Date: Fri, 21 Mar 1997 10:00:23 +0800
From: Bryce Weber <bweber-AT-cyllene.uwa.edu.au>
Subject: RE: HAB: Habermas and social action


>Kenneth MacKendric said:
< [...the] distinction between facticity and validity is, in my opinion,
>the key to understanding Habermas - all else flows from there.  

>Can you, or anyone, elaborate? 
>
>Grazia,
>Anne Berkeley
>berkeley-AT-wam.umd.edu

To be blunt, the "justification/application" distinction is just Habermas's
attempt to provide a reformulation of the familiar distinction between "is"
and "ought." 

There are good reasons for him to attempt this type of reformulation, the
importance of which comes into view once one gets involved in working
through his project (i.e., how to continue the normative thrust of aspects
of Kant's Enlightenment project, but without having to rely on natural law
or transcendentally grounded accounts of the legitimacy of law). However,
for all intents and purposes, the intuitive basis for Habermas's distinction
can't be any more complicated than the familiar is/ought distinction and
still continue to make sense.
Bryce Weber, Ph.D.
Lecturer
Department of Political Science
University of Western Australia
Nedlands, W.A.          6907
Tel.: 09 380-3835   Fax.: 380-1060
email: bweber-AT-cyllene.uwa.edu.au



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