CHAPTER
III
THE
THEORY OF UNIVERSAL PRAGMATICS:
THE
METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK
In the last chapter the primacy of the
emancipatory interest emerged within Habermas's theory of
cognitive interests as indicative of a human tendency toward the attainment
of a mode of
freedom conceived as independence from hypostatized
disequilibria and union with a form of life in function of
justice. Given that Habermas's theory of
cognitive interests failed to furnish an adequate
method or procedure by which such distortions can be therapeutically
examined, the present chapter will present his theory of language or universal
pragmatics as representing, within his theory of
communicative action, the methodological framework aimed at effecting the
dissolution of
constraints rooted in language. Such an analysis will serve to elucidate the
distinctive communicative dimension of the human person/community made
accessible by Habermas's proposal.
Habermas's theory of language consists in an ambitious
program
to provide normative foundations for the human sciences
within the framework of
reconstructive methodology
. In this respect, universal
pragmatics purports to articulate the universal infrastructure which accounts
for speech and action and thereby provide the human sciences with a unifying
framework for a critical apprehension of
symbolically structured reality. Such a goal entails resolving the
“is/ought,”
“fact/value” dichotomy rooted in
Kantian
transcendentalism;[i]
as
Held puts it, “Habermas seeks to defend the claim that
truth and
virtue,
facts and
values, theory and
practice are inseparable.”[ii]
Whereas universal pragmatics is concerned with elucidating the formal
conditions of rational discourse, critical theory is concerned with
appropriating this scheme in a theory of
society explicitly dedicated to a form of human life free from all forms of
prejudice, self-deception and error. For these are unconsciously appropriated
in the
self-formative process of an individual or a group and significantly thwart
the emancipatory potential of the persons and groups so affected. By means of
a “rational reconstruction of universal competencies,” Habermas develops
a critical instrument, the ideal speech situation, for detecting the manner
in which
language can serve as a source and perpetrator of unconscious
constraints. For Habermas, the human subject must approximate this form of
rationality and
justice indicated by the ideal speech situation as a condition for the
actualization of emancipatory interests. “The truth of
statements is linked in the last analysis to the intention of the
good and
true
life.”[iii]
Since the ideal speech situation serves as the intrument for emancipatory critique, the question of the nature and adequacy of Habermas's proposal will concern this and the following chapters. This chapter will limit itself to considering the adequacy of the formal conditions of the ideal speech situation as these refer to a logic of theoretical discourse. Such a discussion is crucial for deepening the distinctions that mark the realm of material objects from the human/ social realm of communicating subjects. The question of the adequacy of the ideal speech situation as it refers to a logic of practical discourse will then be the focus of the following chapter. The present aims will be pursued (A) by presenting a reconstruction of consensual speech, (B) by articulating his discourse theory of truth, and (C) by considering how Habermas's notion of truth functions within the context of a pragmatic logic of theoretical discourse in function of the conditions of the ideal speech situation.
RECONSTRUCTION OF CONSENSUAL SPEECH
Universal
pragmatics, as a
reconstructive science, investigates the “universal and unavoidable
presuppositions” that are operative in the successful employment of speech
acts oriented to achieving mutual understanding. Theoretical
linguistics abstracts from the pragmatic context of
language so as to limit its sphere of consideration to
sentential analysis and the generative ability of the
speaker. Universal
pragmatics, in contrast, is concerned precisely with the structures and processes
from which linguistics abstracts. The move from a consideration of
langue to that of
parole,[iv]
as carried out in the work of Habermas, purports to lay bare the
foundations of
speech oriented to reaching understanding. In this sense that universal
pragmatics:
. . . thematizes the elementary units of speech
(utterances) in an attitude similar to that in which
linguistics does the units of language
(sentences). The goal of reconstructive language analysis is an explicit
description of the rules that a competent speaker must master in order to form
grammatical sentences and to utter them in an acceptable way . . . .
It is . . . assumed that communicative
competence has just a universal core as linguistic competence. A general
theory of speech actions would thus describe exactly that fundamental system
of rules that adult
subjects master to the extent that they can fulfill the conditions for a
happy employment of sentences in utterances, no matter to which
individual languages the sentences may belong and in which accidental contexts
the utterances may be embedded.[v]
Universal
pragmatics then involves explicating what accounts for the ability of a
speaker to bring about an interpersonal
engagement with a
hearer, such that “the hearer can rely on him.”[vi]
The crucial point for Habermas is that the theory of speech acts, whose
material object is a concern of universal pragmatics, cannot be viewed as a
purely linguistic enterprise in abstraction from the pragmatic dimension
present in every speech performance oriented to understanding. Indeed, the
plausibility of Habermas's reconstructive effort is directed toward an
explicitation of all that is involved in the deceptively simple,
double-structure of the speech act. The ensuing section will briefly
articulate the master lines of his analysis, including: (1) the
dialogical versus
monological paradigm constitutive of speech; (2) the
double-structure of the speech act; (3) the performative component, including
the relation between a
typology of speech acts based on performative verbs and the various
“realms of reality” to which they refer; (4) the
validity claims and the ground of successful engagement; and (5) the distinction
between levels of communicative
interaction.[vii]
An obvious feature of speech-act theory is that the first noticeable
characteristic of universal
pragmatics is its shift from the
monological paradigm present in Knowledge and Human Interests to a
dialogical one. The root presupposition in such a theory is that
language is not an autonomous being in and of itself, but, rather, a
high-order faculty specific to homo sapiens. Accordingly, this
reconstructive science[viii]
does not initiate its investigations within the chambers of an utterly isolated
cogito that ultimately doubts, strictly speaking, not only the veracity
of its private, inner
impressions,[ix]
but also the fact of its very existence as an integrated knowing and acting
self. Universal
pragmatics repudiates this view of knowledge and explicitly recognizes the
existence of selves other than one's own. This point needs to be emphasized, for
it represents one critical feature in which universal pragmatics differs from
such other
reconstructive sciences as theoretical linguistics that conduct their
investigation in abstraction from the dialogical context in which
speech transpires; their concentration is upon the generative ability of a
speaker understood within the closed-context of a
monological framework.[x]
The essential notion operative in universal
pragmatics, in contrast, is that there are no speech
acts without dialogical participants; that is, speech is not possible without,
at the very least, a speaker and a hearer engaged in the process of
communication. Once the emphasis on dialogical participants as the source of
speech act employment and deployment, it becomes necessary to examine the speech
act itself and show its relationship to the issue of
truth.
The typical speech act reveals a characteristic
double-structure: a performative component followed by a propositional one.[xi]
The
surface structure of explicit speech
acts in the standard form can be analyzed
according to the following paradigm:
[Performative
Component]/[Propositional Component]
The
form of any speech act could thus be specified as follows:
“[I (hereby) performative
verb to you]/[that S is P.]”
