Dude, maybe you missed the post... understanding is a universal aspect of communication, which encompasses diverse linguistic and nonlinguistic forms of communication. I mean, you used the phrase "strategies for communication." Understanding is crucial for any kind of strategy... So, you can take the comment about the WTO back - I'm not talking about philosophy seminars - understanding is inherent to cognition, the reason giving and taking and the binding/bonding force only applies in instances of communicative action, not communicative relationships per se (which are probably more about mutual recognition).
>Have you ever considered the possibility that this rationalization
>and reason giving, far from being some sort of basis for judging
>proper communication, is in fact a social product of certain societies
>with specific economic and political relations?
Habermas argues that the lifeworld must meet discourse half way, in other words, yes, discourse (communicative action) is a social product of certain societies with specific economic and political relations, but its kernel remains immanent to everyday communication.
> Rather than taking
>"reason-giving" as some kind of universal normative grounding, it
>makes a lot more sense to me to observe how reason-giving is actually
>carried out in everyday life, when reason-giving is completely
>irrelevant to communication in everyday life, and how the call
>for reason giving and rationalization is imbricated in certain
>economic and political relations.
>
>Miles
Reason giving is not the normative ground, the expectation-idealizations of understanding qua validity is the normative ground.
ken