>I'm obviously starting to really tee Kenneth off with my obtuseness, so
>I'll stop after this one. It's not mutual: he isn't teeing me off, evenif
>he's being nonresponsive in my view. But we are obviously not, uh,
>communicating. We are talking past one another.
Sorry, not at all. I shouldn't have used the word shit, it changed the whole accent of my post, I'm delighted with the conversation and feel nothing but Durkheimian effervescence.
>>>I'm talking about Kenneth's version of the story, not Habermas'.
>>
>>I'm defending an orthodox version of Habermas. I have references for every
>>remark, and most of the metaphors, the I've used.
>I wouldn't dispute it. I haven't studied Habermas since maybe 1994, and
>consider myself to have only the most causual acquaintance with the broad
>outlines of this views, so I can't say whether you represent them
>correctly. I like Legitimation Crisis, and I like some of the topical
>essays, but I find the Communicative ACtion stuff uninteresting.
Tell me about it, I'm in the process of creating an index of terms for my dissertation (for my own use, since their index is hopeless). I've actually survived into vol. 2 right now (I actually read all of vol. 1 yesterday, perhaps this contributed to my teeing off). Pardons pardons, please!
>>I don't see how you've refuted any of the points that I've made. You're
>>saying that people don't give a shit, and I'm pointing out that it doesn't
>>matter what peoples intentions are, the structure of communication is built
>>into the reproduction of a social environment.
>
>In part I was addressing the idea that the structure of communication has
>a certain rationalist character that looks like an analytical philosophy
>paper. It is true that people don't care about that, a fact that may have
>more significance than you give it. But they do care about a lot of other
>stuff that doesn't obviosuly fit into that model. Bear in mind, in case
>you think I sneer at analytical philosophy, taht I read and write it
>voluntarily, even though I don't have to.
It is closer to being cognitive than rationalist. When Habermas talks about communicaitve rationality on one page, he says communication has a cognitive structure on the next. Unfortunately, most people don't turn the page...
>>philosophical analysis isn't an a priori assumption, it is a
>>*reconstruction* of the presuppositions of intersubjective communication;
>>an action theoretic that outlines the normative dimensions of reaching an
>>agreement.
>
>Again, I'm addressing your views, not H's, which I can't speak to, but it
>seems to me that this is a distinction without a difference. You are
>showing the necessary conditions of communication that obtain regardless
>of what people think or want, and, moreover, one that is not based on
>actual (very defective) practice, but on an idealized model of free abd
>equal communicators. That's as a priori as anyone could wish.
It is a projection that is manifest in the very act of speaking. We're talking, and we're simultaneously presupposing that understanding is possible. If we presuppose that understanding is possible, then we can theoretical reconstruct the logic about why this presupposition happens. This can be done in terms of linguistic competence (Chomsky), speech acts (Austin and Searle), hermeneutics (Gadamer), science (Popper), logic (Peirce) and so on. What makes Habermas's analysis so stunning is that he brings all of these together and demonstrates how these segregated analyses all converge on identifying the singular importance of understanding in scientific and normative affairs....
>>I haven't at all limited the range of considerations. I've pointed out that
>>the range can be thematized into different intentional structures:
>>teleological, communicative, dramaturgical and so on. I'm arguing that a
>>philosophical justification can be given for the normative dimensions of
>>reaching an agreement.
>
>I'm not sure what this means. That we can know under what conditions we
>would have an agreement? Or an agreement that has a certain normative
>force? Or what?
