>At 12:52 PM 8/1/01 -0400, you wrote:
>>>>We can't even make the rulers behave differently, not to mention
>>>>overthrow them, by urging them to read Habermas & reminding them
>>>>of the virtue of the ISS.
>>>
>>>The ISS is not a virtue. You have misunderstood, rather fatally I might add.
>>
>>That depends on how you define virtue. It appears that cognitive
>>consensus between Habermasians & non-Habermasians on key terms in
>>discussion will be impossible, constituting an outcome unwelcome in
>>Habermas's theory.
>>
>>Yoshie
>
>Define virtue however you want. If it means idealizations inherent
>to communicative processes irregardless of the intentions of
>participants then, by all means, the ISS is a virtue.
The idealization of reason-giving with freedom, equality, autonomy, fairness, etc. is not inherent in communicative processes everywhere at all times. Justin asked you to consider an example of pyramid-building. In an age in which pyramids were actually being built, the ISS was absent even as an idealized counterfactual, since it didn't have social relations of "Freedom, Equality, Property, & Bentham" that would give rise to the ISS as a necessary fiction of political liberalism.
>At 10:20 PM -0700 7/31/01, Kenneth MacKendrick wrote:
>>No one here says that we shouldn't practice reason-giving in a
>>public sphere. Those who disagree with you are merely saying that
>>it has a far more modest place in politics in particular & human
>>lives in general than you or Habermas is prepared to acknowledge.
>>
>>Yoshie
>
>Habermas isn't saying that we should practice reason-giving in the
>public sphere. He's pointing out that when we do, it is
>universalizable, and that when we don't, it probably isn't.
Habermas, unlike you, suggests that his desire for universal participation in reason-giving in the public sphere is tied up with his concern for political legitimacy & stability of constitutional democracy within a given nation (hence the limit on universality), marrying Kant with Rousseau so to speak. It appears that you are not only making the ISS ahistorical but also depoliticizing Habermas, perhaps against his intentions, since he has been prolific in polemical interventions (against neo-conservatism, against pacifism with regard to Kosovo, etc.) in current affairs.
>As for actual consensus, it is irrelevant to Habermas's theory
>whether a consensus actually emerges. The fact that it is
>anticipated by those committed to discursively redeeming their
>validity claims is enough.
Commitment to "discursively redeeming validity claims" does exist in graduate seminars & the like, as Justin mentioned, but it doesn't & cannot exist where decision-making has the most profound & far-reaching consequences under capitalism: most prominently, when, where, how, & how much to invest. The dialectical insight here is that what gives rise to the ISS as a necessary fiction of political liberalism at the same time severely limits its scope of application, by creating & depoliticizing the "economic."
Yoshie