Date: 	Thu, 12 Mar 1998 22:09:45 -0500
Subject: Re: HAB: Ideally discursive learning


On Thu, 12 Mar 1998 00:50:39 -0500  Gary wrote:

> Ken has gone to great length to defend this sense of 
rationality. It corresponds especially to the logical-semantic 
level of the presuppositions of argumentation (MCCA 87).

Part of my point is that the project of justification is 
fundamentally limited by  the reality of performative 
contradictions.  I take a two pronged approach to this:  1.  
Habermas has not adequately solved the riddle of the 
performative contradiciton in his appeal to the reconstructive 
sciences which thereby limits Habermas's "strong" 
universalist claims to specific contexts.  2. that social 
relationships are dynamic and fluid - such that the project of 
justification is reflective (one can only determine whether or 
not an action can be justified in retrospect).  In this way, 
following Wellmer, justification remains a negative task 
(something that Habermas agrees with to some in some 
respects).  This element of fluidity, which I understand as 
creative, can be examined on several differently levels - on 
the ontological level (Castoriadis) but also on the discursive 
level - in which rhetoric and validity claims are mixed (as Jay 
and Fleming note).  In this way Habermas's use of the 
performative contradiciton only illuminates half the story.  
Performative contradictions (of the possibility of 
performative contradictions) are and can be helpful to 
illuminate things that are hidden.  In this way rhetoric is not 
subordinated to validity and validity is not subordinated to 
rhetoric.  The debate goes on with all the stops and goes...

The way I see it Habermas's proceduralism is still a problem. 
 Let's say that a group of people are arguing about a problem 
(some think it is a problem and some don't).  The debate is, at 
best, confused and random - unsystematized.  At some point 
one person stands up and says "we have to do this 
procedurally because intuitively we *know* this is the only 
way a decision can be justified to the satisfaction of 
everyone."  This person then recommends a procedure to 
follow (P2).  In order for P2 itself to be valid a procedure must 
be followed (P1).  So in order for P2 to be take place P1 must 
already have taken place.  But starting at P1 requires a leap of 
faith - that it will get everyone where everyone wants to go.  In 
other words the validity of P1 depends upon the goodwill of 
the participants.  The ability of P2 to serve as a mechanism to 
justify a norm and then apply the norm to the problem is 
based upon the legitimacy of P1.  But P1 has no legitimacy 
until P1 is actualized.  The appeal must be put forth within 
chaos in an attempt to reason chaos into order.  But the 
acceptance of the validity of P1 still depends on a kind of faith 
- a specific vision of the good life and is already shared or 
becomes shared.  Even if the one standing can demonstrate 
that P1 is unavoidable for an adequate resolution to the 
problem it still requires some sort of validity.  So P1 must 
simply be assumed to be the right thing to do BEFORE its 
actual redemption.  This is identified as a learning process - 
the ongoing justification of P1 toward the end of the possibility 
of P2 being actualized.  But P1 has no RATIONAL 
character until it is actualized (until the idea of validity is 
validated).  But this is precisely the problem.  It is a circular 
kind of reasoning.  Habermas knows this and he argues that it 
is not a vicious circle.  But I don't see how it cannot be.  The 
idea of a learning process depends on a certain and specific 
vision of reason itself as a learning process which is then 
mapped onto human beings at the same time as stemming 
from a specific human being.  The bottom line is a procedure 
is necessary for procedures to be legitimate.  This seems to 
me to be tautological.  At some point something must be 
substantially posited and assumed to be good for everyone.  
And this is precisely where the performative contradiction, 
hypothetically, would be.  Can anyone explain this better? or 
at least explain to me why I'm wrong about this?

struggling to understand,
ken




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