Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2003 22:34:22 -0700 (PDT)
From: Gary E Davis <gedavis1-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: [HAB:] Deflationary Truth (part 2 of 2)


NOW, things get interesting.

At the point in Habermas' discussion of the semantic theory
of truth where I left off, Habermas next introduces his
"pragmatic" theory of the relationship between truth and
justification, first round of three (second will be
relative to an epistemic theory and third unto itself). I
put 'pragmatic' in quotes because he has his own sense of
the term; it's the Habermasian pragmatic of truth and
justification---the Habermasian linguistic, sociocentric
sense of what 'pragmatic' means, which is Habermas' special
contribution to---his emphasis, in and for---an evolution
of pragmatic thought. 

I'll get back to the text momentarily. I want to add to the
earlier context in part 1---the deflationary notion of
truth apart from (more or less) JH's critique---that the
deflationary interest can be appropriately read to be
kindred with the phenomenological interest in getting over
(or away from) traditional baggage (or onto-epistemically
thick presumptions) and "back to the things themselves" and
to appreciation of the experiential basis of understanding,
if only as a therapeutic against ontologism; this is not
tangential to examining Habermas' views, in particular his
reading of lifeworld phenomenology (which I want to examine
down the road, after closure on "Truth and Justification").
Deflationary truth is part of the trend in philosophy that
finds ordinary life to be a fruitful resource for
philosophical investigations. If you call this a pragmatic
turn in interest (which seems accurate to me), it's a turn
that isn't as such relative to a *linguistic* turn in
analysis, rather relative to an ordinary-actional turn. I
would call John Searle a linguistic analyst, but the large
scale movement in Ordinary Language Philosophy (the
neo-Wittgensteinians, especially) is more associable with
an action-analytic turn, of which the linguistic turn is a
part. Habermas tends to dismiss this basic feature of
pragmatism in (a) assimilating the action-orientedness of
the pragmatic turn to analytical action theory; and (b)
assimilating equiprimordial action types to communicative
action (though he says lately that he doesn't want to be
read to be doing that).  

Back to the text (and a conceptual thicket now):

JH: What is at issue in the lifeworld is the pragmatic role
of a Janus-faced notion of truth that mediates between
behavioral certainty and discursively justfied
assertibility. (OPC 363)

G: JH says this immediately after noting that "a semantic
conception of truth simply does not help us at all." More
accurately, it seems, is this: For those of "us" who do not
find a semantic conception useful," etc., the pragmatic
role, etc., is at issue. But I'm not interested in pressing
the usefulness of a semantic conception against a lack of
finding such a conception useful; rather, I would emphasize
the usefulness of a semantic conception *along with* the
obvious usefulness of a pragmatic conception. At the
moment, though, JH is changing the subject, and I'm riding
along. 

There are three important aspects of JH's above assertion:
(1) what is at issue in the lifeworld; (2) what is the
indicated notion of truth; and (3) what is the pragmatic
role of that notion of truth. One might imagine that a
hermeneuticist would advocate a mediating notion, and a
Hegelian would. too; so, one might take JH at his word:
He's not saying that the issue is merely the Janus-faced
truth. We don't know *how* Janus' truth works. (Later, JH
says its "circular"). But however it goes, it's the
pragmatic role that is at issue. (We might suspect that the
ultimate truth here is that circularity---which, I believe,
is the appropriative hermeneutic explicated in "Remarks on
Discourse Ethics" in _J&A_. Aha! Gary's Appropriative
thinking will find kinship with Jürgen's sense of
appropriation, as the two ride off together into the
Conversation of Humanity. Whatever.) 

Next:

JH: In the network of established practices, implicitly
raised validity claims that have been accepted against a
broad background of intersubjectively shared convictions
constitute the rails along which behavioral certainties
run. 

G: Hmmm: Behavioral certainties are like a train on rails
of validity claims? 

[I just deleted a paragraph of fun I had with that JH
rendering.] 

JH is presuming that behavioral certainties are what is at
issue, rather than a flexible confidence; or rather than a
heuristic attitude toward things; or rather than a
satisficial attitude; or rather than a reliabilist
attitude. He is, in effect, ignoring the developmental
variability of perception, understanding, dispositions, and
intentionality, as if that dimension is not at issue for
Janus. Indeed, he's interested in the *bedrock* of the
background, rather than the layered tropics of its nature
(so to speak). So, one validity claim he implicitly raises
is that the lifeworld is made of certainties (which is an
epistemological notion that prejudges ordinary relations to
beliefs). 

