>I think I am morte Humean, or Marxian, or something. I think you have
>exaggerated faith in the persuasive and motivational powers of mere
>ratiocination.
It isn't faith, other than arguing with one another - other than reaching understanding, there is no way to have a relationship with another person. It isn't about motivation or persuasion, in a sense... it is about the very constitution of who we are as human beings. Is all language just self-assertion? This does not account for how a self comes to be a self, which is a learning and developmental process. In the assertive model, the idea of internalization becomes problematic... If we maintain the extreme thesis that all linguistic utterances are assertive, then we are left with an extraordinary deficient understanding of cognitive-social-psychological development (which there is a great deal of support for). In short: persuasion is the means through which human coexistence is conduct. Even enemies relate to one another (you have to know you enemy to hate them properly [and effectively]!). This implies that, as linguistically bound creatures, we are, for all intents and purposes, doomed to communicate. In many respects, we can't even choose to be or not to be rational, we just are. Language is oriented by truth, and this can be brought to a propositional level through argumentation. We can give up on theory, that's fine, but this has more to do with knowing that we can know something and then backing away from it in any event, which is a motivation question... which can only be understood by communicating with one another... and so on. A sheerly strategic life cannot be lived.
> I believe in ratiocination, and I even enjoy it. I hope to hold true
> beliefs, and think that thinking about them is the only way to be as sure
> as one can that they are true--in general. There are, however, fixed
> points, like one I mentioned (freedom is better than slavery); sure, I
> might come up with a brilliant argument to show why. But I am more
> confident in the conclusion that I am in any argument I could give for
> it. To quote myself, I think using this very example: explanations can
> only illuminate these truths. We will take then in the dark if we have
> to. Might we be wrong? Yes, about them or anything. C'est la vie. Anyway,
> I think we have reached an impasse, here. Better stop unless we have
> something new to say.
You can't use an argument to demonstrate that arguments don't persuade people. I mean, you can, but it doesn't make much sense. If I accept your argument, that a good argument for arguments cannot be made, I'm a logical idiot. So I don't accept it, and you'll have to give reasons, or hit me over the head with something (which just means you'll have to argue with someone else, or perhaps barter, for an appropriate object) to dissuade me otherwise. In any event, reasoning is what we have at our disposal, there is no point in tossing it away simply because convincing people - arguing - is a painstaking task (and I've noted that you agree here). We people sit down together to organize a protest, they are all (for the most part) interested in the most effective means of success. I'm sure that arguments / reasons have a tremendous weight in these situations. Likewise, when you're trying to fix up the apartment, you give reasons for why you want the desk in the blue room instead of the red room, it might be trivial, but if we're going to live together, that's how it gets done. And, through some sort of weak messianic power, we an agreement is actually reached, there is a sense of communicative gratification: that something one has struggled for, through action and thought, has been realized. It might suck to see happiness as a result of communicative / successful understanding, but after that - you pull out the wine, the chocolates... and take a stroll on... well, wherever!
To drapes this a little less intimate.. if there is a 'Leftist' ethic, then this is it: it is ground immanently in the experience of intersubjective interaction. We can argue about whether or not this can be turned into a principle of discourse or something like that, but to some degree, the fact of reason is manifest in the process of understanding, which is essential not only to our lives, but also to of immediate perceptual consciousness. This is most richly developed in a communicative ethics, whereby communication can be understood as communication only under specific material and social circumstances. If we're going to chat, domination *must* be eliminated, otherwise anything communicated cannot be said without suspicious of being ideology / false consciousness and so on. It might be a bit of a stretch to say that from our very first word we presuppose a universal discursive moral theory... but...
hugs, ken