Date: Tue, 28 Jan 1997 23:23:07 -0600 (CST)
From: Kerry <macdonak-AT-Meena.CC.URegina.CA>
Subject: Re: General Question




On Tue, 28 Jan 1997, J.L. Nicholas wrote:

> I think you really miss answering my question here.  You write that
> "Language is a medium for understandning - understanding is an action
> coordinating event."  But my whole question is just about this basic,
> fundamental proposition: how do I know that language is a medium for
> understanding rather than a medium for control.  What I think is the
> penultimate criticism of the theory of communicative action is that
> Habermas needs langauge to be essentially about understanding, and there is
> no reason evolutionarily or otherwise why one should argue that it is
> ESSENTIALLY about understanding.  It could be about understanding, but it


Excuse me for interjecting into your debate, but Habermas does deal with 
that question in MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AND COMMUNICATIVE ACTION (the only 
book of his that I have read, so I presume there are other places as well.)

Deception can only exist if communication is essentially about 
understanding.  This is because deception which is strategic can only 
work if language is communicative action because regardless of the motive 
the goal is still to CONVINCE the other person.  This can only occur if 
the basis of language is to establish understanding.  The particpants 
have to provide reasons or grounds which "have a special property: they 
force us into yes or no positions" (19).  One is involved in justifing 
one's position.  Even if one is using deception the goal is still to 
reach agreement, the deceiver would have still been required to establish 
grounds for the position taken and those grounds are open to challenge.

If the reverse was true, that communication was essentially deceptive, 
then how would it work.  It can't.  The person may be deceptive but only 
if language is essentially about coming to an agreement.

Habermas does not reify language but rather locates it the "shared 
sociocultural form of life ... a web of communicative action (100, though 
in section, 99-102, from which this taken he is  specifically dealing 
with the skeptic viz. communicative action.)  He acknowledges that people 
will act strategically but because those same people will need to justify 
their actions the grounds which are the foundation are open to debate.

One needs to keep in mind the goals that Habermas has for his work, which 
is twofold: 1) to establish a foundation which allows for critique and 
does not become transendent, and: 2) to legitmate social resistance and 
thus to continue the spirit of the earliar Frankfurt writers.

Anyways that is my understanding of what Habermas is attempting to 
accomplish.

Warmest regards,
Kerry