Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 14:09:51 -0600
From: Bill Hord <hord_b-AT-hccs.cc.tx.us>
Subject: HAB: re: Lifeworld & fallibilism


This is a response to an earlier post.

Gary D. wrote:
> Can one have a fallibilistic stance toward one's know-how and
> practices? I disagree that JH claims anywhere that "the lifeworld
> cannot be questioned without performative contradiction." Rather, one
> cannot at the same time presume something performatively and take an
> hypothetical stance toward that same something.

The claim you quote is defeasible by the argument that *certain
segments*
of the lifeworld can be questioned without performative contradiction. 
If not, we would not have the possibility of learning from experience. 
I accept this essential exception.  But the advantage of defeasibility
(over fallibility) is that it allows us to maintain the principle in
spite of (along with) the exception.  

(The preceding paragraph does not mean that I accept defeasibility
wholeheartedly--I still have reservations.  By the way, one can "at the
same time presume something performatively and take an hypothetical
stance toward that same something."  The ability to do so is the basis
of the experimental attitude (fallibilism).  We can't take a
hypothetical stance (fallibility) toward *everything* and at the same
time do anything with the conviction we normally have when we, say,
conduct an experiment.  If everything in an experiment were taken as
fallible, the experiment wouldn't work.  "Everyday communicative
practice is not compatible with the hypothesis that everything could be
entirely
different..."  (TCA2, p. 132))

Restated, my principle is that the lifeworld *as a whole* cannot be
questioned without performative contradiction.  The last phrase
("without ... contradiction") is my own extrapolation; Habermas merely
says that the lifeworld cannot be questioned, and he says this in
diverse places.  (The force of my extrapolation is to say that one
cannot coherently *claim* to question the lifeworld as a whole.)
 
For example: "Communicative actors are always moving within the horizon
of their lifeworld; they cannot step outside of it."  (TCA2, p. 126)

"We can only get insight into the lifeworld a tergo.  From the
straightforward perspective of acting subjects oriented to mutual
understanding, the lifeworld that is always only 'co-given' has to
evade thematization." (PDM, p. 299)

"In contrast, methodically carried out self-critique is related to
totalities, and yet in the awareness that it can never completely
illuminate the implicit, the prepredicative, the not focally present
background of the lifeworld.[reference to Postscript to KHI]"  (PDM, p.
230)

One can take a fallibilistic stance toward the entire lifeworld--but
only from a theoretical, 3rd person point of view.  (See PDM, p. 299;
see also OPC, p. 430).  And it is precisely this limitation that makes
it impossible to question the entire lifeworld, as the irreplaceable
background of our practices, without performative contradiction.  To
take such a stance, I must give up the practical meaning of any
particular segment that might be questioned in relation to a particular
action.  Habermas apparently thinks that I can take such a theoretical
stance toward the lifeworld as a whole, that I can bracket off my own
immersion in a particular lifeworld context of action long enough to
get a glimpse of the whole thing (by means of, I think, presuppositional
analysis).  This happens, on his account, as specific validity domains
emerge from the lifeworld--an outerworldly domain of truth, an
innerworldly domain of experience, and a social world of norms.  It is
within these
emergent domains that we are able to articulate and question the
suppositions of either (1) particular contexts of action
(hermeneutically) or (2) the kinds of suppositions that must be present
in the lifeworld in general (theoretically).)  But, on his view, we
cannot do both simultaneously, and we cannot question the
presuppositions of all particular contexts of action.

In other words, there is a class of presuppositions that are, in
principle, inarticulable.  These are the particular presuppositions of
those particular lifeworld segments not thematized in our current
practical situation.

Someone might argue that, in principle at least, we could thematize any
of those situations, so those presuppositions are in principle
articulable and hence fallible.  Given enough time, we could articulate
all presuppositions.  But this would be mistaken, because the lifeworld
must be understood holistically.  "As a totality that makes possible
the identities and biographical projects of groups and individuals, it
is
present only prereflectively."  (PDM, 299)

When we thematize a lifeworld segment in order to question its
particular presuppositions, and alter through argumentation any of
those presuppositions, we must recognize that, in principle, other
unthematized presuppositions also may undergo change, and these changes
cannot be known except in the context of other thematizations; etc.

If I am correct, a preconventional lifeworld and a postconventional
lifeworld differ insofar as domains of validity related to truth,
experience, and norms have emerged in the latter but not in the former. 
It follows that the latter is more "rational" in the sense that
individuals socialized, enculturated, and identified with such a world
are able to see more of their experience as fallible.  They will
consequently be more open to processes of argumentation.

But it does not follow, I think, that the prethematic lifeworld will be
reduced (meaningfully).  This is because the lifeworld is vague in the
philosophical sense of vagueness; it remains a "vast and incalculable
web" (TCA2, p. 131).

-- 
Bill Hord
hord_b-AT-hccs.cc.tx.us

"Nonidentity is the secret telos of identification, 
that which is to be rescued in it; the mistake of 
traditional theory is that it holds identity as its 
goal." (Adorno, "Negative Dialectics")


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