Date: 	Sun, 15 Mar 1998 14:49:36 -0500
Subject: Re: HAB: Differentiations of understanding


On Sat, 14 Mar 1998 19:27:48 -0500  Gary wrote:

> Joe,
> 
> I agree almost totally with your view of Ken=92s dilemma, to 
the effect that =93this debate over performative contradiction 
seems to go nowhere [because] the argument doesn't really 
do any work in Habermas's view.  [Habermas] goes through 
the argument out of deference to Apel...=94 (<H AB: Ideally...>, 
3/13). The =93project of justification,=94 as Ken calls it=, is
not a procedural-logical project but a *philosophical* 
(=93quasi-transcendental=94) project, while Ken (and others) 
project an essentialist preoccupation that is not in 
Habermas=92 text.

This is very interesting.  Charles Davis once said something 
about Habermas that struck me as being fairly coherent - 
something to the effect that Habermas is attempting to turn the 
world into a philosophy classroom.  And, to free associate, 
this reminds me of Plato's Republic.  The philosophers (ie. 
potentially all of us) do all the work and then let everyone else 
(those who have 'chosen' not to be philosophers)  live their 
own life in accord with the master plan - having to becomes 
philosophers themselves if they want to change it.  In the 
*real* world this just doesn't pan out....  but please don't take 
this observation too seriously - it is just a free association.

>  Habermas thinks that the childhood development of 
propositionally-differentiated speech (in social evolution and 
through cognitive development) permits, *eventually*, an
adult practice of argumentation.

I never did get back to Charles Wright's point about moral 
development but it seems as though Gary raises it here 
perfectly.  What model of reason and morality is read *into* 
cognitive development.  Or is it all just read *out of* the 
phenomenon of cognitive development....  The point being 
how does one determine which comes first...  the begging or 
the question?

ken




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