Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998 13:03:19 -0500 (EST)
Subject: HAB: Understanding


Sorry for the delay in getting back to this.....

On Mon, 2 Mar 1998 gedavis-AT-pacbell.net wrote:

> It would be useful to find that "somewhere in TCA" where Habermas
> allegedly "muck[s] up Austin," for you will find that the difference
> between illocutionary and perlocutionary isn't like a difference between
> causing understanding and causing states of affairs. Rather, it has to
> do with bringing about a relationship (illocutionary) and bringing about
> an understanding through that relationship (perlocutionary). 

That doesn't seem to mesh with either my reading of Habermas or with my
(admittedly third-hand at best) understanding of Austin.  Habermas writes:
"I count as communicative action those linguistically mediated
interactions in which all participants pursue illocutionary aims, and
*only* illocutionary aims, with their mediating acts of communication.  On
the other hand, I regard as linguistically mediated strategic action those
interactions in which at least one of the participants wants with his
speech acts to produce perlocutionary effects on his opposite number" (TCA
I 295).  Using your definition of "perlocutionary", and given what
Habermas says in the quoted passage, it seems that action oriented toward
understanding would not count as communicative action, which obviously
isn't right.

Now, the reason I say that Habermas mucks up Austin is that, as (I think) 
Austin uses the term "perlocutionary", it doesn't make any sense to
imagine that someone could enter into a conversation with no intention "to
produce perlocutionary effects on his opposite number."  I think you're
right, as far as Austin goes, when you say that bringing about an
understanding is a perlocutionary effect--because I think that on Austin's
terms, anything that is *brought about* by a speech act is a
perlocutionary effect.  On the other hand, this means that bringing about
a relationship between speakers is also a perlocutionary effect of a
speech act (again, on Austin's terms, not on Habermas's).

What I think Habermas should have said is this:  "I count as communicative
action those linguistically mediated interactions in which all
participants pursue *the perlocutionary effect of reaching understanding,
and no other perlocutionary effect*."  (You might want to add "forming a
relationship" to "reaching understanding", but I don't think this is
something which is usually pursued by speakers--rather, it is the happy
consequence).  Of course, the reason Habermas doesn't say this is that it
makes his picture a lot less pretty.  Saying "illocutionary effects good,
perlocutionary effects bad" sounds a lot less arbitrary (on the face of
it, anyway) than saying "one perlocutionary effect good, all the rest
bad".

Still, I take the really important point in his whole discussion of Austin
to be this:  "What Austin calls *perlocutionary effects* arise from the
fact that illocutionary acts are embedded in contexts of interaction" (TCA
I 289).  What he means, I think, is that you can't do anything else by
speaking unless your speech is first understood.  Which is not all that
different from his "performative contradiction" line of argument:
persuing strategic goals to the detriment of persuing understanding only
undercuts your ability, in the long run, to achieve your strategic goals.
Exactly the same point (as far as I can tell) as Kant on lying--which kind
of worries me, because I have this nagging feeling that surely the point
Habermas wants to make is more subtle than *that*.

> You can't
> make yourself understood unless you create a communicative relationship
> (rather than vice versa, as you indicated). 

It works both ways:  you also can't maintain your communicative
relationship unless you understand others and make yourself understood in
turn (or at least give your partners enough of an indication that you're
trying).

> Accordingly, it's a mistake
> to conceive understanding as such as a means to any other end

I don't think so, because I think that Habermas's fundamental problem is
this:  "Why is social solidarity breaking down? And what can be done to
resuscitate it?"  His answer to the first question:  because traditional
sources of shared meaning and values have been destroyed, and the task of
maintaining social solidarity is left up to systemic steering media which
are incapable of carrying it out very well.  His answer to the second
question, very broadly:  enhance the opportunities for communicative
action.

> though
> obviously specific understandings can have instrumental functions in
> actions that aren't basically geared to understanding. But in the latter
> case, such actions presume a domain of understanding that is itself no
> means to anything else except, perhaps, larger scale understanding. It
> is finally the lifeworld itself which is fundamentally constituted of
> understandings.

If this were the case, then one might very well ask Habermas, "Why should
I care about understanding?"  Habermas doesn't have to be all that worried
about Ken's question, "Why should I care about solidarity?", because a lot
of people *do* care about solidarity.  The collapse of solidarity is a
problem which a lot of people are concerned about, and it's Habermas's
project to help solve it.

> I concur with much of your response to Ken, though, especially regarding
> his cynicism toward understanding others.
> 
> But I believe there is more difficulty to everyday understanding than
> you suggest, hence more reason to understand hermeneutical points of
> view than seems to be the case for you. Not only is misunderstanding a
> great commonality of daily life, but making oneself understood in the
> first place is as formidible, if not more so.  This list is testament to
> how difficult it can be for a philosopher (Habermas) to be understood
> (and your comments about his views attest this further, while your own
> expressed views are quite interesting in themselves).

Thank you.  I admit that my grasp on Habermas is shakey, certainly much
shakier than yours.  I'm not sure, though, that my difficulties with
Habermas as you have identified them (assuming that they are
difficulties:) are hermeneutical so much as exegetical (which is why I
have phrased most of what I've said here so tentatively).  There is
hermeneutical problem between me and Habermas in the sense that a lot of
the lines he pursues (in sociology and developmental psychology, for
instance) do not much coincide with my interests.  There is a lot of
"background reading" that I haven't done and likely never will do, which
will keep me from achieving a full understanding of where he's coming
from, what he's up to, what he *means*.  And yes, this is a problem which
comes up all the time, in every facet of life, and it becomes an
especially pressing problem in political contexts.  However, I think the
important thing as far as Habermas is concerned is not that we actually
get to a state of full and complete understanding.  (For that matter, I
think that Habermas would agree with Foucault that a situation of totally
free and open communication is a utopia (in the negative sense of the
word)).  The important thing is that we *try*:  that we show each other
that we respect each other enough to try to understand and make ourselves
understood to each other.

Matthew

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      "That of which we cannot speak, we must pass over in silence."
         (Ludwig Wittgenstein, _Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus_)
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Matthew A. King  ----  Department of Philosophy  ----  McMaster University




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