File spoon-archives/habermas.archive/habermas_2000/habermas.0011, message 58


From: Antti M Kauppinen <amkauppi-AT-cc.helsinki.fi>
Subject: HAB: Rocks and Gravel
Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2000 16:14:58 +0200 (EET)



Once again failing in my resolve not to step into discussions I can't
adequately commit myself to, here's a few non-committal words on
Martin's post, with which I otherwise largely agree.

> But this being said, I would agree that a floating point in Habermas'
> thought makes interpretation difficult. He refuses Apel's transcendantal
> justification in respect of normative standpoints for reason. Meanwhile, he
> makes a similar move when he says that agreement is the telos of language.
> This, he adds, is only an ideal pragmatic presupposition since we can fairly
> suppose that our meanings always differ from time to time, and from one
> individual to another. But aren't those last statements as infaillible as
> Apel's transcendantal grounding? By saying that such statements are only
> quasi-transcendantal, Habermas leaves this question unanswered, and lets a
> very grave suspicion come in by the backdoor: could it be that a particular
> form of life is getting a transcendantal ticket, and therefore that a
> particular contingent and historical development is suspiciously slippering
> in a so-called universal moral development?

There are several questions here. First, what exactly is a transcendental
argument and what quasi-? And second, what is the view that Habermas
actually is committed to? My own, probably simplistic, view is that the
form of a strictly transcendental argument is as follows:

-P-q  (=Nq)
N(-p=>-q)
-------
Hence, Np

(Using 'N' for necessity and 'P' for possibility; I believe we need
modal terms to discuss transcendental issues)

There are two ways to weaken this, and I believe that Habermas's
argument goes through both ways. First, one could drop the impossibility
of nonexistence of the first premise; in other words, and this Habermas
does explicitly, argue that it is not necessary for human beings to
argue or use language communicatively or whatever.  Rather, it is a 
contingent fact that we do so. What is necessary is on this first weaker
reading that *if* we use language communicatively, *then* we are
committed to certain presuppositions with normative content.
Correspondingly, if we were not to use language in such a manner, our
social world would be a different place, and most likely unhospitable
for us. On the second weak reading, the necessity in the implication of 
the second premise drops out. We're left with an ordinary modus tollens.
Thus, it becomes a contingent, ordinary empirical fact that we make
certain presuppositions when we use language communicatively; we could 
genuinely communicate even if we did not aim at agreement. What would still
be claimed by Habermas is that we *in fact* do so, that in fact such 
presuppositions are constitutive of communication. Here it is essential
to remember Thomas McCarthy's wisdom, mentioned here before but all too
often forgotten: *universality is not the same as necessity*. It is a
contingent but at the moment universal fact that every living human
being has both a mother and a father. One day not too far away that
could change - I recently heard that it might soon be possible for women
to procreate without men. Similarly, the Habermasian claim is (on this
weak transcendental reading) that at the moment the use of all natural
languages is governed by the rules specified in formal pragmatics. To
use Martin's expression, there is a particular form of life getting a
'transcendental' ticket -- but that form of life is one we all (and this
must be extended historically) happen to share.

Just to be sure, I am not saying that Habermas takes the second path
here. I think the reading best supported by his texts on ethics, at
least, is that given a contingent fact or form of life, certain
presuppositions are (logically, as it were) necessary. (To say that they
are possible would be to say nothing; the weakest sensible reading is to
say that they are actual.) 

> By making a hard distinction betweeen moral and ethics, I think Habermas is
> only aggravating his case.

Speaking of this, the latest (4/2000) _Deutzsche Zeitschrift fuer
Philosophie_ contains a new article by Habermas called 'Werte und Norme'
(if I remember correctly). I haven't had the occasion to read it yet.

Antti


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

   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005