lbo-talk-digest V1 #4738

Kenneth MacKendrick kenneth.mackendrick at utoronto.ca
Mon Aug 13 21:50:46 PDT 2001



>Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2001 19:11:56 -0400
>From: Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>
>Subject: Development (Re: lbo-talk-digest V1 #4736)
>
>...A Somalia needs a Machiavelli (= a bourgeois Machiavelli building the
>state & the home market, or better yet a socialist Machiavelli
>building a socialist developmental state perhaps a la the Cuban
>Revolution) before a Habermas can become in any way useful for it.

This is obfuscating the point.

Communicative action happens in *all* societies. It is the plain fact of trying to come to an understanding with others and coordinate action consensually. The eucharist is communicative action for a christian community.

The other point is this: Habermas *fully acknowledges* that the lifeworld must meet post-conventionality 'half-way' - philosophy can only address ethical questions in general, not the collective self-understanding of those participating in a discourse. You're criticizing Habermas for not being a Machiavelli, when all he's trying to do is clarify the resources at hand, in a universalistic sense, that reflective analysis can legitimately deal with and expend binding agreement (see Justification and Application, 75-76).

Don't worry, I won't hold that fact that you aren't Machiavelli against your arguments.

ken



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