Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 08:19:52 +0100
Subject: Re[2]: [HAB:] detranscendantalization


Hello Ali,

Wednesday, March 31, 2004, 5:22:27 AM, you wrote:


AR> James:

AR> My suggestion:

AR> [I have always attempted to steer between the Scylla of a levelling, 
AR> transcendence – less empiricism and the Charybdis of a high-flying idealism 
AR> that glorifies transcendence . . . the theory of communicative action 
AR> integrates the transcendental tension between the intelligible and the world 
AR> of appearances in communicative everyday practice, yet does not thereby 
AR> level it out.] (Habermas, 2002: 91).

AR> Jürgen Habermas (2002) “Transcendence from Within, Transcendence in this 
AR> World” in Jürgen Habermas, Relgion and Rationality, ed. with intro. Eduardo 
AR> Mendieta (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002).

AR> _________________________________________________________________
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Good point again Ali. Habermas does say that. But he does not do it. As early as
1983 (two years after TCA) he clearly (for him) states that moral norms in
particular and social reality in general are intersubjectively ideal, i.e. they
are not constituted independently of our actions and beliefs. He makes
a similar point somewhere in TCA.

He repeats it in the first essay of TIO and ad nauseam in Wahrheit und
Rechfertigung, where he also attempts to show why the intersubjectively ideal world of
interpersonal norms nonetheless is functionally equivalent to mind
independent nature. Normative 'reality' is constructed, but also
cantileverd out from language and human attitiudes etc. far enough that it appears
to be independent. Furthermore, he  argues that in the lifeworld context of action it looks
like there are normative facts. But there are not. It is an illusion of our 'natural'
attitude.

I think he just has to face the fact that, even though he does not
like the label, which he associates with Hegel, Fichte and Kant et.
al. he is a kind of idealist, at least about the social and moral
world. By the same token I am happy to call the anti-realists he likes
to read - Putnam and Dummet idealists.

As for his attempt to steer between idealism and realism
Habermas is always trying to have his cake and eat it. But he does not
always succeed. Most people who tried to sail between
Scylla and Charybdis drowned.

-- 
Best regards,
 James                            mailto:james.gf-AT-virgin.net



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