The
expressed form of the performative component is as follows: “I (hereby) performative
verb to you.” The
personal pronouns, “I” and “you,” serve to indicate the level of
intersubjectivity in which speech
acts are exchanged; the adverb “hereby” in parenthesis serves to indicate
that the speech act originates from a
speaker, and that it indeed consists in a certain proposal that is expressed to
a
hearer; lastly, the performative
verb serves to indicate the
illocutionary force, i.e., the specific interpersonal relation in which the
speaker wishes to engage another dialogue participant. The form, in turn, of the
propositional component is as follows: “that S is P.”
The noun clause functions here as the direct object of the performative
verb and, as such, refers to the level of
predication, which mediates the experiences and
states of affairs about which the speaker/hearer want to come to an understanding.[xii]
The
double-structure then serves to indicate the point that dialogue participants
communicate at two levels:
(1) the level of
intersubjectivity on which speaker and hearer, through
illocutionary acts, establish the relations that permit them to come to an
understanding with one another, and
(2) the level of
propositional content which is communicated.[xiii]
For Habermas communicative speech acts, in contradistinction to
strategic speech acts,[xiv]
are oriented to reaching understanding[xv]
wherein the relation intended by a speaker and signalled by a performative
verb is established. An inventory of all possible performative verbs
indicates, moreover, that these may be classified into four broad categories:
(a) the
communicatives, (b) the
constatives, (c) the
regulatives, and (d) the
avowals.[xvi]
Communicatives (say, ask, etc.), referring to the first type of speech act,
are
language-immanent insofar as they are directed to the very process of
communication, i.e., concern themselves with the intelligibility of an utterance.
The other three categories refer to
extralinguistic
“domains of reality”:
constative speech acts are about “the” world of
external nature (asserting, describing, narrating, etc.);
regulative speech acts are about “our” world of society (commands, requests,
and warnings, etc.); and
avowal speech acts are about one's “own” world of
internal nature (to reveal, expose, pretend, etc.).[xvii]
Thus, in addition to the speaker/hearer presupposed in speech, the
successful employment and deployment of speech
acts involves having mastered three distinct yet related
extralinguistic, coordinate systems, viz.: that of “the” world, “our”
shared
lifeworld, and one's “own” world. In the case of speech acts involving the
private inner-world of someone other than oneself, the ability to exchange
such speech acts derives from the empathetic familiarity between members of a
species. This enables one to attain
an empathetic understanding with others given the common experiences and
circumstances to which members of the same species are subject.
However, the distinctive contribution of universal
pragmatics as a
reconstructive science rests in examining the nature of the ground, i.e., the
sufficient conditions that account for the achievement of the interpersonal
engagement intended by the speaker. The crucial business of universal
pragmatics—in contradistinction to other fields of inquiry concerned with
language—consists in accounting for this third component that is implicitly
or explicitly present in
nonstrategic speech acts oriented to understanding. Indeed, the
speaker by means of his utterance is making a proposal to a
hearer, who can either accept, reject or question that which the expressed
statement signifies. Whether the utterance be an assertion (constative speech
act), a command
(regulative speech act), or a personal intention or state of being (avowal
speech act), in each case the speaker—by presenting his utterance to the
hearer, by the very act of vocalizing his proposal, i.e., his utterance—is
telling the hearer: (1) that he has
grounds or
reasons for holding and hence for stating his utterance, and (2) that what he is
expressing is indeed what he sincerely considers to be the case. The hearer,
in turn, is not a mere mechanical recorder of sounds but is in a position to
agree fully, partially, or not at all with the speaker's proposal.[xviii]
If he does agree, the interpersonal engagement sought by the speaker is
established; if he does not, the relationship does not come to pass.
For Habermas the hearer's confidence in or reliance on the seriousness of
the speaker's proposal as signalled by the achievement of the engagement
intended by the speaker need not be construed in function of the speaker's
ability to influence the hearer by the mere power of suggestion. Neither does it
have to be the result of mindless whim on the part of the hearer.[xix] Indeed, the dialogical
engagement which may or may not result once a proposal is made public derives
its binding force from the supposed satisfaction on the part of the speaker of
certain, rational
validity claims that, according to Habermas, are raised with every utterance
aimed at reaching interpersonal understanding. Habermas puts it in these
terms:
With their
illocutionary acts, speaker and hearer raise
validity claims and demand they be recognized. But this recognition need not
follow irrationally, since the validity claims have a cognitive character and
can be checked. I would like, therefore, to defend the following thesis: In
the final analysis, the speaker can illocutionarily influence the hearer and
vice versa, because the speech-act-typical commitments are connected with
cognitively testable validity claims—that is, because the reciprocal
bonds have a rational basis. The engaged speaker normally connects the specific
sense in which he would like to take up an interpersonal relation with a
thematically stressed validity claim and thereby chooses a specific mode of
communication.[xx]
The
importance of Habermas's emphasis on “cognitively testable validity
claims,” insofar as his philosophy of emancipation is concerned, cannot be
stressed enough. If he is correct, then hypostatizations in the form of acts,
products, utterances, texts, practices and institutions may be made the object
of emancipatory critique.
The
validity claims raised in speech remain largely implicit and unthematized from
the point of view of those engaged in ordinary, everyday, pragmatic
exchanges. But Habermas claims that an analysis of
utterances employed with a view toward reaching understanding indicate that four
universal claims are simultaneously raised each and every time an
utterance is made. Of the four claims, three—the claim to
truth,
rightness, and
sincerity—deal directly with the aforementioned
extralinguistic “worlds” and the fourth—the claim to
comprehensibility—concerns itself with
language itself.[xxi]
The speaker must choose a comprehensible expression so that
speaker and hearer can understand one another. The speaker must have the
intention of communicating a true proposition content (or a propositional
content, the
existential presuppositions of which are satisfied) so that the hearer can share
the knowledge of the speaker. The speaker must want to express his
intentions truthfully so that the hearer can believe the utterance
of the speaker (can trust him). Finally, the speaker must choose an utterance
that is right so that the hearer can accept the utterance and speaker and
hearer can agree with one another in the utterance with respect to a recognized
normative background.[xxii]
Hence,
comprehensibility is concerned with the intelligibility of
speech insofar as a
speaker can only pretend to enter into a dialogical relationship with another if
he is in fact communicating sequences of signs that satisfy the minimal
phonological, morphological, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic requirements
so as to render what he says significative. If this does not occur obviously no
dialogue can be sustained, for no hearer can entertain holding a dialogue with
one who merely babbles incomprehensible non-sense. If it is the case,
however, that a speaker is simply not expressing himself with sufficient
clarity, it is incumbent upon the hearer, before he can seriously entertain
the speaker's proposal, to ask for greater elucidation on behalf of the motion.
