Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 23:32:53 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [HAB:] Endnote on pragmatics of justification


At the bottom of page 371 (_OPC_), Habermas wants to show
how all the pieces of his case may accord as a singular
argumentation sketch. Again, JH is providing a pragmatic
theory of justification (and application), not a pragmatic
theory of truth (though a pragmatic theory of truth can be
derived from my modified version of his argumentation,
which I would call an *appropriative* theory of truth).

So:

JH: ...we have only to bring together in the right way the
partial statements assembled here up to now. [First,] In
the lifeworld actors depend on behavioral certainties. 

G: You recall that I focused on this earlier, but I want to
add a new dimension to JH's assertion here. By "actor," JH
means, of course, a person or participant in activity or
carrying through action. But JH's theory of action types
(TCA-1) includes dramaturgical action, such that we are
always, to some degree, actors in self-representation of
our lives (subjectivities, according to JH, but I will give
richer meaning to dramaturgical action than does JH--not
today--in full accord with what JH means by dramaturgical).
The pragmatic importance of this presently is that the
actor is primarily understood relative to action---persons
as action-interested and action-oriented. Persons'
relationships to knowledge and understanding, with wide
variations of certainty (and uncertainty), pertain to all
types of action. "Behavioral" certainties are not the
keynote of lifeworld relations to knowledge and
representational understanding. 

But a sense of bedrock behavioral certainty is what JH
needs for his theory to associate to some "unconditional"
feature, in the following synoptic statement:

JH: There is a *practical* necessity to rely intuitively on
what is unconditionally held-to-be-true. This mode of
unconditionally holding-to-be-true is reflected on the
discursive level in the connotations of truth claims that
point beyond the given context of justification and require
the supposition of ideal justificatory conditions---with a
resulting decentering of the justification community. (372)

G: JH claims that he's "bringing together partial
statements," but he hasn't earlier claimed that "there is a
practical necessity to rely intuitively on what is
unconditionally held-to-be-true," unless one reads his
earlier reference to behavioral certainties as meaning just
that. But JH has simply *presumed* the place of behavioral
certainties earlier, and I've earlier indicated how (1)
there are levels and gradations of lifeworld background,
contrary to his apparently monolithic regard for the
lifeworld backgroud; and (2) we normally live with degrees
of certainty about the objective world (JH also presumes a
singular relevance of the objective world, which is
contrary to the fluidity of the lifeworld itself; his own
argumentation about "truth", "rationality", and
"justification" moves around types of validity claims, but
he thematizes the lifeworld-to-discourse twofold relative
to only the objective domain of the lifeworld). There is no
argumentative basis--nor, to my mind, plausibility--to
treating the lifeworld background as a general bedrock of
presumptive unconditionality (with clear prevalence of the
objective world's relevance). 

Therefore, there could be no valid correlate "reflected on
the discursive level" that suggests any salient
unconditionality for truth claims. 

Moreover, the only way to justify a focus on bedrock
thinking in the lifeworld is to emphasize pre-conventional
and concrete-operational consciousness, which is associated
with children and illiteracy. So, the more that one
incorporates a lifeworld of educated adults and advanced
modernization, the less that bedrock thinking figures into
a general appreciation of the lifeworld---and the less
credible is any correlate unconditionality for discursive
"reflection". So, the more that one presumes immaturity and
illiteracy, the more that a reflection of unconditionality
is to be found at the discursive level, which would be
something like a Platonism.  

But Platonism is *not* connoted by a pragmatic theory of
justification that is modified in the way that I've
suggested over the previous series of postings in light of
JH's discussion. Overtones of a "required" unconditionality
that look ultimately stipulated are of no significance for
the basic tenability of a twofold hermeneutic, from
lifeworld to discourse and back, i.e., an appropriative
pragmatic of justification and application. 

There is no unconditionality required "on the discursive
level in... connotations of truth claims that point beyond
the given context of justification...." Of course, truth
claims often do point beyond the given context of
justification, but there are many degrees of scale short of
unconditionality. 

A "supposition of ideal justificatory conditions" is
desirable, but seldom "required" in any full dress degree.
(Note that his earlier "presupposition" of ideal conditions
has now become "supposition", as I recommended earlier).

A "resulting decentering of the justification community,"
anticipated by that "point beyond the given context of
justification" takes on a degree of scale that accords with
the appropriate degree of "beyond" that is at point. 

I agree, though, that:

JH: ...the process of justification can be guided by a
notion of truth that *transcends justification*.... (372)

G: But the "can" doesn't imply "must"; it's up to the
participants to decide the degree of idealization that's
appropriate. For example, survey researchers may desire
that an ideal of scientific corroboration be anticipated by
compelling results of antedotal information gathering, but
the *degree* to which that idealization is feasible or
realistic (given costs of rigor or difficulties coding for
fluid variables) is one of the questions that inquirers may
face, while the idealization of empirical certainty
provides a tool for evaluating the degree of validity that
available results justify. 

------------------------------------

The remainder of Habermas' essay (372-77) continues his
critique of Rorty, so his pragmatic of justification
becomes largely critical application, and is worthwhile
reading---critical exemplification---for that reason; but
my interest is, has been, and remains the philosophical
pragmatics as such, and JH doesn't return to this anymore
in his essay, so it's time to move on to the next venue. 

Proper closure here would be to retrieve all the themes and
modifications I've suggested over the past week and
organize them into a coherent discursive summation. But
I'll do that much later, with much more material, since I
need to circulate through many other basic passages of
Habermas' thinking, in order to clarify what I have in
mind. 

Next: "world-disclosure" and the "roots of rationality" in
"Some Further Clarifications of the Concept of
Communicative Rationality," _OPC_, ch. 7.

Gary





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