Behavioral certainties, for JH, get their direction and
support from validity claims (implicitly *raised*), rather
than from the validity basis of a smoothly "running"
*individuated* background (i.e., rather than from an
individuated validity basis). This point relates to
Habermas' presumption of a *prevailing* primacy of the
recognizing other in one's own convictions, which
apparently echoes his Meadian analysis of
individuation-in-socialization, which in turn echoes an
account of paleosymbolic gesture. Of *course*, the other is
important in the ontogeny of one's background, but his
assertion rides on an analysis of lifeworld action and
individuation that is decisive for now presuming in passing
that implicit claims toward an other are inherent to
*efficacy* of any action (e.g., his analysis can be
plausibly read to counter tendencies toward a
post-conventional understanding of one's beliefs and
capabilities). In any case, there is *that* kind of issue
implicitly riding as one of *JH*'s background validity
claims, and this presumption of codependent primacy is a
very questionable feature, connected (I will argue later)
with a sense of consciousness left over from the critique
of psychologism a century ago, inherited by Horkheimer and
Adorno and passed on to Habermas, who assimilates the
conception of consciousness, perhaps, to the critique of
subject-centered reason. 

Postponing pursuit of JH's discursive background further at
this point, I only want here to indicate one way in which a
large-scale Question of the Background is implied by JH's
passing statements, which (it will turn out) are vital to
his very useful position (that may gain greater usefulness
with revision). Pertinent presently is the role of his
discursive background for his sense of pragmatics, which
tends to assimilate action to communication (even though,
as I'll emphasize later, he explicitly wants to be read
otherwise, and *can* be very fruitfully read
otherwise--with revision). Pragmatics is about
action-oriented thinking and analysis, including kinds of
action in complement to communicative action; JH
acknowledges this. But carrying this theme
(contemporaneous, evidently, with "Truth and
Justification," in the previous chapter of _OPC_, on "Some
Further Clarifications...) into the conception of
pragmatics itself has dramatic implications (I think) for a
"theory" or philosophy of truth that is cognizant of how
the lifeworld of well-individuated (educated, say) persons
normally goes (which would include JH, most obviously; so,
I expect that what I will argue should be recognizable as
applying to *us*, though the drift will be that this
pertains to ordinarily modern, moderately individuated
persons all around). 

(I know my paragraphs are too long. Sorry.)

Skipping no text, JH next:

JH: However, as soon as these certainties lose their hold
in the corset of self-evident beliefs, they are jolted out
of tranquility and transformed into a corresponding number
of questionable topics that thereby become subject to
debate. (363)

G: Well, I don't know about corsets, but I don't doubt that
a release from severe constraint can be jolting. But more
likely, the loss would be a great relief and release,
rather than a jolt. But, yes, a jolt for those who needed a
corset and had it ripped off (not knowing how to breath
deeply or move freely and finding oneself overextended in
small spaces). But there's the rub: IS the lifeworld
rightly thought of as generally a severe constraint? Or is
JH mapping the condition of distortion into a presumptive
background sense of the lifeworld? No, the lifeworld is
*not*, for the sake of positive theory, rightly thought of
as generally a severe constraint (let alone general
condition of distortion). For *me*, my mentors, friends,
and many persons I know and don't know (but read about),
the loss of certainties brings on the interest in inquiry
(questioning in *this* sense, not yet questioning for
derivative accountability), or better: a fascination with
possibility; or best of all an opportunity for exploration.
Such "questionable topics" are thereby *derivatively*
"subject to debate," because they are likely primarily
subjects of inquiry, opportunity, and
exploration---communicative, yes, but the *search* for
truth prevails over the call to account. 

This kind of point goes to what philosophical pragmatics is
understood to be: I say it's a calling of *investigation*
over (before) justification---justification *for the sake
of* consolidating or sustaining or advancing our interests
(via the critical spirit, critical learning), not living to
be found justified (creative minds are less interested in
recognition than in feeling that they're making progress;
this is a long story---the creative mind---with a large
bibliography). Yet, I appreciate (I believe) the *critical*
spirit that the focus on justification provides. But
pragmatics is above all about constructiveness, because
openness to *deconstruction* serves that constructiveness,
that development which can be progressive ("Classical"
pragmatics in America grew up during the so-called
Progressive Age of the last  turn-of-the-century, and
philosophical pragmatics has always, I believe, associated
itself with political progressivism; take John Dewey as
exemplar). 

Well, JH might want to agree, because he's tending in that
direction, too---sort of:

JH: The argumentation takes the form of a competition for
the better arguments in favor of, or against, controversial
validity claims, and serves the cooperative search for
truth. (ibid.)

