Maybe I'm stupid, but I don't get the distinction, or understand the difference that it is supposed to make that you are limiting the presuppositions to conditions of communication. That's a priori in my book. We prags don't believe in the a priori,a nd we think that the idea of a necessary transcendental condition is just a failure of imagination.
I said:
First, as Quine has
>>argued, >>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.
Now I am mystified. I might well have cited Wittgenstein for the same proposition. W beliefs that meaning is use, not some sort of special entity. I don't buy into W's theory entirely, as you see, because I go with Davidson and Quine that meanings are truth conditions.
>
>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.
No, that's not "the meaning" of the statement. That's an implication of the statement. The meaning of "The ball is red" is just the ball's being red.
. 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?"
I still don't get it. Even if this is so, and I am sure I do not understand its truth conditions, what it would be for it to be so, why is there some special entity called meaning?
>
>>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.
If you agree, why doesn't this demolish the whole Habermasian structure? What for we do have to examine the naturea nd conditions of freedom? It's utterly irrelevant to whether we can mean things can understand each other. It's an important issue in political philosophy, but that's nothing to dow ith necessary conditions of communication.
>>Pragmatists put this last 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.
Sez you. I think your claim here is contradicted by the very argument you give, that science, for example presupposes norms of theory choice, explantory validity, and so forth. I don't deny that "phlogiston is a bad theory" operates a bit different from "It's wrong to kill people for no reason" and both operate differently from "The ball is red," that also operates differently from "Genes are made of DNA." These statements cannot be sorted nicely into facts on ones ide and values on the other, each with a unique logic. In my book, moreover, "It's wrong to kill people for no reason" is a fact as well as a norm.
>The ball >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.
Lots of scientific statements don't refer to existing states of affairs. "If we keep polluting, the seas will rise because of the greenhouse effect." And I think "Freedom is better than slavery" refers to an existing state of affairs.
I referred you to: "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).
>
It may be on line already, Google it.
--jks
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