Date: Tue, 15 Apr 1997 21:36:42 +1000
From: rws-AT-comserver.canberra.edu.au (Rob Schaap)
Subject: Re: HAB: Re: Derrida, Habermas, and the Other


An eloquent post, Simon.  But I'm not sure why it's so important to know
who you are.  I simply can not grasp the earth-shattering importance of
Derrida's notion here.  Clearly, 'I' is yet another attempt to cram neatly
an object into a concept (Adorno's dialectic as non-identity with the
self?).  So what?

It's the best we can do, isn't it?  All I (if I'm allowed the concept) take
>from my (limited and untutored) reading of Derrida is what I took from
Adorno years ago: 
(a) 'harmony is unattainable, given the strict criteria of what harmony is
supposed to be'; and 
(b) 'harmony' can be no more, nor is any more necessary, than
'responsibility to proliferate respectful agonist dialogical relations
within which a responsibility to otherness can flourish'.

Which I thought Habermas was in the business of 'proceduralising' and
'foundationalising' (lousy English seems to go with this territory)!

So Derrida adds that one of these 'others' is ourselves.  Does he mean
language has got between us and our noumenal selves?  What if it hasn't?

And what if it has?

Yours genuinely confused and respectfully agonistic,
Rob.

________________________________________________________________________________
You write:
To legitimate the use of an ideal with respect to locutionary
>acts, it would seem that Habermas needs to take recourse in the fact that
>outside of this idealisation, our hypothetical protagonists can still
>understand  each other. But to "understand" each other, they must be able
>to successfully coordinate action. From the perspective of one who
>questions the existence of a unitary and self-identical consciousness, as I
>believe Derrida does, it is very difficult for us to say who it actually is
>that is coordinating action.
>        In Habermas' defence, however, it may come to pass that with a
>rethinking of the nature of the self, and a realisation of what that
>entails for the "sovereignty" of the subject, that the dialogical
>relationship becomes, rather than a necessary condition of rationality, but
>a regulatory ideal, which may be something that Habermas is himself aware
>of. It may also be the case that the theory of commuicative action can
>stand outside of a particular linguistic theory (such as Austin's), though
>it would seem that such would produce a very different kind of
>communication as far as communicative action is concerned.
>
>Simon Rae
>117 Kelburn Parade
>Kelburn
>Wellington
>New Zealand
>Ph: +64 4 475-4091
>
>
>
>
>     --- from list habermas-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---




     --- from list habermas-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---