>I said:
> >>In part I was addressing the idea that the structure of
> >>communication has
> >>a certain rationalist character that looks like an analytical
> >>philosophy >>paper.
>
>You said:
> >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.
>
>What does that mean? Cognitive as opposed to what? It's a pragmatist
>truism that experience, feeling, emotion, perception, and thought all
>interpenetrate, that all seeing is "seeing as," under a description. This
>is an important point, but by cognitive structure, you seem to mean
>something else altogether. The view I think you espouse seems not to be a
>point about the structure of experience, that it is always under a
>description, but about the a priori necessity for a certain sort of highly
>articulated justification. As I'd express it, you seem to think that all
>thought, to count as thought at all, presupposes a reflective equilibrium
>in which the theoretical basis from which it can be derived are made
>explicit. That is what I meant by rationalism.
That we are creatures that learn. Lacan and Habermas are at one on this point, although Habermas argues for cognitive development, which can be formalized in analysis, and Lacan argues for something closer to cognition without generalization (for theoretical reasons).
>I said:
>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 >>and>>equal communicators. That's as a priori as anyone could wish.
>
>You responded:
> >
> >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. >
>
>That sounds like a transcendental argument that certain conditions of
>cvommunitication are synthetic a priori.
Not a priori, structural-pragmatic. We cannot avoid making these presuppositions when we commit ourselves to a speech act. If we remain silent, we don't make these presuppositions. They only apply in instances of performative communication.
>You said:
>
> > I'm arguing >>that a >>>philosophical justification can be given for
> the normative >>>dimensions of >>>reaching an agreement.
>
>I said, Wha? You explained:
> >
> >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. >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 - . . . .. 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.
>
>This strikes me as wrong for several reasons. First, as Quine has argues,
>there are no things called "meanings" that we share that can be "identical."
Wittgenstein argued otherwise. To follow a rule means to know what the rule is, and what constitutes its exception. For their to be agreement, both people in the conversation must have the same understanding of the rule, the same understanding entails sharing the same meaning (more or less). If the two people don't share the same meaning, then we cannot say that they have understood one another.
> Our beliefs may have content, and the the same content, e.g., "the ball
> is red," but that's a matter of our exprwessing or thinking a proposition
> with certain truth conditions. If our propositions have different truth
> conditions, we aren't thinking the same thought.
Right.
> But there isn't something called a "meaning" that the proposition
> relates to taht we have to "grasp" to understand it. Understanding
> propositional content is just knowing the truth conditions of the
> proposition, that's all.
But it also entails meaning, in the play sense of validity and the conditions of validity. If I say, the ball is red - I suspect that you grasp the meaning of this statement, that the ball is not blue. We would need to debate a bit about what is and what isn't red, but that isn't the difficult part once we have agreed to a general spectrum of colours.
> There are other sorts of understanding--the sort you seek from your
> lover or spouse, the verstehen involved in seeing why someone acted as
> they did, etc. But those don't involve special entities called meanings either.
Sure they do. Meaning simply expresses, comprehensively, the idea of validity. When we grasp the three moments of a speech act: its claim to truth, rightness, and truthfulness (which is a performative) then we grasp the meaning of statement. If we lack one, then there is a meaning gap, which is why we ask, "What do you mean?"
>Second, as you have stated the conditions for understanding, no one
>understands anything except under ideal conditions of freedom and
>equality. Since these have never existed, no one has ever understood
>anything, including "the ball is red." That is a reductio. A slave with
>the master;s foot on his neck can understand the proposition in question,
>same as the master, by grasping its truth conditions.>
I would agree, but we have to examine the conditions of domination to determine that we aren't free, we have to say what this freedom is, what is means. Naturally we can't do this completely - but we try for clarity - at least in situations where we are trying to understand one another and when we are trying to coordinate our actions consensually. We presuppose, when seeking clarity, that clarity is possible - as a structure of our very attempt to seek clarity. Yeah, it is a bit of a circle, but no one seems to mind Gadamer's hermeneutic cricle, and no one seems to mind Popper's scientific circle (because they aren't vicious - they spiral outward through the generation of creative linguistic utterances or through the generation of knowledge... communicative action combines both under one theoretical frame and calls it communicative action.
>I said:
>
>Yeah, >>it>>matters if our narratives are true, our values correct,
>our >>experiences >>"authentic," whatever that means. Is>>the account you
>are giving just a classification of those obvious >>facts?
>You responded: >
> >
> >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.
>
>Pragmatists put this tlast hought by saying that there is no fact value
>distinction that is very robust.
And every single time they do this, they contradict themselves. There is a difference between 'facts' and 'norms.' It is built-into language. The bad is red has a qualitatively different meaning that the ball ought to be red. But we can, procedurally, figure out what the difference is here: one expresses an existing state of affairs, the other refers to a state of affairs that is socially regulated.
>However, the conclusion we draw from this is that there are no distinct
>logics of inquiry, precisely because science is imbued with value.
>
>I said:
> >. 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.
>
>Sure, but it's a different way to get at the same idea. Rawls wants the OP
>to get away from all partial interests, to express only the interests that
>everyone has.
Habermas is interested in this too, but it is a partial impartiality. If ten people get in a room and agree about something, then the decision (if everyone is satisfied) is partial toward the interests of the ten people, but impartial in the sense that their agreement represents the sum partiality of all ten people (if the communication has not been manipulated in some way - which is why we need ideology critique). So it is a kind of partial impartiality. Dworkin (if I'm not mistaken) and Rawls (early work) defend a stronger notion of impartiality than Habermas, Habermas argues that we only need to agree, not that we actually have to have a view from nowhere.
> I stated, somewhat cryptically, my objection to the invocation of this
> sort ruthless abstraction from real world situations. I here try again.
> Ought implies can, so we have no duty ot do what we can't.
Right. But we wouldn't agree to a normative rule that binds or obligates us to something we couldn't collectively accomplish (or at least that we knew we couldn't collectively accomplish). In a discourse, one would only agree to something that is possible, at least I would only agree to something that is possible, and I suspect arguments for possibility would be better arguments that arguments for impossiblity... (but I'd have to argue about them in order to know this any more than prescientifically). Maybe my understanding of possibility is limited by my lack of knowledge about what is actually out there.
> But with real people in the real world, who are not in an ideal speech
> situation or an OP or a just world where all conflicts of significance
> have been overcome, the privileged sociologically cannot do what would be
> demanded of them from the ideal situation. This is an axiom of historical
> materialism. So they ought not. Therefore, Rawls and Habermas cannot
> provide a basis for critiquing existing arrangements. I spell this out in
> great detail (with my own non-ideal solution) in "Relativism, Reflective
> Equilibrium, and Justice," Legal Studies 17 (1997).
If you have an email copy, I'll have a look at it, otherwise I'll have to get it next week (I mean, if you want a detailed Habermasian response).
petit a brother, ken