If the speaker cannot provide a sufficient level of
transparency, the intended engagement is left in a state of suspension. This
validity claim demands, in short, that speech concern itself first and foremost
with transmitting sense.[xxiii]
The claim to
truth, in turn, situates the utterance in relation to
external reality, i.e., “the” world of objects and events about which one
can make true or false statements. The claim to
rightness, however, situates the utterance in relation to the normative
reality of society, i.e., “our” social
lifeworld of shared
values and
norms,
roles and rules that an act can “fit” or “misfit” and that may be
regarded as either right—legitimate and justifiable—or wrong. Finally, the
claim to
truthfulness or
sincerity situates the utterance in relation to
inner reality, i.e., one's “own” world of intentional experiences that can
be expressed sincerely or insincerely. Each of these claims admits of an
“either/or” such that: the truth claim is either true or false; the normative
claim is either right or wrong; and the truthfulness claim is either sincere or
insincere.[xxiv]
A speech act, then, involving all four
validity claims, can be offered only as a “proposal” in hopes of fostering
the desired engagement. If a hearer is in principle satisfied that all four
validity claims have been met or can be met, then he considers that the
utterance is comprehensible, true, right, and a reflection of what the
speaker sincerely takes to be the case. If, on the other hand, the
hearer feels that one of these critical claims has not been satisfied, that, for
example, the speaker is not saying the truth, or that what he is saying violates
established
norms, or that he is insincere about what he is saying, the possibility exists
that the hearer will demand reassurances from the speaker. If the speaker
cannot provide these the hearer will not attend to his words. Thus communication
oriented to understanding involves claims which the hearer can call into
question and which can be validated only by further evidences or assurances on
the part of the speaker. If he succeeds in meeting the objections of the hearer,
he will do so only because the hearer purportedly considers these to be
rationally compelling. The supposition is that those engaged in dialogue know
what they are doing and why they are doing it, that they intentionally maintain
the beliefs and pursue the ends that they do, and that they are capable of
backing them with reasons. Although,
McCarthy indicates, this
“supposition of responsibility . . . . is counterfactual, it is of
fundamental significance for the structure of human relations that we proceed
as if it were the case: `on this unavoidable
fiction rests the
humanity of intercourse among men who are still men'.”[xxv]
Validity
claims, moreover, can now be viewed as representing the four dimensions in
which
communication can undergo disturbances or fail to achieve an intented
illocutionary relation. According to Habermas there are three possible levels of
communicative exchange into which a speaker/hearer can enter in function of
the relative success achieved in the intended engagement of the speaker is
concerned, viz.: (a)
consensus-
interaction and (b)
discourse. The first of these refers to that level of communication where there
has already been achieved a common, uncritical definition of the
norms, social
practices, and belief systems of everyday life. There is, in this sense, a
background consensus derived from the reciprocal raising and mutual recognition
of the four
validity claims. While speech proceeds without violating this shared and
unproblematic framework, the engagement intended by the speaker is achieved.
But as soon as one or more of the validity claims are questioned, the
speaker is challenged by the hearer, still within the context of
consensus-interaction, to vindicate a validity claim which he considers not to
have been sufficiently supported. Thus, if the hearer questions the
comprehensibility of what the speaker is saying, the speaker is expected to
provide the needed clarity by means of “explication, elucidation, paraphrase,
translation, semantic stipulation.”[xxvi]
If the hearer questions the speaker's intentions or his sincerity by
accusing the speaker of “lying, deceiving, misleading, pretending,” the intended
engagement can only be reestablished if the speaker is able to present the
hearer with the requisite assurances, as would be indicated by the speaker's
“consistency of action, readiness to draw, accept, and act on
consequences, willingness to assume implied responsibilities and
obligations” that follow from the speaker's proposed utterance. If, however,
the hearer challenges the truth of the propositional contents of one's
expression, it is incumbent on the speaker to satisfy the hearer's objections by
“pointing to relevant experiences, supplying information, citing recognized
authorities.” In cases where the
hearer challenges the speaker's right to perform speech
acts, i.e., by questioning the speaker's competence, authority or status in a
certain area, or by accusing the speaker of violating accepted norms, recognized
values, or established relational patterns, the speaker can only meet these
objections by appealing to “recognized
norms, accepted
values, established authorities.”
For Habermas the claims of
comprehensibility and
truthfulness can be vindicated only within the second level of communication,
viz., the interactive. In the case of
comprehensibility, either the speaker can provide the needed clarity or not.[xxvii]
In the case of the
truthfulness associated with the speaker's intentions in uttering the speech
acts, either he can provide the needed reassurances as can be tested by
consistent subsequent action or he cannot.[xxviii]
Insofar as these two validity claims are concerned, either the speaker can meet
the hearer's challenges at the interactive level of communication or the speaker
fails to achieve the intended engagement with the hearer.
If, however, the claims to
truth and
rightness cannot be satisfactorily vindicated at the level of
consensus-interaction, i.e., if the hearer challenges the truth or rightness
claim in so fundamental a way, then the only recourse available to dialogical
participants is to enter the second level of communicative interaction, viz.,
the discursive one, with a view toward determining whether the problematic
truth or
rightness claim can or cannot be vindicated.[xxix]
Discourse then thematizes the naively assumed background consensus by
critically evaluating the
rationality or
irrationality underpinning the questioned norms, values, ideologies, and belief
systems. The goal of discourse consists in the achievement of agreement via
rational
consensus, which is conceived by Habermas as possible insofar as he proposes
formal criteria of rationality for distinguishing between a true and false consensus.
It is at this level—discourse—that the question of what constitutes truth
for Habermas becomes crucial, given the normative claim for theory (the
truth claim) and action (the
rightness claim) that Habermas proposes.
It should be clear that universal
pragmatics does not consist in a mere consideration of the grammaticality of
utterances as may constitute the subject matter of theoretical
linguistics, nor is it a purely
empirical investigation into concrete utterances as conducted in
psycholinguistics or
sociolinguistics. For Habermas it is a
reconstructive science that endeavors to articulate the “universal and
unavoidable
presuppositions” that make possible speech
acts oriented to understanding. These presuppositions, in turn, should not
be understood as the product of an apriori, monological contemplation of what
is involved in dialogue but, rather, as the result obtained from a consideration
of what transpires in actual speech
engagements between and among dialogical participants.
By way of summary, an inventory of these conditions follows:
(a)
that
speech involves an analysis of language as
parole that explicitly incorporates a
dialogical—versus
monological—paradigm, involving more than one competent speaker;
(b)
that the capacity to embed sentences in appropriate speech acts indicates
mastery of the four types of speech acts;
(c)
that the capacity to employ these speech acts indicates that the
dialogical participants are in relation to three distinct yet coordinate
worlds: “the” world, the “shared” world, and one's “own” inner
world;
(d)
that the bringing about of an interpersonal engagement involves
reciprocally raising and mutually recognizing four validity
claims:
comprehensibility,
truth,
rightness, and
sincerity;
(e)
that a challenge to any of the four validity
claims jeopardizes the achievement of the intended engagement and forces the
speaker to provide the requisite evidence which differs in accordance to the
type of claim needing vindication.
Indeed, from the foregoing analysis of consensual speech, Habermas's endeavors to provide a significant instrument for probing speech-act proposals. If language can be the locus for interest-oriented distortions, Habermas's aim consists in providing a framework in which the proposals inherent in speech acts may be subject to critical review. Yet to speak of analyzing or examining communicative proposals with a view toward critically assessing their validity implies that a criterion of truth is available to the examiners by means of which they can distinguish between those proposals meriting assent from those that do not. Toward a consideration of Habermas's discourse theory of truth this study now turns.
