> numero uno kenster:: habermas uses the performative contradiction
> argument as a way to *ground* social theory. you know the spiel on that
> one so i won't elaborate the specifics. i will just focus on the broad
> contours for others' who are reading: if you object to the claim that
> the ideal speech situation is implicit in everyday speech (that is, we
> gauge what are people say according to the ideals of truth telling,
> seriousness, etc etc [ideals which don't exist, but which are,
> nonetheless, invoked as a way to judge our own and others claims) then
> you are, in fact, invoking the ideal speech situation.
Yes, this is what Habermas sayz. For Habermas every linguistic act contributes to and verifies a quasi-transcendental presupposition - that speaking is about undistorted communication. So all language is derived from the fundamental attempt to understand something with someone. Later, for Habermas, bastard forms of communication arise - instrumental and strategic (orders, manipulation and so on) (which still find their core in communicative action). The problem is this, according to Maeve Cooke: which came first, the instrumental use of communication or the communicative act. For Habermas, it has to be the communicative act (otherwise the ideal isn't universal). Cooke argues that it is likely that both are born of the same moment - and that language has at least two orientations - something like expressive and communicative. The end result being: it is structurally impossible to tell the difference. So, the implication is - there are no "outside" criteria that can be imported to determine which "type" of speech act is being used (Habermas imports scientific procedures which liquidate expressive claims). However there is no certainty that Habermas here, or the sciences in general, have NOT imported aesthetic means (so to speak). Which means, Habermas cannot provide a justification of his formal pragmatic argument *unless* one already believes that such justifications are possible (hence, his question begging). In effect, the only people that will agree with Habermas are those that share his particular moral imaginary (and beg the question with him). In other words - a democratic ethos is the backdrop to his logically trivial observation about the presuppositions of language. They are only presuppositions for people who believe they are presuppositions. Remember, Habermas is deriving a universalist ethic from this position. My point is only this: as a universalist position, it fails. Yes, *I* agree that language can be used in such a way that we can reach an agreement about something, relatively justified ("strong hermeneutics" is a stupid term but one that has been used here) and normatively binding. But I already believe in the power of reason to sort through these things.
> if he's shutting down an argument because the wanker who's objecting to
> the claim that the ideal speech situation is implicit in everyday
> language, then well like uhhhh then so what. they're friggin wrong and
> they *should* shut up because they *are* in fact engaging in a
> performative contradiction and by their very critique they are
> reproducing and strengthening the *IDEAL* speech situation. they are
> using it to criticize his claims.
Yes and no. Think about it this way. How do you reinforce something that does not exist? Habermas's "transcendence within" (formerly known as the ideal speech situation) rests on indeterminate grounds. This is where Habermas meets Kant as a theorist of vampirism. Each speech act is and is not a communicative gesture, tied up with Kant's notion of an indefinite judgement (in the same way that vampires are and are not dead). Habermas's democratic community is an undead community of citizens, which is precisely why I've charged Habermas, in some of my work, as a religious theorists. Habermas's community has an ontic orientation - toward COMMUNICATION - in the same way that Hegel's religious community has an ontic orientation toward GOD. Habermas's reconstructive sciences here have an identical logical structure as Hegel's ontological justification for the existence of God. Of course, Kant's critique of Anselm was correct. In order for the justification to work, the object in question has to exist. The justification doesn't prove it either way. If the object exists, yes, then this. But if it doesn't, the justification is trivial.
> BIG FAT DUH
Yeah!
> as i've said a zillion and one times now, the ideal speech situation and
> the ideal of transparency in communication/language is just that: an
> ideal. an ideal against which you have the very possibility of irony,
> sarcasm, dishonesty, etc and so forth. i can't tell you how it disgusts
> me to read people whining about habermas's ISS when they utterly don't
> get what he's saying --largely because they've never bothered to read him
> and go on to make assumptions: "oh, an ideal, awful, just awful. ideals
> are oppressive, constraining, patriarchal, racist, sexist, fascist,
> blahbedeBL:AH". and, hey what, they're complaining and, in doing so,
> they're invoking fucking ideals: the ideal of a non-oppressive, non
> patriarchal, non racist, non sexist, non fascist, non blabedeBLAH world.
> whathefuck.
I'm totally cool with ideals. But *not* as universals. This is why Lacan's understanding of the Imaginary is so interesting (for me). And Castoriadis is just brilliant about this - "don't give up on your universal!" So, despite the fact that I think discourse ethics lacks the capacity to justify its universal claim, I still pursue the implication of such a claim in the area of, say, human rights, or education... ("don't give up on your desire!").
> on one hand, you tell yoshie that psychoanalysis is premised on the
> notion that its necessary because we live in a fucked up world. so.....
> does lacan agree or disagree with that? and now here, on the other hand,
> you're telling me that any yearning toward a radically different
> future--habermas emphatic, positive dialectics [if that's what you want
> to call it] is bad???????
Discourse ethics and "the ethics of psychoanalysis" are both emphatically interested in human suffering. They aren't really necessary, more like, desirable.
You know, I've been harping on this emphatic reason bit for years now and I think I'm actually going to have to stop using the term. If emphatic reason signifies the convergence of prescriptive and descriptive elements... then I have to assume that such elements *could* be distinguished. I can't assume this. So I think i've actually changed my mind about this. Kind of depressing - it was the centre-piece of my thesis, and now I have to scrap it. But you probably knew this the whole time, eh?
> and sorry ken, but bzzzzzzzzzzt, when i'm working with
> people on a project then the goal of understanding is absolutely
> imperative.
For sure. But can you distinguish, with certainty, the difference between expressive speech acts and communicative ones?
> you're trying you're damnedest to be understood here. as am i. so what?
> would you prefer a world in which people celebrated opacity.
Not at all. I'm not celebrating the problem, I'm trying to point it out. Opacity contributes to the possibility of understanding, not its block.
> i haven't a klew why you're invoking legitimation crisis here.
Fever in and fever out...
> where does habermas say that simply doing a PC excludes someone from a
> rational lifeworld? the PC argument is specifically a reference to
> *grounding* social theory ken. it's not a way of excluding people from
> the forum.
It's clear in Habermas that people who commit PC's aren't welcome. The fact that most people who commit PC's live in Paris is reason alone to suspect Habermas of something fishy <wink>.
> yeah, months ago. and i lost it. i also requested that you resend and
> you never did.
Ok. My fault.
Adam then wrote:
[the truth about Habermas]
>The PC arguement that i find convincing (but only
convincing) is something like "people that have the
cultural background to argue with Habermas about his ideas
such that Habermas believes that he can seriously argue
back share the ideals of ISS despite whatever protests they
make to the contrary"
YES! BECAUSE - Habermas is relying here on a specific social imaginary signification (in the Castoriadisian sense). This is what I take to be the moral imaginary of discourse ethics. An emphatically universalist ethic that upholds a normative ideal found within a specific orientation which, by its own measure, cannot ground itself. In effect, Habermas's discourse ethics, despite itself, relies upon a fundamental understanding of the GOOD (a prepolitical ethics). Which is why, then, I think Zizek's work is so important. For Habermas, when consensus is achieved, or understanding reached - and then implimented, this terminates one aspect of ethical consciousness. It is possible, in Habermas, in theory at least, to "pass" the discursive test. Once this is done, moral consciousness disappears ("ethical suicide"). And that's precisely when Habermas's theory becomes problematic.
ken