Understanding has a twofold character: sharing an identical meaning of something with someone, and knowing the conditions under which said something can be considered valid. So, if we understand what universal health care is (we agree on a definition), we must also, in order to understand one another, know the necessary conditions required for something like universal health care to exist - at least in terms of coordinating action. That's probably an awkward example. How about this:
If I say that "the ball is red," I'm making a propositional truth claim. For understanding to take place, we must agree on the meaning of the proposition, but this also means that we must know under what conditions the ball is red (lighting, the ball in its current state, before we toss it into the fire and watch it explode etc). These are only the presuppositions of understanding. Reaching agreement is what happens after we understand what we've said to one another. I say the ball is red, and give reasons, you say the ball is red, and give reasons, then we agree, we have reached an agreement through mutual understanding. This is normative in the sense that an agreement can only be reached - through the process of understanding - if you don't give me a lobotomy along the way. It is normative in the sense that certain conditions must be in place - egalitarian reciprocity and universal moral respect - for agreement to be achieved and considered an agreement. If these conditions are not in place, then we can suspect the entire situation of being pathologically distorted, in one way or another and, ultimately, coercive. I mean, this is the basis of social criticism. If Bush says X, you go after him on several levels: on the level of the truth of what he is saying (he says X will help the poor; and he's wrong); you go after the norms that he is advocating (he says X principle is good; and he has malevolent priorities); and you go after his truthfulness (he says X is the case, and he's lying). Now, most of the time we mix these up, and don't bother making distinctions: which is why it is so easy for conversation to wither into trivialities, because if one person is talking about truth, and another about honesty, then this messes with the discourse. It is important - absolutely important - to be clear about what we are critiquing. Habermas provides a systematic theory which explicates what we are doing while we are doing it. In this sense, it is a useful guide, a theoretical basis, for providing a critique of ideology and analysis of power. I say you say isn't ideology critique...
>I said:
>
>He seems to think it's not
>>>communicative
>>>action to try to change someone's mind by relling a different story or
>>>exemplifying a different kind of life.
>>
>>It is, but if you are retelling a story there are different parts: the
>>truth claim, the normative claim, and the expressive claim (third person,
>>second person, first person). All three are open to discursive analysis:
>>regarding the validity of the truth claim, the validity of the normative
>>claim, and the authenticity of the expressive claim. Habermas argues that
>>meaning and validity are two sides of a speech act.
>
>OK, though I'm not sure what it gains us to put it this way. Yeah, it
>matters if our narratives are true, our values correct, our experiences
>"authentic," whatever that means. (What I meant was to invoke Mill's idea
>of experiments in living, where one shows by example that a certain way of
>living is better or as good as the ways people have lived heretofore.) Is
>the account you are living just a classification of those obvious facts?
Because there is a different logic of inquiry for each. One has to do with science, another with law and politics and the other with, whatever - you know, the 'good life.' Habermas demonstrates that science can only take place with a normative basis - that reaching agreement is normative. In short: science can't exist as science without communicative action. This is Habermas's critique of Horkheimer and Adorno, that their framework - a critique of instrumental reason - fails to grasp and account for the normative structure inherent to socialization. Habermas wants out of the aporia of sheer criticism. He goes so far as to say that negative dialectics and deconstruction is like a military drill - in effect, mindless because it can't account for its own normativity, nor does it have standards which provide the effectiveness of the critique. Marcuse says people should be happy. But without having a sense of what happiness is, the critique is harmless (ie. it isn't cognitively motivating).
>That's uninformative because it doesn't suggest how we can know which
>beliefs are true, etc. Here I guess your idea is that somehow the
>idealized noncoercive consensus situation, the HAbermasian original
>position, has something to offer. I doubt it, but I have mainly analysed
>the Rawlsian version of this story.
Habermas argues for impartiality, not an original position. This impartiality can be achieved through discourse, but we don't start there. He has a rather sustained critique of Rawls in Justification and Application.
> I think that fails for a number of reasons, not least because the fact
> that something would be agreed upon in ideal circumstances, even if we
> could know what would be agreed upon, seems to have no obvious normative
> force for us who are not in such circumstances. The dominators, who would
> lose by entering into an agreement in a concoercive situation, would
> respond to the claim that the content of such an agreement is X, with,
> What's that to us? What's Habermas' answer to this "ought impplies can"
> objection?
Right, in situations that are not 'perfect' - we have to take up strategic actions. But we do so on the basis of communicative action (using it to ground criticism), not simply for the sake of taking up strategic actions. We struggle for freedom, and what is freedom? It is difficult to define, but we could define it under these xyz conditions....
cheers, infinity ken