Date: 	Sun, 15 Mar 1998 14:36:24 -0500
Subject: Re: HAB: Ideally discursive learning


On Fri, 13 Mar 1998 12:35:23 -0500  Joseph Heath wrote:

> This means that understanding an utterance correctly will 
only be possible if one is able to situate it in the correct set of
justificatory relations to other utterances. But as a result, it 
will only be possible to understand someone's utterances if 
one shares the same concept of what constitutes an 
acceptable justificatory relation. As a result, there must be a 
shared practice of argumentation, governed by a set of 
discursive procedures that all parties accept. If one relaxes 
this constraint, and assumes that persons may differ over 
what constitute correct justificatory procedures, then you 
suddenly lose all ability to distinguish between better and 
worse interpretations of their speech. (This a version of 
Davidson's view, except that he formulates it with respect to
truth, rather than justification. In his terms, if you permit a 
distinction between true-for-us and true-for-them, then the 
principle of charity no longer picks out a unique interpretation.)


I agree with this.  But I am interested particularly in the idea of 
"relaxing this constraint."  How do "we" *know* this isn't a 
culturally specific interpretation of language use.  Leslie 
Dewart proposes two interpretations of language - one 
contextual and the other abstract (to be VERY simplistic).  
Only in language use that is geared toward abstraction do 
issues of justification arise (which suggests that this isn't a 
universal or quasi-transcendental phenomenon).  The 
procedures of justification, it seems to me, is an idea that 
lends itself to a particular kind of living - where procedures of 
justification become the norm.  Habermas wants these 
procedures instituted in law to alleviate the burden of decision 
making for everyday living.  What vision of society is being 
projected here - however logically unavoidable this projection 
seems to be.  What kind of moral, social, and utopia 
imaginary is at work here?

> But if this view of language is correct, it means that 
accepting P1 is no big leap. Rejecting the rules in P1 would 
render one's speech unintelligible.

Only unintelligible to itself given the premises.  A different 
understanding of language itself might yield a completely 
different kind of intelligibility.

> In any case, accepting P1 most emphatically does not 
involve endorsing a particular vision of the good life, since the 
latter would presumably need to be linguistically formulated 
(as it would need to refer to possible states of affairs). The fact 
that we consider, for instance, lying to be morally wrong does 
not mean that the norm of truth-telling that governs assertoric 
discourse reflects merely a particular moral vision.

What I am concerned with here is whether or not this 
interpretive reading of language already includes culturally 
specific norms.  If you hold certain values or judgements, like 
the principle of noncontradiction, tell no lies, murder is wrong, 
the principle of pluralism, the salvatory character of reason 
etc. how is this entwined with a different reading of how 
language is used.  Dewart argues that the two ideas of 
language are incommensurate.  He draws on the difference 
between religion (talk about God) and theology (talk from the 
perspective of God) to some degree to spell this out - the idea 
being that some languages are oriented by an objectivist 
perspective and others by a contextualist perspective 
(something which has a resemblance to Rorty's work) - noting 
that it is only possible to see this through one of the two 
language groups.... (which appears in a different way from the 
other language group).  I can look this up if anyone is 
interested in more details.

> Since languages would be unlearnable if that norm was not 
generally respected, it must already be in place in order for us 
to be capable of articulating and debating rivals visions of the 
good life.

What kind of emphasis is being placed upon learning here?  
What is the character and the interest of the learner 
presupposed here?

> In any case, it seems to me that the reason all of this debate 
over performative contradiction seems to go nowhere is that 
the argument doesn't really do any work in Habermas's view. 
He goes through the argument out of deference to Apel, then 
announces they they provide no justification for anything, but 
simply provide a guide to help make explicit the rules that
implicitly govern our practices of argumentation (MCCA 95).

But is this true? or is there more substance to behind this 
idea.  It seems to me that the idea of a performative 
contradiction is used quite often to do a serious amount of leg 
work - esp. against anything and everything Nietzschean.  
Habermas, I think (correct me if I'm wrong) is worried about 
and skeptical regarding the recuperation of the 'promise of 
happiness' that emanates from the original Enlightenment 
project (see Holub, Jurgen Habermas: Critic in the Public 
Sphere, 136-137) within art as a rational enterprise - 
something he understands as "aesthetic modernity."  
However this is precisely something I think is worth 
considering - esp. in light of the current controversies 
regarding justice and the good life.

>  The real work gets done by the theory of meaning, and in 
particular, the appropriation of Dummett (in TCA and 
Postmetaphysical Thinking), because this is what
establishes the "quasi-transcendental" status of the rules of 
discourse.

This is very interesting because Habermas is both 
quasi-transcendental and quasi-dialectical....  The article by 
Horowitz, which I haven't yet finished reading, discusses the 
problematic features of this position.

ken




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