Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2000 19:40:07 -0800 (PST) From: Gary D <gedavis1-AT-yahoo.com> Subject: HAB: Habermas vs. Searle, addendum GD: Continuing from earlier from Bill Hord, "Re: HAB: Re: What are institutions?," 11/30: BH: ....Second, you claim that Habermas's position is more clearly stated. GD: Specifically, I replied "certainly not" to your passing comment that "certainly Searle's account of speech acts is the most clearly stated (H acknowledges this as well)." I said this because I find Searle's account of speech acts to confuse the character of communicative interaction, which Habermas's theory more adequately addresses. A theory that is more adequate--or that is "incomparable" (which I added earlier)--would provide for a clearer sense of what is really happening in communication. Fundamental here is the distinction between subjective and intersubjective components of communicative action (where the intersubjective dimension is not basically a relational exchange of information; i.e., intersubjectivity is not the same as two subjectivities in a mere relationship). A theory of speech that confuses this difference may do so very clearly (as it doesn't discern an important distinction), but that doesn't make theory a clear account of speech itself, because communicative action *cannot* be tenably analyzed in terms of Searlean intentional acts. As I avowed earlier: "Habermas' [inter]subjective theory of communicative action is incomparable to Searle's egoistic theory." I'm surely not making anything clear by avowing that, but I am expressing that there is something worthwhile to be said or, as it turns out, to be reached in understanding. BH> Habermas writes that, in adopting the intersubjectivist position,"the intentionalist description is replaced not only by a more complex (and vaguer) one, but by a different conceptualization" ([first page of the essay, p. 257 of Cooke edition]). GD: (Don't miss the fact that "different" is emphasized in JH's text.) What does "adopting the intersubjectivist position" refer to? This isn't part of your quotation. Looking at JH's essay--the opening paragraphs you're drawing from--we see that the "view" at the beginning of the essay is about "intuitions" "guid[ing]...what it means to perform a speech act successfully," not general stances about the different theories, though of course general theoretical difference is ultimately the issue (by the end of the essay). But the context you're quoting is clearly an early point in an extended argument, precisely: different conceptions of language (258 top). The intersubjectivist view pertains to "reaching understanding" where the intentionalist view pertains to "get[ting] an address to recognize an intention...." (257) A shared endeavor to reach understanding is more complex than an inter-individual (or ego-to-ego, as Habermas has put it) "process" of "transmitting subjective contents." Being more complex, this endeavor is "thus vaguer," as the character of complex intersubjectivity is more elusive than the character of two individuals transmitting information; reaching understanding is more complex and elusive than getting an other to recognize one's own intentions. But an inadequate conception of language can't deal with this complexity, cannot bring clarity to the proximal vagueness of intending to reach understanding. In short, it's certainly not the case that Habermas believes that Searle's model of language provides a clearer account of communication itself. BH:....Farther down the same page: "the intentionalist can provide a more elegant explanation...." GD: Explanation of what? Explanation of something which an intersubjectivist view "presupposes"; i.e., the intersubjectivist view of communication can be conceptualized in terms of a richer sense of "the linguistic rule system" than the intentionalist view cannot do (258), therefore the intentionalist view must *explain* dimensions of linguisticality that it cannot appreciate as inherent to communication itself. Elegance is sustained at the expense a reductionistic theory of language. It so happens that the complex reality of communicative life--its interplays of intersubjective, objectivating, and subjective dimensions of understanding--is rather inelegant. BH: ....(Compare this, also, with your point about the intentionality of actions: Habermas is here distinguishing his own position from the one you attribute to him.) GD: Not at all. To counter your earlier claim that intentionality doesn't figure into JH's view, I indicated that intentionality is inherent to the subjective dimension of communicative action. But I didn't connote in any way (I hope) that communicative action is *based* in that dimension (as Searle tends to do). Quite the contrary, this intentionality that is inherent to the speech act (within communicative interaction) is richer than that of a Searlean intentional subject, since intentionality pertains to intersubjectvity as well. Indeed, a potentially elegant potential of communicative action is its fluid balance of shared and unshared intentions in the to-and-fro of changing points, foci, etc., what's tacitly and overtly "mine", tacitly / overtly "yours" and tacitly / overtly "ours". Between veritable strangers with only textuality between them, in our case, this fluidity is indeed vague. But isn't it fun. Wish I had time to do a lot of this, but I don't. THANKS, though. Gary __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Shopping - Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products. http://shopping.yahoo.com/ --- from list habermas-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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