THE DISCOURSE THEORY OF TRUTH
Whereas at the level of
consensual speech, the exchange of speech acts transpires within a
naively-assumed background, the participants in
discourse are concerned rather with proposing arguments for the justification of
the
truth or
rightness claim, that implicit in their assertion, has been challenged. Hence
once an objection is advanced that so fundamentally challenges the truth or
rightness claim of a pragmatic assertion, the assertion then becomes a
hypothetical object of discourse, i.e., an assertion that fails to produce the
intended
illocutionary relation. Discourse pertains to the framework in which and the
process under which the participants conduct their examination of the
problematicized claim with the sole aim of determining—on the basis of argumentation
alone—whether the claim merits vindication, modification or rejection. Yet the
issue that becomes particularly important in such a discursive process refers to
the question of truth.[xxx]
This section will specifically (1) endeavor to clarify what the Habermasian
discourse
theory of truth[xxxi]
means within the context of a pragmatics of assertions in light of the
Habermasian argument for the inseparability of the criteria of truth from the
criteria for the warranted assertion of truth claims; (2) review Habermas's
constitution theory of objects and his rationale for dismissing both (a)
perceptual theories and (b)
correspondence theories as criteria of truth; and (3) critically consider three
objections which are typically made against Habermas's discourse theory of
truth.[xxxii]
Habermas's characterization of his notion of truth is provided in the
following passage:
I may ascribe a predicate to an object if and only if every other person
who could enter into a dialogue with me would ascribe the same
predicate to the same object. In order to distinguish true from false
statements, I make reference to the judgment of others—in fact to the judgment
of all others with whom I could ever hold a dialogue (among whom I counterfactually
include all the dialogue partners I could find if my life history were
coextensive with the history of mankind). The condition of the truth of
statements is the potential agreement of all others.[xxxiii]
The
statement, “The condition of truth is the potential agreement of all
others,” indicates the critical insight for a proper understanding of the
Habermasian notion of truth. A succinct summary of what is involved here can
be enumerated in four points:
(a)
The predication
“true” and
“false” may be said of
statements and not of
sentences or speech
episodes (i.e.
utterances).
(b)
Truth is a validity claim signifying that the assertion of the
statement is justified.
(c)
The assertion of a statement is justified if and only if that statement
would command a rational
consensus among all who could enter into a discussion with the speaker.
(d)
A rational consensus is an agreement among all potential participants
argumentively derived under the conditions of the
ideal speech situation.
An
examination of the first three statements follows.[xxxiv]
Habermas agrees with
Austin and
Strawson in their repudiation of
semantic theories of truth for predicating
truth and
falsity to
sentences versus statements or
assertions. However, Habermas disagrees with Austin's view that truth and
falsity should be predicated of
utterances, i.e., concrete “historic events” or “speech
episodes.” On this point Habermas
sides with Strawson's contention that such predication belongs properly to
statements understood as that which is asserted in
constative speech acts.[xxxv]
However, Habermas goes further in noting that the
propositional component of an assertion derives its force from the very act of
being asserted, i.e., by means of the expressed or unexpressed
performative component operative in
constative speech acts. Truth viewed pragmatically then refers not only to the
proposition but also to the act whereby it is proposed as true in the first
place. By “declaring” a
proposition “to be true,” for Habermas, one is engaged in the act of raising
a validity claim for the alleged truth of a statement, which, as such, is
susceptible to challenge. But “the meaning of truth as implied in the
pragmatics of assertions”[xxxvi]
is still in need of further elucidation.
This can be derived from a consideration of Habermas's
constitution theory of objects, wherein he delineates his position insofar as
the relationship between
language and the world of
objects is concerned. His constitution theory develops both as a correction
to the positions characteristic of naive
realists, on the one hand, and those characteristic of dogmatic
conceptualists/
nominalists, on the other. Indeed, as a result of various impediments affecting
both the process of experiencing and the act of reporting descriptions of what
is experienced, that which is experienced, conceptualized, and expressed in
language never represents an incorrigible articulation of precisely that
which is in some
extramental/linguistic sense. As a result of various impediments influencing
both the process of experiencing and the act of uttering descriptions, what is
experienced is affected by (a) limitations from the point of view of the
object known, including such external factors as the perspective and distance
from which and the medium through which an object is perceived; (b) limitations
from the point of view of the knowing subject, including such internal factors
as the soundness of the sense organs undergoing an
experience, psychological integrity and linguistic capability in reporting an
experience; and (c) limitations resulting from the adequacy of the language
used as a medium for reporting an experience. What is experienced,
conceptualized, and expressed in language never represents an incorrigible
articulation of precisely that which is in some extramental/linguistic
sense. For Habermas, then,
concepts and
words are not the pure conceptual or lexical counterparts (i.e.,
corresponding
representations) of the universe of objects to which they refer. However,
neither are concepts and words purely a function of
transcendental categories or of subjective
impressions that stand in relation to the universe of objects to which they
refer. Habermas rejects the notion that the subject of experience is a
transcendental
ego equipped, as it were, with a certain prism—the categories of understanding
and the forms of intuition—from which to view and understand reality. Instead,
he argues that the constitution of a world of objects of possible experience
is the product of a “systematic interplay of sense reception,
action and linguistic representation.”
Object domains represent systems of fundamental
concepts in which possible experiences must be capable of being organized and
formulated as opinions. In the case of the organization of experiences with
objects, we can view the fundamental concepts as cognitive schemata; in the
case of the formulation of opinions about objects of experience, we can view
them as
semantic categories. The connection between these two levels of experience and
of language is apparently established through action, that is through
instrumental or through
communicative action.[xxxvii]
Accordingly, Habermas's rejection of either a
realist or
transcendentalist frame for understanding concepts is grounded in a sophisticated
view of
language. If concepts are purely and simply abstracted from the world of
objects, then humanity, as properly consisting of members of a common species,
should be able to generate a host of common concepts for viewing and
describing the world regardless of space, time, culture or age. Since this is
not the case, Habermas rejects the error of arguing for a simplistic
correspondence between experience and concepts. But what is equally
interesting is that he does not feel that this view subjects him to linguistic
relativism. Very much to the contrary, Habermas wants to argue that the languages
that mediate one or another view of that which is experienced may be
tested—and hence rejected or accepted—in terms of their capacity to
vindicate argumentatively their
constative speech-act proposals, in accordance with the canons of Western
rationality. Indeed, for Habermas, the testing of the truth claims raised in
argumentation provides a ground for predicating “true,” “objective,”
“valid” to that which manages to weather the rigors of discursive
analysis.
Further, his concentration on language itself, as the locus for a
precritical, defective, or inadequate rendition of reality, allows him to avoid
the counter-intuitive view that the progress made in the theoretical languages
consists in the “production of new experience” versus a
“reinterpretation of the same experience.”
