Date: Thu, 30 Jan 1997 19:24:24 -0300
From: José Luiz Aidar Prado <zupra-AT-exatas.pucsp.br>
Subject: Re: General Question


Ken: 
> I think Habermas tries to address this issue by arguing with Gadamer that there is
> something "outside" or "behind the back" of language - power and labour.  

What do you mean by "back of language"? Is it possible to stay outside
language? I wouldn't say that power is outside language. We could say,
as Bourdieu does, that the power of the words doesn't come only from the
own words. We must also consider the power delegated to the speaker who
wants others to recognize his validity claims. Who delegates this power
to the speaker, so as to turn him (or her) in a person that others want
or need or have interest to listen and answer. But even this power,
which comes from the relative simbolic/social position ocupied by the
speaker in society, is outside language? Is it external to language? I
don't think so. But Habermas, when he builds his ethics, he begin with
the strong pressuposition of ideal situation of mutual understanding.
But rarely does it occurs. It's a trancendental pressuposition,
transparency of communication, which doesn't consider this question
which I took from Bourdieu.

> In doing so he does add a "remainder" (Adorno) - he leaves open the possibility that
> language is not onto-theological.  In a way this suppliments his argument because
> it demonstrates how language is systematically distorted.  

Well, why speak of remainder? I agree that this attempt of not
ontologize language is very interesting, but the strong pressuposition
of "transparence in communication" is problematic. Language is
sistematic distorted, but it has something inside it which gives an
impulsion towards understanding. In the discussion with Gadamer,
Habermas refuses the universality of hermeneutics, emphasizing the
importance of critics of ideology. This is very interesting. But other
thing is to say that we need the transcendental point of departure of
understanding as telos of language. 

Habermas argues that a
> "telos" of language (which is not a property of language immanently but a
> characteristic of how we use language) is present as a propositional statement.  I
> say to you "this is an email message" I convey that 1. i understand that this is a
> net thing (appropriateness) 2. that i know what the words "this is an email
> message" mean (comprehensibility) 3. that i believe it to be true (truthfulness) and
> 4. that the statement is propositionaly true.  

I would imagine a more complex example. One person say to the other:
"You have destroyed my life". In this case is not so easy to say that
the other understand what is going on. One person say a thing and the
other understand another. Is this a situation of comprehensibility. You
could say: this is the example of a neurotical relationship. Is it?
Would it be right to measure the statements of everyday life from a
standard of a ideal-communication and classify them as patological? This
is a way of procedure (normal/patological) that begins from this  kind
of standardization of normality.

Remainder aside - language cannot
> coherently be conceived in any other way (in Habermas's view).  

This is just what I am discussing

Jose Luiz Aidar Prado