kelley wrote:
>
> At 05:41 PM 8/11/01 -0700, Miles Jackson wrote:
>
> >"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.
>
> you're still not understanding that it has nothing to do with a seminar.
> people give reasons in other cultures. Why doesn't it rain? The rain god
> must be unhappy. How was the earth created... yadda yadda.
Kelley, you are playing with words, equating explanation with giving a reason. We are still in the realm of trivial tautology. The attempt to explain the world, the necessity to make sense of it (but not necessarily rational sense) is part of the source of both ideology and science. Communicating such explanations, sharing them, etc. is a quite separate process.
Communication or Communicative Action (as Subjects of a scientific discipline) simply are of no particular interest. Communication presents technical (rhetorical, etc.) problems in specific contexts, and any general principles across contexts are simply truisms and of no particular intellectual interest.
Carrol