In a telling passage worth citing again, Habermas indicates,
. . . the objectivity of
experience could only be a sufficient condition of
truth . . . if we did not have to understand
theoretical progress as a critical development of theory languages which
interpret the prescientific object domain more and more `adequately'. The `adequacy'
of a theory language is a function of the truth of those theorems (theoretical
statements) that can be formulated in that language. If we did not redeem these
truth claims through argumentative reasoning, relying instead on verification
through experience alone, then theoretical progress would have to be conceived
as the production of new experience, and could not be conceived as
reinterpretation of the same experience. It is therefore more plausible
to assume that the objectivity of experience guarantees not the truth
of a corresponding statement, but the identity of experience in the
various statements interpreting that experience.[xxxviii]
Hence, by understanding truth as a validity claim which one raises by asserting
the
propositional content of a
constative speech act, Habermas is in position to argue for the inseparability
between the conditions under which statements are true and the conditions
under which one is justified in claiming statements to be true. Habermas
wants to hold that indeed there is no legitimate separation of the criteria for
truth from the criteria for the discursive redemption of truth claims. He wants
to argue that while these criteria may initially appear to be different, they
are within the framework of pragmatic assertions intimately connected and do
not permit of separation. If one counters that one may know that “p is
true” without being able to provide grounds for the assertion that “p
is justified,” Habermas would respond by pointing out that it is precisely the
business of those engaged in discourse to provide warrants, grounds, and
justification in favor of the argumentative vindication of their truth claims.
If at the level of discursive interaction, one is unable to provide the
requisite warrants, then one's assertion is without rational force; that is, it
does not merit the recognition of the other participants in the dialogue.[xxxix]
Notwithstanding, there are two positions which Habermas must contend with
if his own view on the inseparability between the criteria for truth and for
warranted assertability is to emerge as representing more than just another justificatory
proposal, viz.: the position that argues for
experiences of certainty, and the one that argues for some form of the
correspondence theory of truth.
For those who argue for experiences of certainty, the claim is that
although it may not be possible for one to provide grounds so as to secure
intersubjective agreement for a truth claim, one may be justified in holding
that an experience, say p, is nonetheless true, supposedly at least for
the one having the experience. Habermas's strictures with respect to the
intersubjective testability of truth claims rules out this line of reasoning.
He states,
Validity
claims are distinguished from experiences of certainty by virtue of their
intersubjectivity; one cannot meaningfully assert that a statement is true only
for a certain individual. . . . By contrast, the certainty of
perception, the paradigm for certainties generally, always holds only for the
perceiving subject and for no one else. Of course several subjects can share the
certainty that they have a certain perception; but in that case they must say
so, i.e. make the same assertion. I register a validity claim as something
intersubjectively testable; a certainty I can utter as something subjective,
even though it might give occasion to place dissonant
validity claims in question. I make a validity claim; I have a
certainty.[xl]
One reason for Habermas's rejection of
experiences of certainty as the locus for the predication of truth and falsity
is that to the extent that “ordinary,” everyday experiences of certainty
always occur to a subject, they have an irreducible element of particularity
that characterizes them. The external and internal variables that may affect
the objective reception of the object(s) experienced—however slight—which
affect the objectivity of experience are compounded by the fact that the
language in which the experience is expressed or uttered may also prove
completely, somewhat or just plain inadequate as a medium for articulating the
ordinary experience which the subject wishes to communicate. However, for
Habermas, although it is true that an experience is a subjective occurrence,
this is not to say that the subject undergoing the experience is circumscribed
within an utterly
solipsistic frame. Quite to the contrary, Habermas is quite prepared to recognize
that:
. . . in the case of elementary empirical propositions such as `this ball
is red' a close affinity exists between the
objectivity of
experience and the truth of a proposition as expressed in a corresponding
statement. Perhaps it is possible to say that the (discursively verifiable) fact
that the ball is red can be `grounded' in corresponding experiences in
handling the red ball (where the experience can claim objectivity); or else we
could say, conversely, that the objective experience I have had of the red ball
`shows' the fact that the ball is red.[xli]
Thus
Habermas, though not espousing a
realist position, is certainly not espousing an
empiricist or
transcendentalist position either. He is rather admitting that with certain
elementary empirical statements the relation between the uttered statement and
the alleged experience corresponding to it may be such that one may proceed to
vindicate the claim by pointing out that the ball indeed presents itself as red.[xlii]
Yet he does fall short of saying that this should be understood as indicating
that there is no gap between sense certainty and
warranted assertability. Rather he states,
“Experience supports the truth claim of assertions . . . . But a
truth claim can be made good only through argumentation. A claim founded in
experience is by no means a grounded claim.”[xliii]
Habermas insists, “By asserting a
state of affairs, I precisely do not assert an experience . . . I
can only draw upon structurally analogous experiences as data in an attempt to
legitimate the truth claim embodied in my statement.”[xliv]
Moreover, the experiencing subject's ability to embed and communicate
his experiences in speech
acts implies that he has the capacity to move from a private realm to a public
one, governed by public —and not private—standards and rules. For Habermas,
even the terms used in uttering speech acts are of a general nature, such that
their significations are not exhausted by their being employed in describing
particular experiences.[xlv]
A second reason for rejecting
experiences of certainty is that hypothetical assertions proposed within the
framework of a theoretical language with the intent of discursively testing the
truth of its
propositional content may correspond to no experience of certainty at all.
Instead, they may have been derived from the sagacity of the theoretician who
proffers a conjectural proposition for serious consideration, i.e., for possible
vindication. Hence, instead of predicating truth or falsity to claims of
experiences of certainty, Habermas focuses on language itself and proposes that
it undergo the rigorous process of argumentative vindication with the end in
view of determining the extent to which the truth claim raised merits or does
not merit rational consent.
Now, in addition to those who argue for experiences of certainty,
proponents of
correspondence theories of truth endeavor to uphold the separability of the
criteria of truth from the criteria for
warranted assertability. They argue that to say p is true is to say it
“corresponds” to reality, regardless of whether or not one would be able
to bring about the discursive redemption of the truth claim raised in the
assertion p is true. Habermas counters that such positions “attempt to
break out of the sphere of language.”[xlvi]
What they fail to see is that to say p is true, if it is indeed
the case that (or a fact that) p, is to express a predication and
a denotation that are both expressed in language. The thing or event
about which an assertion concerns itself expresses properties, features and
relations, all of which are expressed in language. Notwithstanding, to
counter possible misunderstanding, Habermas is not advocating a
language-immanent conception of reality. Indeed, in successful speech acts the
denotative component of the act refers to “things or happenings on the face
of the globe,” i.e., to
extralinguistic reality. When the governing conventions of the language
employed in relaying the speech act are adhered to and the language is adequate
or appropriate insofar as the object domain under consideration is concerned,
then for Habermas both the predicative and denotative operations are rendered
successful. But this is determined in critical discussion, and this is
Habermas's crucial point: insofar as something is said about this or
that
state of affairs, this is done using language as its medium. Habermas is not
questioning the empirical basis of science or of everyday assertions, but he
does want to insist that the vindication of the truth claim raised in a speech
act can be achieved only within the context of
discourse, wherein observation may be proposed in defense of the truth of a
challenged claim.[xlvii]
Outside of critical discussion,
correspondence theories of truth can provide no criterion for distinguishing
which statements correspond to reality from those that do not. Such theories
have not been successful to date in coherently elucidating the
“reality-in-itself” to which true statements are purported to correspond,
nor have they been able to provide an account of the relation of
“correspondence” that is said to obtain.[xlviii]
By arguing against both
experiences of certainty and
correspondence theories, Habermas wants to uphold his contention that the
criteria for truth cannot be divorced from the criteria for
warranted assertability, i.e., for the argumentative settlement of truth
claims. “The question, Under what
conditions is a statement true? is in the last analysis inseparable from the
question, Under what conditions is the assertion of that statement
justified?”[xlix]
From this follows Habermas's dictum: “The idea of truth can be
unpacked only in relation to the discursive redemption of
validity claims.”[l]
Now, since truth for Habermas refers to the claim which can be satisfied
only within the context of discourse, his view of truth is in fact properly
concerned with a logic of
theoretical discourse, i.e. “an examination of the (pragmatic) conditions
for the possibility of achieving rational
consensus through argumentation.”[li]
Yet, before this study can turn to a consideration of such a logic, it
will be necessary to consider three crucial objections which have been made
against Habermas's notion of a discourse
theory of truth. The first of these accuses Habermas of committing a
“category mistake,” i.e., of confusing the category of truth with the
methods for arriving at true statements. Here Habermas must contend with the
distinction between the meaning of “is true” when predicated of a
statement and the meaning of “there is (or can be) a rational (i.e. argumentatively
grounded) consensus to the effect that the statement is true.”
