lbo-talk-digest V1 #4732

Kenneth MacKendrick kenneth.mackendrick at utoronto.ca
Sun Aug 12 07:05:59 PDT 2001


At 01:38 AM 8/12/01 -0400, you wrote:
>Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2001 17:41:31 -0700 (PDT)
>From: Miles Jackson <cqmv at pdx.edu>
>Subject: Re: lbo-talk-digest V1 #4729
>
>"there is no alternative"--man, you sound like somebody at a WTO meeting!
>The long history of our existence on this planet has shown quite clearly
>diverse social patterns and diverse linguistic and nonlinguistic
>strategies for communication. You're taking the patterns of interaction
>in a specific social setting--a graduate philosophy seminar, more or
>less--and then treating this language use (reason-giving, unforced
>consensus, etc) as fundamental to all communication. You need to
>get out more, I guess: every day people in diverse cultures
>contradict each of the supposed necessities you list above. And
>then if they don't talk like philosophers, well, they just don't
>measure up to the Universal Standards for Communication.

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



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