G: Yet, what is the necessary background for a competition
in the search for truth?: [1] Substantive positions to
argue; [2] individualities in contention (interested
stances or performative positions taken by discursive
individuals/groups in contention); [3] an *interest* in
truth that inspires the search; and [4] a conception of
truth that fosters *not* mere cooperation, but
*collaboration* in a solidarity of *interest*. All this is
not yet about justification; it's about the conditions that
may *critically* (not normally) call for justification of
truth (beyond mere claim to truth in the call to
accountability). *Insofar as* justification is called for,
there must first be something worthwhile to
justify---something important enough that the *call* for
justification is *there* (compelled, so as to be
compelling). 

[1] Substantive positions: How is insight gained? How is
insight turned into knowledge (and organized for practical
efficacy)? What is the basis of truth? This is not
basically a matter of justification. 

[2] Individualities in contention: What drives the search
for truth? What makes truth interesting? If "only
individuals learn" (JH, _CES_, "Development of Normative
Structures"; and TCA2 passim.), then only individuations
motivate advocacies, and the nature of individuation is the
background to creative contention.

[3] Interest in truth. Among interests, what is truth such
that its prospective appeal motivates a search? What is the
wonder, what is the appeal that calls individuals into a
search. What is *truth* in the critical bond between truth
and justification? Habermas is moving from a
dissatisfaction with the semantic conception of truth to a
socio-pragmatic conception of *justification*, but where is
the concern for a *satisfactory* conception of truth?

[4] What about the interest in truth and the search
*fosters* collaboration, rather than just happening to be
prudently cooperative? (It's not mere cooperation that
leads to important, difficult discovery). 

So, in short, Habermas is setting a precedent in this first
round of his pragmatic case that counters his implicit
claim that he is on the way to presenting a valid
conception of the relationship between *truth* and
justification (while we're a long way from the issue of
unconditionality in justification, which JH poses as an
unconditionality of truth itself). 

JH: With this description of justificatory practices guided
by the idea of truth...." (ibid.)

G: What idea? Again, the reader has been taken directly
from JH's dissatisfaction with the usefulness of a semantic
conception of truth to his sketch of the situation of
justification. "Idea" of truth? I should insert a
discussion of intuitions of ideas of truth (which I would
like to do, but not now). I'll have to leave the interest
in truth behind in order to continue with JH, which is to
ride the rails toward unconditionality in
justification/truth---a position I wish to support (if only
to spite a Rorty), but with modification in terms of the
evolutionary condition of conceptions (though with no
interest in, or connotation of (I hope), a neo-Darwinian
naturalism). 

So, one long paragraph by JH beyond the uselessness of a
semantic conception of truth, the issue is no longer the
relation to Janus, but much more specific:

JH: ...how the systematic mobilization of good reasons...
[can be] adequate for...discriminating...justified and
unjustified truth claims.... (ibid.) ....What still remains
to be explained is the mysterious power of the discursively
achieved agreement that *authorizes* the participants...to
accept unreservedly justified assertions as truths. (364)

G: In epistemology, we expect accounts to work with
justification and belief (acceptance) *independently* of
true propositions, since justified belief may not
constitute knowledge; the belief may be
false-but-justified. But despite JH's acknowledgement early
on that truth can't be assimilated to justification (quoted
in an earlier posting this week; and below in a new
instance), it appears that we are in store for an
assimilation. (I'm writing after having carefully read the
entire chapter, and indeed we are in store for an
Assimilation, against which I hope to find a promising way
to the redemption of the socio-pragmatic conception of
truth-and-justification. Fat chance?)

In any case, the issue now is a matter of knowledge in the
lifeworld (coming up for JH), which indeed implies lots of
confidence in lots of assumptions, like the laws of physics
and the reliability of other persons; so the *issue* is the
nature of our confidence that we'll live through the day: 

JH: ...everyday routines rest on an unqualified trust
in...*knowledge*....We would step on no bridge, use no car,
undergo no operation...if we did not hold the assumptions
employed in the production and execution of our actions to
be true. (364)

G: I would like to confront Habermas with reliabilist
epistemology, based in the everyday capability for
truth-conducive practices, as explicated by Alvin Goldman,
Ernest Sosa, John Greco, and Keith Lehrer (see: _Virtue
Epistemology: essays on epistemic virtue and
responsibility, ed. by A. Fairweather and L. Zagzebski,
Oxford UP 2001), but not in upcoming readings. I'll hope I
can depend on the background osmosis of reliabilism. 

JH: Truth may be assimilated neither to behavioral
certainty nor to justified assertibility. (ibid.)

G: Good! 

So, that's it for now---probably until this weekend. Next:
JH's reading of "The Epistemic Conception of Truth in a
Pragmatic Perspective," the next section of his essay /
chapter in _OPC_. 

Thanks for your interest and time,


Gary






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