Habermas could answer such a challenge by indicating that when he defines
the meaning of the claim to truth with statements such as “the promise
of attaining a rational consensus,”[lii]
or that “it belongs to the nature of validity
claims that they can be made good, and that through which they can be made good
constitutes their meaning,”[liii]
he understands
truth within the framework of a logic of pragmatics, i.e., of speech
acts, and not within the frame of a logic of
propositions.
The point is that Habermas is not concerned with the semantic meaning of
a word—“truth”—but with the pragmatic meaning of an act—the truth
claim—raised in favor of a proposition. Surely, Habermas does not
conflate these distinct meanings. Insofar as the framework of discourse is
concerned, the criterion of truth as understood in pragmatics is synonymous
with rational
consensus, i.e., the recognition that truth claims can be made good only by
argumentative reasoning. Indeed Habermas understands the signification of a
claim precisely in terms of the manner in which it may be discursively
vindicated, i.e., made good. This would not pose a problem if one wanted to
maintain a distinction between a pragmatic meaning of truth as signifying a
formal procedure for achieving rational consensus with respect to a proposed
claim from the meaning of truth as signifying what is materially meant in
claiming that a statement is true. Thus Habermas does not appear guilty of a
category mistake since he does not identify the meaning of truth as understood
in the science of speech acts with what is meant in materially claiming that a
statement is true.
Still another objection to Habermas's discourse
theory of truth argues that in making rational consensus equivalent to pragmatic
truth he fails to provide any criteria for distinguishing a truly rational consensus
from a merely apparent rational agreement. Habermas's own theory of
systematically distorted communication[liv]
renders this objection particularly forceful. If
“truth” is understood as a normative claim, then not just any consensual
agreement can count as binding, since the agreement may represent nothing more
than the expression of the collective caprice of the participants. The question
then becomes: What criteria can be used to distinguish a “true” from a
“false” consensus, i.e., upon what may one claim that
“warranted assertability” has been reached?
A related problem is the issue of whether or not the criteria used for
distinguishing a “grounded” from an illusory consensus is not itself in need
of discursive justification such that one terminates in a circle; if not, the
issue becomes the question of whether one has not transcended the consensus
framework in warranting the needed criteria.[lv] Habermas appears to dispel
such a critique by viewing a rational
consensus as signifying a “rationally motivated”
agreement, i.e., one derived solely in terms of the “force of the better
argument.” This is based not on formal-logical properties but, rather, on
formal properties of
discourse as understood in pragmatics.
Lastly, a third and particularly forceful objection related to the
question of criteria deals with the
“evidential dimension” of his notion of truth.
Taking the role of the “sympathetic” critic, Anthony Giddens puts it this
way:
But you do not indicate—unless I have missed it—what criteria are to
be used in assessing specific validity
claims. How exactly would we show that the
Zande are wrong to believe in poison oracles?
This sort of
problem relates to a feeling of disquiet that I have about your theory of truth.
Truth for you concerns the way in which statements about the
object-world can be warranted. But what counts as the
“evidence” that can warrant assertions?
Since you say little about referential problems, we are left largely in
the dark about this. There seems to be a definite need for further development
of your ideas here.[lvi]
John
B.
Thompson's version of this problem manages to bring out the tension between
Habermas's repudiation of a
first philosophy notwithstanding his normative proposals. The following
passages merit close consideration given the precision with which Thompson
articulates this fundamental problem in Habermas.
The thesis that truth is a discursively redeemable validity-claim does
not adequately elucidate what may be called the
`evidential dimension' of the concept of truth. Habermas concurs with
Strawson's view that a fact is what a true statement asserts; and both of these
authors justly criticise
Austin and others for conceiving of facts on the model of things. However, it
seems implausible to maintain, as Habermas does, that an existing state of
affairs is merely the content of a proposition which has survived discursive
argumentation.[lvii]
Yet
Thompson recognizes that
There are moments when Habermas relaxes this uncomfortable legislation,
conceding that `in the case of elementary empirical
propositions such as “this ball is red” a close affinity exists between the
objectivity of experience and the truth of a proposition as expressed in a
corresponding statement'. Yet Habermas does not explain why this special
condition should hold for `elementary empirical propositions' alone, nor does he
clarify wherein this `close affinity' between experience and `corresponding
statements' consists. Similar obscurities arise in the characterization of the
role of experimental data in the redemption of scientific claims to truth.
Although Habermas contends that in stating a fact one is not asserting that
some experience exists, he nevertheless allows that one can `draw upon structurally
analogous experiences as data in an attempt to legitimate the truth claim embodied
in [a] statement'. Once again, however, Habermas does not specify what kind of
`structurally analogous experiences' would be relevant here, nor how they
could be `drawn upon' to legitimate a truth claim.[lviii]
In responding to
Thompson's criticism Habermas emphasizes his distinction between “the criteria
of truth” and “the idea of redeeming validity
claims”:
The point of the discourse
theory of truth is that it attempts to show why the question of what it means
for the
truth-conditions of `p' to be satisfied can only be answered
by explaining what it means to redeem or to ground with arguments the claim
that the truth-conditions for `p' are satisfied. . . . Thus
discourse—whose communicative presuppositions have been elucidated—is
not a sufficiently operationalised procedure, adherence to which could be
checked like the application of a criterion. The criteria of truth lie
at a different level then the idea of redeeming validity-claims which is
expounded in terms of the theory of discourse. Criteria change with standards of
rationality and are subject in their turn to the dictate of argumentative
justification. What can count in a given instance as a good reason is something
that depends on standards about which it must be possible to argue.[lix]
Habermas's response is twofold. On the one hand, he maintains, consistent with his constitution theory of objects, that he is not questioning the empirical ground of science or of everyday assertions. Rather, his point is that the vindication of a truth claim can be achieved only within the framework of discourse, at which time observation may be put forth in defense of a problematicized claim. On the other hand, he points out that “The discourse theory of truth does not start with basic sentences; it chooses as paradigmatic cases statements that call for grounding even at first sight: hypothetically general and modal statements, counterfactual and negative statements, to which the human mind owes its progress.”[lx] Accordingly discursive interaction typically aims at settling not elementary empirical claims but rather those claims involving hypothetical assertions.
