Date: 	Wed, 29 Jan 1997 05:25:37 -0500
From: Kenneth MacKendrick <kenneth.mackendrick-AT-utoronto.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

Kerry's response is probably a better one than i could muster up.  I would just like 
to add that the idea of understanding operates above and beyond our acting and 
knowing.  Language is understanding - it expresses representations which have 
already achieved some background consensus - consequently language, by the 
same token, expresses reason - forged through our practices and our theoretical 
knowledge.  Gadamer's _Truth and Method_ is very good on this point - it also 
happens to be Habermas's source....

Reflecting on J's comments about strategic vs understanding i wonder if the 
nietzschean position that is being pursued is more marquis de sade-ish - there are 
no rules pure and simple.  Sade's world, however, is also a world of understanding 
and learning - despite the attempt to break out of this snare via nihilism.  Just 
some thoughts though....
ken