File spoon-archives/habermas.archive/habermas_2003/habermas.0310, message 37


From: "Mark Tippett" <mwtippett-AT-sympatico.ca>
Subject: RE: [HAB:] Worth vs. Rationality
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 13:56:33 -0400


"I have a toothache!"  Is this true?  "I scream at you and call you stupid"
Are you in pain?  

If you respond that this is only a question for a "healthy" life-world,
would Habermas welcome you into his "way"?  

Read your copy of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations.  Or, as
suggested here, go and buy yourself one!

An understanding of Habermas starts with--but does not end--at Wittgenstein.


"I would counsel all young people to put all new words in careful order and
arrange them like minerals, in their various class, so that they can be
found when asked for or when required for one's own use. This is called word
economy, and is as lucrative to the mind as money economy is to the purse."

Drury "The Danger of Words'  



-----Original Message-----
From: owner-habermas-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU
[mailto:owner-habermas-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU] On Behalf Of Ralph Dumain
Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2003 1:27 PM
To: habermas-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Subject: Re: [HAB:] Worth vs. Rationality

At 10:06 AM 10/7/2003 -0700, Gary E Davis wrote:
>What matters more, the worth of your life or the
>rationality of your life?
>..............
>
>The simple point that I want to make is that the healthy
>lifeworld importantly *contains* issues of rationality;
>life is not oriented by its rationalty. Rationality serves
>the life. If a theory of rationality doesn't constitute
>itself in light of what usually matters most---well-being
>and pursuit of what's worthwhile---then the theory is
>invalid.

This goes against my sense of life, which is not academic.  For a few 
people, rationality, or critical thought, is of the very essence of 
life.  Life is death without it.  But I would agree that most people don't 
care, especially academics, who as bourgeois professionals compartmentalize 
professional and personal life, like the TV character Frasier.

In any case, I have grave doubts about this system-lifeworld stuff.  And 
while we are at it, on truth: truth is objective, not consensual, not 
intersubjective; hence a correspondence not consensual theory of 
truth.  Truth is ruthless struggle, not making nice.  Pace the motto 
of  professional middle class people as they screw you while keeping up 
appearances: "Nothing personal"; also, "don't get angry."




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