LIMITS OF THEORETICAL DISCOURSE AND THE IDEAL SPEECH SITUATION
Now that the notion of truth has been rendered more explicit and has been
shown to signify
“warranted assertability,” it is possible to consider the discursive
framework in which problematic truth claims are argumentatively considered
for possible vindication. This framework, as a result of
the formal conditions which must
be met for securing a warranted conclusion, is synonymous for Habermas with a
“logic of
theoretical discourse.” It is precisely the logic of discourse that specifically
considers procedures for validating both the
truth of statements and the
rightness of norms with a view toward critically detecting unconscious
constraints rooted in language.
This section will consider the process and the structure of this
pragmatic logic, the parts of which are: (1) the
ideal speech situation, including (a) the
participation thesis, (b) the
symmetry thesis, and (c) the freedom of discussion
thesis[lxi];
(2) the levels of
discourse; (3) the structure of an argument; and (4) the adequacy of the discourse
theory of truth. This section will limit itself to a consideration of the adequacy
of the formal conditions of the ideal speech situation as these refer to
Habermas's discourse theory of truth within a logic of
theoretical discourse. The adequacy of such conditions for
practical discourse will be addressed in the next chapter.
For the conclusion of a discourse to be viewed as expressing a rational
consensus, i.e., as resulting solely on the basis of the better argument,
Habermas argues that it must be constraint-free—a “dialogue without
coercion.” This means that it must fulfill the three formal conditions of
the
ideal speech situation:
[1] Each subject who is capable of
speech and action is allowed to participate in discourses.
[2] Each is allowed to call into
question any proposal.
Each is allowed to introduce any proposal into the discourse. Each is
allowed to express his attitudes, wishes, and needs.
[3] No speaker ought to be hindered
by compulsion— whether arising from inside the discourse or outside of
it—from making use of the rights secured under [1 and 2].[lxii]
The
first condition, the
participation thesis, opens up the discourse to any competent subject capable of
speech and action, such that all potential voices may be heard and their
viewpoints considered in discourse. The second condition, the
symmetry thesis, proposes that all participants have an equal opportunity to
apply speech
acts, i.e., have the same chance to initiate and sustain dialogue through questions
and answers, claims and counterclaims. Thus participants considering a
problematicized truth claim will be equally able to put forward, to call into
question, to ground/refute statements, explanations, etc., without restricting
the discussion. The condition of symmetry involves mutual understanding between
the participants and requires that each be recognized as an autonomous and equal
partner.
Since it is possible for the dialogue participants to have an equal opportunity
to employ speech
acts without necessarily attaining genuine argumentative
justification for a truth claim, the third condition, the freedom of
discussion
thesis is concerned with freeing the discussion from external and internal
constraints such that the conclusion can be viewed as proceeding from no
motive other than a cooperative search for truth. External influences refer
both to the use of direct force/domination to influence the participants to
accept an ungrounded conclusion and to the use of indirect force by means of
conscious, strategic manipulation. Internal influences refer to
self-deception in the form of neurosis and/or ideologically-oriented perspectives.[lxiii]
The fulfillment then of the conditions constitutive of the
ideal speech situation demands that dialogue partners have solely the interests
of truth in mind, i.e., that they proceed from no motive other than that of the
better argument. To the extent that the
ideal speech situation demands that the participants treat each other as
equals and subject themselves to the force of the better argument, Habermas's
ideal speech situation may be understood as connected with an ideal form of
life: the truth of statements is linked in the last analysis to the intention of
the
good and
true life.
Now, once dialogical participants enter a discourse in order to consider
a problematicized validity claim, whether that of
truth or
correctness, the logic of discourse in conformity with the conditions of the
ideal speech situation demands that the participants suspend all action
constraints in order to “render inoperative all motives other than that of
cooperative readiness to come to an understanding.”[lxiv]
Involved here is a progressive radicalization of the levels of argumentation
with the end in view of disengaging participants from the context of action
and moving them into the context of reflection, a context that provides
maximum freedom: (a) for raising questions concerning doubtful claims, (b) for
evaluating critically explanations and justifications proffered in support of a
claim, (c) for modifying a given conceptual framework, and (d) for reflecting on
the nature of
knowledge itself. For discourse to be genuine the possibility of traversing
the various levels of argument must go unchallenged.
With respect then to a logic of theoretical discourse the various steps
or levels of discourse/argumentation involve:
Step 1:
Moving “from a problematicised assertion representing an action to a
statement in which a controversial validity claim is made about an object of
discourse.”
Step 2:
Evaluating the “theoretical explanation of the problematicised assertion
through the construction of an argument within a chosen linguistic system.”
Step 3:
Modifying a metatheoretical transformation of “the initially chosen
[linguistic] system or its replacement by an alternative.”
Step 4: Reflecting on the
“boundary between theoretical and practical discourse” so as to consider the
question of what is to count as knowledge.[lxv]
Accordingly, the structure of an argument within the context of a logic
of pragmatics reflects the various elements which must obtain if one is to view
the conclusion as genuinely the product of the better argument. Proceeding
within such a logic, the argument varies in important respects from
propositional or
transcendental logics. The critical difference is its rejection that
argumentation consists in a coherent sequence of propositions that may be
formally derived one from the other. A pragmatic logic consists, rather, in a
series of speech
acts in which, interestingly enough, the movement from one pragmatic unit to the
next “can neither be grounded entirely logically . . . nor can it be
grounded empirically.”[lxvi]
The argument proceeds from the conclusion to a consideration of its backing.
The logical structure of discourse arguments insofar as theoretical
discourse is concerned consists then in these elements: (a) the conclusion—[C]—referring
to an assertion; (b) the controversial validity claim, in this case, the truth
claim; (c) an explanation, i.e., what is required from an opponent; (4)
data—[d]—referring to causes, motives; (e) the warrant—[W]—referring
to laws, etc.; and (f) the backing—[B]—referring to relevant observations.
Note that the latter three elements are proposed in defense of the conclusion.[lxvii]
Habermas uses an example from Stephen
Toulmin[lxviii]
to explain the structure of pragmatic arguments in the following way:
Conclusion: “Harry is a
British subject.”
This conclusion is explained
by the identification of a
reason or a cause, viz:
Data:
“Harry was
born in Bermuda.”
Moreover,
this explanation can be viewed as acceptable if it fulfills a key rule, e.g.:
Warrant: “A man born in Bermuda will generally be a British
subject.”
The
key rule, in turn, is made plausible by being grounded by further considerations
such as:
Backing: “On account of the following statues and other legal provisions .
