Subject: Re: HAB: Review of Heath's Co. 
Date: Mon, 04 Mar 2002 05:23:40 +0000


Well, you obviously didn't even give my review that 
careful a read, because if you did you would realize 
that Heath wants to give reason-giving a role in 
justifying and transforming existing normative orders.  
What Heath questions is the degree to which normativity 
is constituted through communicative action.  Rather, 
he argues that language is a form of norm guided 
activity.  So, the two fundamental social action types 
for Heath are strategic and norm-guided, rather than 
strategic and communicative.

But, if you are going to read that superficially, you 
probably won't get very much out of Heath's book 
anyway, so don't bother.

> J. Wright says of Heath, " He thereby rejects the view that norms must be 
> fundamentally defensible with reasons"
> 
> Now I know that nobody defends norms with reasons, everyone around here 
> simply takes them for granted and acts like automatons.  But, Habermas' point 
> is very clear, norms MUST be justified.  There are valid norms and there are 
> invalid norms.  But, since most people fail to realize that some of the norms 
> they are following are invalid,  when these people are asked to justify the 
> norms, they become violent and conflict begins. Personally, I feel that most 
> people are too cognitively and linguistically incompetent to reach Habermas' 
> standards.  I am so sure of this that all I really experience in this society 
> is a great deal of conflict and it is all because of invalid norms and the 
> attempt to coerce others to follow them.  So, on this most central point of 
> Habermas's entire oeuvre, I am not persuaded that Heath deserves a read.
> 
> Fwelfare
> 
> 
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> 
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