere by special interests, if that impairs its "proper" function.

Interestingly, the next chapter talks about the evolution of the public sphere through the medium of salons and coffee-houses. I'm also concurrently reading Prousts' Rememberance of Things Past, and one of the major recurring themes throughout the first 3 books (as far as I have gotten) is the role of the salon, the interplay between intellect and aristocracy. It's like a case-study of Habermas! A happy accident.

"... the instrumental role Philosophy should have in everyday life(reality)...but nobody seems to care about weighing in!(answerable metaphysical ideas sound more appealing for some reason)." ~ Nickolasgaspar

That is a central and timeless point. Can I contribute to society if I myself don't see the world clearly? If I merely read books about social struggles but never exercise my own mind in a real, live social struggle, I rob my own development, misfiring in my attempts to contribute to society.

There is a difference between performing well as a professional ball player and trading bubblegum cards or trivia in the stands. Which game am I in?

• Am I in a self-interested, actual struggle to understand and live a more valuable life as a unique individual? ... to make a positive social contribution?
• … Or for a lack of courage, am I hiding a self-interest from myself by successfully role-playing some other person’s expressed intellect?

That is a central and timeless point. Can I contribute to society if I myself don't see the world clearly? If I merely read books about social struggles but never exercise my own mind in a real, live social struggle, I rob my own development, misfiring in my attempts to contribute to society. — Experience of Clarity

What is your answer?

I was attracted to this discussion by your statement:

“Like you, I'm motivated to try to find application of philosophical concepts where they can be of most benefit. If "publicity" has contributed to the rapid advancement to and of modernity then we should certainly be leery of the manipulation of the public sphere by special interests, if that impairs its "proper" function.” ~ Pantagruel

A daydream,

My proposed university curriculum of “… philosophical concepts where they can be of most benefit” …

The internet comes with problems. But one of the problems being the hasty and sloppy transmission of information, we have the opportunity to observe, contemplate, and expose the deliberate engineering of human beliefs. I do not mean brain washing. What’s happening is much “cleaner” than that.

I’ve come to think of the new disinformation institutions as “human sorting machines.” Definition: an institution which had previously benefited society has recently been “hijacked” and now serves the financial interests of an established corporation. For example, a pharmaceutical company which promotes a correct disease definition and diagnostic procedure would provide a benefit to humans. It would be appropriate to refer to it as a “medical” company. However, a pharmaceutical company that broadcasts equivocated disease definitions and manipulates patient identification procedures, by manipulating peer-reviewed publications to bring patients with other diseases within its own marketing domain, would no longer be curing diseases, but would be sorting humans for profit. (It should be, in my opinion, prosecutable as human trafficking, but the law as it stands today is too selective.)

A student’s task would be to define and locate heretofore unexposed “human sorting machines.” These are easier to find than one at first thinks. (The difficulty will come later: public and professional apathy and denial.) One hunts for variations of “magic tricks” known as “equivocation” … or “forcing.” Gaps of information are created by the magician/author and result in asymmetric knowledge between magician/author and audience/reader. The subject believes he or she has made a choice, but the “belief” is just the default of unexamined, inadequate information hidden under an aura of another’s credentials and confident presentation.

A definition of equivocation would include a range of usages and applications. The first lesson wouldn’t teach the concept of “equivocation” but its construction. There is an observable mechanical sequence leading up to the cognitive event, the “belief.” The second lesson would be the deductive deconstruction of the fraudulent narrative. This will involve the concept of equivocation and its refutation by way of a rational demonstration. Note also that with engineered equivocation, using the above as an example, there would be no “medical” study: no one asks a performing magician who is about to cut his assistant in half where he went to medical school. It’s a trick. A mind trick.

A live takedown of a heretofore unexposed fraud or regulatory manipulation would be a real-world laboratory. The public benefits should be obvious. But there would also be benefits for the students. Once a critically placed equivocation is discovered, all argumentation thereafter is relatively simple. However, that’s not where most of the lesson is. What is difficult is overcoming one’s own inability to “step up” and even if managing that, overcoming public apathy, resource-starved prosecutors, and general ignorance.

Here is just one lesson that one doesn’t learn about rational behavior in college. The coercive force of “failing” others’ uninformed expectations is powerful. It is often correctly interpreted as “reputational damage” … as one waves a white flag and moves on. This is a live, real-world moral struggle. With a fraud, from start to finish, there is a sudden reversal where all the good guys and bad guys change places without any change in the facts. In the university, on the other hand, everything is presented from hindsight. There is no reputational risk. There is no “moment” where assignments of good and evil change places.

What would be of “most benefit”? Leveraging the greatest outcome with the least expenditure of energy. Let’s call this “Occam’s first lever”: A single restoration of a critical step within a set of instructions allows the whole machine to resume its benefit to society. The simplicity of the argument contrasts with the outsized benefit of returning the “sorting machine” to its original beneficial output.

However, taking down a fraud or critically placed obfuscation is not as simple as understanding it. This brings us to “Occam’s second lever”: The gap between the simplicity of the argument and the human difficulty in actually taking down the fraud will be filled with a wide range of recognized human biases, rational fallacies, ignorance, humiliation, arrogance …. one’s own …. others’. More frauds will be found than will be taken down. That frustration with such an otherwise simple exposure will drill deep and serve as a well for contemplation.

In the same way that Kant says the "prohibition of publicity impedes the progress of a people toward improvement" I think the evident corruption of the proper functioning of the public sphere (due to contamination by dominant-exclusive interests) is not only a detriment to socio-cultural progress but a contributor to socio-cultural decay.

In the same way that Kant says the "prohibition of publicity impedes the progress of a people toward improvement" I think the evident corruption of the proper functioning of the public sphere (due to contamination by dominant-exclusive interests) is not only a detriment to socio-cultural progress but a contributor to socio-cultural decay. ~ Pantagruel

Today, “prohibition of publicity” takes two forms. The first, obviously, refers to some government or corporate force suppressing information. But the second is the fact that publicity is monopolized by broadcasting companies whose interests are financial and thus seek the largest crowd, not the most valuable story. Today, if a journalist pushes Story A due to its greater value to society, the business administrators will choose inferior Story B, and even tweak it, if it reaches a larger audience. That’s just good business. We can’t say that this reduction of quality information is due to a “prohibition” but we can say that information valuable to society is restricted either way.

“Like you, I'm motivated to try to find application of philosophical concepts where they can be of most benefit. ~ Pantagruel

What’s your solution, best guess, or daydream?

What’s your solution, best guess, or daydream? — Experience of Clarity

I think you optimize your mind towards the object of application for the general benefit. So how you do that varies with your personal preferences and skills and context I guess. Which why it is great there is such a variety of philosophical domains.

Personally, I'm starting to volunteer at the local library, trying to get more politically involved, trying to figure out where and how we may be going wrong today by understanding the history of class conflicts and revolutions. Those are my strategies.