>>And my point has been that arguments don't persuade people if, and only if,
>>the conditions for argumentation have not been met. In other words, if one
>>person is committed to figuring something out with another person, and the
>>other person is just joking around, then the conditions for an argument do
>>not exist, in other words: there can be no argument without the appropriate
>>conditions for argumentation.
>The latter point is true, but you still seem, as the pomos say, to
>"privilege" argumentation above other forms of persusion.
Of course, most postmodernists put this in the form of an argument (which, it seems to me, is just embarrassing).
> Maybe another may to make clear why I think this is wrong is to say that
> there are at least three sorts of circumstances where people are
> "persuaded" by nondiscursive means.
>
>1) When they are not actually persuaded but are coerced into going along
>because of fear of harm or humiliation;
>
>2) When they are "persuaded" by some sort of brainwashing, e.g., chemical
>intervention, being cut off from other sources of information, gettinga
>barrage of lies from the capitalsit press;
>
>3) When they make up their minds not because of reasoning from premises
>but because of the power of narrative, the attractiveness of a vision, the
>pull of an ideal, the appeal of an example, etc.
>
>You HAbermasians run together (3) with (1) and (2), you assume that in an
>ideal world, everything would be run like a graduate seminar, and that's a
>good thing. I doubt that it would be a good thing if you could enforce it,
>but I think that if people were free and equal, they would reject it
>because we are, by the nature of human cognitive psychology, creatures who
>think in stories, who are inspired by examples and moved by visions. I
>prefer a different German than Habermas: Grey is all theory, Green is the
>tree of life!
I don't think so. This isn't something that is enforced, and the fact that we make compromises, are distorted in our own motives, or just don't get along with people (which includes intentional and unintentional manipulation) doesn't negate the idea, in principle, that such things can be separated out. That's all I'm saying. Immanent to speaking, and attempting to reach an understanding with others, is a communicative ethic, one which can (and need be) supported with theoretical evidence and cogent demonstration. Most of Habermas's work is for show, it is analysis that supports his claim, which is rather simple: when we speak, we make assumptions - that are inherent to the structure of speech regardless of individual assumptions. This structure can be elaborated and systematized and, in the end, it provides a 'idealizing' model through which we can ground criticism. Without an this kind of model, criticism lacks a normative standpoint and is guilty of being arbitrary. It is, in a very simple sense, a materialist and a communicative ethics. This threat is about the ethical foundations of the left, right? I've proposed a model for such a grounding. Habermas calls it formal-pragmatics. I like to think of it as the capacity to criticize that avoids the accusation of just being whiny.
ken