. .”
The
pragmatic logic of discourse, then, concerns itself with those arguments in
which the backing is a sufficient motivation to make the warrant acceptable,
even though the relationship between the backing and the warrant is not
deductive.
This said, Habermas's conception of a pragmatic logic of theoretical
discourse in function of his
ideal speech situation for the
adjudication of problematicized truth claims has not been without its critics.
Richard Bernstein questions whether
speech in fact aims toward consensus and whether it is practical to think
that most persons have the necessary
transparency to engage in
discourse: “. . . we want to know whether the present form of
society indicates that such an ideal can be approximated.”[lxix]
Alvin
Gouldner contends that the conditions for meeting the
ideal speech situation are unrealistically high favoring “more competent
speakers” such that it “generates a new system of stratification”
hindering rather than fostering discourse.[lxx]
Raymond
Guess considers the achievement of “universal
consensus under the
ideal conditions” of the speech situation to represent “a recent invention
held perhaps by a couple of professional philosophers in Germany and the United
States.”[lxxi]
Still another critic, David
Held, argues that
. . . the
ideal speech situation itself is not a sufficient condition for a fully open
discourse, nor, by extension, for the critical assessment of barriers to this
type of discourse in society. The conditions of the ideal speech situation fail
to cover a range of phenomena, from the nature (content) of cultural
traditions to the distribution of material resources, which are obviously
important determinants of the possibility of discourse—and, more generally,
of a rational, free and just
society.[lxxii]
To
this, Rick
Roderick, like
Thompson in the preceding section, adds that “it is not clear what constitutes
a `better argument' in terms of
evidence and agreement with the
facts.”[lxxiii]
Although Habermas readily acknowledges that the
ideal speech situation as an ideal is in the order of
“anticipation”; he nonetheless argues for its importance as providing
criteria for adjudicating discursive claims. He states,
the
ideal speech situation is neither an empirical
phenomenon nor simply a
construct, but a reciprocal
supposition unavoidable in
discourse. This supposition can, but need not be, counterfactual; but even
when counterfactual it is a
fiction which is operatively effective in
communication. I would therefore prefer to speak of an
anticipation of an ideal speech situation. . . . This alone is the
warrant which permits us to join to an actually attained consensus the claim of
a rational consensus. At the same time it is a critical standard against which
every actually realized consensus can be called into question and tested.[lxxiv]
Insofar
then as the applicability of the
ideal speech situation is concerned within a logic of
theoretical discourse, Habermas appears to be in safe ground given that
scientific practice, for example, as it is pursued currently, views all
material criteria in support of the
evidential dimension of argument with a tentativeness that prudently militates
against canonizing any paradigm of evidence as unsusceptible to further
modification.
In defense of Habermas, his perspicacity consists precisely in his notion
of the meaning of truth as
“warranted assertability” or, more to the point, as the “unforced force of
the better
argument.” This notion of truth,
in light of his critical understanding of language, cannot hold that what is
asserted in
statements is indeed a strict linguistic representation of what is
extralinguistically so, given that there is no simplistic correspondence. Yet
neither does this view commit him to the position that
propositional statements as asserted in
constative speech acts may not be vindicated rationally by conforming to the
formal conditions of the ideal speech situation; a view which does not, however,
oblige him to specify a
material criterion of truth beforehand.[lxxv]
The growth of knowledge seems to side with Habermas. The question of the
adequacy of the discursive validation insofar as scientific claims are
concerned is a matter for the physical
scientists to decide on the basis of the “unforced force of the better
argument” in function of the
ideal speech situation. The process by which one or another view is considered
need not be the result of whim but of argumentative justification.[lxxvi] It is as if Habermas
were saying that one is typically able to recognize a better argument once it is
articulated and to improve upon it once the horizons from which it was derived
are augmented. Supposedly, such a broadening of horizons would be grounded in
function of further
evidence, a notion which Habermas is willing to recognize needs to be developed
as regards his concept of
truth.[lxxvii]
The very movement of
reason seems to confirm Habermas's refusal to settle for any
material criterion of
rationality as preclusively ultimate.
Yet it is equally important to note that to the extent that the
“better
argument” within the context of a logic of
theoretical discourse is not understood as, strictly speaking, an incorrigible
representation of what is extralinguistically so, then to that extent the
purely formal criteria of discourse should be understood as possibly—versus
necessarily—indicating truth. Moreover,
to the extent that the purely formal criteria of the
ideal speech situation are complemented by
correspondence and
consistency then to that extent rational
consensus may be viewed as not proceeding solely from purely formal criteria. In
saying this, there is a basis for proposing an important distinction:
. . . rational
consensus cannot be the only or the fundamental criterion of
truth, because in every judgment on the validity of a statement considerations
of
consistency and
correspondence retain a decisive, yet unacknowledged, role. At most, consensus
in the ideal speech situation could be a sign of the truth of a statement.[lxxviii]
Given
that a consensus may indeed only reflect the agreement between participants in
discourse in light of the available evidential resources, its conclusion is
always subject to revision, modification and possible rejection. Hence, it would
indeed be more judicious to view Habermas's formalistic notion of truth as
indicating a “sign” rather than the “fundamental criterion” of truth.[lxxix]
Further, Habermas's notion of
truth is also in need of a more developed sense of the concept of
phronésis in regard to the problem of
paradigm-choice.
While Habermas has not yet addressed this issue in a satisfactory way, in
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,
Kuhn has pointed out that the inter-theoretic decisions on validity (e.g. the
choice of the
Ptolemaic or
Copernican view of astronomy) as opposed to intra-theoretic ones (e.g. the
decision between two formulae for planetary motion), cannot be accounted for in
terms of
correspondence but have to be seen as the outcome of a struggle of paradigms for
recognition which is fought and won through the formation of
consensus within the community of scientists.[lxxx]
In sum, the aim of this chapter has been to review Habermas's theory of
universal
pragmatics, including an examination of his discourse theory of truth in
function of the
ideal speech situation for discursively adjudicating claims within the context
of theoretical discourse. While this chapter maintains the adequacy of such
formal criteria when it comes to adjudicating truth claims in terms of a notion
of truth as
“warranted assertability.” It is sympathetic with the view that Habermas's
discourse
theory of truth should be understood as a “sign” of rather than as the
fundamental criterion of truth.
It will be the object of the next chapter, within the context of
Habermas's communicative or discourse ethics, to consider the adequacy of the
same conditions in addressing claims in terms of a pragmatic logic of
practical discourse. For Habermas, although the
ideal speech situation is only approximated in speech, it represents a guide for
the institutionalization of discourse with the aim of diagnosing and remedying
systematically distorted communication. Habermas's philosophy
of emancipation is primarily directed toward the task of grounding “the
presumption that the basic institutions of . . . society and . . .
political decisions would meet with the unforced agreement of all those
involved, if [those affected] could participate, as free and equal, in
discursive will-formation.”[lxxxi]
The context has thus been set for considering the issue raised in chapter
two, viz., the question of the adequacy of Habermas's critical instrument for
the adjudication of
normative claims.