Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 13:06:21 +0300 From: Rauno Huttunen <rakahu-AT-cc.jyu.fi> Subject: Re: HABERMAS' IDEAL SPEECH SITUATION Ralph Dumain wrote: > > I've never been inspired to go out of my way and research Habermas, but a > particular concern of mine has come to a head and it may well turn out that > Habermas' concern with systematically distorted communication and the ideal > speech situation may be right on target viz. the urgency of what has been > troubling me. But I'm not intereted in the whole theory so much as I want > to know how certain questions are addressed. Can someone give me a cheap, > quick, and dirty (as we used to say in the bookbinding business) response > to the following interrelated questions? > > Is a particular type of use of language required or proscribed in the ideal > speech situation? Do the norms of communication--which I assume (wrongly?) > to relate to postulates of individual autonomy, the right of free inquiry > and the untrammeled pursuit of truth, norms of rationality, and the goal of > transparent communication and human relations--demand a certain type of > language? What does Habermas have to say about irony? Metaphorical and > symbolic language? Or flame wars? > I sent this fragment few months ago to Habermas list. I don't know does it help. It is part of larger article called "Robert Young's Habermasian concept of indoctrination - prospects and dead-lock". Rauno Huttunen >From Mika Häkkinen and Nokia Republic ---------------------------------- 2. Jürgen Habermas on ideal and real communication 2.1 The concept of ideal speech situation With the concept of the ideal speech situation Habermas means idealized conditions of speech. In an ideal speech situation, the conditions for argumentative action are believed to be ideal ones. This means that in the discourse there is no other force than the force of better argument. Not inner (example prejudices) or outer (ideologies, short of time, short of knowledge) restrictions determine the outcome of discourse. Only the force of better argument ^Ö the guidelines of which are immanent to the language itself - determines the speech situation. In the ideal speech situation, systematically distorted communication is excluded (Habermas 1984a, 177). In this imaginative but also factual ideal speech situation it is possible to gain consensus about all those subjects that generally are discursive in their nature. Many questions example concerning the good life and personal convictions are not discursive subjects, but in the modern pluralistic society we can live together without sharing common view about the good life. A common misinterpretation is to claim that Habermas demands an overrunning totalitarian-style of consensus. Habermas sets out four conditions for his ideal speech situation: i) All who are potential participants of discourse, must have equal rights to use speech acts in such a way that discourse could be permanently open to claims and counter claims, questions and answers. ii) All who participate to discourse, must have equal chances to present interpretations, to make assertions, recommendations, explanations and corrections (I believe this means the presentation of ad hoc hypotheses) and also equal chances to problematize (problematisieren) or challenge the validity of these presentations, to make arguments for and against. In this way all possible critics shows up and no unreflected prejudice remains. These two conditions make possible free discourse and pure communicative action where: iii) participants by presentative speech acts (repräseantative Sprechakte) express equally their attitudes, feelings and wishes, and also where participants are honest to each other (sich selbst gegenüber wahrhaftig sind) and make their inner nature (intentions) transparent. iv) participants have equally chances to order and resist orders, to promise and refuse, to be accountable for one's conduct and to demand accountability from others. Only this way the reciprocity of action-anticipations (Reziprozität der Verhaltenserwartungen) is realised (Habermas 1984a, 177-178; see also Benhabib 1986, 285). According to Habermas, conditions i) and iv) must be fulfilled in order that the discourse in general is possible. The second condition (the postulation of freedom of speech) and the third condition (the postulation of authenticity) together make possible the power of rational motivation (the best arguments win). Nevertheless, Habermas warns us that the idea of the ideal speech situation could be a deceptive criterion alone for rational consensus (trügerischen in letzter Instanz allein) (Haberm-as 1984a, 179). Habermas claims that the ideal speech situation is not just a theoretical construction. In every empirical speech situation, participants voluntarily tend to fulfill the conditions of the ideal speech situation. But no empirical investigation or study could ever reveal the facticity of the ideal speech situation, yet it still operates (acts on) there. "The ideal speech situation is neither just an empirical phenomenon nor construction but in the discourse fulfilled condition of reciprocity. This condition could be - but not necessarily - counterfactual; when it is made counterfactual, it is operatively acting (working) fiction. Thus I rather speak about foreseeing or anticipating of the ideal speech situation. Anticipation alone is not a guarantee for that we dare (...) establish rational consensus; at the same time the ideal speech situation is a critical standard by which actually achieved consensus can be questioned and also legitimated (verified) (...) " (Habermas 1984-a, 180). With his obscure formulations Habermas tries to get hold of this very difficult concept of the ideal speech situation. It is not only a moral maxim (Kant) or the cunningly-behind operations of the World Spirit (Hegel). It is a simultaneously real element of discourse and a counterfactual standard for actual discourse. With the theory of communicative action Habermas, without any explanation, just stops using the concept of ideal speech situation (he also dropped some other concepts too like ideology, interests of knowledge and consensus theory of truth) and started referring to the universal presuppositions of argumentation. This shifting is shown already in his article What is Universal Pragmatics (1979) where he does not use the concept of ideal speech situation. He starts to speak about "universal conditions of possible understanding" and "general presuppositions of communicative action" (Ibid, 1). In his article "Discourse Ethics: Notes on a Program of Philosophical Justification", where Habermas sets out the grounds for his discourse ethic, he relies on Robert Alex's formulation of universal presuppositions of argumentation (Habermas 1990, 88-89): "(2.1) Every speaker may assert only what he really believes. (2.2) A person who disputes a proposition or norm under discussion must provide a reason for wanting to do so. (3.1) Every subject with the competence to speak and act is allowed to take part in a discourse. (3.2) a. Everyone is allowed to question any assertion whatever. b. Everyone is allowed to introduce any assertion whatever into the discourse. c. Everyone is allowed to express his attitudes, desires and needs. (3.3) No speaker may be prevented, by internal or external coercion, from exercising his rights as laid down in (3.1) and (3.2)." In sections 2.1 and 2.2 those conditions that are necessary for "common competitive quest for truth" are represented. These sections also implicate the participant's reciprocal acknowledging of responsibility and authenticity (Wahrhaftigkeit). In Section 3.1. Habermas calls for rules of openness (transparency). In Section 3.2. he secures symmetrical interaction, and in Section 3.3 excludes outer constraints. In this article Habermas mentions the presuppositions he had earlier described as features of the ideal speech situation. He says that he does not want to specify, renew or change his former notion of the ideal speech situation. "The intention of my earlier analysis still seems correct to me, namely the reconstruction of the general symmetry conditions that every competent speaker who believes he is engaging in an argumentation must presuppose as adequate-ly fulfilled. The presupposition of something like an ^Ñunrestricted communication community', an idea that Apel developed following Peirce and Mead, can be demonstrated through systematic analysis of performative conditions." (Habermas 1990, 88). In his book Between Facts and Norms , Habermas claims that talk about "the ideal communication community" (Karl-Otto Apel) and "the ideal speech situation" tempts improperly hypostatisation of validity claims. Habermas wants to replace this "counterfactual comparing to ideal conditions" with Brunkhorst's "idealizing presuppositions". Brunkhorst states that "the idealizing presuppositions we always already have to adopt whenever we want to reach mutual understanding do not involve any kind of correspondence or comparision between idea and reality" (Brunkhorst according to Habermas 1996, 323). Still it remains unclear, what profound way this concept of ideal speech situation or ideal communication community differs from Brunkhorst's idealizing presuppositions. ----------------------
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